At the Long Island Manor Villa, Ororo and Zhou Yi had begun to prepare for a scene that went beyond mere hand-holding, when a sudden, insistent phone call shattered the moment.
Zhou Yi, deeply annoyed, moved to ignore it, but Ororo instantly recoiled as if shocked, scrambling through the pile of discarded clothing on the floor for her cell phone.
She glanced at the screen and said urgently to Zhou Yi, "Something's wrong at the school. It's Jean calling—it's a secure line!"
Even consumed by the powerful surge of lust, Zhou Yi remained rational. He knew the emotional importance of the Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters to Ororo; it was her home, her deepest commitment. He wouldn't risk giving her a poor impression of him for a momentary indulgence.
Breathing heavily, Ororo answered the call.
"Jean, what is it? What happened?"
"Ororo, is that you? Your voice sounds... strange?" Jean noticed the strained tone and paused before replying.
"Cough, cough. It's nothing, just a little... tired. What exactly happened at the academy?" Ororo frantically covered up her panting and immediately switched the topic back to the emergency.
"Ororo, it's Charisse..."
Before Jean could finish, Zhou Yi immediately snatched the phone. "Tell me, Jean! What happened to Charisse?"
Silence stretched on the line until Zhou Yi demanded again, and then Jean Grey's voice finally returned.
"Yi, why are you there?"
"That is irrelevant! Tell me, Jean! What has happened to Charisse?"
Jean Grey paused once more before responding, her voice low.
"Charisse and two other students have disappeared from the academy. I've tried to scan for them, but I haven't gotten a fix on their location yet. Zhou Yi, you and Ororo must move immediately. If we wait, it will be too late!"
Zhou Yi did not comply with the immediate action request. Instead, he said into the phone, "Jean, stay on standby inside the academy. I will solve this matter. Believe me, I will bring them back unharmed."
He hung up, turned to Ororo, and said, "Darling, stay here, okay? Just like you promised me, let me handle this one."
Seeing Ororo nod, Zhou Yi quickly dressed, walked out of the bedroom to the balcony, crouched down, and leaped. He shot into the endless night with an ear-splitting roar, disappearing into the sky.
Back at Xavier's School, Jean Grey stared blankly at the phone. She had suspected who Ororo was with, but hearing Zhou Yi's voice followed by Ororo's heavy breathing still caused her mind to race wildly. For her, this night was destined to be sleepless.
Equally unable to rest was a team working the night shift at 30,000 feet.
A cold, beautiful woman in a tight uniform, escorted by armed soldiers, strode into a massive monitoring room. She loudly addressed the frantic staff: "Who can tell me the reason for the alarm?"
"Report, Officer! We detected an unidentified flying object. It is moving extremely fast, approximately Mach 20, and its speed is still accelerating."
"What is it?" The cold beauty pushed aside the person blocking her view and walked toward a huge 3D holographic image. All it showed was the blurry night sky, with layers of clouds being shredded by the high-speed passage of something unseen.
"I apologize, Officer! It's moving too fast; we lost the lock!" the monitoring staff reported.
"Continue searching! I want its detailed information. Also, inquire with all suspected targets—the Military, the Space Administration, those military industrial enterprises. Immediately! Now!" Reflecting her temperament, the cold officer's tone was equally rigid.
"Yes, Officer!" Her subordinates gave the standard response, followed by the efficient, rapid operation of countless pieces of equipment. The cold beauty stood quietly, certain that this sudden object would reappear.
Meanwhile, in a subterranean bar in Brooklyn, Charisse and her friends began their adventure.
This was a bizarre underground location. Charisse felt it was far too hidden; if she hadn't been following a pair of local punk patrons, she doubted she would have ever found it. Who would think to put a bar beneath an abandoned factory? And which bar needed a dozen security guards at the door?
"Fortunately, we're Mutants!" Charisse smiled triumphantly. At her signal, Kitty took her hand and the hand of their third friend, phasing through the security layers like smoke. When they materialized, they found themselves in the bar's bathroom.
The moment they landed, they heard loud female screams and deep male grunts coming from the single stall behind them. Charisse smiled awkwardly, saying to her two friends, "Wow, this is... really exciting!"
Her friends nodded blankly, then immediately blushed, supporting Charisse away from the bathroom while the intense sounds of conflict continued behind the stall door.
Arriving in the main area, the scene was exactly what they had imagined: deafening heavy metal music, chaotic strobe lights, and scores of head-banging, scantily clad, frantically dancing men and women.
This atmosphere of pure, chaotic energy thrilled the three underage girls. They felt fresh and overwhelmingly curious. For a rebellious girl like Charisse, it was everything she wanted.
"Cool!" she blurted out.
Compared to the boring, nine-to-five existence of a bookworm at the academy, the freedom and unrestrained self-expression in front of them were magnetic.
They began copying the surrounding dancers, twisting their bodies, trying to immerse themselves in the environment. The people around them, seeing three attractive, young girls, began to exchange strange smiles.
With conscious shoves and pushes from the crowd, the three girls were subtly guided toward the rear of the floor. Here, the crowd was sparser, but the occupants were noticeably more handsome or beautiful. They were coupling up—men with women, or women with women—embracing, intimately caressing, and exchanging fluids. The air in this area felt thick with the scent of hormones.
The three still-innocent girls exchanged wide-eyed looks. The scene was too explosive. Though they were nearly sixteen, American girls their age should be somewhat accustomed, if not totally desensitized, to this.
But they were Mutants from Professor Charles's school. The old man had protected them fiercely, shielding them from too much of this adult world. Now, they felt deeply awkward.
Just then, Kitty spotted the bar counter nearby. She tugged at Charisse's sleeve, pointing toward the bar.
Charisse understood immediately, adopting the swagger of a seasoned partygoer. "Let's go, sisters! My treat today! Let's have a good drink!"
This "rich girl" attitude was par for the course for Charisse, who, after all, had a rich, handsome, and tall older brother. Her friends, whose Mutant backgrounds were less fortunate, eagerly followed.
The three girls giggled their way to the bar. Charisse shouted to the bartender: "Hey, pal! Give us three of your strongest drinks!"
The bartender, a balding middle-aged man, looked at them with a strange, fixed expression, non-stop wiping an empty glass while giving them a nasty smile.
"Little girls, I don't have milk for children here!"
"Hey! We have money!" Charisse pulled out a thick wad of Franklin bills and waved it in his face, but the bartender remained unmoved. His strange smile only intensified.
"Alright, Joe! Give the Young Misses a cocktail, put it on my tab!" At that moment, a cold, alluring female voice cut through the noise from behind them.
The bartender immediately dropped his nasty smirk and adopted a look of deference. "Yes, Nysha Young Miss!"
Charisse turned to face the speaker. It was a strange woman.
First, her skin was extremely pale, almost devoid of blood. Second, she was strikingly beautiful. Her black hair was coiled behind her head, and her face was enchanting and sexy, particularly her bright red lips and slightly unfocused eyes.
The interplay of black hair, red lips, and stark white skin was bewilderingly beautiful. Her deepest impression was her unique aura—a mysterious, enchanting charm that Charisse had never encountered. (Had Zhou Yi or Tony been present, they would have recognized it as the trace of time, the captivating allure of vast age.)
Charisse, the proud young woman, was not entirely won over. She thought the woman's jewelry—a somewhat cumbersome golden choker and matching golden hair hoop—was old-fashioned.
The woman in the black leather jacket seemed unconcerned with the resentment her full, sexy body caused the young girls. She walked gracefully to a stool beside Charisse and sat down.
"Lovely girls, you don't seem to belong here," she said. The bartender had already served a bright red drink to the woman named Nysha, and placed cocktails in front of the three girls.
"We came with acquaintances. It's our first time!" Charisse quickly answered before her friends could speak, tugging secretly at their sleeves.
"That's right, that's right!" Kitty and the third girl echoed hurriedly. This display made the woman smile slightly.
She lifted her wine glass and addressed them. "People here won't care how you arrived, because here, no one will be leaving!"
"What does that mean?" Charisse pulled uneasily at her beret. Suddenly, she noticed something disturbing. The woman beside her wasn't breathing normally, and the eyes of the people around the bar felt strangely vacant and predatory.
"Stay here and don't move, girls! This is a feast, and I may not be able to restrain these crazy Beasts," the woman said in a low, chilling voice, her smile gone.
Her words, the conjunction of "feast" and "Beasts," sent a creeping shudder through Charisse. She looked at her friends, whose eyes mirrored her own dawning terror.
Charisse instinctively wanted to activate her crystal screen to escape, but she saw her friends beside her and hesitated. Her power control was imperfect; attempting to open a long-distance portal in her current mentally unstable state could lead to far more severe consequences.
In their fear, the three girls' hands involuntarily clasped together, cold sweat beginning to seep into each other's palms.