The grand hall of the El-King estate gleamed with old money and older power. Crystal chandeliers refracted light across marble floors polished to mirror-finish, each surface reflecting the assembled crowd—a who's-who of families whose bloodlines predated the American experiment itself. They weren't quite royalty, not in any legal sense, but they carried themselves with the certainty of people who'd never needed a crown to know they ruled.
Elijah Solomon El-King stood at the center of it all, fifteen years old and already six-foot-two, wearing a black suit that cost more than most cars but looked almost plain against the peacock display surrounding him. He'd chosen it deliberately. Let the relatives drip with diamonds and gold thread—his presence would speak for itself.
It did.
Even without trying, Elijah drew eyes. Not because of his height or the sharp angles of his face, still losing the last softness of childhood, but because of something harder to define. An intensity. A weight. His father called it the El-King birthright; his sister called it being an insufferable know-it-all with good posture.
He suspected they were both right.
To his left stood his mother, Evelyn El-King, looking no older than twenty-five despite the decades that had passed since her own coming-of-age ceremony. Her crown caught the light with each slight movement of her head, and her eyes—pale blue and impossibly sharp—tracked every person in the room with the focus of a woman who'd built empires and toppled governments before breakfast. The newspapers called her a philanthropist. The intelligence community had other names.
To his right, Julius Titan El-King rose from his throne—an actual throne, because subtlety had never been the family's strong suit—and the room fell silent. His father wore his authority like a second skin, tailored and perfect. Even his shadow seemed to carry weight.
"Julius," his father began, and Elijah felt something tighten in his chest at the use of his middle name, "it is time. From here on, you will be a man. The next to inherit the throne of the King's name and lead the family through an era of superpowered beings, alien threats, and godly figures."
A butler appeared as if summoned by thought alone, presenting a silver tray with two wine glasses. The crystal caught the light, turning the deep red liquid inside into something that looked like bottled rubies.
Julius took one glass. Gestured for Elijah to take the other.
Elijah's hand didn't shake. He'd been trained better than that.
His father raised the glass high. "Everyone, gather, as today is a special day. As I, Julius Titan El-King, current head of the King family, acknowledge my son Elijah Solomon El-King as my successor and your new monarch."
The crowd erupted. Not polite applause—genuine fervor, voices rising in practiced unison: "All hail the monarchy! All hail the king!"
The sound washed over Elijah like a wave, and for a moment, he let himself feel it. Pride, yes. But also something colder. These people weren't cheering for him, not really. They were cheering for what he represented. For the continuation of power, the preservation of their place in a world that was changing faster than any of them wanted to admit.
Mutants. Aliens. Gods walking the earth in spandex and hubris.
The old rules didn't apply anymore, but the El-Kings had survived worse than modernity.
"With that being said," Julius continued, lowering his glass, "before he can succeed me, he must first acquire a bride, as per—"
He didn't finish.
A line formed before Elijah could process what was happening—young women with practiced smiles, older women whose faces held the kind of beauty that came from surgical precision and supernatural heritage, fathers gripping their daughters' arms with varying degrees of pressure. Some of the girls looked eager. Others looked terrified.
All of them were technically family.
Distant family, but still.
Elijah felt his throat constrict. This was the part of the ceremony no one had adequately prepared him for, despite months of tutoring on lineage, genetics, and the importance of keeping power concentrated within bloodlines that understood what power meant.
Then he felt it—a hand on his shoulder, warm and grounding.
"Gee, don't tell me the future monarch is getting cold feet because of a bunch of pretty girls who approached him." His sister's voice came low, pitched for his ears only. Scarlet Eve El-King leaned in, her breath tickling his ear. "That creates a bad look, little brother. We're technically all family here. I mean, think of it like this—they're all relatives distant enough so that our genes don't mutate."
Her tone suggested she found the entire situation hilarious.
Elijah wanted to elbow her. He settled for a sharp exhale through his nose.
"Scarlet! Stop messing with your brother." Their mother's voice cut through the moment like a scalpel. Evelyn had risen from her throne, and though she stood barely five-foot-six, she suddenly dominated the space. Her gaze fixed on the first girl in line—a nervous-looking thing with dark hair and trembling hands. "If Elijah is to choose a wife, we must ensure she's the right one for him."
Evelyn descended the dais with predatory grace. "Now, tell me. What are your intentions with my son?"
The girl went pale. The temperature in the immediate vicinity seemed to drop ten degrees, and Elijah watched the girl's breath mist in the air. His mother's abilities had always been subtle, terrifying in their precision. Telepathy powerful enough to rewrite personalities, coupled with a sadistic creativity that made grown men beg for mercy.
The girl began to shiver, and not just from the cold.
"Evelyn." Julius appeared at his wife's elbow, took her hand with practiced ease. "That's enough. You've shaken the poor girl." His tone was gentle but firm. "We must leave it to Elijah to choose his bride. We can only hope he has good instincts."
They departed together, a unified front even in disagreement.
Elijah watched them go, then turned to his sister with arched eyebrows. "Oh, it seems Father forgot someone. He left you behind."
"Now, now, brother." Scarlet's eyes began to glow—a soft amber that meant she was using her abilities, analyzing the assembled candidates with senses that went beyond sight. "You know that it's an older sister's job to protect her younger siblings. Now go ahead and choose your bride."
She paused, then pointed at the still-shaking girl. "Just not her."
"And why not?"
"Well, if you must know, she's really a he."
The words hung in the air for a heartbeat. Then the "girl" took a step back, eyes wide, mouth working soundlessly before managing a strangled, "That's not true."
But the voice cracked halfway through, dropped an octave, and betrayed everything.
The crowd murmured. The person—clearly in disguise—turned and fled, heels clicking frantically against marble until the sound faded into the estate's deeper corridors.
Elijah felt a pang of something that might have been sympathy. Desperation did strange things to people, and a connection to the El-King family, even through marriage, meant access to resources that could reshape lives. Or end them.
The next candidate stepped forward—a woman who looked barely eighteen but moved with the confidence of someone much older. Her dress was tight enough to qualify as a second skin, and she leaned forward with deliberate intent.
"What?" She purred, voice like honey over gravel. "You're telling me you don't want to be with an experienced woman like me? I could turn you into a real man." Her smile sharpened. "In bed, of course."
Scarlet's hand tightened on Elijah's shoulder. "Thirty-eight," she murmured. "And my scans are picking up enough venereal diseases to stock a medical textbook."
Elijah didn't flinch. "I'd rather not. My sister tells me you have countless problems in your nether region. I'd rather play it safe, you know."
The woman's expression curdled. Her hand came up—whether to slap him or use whatever abilities she possessed, Elijah would never know. Two guards materialized from the crowd, gripped her arms with professional courtesy, and escorted her toward the exit. Her protests faded into creative obscenity.
Then came the father and daughter.
Elijah saw the girl first—maybe twelve, maybe thirteen, dressed in clothing that made his skin crawl. The neckline plunged. The hem rose too high. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, like she was watching all of this happen to someone else.
Dissociation. He recognized it from psychology texts. The mind's last defense when reality became unbearable.
Scarlet's fingers dug into his shoulder. When Elijah glanced at her, she gave a single, sharp shake of her head.
But he was already looking closer.
The girl's arms bore bruises in various stages of healing—yellowing around the edges, fresh purple near the wrists. Defensive wounds, his tactical training supplied. The kind you get when you try to protect yourself. Her posture screamed wrong, shoulders hunched inward, head down, every muscle tensed for a blow that could come at any moment.
The father stood behind her, one meaty hand resting on her shoulder. Possessive. Controlling. His grin was wide, excited, the look of a man who thought he was about to close a deal.
Something cold unfurled in Elijah's chest.
"You pig."
The words came out quietly, but they carried.
The father's grin faltered. "Wh—what was that? I apologize, I didn't quite catch that, young master."
The man leaned closer, and Elijah caught his scent—sweat, alcohol, something rotten underneath. The hand on the girl's shoulder tightened, knuckles white.
"What he said," Scarlet stepped forward, and the air around her began to shimmer with heat, "is that a disgusting pig like you doesn't deserve to exist."
The bloodlust that rolled off his sister was almost visible, a pressure that made several nearby guests stumble backward. Scarlet had seen too much in her twenty-three years. Had been forced to clean up too many messes, shut down too many trafficking rings, and bury too many bodies of men who thought power meant they could take whatever they wanted.
She'd developed opinions about it.
"I wasn't talking to you, bitch." The father's voice rose, spittle flying. His eyes raked over Scarlet with undisguised hunger. "Why don't you go shut up in a corner somewhere? Or even better—why don't you put on a show for us and dance naked?"
The room went still.
Elijah felt his heartbeat in his ears, each pulse loud as thunder.
Then the father's hand left the girl's shoulder. Drew back. Swung forward in a vicious arc that connected with Scarlet's face with a crack that echoed off marble and crystal.
His sister's head snapped to the side. A bruise bloomed across her cheekbone, vivid and immediate.
And something in Elijah broke.
Not his composure. Not his training. Something deeper. Something fundamental.
The world inverted.
He didn't choose it, didn't reach for his abilities consciously—they simply erupted, responding to a rage so pure it transcended thought. His mutation seized reality by the throat and twisted, imposing a framework onto existence itself.
Retributivism.
The philosophy crystallized in his mind with perfect, terrible clarity: punishment must be proportional to the crime. Justice demands that harm be answered with harm. The guilty must suffer as they made others suffer.
Reality agreed.
The bruise vanished from Scarlet's face as if it had never existed.
It reappeared on the father's cheek—same size, same placement, same livid purple.
The man stumbled back, hand flying to his face, confusion turning to pain as the bruise deepened, spreading like ink in water. Then came the scars—thin lines appearing on his arms, his neck, his face, each one corresponding to a wound he'd inflicted on someone else. The girl, probably. Others. Years of abuse made manifest on his own flesh.
He opened his mouth to scream, but blood bubbled up instead. Internal damage. Ruptured organs. Every beating crystallized and returned.
The man collapsed, writhing, and Elijah felt nothing but cold satisfaction.
Then the philosophy spread.
It wasn't limited to one target—couldn't be. Retributivism demanded universal application. Justice for all or justice for none.
Across the grand hall, people began to scream.
A woman clutched at her face as her eyes vanished, leaving empty sockets—payment for a life spent willfully blind to atrocities. A man's arm withered and dropped, bone-dry, for the arm he'd broken on a servant who'd displeased him. Another's throat constricted, strangling on air, choking on all the words he'd used to destroy reputations and lives.
Bank accounts drained as stolen wealth was forcibly redistributed. Organs failed. Bones shattered. Minds fragmented under the weight of their own cruelty reflected back at them.
And Elijah stood at the center of it all, judging.
He could see everything now—every sin, every crime, every moment of cruelty these people had committed and buried under layers of money and influence. The philosophy demanded their punishment, and reality obeyed.
Even Scarlet wasn't exempt.
Her legs buckled with twin snaps that sounded like gunshots. She went down hard, and the scream that tore from her throat finally, finally broke through the cold clarity in Elijah's mind.
"Stop! Elijah, stop!"
Her voice. His sister's voice. In pain because of him.
The philosophy released its grip all at once, reality snapping back like a broken rubber band. Elijah staggered, the world tilting sickeningly as his own mind tried to reassemble itself. His thoughts felt fractured, jagged edges that didn't quite fit together anymore.
What had he—?
The grand hall looked like a battlefield. Bodies writhed on the floor, some missing limbs, others clutching at wounds that had appeared from nowhere. Blood pooled on pristine marble. The crystal chandeliers still sparkled overhead, indifferent and beautiful.
Scarlet lay crumpled at his feet, tears streaming down her face, both legs bent at angles legs shouldn't bend.
"I'm sorry," Elijah heard himself say. His voice sounded hollow. Distant. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean—"
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"
His mother's voice cut through everything else. Evelyn stood at the hall's entrance, Julius beside her, both of them taking in the carnage with expressions Elijah couldn't read.
Then his mother's eyes met his, and Elijah felt pressure—crushing, inescapable weight as her telepathy slammed into his mind like a battering ram.
His knees hit the floor. He tried to hold onto himself, onto his memories, but his mother's abilities were orders of magnitude beyond his resistance. She tore through his defenses like tissue paper, sorting through his thoughts with clinical precision.
"A mutant," she said, voice devoid of warmth. "And an uncontrollable one."
"Evelyn—" Julius started.
"No." She didn't look away from Elijah. "Look at what he's done. Look at our daughter." Her voice cracked on the last word, just slightly. "He's too dangerous. Too unstable. We can't risk this happening again."
"He's our son—"
"And she's our daughter, and he broke her." Evelyn's composure was crumbling at the edges, fury and fear bleeding through. "He didn't even know he was doing it. What happens the next time he loses control? What happens when he decides to embody something worse?"
Julius said nothing. He looked at Elijah, then at Scarlet—still crying, still broken—and something in his expression closed off.
"What do you propose?"
Evelyn took a breath. "I know someone. Emma Frost. She runs a school—the Massachusetts Academy. She's dealt with dangerous mutants before. She can train him, help him control this."
"And us?"
"He can't stay here. Not after this." Evelyn's jaw tightened. "He's banished from the King household. Effective immediately."
The words should have hurt. Should have felt like a blade between the ribs.
Instead, Elijah felt nothing. The space where his emotions should have been was empty, scraped clean.
"I'll handle the memories," Evelyn continued. "Make it clean. He'll remember his name—Elijah Solomon. Nothing else. No family. No history. No context for what he's done."
"Evelyn—"
"It's a mercy, Julius. For him and for us." She finally looked away from Elijah and met her husband's eyes. "Would you rather he remember this? Remember breaking his own sister?"
Silence.
Then Julius nodded once, sharp and final. "Do it."
Evelyn's telepathy crashed into Elijah's mind again, but this time she wasn't sorting—she was erasing. Memories peeled away in strips: his childhood, his training, his father's lessons on leadership, his mother's rare smiles, Scarlet teaching him to fight, family dinners, the weight of the El-King name.
All of it is gone.
He tried to hold on, but it was like trying to hold water. Everything slipped through his mental fingers until all that remained was a name—Elijah Solomon—and a vague, gnawing certainty that he'd lost something irreplaceable.
The world went dark.
Elijah woke in a car, leather seats cool against his cheek. His head pounded, thoughts sluggish and disconnected. He pushed himself upright, blinking against the late afternoon sun streaming through tinted windows.
"Awake, I see."
The woman driving was maybe thirty-five, blonde hair perfectly styled, wearing a white suit that probably cost more than a house. Her expression was composed, unreadable, but her eyes—ice blue, cold—tracked him in the rearview mirror with uncomfortable intensity.
"Who—" Elijah's voice came out rough. He cleared his throat, tried again. "Who are you?"
"Emma Frost." She didn't smile. "Your parents entrusted you to my care."
Parents. The word felt foreign, like a language he'd forgotten he knew. He searched his memories, grasping for faces, names, anything, but found only blank spaces and a dull ache behind his eyes.
"What happened to them?" he asked.
"I don't know." Emma's tone suggested she had no interest in elaborating. "They contacted me, said you needed training, and left you in my custody. That's all I can tell you."
It felt like a lie. Or at least, not the whole truth.
But Elijah had nothing to contradict it with—just empty spaces where his past should have been and a growing headache that made thinking feel like swimming through mud.
"Training for what?"
This time Emma did smile, thin and sharp. "You're a mutant, Elijah. A particularly powerful one, from what I understand. You have abilities that need to be controlled before they control you."
Mutant. The word resonated somehow, fit into a space in his understanding he hadn't known was there.
"What kind of abilities?"
"That," Emma said, "is what we're going to find out together. The Massachusetts Academy specializes in helping young mutants like yourself understand and master their gifts." She took a turn smoothly, and Elijah caught a glimpse of wrought-iron gates ahead, the words "Massachusetts Academy" worked into the metal. "You'll be safe there. Trained. You'll learn what you're capable of."
The gates opened as they approached.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then you'll be a danger to yourself and everyone around you." Emma's eyes met his in the mirror again. "Is that what you want?"
No. No, it wasn't.
But Elijah couldn't shake the feeling that he was being maneuvered, that this woman with her cold eyes and colder smile knew far more than she was saying. That his parents—faceless, nameless entities—hadn't just asked her to train him.
They'd gotten rid of him.
The thought arrived fully formed, certain despite having no evidence to support it. Like his mind was filling in gaps with intuition where memory failed.
"What did I do?" The question slipped out before he could stop it. "To make them send me away?"
Emma's expression didn't change. "Does it matter?"
"Yes."
"Then you'll have to figure that out yourself." She pulled the car to a stop in front of a sprawling building that looked like a cross between a mansion and a fortress—old money architecture with modern security. "Welcome to your new home, Elijah Solomon. I hope you're prepared to work. What you can do... it's extraordinary. And dangerous. We're going to make sure you can control it."
She stepped out of the car, heels clicking on pavement.
Elijah followed, legs unsteady, head still pounding. The building loomed before him, all stone and glass and secrets.
Behind him, the gates closed with a sound like a prison door locking.
What did I do? The question echoed in the empty spaces of his mind, unanswered and unanswerable.
But he would find out.
Whatever it took—he would find out.