Inside the Wing Chun school, the atmosphere was thick with the scent of sweat and floor wax, but for Risfisk, it was the scent of untapped potential. He stood near the entrance, his eyes occasionally drifting toward the heavy reinforced door that led to the underground training area.
"He took them down there to ground them in the fundamentals," Risfisk explained to Jack and Max, a trace of professional jealousy colored by deep respect in his voice. "Aside from popping up twice to raid the fridge for enough protein to feed a small army, the Boss hasn't surfaced at all. He's locked in."
Risfisk wasn't stupid. He knew why he was upstairs playing doorman while others were downstairs breathing the same air as the Master. Huang Wen didn't just pick favorites; he picked vessels.
Whether it was Zhong Qiang's family ties or the raw, untamed power of the newcomers, everyone downstairs was a monster in the making. Risfisk knew that if he wanted to descend those stairs, he had to prove he was more than just a reformed thug with a heavy punch. He had to be indispensable.
"I'm not waiting for him to get hungry again," Jack said, his brow furrowed as he gripped his phone. He felt a flicker of that same envy. As the newly minted Commissioner, he had power in the streets, but in this room, he felt like a child. He needed to be useful. If he couldn't match Risfisk's physical prowess yet, he would become the Master's eyes and ears in the high towers of the city.
"What's the rush, Commissioner?" Risfisk asked, using the title with a hint of a smirk. "Did someone park illegally?"
"It's the mutants, Risfisk. The game just changed," Jack replied, his voice dropping to a low, serious tone. He didn't see the point in keeping secrets from the inner circle. He quickly punched in the emergency digits Huang Wen had designated for "Code Black" scenarios.
The line didn't even ring. It just went live. "Master, it's Jack. We have a situation. The political landscape just folded in on itself."
Before Jack could even finish the sentence, the air in the room seemed to vibrate. Huang Wen appeared at the top of the stairs as if he had simply stepped out of a fold in reality. He looked slightly disheveled, his shirt damp with sweat, but his eyes were sharper than ever. He gestured for Jack to follow him to the mezzanine.
"Talk," Huang Wen commanded.
"The President caved, Master. He signed an accord with the X-Men. The 'School for Gifted Youngsters' is now a federally recognized institution," Jack said, his words tripping over each other in his haste. "They aren't the underground outlaws anymore. They have official backing."
Huang Wen leaned against the railing, his gaze drifting toward the ceiling as he processed the information. "That was fast. I expected Magneto's little stunt to keep them busy for weeks, but it seems Charles Xavier knows how to work a room better than I thought."
A cold realization settled over Huang Wen. "If the government isn't hunting them, they have a lot of free time on their hands. And Charles... he's a man of peace, but he's also a man who hates losing control. I took his 'deterrent' off the board when I suppressed Magneto's X-gene. He won't see that as a favor; he'll see it as a threat to the global balance."
"You think they're coming for us?" Jack asked.
"Charles won't come personally. Not yet. He's too smart to walk into a den he hasn't mapped out," Huang Wen mused. "But he'll send probes. He'll find the cracks in my armor. He knows I have students. He knows I have a life here. He'll try to force my hand by putting me in a position where I have to choose between my principles and the people I protect."
"Master?" Jack noticed the distant, calculating look in Huang Wen's eyes.
"You did well, Jack. Congratulations on the promotion. Use that badge to keep the lower-level pests away from my door," Huang Wen said, offering a rare, thin smile. "But stay alert. The wind is changing."
"I'll be your shield in the precinct, Master," Jack vowed, his chest swelling with a bit of pride.
Downstairs, the front door creaked open. It wasn't the heavy kick of a SWAT team or the confident stride of a hero. It was the shuffling, hesitant gait of an old man. He looked like he'd crawled out of a gutter—disheveled hair, a tattered coat, and eyes that looked like they had seen the end of the world and survived it.
Huang Wen's perception flared. His internal energy hummed like a high-tension wire. He knew most of the players in this city, and he certainly knew who was in his basement. But this old man? He felt... wrong. His energy wasn't a flow; it was a void, a hungry, shifting thing that felt like static on the skin.
"Does anyone here know a Bruce Banner?" the old man asked. His voice was raspy, tired, yet it carried an unsettling weight that silenced the students in the room.
Huang Wen's eyes narrowed to slits. Only a handful of people knew the Hulk was currently practicing horse stances in a sub-basement. General Ross knew. Charles Xavier knew.
"It seems the Professor has a dark sense of humor," Huang Wen whispered to himself. He had expected an army or a tactical team. He hadn't expected a biological anomaly.
David Banner wandered into the center of the mat, his head tilting as he sniffed the air like a hound. He ignored the students who were looking at him with a mix of pity and confusion.
"Bruce Banner? Never heard of him, pops," one of the younger students said, stepping forward. "Maybe try the hospital down the street? You look like you could use a check-up."
Risfisk didn't share the student's nonchalance. He felt the hair on his arms stand up. He stepped between David and the stairs. "I don't know who you are, but you're in the wrong place. We don't have a Banner here. Move along."
David Banner stopped. His tired eyes suddenly sharpened, glowing with a faint, sickly green light. He looked up at the mezzanine, straight at Huang Wen. "The General didn't lie. I can smell him. The boy is here. He's hidden behind layers of lead and stone, but his blood calls to mine."
"This isn't a public park, and there's no Bruce here," Risfisk said, his voice dropping an octave as he shifted into a combat stance. "Last warning, old man. Get out."
David Banner smiled, and it was the most horrific thing anyone in the room had ever seen. It wasn't a human expression; it was the baring of teeth by a predator that had forgotten how to be a man. "Little kid... you think your muscles mean anything to the earth itself?"
Thump!
Risfisk didn't wait for the monologue to finish. He lunged forward, a lightning-fast jab connecting squarely with David's jaw. The old man was sent sprawling onto the mats, his head bouncing off the floor.
"That's it?" Risfisk muttered, shaking his hand. "I thought he was some kind of super-soldier. He feels like a bag of wet laundry."
"Risfisk, get back!" Max screamed.
The warning came a second too late. As David Banner lay on the ground, his skin didn't bruise. It turned gray. Not the gray of a corpse, but the cold, matte gray of the marble floor beneath him.
Suddenly, the floor hissed. A jagged, three-foot spike of solid marble erupted from the mat exactly where Risfisk had been standing. If Max hadn't tackled the big man out of the way, Risfisk would have been skewered through the gut.
"What the hell?!" Risfisk yelled, scrambling to his feet as more ripples moved through the floorboards like sharks under water.
Huang Wen didn't wait. He blurred from the mezzanine, descending the stairs in a single, fluid movement. He arrived in front of David Banner just as the old man was standing up. David's entire body was now a living statue of polished marble, his eyes two glowing emeralds set in stone.
"Hmph!" Huang Wen snorted. He didn't use a palm strike; he used a concentrated burst of internal force delivered through the tip of his toe. A kick that looked casual but carried the momentum of a falling mountain.
CRACK.
The marble version of David Banner was launched backward, crashing through the front window of the school and tumbling into the street. The force of the blow left a massive crater in the sidewalk.
Huang Wen stood in the shattered doorway, looking at the damage to his school with deep displeasure. The floor was ruined, the windows were gone, and the structural integrity of the front wall was questionable.
"Renovations were coming anyway, but I didn't want them started like this," Huang Wen said, his voice cold. He turned to his students. "Stay inside. Lock the doors. If anyone else comes asking for Bruce, tell them I've gone to the park."
Huang Wen stepped onto the street. He knew he couldn't fight this thing here. David Banner—the Absorbing Man—was a sponge for energy. In a crowded city, he could tap into the power grid or the very foundations of the buildings.
"You have a lot of strength!" David Banner's stone voice grated like sandpaper. He stood up, the cracks in his marble chest sealing instantly as he touched the asphalt of the road, his skin turning from gray to the deep, oily black of fresh tar. "I can feel the heat in your veins. It's not like Bruce's rage, but it's dense. It's delicious!"
"You want to eat? Let's go somewhere with more on the menu," Huang Wen said.
Before the bystanders or the hidden observers could blink, Huang Wen grabbed the 'Tar-Man' by the throat. Using a burst of the 'Baozi Grenade' propulsion technique mixed with his sheer physical speed, he turned into a streak of white light.
Across the street, in a derelict apartment building, Frank Castle dropped his binoculars. "Where the hell did they go?" He checked his thermal scope, but the street was empty. The speed was beyond anything his equipment could track.
At the same time, in a mobile command center five miles away, General Ross slammed his fist into the console. "Find them! I want every satellite over New York redirected to the suburbs! I need to see what happens when the Master meets the Sponge!"
"Sir, we have a lock!" a technician shouted. "They've appeared in the old demolition range. Analysis of the initial contact is coming in now."
Ross looked at the screen, his heart skipping a beat. "What's the readout?"
"The kick delivered by the target, Huang Wen... data shows it exerted at least 50 tons of concentrated force. Sir... he didn't even use a full swing. That was a snap-kick."
Ross went pale. He had fought the Hulk. He knew what 50 tons looked like. Seeing a man do it while wearing a designer t-shirt was something else entirely. "David, you better start absorbing everything in that field, or there won't be enough of you left to bury."