The Faster She Absorbed, the Faster He Grew

Charles sighed as he wheeled himself out of the Training Room.

He understood Scott's worries—about power spiraling out of control, about Russell, about the future of the X-Men. But some things were hard to say aloud.

For instance, Russell was a genetic clone of him, Magneto, and Wolverine.

He had never told the X-Men that secret. But whenever he saw the young man's face, saw those eyes whose color he could never quite name, he remembered the days Russell had spent in the Laboratory.

He remembered the numbers marked "failed specimens," and the babies sent to adoptive families—who knew how many of them.

Charles took a deep breath and wheeled himself toward his desk. He picked up the phone and dialed an encrypted number.

"Put me through to the President. Tell him Professor X, Charles Xavier, has something to discuss."

A transfer tone sounded on the other end. Charles closed his eyes and leaned back in his wheelchair.

Outside the window, the lawns of the Xavier Institute glowed gold in the afternoon sun. A dozen or so young students ran across the grass, their laughter slipping through the window like the clear chime of wind bells.

New York, Third Avenue.

Outside Christ Church, visitors came and went without pause.

Tourists held up their phones for photos, children raced along the steps, and guides waved little flags as they explained the century-old building's history in different languages.

Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows onto the flagstones, turning the crowd into silhouettes of every color.

But away from the bustle, a young woman wrapped tightly in a black robe walked alone down an empty alley. She moved quickly with her head lowered, as if hiding from something.

Nothing was chasing her from behind. What chased her was inside her: the stares, the whispers, the headlines calling Mutants monsters. They followed like shadows she could not shake.

She gently lowered her black cloak, revealing a sweet, pretty face still soft with baby fat. Her eyes were large and bright, like two black grapes fresh from the water, but something lay within them.

Not fear. Something deeper than fear, and more heartbreaking: bewilderment.

She was Rogue, Mary—the young woman Charles had asked Russell to help.

Seventeen days had passed since her mutant ability awakened.

Seventeen days ago, she had been an ordinary girl. She went to school, came home, chatted with friends, and watched movies about superheroes.

Seventeen days later, she was a "monster"—at least, that was what the news called her.

She never could have imagined becoming one of the people the news reviled, feared, and hunted.

Worst of all was the ability she had awakened. Anyone who touched her lost their strength and collapsed unconscious.

It was not a simple attack that hurt people. It was an absorbing power. Her body was like a sponge, drawing away other people's vitality, strength, and even abilities.

She did not want to do it, but she could not control it.

The ability was like a curse. She had to stay away from people so she would not hurt them.

She had not held anyone's hand in so long. She felt as though she had not been hugged in ages, or walked normally through a crowd without worrying that someone might collapse at her feet the next second.

"Found you."

As Rogue hurried along with her head down, a voice sounded from the far end of the alley. It seemed to have been dragged from deep in someone's throat, as rough as sandpaper scraping glass.

She looked up. A man as filthy as a wild animal blocked the alley's exit.

His hair was tangled, as if he had not washed it in years. His clothes were ragged, stained with dried blood and mud. His face was so fierce that he looked like a beast.

Most frightening of all were his eyes.

They were amber, with slit pupils like a cat's, and glimmered faintly in the shadows. The way he looked at Rogue was not how one person looked at another. It was how a predator looked at prey.

Four sharp fangs showed in his open mouth, like those of a great cat, gleaming cold white in the sunlight.

Sabretooth—Victor Creed. Magneto's enforcer, Wolverine's brother, and now the man sent to capture her.

Rogue instinctively took two steps back, pressing against the cold wall.

Her heart pounded as if it might burst from her chest, but she tried to look unafraid. On the outside, at least.

"Hello," she said, her voice trembling but clear enough. "Can I ask what you want with me?"

Sabretooth tilted his head like a big cat sizing up its prey. His mouth slowly spread into a chilling grin.

"Our boss needs you." His tone was utterly casual, as though he were talking about something mundane. "Come with me willingly. Otherwise—"

He paused and extended his right hand. Five long nails rapidly lengthened into sharp bone claws that glinted in the sunlight. "I'll have to drag you back."

Rogue did not wait for him to finish.

Sensing danger, she spun and fled like a startled animal. Her steps were frantic, her breathing ragged, and tears welled in her eyes, but she did not cry.

She knew crying would do no good.

In this world, tears did not make bad people good. They did not make danger disappear or suddenly give a conscience to people who wanted to hurt you.

Sabretooth watched her race down the alley, then followed at his leisure.

His strides were enormous, each covering nearly two meters, like a leopard jogging across the plains.

He was much faster than she was, but he was in no hurry. The fun of a cat-and-mouse chase was in playing, not killing.

Magneto had already told him about the girl's ability. It was only "ability absorption." As long as she did not touch him, she was just an ordinary young woman.

An ordinary girl with no combat training, no strength to fight back, and lungs that gave out after a short run.

She would never escape him.

Rogue ran, glancing back at the figure relentlessly pursuing her.

The filthy, wild-looking man moved with terrifying speed. Every stride closed the distance between them.

As he drew nearer, she could hear his footsteps—heavy, thudding,

like an elephant chasing a rabbit.

She could smell him now, too—blood, stale sweat, and some strange, animal scent she could not describe, one that made her want to flee on instinct.

With the girl almost within reach, a vicious glint flashed through Sabretooth's eyes.

He could not let her make this much trouble on the way back. Lord Magneto wanted her alive. If she ran and screamed and drew unwanted attention, he might as well knock her out.

With that thought, Sabretooth leaped high.

His body stretched through the air like a tiger pouncing on its prey.

His long claws retracted as he swung his hand sideways toward the back of Rogue's neck. With the right amount of force, a blow there would not kill her, but it would put her to sleep.

His hand cut through the air toward its target.

Then the world turned upside down.

Not figuratively. It truly turned upside down.

In his vision, the sky became the ground and the ground became the sky. Rogue vanished from sight, replaced by a pair of white sneakers with spotless soles.

One shoe swelled rapidly in his view, then somehow flipped around and stamped down hard on his spine.

BOOM!!

Sabretooth felt as though a road roller weighing dozens of tons had run over his back.

Terrible pressure crushed his bones in an instant. His third through seventh vertebrae snapped together, fragments piercing his spinal cord. Pain exploded through his nerve endings like an electric shock.

His body was forced out of the air and into the ground like a nail driven into a board.

His face smashed into the asphalt. His teeth struck the gravel, his lips tore, and blood sprayed. He heard his bones crack and his muscles rip. He heard his lungs struggle to draw air and fail.

The foot on his back was too heavy. His chest could not expand. It felt as if a building more than ten stories tall had landed on him.

Rogue heard a violent crash behind her, then felt the ground shake beneath her feet.

It was not an earthquake. It was the shock wave from the filthy man's body slamming into the ground.

Oh no!

The sudden noise behind her sent Rogue into a panic. She stumbled and fell, striking her knee against the paving stones and scraping her palm across the rough ground. Burning pain spread from the wound.

Ignoring her scraped hand, she hurriedly looked back.

What she saw would stay with her for the rest of her life.

The filthy man who had chased her lay in a crater like a squashed bug.

His face was buried in rubble and dust, his body twisted at an impossible angle. His spine was broken, his ribs were broken, and even his pelvis had cracked.

Blood seeped from his mouth, nose, and ears, pooling into a small patch of dark red liquid at the bottom of the crater.

A young man in a white shirt stood with his right foot planted on the man's back like a pillar holding up the sky.

His posture was casual, like someone waiting at a bus stop. He balanced on one foot with both hands in his pockets and even swayed slightly.

Yet beneath that foot, the man's body had been driven into the ground.

The terrifying force had passed straight through Sabretooth's body, punching a crater nearly two meters wide into the asphalt. Gravel and dust sprayed in every direction.

"Looks like my timing was perfect."

Russell looked at Rogue, who stared back at him in a daze. Ignoring Sabretooth beneath the settling dust, he smiled and offered her his right hand.

His smile was soft and faint, like a spring breeze or winter sunlight. He looked like someone who had finally met the person he had wanted to see.

He did not just look that way. It was true.

"Hello. I'm Russell. I heard you've been looking for me."

Sunlight squeezed through the gap at the alley's entrance and fell across Russell's handsome face, gilding it with a faint golden glow.

His white shirt stirred gently in the breeze, his hair was slightly tousled, and his eyes—their color impossible to pin down—looked like two shining stars in the shadows.

Could he be God?

The thought flashed through Rogue's mind.

She knew it was absurd. God would not appear in a New York alley. God would not wear a white shirt and sneakers, or greet her while standing on a mutant's spine.

But the perfect scene before her left her dazed. It felt like a dream, like a movie, like she had finally found a place to rest in some corner she had searched for all along but never reached.

She instinctively started to extend her right hand.

Then she saw Russell's pale, slender fingers, the joints clearly defined, and compared them with her own palm, smeared with dust and blood. Remembering her terrible, cursed ability, she pulled her hand back.

She quickly hid it behind her, like a shameful secret.

Her ability—that damned curse of an ability—would hurt him, just as it hurt everyone else.

"Your hand is hurt." Russell had noticed the wound on Rogue's arm and the hand she had hidden behind her back.

He lifted his right foot. Sabretooth seized the chance to struggle up and let out a beastlike roar. Russell promptly stomped his head back into the crater.

Boom.

Dust flew again, and Sabretooth's face sank deeper into the rubble.

Russell paid him no further attention. He crouched and gently took Rogue's hidden hand.

"Wait!" Rogue cried. "You can't touch me! My ability—"

The words stuck in her throat.

Russell had already taken her hand.

His fingers were warm and dry, his grip neither too tight nor too loose, just enough to envelop her whole hand.

At the same time, a powerful current of energy flowed into her from him.

She looked up at him anxiously, but his expression had not changed. He still wore that faint smile, as if nothing had happened.

He had not even furrowed his brow.

"H-how is this possible?" Rogue's voice shook. "You should... you should already be..."

"Unconscious?" Russell finished for her. "Drained of strength? Lying on the ground, unable to wake up?"

Rogue nodded hard.

Russell smiled. "Your ability hasn't stopped working. I can feel my strength being drawn away, and even my mind is being pulled by something invisible."

He paused. "But I recover faster than you can absorb it, so you can't take anything from me. It's like trying to scoop water out of a leaky pool: however much you scoop out, that much flows back in."

What he did not say was that the numbers on his system panel were visibly climbing.

[Super Self-Healing Experience +1]

[Super Self-Healing Experience +1]

[Mental Defense Experience +1]

[Mental Defense Experience +1]

His proficiency only went up, never down.

That was the real reason he had agreed to "help" Professor X.

Rogue's ability really was the perfect training tool for him.

More effective than sulfuric acid, safer than aqua regia, and less work than sparring with Wolverine.

As she absorbed his strength, Russell trained his self-healing and Mental Defense. The faster she absorbed, the faster his proficiency rose.