Days two and three differed from the first. The body settled in; absorption now ran at the steady depth that comes after adjustment, not during it.
Between moments of the trance-like state that immersion brought, a practical question took shape and lingered.
Why a continuous week rather than commuting?
He considered it. Travel time was minutes; going back and forth cost little. He could go home each night and return each morning, creating seven sessions instead of a single continuous week.
He had never really pondered whether this was actually the right approach.
The answer came: gains weren't just additive.
Immersion compounded results in a way that separate sessions couldn't. Leaving reset his body to some baseline absorption rate, losing momentum, and that difference mattered. Continuous absorption compounded day after day.
Spending a full week inside was worth far more than taking seven separate day trips.
He realized he had been doing it right from the start, which reassured him. He relaxed back into the trance and let days three through six unfold as they were meant to.
---
At the house, day two:
Raven was at the kitchen table with her books when the text from Coulson arrived.
Additional sightings — three more forested sites in the eastern US. Pattern consistent. Every targeted group confirmed to have engaged in illegal activity at the time of encounter. No civilians affected. The entity has not deviated from the behavioral pattern.
She brought it to Jean and Rogue, who were in the main room after the morning training session.
Jean read it and thought about it in the particular, focused way she used when building a picture from things she was working on. "Whatever it is, it is not acting on pure animal instinct," she said. "Pure instinct does not produce consistent target discrimination across multiple encounters in multiple locations."
'Something with intelligence,' Rogue concluded, her voice direct. 'Whether that intelligence is human-level or different is a separate question, but it is intelligence.'
"I'll tell Coulson we're receiving and monitoring," Raven said and went back to the kitchen.
On day three, a new update from Coulson came through mid-afternoon:
First useful visual data. Satellite pass and a trail camera from one site. Footage partial, resolution imperfect. Shape established — four-legged, large, moving with directional intent. Significantly larger than domestic dogs. Proportions do not match any breed or documented species in our database.
Raven showed this one to everyone, including Madelyne and Ilyana.
Ilyana read the description and stayed quiet, which was normal for her. What stood out was the kind of quiet—it meant she was thinking about something specific.
Madelyne read it twice. "Directional intent means it knows where it's going," she said.
"So it's not just wandering between targets," Madelyne said. "It has a destination, and the targets are incidental, probably."
Jean looked at her. The observation was accurate, its implication was important, and Madelyne had figured it out on her own.
'That's worth keeping in mind,' Jean murmured.
Day four:
The footage from a second site provided enough additional detail to produce a cleaner profile.
Canine — wolfhound proportions, significantly larger than any known wolfhound. Three separate encounters with armed groups, three separate attempts to use conventional firearms. The entity is immune to gunfire. No visible effect. Encounters are brief. The entity does not injure uninvolved parties at sites where both kinds of people are present.
Rogue read this update while standing in the kitchen, leaning forward on the counter.
"Immune to bullets," she said. "Not resistant. Immune."
"Apparently it is," Raven confirmed.
Rogue considered what she knew about things that are immune to regular weapons and what kinds of things usually fit that category.
'It is not a natural animal,' she observed.
'No,' Jean responded. 'Nothing natural here has that ability.' She glanced at Raven. 'Are you still thinking what I think you are thinking about this?'
'I am,' Raven replied, tone neutral.
On day five, Coulson plotted the sightings:
Directional pattern confirmed. Plotting all confirmed sighting locations across the week produces a clear trajectory. An entity moving with a consistent directional purpose. Trajectory points toward Westchester County, New York. Not random movement — active navigation.
Raven read this one three times.
Jean read it over her shoulder and became still, the way she always did when her mind was at work.
'It is coming here,' Raven announced.
"Toward Westchester," Jean said. "Which could mean our location or Xavier's or the Stark property or any of a dozen other addresses."
'It could,' Raven replied, her voice firm, not truly uncertain.
Rogue stood at the kitchen window, watching Indominus move along the treeline. 'If it's coming here on purpose,' she remarked, 'then it already knows where here is. That means something brought it here.'
Nobody had an answer for what that something was.
Madelyne, sitting at the edge of the table, finally voiced the question on everyone's mind: 'What if it already knows exactly where it's going?'
No one answered. The truth was, they didn't know. But it was possible that Madelyne was right.
Day six began earlier than usual with Coulson's update:
Approximately one hundred miles from Westchester and closing. Behavioral pattern unchanged. No civilian contact. I need Cole available. Timeline is one to two days.
Raven texted back: He returns tomorrow. Message received.
She put the phone down and looked at Jean.
"One hundred miles," Jean said.
'Moving towards us,' Raven echoed.
Jean reached out with her telepathy, focusing in the direction Coulson's report suggested. At a hundred miles, with her current range, she sensed something at the edge of her awareness. It was not a human mind. Nor was it the empty presence of an animal without language. It was something in between, with enough inner structure to stand out from the rest of the ecosystem.
"I can feel it," she said. "Barely. It is moving, and it has direction, and it is not random."
Raven looked at the window.
"The grounds have room," she said. "Whatever it is."
Rogue, standing in the doorway to the main room, had been listening to everything. She paused, then reasoned, 'If it's been doing this all week—targeting only the right people, immune to everything thrown at it, moving with purpose toward a specific place—then whatever is at that place is probably what it's been looking for.' She hesitated. 'I'm not afraid of something that spends a week killing only the people who deserve it.'
Ilyana, from the far wall where she had been present throughout the conversation without contributing to it until now, looked at Raven.
'Are you going to get ready for anything?' Ilyana asked, her gaze steady on Raven.
Raven considered this.
'I'll make sure the eastern grounds are open,' she decided. 'And that Indominus is in the greenhouse.' She turned to Jean. 'Then I'll wait and see.'
---
Indominus, over the week, had been growing incrementally more comfortable with the house, the grounds, and the people in it.
The earlier wariness faded into alert curiosity. Indominus paid attention, not out of fear but as he worked to figure things out. He wasn't afraid, just still deciding.
When Raven was outside, Indominus moved toward her area without needing direction. When she was inside, he stayed in the grounds but kept his attention on the building, waiting patiently like something that knew where it wanted to be and was willing to wait.
At some point on day four, he had also decided that Jean was acceptable. He showed this by walking to within two meters of where Jean was working outside and lying down. This led to a moment where Jean looked at the young T. rex beside her, then at Raven, with an expression that said everything without words.
---
Day seven came to a close.
Ethan emerged from the solar interior as the seven days concluded, completing the short transit from the sun to the planet in minutes. He had done this over the past week, and the transition sequence from solar immersion to the house's grounds had become routine.
He landed on the eastern grounds in the early evening, and they came out to meet him.
They all came out—Raven first, then Jean, then Rogue, moving faster than her usual walk but not quite running, then Ilyana with her steady pace, and Madelyne behind her, still moving with her usual care.
Raven reached him first.
She was glad he was back, and she didn't hide it. Normally, she wasn't someone who showed happiness openly just for others to see, but in this moment, she didn't hold it back. She put her hand on his face and looked at him with the same directness she used for things she cared about completely.
"Good week?" she asked.
"Very," he said.
She studied him the way she always did after he returned from the sun, trying to see what seven days inside had done. Her expression showed she saw the answer.
Jean came up beside Raven and looked at him, her awareness fully extended, registering what the week had produced at a level beyond the visual. She was processing it.
Rogue reached them, put her hand on his arm, looked at his face, and said nothing for a moment. Then: "We need to tell you something."
He could see it on all their faces—the weight of a week's worth of Coulson's updates, the sense that something was coming, something that had been building over seven days of reports and growing certainty.
Rogue was already opening her mouth to tell him.
Her private thought, just before she speaks, is this: whatever is a hundred miles away and getting closer can't be that dangerous if it has spent a week killing only those who deserved it.
---
A facility that appeared unremarkable from every approach angle that conventional reconnaissance used:
Coulson was at the door.
The man beside him—the one whose precognitive ability had been growing since the compound in South America, whose sister had been seen somewhere in or near this building, and whose foresight was their most reliable guide—kept his eyes on the next five seconds, waiting with the focused patience his ability needed to work.
"Still clear?" Coulson asked quietly.
The man nodded once.
Coulson moved.
The door opened inward. Both of them went through it. What was on the other side was not yet visible from the outside and would not be visible until the light inside reached them, and the light was already reaching them as the door swung wide and the facility's interior became real.
The man's foresight updated in real time, as it had since he learned to trust it.
Five seconds clear, then another five, then another.
They went further in.