"Miss Emma, I know I look a little ugly like this, but my strength is far beyond what it used to be."
Dr. Connors shifted back into human form and proudly introduced his lizard serum. "After the improvements, the serum no longer causes people to lose their minds."
"If I take this serum, can I gain the same kind of power as Fenris?"
Emma lay on the bed, her gaze flicking swiftly between Connors and Fenris.
"Do it!"
"Come on. I trust you."
Faced with the temptation of overwhelming strength, Emma hesitated for only an instant before gritting her teeth and extending her arm.
"Good!"
Thinking about what was about to happen next, even the usually composed Connors raised the corner of his mouth. Beaming, he lifted the syringe in his hand.
"Sleep well."
Emma felt an icy liquid being injected into her body. After overusing her powers on the battlefield, she had already been utterly exhausted. All she sensed was wave after wave of drowsiness washing through her mind. Soon, her head tilted to the side, and she fell into a deep sleep.
"This is the true path of evolution."
Connors put away the needle, fully satisfied.
Whenever he recalled the terrifying scene of Fenris breaking his spine with a single punch when they first met, Connors still did not know how many nightmares he had suffered afterward.
The towering Titan beast he had seen in that hallucination had clung to him like a nightmare every moment since.
Until one day, Connors was shocked to discover that he, too, had begun showing signs of evolving toward Fenris.
In that instant, all his anxiety and fear vanished like smoke.
What nightmare?
What inner demon?
That was the path Connors had walked to reach this point.
It was the stairway by which he would advance toward Fenris.
From that day onward, Connors began trying every possible method to get closer to Fenris.
He built his own little nest not far from the building Tony Stark had constructed for Fenris, began collecting footage of Fenris's battles, and became deeply fascinated by the overwhelming, invincible force Fenris displayed in combat.
From the bottom of his heart, he longed to become that kind of existence one day.
But the closer he got, the more Connors realized how powerful Fenris truly was.
Before, he had only thought Fenris was a mutant so powerful that Connors could only look up to him.
Now, however, he felt that looking at Fenris was truly like a mayfly gazing upon the vast blue sky.
Impossible to pursue. Impossible to fully comprehend.
"There is still a long road ahead."
Connors shook his head and was just about to turn and leave when a slightly trembling hand suddenly grabbed his arm.
"Do you still have more of that serum? I want to give my brother a shot too."
Logan's eyes were bloodshot, but his gaze was fixed firmly on Sabretooth not far away.
After Victor had been torn completely in half by the Sentinels, his lower body had long since been trampled into pulp.
Even his upper body was now a mangled mass of flesh and blood. His chest and back had nearly been crushed flat against each other.
His eyes were wide open, dull and lifeless.
When Fenris led everyone away from the battlefield, Logan had insisted on bringing him back.
Fenris, however, had sensed a faint trace of life in Sabretooth's body, which was why Sabretooth had been sent to the treatment room.
Unfortunately, every instrument's test results told them clearly that Sabretooth's consciousness had already completely dissipated.
The faint trace of life Fenris had sensed was only the remaining healing factor in his body still struggling.
Just as Logan gave up his last shred of hope, Dr. Connors's words ignited one final spark inside him.
"Please, Dr. Connors. Try it!"
Logan tugged at Connors's sleeve almost pleadingly. "What if..."
"This... all right."
Connors leaned in and examined Victor's condition. Years of experience told him this man no longer had any need for rescue.
But Logan's heartbroken eyes still made him waver. Soon, Connors took an extremely murky green serum out of his laboratory.
"This is my latest result. It can grant the subject an extraordinary healing ability. Even a shattered heart can heal again. But the side effects are extremely severe. It may very well cause a berserk state and memory loss..."
"I cannot guarantee it will bring your brother back. Everything depends on his own fate."
With a low sigh, Connors gently pushed the serum into Sabretooth's body.
For a while, even Fenris, who had been watching the other X-Men receive treatment nearby, could not help coming over. Together with Logan, he waited silently for a miracle to happen.
One minute.
Ten minutes.
One hour...
As time passed second by second, just as everyone had already turned their heads away in disappointment, and even Connors could not help putting away the syringe and preparing to leave, a faint light suddenly returned to Sabretooth's vacant eyes.
Logan noticed that abnormality immediately. He sprang up, rushed to Victor's side, and grasped his hand.
Soon, several more hours passed. Suddenly, without warning, a faint sound of airflow came from inside Victor's chest.
The sun rose and the moon fell. Just as Logan was beginning to doze off, a nearly inaudible call suddenly reached his ear.
"Jimmy?"
...
Several days later.
Inside a lecture hall of nearly a thousand square meters at Xavier's School.
Fenris played with an arc reactor in his left hand, one that Tony had upgraded. Inside his body, the atomic furnace was refining the divine power he had seized from Bast, the Black Panther God. As he felt the endless stream of energy cheering and surging through him, he looked almost comfortable, if not for the fact that he was sitting in a classroom.
On the podium, eight enormous blackboards had already been filled with dense formulas and derivations.
A tall bald figure was clinging to a ladder several meters high, climbing up and down as he worked across the blackboards. Chalk dust drifted down in clouds, and from time to time, large drops of sweat fell as well. His busy appearance formed a sharp contrast with Fenris's relaxed posture.
"Old friend, after all this time, you still have not cracked that man's coordinates?"
"Is the title of the world's most powerful mind a little undeserved?"
A rich, forceful voice came from the entrance to the classroom. Fenris only felt his vision blur before Magneto had already pushed open the door, walked over to him, and sat down at his side.
"Soon, Erik."
Professor X answered casually without turning his head. His eyes never left the blackboard for even a moment. "Instead of staying on your island and overseeing the reconstruction, what are you doing here?"
"Before I send that bastard Bolivar to hell for good, I made time to take a trip to Sokovia."
Facing his old friend's question, Magneto suddenly sighed. "There, I found two children with tremendous potential for you."
(End of Chapter)
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