Chapter 118 – X-Men
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If you had to sum it up, it was basically the psychic equivalent of a DoS attack—overload the system with so much useless data that it crashes.
First, pi. Not just to a few decimals, but all the way out to googolplex territory. If that didn't fry him, time to unleash the Mandelbrot set in all its infinite, fractal glory. Two processes running at once. Three. Four. Throw in every unsolved math problem you could think of. Oh, and why not mentally flip through the complete archives of the Los Angeles Public Library while you're at it?
If Henry's mind was still functioning, that was already Professor X's fatal miscalculation.
Turns out, he didn't even need to get to round two—Charles Xavier's mental hard drive was already overheating just from the pi calculations.
Yeah, you've got the psychic muscle, pal. But hardware matters too.
Henry grinned like a cat that'd just caught the canary. Somewhere in that exchange, he'd figured out Xavier's telepathy was basically forced neural synchronization—hijacking brainwave patterns to seize control of motor functions. And sure, the guy could read the memories and thoughts embedded in those patterns… but that's a whole other ballgame.
Which made Magneto and Juggernaut's helmets suddenly look like low-tech Faraday cages. Clever. Maybe Henry needed to whip up his own "No Psychic Peeking" headgear. Wouldn't hurt—Marvel was crawling with telepaths, and the nice ones were the exception.
Of course, all this thinking happened in the blink of an eye—because while Professor X was busy bleeding from the nose, eyes, and ears, the rest of the X-Men were not going to stand there and let the guy collapse without a fight.
They didn't care who threw the first punch anymore. All they could see was that their leader was down.
Predictably, Cyclops was the first to snap. He tapped the switch on his visor and let loose a roaring, ruby-red optic blast.
Henry didn't even hesitate—heat vision, full power, right back at him. The beams slammed into each other midair, crackling with raw force.
Nobody had been expecting that.
Above them, Storm rose into the air, eyes going pure white as her hair floated like it was underwater. Sparks of electricity crawled across her skin—definitely charging up for something nasty.
Meanwhile, Quicksilver's plan was… let's say, less sophisticated. Raised by a single mom, given Xavier's watered-down "good guy" moral compass, his brilliant tactical move was: find a rope and tie the guy up.
And damn if he didn't try.
He was back in a flash—literally—with a thick coil of rope from somewhere in the mansion, circling Henry at super-speed. But as he closed in, Henry broke off his beam duel with Cyclops just long enough to look over and smirk.
Quicksilver never stood a chance. Henry just stuck out one foot—matching his speed perfectly—and tripped him like a playground prank. Pietro flailed, nearly eating asphalt, before Henry caught him by the rope, spun, and lobbed him like a human cannonball straight into Storm midair.
The two went tumbling out of sight, Storm's lightning fizzling uselessly into the air.
Henry turned back and re-engaged Cyclops without missing a beat.
And because his Kryptonian brain never stopped running in the background, he was already analyzing. Cyclops' beam looked like light, but if it was light-speed, Henry wouldn't have had the time to pull that little Quicksilver stunt. Which meant it was probably plasma—or some kind of high-energy particle stream—slow enough to see.
Physics lesson over, the next attacker came in hot. Beast—now in full blue-furred, musclebound form—leapt high, both fists raised for a double hammer blow.
Henry didn't even blink. At the last second, he zipped away and yanked Mystique right into the strike zone.
The split-second realization on both their faces was priceless.
WHAM! Beast's fists slammed into Mystique's forehead, snapping her head back and sending her sprawling to the ground. Hank landed exactly where Henry had been standing—looking extremely confused—just in time for Cyclops' uncontrolled beam to blast him across the courtyard.
Beast was tough enough to walk it off, but now he was bruised, scorched, and bewildered.
Henry decided Cyclops had wasted enough of his time. One blur of motion, and he was right next to him, yanking the visor clean off his face.
Scott's reaction was immediate: he slammed his eyes shut, dropped to a crouch, and clamped both hands over his face. Out of the fight.
That left just two combatants: Nightcrawler, twitchy and unsure, and Jean Grey—telepath, telekinetic, and not quite Phoenix-level yet.
Henry didn't consider either a serious threat. And he wasn't entirely sure the redhead was Jean. Nobody had done roll call, and unlike the blue-skinned, tail-wagging Nightcrawler, she didn't exactly have obvious tells.
But for now? He wasn't attacking. They'd all started it, after all. Well… except Mystique. She hadn't actually thrown a punch, but she had tried to rope him into mutant politics. Using her as a Beast-shaped shield felt fair enough.
Nightcrawler tensed like he was about to bamf into action. Henry raised one finger and wagged it slowly, almost lazily.
"Tut-tut-tut," he said. "You stay still, I stay nice."
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