Chapter 125: Hard Way & The Highway
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You know, for a man who criticized Professor X and the other mind reading mutants, I was enjoying this a bit too much.
…In my defense, this guy was a criminal sent to kill me and not some poor student whose privacy Xavier loved to violate.
The assassin's mind felt like wading through a swamp of cold tar. Sticky. Resistant. Full of shit that would never wash off. Ghostfreak's abilities made navigation simple enough, but the sheer devotion I encountered was something else.
I'm starting to see the telepaths mindset now. Interrogations are boring. You ask questions, they lie. It's a waste of time. Mind-rapes, on the other hand... those are efficient.
Was I letting power corrupt me?
I floated through his memories, and found each one to be a little bubble of fanaticism. The Phoenix Gate Sect had their hooks in deep. Years of training, conditioning, punishment. Blind obedience wrapped in flowery language about honor and tradition.
The man had killed thirty-seven people before me. Some deserved it. Most didn't.
'Heretic,' he'd called me. In his mind, that word glowed like a neon sign. To him, I wasn't just a target – I was an offense against the natural order.
Because I gave away a pill. Good lord, these people need hobbies.
I pushed deeper, past his surface thoughts and into the meat of what I needed. Soon I found the juicy parts. The orders this time came from an elder named Chen.
Suddenly it made sense why they were so pissed. Elder Chen was a wrinkled prune of a woman whose face burned with righteous fury in his memories. Once she used to be beautiful, and to regain that beauty she'd spent decades trying to obtain something like the Dragon's Breath Pill. Then some foreign devil walks in, outbids her, and gives it away to a purple-haired mutant? She just had to be Japanese too.
Unacceptable. A stain on their honor. A heresy against their traditions.
And so on.
The assassin's mind clung to these beliefs like a drowning man to driftwood. So I decided to take the driftwood away.
I didn't just read his memories. I rewrote them. Showed him his precious Elder Chen groveling at my feet. His sacred techniques failing against a child. His temple burning while his elders fled like rats. His entire worldview, dissolving into a lie.
It wasn't real. But to him? It was realer than reality.
Honestly this was more of a test on my part. I wanted to see how much I could manipulate someone's memories. Like some red-eyed ninja freak.
Something deeper caught my attention. A secondary mission. Intelligence gathering. The Phoenix Gate wasn't just after revenge – they were tracking something. That had me interested.
A massive convergence of spiritual energy in the Wudang Mountains. Once-in-a-century event.
They believed it signaled a celestial being's descent. I could guess better.
Between heartbeats and breaths.
This was it. This was where we'd find the Iron Fist spirit. The timing was too perfect to be coincidence.
Or it really was some Celestial being, but if there was a wandering Iron Fist spirit from the old era, I think it might want to meet someone like this.
Regardless, this place was worth a visit.
I'd gotten what I needed, but I wasn't quite done. I left one final image burning in his mind. Me, standing over the broken bodies of the Phoenix Gate's leadership, holding their sacred texts in one hand and a lit match in the other.
Let that simmer for a while.
I pulled out of his mind, leaving behind a shattered psyche. Not dead, but broken enough that he wouldn't be threatening anyone soon. His companions weren't in better shape. I'd gone through them first, but they'd had less to offer.
The familiar green flash of transformation washed over me as I shifted back to human form. The cold of Ghostfreak still clung to me for a moment, a lingering reminder of the space between worlds I'd just occupied.
"There. They won't be a problem anymore to anyone else," I said, straightening my shirt as I looked at the two. "And I know where we need to go next."
Under the gentle light of this classy hotel, the two girls had strange expressions.
****
Charmcaster watched Ben's expression with unblinking eyes.
The green flash illuminated his face, casting harsh shadows that made him look older and sharper. The catatonic assassins sat slumped against the wall, occasionally mumbling nonsense or twitching. One was drooling.
For a moment, she was at a loss for words.
"Well," she said a moment later, stepping closer to Ben, "that's one way to get answers. Faster than my truth spells."
She moved to examine one of the assassins, lifting his chin with her finger. His eyes stared through her, focused on horrors only he could see. She felt a rush of... something. Admiration? Attraction? She wasn't sure. But this Ben Tennyson was not the boy hero she'd initially taken him for.
Well, he was, but… did he have shades she'd not explored yet?
"I didn't know you had it in you, Ben..." She released the assassin's chin and turned back to Ben, seeing him in a new light. Someone who understood power and wasn't afraid to use it. Someone like her.
Kwannon remained by the window, her posture perfect despite the violence they'd just witnessed.
The Dragon's Breath Pill had changed her. Not visibly – she looked the same – but her energy had shifted. Become more focused and more refined. She could sense things now that had been invisible before.
Including the psychic devastation Ben had just inflicted.
"...Their operational capacity has been neutralized forever," she observed, her tone clinical but with a note of respect.
She'd killed before. Many times. But she'd never destroyed someone so completely while leaving them technically alive.
Here I thought he was being harsh with Julian. She reassessed her evaluation of Ben Tennyson. The boy with the watch wasn't simply an interesting man or a potential ally. He was a strategic-level threat if he ever turned to villainy. The type of person who needed to be either closely aligned with or eliminated immediately.
For now, she was glad to be in the former category.
Ben seemed to notice their reactions. He met Charmcaster's approving gaze, then Kwannon's calculating one. His expression betrayed no guilt, no remorse for what he'd done.
"Don't be so surprised. I'm only a hero to nice people. But these are brainwashed puppets who tried to kill us. They failed. Now they're a lesson. Simple as that," he said. "Crying about it doesn't bring back the dead... though I guess that's a very bad analogy for my particular self."
He shook his head as if dismissing a stray thought.
After that, he gave the two of them a brief of what he'd learned. Which faction sent these fools, and the exact person behind the decision. Everything that mattered.
"Makes sense." Charmcaster stepped closer, her silver hair catching the light from Shanghai's neon skyline as she nudged close to him.
"So we know our enemies. Are we going to pay a visit to this Elder Chen? Burn her little clubhouse to the ground?" Her eyes gleamed with anticipation. "I've got some new spells I've been dying to try out."
Ben didn't answer immediately.
His eyes grew distant, weighing the options. Kwannon could almost see the calculations running behind them.
****
I considered it. I really did.
The Phoenix Gate Sect had tried to kill us. In most of the superhero stories I grew up with, this would be the moment where the hero lets the villains go with a warning. Shows mercy. Takes the high road.
But this wasn't a comic book and while I was a Hero, I wasn't naive. If necessary I was always ready to kill.
These weren't misunderstood villains with tragic backstories. They were assassins who'd tried to murder us in our sleep, and they'd do it again given half a chance.
Part of me – a dark, angry part that had lived my previous life – wanted to hunt down Elder Chen. Make an example of her. Show the world what happens when you come after Ben Tennyson and his girls. Girl. Well, same thing.
I could do it, too. Turn into XLR8, race to their temple. Find Elder Chen. Transform into something that would make her regret her life choices. Four Arms. Diamondhead. Hell, maybe even Ghostfreak again, to give her a taste of what her men experienced.
But then what? Revenge wasn't the point behind this visit. I'm not saying this as a saint but as a thinker.
The Phoenix Gate wouldn't just roll over. They'd send more assassins. Start a blood feud. And for what? Pride? Revenge?
I wasn't here for revenge. I was here for power. Knowledge. The ability to control Chi like the ancient masters. That's what would keep me and my friends alive in the long run, not some petty vendetta against a sect I'd never heard of before today.
So I just scoffed. "Come on Hope, are you kidding? Waste our time on some geriatric cult leader with a bruised ego?" I shook my head. "No. Emma's security detail can clean up this mess. They can send the bill to the Phoenix Gate. We have better things to do."
Charmcaster looked disappointed, but Kwannon nodded in approval. One of the assassins started humming a children's song, rocking back and forth.
We all ignored him.
"This energy convergence in the Wudang Mountains... that's our target," I continued, walking to the window. The Shanghai skyline glittered like a circuit board in the night. "If my gut is right, the Iron Fist spirit should be around there, and it isn't going to wait around for us to settle local grudges."
I checked my phone – since the Omnitrix somehow didn't show time – and nodded to myself. "We need to move quickly. The convergence won't last forever."
"Right now?"
"Yes. But wait, give me a bit," I activated the Omnitrix, cycling through until I found what I needed. "Upgrade."
The familiar rush of transformation washed over me.
My body became living technology, a sentient mass of nanomachines with a singular green eye. I reached for my smartphone, merging with it instantly. Its circuitry became mine, its capabilities amplified a thousandfold.
Hacking into the security network of the security team that Emma deployed was child's play for me.
I found their communication channel and sent a direct message.
"Penthouse has been compromised. All is good, eight assassins are neutralized. My team requires immediate extraction and transport to hubei province. Need a clean up crew here. Be sure to send the captured assassins back to phoenix gate sect with warning."
The response came quickly. Although this wasn't Emma Frost's direct team of course, but if it was under someone who someone like her trusted. So they were nothing if not efficient.
"Acknowledged. Extraction team en route. ETA 10 minutes."
Then I disconnected from the phone and reverted to human form, pocketing the device. Green light flashed.
"Transportation's on its way," I told the girls. "We'll be in Wudang by morning."
We moved to the balcony, the night air cool against my skin. The penthouse behind us was a disaster zone – broken furniture, shattered glass, bloodstains on expensive carpet. But the view was still spectacular.
Kwannon leaned against the railing, her posture relaxed for the first time since I'd met her. The view of her ass might have been better than Shanghai's skylines.
"I was worried about consuming the pill too quickly," she said, not looking at me. "There was an immediate threat. I couldn't risk being incapacitated."
"You managed to absorb it," I observed.
She nodded. "After you neutralized the threat. The process was... intense. Not painful, exactly. More like having every cell in your body remember its purpose all at once."
"And now?"
"Now I understand." Her eyes met mine, and I saw something new there. Not fear or wariness, but recognition. "Twenty years of energy gathering, compressed into moments. I can see the flow of Chi in everything. In you. In her." She nodded toward Charmcaster. "In the city below us."
"Really, even from up here? What do you see?" I asked.
"Well… Potential. I guess that's a fitting word." She extended her hand, and a small blade of psychic energy formed above her palm, purple and perfect. "Thank you, Ben. This gift... I won't waste it."
Charmcaster sidled up beside me, bumping my shoulder with hers.
"So, first mind-breaking, now ordering around corporate death squads. You're growing up so fast." There was genuine affection in her voice, mixed with the teasing. "Next thing you know, you'll be taking over countries."
"Uhhh, maybe in another life."
The wind picked up, carrying the sounds of the city up to our perch. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed. A helicopter's searchlight swept over nearby buildings. Life went on, oblivious to the drama that had played out thirty stories up.
The night was young, and so were we.
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