The morning's goodbyes felt familiar, as everyone had done this some times before.
Ethan made his way through the house. He kept his goodbyes brief, as he always did before a sun trip. He avoided making a big deal out of leaving, but he still showed warmth to the people who mattered. In the kitchen, Madelyne listened closely to his goodbye. Her expression showed a warmth that had been growing since the Monopoly game. Ilyana gave him the look she reserved for departures she was okay with.
Then Raven stopped him at the greenhouse doorway.
The T. rex was out on the grounds, exploring the morning with his usual careful attention. He moved along the eastern treeline, like a creature slowly getting to know its territory. Even as he did this, he kept one eye on the two people in the doorway. He showed he thought they were important, even while he was busy.
"I have a name for him," Raven said.
Ethan looked at her.
"Indominus,"
He thought about the name. It felt solid—not just for show, but something that had been earned. He looked at the animal outside: young, focused, and sure of its place, not likely to give it up.
"Indominus," he repeated.
The animal didn't react to the name. Its ears didn't move, and it didn't stop what it was doing. Raven didn't mind. She hadn't chosen the name so that he would recognize it right away.
"That's right," she said, with the finality of someone who had been thinking about this and was not going to reconsider.
Ethan agreed because it was right, and because arguing with Raven about something she had thought about was not a conversation that would go anywhere useful.
Then he left.
---
The sun received him as it had received him before.
Moving from being near the sun to being inside it always felt the same. The change wasn't sudden. But it was complete. Instead of feeling the sun from one direction, he was surrounded by it. His cells responded right away, as if they were finally touching their main source of power.
He settled.
The first hours of day one passed smoothly, as if the process had found its rhythm. By the end of the third hour, he was already way stronger than when he started, and he took note of this with his usual curiosity about the data.
A question came to him the way they often did during immersion: not something he chased, just something that appeared.
Did the Superman power set have a ceiling?
He considered it honestly. He didn't know the answer. His progress hadn't slowed. Every session gave him clear results. He didn't know if there was a built-in limit to the alien body he now had. He didn't know if solar energy could keep building up forever. He wasn't sure if his cells would eventually reach a point where they couldn't absorb any more. The process hadn't shown him the answer yet.
The comics didn't help. He knew the character's power varied widely depending on the writer and the era, so those stories couldn't guide him now. What he was experiencing wasn't a story—it was real, and so far, he hadn't found a limit.
The miniature sun had been a big step. The real sun was another. If there were more steps—other energy sources, bigger inputs, or something even larger—the question of where it all ended was still open.
He was not troubled by this.
He found it interesting, which seemed like the right way to approach a question that didn't yet have an answer.
Day one. Six to go.
He let the thought fade into the background and focused on his work for the rest of the day.
---
The house — the same morning:
The training session outside ran smoothly, with everyone working together as they'd been doing for weeks.
Raven led the combination drills, focusing on using several powers at once. She used telekinesis and ice formation together while also controlling the weather to keep things stable. The real challenge wasn't each power by itself, but managing all three at once, which required a different kind of focus.
Jean practiced precision at full range, using an exercise Ethan had suggested. She held something steady against resistance and tested her accuracy at the highest level. Since Ethan wasn't there to challenge her, she used the estate grounds as her testing ground. She moved large sections of earth near the eastern boundary while keeping the treeline untouched.
Rogue and Ilyana practiced approach sequences together, using Ilyana's stepping discs as new ways to move in. They had been working on this since Ilyana first suggested it. The discs let Rogue appear from unexpected angles. Combining their powers made them more effective than either could be alone.
Indominus watched all of this from the edge of the grounds.
He chose a spot at the treeline where he could watch the whole training area without joining in. He seemed to know the activity was important and that he wasn't part of it. So he kept his distance, but didn't look away. When Rogue suddenly appeared behind Jean using a stepping disc—just an exercise, not a real attack—Indominus made a sound that wasn't threatening. The sound also wasn't familiar, as if he was still figuring out what teleportation meant.
Madelyne watched from further back.
She had been watching training sessions since her second week at the house. She always watched from just outside the main action. She wasn't left out or unwilling, just unsure of her place. Today, as the session ended and the others went for water and post-training chats, she stopped Jean before she went inside.
Jean turned.
"How did you learn to use it?" Madelyne asked. "The telekinesis. Not the mechanics — what it actually felt like, before you could direct it."
Jean looked at her for a moment with the focused attention she brought to questions that were actually the right questions.
"Come sit down," she said.
They sat on a garden bench in the morning shade. Jean was quiet for a moment, searching for an honest answer instead of something from a lesson plan.
"Before the blocks came down," she said, "the power was always there, but I couldn't tell the difference between what I was doing and what was happening to me. Something would break unexpectedly, and I wouldn't know whether I had pushed it or whether the push and the decision were the same thing." She looked at the grounds. "After — it felt like the difference between being in a current and swimming. Same water. Very different relationship with where you're going."
Madelyne listened closely, not just taking in the words but comparing them to her own feelings.
"The discipline," Jean continued, "is not about strength. Some people eople think telekinesis is about being stronger than the object. It's not. It's about knowing exactly what you intend before you act — the clarity of the intention is what directs the force. Without that, you push, or you pull, but you don't choose."
Madelyne paused for a moment.
Then, carefully, as if she wasn't sure if what she was about to say was real or just her imagination, she said, "I think I have something."
Jean looked at her.
"Maybe not telekinesis—I'm not sure what it is. Something." Madelyne looked at her hands. "When I try to reach for it, it's there. I've been quietly trying since we first talked about powers weeks ago. I was afraid I was just imagining it. But after what you said, I don't think I am. I can't control it yet. I just know it's there."
Jean met her eyes, giving her full attention, as if she knew this moment mattered.
"That's where it starts," she said. "That exact feeling. Whatever it is, it's real."
Madelyne looked out at the grounds in front of them. Just an hour ago, four remarkable people had been training there, and now a young T. rex was exploring an interesting spot by the trees.
"I'm going to figure out what it is," she said.
This wasn't a question. It was a decision spoken aloud, and Jean understood it that way.
"Good,"
---
Ethan's phone produced a text at mid-afternoon.
Raven was in the kitchen with her books and Ethan's phone beside her. She had taken over handling messages during his trip, just as Ethan had planned. She managed it with her usual thoroughness.
Coulson's message was concise in the way Coulson's messages had always been concise, stripped to the relevant information without decoration:
Multiple incident sites — forested areas in the Eastern US. Entity, unidentified. Targeting armed groups. Not civilians — illegal militias, large-scale poachers, that category. Fast. Large. Has apparent discrimination between targets. SHIELD has footage from two sites. No ID. Not urgent, but flagging for when Cole is available.
Raven read it twice.
She texted back: "Ethan unavailable for approximately 6 days." Not urgent — will pass along on his return. Any civilian threat currently?
Coulson's reply arrived in under two minutes: No civilian threat observed. The entity appears to be carefully selecting targets. Will monitor.
Raven put the phone down. She stared at the table.
Jean came in from the greenhouse, where she'd been checking on Indominus. She saw Raven's expression and walked over to the table.
Raven told her what Coulson had sent.
Jean listened carefully, knowing this could be important. "It's only targeting bad people," she said.
"Luckily," Raven confirmed.
"Something smart enough to make that choice, working in forests, and fast enough that SHIELD can't identify it from footage—" Jean thought about it. "That's not mindless."
"No," Raven said. She glanced toward the greenhouse wing. "If it's intelligent, not just acting on instinct, and if we can communicate with it, it needs a place." She was thinking out loud. "Maybe our grounds. The eastern forest." She paused. "I'm not saying it's that. I'm just saying we shouldn't close the door."
Jean looked at her.
"We keep the door open," Jean said, agreeing and also noting that this was how Raven acted when she cared about something.
---
Elsewhere, Reed Richards' workspace was arranged in a way only someone deep in creative work would. It wasn't chaotic, but it was packed with signs of many ideas happening at once.
The numbers on the board were the same ones Reed had been working with for three days, and they kept giving him the same answer.
"It's ahead of schedule," he said, speaking to the room instead of anyone in particular.
Ben Grimm looked at the board from across the room with the squinting concentration of someone who could read the practical implications of theoretical mathematics without being fluent in the notation itself. "How far ahead?"
"Significantly." Reed turned from the board, ready to share his conclusion. "The event I've been tracking—the cosmic ray concentration—is getting close to the intercept window faster than I expected. The timeline has moved up by about eight months."
Sue looked at him carefully, as she always did when something affected her responsibilities. "That means the mission readiness window is—"
"Moving forward," Reed said. "We need to reassess whether the current development schedule supports the original launch date, and if not, what we accelerate."
Johnny, with the energy of someone who'd just sat through a technical briefing and wanted to get to the point, looked at them. "So we're going sooner."
"We might need to go sooner," Sue said, making it clear she knew the difference between 'might' and 'will' and that it mattered here.
"The technology is closer to ready than I thought," Reed said. "We can make the craft work on a faster schedule." He glanced at the board. "The real question is whether 'viable' is good enough for what we're facing."
Ben crossed his arms. "It's always about whether something is just viable or truly enough," he said. "That's the job."
Reed looked at him for a moment and then looked back at the board.
The cosmic event was on its way, and the window was getting smaller. The four of them had been preparing for this for so long that its arrival felt more clear than frightening. Everything had led to this point, and now it was coming sooner than they thought. The next few weeks would decide if they were ready.
---
The Sun day 1, late:
The question about his limits was still there, waiting patiently for an answer—or for him to admit that the answer might not come anytime soon.
He was truly interested in the open question—not anxious, just curious. Since October in Boston, when he had nothing, things had been moving forward. The destination was still ahead, and that made it all the more interesting.
Six days left. The sun kept shining, he was inside it, and the countdown continued.