The Perfect Cycle

The sky was turning pale with dawn. A faint ray of morning light pierced the horizon, yet it had not dispelled the heavy night shrouding the academy.

Chu Hang stood on the lawn in the backyard, where cold dew clung to the tips of the grass. He looked up at the second floor of the main building. The window to Jean Grey's room glowed with dim, yellow light like a weary eye.

She had not slept all night.

His psychic power seeped in silently like an invisible mist. Jean was sitting on the edge of her bed, clutching her knees tightly. Her slender body trembled slightly, as though she were trapped in an invisible cold wind. The Phoenix Force within her was even more violent than it had been last night. That golden-red energy was like a star-devouring beast imprisoned in chains, madly battering against the psychic shackles Professor Charles had placed on it. With every impact, the cracks in that barrier became clearer.

Rather than protection, those shackles were more like a balloon on the verge of bursting.

He had to find an outlet—one that would allow that world-destroying power to be released without destroying everything. Countless plans flashed through Chu Hang's mind like meteors, only to be rejected one by one.

Forcibly suppressing it would only trigger a fiercer backlash. As for guiding it... how could such enormous energy be guided?

Unless... it became part of Jean's own power, a constant source of energy.

A bold idea gradually took shape in his mind: use his ability to amplify Jean's X-Gene, using the Phoenix Force as the "fuel" for that amplified state. Instead of a flood trying to burst through a dam, it would become a steady river driving a waterwheel.

That way, the Phoenix Force would have a