"So he's still just a rebellious kid who never grew up."
Magneto had heard Tony's sleep-talking too. He quietly moved up beside Fenris.
The two of them watched the billionaire's stubborn little expression together, both looking thoroughly amused.
People always found it easier to like someone they had helped. And Tony had done quite a bit for mutants lately, so Magneto was actually rather fond of him.
"All adults were children once. Tony being like this is perfectly normal."
Fenris shrugged, then shot back, "What about you? Don't you have a few kids yourself?"
"My children?"
Magneto stroked his chin and thought for a moment, but in the end he said nothing. He only fell silent and walked off to one side.
"All right, all right. Nobody has it easy..."
Seeing that Magneto did not want to talk about it, Fenris could only shake his head.
He opened a dimensional portal, reached in, and pulled out two miniature Arc Reactors. After tossing them in his hand a couple of times, he sat down out of boredom and began absorbing from them.
"So getting stronger means hard training, and I still have to read books too?"
"What's so good about reading? Lying down and sleeping is way more comfortable."
Inside him, Bast's divine power was being steadily refined. Outside him, the Arc Reactors were feeding him an endless stream of radiation. With both working at once, the warm sensation filling his body made Fenris narrow his eyes in contentment, a comfortable hum escaping his lips.
"What an unreasonable brat."
Magneto curled his lip, then expertly pulled out a pen from his chest pocket and began writing and sketching again.
After Fenris and Jean had successively visited Bast, everyone else who consumed the Heart-Shaped Herb remained asleep for an unusually long time. Blue-violet light, sometimes bright and sometimes dim, glowed beneath their skin, giving them an almost dreamlike beauty.
Time slipped away quietly to the soft scratch of Magneto's pen. Then, who knew how long later, a pained groan suddenly sounded from nearby.
"Scott!"
Seeing her boyfriend's cries of pain growing louder and louder, Jean immediately put down what she was doing and hurried over.
"It hurts!"
Scott's body suddenly began to twist. In the next moment, even the ruby quartz glasses on his face began glowing red.
"Scott, Scott! Calm down. Breathe deeply!"
"Breathe deeply..."
Jean stepped forward, wrapped him in her arms, and soothed him gently.
But instead of calming him, her words only seemed to worsen his pain.
"Ahhh!"
Scott's eyes flew open.
Zzt!
A thick optic beam shot out from his eyes.
At first, the beam was reflected again and again through the ruby quartz lenses, held firmly inside the glasses.
But very quickly, as Scott's optic blasts grew more and more violent, the specially made glasses Hank had built finally reached their limit.
With a sharp cracking sound, the expensive ruby quartz shattered.
"Damn it!"
Not far away, seeing that the out-of-control optic blast was about to tear straight through the laboratory, Fenris moved the instant before the ruby quartz broke. His hand swept behind his lower back, and without hesitation, he hurled the compact battle axe.
Amid the shriek of splitting air, the axe rapidly expanded in midair. Its broad blade swung into place just as the optic beam broke free, precisely blocking its path.
Hummm-
A ceaseless torrent of optic energy poured into the battle axe.
As time passed, the axe blade, which had originally glowed deep blue, now began shining with a crimson glow.
Scott's rampage continued for several full minutes. At last, with a relieved sigh, the red light in his eyes gradually faded.
Fenris lifted a hand, and the battle axe flew straight back into his palm without hesitation.
As the haft gave a faint tremor, Fenris sensed a wave of pleasure from it, as though even after absorbing that much energy, it still was not satisfied.
"Scott, what's going on with you?"
After putting the axe away, Fenris stepped forward. Scott had already regained his senses and was now staring silently at his own hands.
"So this is what the world looks like through normal eyes..."
Scott muttered to himself.
The ruby quartz glasses had given him the key to controlling his power, but they had also turned the whole world in his eyes into a sea of red.
After all these years, he had never imagined that one day he would be able to see the world's colors again.
"Thank you, Fenris."
After quietly feeling the explosive physical strength now surging through his body, Scott completely ignored Jean standing nearby.
He casually removed the broken remains of the glasses he had once been unable to sleep without, leaped down from the operating table, and pulled Fenris into a fierce hug.
"Honestly, brother, you looked cooler with the glasses on."
Fenris smiled faintly. After teasing him a little, he patted Scott on the shoulder. "I'm happy for you too."
Looks like all the effort Jean spent talking sense into Bast had not been wasted after all.
"Bast is a good person."
Fenris nodded inwardly.
Boom!
Before one wave had even settled, another rose. Scott was still clutching Jean in excitement when Fenris, just as he was about to turn back, suddenly felt a surge of scorching heat from not far away.
"John?"
Unlike Scott, Pyro had not gone berserk. He was lying quietly on the operating table, while terrifying heat formed countless rippling distortions in the air for several meters around him.
Fenris walked straight through it without changing expression. With a flicker of movement, he appeared beside Pyro.
At some point, Pyro's skin had become covered in dense blue-violet patterns, strange and intricate to the eye. Flames were rising off his skin, making him look like a genuine man of fire.
"These markings..."
Fenris stared at the patterns on Pyro's skin without blinking, finding them oddly familiar. "Why do they look kind of like magic from a completely different system?"
A moment later, as the flames grew larger and larger, nearly rising several meters high, Pyro finally opened his eyes.
"Teacher Fenris?"
The instant he opened them and saw Fenris's familiar face, Pyro immediately grinned.
But in the next second, the surging flames on his body made him nearly jump out of his skin.
"Don't move. These flames can't hurt you."
Fenris reached out, passed his hand straight through the flames, and pressed it to Pyro's shoulder. Only then did the boy calm down.
"This is..."
"I can create fire out of thin air now?"
Pyro stared over and over at his own body. These blazing, high-temperature flames were appearing from nowhere, yet they did not harm him in the slightest.
A moment later, Pyro finally accepted reality, and the delight surging through his eyes became impossible to suppress.
"That damn lighter, I'll never need you again!"
Pyro let out a shout, then without hesitation flung away the lighter he had once cherished so much. He flipped upright from the bed in one smooth motion.
Completely ignoring the blazing flames still burning over his body, he leaped up and threw himself at Fenris.
"Teacher Fenris, I love you so much!"
(End of Chapter)
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