Whirlpool

In the underground base, heavy, hurried footsteps echoed through the dim corridors as several figures raced across the cold, polished floor.

Cannonball Sam ran as he asked Dani, unable to hold back, "Dani, that bear you released earlier was..."

"Sorry..." Dani's voice was full of guilt. "It was all my fault before. I gave everyone nightmares..."

"No, you don't need to apologize!" Sam hurriedly waved his hands, then gave her a thumbs-up. "I mean, that was awesome!"

Dani froze for a moment, then nodded gratefully. "...Thanks."

At the same time, Rebecca frowned. "No, I still can't sense any plants nearby that I can control..."

"That means we're still far from the edge of this underground base. Otherwise, there would definitely be some plant seeds or roots in the soil layers." Miles's voice was slightly hoarse. Madeleine on his back was like a furnace, the heat from her red hair nearly scorching his skin, yet she still showed no sign of waking up.

Miles carefully hitched Madeleine higher on his back, then struggled to pull out his X Terminal. After activating it, he asked, "Aurora, try hacking into the wireless networks here!"

Aurora's voice came from the terminal, though it sounded far stiffer than usual. "Eighteen available networks detected. Attempting intrusion..."

"No need to make it that complicated." Miles closed his eyes.

In his perception, those complex network firewalls might as well not have existed. He broke through them with ease and gained access. Then, under his guidance, Aurora's subprogram instantly connected to every network and began frantically extracting data.

"Miles, you actually brought Aurora with you?" Charlotte asked in surprise.

"This isn't Aurora's main consciousness. It's a subprogram, so its functions are much weaker, but it should normally be enough. Every X Terminal has one." Miles sounded irritated. "I remember telling you that when I handed out the terminals. Have none of you even looked into how to use them since then?"

"Uh... sorry."

Miles had wanted to say more, but when he sensed Madeleine's faint breathing against his neck, he could only sigh. "Aurora, do you have anything?"

"A three-dimensional model of the current area has been successfully established!"

The next moment, the X Terminal projected a beam of light forward, unfolding a huge blue 3D map before them. Everything was displayed in full detail: the tangled passages and corridors, hidden ventilation ducts, even the routes of every wire and the locations of important facilities. Several blinking green dots clearly marked their current location.

"Okay, let me see... power room... staff passage... elevator shaft... break room... prison section... Looks like they're already evacuating the others in an emergency. Oh, there seem to be several imprisoned mutants here too... Maybe we can consider letting them out when we pass by..." Miles stared at the map. As he interacted with the data, his mind raced. "We're currently in the lower part of the base's core area. This is troublesome... There aren't many exits from this underground base..."

"That's so cool, Miles!" Charlotte's eyes sparkled.

It was not just Charlotte. Even Gideon, who rarely spoke, looked at him in surprise. The blue light seemed to disperse much of the fear and unease in everyone's hearts.

However, Miles's brow remained tightly furrowed. "Aurora, is that all?"

"Yes." Aurora's subprogram replied, "Much of the classified data here isn't connected to the local network. It has been physically isolated."

"What a pain..." Miles muttered.

In this area, his Telepathy range was severely suppressed. Otherwise, no electronic data within ten kilometers could have escaped his senses.

Then Miles asked, "Aurora, where is the core database server here?"

"It has been marked for you." As Aurora's subprogram spoke, a new location appeared on the map. It was not far from them.

"I'm going there to take a look!"

Miles turned to the others. "My instincts are telling me that something is seriously wrong with this situation. We know far too little! This is our chance to learn more!"

"I agree!" Charlotte nodded without hesitation.

"No problem."

"Let's go!"

After the previous battle, Miles had completely earned everyone's trust.

"Oh, right, Miles." Gideon cautiously stepped forward. "Do you need me to carry Madeleine for you? Won't it be inconvenient for you to move like that?"

"No. She isn't heavy."

Miles shook his head and instinctively lifted Madeleine higher on his back, thanking Gideon for the offer.

"All right..." Gideon sighed inwardly.

He was Sharkman, and he could only truly use his powers in water. He had been unable to help in the earlier battle, which left the already introverted boy feeling dejected.

Miles did not think much about that. He only blamed himself. If he had acted against Obadiah a little sooner, perhaps Madeleine would not have been hurt so badly...

"Someone's coming!"

At Aurora's warning, Miles's expression shifted. His senses also caught two vague thoughts coming from around the corner ahead.

Then two researchers in white lab coats rushed around the corner and ran straight into this group of uninvited guests. When they saw the fully armed teenagers, their faces instantly went pale. Without a second thought, they turned to flee!

However, the moment they took a step, their movements abruptly stopped. Their eyes went unfocused and blank, as though an invisible hand had seized every nerve in their bodies.

"Perfect timing..." Miles activated his psychic power and murmured, "Let me see what you're thinking..."

As Miles invaded their minds, countless disordered, fragmented memories surged into his head like a tidal wave.

Piercing alarms, the monotonous beeping of instruments, instinctive terror toward genetic monsters... All kinds of emotions and memories exploded in his mind at once, but Miles remained unmoved.

After being "cleansed" by the Phoenix Force, his psychic power had long broken past the limits of Delta-level and reached the threshold of Beta-level, not far behind Delia. The Memory Reading that had once been difficult for him was now mostly under his control. As for the higher-level Cognitive Modification, that belonged to the realm of Alpha-level mutants.

Soon, clarity returned to Miles's eyes. He had obtained enough information.

At his silent command, the two researchers stiffly turned around and marched in synchronized steps like puppets following a program, entering a stairwell beside them. Then came a click as the door was locked from the inside.

"Get ready. This time, the enemy is coming..." Miles told the others after finishing.

"Enemy? What enemy?"

"It's hard to... describe."

Soon, a series of heavy footsteps rang out from the other end of the corridor.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

More than a dozen grotesque mutant monsters of all shapes and sizes charged out of the darkness with roars, rushing straight at them!

"Roooar!!"

The two figures in front shone with an alloy-like metallic gleam. Their enormous bodies crashed forward with the unstoppable force of wild beasts!

"What are those things?!" Charlotte cried out.

"Mutant genetic Chimeras, genetic products created by Obadiah. They usually possess two or more combined mutant abilities." Miles explained, "The ones in front are Chimeras codenamed Collision. They have Colossus's physical defense and Juggernaut's strength and destructive power. In short, they're a real pain."

As Miles explained, everyone immediately braced themselves for a fierce battle.

Sam began glowing all over, preparing to force himself into another charge. Dani activated her psychic power as well, attempting to manifest another monster. Gideon and Rebecca took fighting stances, ready to defend themselves with their martial arts.

However, before they could act, several of the Chimeras at the front suddenly changed expression, spun around on the spot, and rammed straight into their companions behind them!

Bang!!

With the dull crack of a shattered skull and splattering fluid, the Chimera behind it twitched twice. Then it lunged at him furiously and tackled him to the ground.

Another giant was even more direct. It lowered its head like an out-of-control truck and launched a Collision attack against its own kind behind it!

"Aagh!"

"Urgh..."

Amid miserable screams and roars, the Chimeras suddenly descended into a brutal internal battle. Flesh and blood flew everywhere, creating a horrific scene.

Charlotte stared in a daze and instinctively turned to look at Miles.

"They're just a few more beasts..." Miles lightly touched his forehead with one hand and grinned viciously.

Beta-level psychic control was enough to control even more targets at once. Miles had only controlled a few of them mainly because his Telepathy was suppressed in this underground facility.

He might still be no match for Apocalypse, but dealing with these other creatures was more than easy enough!

"Hm?" Just then, Miles's expression changed as he abruptly looked behind him.

A tiny section of the air seemed to distort in color. A hand matching the wall's pattern perfectly extended from it, silently reaching for the back of Dani's neck.

But the moment Miles looked at it, the hand froze in midair.

Then, amid a ripple in the air, a strangely shaped humanoid Chimera revealed itself. Its entire body trembled, and its face was twisted in pain.

"Huh?" Dani finally noticed and backed away. "What is that thing?"

"A composite Chimera with Chameleon's stealth ability and Rogue's Ability Drain. Their internal codename is Stalker. Be careful. If that thing touches you, you're finished." Miles warned her. "And Dani... as a Telepathy user, you need to be more alert."

Bang!

As Miles spoke, a blue-skinned, long-tailed monster suddenly appeared from the smoke behind him, its claws aimed straight for Madeleine's heart.

But the next moment, those sharp claws also stopped in midair, unable to move.

"Chimera Night Demon, just like the one I encountered at General Lake's." Miles said without turning around. "Nightcrawler's teleportation combined with Sabretooth's claws and healing factor. It's powerful, but it looks like the one I met back then was just a mass-produced model too."

As Miles spoke, he controlled Stalker to turn around and grab Night Demon by the throat!

Night Demon's body convulsed violently. A soundless roar came from its throat as all its energy and life force were forcibly drained by Stalker. Its body shriveled at a visible speed before finally collapsing helplessly onto the floor.

This was the Ability Drain that originally belonged to Rogue. Through physical contact, it could absorb other mutants' abilities and life force.

"Move." While controlling those Chimeras to keep slaughtering each other, Miles ordered the others, "Take these Chimeras down quickly. We leave immediately!"

"But... isn't this killing people?" Sam hesitated as he looked at the monsters. Though grotesque, they still vaguely retained humanoid shapes.

"Chimeras don't count as people... Forget it. If you can't bring yourself to do it, just beat them until they can't move." Miles could not be bothered to explain further.

"Okay!" Sam nodded, then transformed into an energy shell and shot straight into the battlefield!

With everyone working together, the dozen or so Chimeras, already fighting among themselves, were quickly all brought down and left sprawled across the ground.

"Time is short. Let's go." Miles prepared to lead everyone away.

"Wait, Miles!" Sam pointed at the fallen Chimeras, his face pale. "What is happening?!"

Before their eyes, only a dozen seconds had passed, yet the bodies of the defeated Chimeras began to rot and decay as quickly as raw meat left exposed in the open. Waves of nauseating pus seeped from them. Their flesh was clearly collapsing!

"Chimeras are disposable products temporarily created by Essex Corporation. They don't possess independent intelligence. Once activated, they die of genetic collapse within a dozen hours. If they lose consciousness, the process accelerates rapidly." Miles explained based on the researchers' memories. "Fusing multiple mutant abilities isn't easy... Obadiah has been looking for a way to stably cultivate composite-ability mutants in large numbers, but he has never succeeded. These Chimeras are only byproducts."

"What about him?" Rebecca asked.

"Like the Night Demon I encountered before, he was only an exception."

"..."

As Sam listened to Miles's explanation, he stared deeply at the decaying flesh, then gritted his teeth and turned away.

Before this, he had never imagined that mutant genes could be treated as such cheap materials, used to create something so terrifying and tragic.

"Stop spacing out. Let's move!"

Under Miles's command, everyone continued onward.

They passed through a corridor lit by dim, cold light and soon reached the central server room marked by Aurora. There was no one inside. It was unnaturally quiet except for the constant low hum of the servers. As far as the eye could see, the entire space was filled with countless server racks.

"This is it..."

With Madeleine on his back, Miles approached step by step. He did not touch any physical controls. He merely stood before the mainframe and slowly closed his eyes.

The next moment, every light in the server room flickered violently!

All the mainframe screens lit up at once. Instead of their usual interfaces, they turned into surging waterfalls of data. Countless characters, genetic sequence diagrams, experiment reports, three-dimensional structural models, even distorted faces and soundless roaring images, became a chaotic torrent that scrolled and rearranged itself at a speed the naked eye could not follow.

Under Miles's control, the stream of information seemed to find an outlet, transforming into a raging river that flooded into his mind!

Sam watched in stunned disbelief and cautiously asked, "Is he downloading data with his brain?"

"I think so," Charlotte answered.

Just over ten seconds later, the torrent of data on the screens abruptly stopped, and every display instantly returned to calm darkness. The server room was once again filled only with the low hum of the machines.

At the same time, Miles opened his eyes again, his pupils filled with shock and horror.

"Damn it... So this is what the Apocalypse Plan is!"

"Metempsychosis technology! Doctor Nathaniel... He really is a genuine genius!!"

"Miles, what are you talking about?" Rebecca asked curiously.

"I'm saying we might not need to waste time searching for an escape route anymore..." Miles murmured slowly. "I have a better plan now. Obadiah captured quite a few other mutants besides us..."

"Warning! A large number of Chimera life signatures detected! Evacuate immediately!"

Aurora's subprogram interrupted Miles with a piercing alarm. Miles's expression shifted as he opened the 3D map again.

Then they saw dense clusters of red dots rushing toward their current location!

"Current number: 107."

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers away.

The Blackbird slowly landed in a hidden valley in the Rocky Mountains of Montana.

Logan led Richter, Laura, Delia, Bobby, and Mona out in full gear. Even Caliban followed behind them with a grim expression, carrying the X-0 Reaper electromagnetic sniper rifle they had recovered from the academy battlefield.

After Charles made his decision, they had regrouped as quickly as possible and flown to their destination in the Blackbird.

The members of this operation were the X-Men's last remaining active force. Even Charles, who normally remained at the base, had personally come to the battlefield this time!

"Aurora, are you sure Erik is being held here?" Logan looked toward the military base disguised as a geological survey station in the distance and asked gravely. "I remember you saying that bastard Erik was supposed to be imprisoned in Northern Europe."

"That is because Mr. Erik's place of imprisonment is not fixed." Aurora's voice came through the communicator. "According to my surveillance of military network records, Mr. Erik has many followers. To prevent radical mutants from breaking him out, the military secretly relocates him every few months."

"When I first obtained information on him, he was indeed in Northern Europe. Two months later, he was transferred to Canada, and three months ago, he was sent here..."

"Tch. Most of us old fossils are practically dead already, yet these people are still being so careful..." Logan muttered, then asked, "Hey, old man, can you sense anything?"

"This place is indeed unusual."

Inside the Blackbird, Charles sat in his seat with his eyes closed, extending his powerful psychic power without restraint. He could sense that deep beneath the secret base, there was also a small Psychic Shielding Zone.

"All right, another shielding zone. The range is small, though. It looks like this technology really is becoming widespread." Charles sighed through the communicator. "The area nearby is built from nonmetallic structures like organic plastic and carbon fiber. That should be where Erik is being held."

"Then leave the rest to us."

Logan nodded, motioning for the young people to follow. Under cover of night, they silently infiltrated the base.

"Seriously, Charles, you really have changed." Logan spoke casually as he moved. "Back then, you never would have assigned me a mission like 'illegal infiltration.'"

"Because I can feel that we have stepped into a huge whirlpool, Logan. One wrong move, and there will be no recovery." Charles sounded weary. "We need Erik's strength, but it would be difficult to get him released through official channels. And we no longer have time to waste on those politicians."

"You don't need to explain. I'm just surprised that you, old man, finally learned how to be flexible."

"Because we have already lost too much due to my indecision." Charles's voice carried a trace of melancholy. "During those days in the Mexican water tower, I imagined returning to the past countless times... But I knew we could never go back... Looking back, some of the principles I once insisted on were indeed unrealistic..."

"Shit, so you had already figured it out back then?" Logan cursed. "When you had that episode last year, you were stubborn as hell! You even secretly threw away your medicine. You always made me want to lose my temper!"

"Because I knew I did not have long to live. Can't you understand an old man who is about to die wanting to be a little willful before the end?" Charles smiled. "Do you remember when I was shot at the casino? I must have made things very difficult for Miles then... I hope he has forgiven my selfishness."

"Shit, hearing an old bastard nearly a hundred years old say something like that makes me sick!" Logan cursed, though his footsteps became even lighter. "So what are you saying? That you're different now?"

"...Yes." Charles lowered his voice. "Logan, can you understand the feeling of... when the whole world has abandoned you and you are waiting to die in despair, then a child suddenly appears before you and gives you an entirely new world?"

"...Maybe." Logan glanced from the corner of his eye at Laura, who was following some distance behind.

The girl looked serious and fierce. She was clearly another younger version of himself.

"This is how I feel now," Charles continued. "I am still willing to believe in the goodness of human nature, and I will still uphold our dream of peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans... But that does not mean that when our family is harmed, we must simply endure it in silence."

"Erik and I represent two sides of mutant ideology. I used to condemn his beliefs as too extreme, but in truth... Wasn't my own way of thinking another kind of extremism?"

"It actually makes me happy to hear you say that, old man." Logan smiled. "One last question. Why did you decide to work with those government people before?"

"It is something I learned from those politicians." Charles explained. "For the same goal, we can temporarily cooperate with people we dislike. Likewise, if they have ulterior motives, we naturally have our own methods... Just like now."

"Haha..." Logan laughed. "I'm getting more and more impatient to see what Erik's face will look like when he sees you now!"

"So am I." Charles chuckled as well.

In the silent night, Logan led the others onward without a sound.

But as he drew closer and closer to their destination, something suddenly stirred in his heart!

Danger!

It was a beast-like instinct, warning him not to get any closer.

Logan abruptly stopped and threw out an arm, blocking the young people behind him.

"Wait. Something's wrong!"

Everyone stopped at once and turned to look at him.

Logan offered no explanation. He merely stared at his arm for a second, then with a swish, a steel claw sprang from the back of his hand. Expressionless, he lightly cut a bloody gash across his other forearm with the claw tip.

The others looked over, and their pupils instantly contracted.

The wound, which should have healed almost immediately, was now closing at an incredibly slow rate!

"Logan, has your ability failed? Wait..." Caliban had only just spoken when he frowned, realizing that something was wrong as well.

"No." Logan shook his head. He could still feel his vitality surging within him, but it seemed to be suppressed by some sort of special force field, making it difficult for it to function.

After thinking for a moment, Logan tried backing away a considerable distance.

One step, two steps, ten steps...

As the distance increased, the invisible sense of suppression noticeably weakened. The wound from earlier completely healed in less than a second.

"Fuck, Charles! There's something wrong with this base!" Logan said to Charles. "Something's suppressing our abilities!"

"Wait, let me investigate..." Charles said. His powerful psychic force seeped silently into the base like an invisible tide. He bypassed the Psychic Shielding Zone and instead probed the minds of ordinary guards and technicians, sensing their thoughts as he rapidly sifted through countless chaotic fragments of information and pieced together the truth.

Soon, Charles's voice came again, carrying an unprecedented gravity.

"Logan, we've got a problem."

"Go on. What new toy have those military lunatics prepared this time?" Logan asked.

Charles fell silent for a moment.

"The ATHENA Plan... and..."

"Super Leech!"