Despite the flood of questions swirling in his mind, Janos Quested—the man known as Riptide—would never receive his answers. High above the chaos, suspended in the air like a vengeful god, Leon narrowed his eyes. The golden hue of the sun caught the edge of his silhouette, but the light emanating from his pupils was far more terrifying.
His eyes blazed with a solar intensity. Two concentrated beams of thermal energy, thinner than a finger but hotter than the surface of a star, lanced through the air.
Shhhhhhhh—
The sound wasn't an explosion; it was the chilling hiss of atmosphere being vaporized. Before Riptide's synapses could even register the threat, the twin heat beams pierced his chest. They didn't just stop at his heart. The energy continued unimpeded, striking the concrete floor behind him and instantly liquefying the stone into a bubbling pool of molten slag.
Riptide's body went limp. The localized hurricanes he had summoned dissipated into harmless gusts of wind.
Thud.
The mutant powerhouse hit the ground, his body cooling as the life fled from it.
Leon slowly blinked, the crimson glow in his eyes fading back to their natural color. He drifted downward, his gaze cold and detached as he looked at Riptide's corpse. To Leon, it wasn't a fallen warrior he saw; it was just a dead dog in a designer suit.
"He actually… killed that terrifying guy?"
"No way. That has to be fake, right?"
Raven, Hank, Darwin, and the other young mutants—who only moments ago had been paralyzed by the fear of their own impending deaths—stood dumbfounded. They had watched Riptide tear through the CIA's most secure facilities. They had seen him shred the Cerebro amplifier as if it were made of wet tissue paper. He was a force of nature, a man who could wipe out an elite squad of agents with a casual flick of his wrist.
One second, Leon had been in a desperate situation—pinned by centrifugal force, on the verge of being flung into the stratosphere. The next, he had reversed the tide of battle with a surgical, lethal efficiency that left them breathless.
The shift was so abrupt that the air in the room felt heavy, as if the vacuum left by Riptide's death was sucking the oxygen out of the lungs of everyone present.
"Riptide!"
Even Sebastian Shaw, the Black King, froze. A sharp gasp escaped his lips—a rare display of genuine shock. It was followed quickly by a pang of heartache.
He had never imagined that someone as seasoned and powerful as Riptide could be snuffed out so easily on what should have been a routine recruitment mission. Janos had been his most loyal lieutenant, a man whose destructive output was nearly peerless.
But Shaw's heartache was a shallow pool. As he stared at Leon, his eyes began to burn with a different kind of fire. It wasn't rage; it was greed.
This young man… Shaw thought, his mind racing. He is the most promising specimen I have ever encountered.
In the cold, calculating logic of the Black King, a living Leon was worth ten dead Riptides. If he could bring this boy under his banner, the loss of his lieutenant would be a bargain. Poor Riptide—if he could have seen how quickly his master had discarded his memory, he might have regretted his loyalty. But that was the essence of Sebastian Shaw: cold-blooded, ruthless, and eternally focused on the next evolution of power.
The room remained deathly silent. To the fledgling mutants of the X-Men, Azazel was a nightmare because he was untouchable, but Riptide was a god because he was unstoppable. And yet, this "god" lay broken on the floor.
To Leon, however, this wasn't an upset. It was biology.
He knew the truth about mutants that many of them had yet to learn: most were "glass cannons." They possessed mountain-level offense but human-level defense. Magneto could rip a stadium from the earth and levitate it over a city, yet a single plastic bullet from Raven's gun could end him. Professor X could enslave the minds of a continent, but a kitchen knife in the hands of a man wearing a lead-lined helmet would kill him just as easily.
Riptide had the power of a Category 5 hurricane, but his skin was just skin. His heart was just muscle. Leon saw no honor in a protracted "fair" fight. Why trade blows with a man who can summon a tornado when you can simply melt his heart from a hundred feet away?
Use your brain, Leon thought. Efficiency is the only law in a war of survival.
"No wonder he's Leon!"
"That was badass!"
The shock finally broke, replaced by a surge of adrenaline among the young recruits. One of the three invaders was dead; Azazel was incapacitated and missing in action. The crisis that had threatened to end their lives was suddenly leaning in their favor. With Leon standing between them and the Black King, a strange, cooling sense of security washed over them. They looked at him not as a peer, but as an icon.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The sound of slow, rhythmic applause echoed through the hall. Sebastian Shaw stepped forward, a wide, genuine smile on his face. He looked at Leon with nothing but admiration, as if the two men who had died today—Azazel and Riptide—were merely stage props used to highlight Leon's debut performance.
"Truly astounding!" Shaw's praise was unfiltered. He strode confidently toward the group, ignoring the corpses, his gaze locked onto Leon's. "Do you have any idea what those two were capable of? How many 'heroes' they've buried? And yet you took them both out without even blinking. I honestly didn't see that coming."
Shaw stopped a few paces away, spreading his arms wide in a gesture of grand welcome. "Someone like you shouldn't stay buried in a hole like this, playing servant to humans who fear you. Come with me! A new era is on the horizon—our era! We won't just live in this world; we will own it."
It was a heartfelt invitation, delivered with the practiced charisma of a man who believed every word he said.
"You're right. A new era is coming," Leon nodded slowly.
Shaw's smile broadened. He looked incredibly pleased, convinced that he had found a kindred spirit. "I knew you were special. You see the vision."
"But I'm quite sure," Leon continued, his eyes turning to chips of blue ice, "that the 'new era' we're talking about… isn't the same one. And the one who ushers it in? It won't be you."
The Black King's smile didn't falter, but his eyebrow twitched. He chuckled, a low, dangerous sound. "Not me? Don't tell me… you think it'll be you? You're powerful, boy, but you're young. You don't know the weight of the crown."
Leon didn't bother debating. He was a transmigrator—he knew the tropes. Running your mouth in front of a villain like Shaw was just an invitation for a monologue or a surprise attack. He knew that Shaw was a kinetic battery; every punch thrown, every explosion triggered, only made the Black King stronger.
Leon focused inward, his mind calling out to the interface that only he could see.
'How can I defeat him?' Leon mused. 'His kinetic absorption is nearly absolute. If I hit him with a physical strike, he just eats the energy. If I blast him with heat, he converts it. But… can I bypass his absorption with my Adaptation?'
...
A translucent screen shimmered into existence before his eyes.
[Host: Leon]
[Age: 16]
[Physique: 512 + 129 (Approx. 42 Tons of Lifting Strength)]
[Mental Power: 156 + 57]
[Abilities:] * Adaptation (Omega): A non-scientific power that allows the user to adapt to any environment, power, or threat. If the user is not killed instantly, they will evolve to survive and counter the situation. Grants a healing factor.
* Kryptonian Bloodline (Level 1): Provides basic Kryptonian physiology under a yellow sun.
* Light Fruit (Level 1 - Advanced): Elemental manipulation of light.
* Contract Authority (Level 1): Ability to form An absolute Contract that can't be broken.
[Skills:]
* Heat Vision (Advanced)
* X-Ray Vision (Intermediate)
* Freeze Breath (Intermediate)
* Super Hearing (Intermediate)
* Flight (Intermediate)
* Bio-Electric Field (Max)
[Desire Points: 2,000]
[Existence Points: 0]
...
Leon looked at the description of his Omega-level Adaptation. It was his ultimate insurance policy. As long as he survived the first contact, he could become the perfect counter to any foe.
'System,' Leon asked mentally, his eyes never leaving Shaw's relaxed posture.
'How long will it take for me to adapt to the Black King's kinetic absorption? Can I develop a way to drain him or bypass his threshold?'
The system's voice chimed in his head, cold and precise.
[Calculating… Analyzing Target: Sebastian Shaw. Analyzing power interaction: Kinetic Redirection vs. Evolutionary Adaptation. Estimated time to develop a "Void Strike" or "Energy Dampening" bypass: 45 Seconds of direct combat interaction.]
45 Seconds. In a fight between mutants, four minutes was an eternity.
Leon shifted his stance, his feet hovering a mere inch off the ground. The air around him began to hum with the pressure of his bio-field. Shaw noticed the change in atmosphere; his playful demeanor vanished, replaced by the predatory stillness of a shark.
The Black King reached out, clenching his fist. "It's a shame, Leon. I really wanted to be friends. But if you won't be my blade, you'll be my whetstone."
Leon didn't respond with words. He lunged.
To be continued...
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