The sprawling, glass-fronted Long Island mansion offered a perfect, secluded vista of the night-darkened Atlantic. Inside, the master bedroom was a landscape of discarded, expensive clothing, illuminated only by the distant, silver light of the moon.
Ororo and Zhou Yi were in the midst of a silent, intense moment—a fusion of desire and the high-tension aftermath of their provocative dinner—when the shrill, insistent demand of the emergency phone sliced through the atmosphere like a shard of ice.
Zhou Yi cursed, the sound low and guttural, a primal expulsion of frustration. He leaned in, intending to dismiss the intrusion and return to the critical matter at hand, but Ororo was faster.
She recoiled instantly, pushing his chest away with a surprising, almost panicked strength, and scrambled for the source of the noise among the silk and wool scattered on the floor.
She snatched the specialized, encrypted device. "It's Jean," she announced, her voice already shifting from intimate sigh to concerned professional. "The school's direct security line. Something catastrophic has happened."
Though Zhou Yi's body was taut with adrenaline and desire, his mind instantly prioritized. He knew the Xavier School was not merely a job for Ororo; it was her sanctuary, her family, and the very foundation of her identity. To resent the interruption would be to introduce a toxic dissonance into their burgeoning relationship. He controlled his actions with a strict, rational focus.
Ororo pressed the phone to her ear. "Jean, what is it? Your voice sounds strained."
A brief, strained pause preceded Jean's response. "Ororo, is that you? You sound… breathless."
"Ahem, nothing," Ororo quickly cleared her throat, attempting to conceal the residual effect of the evening. "Just… slightly fatigued. What is the emergency at the Academy?"
"Ororo, it's Sharice. She's… gone."
Before Jean could complete the sentence, the word 'Sharice' was enough. Zhou Yi moved with preternatural speed, leaning over Ororo's shoulder and plucking the phone from her grip. His tone became instantly authoritative, replacing concern with command. "Tell me, Jean. What, precisely, has happened to Sharice?"
The abrupt shift of speaker and the undeniable male urgency brought a wave of silence on the line. Zhou Yi did not wait. "Jean! I need details, now. Where is Sharice? Did she trigger a spatial breach?"
Jean Grey's voice returned, strained and tinged with professional distress.
"Yi, why are you… never mind that. Sharice, Kitty, and a third student, Vivian Leigh, have vanished from the school grounds. They activated a sophisticated, combined power signature. I've initiated a psychic scan of the tri-state area, but their mental presence is completely obscured—either by her spatial distortion, or by a deliberate field. You and Ororo need to mobilize immediately. If they fall into the wrong hands, it will be disastrous."
Zhou Yi absorbed the report, his gaze sweeping the darkened room, calculating the distance and time variables. He didn't need Ororo's weather-controlling transport. He needed speed.
"Jean, stay put. You need to stabilize the school's perimeter and keep an eye on the other students. This is my responsibility now. I'll handle the recovery," Zhou Yi stated, his voice devoid of doubt. "I will bring them back, unharmed."
He ended the call without waiting for a reply, placing the secure phone back on the nightstand. He turned to Ororo, his eyes blazing with a fierce, protective energy.
"My darling, you promised me that I would handle the fallout this time. I am holding you to that promise. Stay here. Do not move. I will return."
Ororo, recognizing the cold, serious focus in his eyes—the look of a man about to unleash unimaginable power—nodded silently. "Go. Be safe."
Zhou Yi moved with blurring speed, dressing himself in a matter of seconds. He was out of the bedroom and onto the expansive, tiled balcony almost before Ororo realized he was moving. He vaulted onto the railing, not bothering with the staircase.
In the next instant, he triggered the full potential of his concealed power. It wasn't flight based on aerodynamics or kinetic thrust. It was a precise, localized manipulation of gravity and inertia.
A crushing, zero-point gravimetric field formed an invisible shell around his body, instantly reducing his effective mass to near zero while simultaneously negating the atmospheric resistance immediately in front of him.
Amidst a deafening, bass roar—the violent displacement of air molecules in his wake, not a sound generated by his body—he launched himself. He was an arrow fired from the bow of Earth's gravity, screaming through the endless night sky, a fleeting, impossible blur vanishing towards the lights of the city.
At the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) sector overseeing the Mid-Atlantic, located nearly 30,000 feet up in a secure orbital platform, the night shift was enjoying a moment of unnatural calm. That calm was violently shattered by a cascade of red alerts across the board.
A cold, beautiful woman in a sharp, dark jumpsuit, Commander Anya Petrova, flanked by heavily armed security personnel, strode into the central observation room. Her voice cut through the cacophony of alarms.
"Report! Why are the Vigilance systems screaming?"
The chief radar analyst, his face bathed in the sickly green light of the stereoscopic display, stammered out the data. "Commander, we have a confirmed Unidentified Flying Object (UFO).
It's a clean, single-source energy signature, and it's moving at approximately Mach 20—twenty times the speed of sound—and the rate of acceleration is exponentially increasing."
The gigantic, holographic display showed only an atmospheric anomaly: layers of clouds near the coast being violently shredded by a point of incredibly high kinetic energy.
"Mach 20 is impossible at that altitude and within that flight envelope. Where are the atmospheric breakdown effects? The thermal signature?" Petrova demanded, shoving aside a technician to get a clearer view. "It's violating every known law of aerospace physics!"
"We apologize, Commander! The speed was too extreme. We lost the signature moments after it registered Mach 20! It appears to have simply… stopped being there," the officer replied, desperation audible in his voice.
"Continue the trace! I want a detailed profile. Interrogate every possible source—military, space agency, high-level corporate projects. I need to know if this is a hostile vector or a completely successful physics breakthrough!" Petrova ordered, her temperament as sharp as her uniform's creases. "Now!"
As her subordinates sprang into action, the Commander stood silently, her gaze fixed on the empty point in space where the anomaly had vanished. The sheer violation of physics the object represented convinced her of one thing: this was not a one-off event. Whatever entity or technology was capable of achieving that kind of controlled, instantaneous hyper-velocity would certainly make itself known again.
Meanwhile, deep beneath the labyrinthine, forgotten streets of Brooklyn, Sharice and her companions began their reckless adventure. Sharice had selected a location from a deeply encrypted online forum—an underground bar known only to the most rebellious fringes of the city's counterculture.
It was concealed beneath a vast, derelict factory, guarded by a dozen intimidating security figures—a challenge that appealed directly to Sharice's inflated sense of superiority.
"Told you, sisters! Mutants always win against the mundane!" Sharice crowed, giving the signal.
Kitty, trembling slightly with a mixture of fear and adrenaline, grabbed Sharice's and Vivian Leigh's hands. Sharice immediately erected a complex, low-frequency biotic field around the trio, cloaking them in a shimmering, purple distortion, a perfect visual smokescreen. Kitty then activated her powers, phasing them through the rough stone foundation.
They rematerialized instantly in a cramped, intensely humid space—a restroom. The air was thick with cheap cleaning fluid and something metallic. Before they could speak, a series of loud, primal grunts and high-pitched screams emanated from the single stall behind them.
Sharice offered a nervous, forced laugh. "Wow, that is definitely exciting, right?"
Vivian Leigh, the third girl, with hair that shifted from bright red to orange when she was stressed (a subtle indicator of her pyrokinetic volatility), nodded dumbly, her eyes wide. Kitty, her face already crimson, immediately grabbed both their arms and yanked them out of the restroom. The grunts continued, uninterrupted, behind the closed door.
The main bar area exploded with sensory overload. Industrial metal music, distorted and deafening, hammered at their ears. Strobe and ultraviolet lights cut through the thick, hazy air, revealing a chaotic throng of bodies. Men and women, clad in minimal, edgy clothing, thrashed wildly, their movements a deliberate abandonment of societal norms.
This environment—free, uninhibited, and completely uncontrolled—was precisely the rebellion Sharice craved. "Awesome!" she screamed over the music, her heart pounding with a visceral thrill.
They began to tentatively mimic the dancers, their movements clumsy but enthusiastic. Slowly, deliberately, the density of the crowd began to push them backward. The front area was chaotic energy, but the rear was something else entirely. Here, the number of people was smaller, but their movements were slower, more focused.
The light was dimmer, and the atmosphere was not frenetic, but sultry. The scent was overpowering—a thick, hormonal cloud mingled with stale beer and a peculiar, coppery tang. Couples, sometimes trios, were locked in deep, intimate embraces, their shared mouth fluids and grinding contact a brazen display of pure, animalistic need.
The three young girls froze, their eyes wide with unfamiliarity. Though they were nearly sixteen, and American teenagers were generally desensitized to such scenes, they were Xavier's students. Professor X's protective bubble had shielded them from this raw, unapologetic side of life.
Kitty, regaining a shred of composure, pulled Sharice's sleeve and pointed toward the bar, a small, dark counter in the corner. Sharice instantly understood: they needed to anchor themselves with a drink.
"Let's go, sisters! This is on me! Tonight, we drink until we forget that old witch's curfews!" Sharice declared, the bravado compensating for the uneasiness she now felt.
They stumbled toward the bar. Sharice called out to the bald, middle-aged bartender, "Hey! Dude, three glasses of your strongest liquor, please!"
The bartender, whose nametag read 'JOE,' stared at them with a strange, predatory smirk. He slowly polished an empty glass, his movements deliberate.
"Girl, I got no milk left for little babies."
"Hey! We've got money!" Sharice pulled a thick wad of bills—a generous amount of Mr. Franklin's—from her pocket and flapped it at him. The bartender didn't move. His wicked smile only deepened.
"Joe, pour the young ladies a cocktail, and put it on my tab."
A cold, arresting female voice sliced through the music. It was contralto—deep, smooth, and utterly self-assured.
Sharice spun around. The bartender, Joe, instantly dropped his smile and said respectfully, "Yes, Ms. Nisha."
The woman was striking. Her skin was unnaturally, intensely pale—a stark, bloodless white that made her features stand out like porcelain. Her long, black hair was pulled back severely, accentuating a beautiful, sharply contoured face. She wore bright, intensely red lipstick that contrasted savagely with her skin and dreamy, heavy-lidded eyes.
She was cloaked in black leather that emphasized her curves, but the jewelry was what truly captured Sharice's attention: bulky, antique gold necklaces and a heavy, gold circlet resting on her forehead. The pieces were so ancient, so out of place, that they should have looked ridiculous.
Yet, on her, they looked right—imparting a powerful sense of timeless, seductive mystery. Sharice felt an inexplicable draw, a force field of silent allure that felt older and far more dangerous than anything Ororo or Jean possessed.
The woman, Nisha, gracefully walked to a vacant stool next to Sharice and sat down, her deep-set eyes fixing on the three teenagers.
"My dear girls, you should not be here." The bartender instantly served a blood-red drink to Nisha and three luridly colored cocktails to the girls.
"We are with… an acquaintance. This is our first time," Sharice managed to say, nudging Kitty and Vivian to back up her lie. Kitty and Vivian immediately echoed her, though their sleeves were unconsciously rolled down, trying to cover the fact that Kitty's hands were shaking and Vivian's hair was starting to glow an ominous orange near her temples.
Nisha raised her wine glass, her lips curving into a slight, dark smile.
"Right. But the patrons here don't care how you arrived, my dears. They only care that no one is leaving."
"What exactly does that mean?" Sharice asked, her hand subconsciously reaching for the collar of her shirt. A profound unease settled in her stomach. She noticed the woman wasn't breathing, not conventionally, and the eyes of the dancers in the back section of the bar were now all focused on their table—eyes that looked hungry, strange, and incomprehensible.
Nisha set down her glass, the smile completely gone. She leaned close to the three girls, her voice dropping to a low, chilling whisper.
"Stay right here, and don't move. This is a feast, girls. And I can't guarantee I can control the monsters who have been invited."
Her words—the casual juxtaposition of 'feast' and 'monsters'—sent a deep, physiological chill through Sharice. She instinctively reached for her powers, wanting to generate a crystal portal, a way out, but the fear and the volatile, crowded energy of the bar—compounded by Vivian's increasing heat—made her doubt her control. One small miscalculation here, and she could teleport them into the very heart of the factory's foundation.
All three girls involuntarily linked hands, the cold sweat pooling in their palms. They were trapped, completely exposed, surrounded by things they were only now realizing were not human, and the one person who seemed to offer protection was the most terrifying of all.
The girls are trapped in a mysterious underworld bar, and Zhou Yi is minutes away, traveling at hypersonic speed and drawing unwanted military attention. Who exactly is Ms. Nisha, and what kind of "feast" is she preparing for the inhabitants of the bar?