Marvel: CYOA

[Max_Striker]

The chandeliers cast warm golden light across the marble floors of Le Bernardin's private dining room, where crystal glasses caught the flicker of candles on pristine white tablecloths. Jay adjusted his charcoal Tom Ford suit, the fabric flowing like liquid silk as he pulled out Domino's chair. She looked stunning in a midnight blue dress that hugged her curves perfectly, her alabaster skin seeming to glow against the dark fabric.

"What's with the sudden date?" Domino asked, settling into her seat with practiced grace. Her mismatched eyes studied him with curious intensity.

Jay loosened his tie slightly, offering a self-deprecating smile. "Recently had a breakdown, thought it'd be refreshing to enjoy life, especially with a beauty like you." He gestured to the opulent surroundings. "Life's too short to waste on brooding in dark corners."

A faint blush colored Domino's cheeks, though she tried to hide it behind her wine glass. "How recent?"

"About three hours ago."

Domino paused mid-sip, her eyes widening before she burst into laughter—a genuine, melodic sound that turned heads at nearby tables. "I thought only Wade could be so silly. Now here you are, taking emotional breakdowns and turning them into dinner reservations."

The mention of Wade sent Jay's mind racing. 'Wade... Deadpool.'

His expression grew serious for a moment as he considered the implications. A fourth-wall breaker in this world meant variables he couldn't account for, meta-knowledge that could unravel carefully laid plans. The thought was terrifying for a planner like Jay.

Domino noticed the shift immediately. "Hey, I'm sorry. That was stupid of me, bringing up another man during our date."

Jay's smile returned, warmer this time, his eyes trailing appreciatively over the way her dress highlighted her figure. "Actually, that reminds me. I have a proposition, a bet if you will."

He leaned forward conspiratorially, close enough that she could smell his cologne. "I think I can get you a treasure from any random alley nearby, something worthy of someone with your... unique gifts. I finally understand how your powers can help with more than just combat."

Curiosity sparked in Domino's mismatched eyes, and she leaned closer too, creating an intimate bubble between them. "What kind of treasure are we talking about?"

Jay extended his hand across the table, palm up. "Trust me?"

Domino sighed, though her lips curved into an amused smile. "Jealous men really are the dumbest creatures on earth." But she placed her hand in his anyway, their fingers intertwining for a moment longer than necessary.

The familiar sensation of power copy flowed through Jay's fingertips—Domino's probability manipulation settling into his consciousness like a warm, electric current. Domino visibly sagged, her energy temporarily depleted.

"Ice cream," Jay said, signaling the waiter while his thumb traced a gentle circle on her wrist. "The lady needs the best you have while I step out for a moment. I'll be right back."

The Manhattan alley behind the restaurant buzzed with pre-mission tension. Jay pulled the Power Broker mask over his features, the synthetic material conforming to his face like a second skin. His finger found the comm device.

"Go."

Chaos erupted three blocks away as Morlocks poured from the sewers like a tide of forgotten humanity.

Caliban led the charge, his pale, gaunt form directing traffic while Callisto's hair whipped behind her as she coordinated the assault teams. Dozens of mutants—some barely recognizable as human—swarmed the Hellfire Club's elegant brownstone.

Civilians screamed and scattered, their evening strolls forgotten in the face of what looked like a monster movie come to life. Car alarms wailed as panicked drivers abandoned their vehicles.

The Hellfire Club's security forces emerged in tactical formation, but they were prepared for human threats, not an army of desperate mutants.

Within minutes, the inner circle members themselves stepped onto the battlefield—Donald Pierce's cybernetic enhancements gleaming under the streetlights, Harold Leland's bulk making the sidewalk crack beneath his feet, Teresia's calculating eyes scanning for strategic advantages, and Shinobi Shaw materializing from the shadows with his father's arrogance but none of his experience.

Jay activated his suppression field, normally a thirty-foot sphere but compressed through Adaptive Power to a precise ten-foot radius. The translucent barrier moved with him as he waded into the fight, now with the benefit of selectively neutralizing Hellfire members' abilities while leaving the Morlocks' powers intact.

"Ten minutes maximum," Jay's distorted voice crackled through Caliban's earpiece. "Find Masque and retrieve him. No unnecessary casualties."

Shinobi lunged forward, his usual smirk faltering as his density powers failed him completely within Jay's suppression field. His phasing attempt turned into nothing more than an awkward stumble. Leland tried to increase his mass, his face contorting with concentration, only to topple forward as his power cut out completely. Teresia's enhanced mental faculties flickered and died, leaving her looking around in confusion as if she'd suddenly forgotten where she was. Only Pierce remained unaffected, his cybernetics still functioning.

The Hellfire members quickly adapted, drawing firearms. But Jay's borrowed luck had already begun to manifest, a translucent dice spinning lazily in his mental plane, each tumble shifting probability in his favor.

Pierce fired first. His cybernetics locked on with machine precision—right up until the bullet smacked a street sign, pinged off a hydrant, bounced across three car windows, and somehow split his hair perfectly down the middle before burying itself in a hot dog cart. The cart then went off like a condiment volcano, drenching him in mustard, sauerkraut, and relish.

"What in the Sam Hill—" Pierce sputtered, pawing mustard out of his cybernetic eye.

Leland, still blinking through pickle juice, decided to charge. Bad idea. His foot landed on a banana peel, probably launched from the cart's explosion, and he went airborne, crashing through the window of a lingerie boutique in a mess of shattered glass and collapsing mannequins.

Teresia tried to cover him, but got distracted by a street mime who picked that moment to start doing the world's slowest invisible box routine right in her line of sight. She still fired… and missed, thanks to a pigeon dive-bombing her face mid-shot. Screaming in Latin, she stumbled backward straight into an open manhole a city worker had uncovered minutes earlier.

Shinobi, watching all this, decided retreat was the smart play. He tried to phase into the ground, except Jay's suppression field turned him half-stuck in cement.

"This is impossible!" he yelled, panic cracking through his usual smug tone.

And then, because the universe wasn't done with him, a construction crane's hydraulics rattled loose from the earlier chaos swung around, and dumped an entire load of concrete right on his head. When the dust settled, only his perfectly styled hair stuck out, like a monument to awful timing.

"Jesus Christ," Callisto muttered into her comm, her enhanced hearing picking up every ridiculous sound effect. "Power Broker, are you seeing this? It's like the universe has a personal grudge against these people."

"Callisto," Jay's voice cut through the chaos as he stepped over Leland's moaning form, his boots somehow managing to avoid every piece of broken glass and condiment puddle despite the battlefield around him, "bandage the injured. We need them fresh for the sales pitch."

The Hellfire Club's elegant brownstone looked like a war zone painted by a madman's brush—yellow condiments splattered across marble steps, broken lingerie mannequins scattered like fallen soldiers, and a construction crane that had decided to redecorate the front lawn with modern concrete sculpture.

Jay found Tessa—code name Sage—slumped against the manhole cover, her normally sharp eyes unfocused and glazed. She looked up at him with the dazed expression of someone whose vast intellect had just been temporarily reduced to normal human levels—a sensation she hadn't experienced in decades.

"Tell Xavier," Jay said, his mask's voice modulator making the words seem to echo from everywhere at once, the electronic distortion adding an otherworldly quality that made him sound like judgment itself, "infiltration isn't his style. Leave that to Mystique."

Sage's eyes widened in recognition and fear, immediately identifying the threat level of the figure before her. Her enhanced cognitive and DNA-rooted abilities, except for her telepathy —capable of processing thousands of variables simultaneously and holding the memories of decades—flickered and dimmed under Jay's power drain.


Through his Comic Nerd perk, Jay instantly accessed everything he knew about Sage's complicated loyalties. Originally Charles Xavier's spy within the Hellfire Club, she'd been slowly corrupted by Selene's dark magic, psychic tendrils that had wormed their way into her telepathic channels during their first encounter. What Xavier didn't know was that his agent had become a double agent against her will, her enhanced mind making her the perfect conduit for Selene's influence.

'Odd Selene isn't here tonight,' Jay thought. The Black Queen's magic would have complicated the operation, sure, but not in the way someone would think.

The elevator chimed softly as Jay reached the penthouse office. Emma Frost stood silhouetted against the floor-to-ceiling windows, Manhattan's glittering skyline providing a dramatic backdrop. Her white business suit was impeccable, her platinum blonde hair perfectly styled despite the chaos below.

"Impressive work," she said without turning around, her Massachusetts accent crisp and controlled. "Though I have to ask—how did you know I'd be here instead of at the Hellfire Club meeting in London?"

"Luck, I guess," Jay replied simply. "But I'm more curious about something else. You were already an adult during the Cuban Missile Crisis. How are you still so young?"

Emma finally turned, her lips curving into a predatory smile. "Diamond is forever, darling."

Her transformation was instantaneous—skin shifting from porcelain to brilliant crystal, refracting the city lights into rainbow patterns across the walls. She launched herself forward with inhuman speed, her diamond fist aimed directly at Jay's masked face.

But Domino's luck was still flowing through Jay's system, and the translucent dice in his mind rolled sixes.

Emma's punch, meant to shatter bone and end the fight instantly, instead connected with the corner of her own antique desk at precisely the wrong angle. But this wasn't just any desk—somehow, impossibly, Emma's prized miniature Diamond letter opener had chosen that exact moment to fall from the desk's surface, displaced by the vibrations from the chaos below, and wedge itself perfectly between her knuckles and the hardwood. The collision created a chain reaction of improbable physics.

Her diamond fist struck the adamantium with tremendous force, but instead of crushing the metal, the impact created a harmonic resonance that traveled up her crystalline arm like a tuning fork.

The vibration caused her to stumble backward into her high-backed leather chair, which spun around with suspicious momentum and launched her headfirst toward the floor-to-ceiling windows behind her desk. Her perfectly manicured diamond nail—a uniquely shaped crystal formation that had cost more than most people's cars—cracked under the stress and broke off, spinning through the air like a deadly crystalline throwing star.

Just as she was about to crash into the reinforced glass, Jay deactivated her powers with surgical precision. Emma's diamond form flickered back to vulnerable flesh just as she impacted her own reflection in the mirrored surface of the window. The shock of suddenly being human again, combined with the disorientation of her failed attack, sent her stumbling into a collision course with the corner of her liquor cabinet.

The double impact—first the window, then the cabinet—created a perfect storm of confusion. Emma's eyes rolled back as the combination of physical shock and power suppression overwhelmed her nervous system, and she collapsed to the Persian rug, her white suit now wrinkled and her perfect hair disheveled.

Jay caught the diamond nail as it spun past his head, laughing despite himself. "Super luck," he mused, pocketing the gem. "Got to love it."

He tried to heft Emma's unconscious form over his shoulder, but due to his exhaustion, grunting with effort, he dragged her down to where Callisto was organizing the prisoners.

"Pack them all into the Morlock holding cells," Jay ordered. "And be careful with the blonde. She's heavier than she looks."

Callisto's scarred face showed a mixture of professional admiration and concerned curiosity. "Power Broker, the level of coincidence we just witnessed... that's not normal. What exactly are you not telling us?"

Jay's mask concealed his expression, but his voice carried a note of satisfaction. "Sometimes the universe decides to pick a side. Tonight, it chose ours."

In the sub-basement, Caliban's pale, gaunt form stood guard outside a reinforced cell, his tracking abilities having led them directly to their target. Masque huddled inside, his body bearing the evidence of extensive experimentation. His face—what was left of it—was a patchwork of surgical scars, far worse than the self-inflicted deformities he'd maintained among the Morlocks.

Jay's jaw clenched beneath his mask as he took in the sight. The Hellfire Club's twisted experiments had turned one of the most powerful flesh manipulators into a living laboratory specimen, his flesh bearing the marks of procedures that would have killed a normal human.

"Congratulations," Jay said grimly, his voice cutting through Masque's whimpering like a blade. "You got what you always claimed to want—beauty that matches the ugliness of your soul." He stepped closer to the cell, his suppression field encompassing the space. "But your punishment isn't over. It's changing. Get back to work—make everyone's appearance normal. Give our people the faces they deserve, and maybe you'll earn back a fraction of the trust you destroyed."

Masque's head snapped up, hope flickering in his reconstructed eyes. "You... you slaver, you want me to work in these conditions?"

"I'm giving you redemption. Don't waste it, Masque."

Ten minutes later, Jay slipped back into Le Bernardin through the kitchen entrance, having shed the Power Broker identity in a nearby alley for Bobby to take care of. He'd taken a moment to check his appearance in a darkened storefront window, ensuring no trace of his activities remained visible. His suit was immaculate, his hair perfectly styled—the only evidence of his activities being the slight sheen of excitement in his eyes and the diamond nail in his jacket pocket.

His temporary copied powers had already faded, leaving him feeling slightly hollow where Domino's probability manipulation had resided in his consciousness.

Domino looked up from her third helping of chocolate gelato, her energy mostly restored. Her eyes sparkled with mischief as she licked the spoon slowly, deliberately. "That was either the longest bathroom break in a date, or you actually managed to find something interesting in Manhattan's alleys."

Jay reached into his jacket pocket and produced the diamond nail, its faceted surface catching the candlelight like a captured star. "Got this off another girl's finger for you. Figured you might like something that matches your... explosive personality."

Domino's eyes went wide, then she burst into delighted laughter. "You're completely insane." She took the unique diamond, turning it over in her fingers, her touch lingering on his hand as she did. "I love it."

She leaned across the table and kissed him, her lips tasting of chocolate and mint and something indefinable that might have been adrenaline. The kiss was longer than he'd expected, more intense, her hand sliding up to cup his jaw. When they broke apart, she was grinning, but her eyes held a sharp intelligence that suggested she was putting pieces together.

"So," she said, settling back into her chair but not releasing his hand, her thumb tracing patterns on his palm, "ready to tell me what really happened out there? Because unless Manhattan's alleys have gotten significantly more glamorous since this morning, this little beauty came from somewhere much more interesting."

Jay smiled, refilling their wine glasses with his free hand while their fingers remained intertwined. "What makes you think anything happened? Maybe I'm just lucky."

"Honey," Domino said, holding up the diamond nail so it sparkled in the light while squeezing his hand suggestively, "I'm literally a living luck charm. I know the difference between coincidence and chaos."

She took a sip of wine, her eyes never leaving his. "But I also know when to appreciate a good mystery and thank you for making this the most interesting date I've had in years."

Outside, sirens wailed in the distance as emergency responders dealt with the aftermath at the Hellfire Club. But inside their private dining room, Jay and Domino simply enjoyed their wine, the tension of the evening giving way to something warmer, more intimate, more promising.

After all, diamonds make memories forever.

[A/N]: This is the first time I've tried weaving luck into a combat sequence, and I'm not sure if I pulled it off. What's your take

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[Max_Striker]

The last spoonful of tiramisu disappeared from Domino's plate as she leaned back in her chair, her fingers playing with Emma's diamond nail like a worry stone. The private dining room had grown quieter around them, other diners having filtered out into Manhattan's glittering night.

"So," she said, her voice dropping to a husky register that made Jay's pulse quicken, "my place or yours? I'm thinking we could continue this... treasure hunt you started."

Her foot found his ankle under the table, sliding up his calf with deliberate pressure. The gesture was subtle enough that the remaining waitstaff wouldn't notice, but unmistakable in its intent.

Jay felt his body respond immediately, heat pooling low in his stomach as her mismatched eyes held his with unmistakable invitation. The diamond nail caught the candlelight as she rolled it between her fingers, and for a moment, he could picture those same fingers trailing across his skin.

"Rain check." The words spilled out before he could stop them, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

Domino's foot stopped its exploration. "Rain check?" Her eyebrows shot up. "After that dessert? After you literally stole diamonds from another woman for me?" She gestured at the empty plates between them. "Honey, I was ready to drag you out of here twenty minutes ago."

Jay's smile was strained as he signaled for the check. "Trust me, you have no idea how much I want to." His hand found hers across the table, thumb tracing her knuckles. "But my last breakdown was hours ago, remember? This feels too good, too fast for a first date."

"Since when do you strike me as the type to take things slow?"

Jay's grip tightened fractionally. "You deserve better than a rebound from my personal crisis."

Domino studied his face for a long moment, her expression shifting from frustrated desire to something softer. "You know, most guys use that line to get out of commitment, not into it."

"I'm not most guys."

"No," she agreed, bringing his hand to her lips to press a soft kiss to his palm. "You're really not."

Twenty minutes later, Jay's Tom Ford suit hung in the back of his car, replaced by the Power Broker's gear. The transformation was more than cosmetic—the moment the mask settled over his features, his entire bearing shifted. The conflicted man from the restaurant disappeared, replaced by something harder, more focused.

Bobby waited in the alley behind the restaurant, his own transformation into Lasso complete.

"So, kiddo," Bobby said as they made their way toward the underground entrance, "didn't I tell you not to mix dates with work? And look what you did, calling me after striking out—"

"Too good, too fast," Jay cut him off, adjusting his mask. "But duty calls, old man."

"Classic." Bobby shook his head. "You sure you're good for this? What we're about to do down there..."

"The Morlocks need someone who'll actually fight for them."

"And when they show up?"

"Then they'll learn some lines can't be uncrossed." Jay pulled his mask down fully. "Time to work."

The main gathering chamber buzzed with energy Jay had never felt before in the tunnels. Nearly every Morlock in the community had assembled, filling the space from wall to wall—some still bearing their mutations, others restored to human appearance thanks to Masque's unwilling cooperation.

Callisto stood at the chamber's center, her scarred face showing a genuine smile for the first time Jay had ever seen. Beautiful Dreamer flanked her on one side, Sunder on the other, his massive frame casting shadows across the stone walls.

"Bring them out," Jay's distorted voice echoed through the chamber.

The crowd parted as Caliban led a procession into the space. First came Masque, his surgically scarred form moving with reluctant dignity. Behind him came the Hellfire prisoners: Emma Frost's white suit stained and wrinkled, Shinobi Shaw nursing a head wound, Harold Leland limping, Donald Pierce with circuitry sparking from recent damage, and Sage looking around with the dazed expression of someone suddenly incomplete.

"Three hours ago," Jay called out, his voice carrying to every corner of the chamber, "I made you a promise. I said I would give you hope, not pity. That you would stand together as a community, not hide as outcasts."

He gestured to Masque, who stood straighter despite his obvious discomfort. "This man betrayed you. Twisted your faces to match his own self-hatred. But even he can find redemption through service to others."

The crowd looked at their restored neighbors and cheered, raising their voices in the first unified expression of joy the tunnels had heard in decades.

"We are not monsters," Jay continued, his words resonating from the walls themselves. "We are not freaks. We are not forgotten. We are a community, and communities protect their own."

The cheering grew louder, voices echoing off stone until the chamber rang like a cathedral.

"Shut up, all of you!" Emma Frost's voice cut through the celebration like a blade. Despite her disheveled appearance, she radiated imperious authority. "Do you have any idea who you're dealing with? I am Emma Frost of the Hellfire Club. My resources could buy and sell every one of your pathetic lives a thousand times over."

Shinobi Shaw straightened beside her, wincing but matching her arrogant tone. "Father would have tear this city apart looking for me. The Shaw fortune, the connections we've built—you're all dead already, you just don't know it."

"The Hellfire Club has existed for decades," Pierce added, his cybernetic eye whirring as it focused on Jay. "We've survived wars, revolutions, and the rise and fall of governments. What makes you think a handful of sewer rats can threaten us?"

Harold Leland laughed, a sound like grinding stone. "I've crushed buildings with my bare hands. Once my powers return—"

The laughter died in his throat as Jay stepped closer, his suppression field expanding like an invisible wave of negation. Leland's expression shifted from confident threat to dawning horror as he felt his mass manipulation abilities simply... stop. Pierce's cybernetics remained functional, but Shinobi's phasing flickered and failed, Emma's diamond transformation refused to activate, and Sage was too dazed even to notice the change.

"Powers won't return," Jay said, his voice carrying electronic authority that made even the stones seem to listen. "Not while you're in my presence."

He tilted his head slightly, the gesture somehow managing to radiate casual dominance. "Did you really think you could threaten my people and walk away? How adorably naive."

Emma's composure cracked first. "You want money? I can transfer fifty million to any account you name. Untraceable, no questions asked."

"Power?" Shinobi tried next, desperation creeping into his voice. "Join us instead. The Hellfire Club could use someone with your... unique abilities. Full membership and a seat at the inner table."

When Jay didn't respond, Emma's facade crumbled entirely. "Sex, then. You want me?" She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a purr despite the dirt on her clothes and the fear in her eyes. "I can be whatever you need me to be. Whatever sick fantasies you have about the White Queen—"

"Look at yourself," Jay said, his tone devoid of any warmth. "A century of experience reduced to crawling through dirt, offering yourself like currency."

Emma's face went ashen.

The Morlocks' voices began to rise around them like a gathering storm. "Kill them!" someone shouted. "Make them pay!" called another. The bloodlust was building, feeding on decades of accumulated rage and fresh wounds.

Sunder's massive voice boomed over the crowd. "How many others are still missing? How many would have died in their laboratories?"

The calls for execution grew louder, more unified. Jay could feel the mob's energy building toward a tipping point that would end in blood and screaming.

"Not happening, bub."

Logan stepped into the torchlight, claws extended, adamantium gleaming like liquid death.

Behind him came the rest of the X-Men—Storm floating with her white hair flowing, Cyclops with his hand hovering near his visor, Jean Grey's eyes beginning to glow with psychic energy, Rogue standing behind the professor, Colossus in his metallic form reflecting the lights, Nightcrawler perched on a wall outcropping like a blue gargoyle, Beast hanging from a support beam with predatory grace, Kitty Pryde phasing through the stone floor, and Angel's wings spread wide enough to cast shadows across half the chamber.

Professor Xavier's hoverchair hummed quietly as he entered, his bald head gleaming, his presence commanding attention through sheer force of will and decades of earned respect.

"Enough!" Storm's voice cracked like thunder across the tunnels. "You will cease this madness at once!"

The Morlocks' reaction was immediate and fucking beautiful to watch.

About a tenth of them, mostly those who remembered Storm's leadership, dropped to one knee in instinctive deference. Old habits died hard, and Ororo had once been their goddess made flesh.

But the others, led by Beautiful Dreamer and Sunder, stepped forward with outright hostility radiating from every pore.

"You don't get to judge us now," Beautiful Dreamer called out, her voice carrying across the stone. "Where were you when they came for Masque? Where were you when we were rotting down here, forgotten and abandoned?"

Sunder's massive frame blocked the torchlight as he moved closer. "Storm, you left us. You chose them—" he gestured at the X-Men with barely contained fury, "—over us. You don't get to return now and dictate our justice."

Those who'd knelt began to rise uncertainly, caught between old loyalties and new realities, watching their former goddess face the consequences of years of benign neglect.

Logan's claws extended another inch, catching the firelight. "I don't care about your politics, bub. Nobody gets executed on my watch."

"Touching," Jay's electronic voice cut through the tension. "Tell me, Wolverine, how many people have you executed? How many throats have you opened? How many lives have you ended because someone told you they deserved to die?"

Logan's jaw worked silently, his feral instincts screaming at him that the masked figure represented a threat beyond his considerable experience.

Storm floated higher, her voice carrying the authority of thunder itself. "This isn't justice, Callisto. This is vengeance. And vengeance solves nothing."

Jay turned to face her directly, his mask reflecting the torchlight like polished death. "Storm, before coming here to lecture us about justice, did you ever ask yourself why it escalated to this?" He gestured to the restored Morlocks with theatrical precision. "How many years did you tell them to wait? To be patient? To trust that things would get better while they rotted in darkness?"

Storm's eyes began to glow with nascent lightning. "I gave them hope—"

"You gave them empty fucking promises." Jay's voice carried across the chamber with electronic authority that made everyone present feel the weight of judgment. "Hope without action is just another word for lies. How many more would have died while you negotiated with people who see mutants as experimental animals?"

Cyclops stepped forward, his hand moving to his visor with practiced precision. "Stand down. This ends now."

"Does it?" Jay's laugh echoed strangely through his voice modulator, sounding like broken glass and dark promises.

The X-Men powered up in perfect unison, a display of coordination that spoke to years of training together.

Jay's suppression field expanded outward like an invisible bubble, thirty feet in diameter, washing over the assembled X-Men like a cold wave of denial.

"You know what's funny about legends?" Jay said conversationally as logic rewrote itself around him. "They're only impressive until someone better shows up."

The effect was immediate and hilarious to watch.

Iceman's frost evaporated instantly, leaving Bobby Drake staring at his suddenly normal hands in disbelief. Jean's glow died like a snuffed candle, and she staggered as the vast psychic energies she'd been channeling simply ceased to exist. Cyclops's hand flew to his visor as his optic blasts cut out entirely, leaving him as powerless as any baseline human. Storm dropped from the air like a stone, landing hard on the chamber floor as her weather manipulation vanished without a trace.

Only Beast and Nightcrawler remained visibly unchanged—their physical mutations beyond the reach of Jay's power suppression, though Kurt's teleportation abilities were as dead as the rest.

"Mein Gott," Kurt breathed, his German accent thick with shock and something approaching religious terror. "What has happened to us?"

"What the hell—" Wolverine snarled, his claws retracting against his will, leaving him staring at his hands.

Jay walked through them like he owned it, completely unbothered by the fact that he'd just neutered the most famous superhero team on the planet. "Feels weird, doesn't it? Being normal. Being... limited." His electronic voice carried a hint of amusement. "Welcome to everyone else's Tuesday."

Beast's brilliant mind raced like an overclocked computer, his enhanced intellect working overtime despite the chaos erupting around him. Something nagged at him—a pattern he couldn't quite identify, an itch his scientific mind couldn't scratch. The suppression was too precise, too selective, too fucking convenient. And the way this "Power Broker" spoke, the tactical knowledge he displayed, the intimate familiarity with their codenames and abilities...

"Most fascinating," Beast muttered under his breath, his keen eyes studying Jay's masked form as a researcher examining a particularly intriguing specimen. "The specificity of this power negation suggests an intimate knowledge of our individual abilities. Almost as if..."

Jay's voice cut through the chamber with electronic authority that made everyone present straighten unconsciously. "My name is Power Broker." The words carried weight and presence itself. "And I protect those who cannot protect themselves."

He gestured to the restored Morlocks around him, his voice softening with genuine care. "These people—my people—have suffered enough. They've been hunted, experimented on, and treated like animals. That ends now."

"Masque has the ability to reshape flesh, he was a turning point for this community. The Hellfire Club kidnapped him specifically to study that power—to see if they could replicate it, weaponize it, turn it into another tool for their sick experiments."

Xavier's wheelchair hummed as he tried to move closer, but his telepathy remained completely suppressed, leaving him more isolated than he'd been since childhood. "We came for Sage," Professor Xavier said, his cultured voice carrying clearly through the chamber despite the growing tension. "Tessa, the woman you know as Sage, is our operative. She's been undercover in the Hellfire Club for years, gathering intelligence on their activities. But you can't simply execute them. There are legal channels, proper procedures—"

"Oh, Charles." Jay's electronic voice dripped with condescending amusement. "The great Professor X, reduced to begging for legal channels and proper procedures. Tell me, how does it feel to be just another man? No telepathy means no way to make people do what you want them to do."

The masked figure tilted his head, considering. "But let's talk about legality, shall we? What legal channels authorized you to recruit children into your little war? What proper procedures did you follow when you turned teenagers into soldiers? At least Hellfire Club members are honest about what he is. You? You wrap your child army in pretty words about 'education' and 'gifted youngsters.'"

Jay stepped closer, his presence looming over the wheelchair. "The only difference between us, Charles, is that I don't pretend my methods are noble."

The casual cruelty of the observation made several X-Men flinch.

"Legal channels that have ignored every complaint, every missing person report, every piece of evidence we've provided," Callisto interrupted, her scarred face set in hard lines that spoke to years of disappointment. "Professor, with all due respect, your legal channels failed us long before Power Broker arrived."

Logan lunged forward despite his powerless state, his instincts and training still making him dangerous even without his claws. Decades of combat experience didn't disappear with his mutation—he was still a predator in human skin.

But before he could reach Jay, a small figure stepped between them with courage that stopped hearts.

Jimmy, previously called Leech, his face now perfectly human thanks to Jay's intervention, placed himself directly in Wolverine's path. The twelve-year-old child, despite his years underground living in darkness and fear, looked up at the legendary X-Man without flinching.

"Please don't hurt him," Jimmy said quietly, his young voice carrying clearly through the chamber. "Power Broker gave me back my face. He gave me friends. He gave me hope."

The simple words hit Logan like a physical blow, stopping him mid-charge. Around them, the other X-Men shifted uncomfortably, realizing they'd been outmaneuvered by a twelve-year-old's courage and their enemy's tactical brilliance.

Jay's voice softened as he addressed the boy. "Jimmy, step back. Let the adults handle this." The electronic modulation couldn't hide the genuine affection in his tone. "You've already shown more bravery than most grown men ever will."

One by one, other restored Morlocks stepped forward, forming a human barrier between the X-Men and their chosen leader. Men and women who had hidden in shadows for years now stood tall, their normal faces reflecting the torchlight as they made their choice crystal fucking clear.

Jay's voice carried across the chamber, no longer electronic and cold, but warm with genuine pride. "Look at them. Look at these people who were told they were monsters, freaks, unwanted. They're standing together. They're standing strong. They're standing for each other."

Caliban's pale, gaunt voice carried with ethereal authority. "We lived in darkness because the world above told us we were monsters. Power Broker didn't just give us hope, but even when that hope was stolen, he gave us the courage to fight for it ourselves."

Sunder's massive frame cast shadows as he spoke. "You want to know why we follow him? Because he's the first person who ever asked what we wanted, instead of telling us what we should accept."

A young woman, her face now showing the beauty that had been hidden beneath mutation-induced growths for decades, stepped forward with tears streaming down restored cheeks. "Storm, I knelt to you because I remembered when you led us with wisdom and strength. But leadership means knowing when to step aside for someone who can do what you cannot."

The X-Men found themselves facing a wall of determined people, not the broken outcasts they'd expected to find, but a unified community ready to defend their chosen protector. Fighting would mean harming innocents, and every hero in the chamber knew it. They'd built their entire lives around protecting people exactly like these.

Storm rose from where she'd fallen, her powerless form somehow still radiating the authority that came from being worshipped as a goddess. "I order you to stand down. All of you."

"You order?" Beautiful Dreamer's laugh held no humor, just bitter disappointment. "Ororo, you haven't been our leader for years. You forfeited that right when you chose Xavier's dream over our reality. You don't get to issue orders now."

Even those Morlocks who had initially knelt remained standing. The community that had once looked to Storm for guidance had found new leadership, and old loyalties meant nothing in the face of fresh hope.

"We're taking Sage," Xavier said firmly, his chair humming as he tried to move closer to where the dazed telepath sat in confused silence. "She's our responsibility."

Jay's laugh echoed strangely through his mask's modulation, sounding like broken promises and shattered illusions. "Your responsibility? Charles, do you even know what Selene did to her?"

The chamber fell silent except for the crackle of torches and the sound of hearts beating too fast.

"Every time Sage used her telepathic abilities to report back to you, she opened her mind to psychic channels that Selene had already corrupted with centuries of dark magic. Your precious agent has been feeding the Black Queen information about X-Men activities for years without even knowing it. She's been an unwitting double agent since her first goddamn mission."

Xavier's face went pale as old parchment. "That's impossible. I would have detected—"

"Would you?" Jay's electronic voice dripped with contempt. "The great Professor X, who missed Sebastian Shaw's influence over Emma Frost? Or the once growing influence of the phoenix on Jean Grey?"

He gestured dismissively at the powerless telepath. "Charles, your track record for detecting psychic manipulation is fucking laughable. Maybe stick to running a school instead of pretending to be a spymaster."

The casual dismissal of Xavier—one of the most respected figures in the mutant community—sent shock waves through both teams. Storm's jaw clenched, Scott's fists tightened, but without their powers, they were just angry humans watching their mentor get verbally eviscerated.

Scott's hand fell away from his powerless visor as implications crashed through his tactical mind and Jean staggered as she tried to process years of potentially compromised missions.

"How long?" Beast asked quietly, his intellectual curiosity overriding his shock while his mind continued to work at the puzzle before him. Something about this entire situation felt orchestrated, too convenient, too perfectly designed to fracture their team. "How long has this been going on?"

"That's for you to figure out, Doctor," Jay replied, and Beast's enhanced hearing caught something in the electronic modulation that made his mind scream warnings.

Beast's eyes narrowed behind his glasses as his mind was screaming that something fundamental didn't add up. But what? What was he missing?

The chamber fell into heavy silence. X-Men faced Morlocks across an ideological divide that seemed impossible to bridge. Jay's suppression field maintained the balance—the only thing keeping this from becoming a massacre.

Then a new voice cut through the tension.

"I need all of you to stand down. Right now."

Nick Fury stepped into the torchlight, long coat sweeping behind him. A full SHIELD strike team followed, weapons ready but not aimed. A third player had entered the game.

"Well," Fury said, taking in the scene with his single eye, "this is exactly as fucked up as I expected."

He looked from the powerless X-Men to the unified Morlocks to the terrified Hellfire prisoners. "Power Broker, X-Men, prisoners—nobody moves until we sort this out."

The standoff was now three-way. In the flickering torchlight, silence held three factions in perfect, dangerous balance.

[A/N]: Well, this one's nearly twice as long as planned. Sometimes the characters just won't shut up. Hope you enjoyed it!

If you wanna hang out, join my Discord

Support my work and get early access up to Chapter 195, exclusive content, and bonus material at my P@treon - Max_Striker.

 

[Max_Striker]

The silence stretched until Fury's presence filled the chamber.

His single eye swept across the scene with the practiced assessment of a man who'd seen every kind of clusterfuck the world had to offer. Behind him, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents held tactical positions, their weapons ready but not yet aimed, professional restraint barely containing the tension.

"Well," Fury said, his voice cutting through the underground stillness, "this is about as fucked up as I expected it to be."

The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. stepped further into the torchlight, his long coat settling around him. "Power Broker, X-Men, prisoners, nobody moves until we sort this mess out. And trust me, we're going to sort it out."

Jay's mask reflected the flickering flames as he turned to face this new player. His suppression field hummed invisibly around him, keeping the X-Men powerless while the Morlocks stood ready behind.

"Director Fury," Professor Xavier said, relief evident in his cultured voice despite his powerless state. "We came here to retrieve our operative—"

"Shut it, Charles." Fury's tone brooked no argument. "You had one job! Keep the mutant community stable while we handle the political fallout. Instead, I've got Morlocks fighting in the streets, Hellfire Club facilities destroyed, and half of Manhattan's emergency services tied up dealing with what looked like a goddamn monster movie."

Storm, her powerless form still radiating authority. "Director, the situation is more complex than—"

"Complex?" Fury's laugh was bitter. "Lady, I've got my superiors breathing down my neck, asking why we can't contain a bunch of sewer rats. Your original deal with us was to prevent exactly this kind of public incidents."

Jay stepped forward, his electronic voice carrying across the chamber with calm menace. "Stay out of it, Fury. Let mutants solve mutant matters."

"That's not how this works." Fury's single eye fixed on Jay's masked form. "The moment you took your little underground rebellion public, it became my problem. And I solve my problems."

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents shifted slightly, weapons still held ready. The message was clear; they were prepared to escalate if necessary.

"X-Men," Fury continued, "you're going to pair with my agents for immediate containment. We shut this down before it spreads and gets out of hand."

Bobby Drake, still staring at his powerless hands in disbelief, looked up. "Uh, Director? We've got a slight problem with that plan."

"What now, Iceman?"

"Well, our powers don't work anymore." Bobby gestured helplessly at his normal skin. "Whatever this guy did, only Beast and Nightcrawler still look like mutants, and Nightcrawler can't even teleport."

Beast's brilliant mind continued working through the puzzle.

"Most curious," Beast muttered, adjusting his glasses as he studied Power-Broker.

Jay's laugh echoed strangely through his mask's modulation. "Tell me, Fury which UN Security Council member is a Hellfire lackey? I'd like to... have a conversation with them."

The temperature in the chamber seemed to drop several degrees. Even the torchlight flickered as if responding to the menace in Jay's distorted voice.

Fury's expression hardened. "How do you know about Security Council involvement?"

"Same way, I know you were too late to stop their influence from spreading through your organization." Jay stepped closer, his suppression field moving with him, an invisible sphere of negation. "You want to talk about problems, Director? Let's talk about how S.H.I.E.L.D. is no better than anyone here."

The Morlocks shifted behind their leaders, tension rippling through the crowd. They could sense their protector building toward something, and they were ready to follow wherever he led.

"Working with dictators when it suits you," Jay continued, his voice carrying to every corner of the chamber. "Making deals with terrorists when they have information you need. Partnering with the Hellfire Club when their resources prove useful. Using the X-Men as your pet peacekeepers while letting innocents suffer to maintain your precious status quo."

Fury's jaw clenched. "That's how the world works, son. You pick your battles and make hard choices. Someone has to keep the lights on while idealists like you play revolution in the sewers."

"Idealists?" The electronic modulation couldn't hide the edge of genuine amusement in Jay's voice. "Director, I think you've got me confused with someone who still believes in fairy tales."

The moment stretched taut as both men sized each other up, the seasoned spymaster who'd built an empire on necessary compromises, and the masked figure who'd emerged from nowhere to challenge everything Fury understood about mutant politics.

Then Fury fired back, his voice sharp with authority and frustrated anger. "You want to talk about fairy tales? Let's talk about you, Power Broker. Coming out of nowhere, manipulating an entire faction of mutants with parlor tricks and false promises. Handing out facelifts like some bargain-basement messiah, giving these people hope you can't possibly deliver on."

The effect on the Morlocks was immediate and volcanic. Voices rose in outrage throughout the chamber, men and women who'd found dignity through Jay's intervention now faced with casual dismissal of their transformation as worthless trinkets. The sound was like a hive of angry wasps, decades of suppressed fury finding voice in unified rage.

Caliban's pale form tensed with barely contained violence, his gaunt features twisting with something dangerous and primal. Beautiful Dreamer's ethereal features hardened into something that promised retribution. Even the restored children pressed forward, their newly human faces flushed with indignation that ran deeper than their years.

"Fake hope?" S'kk's reptilian voice carried clearly over the crowd's growing rage. "You think their restored faces are fake?"

"Our dignity is fake?" Callisto stepped forward, her scarred face set in hard lines. "Our unity is fake?"

The mood shifted from a tense standoff to the precipice of violence. The air itself seemed to vibrate with energy, like the moment before a dam bursts. The X-Men recognized the signs of a mob building toward savage retribution, decades of suppressed rage finding a target in the man who'd just dismissed their transformation as circus tricks.

Then Jay simply snapped his fingers.

The sound echoed through the chamber like a gunshot, sharp and commanding.

Suddenly, the Morlocks fell silent from choice. Choosing to listen to their leader rather than act on their justified fury. It was a display of absolute authority that needed no supernatural power to enforce, just the complete trust of people who'd found someone worth following into hell itself.

"Much better," Jay said calmly, as if the near-riot had been nothing more than a minor interruption. "Now, Director Fury, since we're discussing the credibility of hope..."

Jay walked toward Fury with measured steps, his boots echoing off stone as the suppression field moved with him, invisible to all. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents tensed, but Fury held up a hand to keep them from escalating.

"There's an old Indian proverb," Jay said, stopping just outside Fury's personal space. His mask caught the torchlight, making it impossible to read any expression beneath. "Those whose houses are made of glass shouldn't throw stones at others' houses."

"Speaking of glass houses," Jay continued conversationally but silently enough for only Fury to hear, his electronic voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more menace than any shout, "how's Natasha's family doing? You know, the ones you've been telling her are dead for years, while they either rot in Russian prisons or under the still operating Redroom's control?"

Fury's single eye widened fractionally only sign of shock on his carefully controlled features, but Jay caught it. The legendary spymaster's poker face had cracked, just for an instant.

"Or should we discuss Project T.A.H.I.T.I.?" Jay's electronic voice carried a note of dark amusement that made Fury's blood chill. "Fascinating work, using Kree genetic material to create resurrection serums. Tell me, how many test subjects died screaming before you got the formula right?"

"How the hell do you know that?" Fury's voice was deadly quiet, his hand moving unconsciously toward his sidearm.

"The same way I know you've been running illegal human experimentation programs under the guise of 'enhanced individual research.'" Jay tilted his head, the gesture somehow managing to convey casual interest despite the mask. "The same way I know about the Fridge facilities, the Index, and your delightful habit of recruiting criminals and terrorists when their skills prove useful to your little shadow empire."

Fury's mind raced as he felt a strange déjà vu wash over him. This conversation, this casual revelation of state secrets, felt familiar.

"You're connecting me to someone," Jay observed, watching Fury's face carefully through his mask's eyeholes. "The doctor, perhaps? Chill guy from what I've seen."

His head turned slightly toward the X-Men, the gesture somehow managing to appear amused despite the electronic distortion.

"Who are you?" Fury demanded not falling for his psychological tricks.

Jay's laugh echoed through the chamber. "I'm exactly who I said I am, Director. I'm the Power Broker. And if you want to keep being Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. instead of just another corpse in a shallow grave, I suggest you back the hell off."

The threat hung in the air, but Fury wasn't a man who'd survived this long by backing down from dangerous situations. His jaw set with stubborn determination.

"I can't leave empty-handed. The Council expects results, and if I don't deliver, they'll find someone who will. Someone who might not be as... diplomatic as I've been tonight."

"Then take your results," Jay said simply. "Take the Hellfire prisoners. But understand you're not taking what makes them oh so superior."

Fury's eye narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Instead of answering directly, Jay turned toward where Masque waited among the other Morlocks. The surgically scarred mutant straightened when his Captor's attention focused on him.

"Masque," Jay's electronic voice carried clearly, each word dropping into the silence, "these prisoners have hidden their true nature behind pretty faces for far too long. Why don't you... bring their real beauty to the surface? To your heart's content."

The grin on Masque's face widened into something genuinely unhinged, suppressed rage and creative sadism finally finding an outlet. His hatred of Hellfire Club experimentation would finally get its revenge through him as an instrument of poetic justice.

"Finally," Masque whispered, his voice carrying a sick joy that made several people step back. "Finally, I get to show them what it feels like."

"No," Storm said immediately, her powerless form still radiating moral authority. "This is too much. You cannot—"

"Can't what?" Caliban interrupted, his pale, gaunt face turning toward the former goddess of the Morlocks with bitter accusation in every line. "Make them look like us? Make them experience what we've lived with every day of our miserable fucking lives?"

The brutal words hit the X-Men where it hurt most, draining the fight from their faces. Beast's enhanced intellect processed the moral trap immediately. How could they argue that permanent disfigurement was too cruel a fate without implying that the Morlocks' original appearances were somehow worse than death itself?

"That's not—we didn't mean—" Jean Grey stammered, her powerless state making her feel more vulnerable than she had in years.

"Oh, so looking like us is worse than death?" Callisto's voice carried a bitter edge that decades of underground existence had honed to razor sharpness. "So our faces are so horrific that inflicting them on others constitutes cruel and unusual punishment? How very fucking enlightening to learn what our supposed allies really think of us."

Silence consumed the X-Men as their ugly prejudices surfaced like poison. Beautiful victims earned their tears and intervention - but the already damned? The Morlocks could rot in their tunnels. The pretty deserved rescue; the grotesque deserved nothing.

Masque didn't wait for further debate. His power flowed outward with creativity, targeting the Hellfire prisoners who weren't protected by X-Men intervention. Shinobi Shaw's perfect features twisted into a grotesque parody of his father's arrogance. Harold Leland's face became a reflection of the cruelty he'd shown others. Donald Pierce's remaining human features warped to match the mechanical coldness of his cybernetics.

Their screams echoed through the chamber as flesh reshaped itself according to Masque's twisted artistry, their bodies reflecting the ugliness of their souls for the first time in their pampered lives.

Only Emma Frost and Sage were spared as the X-Men had moved to intervene just in time, though their powerless state meant they could offer only physical protection rather than any real defense.

"Enough," Xavier said firmly, his wheelchair humming as he positioned himself between Masque and the two women. "We understand your point. The disfigurement ends here."

Jay hesitated, his jaw working silently as he weighed something internal. Finally, he gave a grudging nod. "Fine. Acceptable, I suppose. Emma can leave..." He paused again, almost reconsidering, then pushed forward with visible effort. "But all assets under her and Hellfire Club's name—legal and illegal—go to the Morlocks. Consider it community improvement funding."

"You can't just steal—" Emma started, her diamond transformation trying and failing to activate under Jay's suppression field.

"Can't I?" Jay's electronic voice carried seriousness that made Emma's blood turn to ice water. "Director Fury, Professor Xavier, do you guarantee this deal will be honored? Because I'd hate for Emma to discover what happens when people break their word to me."

Fury and Xavier exchanged glances, both men recognizing the political trap they'd walked into like lambs to slaughter. Emma Frost's fortune was built on decades of exploitation and illegal activities. Legally, she had few protections. Morally, they had even fewer grounds to defend her blood-soaked wealth.

"The deal will be honored," Xavier said reluctantly.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. will ensure compliance," Fury added through gritted teeth.

Jay stepped toward Emma, who instinctively backed away until she hit the stone wall behind her. Her diamond form tried desperately to activate, but the suppression field held her powers in complete check.

"What do you want?" Emma asked, her voice steadier than her expression suggested. "My body? Is that the price of keeping what's left of my face?"

"Your body?" Jay's modulated laugh turned vicious. "You're a goddamn fossil, Emma. I've got standards, and they don't include screwing mummified whores who peaked before I was born. Try a nursing home, the old men there are less picky."

Instead of the sexual assault she'd expected, Jay deployed Sage's stolen X-gene abilities, refined through his understanding of mutant genetics. His touch bypassed flesh entirely, targeting the genetic foundation of her powers

Emma's eyes widened in shock and growing horror as she felt something fundamental shift in her. Her diamond transformation activated suddenly, her skin shifting to brilliant crystal, but instead of the controlled shift she'd mastered over decades, the change felt different. Permanent. Locked.

"What did you do to me?" Emma's crystalline features couldn't express emotion properly, but her voice carried pure panic.

"Insurance," Jay's electronic voice was ice-cold. "You stay like this until every asset transfers to the Morlocks. Break the deal, hide money, try anything clever... and you'll be permanently severed from your psychic abilities. You can walk, talk, even scream—but you'll never touch another mind again. Just Emma Frost, stripped of everything that made her dangerous, in a world full of enemies."

Emma tried to shift back to flesh, her panic rising as the transformation refused to respond. The power that had been her greatest strength had become a beautiful prison.

"You bastard!" She lunged forward, her diamond fists aimed at Jay's mask, but stopped short when she met his gaze through the mask's eye slits. Something in his eyes made her survival instincts scream warnings.

"Emma," Jay's voice sounded like a parent explaining consequences to a particularly slow child, "I suggest you consider your next move very carefully. I've been patient with you because you're useful alive. That patience has limits that you really don't want to test. But that calculation can change very quickly, and there are so many people who'd pay handsomely for an Emma Frost statue. Completely authentic, they'd never know you could still think, still feel every chip and crack as they... redecorate you."

Emma stepped back, her diamond form reflecting the torchlight. The threat was implicit but unmistakable.

"The deal stands," she said finally, her voice containing decades of bitter pride swallowing itself.

Jay turned back to address the chamber as a whole, his presence dominating the underground space with casual authority.

"Director Fury, Professor Xavier, I suggest you leave. Now. Before this becomes a battlefield none of us can control."

"This isn't over," Fury said, but his agents were already beginning to withdraw. The political ramifications alone would take months to sort through, and they had what they'd come for—prisoners to satisfy the Council, even if those prisoners were no longer the powerful assets they'd once been.

"It never is." Jay agreed.

The X-Men began their own tactical withdrawal, supporting Storm and helping the powerless team members navigate the tunnels.

As the three factions withdrew from the underground chamber, the Morlocks remained united, empowered, and now wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Their cheers echoed off stone walls as Jay stood among them, his suppression field finally dissipating as the immediate threat passed.

If you wanna hang out, join my Discord

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[Max_Striker]

[A/N]: So this chapter's just a little filler I put together for fun after watching Comic Drake's video "How Much is Emma Frost's Diamond Form Worth?"

You can take it as canon if you want, or just a side detour. Either way, I had a blast writing it. If it made you smile, definitely go check out the original video.

The Blackbird lifted off from the Morlock tunnels with Emma Frost locked in her diamond form—a crystalline prisoner who made their aircraft look like it was smuggling a disco ball. The weight distribution was shot; Emma's transformed state had added nearly three hundred pounds to their passenger limit, and Storm was compensating by manipulating the weather.

Scott sat rigid in the co-pilot's seat, his jaw working overtime. Housing a terrorist at the school went against every tactical bone in his body, but arguing with the Professor about "moral obligations" was pointless.

The cabin hummed with post-mission tension. Emma sat in crystalline silence, probably plotting ways to murder Power Broker and the whole of Morlocks once she figured out how to turn back.

Then Kurt Wagner teleported into the seat across from her with his trademark BAMF, sulfur still curling around his blue form.

"So, Emma..." Kurt's yellow eyes studied her diamond body. "I haff been thinkink about vhat Power Broker said back there."

Emma's diamond features couldn't convey the "oh God, what now?" expression she was feeling, but her voice carried that weary resignation reserved for dealing with idiots. "By all means, Wagner. Dazzle me."

"Vell, you are made of solid diamond now, ja? Ze vhole body?"

"Obviously. What's your point?"

Kurt grinned. "Do you haff any idea vhat you are actually vorth right now?"

The cabin went dead silent except for the Blackbird's engines and Logan choking on his beer.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Ze four C's! Color, clarity, cut, and carat! Emma, you are ze biggest diamond in ze vorld!"

From his corner, Beast looked up from his tablet. "Kurt, you magnificent fool, you've stumbled onto something here."

"Don't." Emma's voice cut like a laser. "Don't you dare, McCoy."

But Beast was already in full mad-scientist mode, fingers dancing across his tablet. "From a gemological standpoint, this is unprecedented! According to our medical records, Emma's mass increases from 144 pounds to 436 pounds in diamond form..."

Bobby looked up from his magazine. "Okay, she's chunky. So what?"

"Diamonds aren't measured in pounds, Bobby. They're measured in carats. One carat equals 0.2 grams, which means 436 pounds converts to roughly 198 kilograms, multiplied by 5,000..."

His tablet beeped.

"988,831 carats!"

Kitty's head snapped up. "Did you just say almost a million carats?"

Kurt's jaw hit the floor. "Mein Gott! Zat is ze size of a small building!"

"A small building made of what appears to be vivid blue diamond," Beast added. "Natural blue diamonds are among the rarest gems on Earth—"

Emma's laugh was bitter. "Oh, this just gets better."

Kitty had that look—the same expression she got before pranking someone. "Beast, how much is a blue diamond worth per carat?"

"KITTY." Emma's voice was full of warning.

Beast adjusted his glasses, missing the homicidal aura radiating from their passenger. "The 'Blue Moon of Josephine, a 12.03-carat fancy vivid blue, sold for $48.4 million in 2015. That's roughly $4 million per carat."

Silence.

Kurt's tail went rigid. "Vier... vier million? Per carat?"

"For larger stones, the 'Oppenheimer Blue' was 23.24 carats and sold for $35 to $50 million. More reasonable at $1.5 to $2.2 million per carat." Beast dove back into his calculations. "Using the conservative estimate of $1.5 million per carat, multiplied by Emma's 988,831 carats..."

His tablet dinged.

"That would be approximately 1.48 trillion dollars."

Bobby's soda went everywhere, Rogue dropped her cards, and Warren fell out of his seat.

"TRILLION?" Kitty shrieked. "With a T?"

Logan spoke up from his corner, cigar dangling. "Darlin', you're worth more than Canada's entire GDP."

Kurt was hyperventilating. "Zat is more money than most countries!"

Scott's voice came out strangled. "Emma's walking around worth more than..."

"Stark," Rogue finished. "More than Apple, Amazon, and Google combined."

But Bobby had that look he got before doing something stupid. "Wait, Beast, she's technically artificial, right? Not naturally formed?"

Emma's death glare could have cut through Logan's skeleton. "Drake, I swear to God—"

Beast's curiosity reignited. "Absolutely! Emma's diamond transformation is artificially induced. In gemological terms, that classifies her as laboratory-grown rather than natural!"

"Vhat difference does zat make?" Kurt leaned forward.

"Lab-grown diamonds are typically 80-90% cheaper than natural stones!"

The cabin held its breath.

"So instead of $1.35 trillion..." Beast paused. "We're looking at $112 to $319 billion!"

Warren blinked. "That's still enough to buy half of a state."

"But WAIT!" Kitty was vibrating with glee. "What about regular prices instead of fancy auctions? Like, if you walked into a jewelry store?"

Beast was in his element now, while Emma radiated enough fury to power a nuclear reactor. "For commercial-grade blue diamonds, market prices average around $711.73 per carat."

Beep.

"$703.78 million and 47 cents!"

Logan's laugh was pure evil. "From over a trillion to seven hundred mil. Sweetheart, you just depreciated faster than a Maserati off the lot."

Rogue grinned. "Sugar, you went from national debt to baseball team money in five minutes."

Emma's voice could have flash-frozen the Pacific. "Are you finished converting my molecular structure into your shopping catalog?"

But Beast, oblivious to how close he was to becoming a corpse, held up one finger. "There's one final consideration! Cut quality dramatically affects diamond pricing. Emma's current form isn't precision-cut like a traditional gemstone. It's more... organic and rough especially after what Power Broker put her through."

Emma whispered two words that carried more menace than any villain's monologue: "Oh no."

"Rough diamonds—even blue ones—trade at significant discounts. We're probably looking at $150-300 per carat for uncut specimens of this size!"

More tapping. Another beep.

"So, our final estimate is approximately $148 to $297 million!"

The laughter that erupted was loud enough to be heard outside the jet. Logan was wiping tears. Bobby had fallen out of his seat.

"Emma!" Bobby wheezed. "You went from buying Amazon to maybe purchasing CNN!"

Kurt was practically convulsing. "From White Queen vith corporate empire to... still ze White Queen, just vith a smaller empire!"

Logan lit a fresh cigar, grinning through smoke. "Darlin', I've seen stocks with better price stability."

Emma's crystalline form radiated fury. "When I get out of this form, I'm going to demonstrate exactly what 'rough cut' means to each of your faces."

But Beast, possessing a death wish, made one final observation. "Though I should mention, your theoretical value could appreciate if we could get you certified by the Gemological Institute of America—"

"HANK!" Every voice roared in unison, including Storm from the cockpit.

As the mansion's lights appeared below, Bobby couldn't resist one final shot. "Hey Emma, want me to check the diamond futures market tomorrow?"

Kurt nodded. "Ja! Or perhaps ve should get you professionally appraised!"

Kitty giggled. "We could take her to one of those 'We Buy Gold' places!"

Logan's chuckle was weaponized evil. "Two hundred and fifty million ain't bad for a terrorist's bounty ."

Warren, who'd been quietly processing, suddenly spoke up. "Wait, what if Emma gets stuck like this? Permanently? Then we're housing a $250 million liability. The insurance paperwork alone—"

"WARREN!" The collective roar nearly rattled the windows.

As they filed off the aircraft, Kurt made one last attempt: "Vell, at least now ve know Emma is worth her weight in diamonds literally!"

The sound Emma made wasn't quite a growl, nor a scream, but it was funny for the X-Men after everything they'd endured in the Morlock tunnels; hearing it lifted their spirits more than any of them had expected.

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Support my work and get early access up to Chapter 195, exclusive content, and bonus material at my P@treon - Max_Striker.

 

[Lillie Jones]

Thanks for the quadruple chapters
Emma Frost diamond problems are a hooray for the Diamond psychic princess. Hahaha!
Continue on
Cheers