Firebird hovered above the war room table and watched his city burn in miniature. He wanted a world where mutants and humans lived side by side, but the hologram showed the opposite. A crowd packed the downtown square. Red fire raged across burning cars. At the center stood a shirtless man with blue-streaked hair and red energy pouring from his hands. Raze. His enemy, and the reason fear was spreading through the city Firebird guarded. Shield stood across the table, arms folded. He was a tall blonde man in a blue suit with a red belt buckle marked by a black X, the same mark Firebird wore. Shield was his partner in the field and his lover out of it. He rarely wasted words, and he did not waste any now. "He's not just breaking things," Shield said. "Watch the crowd." Firebird looked closer. Raze flung fire, then pointed at a frightened woman cowering nearby. He wanted witnesses. Every phone in the square filmed a mutant setting fire to their homes. "He's building the story," Firebird said. "One more panic like this and the whole city demands we hunt every mutant down. Even the innocent ones." "Then we stop him tonight." Shield's jaw set. "Call the others." Firebird closed his eyes. He pressed two fingers to his forehead and reached out with his mind, searching for the other X-Agents scattered across the region. He felt each of them in turn. One was underwater. One was deep in a fight of his own. Every mind he touched was already strained and far away. He opened his eyes. "They're all busy. It's us." Shield didn't flinch. "Then it's us." They launched from the mansion together. Firebird flew ahead, reading the heat of his streets the way he had for years. He knew these rooftops. He knew these people. One of them could be the terrified woman below. They hit the square from above. Shield dropped between Raze and the crowd, taking the first blast on his chest so no one behind him would. Firebird swept low and lifted Raze off his feet before he could aim again. "They're filming," Firebird said into Raze's ear. "So am I." He flew Raze straight up, out of the crowd's sight, and dropped him hard onto a loading dock far from any camera. Shield was already there. Together they pinned him. But Firebird had misjudged the crowd. People had seen two more costumed figures tackle a man and fly him away. They did not see a rescue. They saw more mutants, more power, more things they could not control. By morning the city had a new demand. Raze sat in a cell, silent and smiling. The people wanted the mutants gone too. Every mutant. Including Firebird and Shield. The fear he fought his whole life now pointed straight at him.

The city still wanted the mutants gone. Firebird couldn't fight that until he knew what Raze planned next. So he left the suit at home. He pulled on a yellow shirt, blue jeans, and yellow sneakers, and walked into the prison like any other visitor. No jacket. No power on display. Just a man who needed answers. They put him in a bare room with Raze alone. Raze sat across the table, shirtless, his tribal tattoos dark against his skin. His blue-streaked hair hung over red eyes. Even cuffed, he lounged like the room belonged to him. He looked Firebird over and smiled. "Cute," Raze said. "You dressed up." "The Collective," Firebird said. "Your people on the outside. Tell me what they're doing." Raze laughed. It was low and easy, the laugh of a man who had already won something. "No." "Your attack scared the whole city. They want every mutant hunted now. That includes your own kind." "Good." Raze leaned back. "Fear's useful." "Tell me the plan." Raze said nothing. He studied his cuffed hands like they bored him. Firebird set two fingers against his own forehead. "Then I'll take it. I can read your mind. I'd rather you just talked." That made Raze grin wider. He tilted his head and spread his fingers on the table. "Go ahead. Dig around. See if you can handle what's in there." Firebird reached into him. It hit like heat off a fire. Red light. A circle of people kneeling in a dark room. Raze stood over them, his hands burning, and he wasn't using his power to destroy. He was using it to change. Firebird saw a human man scream as red energy poured into his skin. Saw the man's eyes turn. Saw him stand up different. Magic. Raze and his followers meant to turn ordinary humans into mutants. By force. The Collective was gathering what the ritual needed. They were nearly ready. Firebird pulled his hand back and gripped the table. His stomach turned. Raze watched his face and knew. The grin dropped into something colder. "You saw it," he said. "Now you understand. We don't need them to accept us." "You'll kill people. The ones who don't survive the change." Raze shrugged one shoulder. "Some. The rest become us. Then there's no them left to fear." Firebird stood. He had come for a thread and pulled out a noose. He wanted humans and mutants to live side by side. Raze wanted to erase the line by erasing one side. If the Collective finished, the city's fear would become war. "Where are they?" Firebird asked. Raze folded his hands. "Find them. You've got time." He paused. "Not much." Firebird walked out. In the hall he pressed two fingers to his forehead and reached for Shield. The plan was worse than panic. It was a countdown. And now only he knew it had started.

Firebird reached Shield by the time he got home. They agreed on one hard truth. Two of them could not break the Collective's ritual alone. The rest of the X-Agents were gone, scattered on missions no one would recall. The city still wanted them hunted. If Firebird and Shield walked into that dark room alone, they would die, and the ritual would finish anyway. So they needed someone new. Someone whose power could fight Raze's own. They made the call from the mansion. The red walls felt too quiet with the team away. Shield stood by the window, arms crossed. "If she comes, we have a chance," he said. "If she doesn't, we lose the city." She came. Lancer landed on the front steps and walked in without knocking. Firebird had worked beside her before, but never on anything like this. Blue markings cut across her face, markings she never chose. She looked at the empty hall, then at the two of them. "Where's everyone else?" "Gone," Firebird said. "It's us." Lancer didn't flinch. "Then tell me what we're fighting." They told her everything. Raze. The Collective. The ritual to force humans into mutants. The ones who would die in the change. Firebird watched her jaw tighten. A kid on her old block waved at her every day. She was still trying to earn the city's trust. Now the city might not survive to give it. "Raze bends energy," Firebird said. "You bend energy. That's why we called you. You might be the one who can tear his ritual apart." Lancer was quiet. Then she said it plainly. "I move energy. Heat. Force. I can throw it, shape it. Just like Raze can”. She held up one hand. A white glow bloomed over her palm, then died. "But Raze learned to control mystical energy too. Magic." She lowered her hand. "I've never touched magic. I don't know how." The room went cold. Firebird felt the plan crack under him. Her power looked like Raze's but wasn't. Raw energy against ancient magic. It was like bringing a fist to break a locked door made of light. Shield broke the silence. "Then she learns." They went down to the database. Firebird pulled up every file the team had on mystic energy. Lancer read over his shoulder, fast and silent. Shield searched a second screen. Hours passed. Most files were useless. Then Firebird stopped on one. The file named a male witch. Old records. Someone who had bound and shaped mystic energy for years, far from the city, in the forest. The notes said this witch could teach a person to hold magic without burning out. Lancer stared at the name. "You think one witch can teach me in time?" "I don't know," Firebird said. "But it's the only door left." Shield closed his screen. "Then we find the witch." Firebird copied the file. The plan to fight Raze head-on was dead. A new road opened, and it led out of the city, into the woods, toward a stranger who might not help them at all.

Firebird flew into the forest alone. A fiery glow wrapped his body as he wove between the trees. Lancer and Shield waited at the tree line. This part he had to do himself. The file named a witch out here, someone who might teach Lancer magic before Raze's ritual killed thousands. Firebird reached out with his mind. He felt for a mind that burned different than the rest, old and bright. He found it. He followed the pull. The pull led him to a small cottage. Violet flowers spilled from the window boxes. One back window was broken and patched. A man stood in the doorway, waiting, as if he had felt Firebird coming too. He wore an open robe over black leather pants. His chest was bare. Blue eyes tracked Firebird down to the grass. "You found me with your mind," the witch said. He did not sound surprised. "I'm Dorian. Say what you want and say it plain." Firebird landed. The glow faded from his suit. "I need you to teach someone magic. A woman named Lancer. She can move energy, but she can't shape the mystical kind. She has days, not years." Dorian's face closed. "No." He turned toward the door. "My magic protects the people I care for. I'm still learning to hold it myself. I don't train strangers for a war I don't know." "Then you'll let them die." Firebird stepped forward. "There's a man called Raze. His group plans a ritual. They'll force magic into ordinary people. Rip them open to make them something new. Most won't survive it. Hundreds. Maybe more." He kept his voice level. "I've seen inside Raze's head. It's real. If Lancer can't fight his magic, no one stops it." Dorian went still in the doorway. He looked back. The hard line in his face broke. He knew what it meant to carry power you never chose. He knew what people did to those who were different. "How many," Dorian said. Not a question. "Enough to empty a city block. Children too." Dorian stood quiet a long moment. Then he went inside and returned with a large book. Pink and yellow leather, marked with three crescent moons inside a circle. A faint glow rose off its cover. He held it against his chest. "I'll teach her," Dorian said. "And I won't stop there. If this ritual is as dark as you say, you'll need a spell to break it. I'll help you build one." Firebird let out a breath he'd held since the tree line. "Thank you." "Don't thank me yet." Dorian stepped past him onto the grass. "Magic fails when you least want it to. Mine has. Hers will too." He looked toward the forest edge where the others waited. "Bring me to her." They walked out of the trees together. Firebird had come for a teacher. He left with an ally, a book of spells, and a promise to end Raze's plan.