Chapter 37: CHAPTER 35

I followed Charles and Hank inside as they led me to an office, most likely Charles' since there was no chair behind the desk and also Charles slid into that position like a fish in water while Hank took to beside him as I sat in the chair before them. 

“I must say, I am thankful for you accepting our help…” I raised my hand to stop him at that junction since starting a conversation based on assumptions never seemed to end well. “I agreed to come here, true. But ‘help' is subjective, and accepting what has not been given is a fool’s mistake.” 

I was on my toes with Xavier, not because of the prowess of mutants he had at his command, no, while they were indeed a threat of their own that I couldn’t combat on my own, what I was more concerned was the psychologist in Charles.

I never had good memories of shrinks. And given as how 50% of the adults in my past life's family were shrinks was enough to paint a picture.

And given as how different forums in my past life painted Charles as an MCU’s version of Dumbledore was enough of a warning to be cautious about his character. Regardless, I wasn’t about to treat him rudely just because of preconceived notions and bias but it also didn’t mean I was about to trust him, yeah no thank you.

“True. Can I take that as you wanting to see what kind of help we can provide you with?” Charles asked with a smile on his face.

“To be completely frank with you, I don’t need your help?” I said, taking them by surprise.

“Then why did you come here?” This time it was Hank who asked.

“Hmm… Truthfully, I’ve only ever seen one mutant apart from myself, but she attacked me so I had to kill her.” They flinched at that and I could see the sliver of worry in their eyes but I ignored it and continued, “Logan and Piotr along with their group were the second and third I’ve seen. I wanted to see what a school of mutants looked like so I came along since I didn’t have anything doing for the time being.” I didn’t lie. That was the extent of fascination that the whole trip brought me.

Charles and Hank let out an awkward chuckle at what I said before Charles said, “Well that was a new reason, but nevertheless you are still welcomed here.”

“Mr. St. Cross, as I’m sure you’ve heard from the teachers who brought you here, I was able to pick up your mutant energy reading due to my ability because of an outburst of said energy I felt during the past few days. I was only able to locate it after it somehow settled down so I sent the team to look for you in fear that your ability somehow went out of control. If you don’t mind me asking, what are your abilities? We would need to know them so as to devise a way to help you if it’s something we haven’t come across.”

Basically, what he meant was ‘the reason we found you was because you tripped our danger scanner and since you are here, might as well tell us what you can do so we can take precautions’, which to be honest was not helping with the way I was viewing him. Or maybe this is just the default negative reputation I have with psychologists.

Whether I was reading wrong into his intentions or not, it still didn’t change the fact that the avenue of explorations I could go with my abilities were numerous if I were to put it through Hank.

“Some kind of energy generation.” I said as they both had an intrigued look on their faces. 

“What kind of energy?” Hank asked, looking all too curious which given how he currently looked was akin to a blue bear giving the puppy dog eyes…. It was unsettling.

“It’s… how about I show you.” I was about to explain what I knew but seeing as how Hank looked eager I thought I might as well show them and at the same time pick Hank's brain.

I held up my palms and watched as the a ball of red energy floated up as if it was a cup being filled, until it started giving the literal death rays that figuratively spoke of its danger.

“Fascinating.”

Hank adjusted his glasses as he came close to my hand that held the ball of destruction while the psychic had a pensive look on his face.

“It looks as if it is made of compressed energy.” Hank said.

“That’s because it is.” Was my sarcastic quip along with a ‘duh’ look.

“Oh sorry for that. I mean the energy itself is compressed to a more primitive form with chaotic properties…,” he clarified as he kept looking at it, “…like fire but instead of the ‘heat’ property, it contains just the ‘destruction’ one.” My face wasn’t the only one that changed at that. Charles' changed from pensive to…something I couldn’t really put my hands on. All it was doing was raise my guards for any of his… less than ideal way of persuasion. 

“What do you mean by ‘destruction’ property?” I asked. This was a chance to learn what it was I had been throwing around. I knew it had radiations and heat in it to a more ridiculous degree but I had no idea what the result of such a mixture was. All I knew was that it was way stronger than what I could before. 

“Hmm, how do I put it? If we are being philosophical, the concept that is ‘fire’ is not just to burn but also, as the monks from the Chinese temples explains, to heal. It also has the attribute to burn, erase, protect… and also completely destroy.” He paused at that to see our focus on his words before he continued his explanation.

“This energy on your hand however doesn’t encircle any of the aforementioned except for the last, destruction. It’s like enhanced gamma rays, from what I’m feeling, intensified with the burning property of fire. And if I’m to spectate, I’ll say this ball in your hands doesn’t burn at all, if it does then it only does for a while before it stops.” He concluded, leaving us shocked, although to different degrees.

I mean, I never really paid attention to the explosions I made with this particular aspect of it but hearing what Hank said… was impactful.

“But that’s purely theoretical isn't it? About the philosophical properties of fire?” I asked, I still had a hard time believing what he said.

“And how theoretical are you? Or anyone in this mansion at that.” He said gesturing around with his hands. 

“So is that all it does? Destroy?” Charles asked in a bland tone.

Wait what? Seriously. The way he asked that was as if it was evidence needed to convict a felon to jail time.

“I don’t think so. I believe it is possible that his ability borders on manipulation. Like addition, subtraction and multiplication. If he can consciously manipulate the output then this will be a whole new realm of energy manipulation.” Hank said, and Charles smiled at that.

Hey I tried, but Charles was exactly instilling the need to trust in me. If someone wasn’t paying attention, just the way the smile left and came to his face was a tell on this psychologist that his opinions were changing. 

“I do have a degree of control on it.” I said, abruptly turning the attention of the man and beast to me.

As they watched, I started projecting only the heat property like Hank said and saw as the ball lost it’s very red glow to gain a golden yellow sun flare as the ball turned from it’s destructive property to the burning sensation of fire.

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“Fascinating. This might just be the proof we need. We need to test this.” Hank adjusted his glasses as his beady eyes gained a glow that wasn’t from the ball of flames in my hand. He turned towards Charles who was all smiles, which I had to admit was pinging off my Dumbles scale. 

“How about we do that after Mr. St. Cross settles in. The bulk of the day is gone as it is.” The Professor offered, to which we both, Hank and I, agreed on as he led me to the room I’ll be crashing in. 

“So you can turn it off or what?” I asked as he led me.

He looked confused as to what I was talking about but let out an ‘oh!’ as he saw my gaze.

“Oh no, unfortunately I don’t get a switch like most of us.” He said as he let out a depressed chuckle.

“Oh! That’s really unfortunate. It would have been pretty sick if you had red fur though.” I said and we both laughed at that. 

“Someone will come get you in the morning and if you need anything or anyone just ask whoever you see for directions.” He said as he brought me to the door of my room.

I waved his goodbye as I entered my new room.

Damn! I really need to make some cash. It just clicked but I’ve been squatting at apartments for two years, if you include HYDRA.

The room was bare, with only a bed, desk, some books on it, a lamp, two chairs and a wardrobe at the other end of it with an adjacent bathroom. I stand by my word: Charles is loaded as fuck. 

I crashed to the bed as I took off my shirt and trousers after I took a long bath. The day had been pretty long. 

I woke up from my evolution, took up a ride to the next town, met the X-Men, followed said men on a mission to a not-so-sure HYDRA base, rescued some kids, flew with the aforementioned men back to their BOP, met literal icons of a comic book franchise and finally took a bath and crashed to the allocated bed with nothing on but a pair of baggy pants. 

A long day indeed.

To finish up what a long day today had been, I fished up my burner phone and rang Phil, who didn’t even take two rings before he picked up.

“Mr. Cross, I assumed you’ll be calling.” It’s always amazing how he never drops that formality.

“I presume you called to know what we found?” It was a deal I had with Fury, any HYDRA information was to be shared, at least the part he could. I didn’t need to know all of HYDRA's dealings; I was going to kill them all sooner or later, so at the end it wouldn’t matter what they did since it’ll be S.H.I.E.L.D's problem to deal with. 

“Yes.”

“Very well, we got here less than thirty minutes ago and judging by the bodies, I’ll say you and your friends had a field day…” Fuck! S.H.I.E.L.D now knows about the X-Men, or maybe they already did. Well not my problem.

“From what we were able to scrub off the database, this wasn’t a HYDRA base but what we think is a collaborative organization HYDRA was working with. We haven’t managed to find out who they were working with yet, but it subjected around harvesting the X-genes from a mutant and having it transplanted to a subject whose  biological code is compatible with the mutant the DNA was harvested from. We haven’t had time to peruse through everything as we are still cleaning up the place.” Phil concluded his report before he signed off, leaving me to think for myself. 

Harvesting of mutant DNA wasn’t something new in this part of the mutant world. 2/3 of the X-Men baddies did it at one point or another during the series. I did have some suspects but nothing conclusive for now.

I wasn’t about to go running like some fools in a spandex clad costume just because I smelled a bad guy down some alleyway. They were enough heroes in this part of the Universe for things like that.

I should focus on my abilities for the time being, if what Hank said had an iota of truth in it, then I should first focus on what I can do with my heat before figuring out other aspects of energy manipulation.

From what I’ve been able to do so far which includes and ranges from enhanced strength, enhanced dexterity, enhanced senses, enhanced regeneration to heat projection, physical augmentation, augmented healing, heat and radiation manipulation – although I'm was still getting new to that aspect – , energy conjuration and what else… oh yes super brains – although I’m still getting around the front on that.

While it might all seem impressive, I’m still pretty sure a few people in this mansion could beat me. For example Piotr, the Colossus.

That guy was made of stuff, I saw.

I was at the peak of what a human could do, which was the summit of the super soldier level without my augmentations, a heavily close combat fighter. 

My only long range attack was throwing bombs, incendiary and incinerating bombing, which was cool and all but not really great for close combat. 

If I were to fight Piotr, I might be able to do massive damage…BUT only if he were a sitting duck a hundred meters out. If he were to close in on me then… yeah lights out since I’m absolutely sure his physical strengths trumps mine, I might be able to close the gap with my augmentation but I still believe he has the ball in his court on that front. 

Not to say I couldn’t slap the cheeks of most of the X-Men; Scott, Thunderbird, Kitty, Bob, Hank – I could take, but heavy fighters like the nigh-immortal Wolverine, Jean Grey, Storm, I couldn’t. 

I don’t know how to inflict enough damage to Logan. I might be able to do something if he was a distance away but if he was near, it would be the same situation with Colossus, since he was obviously a better fighter than I was. Storm and Jean fell in the long range category where they could simply dole out terrifying attacks. 

I might not be at the bottom of the power scale but I was not at the top of it either. 

Thankfully, Banner's serum was working. The energy from it was still in me and it was up to me to find how to access it in different forms. What I needed now was good old training. 

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