Anything Else?

Thud! Thud! Thud!

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I ruined everything. Raven, are you okay?

Can you open the door and let me see you, Raven?"

The next morning, outside Raven's room in the castle, Hank knocked anxiously on the door.

"I never expected the Serum to do this. I clearly tested it so many times."

He spoke with guilt and regret.

He had already changed completely, his body covered in blue fur like a Beast.

Hank had used the Serum the previous night. At first, his oversized feet had indeed shrunk back to normal, but it only lasted a few seconds before an even more violent mutation occurred.

It turned him completely into a monster and knocked him unconscious.

When Hank woke and painfully discovered what he looked like, he immediately came to find Raven, worried about the condition of she who had also used the Serum.

Alex, awakened by the knocking echoing through the old castle, scratched his head as he came out from several rooms away. The sight of Hank gave him a fright, instantly waking him up.

"Hank? You're Hank?

Shit, what the hell happened to you? Are you playing Blue-Furred Bigfoot?"

He recognized Hank from the clothes hanging off him in shredded strips.

"Alex, shut your mouth and get lost!"

Faced with Alex, who had always been reckless and spoke without thinking, Hank snapped back uncharacteristically, as irritable as a Beast.

Then he turned back and continued calling worriedly at the door.

"Raven..."

"Leave.

Hank, leave.

I don't blame you. Just let me be alone for a while!"

Raven's hoarse shout suddenly came from inside, full of sorrow and pain.

Using the Serum had been her own choice. She could not blame Hank.

But she did not want to see anyone right now.

"Do you want to wake everyone up?!"

Hank stopped knocking and opened his mouth, still wanting to comfort her.

But Raven had said it too late. The others had already come running at the sound.

"What happened? Hank, how did you become like this?"

Professor X, Magneto, and the others arrived. Seeing the nearly unrecognizable Hank, they stared in shock.

Ron appeared from around the corner of the corridor and walked over.

Hank glanced at Ron with guilty unease before painfully explaining.

"I developed a Serum. I thought it could remove the mutated appearances Raven and I had, but I screwed it up. It greatly stimulated our cells..."

"You mean Raven too?"

As Mystique's adoptive brother, Professor X's expression changed drastically. Magneto and Moira exchanged a glance, their hearts sinking.

Under the effects of the Serum, Hank, whose only deformity had been a pair of abnormal feet, had become like this. Raven, whose entire body had already been completely different from ordinary people's, must have changed into something even worse.

"The Serum really did fail after all."

It seemed his arrival had not caused any butterfly effect regarding the Serum. Ron disappeared behind the others.

"Let's go see my Mystique. She must need comfort right now."

Bang!

Using his ability, he left behind the startled and worried group and arrived in Raven's room.

The room was a complete mess. Tables and chairs lay overturned everywhere, and the blanket had nearly been torn apart, as if someone had struggled on it in agony.

A figure hid sorrowfully and despairingly in the corner against the wall on the inner side of the bed, pressed tightly against it with her head in her arms, sobbing in pain.

Hearing a sound and looking up to see Ron, Raven tried to pull the blanket over herself. Her voice trembled as she tried to hide beneath the bed.

"No, Ron, don't look at me!"

"Raven, it's okay."

Ron crouched down, took hold of her, and softly comforted her, his eyes moving over her body.

Perhaps because Mystique's appearance had already been so heavily mutated, the changes were not as obvious as Hank's. Aside from changes to her skin, the most obvious difference was that she had gained something on her head and behind her.

Several centimeters of Blue Horns had grown from her head, and a Blue Tail similar to Red Devil's had emerged behind her.

"Ron, do I look even more like a monster now? More like a demon who deserves to be dragged to the stake and burned?"

Tears streamed down Raven's face, her expression pained.

The hopes she had held had been shattered. Not only had her condition not improved, it had gotten worse, nearly plunging her into utter despair.

Now that she had become this way, could Ron still accept her?

"Raven, in my eyes, you're more complete now. More beautiful."

Ron's soft, earnest words eased the near-despair weighing on her heart.

He was not just saying she was more beautiful. Mystique's face truly had become more beautiful, as if it had been subtly refined. The uneven scales on her skin had vanished, leaving it incomparably smooth.

She had probably been so frightened by the horns and tail that she had not looked carefully in a mirror.

Compared to the Raven who had once looked like an incomplete demon, she now had horns and a tail, making her look more like a beautiful female demon.

"What? Complete? Beautiful?"

Raven lifted her head in a daze.

Ron could accept her even looking like this?

"In the 1960s, people's kinks still weren't open-minded enough."

He sighed faintly before asking.

"Is your ability still there, Raven?"

"It... it is."

The person she liked not only approved of how she looked now, but seemed to like her even more. Raven's mood improved greatly. Feeling her body, she answered hesitantly.

"And... I seem to have gained other abilities."

"For example?"

"For example, this."

Tears still hung from Raven's face. Looking pitiful and lovely, she met his gaze as a mysterious blue light flashed in her eyes.

The moment he saw that blue light, Ron's eyes went vacant, as though he had entered a sleepwalking state controlled by someone else.

She was about to speak and use her newly acquired ability to make Ron give her a comforting kiss.

But after only one second, Ron's Survival of the Fittest ability reacted swiftly. With his evolved brain, he broke free from that strange control. Clarity returned to his eyes, and his brows immediately furrowed.

"What just happened to me?"

"Sorry, Ron. I... I just wanted to play a joke."

"It's okay. Did you awaken an ability to control people?"

Seeing Raven's nervousness, Ron relaxed his brow and softly comforted her before asking.

After gaining the Survival of the Fittest ability, he had developed enormous resistance to Psionic Ability users.

What he cared more about was the help Mystique could provide.

"The Serum seems to have stimulated another aspect of her potential."

In the comics, before ancient times, mutants had been divided into two major types: demon-type and Angel-type.

The angels and demons of the Bible had evolved from them.

Mystique's appearance clearly marked her as demon-type. Perhaps she had unearthed the latent abilities of a demon-type mutant.

Red Devil was a demon-type mutant in the comics. Besides being able to transform into other people like Mystique, he could manipulate minds and possessed various other abilities.

The Psionic Ability to control people was quite good, but... it did not seem to have anything to do with Sentry's abilities.

A little disappointed, he asked.

"Anything else?"