Following the plot, warned by the White Queen, the Black King realized that Professor X and the others were expanding their manpower against him and would launch a surprise attack tonight.
"And you? What's your name?"
After seeing everyone else introduce themselves, Mystique Raven noticed Ron sitting alone by the bar and asked out of curiosity.
Inside the room, Alex, Hank, and the others all turned to look.
"Ron."
He answered casually.
Seeing that he seemed somewhat unsociable, the others stopped paying attention to him and excitedly began introducing their abilities to one another.
Raven chatted and laughed with everyone, occasionally glancing at Ron.
It was not because Ron was handsome. Rather, just as she would later get together with Magneto shortly after meeting him, she vaguely felt that Ron was someone like her.
"Alone, with no one to truly communicate with, lacking love in life, out of place in the world—a monster and ghost with nowhere to go, forced to blend into society."
"Hm?"
Noticing her gaze, Ron looked over. Raven immediately looked away.
In the room, everyone began announcing the codenames they had chosen and demonstrating their abilities.
Darwin went first.
"Actually, Darwin is already a nickname. Survival of the fittest."
The lean, tall, muscular Black man smiled faintly, walked over to the transparent fish tank in the room, and stuck his head into the water to demonstrate his ability.
Almost instantly, three rows of gills capable of breathing freely underwater grew from his cheeks.
Inside the fish tank, he turned his head and showed them off with a hint of pride, letting everyone see more clearly.
"Oh, that's incredible!"
The others looked amazed, cheering and clapping as if they were at a party.
After Darwin lifted his head out of the tank, he shook the water from his hair, his gills vanished, and he returned to his seat.
"Not a bad ability, but its power is too weak."
Setting down his glass, Ron watched expressionlessly and judged it inwardly.
"Taking other aspects into account, it barely counts as decent."
With enough Ability Points, he could freely obtain any of these people's abilities.
But not every ability was worth spending Ability Points on. Like buying things, money had to be spent wisely.
Darwin's ability allowed his body to protect itself and evolve according to its environment, which easily brought to mind the powerful biological weapon from the DC universe—Doomsday.
But the two were worlds apart.
Once the dangerous environment disappeared, Darwin's evolved abilities immediately regressed. He could not accumulate evolution, and each evolution was not especially powerful.
In the plot, the Black King stuffed the energy from one of Alex's attacks into his mouth, and he could not withstand it, exploding on the spot.
Still, judging from how he looked while evolving—such as growing ugly gills—the fact that the evolution regressed afterward was actually an advantage.
Otherwise, he would soon turn into a monster.
"This ability can help someone handle many sudden situations, such as vacuum environments and toxins, so it is passable."
It was listed as one of the abilities he could acquire.
Suddenly, a man's shrill scream rang out in the room.
It was someone else's turn to demonstrate an ability. Siren, whose mouth could produce powerful sonic waves, shattered the thick glass of the room's floor-to-ceiling windows.
Angel, who had once been a stripper yet gave herself the codename Angel, displayed the insect-like wings on her back. She flew into the air and spat acid, corroding the top of the bronze statue outside the window.
Buzz!
Finally, it was Alex's turn. He twisted his body and unleashed dark red, high-energy crescent blades, slicing through the bronze statue outside the room like a hot knife through butter. Their immense power drew a round of shocked cries.
"Not a bad ability. He just uses it poorly."
Ron's eyes shifted slightly. After Darwin, he had finally seen another ability worth considering.
Alex could absorb cosmic energy from the environment, such as radiation, electromagnetic energy, or thermal energy, convert it through his body into high-energy plasma, and release it to produce terrifying destructive force.
The lightsabers in Star Wars, capable of cutting through anything, were essentially plasma-form energy shaped and contained by magnetic fields.
His ability could be released from any part of his body, but Alex had developed it crudely. He could only twist his body, using ridiculous movements as assistance, like spinning a hula hoop, to fire crescent energy blades.
"If developed properly, he could release plasma laser beams through his eyes."
He narrowed his eyes.
That would be the signature ability of his biological father, Homelander—Laser Eyes.
"Ron, everyone has shown their abilities. What's yours?"
After everyone else had finished, Raven called on him again.
Ron extended a sharp fingernail from his index finger and lightly traced a circle around the empty wineglass in his hand.
Sizzle, sizzle. Like a sharp diamond cutter scraping glass, it made a faint sound.
With a gentle lift, the ring around the mouth of the glass separated neatly from the body.
"Oh, that ability is so cool! Like a tiger or leopard!"
Several of them crowded closer, their faces full of surprise. The boys in particular had shining eyes and clapped enthusiastically.
"Look at his claws. I have no doubt they could easily tear out someone's throat."
"Hank, I think he suits the codename Beast better than you do. After all, you only have a pair of big feet."
The impulsive Alex bumped Hank beside him with his shoulder and teased him.
In terms of power, Alex had actually shown something stronger. But in the eyes of this group of young people, Ron was cooler, like an elegant hunter. A flick of his fingers, and his claws came out to reap lives!
"Yeah."
An unnatural expression appeared on Hank's face as he agreed.
All he had were a pair of deformed, beast-like feet, which only gave him the ability to run a little faster than ordinary people.
"An ability like this should never exist..."
He looked sadly at Mystique, the girl beside him whom he loved.
He had to quickly develop a Serum that could restore his normal appearance!
Ron's ability was not limited to that. Its strongest aspect was his self-healing ability.
But unlike this group of immature youths, who acted as though they were putting on a show, he would not cut himself to demonstrate his power just to earn gasps and cheers.
After seeing Ron's ability, everyone started blasting energetic music in the room and truly threw a party in the CIA secret base. They danced wildly, mixed in their abilities, made a complete mess of the place, and created a deafening racket.
More than ten minutes later, a woman in a trench coat arrived from outside the window with Erik and Charles. They strode in briskly, stared wide-eyed at the chaos, and demanded in disbelief.
"What the hell is going on? What are you doing?"
"What happened to the room's windows?
And who destroyed the bronze statue in the yard?"
Hearing the questions, the immature youths finally turned off the noisy music and stood there at a loss. They seemed to finally realize what they had done and pointed one after another.
"Siren, and Alex. Alex destroyed the statue."
Sitting beside the bar, Ron silently watched everything unfold.
Moira was a senior CIA agent. She was the one who infiltrated the Hellfire Club, discovered the Black King's conspiracy, and found Professor X. Professor X read through her memories and became involved in the matter, leading to everything that followed.
She was also Professor X's lover in his youth.
The timing of Raven and the others' misbehavior could not have been worse. The three had just returned from the conference room, where they had faced questions from CIA leadership. What could a group of untrained young freaks possibly accomplish?
The three had argued fervently, and Charles had solemnly said they were not ordinary young people and would bring surprises.
Yet the moment they rounded the corner from the conference room, they saw this scene. Their faces had been slapped far too quickly.
"They truly are extraordinary."
Erik glanced at Charles, shook his head, and walked away coldly. Moira's face was filled with anger as she left with him.
"Other than Ron, you have all disappointed me terribly!"
After glancing at Ron, who had been sitting quietly by the bar without joining the chaos, Charles spoke to Mystique and the others with anger and disappointment. Without looking back, he turned and followed the others.
Leaving Mystique and the rest standing there helplessly.
On the road leading to the nearby airport, the three walked quickly.
"At least Ron did not mess around with them. Not everyone we brought back is just some party kid who knows how to wreck things at home."
Charles looked grim.
"He is mature, almost as if he were our age."
Erik recalled Ron's various actions and spoke.
"Should we bring him along?"
Moira suggested it. The meeting had been called because the CIA had received intelligence regarding the White Queen's whereabouts. She was in the Soviet Union, and they needed to infiltrate behind enemy lines, capture her, and obtain information.
The plane for their secret trip to the Soviet Union was about to take off.
They had originally planned to bring Mystique and the others along for the mission, but now it seemed unsuitable.
"Forget it. No matter how mature he is, he is still only a child.
It was my mistake to drag a group of children into this."
Charles shook his head, speaking painfully.
He had been too hasty. Matters concerning the safety of the world required more mature people. Entrusting them to children was too dangerous and unfair to them.
"Let's go."
Someone came to clean everything up, replaced the glass, and carried away the sliced bronze statue.
After being scolded, Mystique and the others sat quietly on the sofa. The deeply disappointed look in Charles's eyes as he left had pierced them.
Ron did not drink any more. He waited quietly.
"By now, Charles and the others should already be on their way to capture the White Queen.
The Black King will be here soon too."
Tonight, both sides had coincidentally acted against the other at the same time. Their main forces missed each other perfectly, and both sides gained something as a result.
Bang!
Suddenly, a faint yet strange noise came from outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, which were covered by electric curtains.
The group looked at one another in confusion.
"What was that?"
After they caused trouble earlier, several CIA employees had passed outside and mocked them, treating them like freaks in a circus. Unable to bear it, they had closed the curtains.
They opened the curtains and curiously walked toward the glass, staring into the vast night outside. Suddenly, someone fell from the sky, crashed down in front of them, and died, becoming a corpse.
"Ah!"
The group staggered back in terror and screamed.
Ron slowly rose to his feet.
"They're here..."
The contract has not been signed yet, so the daily update is temporarily three thousand words.
Once it is signed, it will become four thousand words a day. Please keep reading; recommendations now depend on follow-up reading, otherwise there will not even be a trial recommendation.
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