The thought of a murderous rampage lingered in the back of Alex's mind as he continued observing Susan dealing with the three experienced mutants. They were, by no means, the only heavy hitters that remained among the group, but all three of them were a force to reckon with in their own right. As for those that remained, they served as a backup plan.
At the moment, Susan seemed to have gained the upper hand despite the three-to-one scenario in front of her.
Be it Scott's light beams or Ororo's weather manipulation methods, both were tangible, straightforward means of attack. That allowed Susan to easily counter them with her force fields. As for the backlash that forced her body to endure the force that impacted her force fields, that was entirely negligible. Even without Alex's active enhancement, her Hyperspace Physique possessed physical characteristics equivalent to a Peak Superhuman physique as per Alex's measuring standard. With her physical advantage, a massive weakness that she possessed had been essentially eliminated.
The only troublesome factor was Jean. As opposed to Ororo and Scott, the powers she showed were entirely formless. Whether it be telepathy or telekinesis. While Alex had helped her set up a mental barrier through her powers that blocked any mental probes from affecting her, it wasn't perfect. Unlike the means that Alex employed by tapping into Kitty Pryde's phasing ability, which made it so that there was no target present in the material world, Susan's means involved a physical barrier that had to be actively maintained, occupying her attention.
Still, Alex showed no intent to help for the time being, letting Susan fight her battle.
Eventually, the lack of real combat experience started shining through her actions. Even though she possessed an overwhelming advantage with her force fields, her opponents consisted of three battle-hardened mutants. As they figured out her powers and inability to land a finishing blow, they started exploiting flaws in her abilities.
With a grunt, Scott's light beams suddenly spread around, covering a large area that forced Susan to enlarge her shield to block everything. Instead of compressing it to protect herself, her instinct was to block the entire thing. With that, Ororo took action.
The storm surrounding the mansion intensified even further, completely blotting out the sun as the black clouds above Susan morphed and twisted into a whirlpool in the air. Moments later, as Scott's wide beam of light kept Susan occupied, a concentrated bolt of red lightning struck down from the center of the whirlpool. The sheer intensity even made Alex raise a brow as he analyzed it and observed that it was comparable to the lightning that he usually summoned from the skies. For Ororo to match his output was a big deal, considering he had devoured three variants of Thor, pushing his capabilities with lightning to a divine level.
I might even be able to incorporate her technique to empower my lightning further… I'll try it out sometime.
Susan's response was also timely as she grunted, pushing herself to form massive layered force fields above her that completely absorbed the impact of the red lightning, letting it dissipate in the wind. With her stretched thin in two directions, the third strike came.
Jean, instead of trying to infiltrate her mind outright, used her telekinesis to form a two-pronged strike that targeted both major force fields that Susan had formed. Her targets were precise and compressed into a thin point, only attempting to pierce through the force fields.
Unable to see what Jean was doing, Susan only felt a pricking sensation spread all over her skin as both force fields were pierced through. The destabilization quickly collapsed both barriers as Susan grunted in pain, narrowing her eyes in annoyance.
With that, both the continued red lightning and Scott's light beams struck Susan's spot, releasing a massive shockwave that sent dust flying everywhere and forced some of the weaker X-Men to tumble backward.
Unfortunately, before any of them could cheer, the crater and dust all flew high up into the air, revealing an airborne blonde woman floating a few feet above the destroyed ground.
"You still aren't going to help me?" Susan asked coldly.
"Just create a force field inside one of their heads. Instant brain hemorrhage," Alex said from the back, also unaffected by the shockwave and attack.
"That's a terrible method to get people to follow you," she grunted, forming a force field in front of her that blocked Scott's incoming light beam. Crying out, she directly pushed her force field against the beam as the red light was completely suppressed. The force field struck Scott like a truck, ramming into his torso and throwing him back into the crowd. Before his stray light beams could hurt anyone, a bubble appeared over his head, blocking the beams.
She didn't have any plans to stop and switched targets to Ororo, another glass cannon. The only one who might be able to take her strike was Jean, with her immense mastery over telekinesis and psychic energy.
Unfortunately, despite being fast enough, Susan's strike had prepared her remaining opponents, and her force field was blocked right in front of Ororo as if encountering an invisible barrier. She turned and saw Jean with her arm raised, barely having blocked the attack.
Susan quickly formed a barrier over her head, blocking the incoming lightning, and targeted both her opponents with her force fields, wanting to take care of them in one fell swoop.
"I guess the same trick won't work again…" Susan mumbled, seeing Jean block both of her force fields without too much effort.
"Surprise attacks are, ultimately, only successful as a surprise," Alex spoke from the side. "What are you going to do now?"
"Only thing I can do…" Susan raised both her arms and shot two force fields at Jean and Ororo once again, only for them to be blocked. Instead of dissipating them, she kept pushing. Her goal was clear—to brute force Jean and break through her defense.
A loud cry left Susan's lips as she pushed forward, directly contesting against the psychic might of Jean Grey, the host of the Phoenix Force. As for Ororo, no matter how great a potential for widespread destruction she possessed, it ultimately fell short in front of Susan's individual might.
Ororo's following attempts of striking Susan with lightning fell short of her previous exhaustive efforts, casually blocked by her through the use of a single barrier.
Soon enough, Susan gained the upper hand and, with a scream that distorted the air itself with her powers, she broke through Jean's resistance and slammed her force fields into both Ororo and the redhead with enough force to break multiple bones.
"Phew…" Susan mumbled, wiping away some sweat that had gathered on her forehead. "What a workout…"
"It's not over yet," Alex said, looking at her display with amusement.
"I'm not fighting anymore. You do it," she said, shrugging and starting walking toward Alex. Her previous ability to float was barely achieved through a ton of concentration, which meant that it was far from sustainable. It definitely wasn't enough to help her casually float to other places.
"Jean isn't done yet," Alex said. "She isn't a new person, is she?"
"No way…" Susan looked surprised, fully aware of how much force she'd used on Jean. After Alex's initial introductions, she had possessed a preliminary idea of the woman's capabilities and hit her with the strongest force field among the three.
Turning around, she indeed saw Jean emerging from the ground, but her state was odd. Her pupils had turned white as a fiery red aura surrounded her, distinctly different from Alex's Chaos energy. Her body was limply hanging from the sides as the few bruises and scrapes on her exposed skin were directly set on fire, yet she didn't care in the slightest.
At her emergence, let alone Susan, even Alex frowned with a solemn expression.
This shouldn't be the case… All these dimensional entities are asleep; the Phoenix Force, by all logic, should also be asleep. Maybe like Wanda, its situation is also special, allowing the Jean Grays of the universe to still access its powers under duress or something…
Susan, still not realizing the sheer terror of someone enhanced by a cosmic entity, threw forward a casual force field to put Jean down for good, only for the woman's psychic energy to turn visible, possessing a fiery red hue as it slammed into Sue's barrier and broke through with seemingly no effort.
As the telekinetic hue continued forward unimpeded, Susan, still reeling from the backlash, was in no state to react or defend herself in time. Just before the wave of energy struck her, she felt a soft material envelop her.
A black blur was thrown back, slamming into one of the pillars that comprised the entry arch.
[Yeah, you can't take her.]
"I didn't want to take her on in the first place!" Susan exclaimed as Alex settled on her body, creating a special Apex suit for her.
***
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