Yet when she suddenly snapped back to awareness, she realized that neither Raymond nor the man who seemed to be posing as the Professor showed any reaction at all, as if they didn't care what she thought.
"Yes… during a mission to steal data from the Sentinel robot archives, she was killed…" Professor X's sub-personality spoke in a voice filled with conflict—part sorrow, part the joy of meeting an old friend again.
"You… sound very sure she's the same Tessa you knew, and not just someone who looks like her?" Raymond asked with some surprise.
"Looks can be disguised, but a person's mental presence cannot. That's why Raven could never fool me," Professor X's sub-personality shook his head. "I'm certain she's Tessa. I just don't understand…"
"Don't understand why, if she was killed, she's here now?" Raymond said with a faint, knowing smile.
"Yes." Professor X's sub-personality didn't try to hide his confusion.
"Go look for yourself. Everything is in her memories. Once you see them, you'll understand." Raymond released his hands from the back of the wheelchair, gesturing for Professor X's sub-personality to go ahead.
Without hesitation, the Professor X sub-personality pushed his wheelchair toward Sage.
"Stay away from me!"
Seeing the "fake Professor X" approach, Sage finally began to panic.
As a multi-talented mutant, she also had psychic abilities, but her main power was Mental Computation; her psychic skills were not strong.
Even so, she knew how psychic powers worked, and she recognized what was happening—the "fake Professor X" was invading her mind, intending to forcefully search through her memories.
The milky-white barrier around her was a safeguard the real Professor X had placed, meant to protect her from psychic intrusion at times like this.
Of course, this was originally meant as protection against Emma Frost, since the White Queen's telepathy was also powerful.
"Dr. Raymond, stop him right now—this will not help our cooperation!" Sage, seeing she couldn't talk down the "fake Professor X," quickly turned her plea toward Raymond, who was watching from nearby.
"This psychic shield around me was left by the Professor. The moment it's triggered, he'll sense it—and when that happens, he won't let you go!"
Her words even carried a thinly veiled threat by the end.
What she didn't notice was that when she mentioned "the Professor," a thoughtful look crossed the face of the "fake Professor X," and he moved toward her with even more resolve.
"You think too much, girl," Raymond said with a strange smile.
That smile sent a ripple of dread through Sage.
She didn't know why she felt that way—but she would soon find out she wasn't wrong.
The "fake Professor X" reached the edge of the psychic barrier—and simply passed through it without any resistance.
"This… this is impossible…" Sage was stunned.
She had considered many possibilities: the "fake Professor X" being completely blocked from entering, or using overwhelming psychic power to break through by force.
But she had never imagined this—The barrier acted as if it didn't exist at all in front of him, offering no resistance whatsoever.
"Why is this happening?" Sage muttered.
"As expected… a shield I set myself would never stop me."
She noticed that the "fake Professor X" looked conflicted, but showed no trace of surprise.
"You really are the Professor?" Sage voiced a guess she herself found absurd.
"Yes… and no."
The "fake Professor X" gave an ambiguous reply, then raised his hand toward her. "I'm sorry..."
Before she could react, his hand seemed to enlarge rapidly in her vision, covering everything before her eyes and closing around her like a cage.
In the next moment, she lost consciousness.
—Reality—
Professor X's sub-personality opened his eyes again, exhaled deeply, and looked at Raymond.
"A parallel world?"
"Something like that…" Raymond shrugged. "How do you feel after seeing it?"
"This world is far more complex than the one in my memories. The fate of mutants here isn't exactly bright, but it's far luckier than in my world."
The sub-personality sighed. "But for that reason, the other 'me' is far too naive—he doesn't realize the path he's chosen is doomed to fail."
Raymond wasn't surprised at this evaluation.
A person's nature and beliefs inevitably change with different experiences.
An older Professor X who had personally witnessed mutants hunted to near extinction, knowing that even unity could only delay the inevitable, would never agree with this world's Professor X and his idealistic "universal love."
As for guessing this was a parallel world—well, the concept wasn't exactly obscure. Even an ordinary person might know about it, let alone someone as sharp as Professor X.
While the sub-personality processed what he had just "seen," Raymond spoke slowly:
"You were indeed born because of me. But the memories you have aren't necessarily fake… they might be stories from your past lives, in other parallel worlds."
"You can think of it as reincarnation, or a new beginning. Either way, that's all in the past. From now on, you'll live a new life alongside me."
"I can also promise you—when the day comes that I'm firmly established in this world, I might let you live independently from me. But before that, we're all on the same boat."
"So I hope you'll help keep it afloat—because if it sinks, none of us will have a good ending." Raymond shrugged.
"Thank you for clearing my doubts."
The sub-personality placed a hand over his chest and bowed deeply to Raymond.
"We're all on the same side, no need to be so formal," Raymond waved it off.
"Of course."
The sub-personality shook his head, then sighed. "I just don't know what will happen to them. If only I could go back and see…"
Raymond was about to respond when a sudden notification rang in his mind:
[Ding!]
[Detected an unresolved wish from a sub-personality. 'Wish Journey' function activated!]
[You may spend a certain amount of Universal Points to initiate a Wish Journey and help the sub-personality fulfill their unresolved wish. Upon completion, you will receive a proportional Universal Point reward.]
[The activation cost depends on the difficulty of the wish. The reward amount depends on the activation cost.]
[You can check the details in the Wish Journey menu]
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