Miles's Choice

Oklahoma City, casino hotel, outer street.

A slovenly dressed old woman grasped a few pills in one hand, tucked her other hand in her pocket, and walked silently toward the casino.

The right hand in her pocket held a gun, originally prepared for her own suicide, but when the moment arrived, she found she still lacked a bit of courage, so she changed her mind at the last minute and decided to take a few people down with her at the casino before hitting the road.

Her eldest son had died in that casino, and her second son had also gotten hooked on drugs there, just a few days ago smoking himself to death.

So she felt that it was that casino that had ruined her.

"Hey, Joe, Team C seems to have lost contact for a while now..."

"Do you think they've already been killed by that group of mutants?"

The old woman passing the command vehicle paused in her steps.

She suddenly remembered that her husband seemed to have been killed by mutants.

Only then did she have all those subsequent tragic experiences.

[Oh, right...]

[It turned out those mutants ruined me.]

Casino, twelfth-floor hallway.

"Ah!!!"

"Damn mutants..."

The surviving Reavers soldiers had not yet recovered from the roar of the grenades when two reapers arrived quietly out of the darkness.

Their night-vision goggles malfunctioned, their eyes still unable to adjust to the dark, the piercing alarm bells were still ringing, the floor was covered in wet water, and these people had just endured a round of explosions. Let alone finding where the enemy was, even just simply raising their guns to aim at the enemy was an extremely difficult task for them.

Under such circumstances, the battle turned into a one-sided slaughter. Logan and Laura only needed to mechanically drive their claws into the enemy's chests over and over again.

Even in the occasional dangerous situation, their prosthetic limbs would be rapidly paralyzed by Miles.

Compared to the "chaotic and inefficient" thought signals of manipulating human minds, Miles clearly felt that the electronic signals belonging to electronic devices were much "simpler and more efficient." Neither the burden of his ability nor the manipulation intensity was on the same level as his previous performance.

Perhaps this was the original appearance of Miles's "telepathy" ability, his very own "electronic sense," or rather, "Electronic Signal Manipulation."

Soon, less than a minute later, the noises in the hallway completely subsided, leaving only the fire sprinklers still spraying water with a "swishing" sound, washing away the viscous liquid mixed with blood on the ground.

Logan breathed heavily, pulling his steel claws out of the last corpse's head and shaking off the blood stains on them. He leaned against the wall, feeling the dull pain radiating from several gunshot wounds on his body, and exhaustion washed over him like a tide.

Laura emerged from the darkness, her body likewise stained with blood, and looked expressionlessly at Logan.

"We're going back." Logan nodded and walked limply toward the room.

Thus, the group reunited.

The hotel was undoubtedly no longer habitable; traces of combat were everywhere. Since their whereabouts had been exposed, what they needed to do now was leave as quickly as possible.

"Charles, we have to go..."

"Damn it... Logan, do you know how long it's been since I've slept in a proper bed? I haven't even had a good night's sleep here yet!"

Ignoring Charles's resentment, Logan bent over and laboriously hoisted Charles onto his back. At the same time, Caliban hurried over, carefully hoisting Miles, whose body had been weakened to the limit, onto his back.

Laura folded Charles's and Miles's wheelchairs and strapped them onto her back.

The few of them walked out of the room and entered the hallway.

At this moment, the alarm bells and fire sprinklers had quieted down, and the emergency lights had also resumed weak illumination, casting the horrific scene before them into even sharper relief.

The walls were riddled with bullet holes and claw marks, and more than a dozen corpses lay sprawling in pools of blood. The stench of blood permeating the air was almost nauseating.

Charles leaned on Logan's broad but no longer stalwart back, looking at all this, a trace of sorrow revealing itself in his aged eyes.

"Logan," he spoke softly, his voice carrying a trace of a tremor, "I used to think... these kinds of things were far behind us..."

Logan's feet stepped on the ground where the bloodstains had been washed away, making a "pat-pat" sound.

Hearing Charles's voice, the aging Logan fell silent for a moment, and replied in a hoarse voice, "Charles, you know that a lot of the time, we just have no choice..."

"It's nothing, I know, I know it all..." Charles sighed, "This world has never changed, it's just that we are different now."

The five people crossed the hellish hallway, arrived at the elevator, and rode it slowly down to the first-floor casino lobby.

With Miles around, they didn't have to worry about the elevator being suddenly cut off from power, and they were also certain that no enemies were squatting and waiting for them below.

According to Miles, the remaining Reavers squad had returned to the vicinity of the command vehicle after their command system was paralyzed, guarding against possible attacks while helping Dr. Zander open the emergency exit, though with very little to show for it so far. From its initial design, that vehicle had never accounted for the possibility of the emergency exit being opened from the outside. Relying solely on Dr. Zander and Anthony inside, opening this steel plate door clearly still required some effort.

"Good..." Miles gritted his teeth against the pain in his brain, his gaze locked fixedly on the direction of the command vehicle. "You can't run, Dr. Zander..."

The lobby was still brightly lit, but because of the brief commotion just now, there were far fewer guests left. Miles slumped on Caliban's back, every breath tugging at the excruciating pain deep within his brain, as if tens of thousands of red-hot steel needles were churning inside. Yet he still forced himself to stay awake.

He was going to watch Zander Rice die with his own eyes!

"They're coming out!"

Several remaining Reavers saw Miles and his group appear and raised their guns without hesitation. Seeing this, Logan and Laura instinctively stopped, slowly baring the steel claws in their hands.

"It's the mutants!"

"Oh no!"

Seeing the unusual appearance of Logan and Laura, the crowd backed away in panic. In the minds of many of them, the existence of mutants was entirely synonymous with terrorists, bringing disaster and bloodshed every time they appeared.

Logan's gaze swept casually over the panic of the crowd, unmoved.

As one of the longest-surviving mutants, he had experienced similar things countless times before.

And Miles didn't care either; from the beginning, his target had been one and only one.

"Laura..." Miles lay on Caliban's back, his voice hoarse and weak as he spoke, "That fellow Zander is in that car... and do you see those guys in black nearby? That's Zander's guard squad... I'll help you paralyze their prosthetic arms, take the opportunity to deal with them as quickly as possible... and then wait for Dr. Zander to come out..."

"Bang!"

Before Miles finished speaking, a crisp gunshot exploded without warning in the bustling casino lobby!

Everyone was startled, Logan whipped his head around, his pupils abruptly contracting.

Old Charles's gaze went vacant, his mouth parting slightly. A blossom of blood quietly bloomed on his back, rapidly staining his neat suit red.

Logan's gaze followed the direction of the gunshot, seeing an old woman with white hair trembling as she held a smoking pistol, her eyes filled with fear and bone-deep hatred.

"I recognize you! Damn mutants!" the woman screamed hysterically, "You're the ones who took my man and my children from me! You're the ones who made me into what I am now..."

However, before her accusatory words could finish, the unexpected happened.

"Clack!!!"

In that instant, the lights throughout the entire casino went out all at once!

LCD screens, billboards, chandeliers on the ceiling... all light sources turned to nothing at the exact same moment. Even though it was daytime outdoors, everyone gradually felt an indescribable oppression and an invisible terror wrap around them.

"Jingle-ling-ling-ling-ling..."

A series of piercing alarm bells rang through the air, and slot machines went crazy, spitting out coins and tokens that clattered across the floor. The giant screen on the high-rise building also abruptly "swished," turning into a sheet of static snow.

At the same time, everyone's mobile phone screens also instantly went dark, completely failing.

Even though they couldn't see anything, everyone gradually sensed that something terrifying had happened.

"Wuwu..."

The old woman who fired the gun watched in terror as her body began to stop obeying her.

Her arms trembled violently, uncontrollably, inch by inch, moving the cold muzzle of the gun away from the mutant she hated and slowly aiming it at her own chin.

In front of her, Miles had turned his head back at some point, the fingers of one hand pressing hard against his own temple.

His complexion was as pale as paper, but his gaze was unprecedentedly cold.

Miles was going to make her die.

Not just this old woman; inside the command vehicle, Dr. Zander and Anthony, who were pulling the lever together, also gradually discovered that their bodies were beyond their control!

The two of them stiffly reached out toward each other at the same time, tremblingly pinching each other's throats and slowly applying force...

"Mind... control?!" Dr. Zander muttered in agony.

"Is it... him?" Anthony rasped out, "Don't do this... Doctor..."

In this instant, the old woman, Dr. Zander, and Anthony all began to feel the descent of death, and under the drive of the instinct to survive, they began to struggle desperately with all their might.

At the same time, everyone's gaze instinctively converged on this paralyzed teenager, including those remaining Reavers Team D members who had originally been preparing to charge forward.

Yet, after witnessing this terrifying, god-like spectacle before them, not a single person dared to act rashly.

"...Don't."

The woman muttered in despair, her fingers slowly beginning to exert force.

However, right before the trigger was pulled, a hoarse voice broke the deathly standoff.

"Don't, Miles..." The injured Professor Charles Xavier lay on Logan's back, speaking with difficulty, "Don't do this... She's just a... pitiful person..."

Miles didn't answer, but he bit down hard on his teeth.

He still wanted to kill these fellows... yet he was already reaching his limit.

Controlling three people at the same time was already the limit of his abilities, especially given that his physical condition remained poor and his brain had been aching like hell the whole time...

Unable to see inside the command vehicle and only able to sense the rough locations of Zander and Anthony, relying solely on his own power would make it hard for him to directly kill those two in a short time, especially with a reserve squad stationed right beside the command vehicle.

"He has a gunshot wound, he needs treatment immediately!" Caliban looked at Charles and shouted nervously, "We have to find a doctor right now!"

"Fuck!"

Logan turned his head, glaring fiercely at the woman with a pair of wolf eyes filled with fury, and then growled low to the others, "Let's go!"

With that, Logan looked at Miles, waiting for his reply.

Miles's face was pale, cold sweat streaming down his forehead like a brook.

Leave now? Or go kill Zander no matter the cost?

If he went to save Charles, there would be no time to kill Zander... but if he killed Zander now, Charles would die...

Thinking this, Miles's gaze finally shifted away from the woman, then swept past the crowd, and finally locked a hard stare onto that silent command vehicle in the distance, as if wanting to carve its silhouette into his heart.

Then, he slowly turned his head back, looking at Charles, who was bleeding profusely on his back.

The old man's figure appeared unprecedentedly helpless and frail against the backdrop of the blood blossom.

Miles opened his mouth tremblingly, recalling what old Charles had told him before.

"We are family, Miles... Between family, we understand each other, we help each other..."

His understanding of Charles's words was not deep, but the problem was... he didn't want Charles to just die like this either.

Because... Charles was one of the few people who genuinely cared about him after he came to this world.

Last time, he failed to save Gabriela...

This time...

Thinking of this, Miles's bloodshot eyes were filled with red veins.

He felt as though his mind had never been this chaotic in his entire life.

Damn it!!!!

"Bang!"

The gunshot rang out.

A bloody hole instantly erupted on the old woman's shoulder, blood pouring like a waterfall.

Following that, the gun in her hand dropped to the ground with a "clack," and her entire body collapsed as well.

"Hoo... hoo..."

Miles gasped for a few breaths, then squeezed a few words out from between his teeth.

"...Let's go."

As Miles's words fell, the old woman let out a hysterical scream, blood continuously seeping from the wound on her shoulder.

Miles didn't kill her, but he didn't plan to let her off either. Getting shot in the shoulder wasn't fatal, but whether she could survive it was her own business.

Just like what she did to Charles.

As the few of them left, the lights and alarms in the lobby returned to normal.

"Miles..." Charles looked at Miles, his mouth opening worriedly as he wanted to say something, but he was powerless to make a sound, and then he slowly closed his eyes.

"Hurry up!!" Logan shouted anxiously, and amidst the terrified gazes of the casino security and others, he led the rest of the group in rapidly rushing past the barrier, hijacking a pickup truck on the road left behind by a panicked car owner.

"Vroom vroom..."

Logan slammed his foot down on the accelerator, and the pickup truck's engine let out a roar, carrying these battered and bruised fellows and vanishing into the end of the road.

Two minutes later.

"One, two, three!"

"One, two, three!!!"

Anthony and Dr. Zander finally pushed open the heavy bottom emergency exit of the command vehicle together, crawling out from that iron coffin.

"What happened?" Anthony grabbed a Team D member the moment he crawled up and asked, "Did X-0 make a move just now?!"

"Reporting commander... we... we..." The team member stammered incoherently, clearly not yet recovered from the fear just now.

"Those mutants are gone..."

"We didn't dare stop them... Something terrifying happened just now..."

"What?"

Through communicating with the others, Dr. Zander and Anthony finally pieced together the full picture of events.

During the time they were trapped in the vehicle, a ghostly riot of electronic equipment had occurred in the casino, and they had almost been rushed by those angry mutants and torn limb from limb!

"Such a thing could actually happen?" Anthony muttered to himself.

Dr. Zander ignored the panic of those people, simply staring blankly in the direction where the group of mutants had vanished, fanaticism and disbelief flashing in his eyes.

"Manipulating all electronic devices... paralyzing the command system, creating massive chaos... Is this the true potential of 'X-0'?"

He muttered to himself, his voice trembling with excitement.

"Unbelievable... there actually is a mutant... who can awaken an ability like this!"

At the same time, a police officer who had been watching from the sidelines all along, seeing that his mobile phone had finally resumed normal operation, unhesitatingly dialed his superior officer's phone.

"This is the Queens District of Oklahoma City, casino hotel... Yes, sir, an incident just occurred here... an incident involving a mutant ability going out of control with an extremely vile nature..."