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*****
The sudden turn of events left everyone stunned.
"Clark!"
Erik and Charles cried out at once, shock blazing in their eyes.
Who was that girl? What kind of power was that? This was Clark—Superman!
Charles's gaze sharpened as his psychic power swept outward like a tide.
"Found him! Up in the sky! But Clark's state is strange—he's unresponsive, as if he's lost consciousness."
At his words, Erik and Thor shot into the air and, under Charles's guidance, streaked after the fleeing Rasha.
High above.
Rasha gripped Clark's hand, frantically drawing on her ability.
She could feel the Kryptonian power surging into her—vast, relentless, like a flood without end.
This was the strongest person she had ever touched.
No wonder Uncle Cohen had told her to go for Superman first.
If she absorbed Superman's power and combined it with Mister Fantastic's psychic dampener, she would be untouchable.
Of course, they could have chosen to absorb Professor X's abilities first and used them to control the others.
But there was another crucial reason to target Superman: during the Battle of New York, no Kryptonian had been susceptible to mind control. They had good reason to suspect that Superman might be immune as well.
If they absorbed Professor X's power and it still didn't work on Superman, the battle would be over the moment he broke free.
She had never encountered a force like this—warm as the sun, saturating her entire being.
One way or another, she'd completed the first step.
Once she absorbed Superman's power, the next steps would follow.
But… neither she nor Leon Cohen seemed to understand what "BUG" truly meant.
When Rasha first seized Clark, he had indeed fallen dazed under her touch. But as she carried him into the sky, his consciousness slowly slipped free of her influence; the instant sunlight struck him, he snapped fully awake.
His gaze flicked to Rasha's hand clasped tightly around his, a contemplative light flaring in his eyes. Then, instead of pulling away, he clamped down on the sleeve-shrouded forearm holding him.
Rasha's expression turned to alarm. Without the slightest hesitation, her figure flickered and vanished.
Teleportation!
Clark's eyes swept downward. Fury flashed across his face; he blurred from sight at near-instant speed.
But when he reappeared, the girl already had both hands pressed to Charles's face. She teleported again and vanished with him.
So close!
Clark moved again, giving chase.
Within a certain range, his speed was only imperceptibly slower than teleportation—yet even that hair's breadth of delay stretched the time Rasha kept contact with Charles.
Erik and Thor, who had rocketed skyward, immediately veered, angling after Rasha.
Down below, employees of Future Tech erupted in curses, while the students of the Xavier School screamed in fear.
"Professor!"
Jean watched Charles disappear. Remembering the pain etched across his face when Rasha had pressed her hands to him, she felt as if a hammer had exploded inside her skull—blankness swallowed her mind, and a faint, dangerous aura began to seep from her body.
Boom, boom!
Weapons hidden far in the distance opened fire again. A rain of Purifier rounds came hissing down.
Mutants scattered for cover as the school's teachers fought desperately to shield the children.
Fortunately, Erik's armored carriage blocked many of the Purifier shots.
Erik's eyes flashed; a protective electromagnetic field blossomed around him, catching the hail of anti-mutant bullets. "I'm going to deal with those," he told Thor.
Aside from Clark, he was the fastest one who could manage it.
What grated on him was how many hidden batteries the enemy might still have waiting.
Thor nodded and swooped down, moving to help the other mutants.
Suddenly, Clark—still pursuing Rasha—stiffened mid-flight, clutching his head with a groan of pain.
A terrifying surge of psychic force poured into his mind, trying to seize control.
Professor X's power!
The thought flashed through Clark's head.
The girl?
Before the notion fully formed, the deep-ocean tide of Charles's telepathy engulfed him.
He faltered, then spotted Thor working below. In a blur, he dove straight at him.
At the same time, Rasha—still fleeing—let out a breath of relief.
So Professor X's abilities worked on Superman after all.
Her hand remained on Charles.
The duration for which she could maintain an absorbed power depended on how long she stayed in contact with the source—typically sixty times the length of the touch.
From moments ago until now, barely ten seconds had passed.
Not enough…
But longer contact brought greater danger—to his life.
Rasha looked at Charles's pain-tightened face and hesitated. She decided to keep control a little longer. Once he lost the ability to fight back, she would release him.
She was a kind girl—otherwise she would not have been wracked with guilt for hurting her friends, nor agreed to brainwashing in the name of atonement.
Even now, used as a tool, she still kept a sliver of kindness in her heart.
Rasha hovered, scanning the battlefield below.
Thor whirled his hammer at speed; a roaring cyclone formed and swept upward with him, drawing the Purifier rounds into its gale.
Then Clark plunged straight through the vortex. With Thor still wide-eyed in shock, Clark smashed him from the sky.
Boom!
Thor slammed into the ground, gouging a crater.
Pain flickered in his eyes. Though he didn't know why Clark had attacked him, his reflexes were razor-sharp—he rolled away instantly.
Clark dropped like a meteor, stamping the earth hard enough to make it shudder.
"Clark, are you insane?!" Thor shouted.
Clark turned to him, eyes flickering with the struggle inside—but he still lunged.
They crashed together at once.
"He's controlled! Charles's power? That girl can absorb abilities?"
The White Queen, Emma, whispered as she watched Clark. A telepathic force only slightly weaker than Charles's speared into Clark's mind.
Clark froze.
Inside his head, two psychic powers collided in a savage duel. Yet with Emma's aid, he swiftly began to tear apart the force controlling him.
Sensing the shift, Rasha blanched.
A second later, she condensed a psychic blast—a "mind bomb"—and detonated it inside Clark's head. He staggered, blank-eyed and still for a heartbeat.
Rasha flickered from the air and reappeared at Emma's side, hand snapping toward her.
"Back off!"
Logan roared. Adamantium claws flashed as he stabbed for Rasha's chest—but her fist crashed into his sternum the instant he lunged.
Boom!
Logan flew, a cannonball smashing into Victor. The two of them careened along the ground like skipping stones before tumbling to a halt.
Short as her contact with Clark had been, Rasha still carried a measure of his power.
She struck for Emma again.
Emma's eyes went cold; her telepathy surged to meet Rasha's.
Rasha gathered her own psychic force and held the attack at bay.
"Put him down."
The voice cut through the air, so cold it felt like it could freeze the wind itself. Rasha's outstretched arm locked in place, seized by an invisible force.
Before she could react, a terrifying pressure descended and hammered her away.
In the instant she was hurled back, an unseen hand whisked Charles from her grasp.
Rasha's outline flickered; she vanished mid-flight and reappeared high above, looking down.
Charles was cradled in the arms of a mutant girl.
Her feet didn't touch the ground; a cascade of red-brown hair drifted around her face.
Jean Grey?
Rasha's heart lurched.
What was this power?
Invisible force poured from Jean, shoving everyone near her away as distortions rippled the air around her like heat haze.
"Jean!?"
Emma's cry cracked. Noticing Jean's eyes, her face changed.
Jean's irises had gone completely black.
Cold. Volatile. Cruel. Indifferent…
Jean's power was rampaging.
The moment Emma reached that conclusion, her voice rang in every mutant's mind.
"Hurry! Get away from Jean!"
As the warning fell, Emma struck out with her telepathy, trying to pull Jean back.
She knew the truth of Jean's power from Charles—and she had tracked Jean's progress for years. Through her own effort and Charles's guidance, Jean had managed to control half of her abilities—leaving the other half to the second persona sharing her mind.
To avoid catastrophic surges, Jean normally used only a fraction of the power she herself could handle. But today, the shock of what she'd seen had forced consensus between her and that other self; she'd slipped into a berserk state and unleashed everything.
How strong was Jean with her power fully unshackled?
No one had ever witnessed it.
But Emma remembered Charles's assessment:
Jean was stronger than any of them.
A chain of thoughts flashed by. Emma called softly to Jean's consciousness.
But—
Jean flicked her wrist. The invisible force scythed toward Emma.
Emma's pupils tightened; she triggered her diamond form in a rush.
Whoosh!
She was hurled away.
Emma stabbed her hands into the earth to stop her slide, then snapped her head up.
Jean—face carved with cruelty—was rising slowly with Charles in her arms. Her target… was Rasha.
"I'll kill you."
The words were ice. Jean clenched her fingers.
Invisible force coiled and lashed for Rasha.
Rasha pressed her lips together and blinked from sight—reappearing at Jean's flank, driving a fist at her head.
Thump!
Her punch slammed into an unseen wall.
The air trembled; a shockwave rippled outward.
Jean crooked a finger, and the invisible pressure yanked hard at Rasha's body.
Alarm flared in Rasha's eyes. Twin lances of heat vision flared from her gaze.
Useless.
Jean's telekinetic barrier met the beams head-on. The ruby pillars splashed and scattered like a firehose against a cliff.
A cruel smile touched Jean's lips.
"Even if you've absorbed their powers, you're still weaker than the originals."
"Heh. Want to sample a few more?"
Rasha's face went pale. The pull on her body was growing stronger by the second; she teleported again, barely escaping. Without Superman's power lingering in her cells, she would have been ripped apart just now.
Jean held the unconscious Charles tight, her eyes glinting with a predator's amusement as she tracked Rasha.
Her gaze narrowed; telekinesis surged forth once more. Rasha flickered rapidly from point to point, doing the math on how much longer Superman's power would last—and her heart sank.
Not much time left.
At that moment, distant explosions rolled across the battlefield.
Erik was dismantling the weapons.
With each detonation, the once-thick rain of Purifier rounds thinned—and then ceased entirely.
A new command hit Rasha's comm. She flashed away, widening the gap, and shot toward the horizon.
Jean snorted, hugging Charles as she streaked after her.
Seeing this, Clark—finally clearing his head—shook himself and leapt into the air.
Something wasn't right with the mutant girl. He needed to rescue Charles first.
But as he ascended, Charles's voice touched his mind.
"Don't worry about me. I'm fine. Don't provoke Jean—she's unstable right now. Go help Erik and the others."
Clark hesitated.
"I'm really fine. Jean won't hurt me."
Charles insisted, and Jean carried him farther and farther away.
Clark nodded once and arrowed toward Erik.
Erik, in that moment, was facing a ring of Guardians closing in.
It was obvious now: those Purifier cannons weren't just anti-mutant weapons—they were bait.
Clark arrived in a blur, took in the field at a glance, and disappeared—reappearing with his hand clamped around the Red Hulk's head. He drove the brute straight down.
Boom!
The impact thundered. Clark pinned Red Hulk at the bottom of a fresh crater, then snapped his head toward the Invisible Woman and fired twin beams of heat vision.
She threw up a force field just in time. The Thing roared and charged.
Expressionless, Clark seized Red Hulk like a battering ram and smashed him into the Thing, then flashed behind the orange behemoth and hammered him skyward—right into the Red Hulk's path.
Boom!
They collided mid-air, dazed and stumbling as they tumbled back to earth.
In that instant, Rasha—who had lured Jean away by teleportation—reappeared at the edge of the fight. She pressed a hand to both Red Hulk and the Thing and vanished with them.
Seeing this, Mister Fantastic shouted to the Human Torch. Johnny lobbed a largely useless gout of flame toward Erik, which splashed onto Mister Fantastic's side.
Invisible Woman cried out and snapped a force field around the three of them, blocking Erik's attack—just as Rasha flickered back into view and whisked them away as well.
Clearly, the cascade of surprises and the worsening situation had forced their enemies to abandon the operation.
Erik snorted coldly at their retreat.
Clark scanned the perimeter. Sensing no remaining hostiles, he turned to Erik. "Get the kids out first. We can't stay here."
Erik nodded. Together, he and Clark flew toward the mutants.
(End of Chapter)