Psychic Hypnosis (Revised)

The sun was warm, and a gentle breeze brushed against her face.

Delia opened her eyes in a daze to find herself sitting on the lawn of the Xavier Institute, the distant commotion from the teaching building making her feel somewhat out of it.

"Delia?"

A familiar voice rang out as her boyfriend, Richter, hurried over to her. "What are you still waiting around here for? The party is about to start!"

"A party?" Delia blinked, rubbing her somewhat heavy head. "Didn't... didn't we have a mission in Spruce Hill?"

"We certainly were getting ready to go to Spruce Hill for a get-together." Richter naturally reached out and pulled Delia up. "Everyone is waiting for you."

"Right... the get-together."

Delia thought for a moment, nodded, and then chuckled softly. "True, let's hurry."

With that, Delia naturally took her boyfriend's hand, and the two walked side by side toward the teaching building.

In the real world, in Spruce Hill, West Virginia.

"Damn it, what is going on here!"

Realizing something was wrong, Logan strode over to Miles and Madeleine, only to find the two of them sitting side by side, completely motionless with vacant eyes.

A crimson energy aura was expanding out of control around Madeleine; clearly, she was about to lose control again!

"Charles!" Logan roared into the X Terminal on his chest. "Can you see what's happening over here? What on earth has happened to these two brutes!"

"They've been mind-hypnotized by an unknown force, Logan!" Charles's anxious voice came through the channel. "There is an extremely skilled telepathic hypnotist in your vicinity, find them as soon as possible! This kind of power is the nemesis of all telepaths!"

"Mind hypnosis? Damn it!"

Logan immediately thought of the time years ago when Charles was kidnapped by Stryker to the Alkali Laboratory; it was also under the control of a hypnotic mutant that Charles had nearly killed every single human on Earth!

"Get ready for a fight!" Logan roared to the few remaining members. "The three of them, Miles, have been taken control of!"

"What's the situation? Just with the few of us?" Charlotte asked nervously.

Miles, Delia, and Madeleine—all the telepaths in the team had lost their ability to act, leaving only Logan, Richter, and himself to fight on the scene. With just their three abilities, facing a fully armed military force was indeed far too much of a stretch.

"And me."

Aurora's calm voice echoed in everyone's terminals.

Accompanied by a sky full of buzzing "bzzzz..." sounds, those dozens of Flying Dragon drones started up once more, pouring out from the Blackbird's cargo bay like the most loyal guards.

"So, where is this?"

Miles found himself appearing in a cold and unfamiliar laboratory.

Before him, a woman with a bizarre shape, whose entire body was made of flowing shadows, was slowly walking toward him.

He turned his head and saw that Madeleine had also appeared by his side.

"Ugh..."

Madeleine's expression was ferocious, and the energy phantom lingering all over her body erupted further behind her, turning into a pair of burning, sky-covering wings of Phoenix Fire! A terrifying wave of air rushed like mad in all directions with her at the center!

Meanwhile, right in front of the two of them, that shadow woman also erupted with a terrifying momentum that was not a whit inferior to Madeleine's! She locked eyes with Madeleine from a distance of dozens of meters, the clash of their minds causing the entire illusory space to tremble violently.

Only then did Miles finally see the woman's face... Part of that face looked like Madeleine herself, while another part looked like another stranger he had never seen before.

"So, is this the woman who has been hunting you down all this time, Madeleine..."

Miles subconsciously took a few steps back. "I see... When we saw that woman, had we all been affected by mind hypnosis as well?"

Up on the mountain wilderness, a soldier had just set up a rocket launcher, the heavy barrel aimed at the hovering Blackbird hundreds of meters away.

"Bang!"

Before he could fire the rocket, a sniper bullet tore through the air, precisely piercing into his side-brain and drilling out the other side.

"Over there!"

A companion roared in panic, raising a hand to point at the night sky.

The next moment, dozens of tracer lines intertwined as they lunged toward that Flying Dragon S stealth drone looming faintly in the dark.

"Bang!"

Amidst the dense barrage of bullets, a stray bullet luckily pierced the rotor engine of the Flying Dragon S.

Sparks spewed as this high-cost aerial assassin trailed black smoke and fell powerlessly toward the ground.

However, this was only the beginning.

"Bzzzz..."

More buzzing sounds echoed from all directions, and one drone after another revealed its form from the darkness. Like cold hunters, they locked onto every single heat source on the ground.

"Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat..."

A hail of gunfire erupted instantly, and the metal storm ruthlessly sheared through flesh and blood. Screams, roars, and explosions mixed together; just from the first round of engagement, the frontline of Task Force 77 was already teetering.

"Damn it, even though those troublesome brutes are already pinned down... these drones really are a pain!"

Inside the command vehicle, Jossen gritted his teeth, the white light in his eyes growing increasingly intense as he continued to urge his telepathic power. "You've been quiet for too long... Miss Phoenix, get up and get to work!"

Inside Madeleine's illusion, she and that unfamiliar shadow woman finally crashed into each other.

"BOOM--!!"

Rampant energy scattered everywhere, and the original laboratory collapsed with a bang, revealing the illusory night sky of light colors and inverted stars outside.

The next second, endless Phoenix Fire radiated from Madeleine. Her eyes turned red, and blazing red energy surged wildly. Like a meteorite of divine punishment, she recklessly smashed toward that woman once again!

"So... how did I get dragged into this again? Could it simply be because I was too close to her?"

Miles in the distance cautiously dodged the energy aftermath of the two crashing into each other, having zero intention of participating in it.

Not only because of the huge gap in strength, but also because he knew very well that this wasn't the real world; fighting here had no substantive meaning. The most urgent task was to figure out what on earth was happening right now!

"Miles, can you hear me!"

Right at that moment, Charles's voice suddenly rang in Miles's ear.

"Charles!" Miles cried out in pleasant surprise. "What on earth is going on? Can you see the situation here?"

"You've been attacked by an unknown mutant, and it's obvious the opponent is extremely skilled at hypnosis!" Charles said gravely. "We need to wake Madeleine up as soon as possible; I'm almost unable to suppress her anymore!"

In the real world, Madeleine's eyes were bloodshot, and the Phoenix Energy around her body began to condense wildly outward. If not for Charles's suppression, she would have already erupted directly!

Meanwhile, Miles to the side sat there unconsciously; the right arm of his combat uniform had already begun to char and smoke, large areas of burn marks appearing on his skin, yet he himself remained completely unaware of it.

"ROAR!!"

Amidst the battlefield, Logan abruptly killed his way into enemy lines!

Waving his double claws, the Adamantium claws carved deadly cold gleams through the night, continuously tearing apart the flesh and blood of one enemy after another.

"Fire! Fire!"

A soldier roared in panic, spinning his muzzle around, but what met him was claws tearing through his chest.

Bullets poured madly onto Logan, but completely failed to halt his footsteps. He was like a starved wolf that had charged into a flock of sheep, tearing a bloody, mangled gap in the frontline of Task Force 77.

"Rumble..."

Right at that moment, the earth emitted a dull roar.

Between the Blackbird and the main battlefield, the ground heaved and tore without warning, and a massive earthen wall several meters thick and over ten meters high rose abruptly, blocking the subsequent reinforcement troops firmly outside.

"Fuck..." Richter growled low, pressing his hands hard against the ground as veins bulged on his forehead.

He exerted his power once more; not far away, an earthen-stone spire thicker than a water barrel suddenly burst out of the ground, and with overwhelming momentum, pressed with absolute precision against the underside of the command vehicle, flipping it over completely onto the ground!

"Ugh ah!!"

Adjutant Jossen inside the command vehicle's cabin let out a muffled grunt, nearly getting knocked out cold amidst an upending collision, but even so, he still gritted his teeth to maintain his mind hypnosis!

"Tat-tat-tat..."

Outside, a soldier who had been holding a machine gun and firing at Logan suddenly froze in expression. A brand-new consciousness wormed its way into his body, and then he abruptly spun his muzzle around, firing wildly at the companions beside him.

"Ugh ah!"

"Why..."

Amidst the sudden attack, screams rose and fell in succession, and several more figures fell unwillingly.

Amidst the chaos, the drone swarm in midair continued its sustained firepower suppression. Like the Grim Reaper's scythe, they ruthlessly pinned this elite task force down to this narrow battlefield.

"Still not working?"

Jossen, crawling out from the overturned command vehicle, stood up trembling. He tried time and time again to thoroughly detonate Madeleine's loss of control, but that power was always firmly suppressed by an even greater telepathic force.

Without a doubt, that came from Professor X, Charles Xavier, the most powerful telepathic mutant in the entire world. Even separated by thousands of kilometers, he could still exert a decisive influence on this battle!

"Thud!"

A heavy footstep rang out beside him.

Jossen snapped his head back, running straight into Logan's beast-like, icy pupils.

"Found you."

Logan's voice was low and hoarse, carrying unmasked killing intent.

Before his voice trailed off, the Adamantium claws had already pierced the air and arrived!

Jossen's pupils constricted to pinpricks. At the juncture of life and death, he severed his mental link with everyone else without a single hesitation, gathered all his mental power into a single point, and thrust his hand fiercely toward Logan!

Mind hypnosis!

"Huh?"

Logan let out a soft grunt of surprise, his charging body abruptly stiffening as he halted his movements with a hazy gaze.

"Good, good... Just stand there like this..."

Taking advantage of this opening, Jossen hurriedly retreated a few steps, then fled unhesitatingly into the crowd, vanishing from sight.

"Damn it..."

Logan shook his head; his beast-like intuition allowed him to shake off the mental shock rapidly. He let out a roar, and just as he was about to pursue...

Right at that moment, several hundred meters away, a terrifying energy compressed to its absolute limit erupted without any warning!

"BOOM--!!!"

A terrifying telekinetic storm descended with a crash, and a completely out-of-control Madeleine slowly floated up into midair.

Countless grains of sand and rocks floated into the air, spinning crazily to form an invisible barrier that refused anyone to approach. Meanwhile, around her figure, some ominous, heart-palpitating crimson light faintly radiated outward!

"Ugh..."

Miles, who had been blown far away by the telekinetic storm, struggled to open his eyes, finding that he had woken up from the hypnosis, yet Madeleine's condition hadn't improved by a single bit!

"What a terrifying power..."

Delia gritted her teeth, waving a hand to block a few flying rock fragments as she tried to extend her hands to resist the opponent's telekinetic storm, yet she couldn't even last for a few seconds before being flung away with a hurl!

Charlotte hid at the very edge. The moment his consciousness returned from its daze, he transformed into an astral body once again and lunged toward Madeleine.

This was his ability, Astral Roaming, which allowed him to briefly disembody his own soul and consciousness, act like a ghost, and briefly possess other people.

However, after his consciousness left his body, he merely got close to Madeleine before letting out a miserable shriek, forced to return into his physical vessel.

"What on earth is that power..." Charlotte recalled the moment just then; the moment his astral-state self had merely gotten close to Madeleine, he felt his consciousness suffering as if it were about to burn up from the pain!

"Miles, her consciousness is being devoured by power!" Charles's voice echoed in Miles's mind via telepathy. "We need to help her find her sanity!"

"Easier said than done..." Miles leaned hard against a stone wall, struggling to resist the telekinetic storm. "My telepathic power is way too far behind hers; I can't extend my perception over there at all!"

"I... can't either!" Delia gritted her teeth as a trace of blood slowly trickled down from her nostrils. That frantic power was not only defending itself, but indiscriminately backlashing against any approaching thoughts. "Her telekinesis is way stronger than mine!"

"Shit, I knew it, a young Jean..."

Logan, who had returned, pressed against the storm as he approached Madeleine, asking hoarsely, "Charles, what do we do now? Kill her?"

"No, Logan! She needs help!" Charles's voicebrooked no argument. "She's scared, her power hasn't spiraled out of control to that extent yet!"

"Besides, Logan, I don't wish to see Jean's tragedy repeat itself once more!"

"Fine then!" Logan gritted his teeth. "Do as you say!"

"We have to hurry!" Aurora's voice rang out in everyone's comms. "Their follow-up troops are regrouping!"

"Ugh..."

Right at that moment, Madeleine snapped her pale eyes open. Seeming to sense a new threat, she abruptly let out a shrill shriek, transforming her entire body into a red streak of light as she took the initiative to charge out toward the direction where the distant army was gathering!

The ground beneath her feet cracked inch by inch, the gale whipping up sand and stones with a terrifying momentum!

The out-of-control Madeleine still remembered those things and those people... She had almost been beaten to death by them earlier! She had even been besieged for a full ten-plus hours!

As anger piled up, there was no longer any humanity left in the girl's eyes, only the desire for destruction. The crimson energy wrapping around her body instantly ballooned, like burning substantive fire!

"There's no time!" Charles said, decisively cutting off communication with the others as he began to concentrate all his mental focus, forcibly breaking through those layers of barriers to laboriously enter Madeleine's rampaging mental world.

"Ugh..." Madeleine, who had just charged a short distance out, let out a muffled grunt, falling straight down from midair to pass out on the ground.

"Task Force 77... Jossen..."

While Charles was suppressing Madeleine, Miles tapped his temple, his telepathic power spreading like a tide. He instantly understood everything through the internal communication network of Task Force 77—that Jossen was the mutant who possessed mind hypnotic abilities!

"Trying to run?" Miles sneered, taking over several drones from Aurora's operation and beginning to search for Jossen's tracks amid the cover of night.

But right at that moment, not far behind him, that heart-palpitating red light swelled violently!

Following that, a mental shriek that did not belong to this world exploded in the minds of Miles and Delia!

That was Charles's scream!

"Ugh ah ah--!!"

The violent mental feedback plunged everyone's vision into darkness, as if red-hot iron rods were piercing straight through their brains!

Immediately afterward, a chaotic telekinetic storm struck like a tsunami, and an irresistible, giant force gripped everyone, pulling them fiercely off the ground and suspending them in midair.

That wasn't floating, but imprisonment. The rampant telekinesis turned into substantive shackles, keeping them suspended in midair, unable to move a single inch!

Madeleine, who had previously passed out on the ground, slowly stood back up. With a ferocious look in her eyes, she reached out toward the crowd, and then began to clench her fist!

"Ugh..."

Miles let out a cold grunt, feeling the terrifying telekinesis tightening around his body from all directions, squeezing the air out of his lungs and causing even his bones to emit groans of unbearable strain.

"Miles... Delia..."

Charles's voice, growing so weak he could barely maintain it, echoed intermittently in the ears of Miles and Delia. "Her mental world is terrifying... I've been driven out... Miles, Delia... You two are closest to her, right now... only you can save her!"

"How do we save her?!" Miles shouted with difficulty, feeling as though his consciousness was about to be torn apart by this power.

"Do not resist... Merge with my telepathic power... I will open a path for you, enter her inner world, and wake her up!"

"Understood!"

"No problem!"

Miles and Delia replied in their minds almost simultaneously.

The next second, a vast and majestic force of telepathy poured into their consciousness!

That was Charles's power, but at this moment, it was like a weary giant wave, sweeping up the two flatboats of their storm, and rushing toward the center of that red storm composed of pure power and pain without hesitation!

In Madeleine's mental world, there was no sky, no earth, only an endlessly surging storm of crimson energy, and every fluctuation carried the terrifying heat of burning everything.

The moment Charles's massive mental power touched this space, it was like ice cubes dropped into boiling oil, instantly evaporating away. A force full of hostility recognized him, ruthlessly and completely expelling him, isolating him outside.

"Ahhh!!"

Immediately following, Delia's consciousness let out a silent scream, and her mental barrier lasted less than three seconds in front of this power before being torn to pieces, similarly and brutally expelled!

Only Miles was left floating alone in this mental purgatory.

At this moment, countless images washed over his mind... the cold metal operating table, the glaring shadowless lamp, the smell of disinfectant, and the numbness when his name was stripped away, leaving only a cold code... Those madness and pain that he had buried deep, or even long forgotten, were all forcibly dug out in the burning of the flames, surging into his heart all at once!

His consciousness began to tear, his soul began to burn, and his mind began to uncontrollably melt away under the burning of the flames!

However, amidst such pain, Miles unexpectedly persisted and barely maintained his sanity...

Is it this feeling again...

Miles used all his strength to open one eye in Madeleine's mental world.

He saw... the figure at the center of the mental world. And at the same time... the other party seemed to turn back and look at him.

"Ugh..." Miles let out a low growl, the intense pain bringing him to the verge of collapse, but it still failed to completely crush his will.

Because similar things had already been experienced by him as early as the Alkali Laboratory.

His current personality was repeatedly torn apart during that time, then driven crazy, then reshaped, and finally tended to stabilize again under Charles's guidance... In a sense, the current Miles, the original owner of this body in the past, and that soul from another world, were not the same person, but rather a stitched-together consciousness that happened to possess some humanity, reassembled from endless fragments and pain after the minds of both were crushed.

This violent energy wanted to tear apart a solid and complete mental core, but Miles did not have such a thing. It was like a violent gust of wind that could not blow down a ground of long-scattered sand grains.

Then, Miles instinctively took a step.

One step... Two steps...

Mad at the center of the mental world seemed to sense something and looked back at him.

"It's already over... Madeleine..." Miles reached out toward Madeleine with difficulty. "It's time to wake up..."

"Miles..."

Madeleine's voice sounded, carrying a bewilderment and weirdness that did not belong to her.

"I can feel that woman is still looking for me... She will be back..."

"That's Jossen's telepathic hypnosis, that scum's trick!" Miles explained with difficulty. "The woman you saw is fake! He just wants to step by step guide you to completely lose control!"

"How could that be..." Madeleine's figure began to tremble, and the surrounding energy storm became even more chaotic accordingly. "My past is fake, my father is fake... The battle is fake... Then are you guys... also fake?"

"No... not..." Miles shook his head. "We... are real..."

"Then... what should I do..." Madeleine said hoarsely. "How should I... believe you?"

"Leave it to me..."

As Miles spoke, he grabbed Madeleine's wrist.

There was no anticipated resistance.

The moment their mental bodies contacted, a completely different perception, like a breached floodgate, rushed violently into Madeleine's consciousness!

That was data! That was code! That was an endless stream of information!

Hum--!

Madeleine's consciousness drifted for a moment.

She "saw" that she was no longer confined to this mental purgatory, but turned into countless data ghosts wandering in the battlefield.

Every drone, every monitoring device, and every electronic terminal became her eyes and ears!

The entire battlefield held no more secrets from her at this moment!

Yet the next second, her "sight" locked onto a figure fleeing through the forest from the footage transmitted back by a high-speed sweeping Flying Dragon drone!

Jossen!

The instant she saw his face, the bizarre woman's face that had been tangling in her mind endlessly overlapped with him completely!

"This is the guy... Madeleine," Miles voiced out with difficulty. "If you don't trust your perception... trust me..."

"I'll help you... perceive this world..."

"...Thank you."

Madeleine slowly opened her mouth and said softly.

Reality.

The telepathic storm that was about to tear the heaven and earth apart stopped without warning for a moment.

The crowd confined in mid-air only felt the pressure ease, and immediately afterward, they saw Madeleine in the center of the storm slowly open her eyes.

Those blood-red eyes rotated slightly, as if locking onto something.

The next moment, she stretched out her hand toward a certain direction in the distance!

"Mr. Obadiah... The operation had an accident, I..."

A kilometer away, Jossen, who was communicating with a certain party, had not finished his words when a terrifying sense of crisis that made his hair stand on end suddenly struck from behind.

He looked back in horror.

A blazing red energy torrent tore through the night, crossing a distance of a kilometer in an unstoppable posture and imprinting precisely on his face.

The next second, his figure was completely submerged by the energy torrent, turning to fly ash!

"BOOM--!!!"

No screams, no struggle.

Jossen's figure, along with the forest within dozens of meters around him, was completely swallowed by that energy torrent, evaporating into thin air.

"..."

The entire battlefield fell silent.

A few minutes later.

"Rip..."

Space tore, and a mysterious figure stepped out from the shattered space, looking at the place where Jossen disappeared and remaining silent for a long time.

Then, he turned to look the other way, where the Blackbird of the X-Men slowly ascended and flew into the sky.

"...I'll go find you guys next time."

The mysterious person muttered softly, then tore space once again and disappeared.

"Ugh..."

I do not know how much time passed, but in reality, Miles slowly opened his eyes.

That terrifying telepathic storm finally subsided, and the girl who had just been like a demon demon had collapsed on the ground, fast asleep.

The others rushed over as well, looking at the sleeping Madeleine with lingering fear.

Charles's telepathic voice sounded again: "...Miles, are you all right?"

"Not too good, Professor..." Miles said languidly. "I think I might need to sleep for a few more days to recover. What about the others?"

"Everyone is fine, only you can be considered the one with the heaviest injuries," Charles replied, then continued, "Those troops have already retreated. Good job, Miles."

"Ha... That's good..." Miles said, then plunged down headfirst once more.

"If nothing's wrong, just let me rest first..."

"I'm too tired..."