The clash had cost Frederick dearly. His Hydra forces in New York lay in ruins, and every covert operation he had in the city was now exposed—like a Hollow dragged into sunlight, unable to hide its nature. In his office, the air thick with tension, Frederick was frantically arranging damage control when the call came through from the European Hydra Council.
The elder on the other end wasted no time. His voice, sharp as Byakuya Kuchiki's Senbonzakura, cut through any pretence of politeness. After a scathing reprimand, he sent Frederick a single address and an order: escort a man named Tubo—waiting there—to safety at all costs.
Frederick endured the tirade like a low-ranked seated officer facing the Sōtaichō. He knew better than to argue. When the transmission cut off, his expression darkened. Being scolded was nothing—but the shift in attitude from his superiors troubled him.
They had made contact with Tubo directly, bypassing him entirely. Were they sending someone else to seize the dragon bone—an artifact whispered to hold regenerative powers akin to Orihime Inoue's Sōten Kisshun? Was he being cut out of the grand game?
Paranoia sharpened his thoughts. If the European branch truly meant to replace him, he would be powerless to resist with his current resources. Unless… he claimed the dragon bone first. With that, he could bargain from strength—just as an ambitious Captain might seize a forbidden artifact to challenge the Central 46.
Resolving to act, Frederick summoned his most trusted confidant, Enoch. Once Enoch arrived, Frederick sealed the office with a jamming field—like the mirror dimension of Kamar-Taj, but technological—and issued his orders.
"Go to Nevada. Activate the safe house I established there. Only take your own men. No one else can know. I'll send you an address later—retrieve Tubo from that location and keep him secured until I give further orders."
Enoch, all cold precision like a Quincy Sternritter, memorized the instructions, accepted the safe house key, and vanished without another word.
Alone again, Frederick began issuing new commands to what remained of the Serpent Agency in New York. Tubo was to be escorted to a small Nevada town. Peripheral operatives, already compromised, were abandoned. Resources would not be wasted on pawns. Instead, a fresh team would infiltrate the city, ready to strike for the dragon bone.
He reached for a secure line—a communicator of his own design, as untraceable as Mayuri Kurotsuchi's hidden devices. A rapid sequence of short, coded calls—Macbeth and King Lear quotes in French, responses in multiple languages—eventually connected him with a black-ops unit he'd built in secret. The team believed him to be an African shipping magnate; they had never seen his true face.
Originally, they were an emergency escape squad, a lifeline should Hydra turn on him. But now, they would serve as his strike force in New York. Success would crown him with power; failure would strip him of everything.
After securing their agreement, Frederick destroyed the communicator using a S.H.I.E.L.D.-grade corrosive, its remains dissolving into nothingness—like a Hollow purged by a Zanpakutō's cleansing strike.
He leaned back in his chair. Every crisis was an opening. Last time, when Hydra had him cornered, he joined them and turned their threat into opportunity. Could he do so again?
Meanwhile, in New York, the Los Angeles Serpent Division moved quickly. Tubo was retrieved without delay, but his presence here traced back to the aftermath of the Hand's disaster at Alexandra's docks.
When the attack hit, Tubo and his men wasted no time spreading the news—poisoning morale like a Quincy's Reishi-poisoned arrows. The Hand's triad of leaders guarding the dragon bone—Murakami, Thorwand, and Tubo himself—were thrown into chaos. Tubo, ever the schemer, made his move first. Taking a handful of loyalists, he vanished into the night and contacted a British noble in Europe—one of his oldest clients for the so-called elixir of immortality.
A swift deal was struck. Safe passage to Europe in exchange for revealing the elixir's secrets. What Tubo didn't know was that this noble was an old Hydra loyalist—placing him directly into Frederick's grasp.
Murakami and Thorwand, realizing the bone was lost, also cut their losses. Murakami's ninjas melted into the streets of New York like shadows from the Onmitsukidō. Thorwand, however, rallied remaining forces, including Alexandra and Madame Gao's men, aiming to leverage his contacts in the U.S. government.
The battlefield fell eerily silent—a halftime break in a war far from over. But beneath that stillness, new alliances were forming, and the next clash promised to be bloodier than before.
The morning belonged to chaos.
Between S.H.I.E.L.D.'s overt strikes and HYDRA's hidden daggers, the last of Frederick's discarded pawns were swept aside. When the smoke cleared, New York returned to a deceptive calm, yet the memory of that morning etched itself deep into the minds of the city's elite.
At lunch hour, men in tailored suits and women in designer heels stepped out of glass towers only to pause—faces pale—at the sight of bullet-scarred walls and dark stains that no rain had yet washed away. Those who had stayed indoors all morning still heard it—the relentless chorus of sirens from ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars, echoing through the canyons of steel.
It had been a nightmare of a morning. When had America's heart turned into a war zone?
Far above it all, atop the Empire State Building, the Duke stood with a camera in hand, his gaze sweeping over the wounded streets. He allowed himself a faint smile. The plan was working. The Hand's leaders—cunning to the core—had already fled to ground, seeking shelter like rats from a burning ship. Several of America's major players still hadn't realized that S.H.I.E.L.D. was circling them. Soon, when the dust settled, there would be room for certain conversations… with the man still lurking in the shadows.
Jue had seen enough. The intricate politics of those factions could wait. For now, the Dragon Bone and Iron Fist points demanded his attention; guarding them would come later.
Leaving New York behind, he returned to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. It didn't take long—by following the faint spiritual resonance he'd memorized—to find Yi Feng in the school's experimental area, seated at a massive console in the computer lab. The boy worked alongside several other students, extending the reach of their broadcast network. Oloro, their silent overseer, monitored the process with the ease of someone who knew every circuit and cable in the room.
When Jue stepped inside, only Oloro seemed to notice. The man's expression shifted—complex, measured.
"Mr. Jue," Oloro greeted softly, "Professor Charles wants to see you."
"As expected." Jue's smile was polite but unreadable. He glanced at Yi Feng, who had just turned toward him.
"Before that," Jue said, "I need his help."
Oloro made no objection as Jue waved the small camera in his hand. "It's simple. Just upload a few more videos for me. The others can help."
"Alright," Yi Feng replied, already taking the device.
Oloro looked as though he might ask what the videos were, but Jue cut him off with a raised hand.
"If you're curious, look for yourself. For now, I'll see Professor Charles. He must be impatient by now—likely in his office."
Receiving a brief nod from Oloro, Jue slipped out without further word.
The walk was short, and moments later, he was knocking on the door of Charles Xavier's office. The professor sat alone behind his desk, the lamplight pooling around him like a spotlight on a stage.
"Should we talk about the mutant question," Jue began as he sat down opposite, "or the elixir of immortality?"
Charles steepled his fingers, calm but prepared.
"Let's start," he said, "with your recent actions."
"My taking Abner… and my contact with Yi Feng?" Jue's tone was light, but his eyes were sharp.
"They left of their own will," the professor admitted, his sigh betraying more weariness than reproach. "Given their burdens, staying here was impossible. I owe you an apology for the hostility we showed before. But I hope, Mr. Jue, that you'll take responsibility for these children in the future."
"As you said—it's their choice," Jue replied. The unspoken warning was clear: if the school could not hold them, Charles could not lay blame.
Charles didn't press. This was a school, not a fortress. He'd seen many students leave—some for Magneto's Brotherhood—and could do little but hope they wouldn't be led down darker paths. His greatest fear had been that Jue might use young mutants as tools or weapons. But after recent discussions with the Ancient One, and after seeing Abner's growth firsthand, his distrust had eased.
"Then let's move on," Jue said, "to the elixir. You want it, don't you?"
Charles's gaze softened. "I'm old enough to accept death… but I fear leaving mutants in their current plight."
"Alexandra is in the hands of… difficult people," Jue warned. "If you go for her, they'll notice. I plan to deal with them, and you could join me. It will make things worse for mutants in the short term, but not for long. And in exchange, S.H.I.E.L.D. will owe you a debt—a valuable one. Though… the road there will be hard."
The offer was bait, but not a lie. Charles's powers could root out spies faster than Jue ever could, and the chaos might even force the school to double down on training—a result that served Jue's interests well.
"You decide," Jue said at last, sliding an envelope across the desk. "The location of Alexandra's elixir is inside. The choice is yours."
Without waiting for an answer, he rose and left, nodding briefly to Scott in the hall.
Elsewhere in the school, the videos Jue had handed Yi Feng were already making their way onto the American internet. And outside, the storm he'd stirred that morning had only just begun to grow.