Chapter 51
***
It was strange—watching my own body from the outside, hovering a couple of meters in the air. Even though this wasn't the first time I had experienced something like this, it still hammered my brain, much like that flower pot had just hammered into this body's skull.
It didn't actually hit that hard, by the way. If it hadn't been for this strange out-of-body ejection, I might not have even fallen from a blow like that. I would have rubbed the bruise, shaken my fist at the sky where that damn geranium had come from, and walked away.
But here...
I "looked closer" at the body. It was completely fine, save for a small gash on the scalp from the corner of the pot. I could probably just go back...
But then the surrounding world shifted strangely, and everything began to double. Two bodies lay on the ground. Both were mine. Only one had a short, black crew cut, while the other was much bulkier and boasted a magnificent blond mane.
Uncle Vanya and the rest of the "sixteen and up" group were already running toward the first body. Standing over the second was a hulking figure with blue lips and gray skin. The group immediately began professionally checking the first body for wounds and fractures, then patting its cheeks in an attempt to bring it back to consciousness. Over the second, En Sabah Nur shook his head disapprovingly and extended a hand toward it, summoning some kind of power that began to disintegrate the body, which desperately resisted with its healing factor.
"No!" I tried to scream. But the scream wouldn't come out. Instead, a "freeze-frame" effect took hold. Both scenes stopped, and I was left "hanging" between them.
It was bizarre. I could feel some kind of silver threads stretching from me to both bodies. I couldn't see them, but I could feel them. I also felt that I could "return" to either of them; I just had to want it and "jump." I only needed to decide which one.
And for some reason, it was crystal clear that the choice would be final: if I chose Vasya, En Sabah Nur would destroy Sabretooth's body as a disappointing piece of trash. If I chose Victor... well, things were a bit more complicated. Looking "closely" at Vasya's body—or doing whatever it is I did in this state—I sensed something, or rather someone, who was finally ready to "wake up" and fill the newly vacant space. I focused on it and, to my surprise, recognized myself. The me I was before that fateful night. I also "saw" a jumbled mess of memories, skills, and knowledge within him—completely disorganized, chaotic, confusing, and unsystematic... like a wet newspaper page pressed onto a table, leaving an imprint that's nearly impossible to scrub off.
I understood that I could merge with this past self, becoming one whole entity, or I could allow him to "unfold" on his own. Both choices would be right.
The whole question ultimately came down to what I actually wanted. Which of these two lives was I going to keep for myself? The violent, feral killer Creed, or the cheerful, well-balanced martial arts teacher who hid from no one and had virtually no trouble with the law?
Vasya was happy.
Victor... it was hard to call him unhappy either.
I made my choice. The "freeze-frame" ended.
***
En Sabah Nur stood over the body that had tumbled out of the wall niche and pondered. The experiment to enhance this mutant had failed. Why had it happened?
After all, the first phase had gone quite well. The body was successfully enhanced: a new level of healing factor capabilities had been unlocked; the bones, teeth, and claws were reinforced; muscle tissue was denser; and several other bodily functions were strengthened and stabilized. What those specific functions were, the analysis hadn't revealed, but their existence was obvious given the massive amount of energy that had seemingly been wasted.
It was after that point that everything went wrong. First, the initial attempt to breach the subject's consciousness failed. Even after amplifying and engaging additional power, the mental shields remained impenetrable. At one point, this Sabretooth even managed to launch a counterattack. He nearly burned out the equipment, but bringing online auxiliary power reserves managed to repel the assault.
Subsequent attempts continued to fail one after another, forcing him to pump more and more energy into the process, amplifying the mental strikes. By the end, the External had abandoned all caution and was literally hammering at Sabretooth's mind with the equipment running at maximum capacity, until... until he broke the toy.
One of the strikes simply obliterated the mutant's consciousness completely and all at once, rendering the follow-up strikes useless as they hit nothing but a void. Following the death of his mind, the mutant's heart stopped.
A promising mutant had died, becoming nothing but unpromising biological waste.
En Sabah Nur even gave the subject some time, since his primary power lay in self-regeneration and healing. There was a non-zero probability that he could recover even from damage like this.
But time passed, the heart remained still, and consciousness did not return. After two hours, the External deemed the experiment a total failure and opened the niche. The body tumbled out at his feet. Slag, ready for disposal.
En Sabah Nur raised a hand toward it and engaged his power to disintegrate and destroy the waste. The power began to act, but the newly enhanced body resisted, trying to heal the incoming damage even with a stopped heart. The External increased the pressure.
Suddenly, the body twitched. Its hand clenched into a fist, its claws carving deep gouges into the floor. A muffled, strangled growl erupted from the throat of the dead mutant.
En Sabah Nur paused and lowered his hand. The mutant continued to growl for a moment, then fell silent, planted his hands on the floor, and slowly pushed himself to his feet.
***
I stood up slowly and shot a dark scowl at the External. He looked at me. I looked at him. He looked at me...
"Let's go," he finally said, turning toward the exit. I followed him silently, sticking to the persona of a dumb, mute brute.
The old man Nur was currently convinced that he had destroyed my former mind, and that the new one—born literally moments ago under the influence of my healing factor—was a blank slate, more beast than man.
We stepped into the corridor and walked about halfway down it. The External stopped, turned around, and placed a hand on my shoulder. The next moment, we teleported into Xavier's mansion. Right into the living room, where Charles himself, Hank McCoy, and the new girl Charles had claimed as a prize at the Battle were sitting around a circular table.
"Victor?" Xavier asked, surprised. He jumped up from his seat, his fingers automatically flying to his temple in a habitual gesture.
I continued playing the dumb, mute beast, standing behind Apocalypse's shoulder.
Xavier instantly probed my mind, but got his nose snapped at and quickly "jumped back." He then tried to force his way into En Sabah Nur's head, only to grab his own head and collapse to the floor with a scream.
Hank leaped at Apocalypse right out of his chair, but I caught him by the throat mid-air, slammed his back into the floor, and let out a ferocious roar right in his face. McCoy's eyes widened in horror and shock; he tried to say something, but I abruptly clamped down on his throat, cutting off his carotid artery. A few seconds, a few desperate twitches, and Beast passed out, his blue-furred bulk going limp on the floor.
Drawn by the noise, Xavier's older and stronger students began rushing into the living room.
Scott Summers was the first one through the door, his hand reaching for his visor... slowly. The unconscious mass of McCoy that I hurled swept him away, along with his brother running right behind him.
Nightcrawler tried to "jump" onto my back, probably intending to teleport me somewhere unpleasant. However, driving an elbow into his Adam's apple ruined those plans quite effectively.
I ducked, grabbed him by the leg while he was still falling, clutching his throat and gasping for air, dragged him between my legs, and tossed him.
He made for a pretty good projectile. It was just a shame Kitty managed to phase into "intangibility" in time, and he flew right through her without doing any damage.
Logan lunged from a side corridor, claws extended. He caught a chair to the forehead mid-flight, which stunned him for a split second (the chair shattered into splinters against his adamantium skull). That was exactly what I needed. A quick strike with the scabbard of my katana—still gripped in my left hand, as I hadn't let go of it this entire time—to the crotch of the mid-air Logan. Then a dodge, stepping behind him, grabbing his head, and breaking his neck with a sharp, precise jerk.
His vertebrae were adamantium, of course, and wouldn't break, but his intervertebral discs, ligaments, muscles, and spinal cord were relatively normal, even if they were far tougher than an average human's. But then again, I was far from an average human either. By applying enough force to the right spots at the exact right angle, I managed to "force him to inspect his own back and ass."
He was instantly paralyzed. Just to be safe, I caught a leg from the broken chair in mid-air (the same chair that had shattered against Logan's armored head) and drove it into his neck, on the left side, just above the collarbone. It locked his head in place, ensuring he couldn't fix the injury himself.
The sheer brutality of the takedown made the charging kids falter. Kitty lost her "intangibility" for a fraction of a second and immediately caught a left hook to the chin, my fist still wrapped around the katana. The punch wasn't incredibly hard, but it was precise and "clean," knocking the girl out cold instantly.
Rogue tried to crawl under the table to grab my leg, but caught the end of the scabbard to the base of her skull and also went quiet. I immediately had to dodge Psylocke's whip, using Logan's long-suffering body in my right hand as a shield. It probably hurt him—well, maybe not. His spinal cord was severed; he couldn't feel a thing right now. The girl, however, was horrified that she had almost sliced "one of her own" in half (yeah, right, as if; an adamantium skeleton is a hell of a perk, but a back flayed open by a psychokinetic pseudo-blade still looks terrifying). She hesitated, and paid for it instantly with a strike to the chin from the butt of my scabbard, delivered with just enough force and at the perfect angle to switch her off completely.
I shoved Logan's battered body in the path of Bobby Drake's ice blast, then immediately smashed a table over Bobby from above before he could even transform into ice. I dodged a charged card from Gambit right after, catching a glimpse of Jean Grey in the doorway.
She was bad news, so without moving from my spot, I hit her with a Qi strike. It wasn't full strength—not meant to kill, just to stun and break her concentration for a second. I followed up immediately with a long leap ending in a roll that brought me right up to her, delivering a strike "to the soul" with the katana's hilt, followed by a finishing, knockout chop to the base of her skull with the edge of my hand. I dodged another charged card from Gambit and spun to face him.
He was the last one standing. Except for the white-haired black girl, who hadn't moved an inch from her chair, even when I smashed a table over Drake's empty head.
Gambit flicked out and extended his telescopic staff, preparing for a protracted fight. How naive. A thunderous roar fueled by a kiai and an area-of-effect Qi burst right from where I stood, and then I smashed yet another chair over his head while he was still stunned and reeling from my first attack. That brief moment was more than enough, and there were plenty of chairs in the living room.
That was it.
Fast, brutal, effective.
Apocalypse nodded at the writhing Xavier. I silently hoisted his body over my shoulder. We walked up to the white-haired girl. The External placed one hand on her shoulder and the other on my shoulder that wasn't carrying the body. And we were gone.
***
"What the hell was that?!" Bobby Drake exclaimed, crawling out from under the broken table.
"They beat the crap out of us, what's so hard to understand?" snapped Scott Summers, who was trying to wake Beast up so he could drag his brother out from under him.
"But that was Victor! Uncle Victor! I'm right, aren't I? That was really him?" Kitty Pryde groaned, clutching her chin. "How could he? How is that even possible?"
"Will someone thaw Logan out already?" wheezed Gambit, picking himself up from the floor and holding his bruised head.
Drake, suddenly remembering, hurried over to the frozen, paralyzed Wolverine, who was stuck like a grotesque statue in the center of the room. A small effort on Bobby's part, and Logan dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes. Gambit hobbled over to his body, yanked the chair leg out of his neck, and with considerable effort—bracing his knee against Logan's back—twisted the injured man's head back to its normal position.
"Argh!" a sound tore from his throat that was equal parts a gasp and a curse. "Get everyone back on their feet, fast! General assembly in the Danger Room in ten minutes. Move it!" he commanded, pushing himself up from the floor.
"Can you at least tell us what that was, Logan?" Kitty asked, standing up.
"A drill on repelling a surprise attack on the School under near-combat conditions. Full contact. And we failed it miserably!" Wolverine growled. "Get to the Danger Room, I said! We're going to do an 'error analysis'."
"Yes, sir," the kids agreed reluctantly, still crawling out of the wreckage and only just beginning to recover.
Five minutes later, only Logan, Hank, Scott, Jean, and Gambit were left in the living room.
"What the hell kind of drill was that, James?!" Gambit protested in a harsh whisper. "They took the Professor!"
"Harsh, full-contact, and unexpected! And right now, you are going to go convince the kids of exactly that, so they don't get it in their heads to interfere. Got it?" Logan replied in the same whisper, only louder and edged with a growl.
"But he's right. Victor tried to kill us," Scott interjected.
"Don't flatter yourself, kid," Howlett didn't miss the chance to put the arrogant boy in his place again. "If Victor had decided to kill us, you'd all be dead already."
"Us? What about you?" Cyclops tried to take another jab at Wolverine.
"And I'd still be suffering, helplessly watching as he carved me up bone by bone," Howlett shuddered. "Still haven't figured it out? He didn't even unsheathe his sword once during that whole 'fight'! Has it clicked yet?" Summers frowned and looked away. "So shut up and help Gambit calm the kids down."
"What are we going to do?" Hank asked carefully, rubbing his neck after Gambit and Cyclops had left.
"Call Eric."
"I already did. Mystique is furious. A huge guy with gray skin and blue lips took Eric away three minutes ago."
"That's bad," Logan frowned. "Two Battle Champions will smear us in a thin layer across the dirt, not even counting the gray-skinned guy, who, by the way, happens to be one of the oldest and strongest mutants on the planet."
"So what do we do?"
"Complain to Victor's wife about him, what else?" Logan sighed.
***
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