Adamantium

The next morning I woke up at 6 am, which was the same time I had woken up the day before. My body's internal clock was perfect, so I was waking up at the same time every day regardless of when it was that I fell asleep. Getting out of bed, Bobby was fast asleep and snoring lightly.

Walking into the kitchen, I once again found Ororo sitting at the table watching the news.

"I guess we're the early risers" I commented as I grabbed some scrambled eggs and a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast.

"Yes, most teenagers prefer to sleep as much as possible. I got used to being awake early in the morning, I assume it's the same for you?" She asked.

"Yeah. What're you watching?" I asked, looking at the TV to see the story on the news at the moment was about something that quickly drew my attention. On the screen were four individuals wearing blue suits with a 4 on the chest.

"Apparently, four people gained abilities and have become a superhero team. They're calling themselves the Fantastic Four." Ororo said.

'I don't know what universe I'm in. It's not the MCU, since the Fantastic Four and mutants exist, but I've got no clue beyond that. It doesn't really matter, with how much is retconned and changed my meta-knowledge is not worth all that much besides a basic knowledge of what people can do and who can kill me. I'll just have to adapt.'

"Huh, interesting. So are they considered mutants now?"

"I don't believe so. Most likely they will be under a different designation since mutants only refer to people with the X-Gene." Ororo answered.

Shrugging, I continued to eat, with Ororo eventually leaving to go about her day. One by one the other students wandered in and had their breakfast.

Bobby woke up earlier than he did yesterday and we sat watching TV while the rest of the students went to school.

"I'm gonna go for a walk. Staying in one place feels weird." I told Bobby.

"Alright man."

I got up, walked out of the front door of the institute and through the forest surrounding it. I went a ways into the forest so that no one could see me from the school and started practicing with the powers I got from Bobby.

The temperature around me dropped as I released frost from my entire body. I realized it would take me a while to get proficient in creating constructs, so I wanted to practice something that would be directly applicable to combat faster.

Tapping the ground with my foot, the ground half a foot away from me in all directions froze.

'I need the radius to be greater.'

Concentrating, I slowly began to expand the area around me that was frozen, but it was slow going. Melting the ice after I formed it, I spent time continuing to practice widespread freezing. I wanted to create a quick wave of frost around me that would freeze someone who got close to me.

It was while I was practicing that I suddenly got a nagging feeling in the back of my head that someone was watching me. Quickly melting any ice around me, I looked around me to try to figure out where the feeling was coming from when a blur dashed out of the forest, lunging at me. Jumping out of the way, I rolled and grabbed a nearby tree, absorbing the wood to strengthen my body.

'Who's attacking me?' I thought but was quickly put on the defensive as I tried to dodge the rapid attacks coming towards me. Looking at my assailant, I found a teenage girl with black hair. What stood out to me, however, were the two claws sticking out of her knuckles, which she was swinging at me.

'X-23!'

She was my superior by a long mile in any kind of fight, and I quickly became unable to dodge her attacks as she grazed me with her claws, cutting into my wooden body and leaving a hole in my side.

I felt a sharp pain but pushed through it as I tried to recover and move away from her attacks, but she was relentless. I controlled my emotions and pain, completely focusing my mind on a way to win or escape.

'Wood's not strong enough. I need something stronger.'

Looking at her claws, I saw the glint of the adamantium coating them and had a plan. When she swung at me again, I let her pierce my cut another chunk out of my ribs. My pain receptors were turned off, so I didn't even flinch and instead trapped her arm with my own. Reaching down before she could pull it out, I touched her claws and absorbed them, changing my body's coating from wood to adamantium.

The feeling of the powerful metal washing over me was invigorating. It made everything about me feel stronger. Keeping a hold on her arm, I swung her body over mine and into the ground, forming a crater where she landed. She spun her body, rotating around and wrapping her legs around my arm in a vice grip, but her strength couldn't harm my new adamantium form.

Using my other hand, I grabbed onto her wrist and absorbed her power. I could feel bone growths appear within my hands and the wounds on my side were healing, but not rapidly like hers would. Instead, I could feel the healing accelerate, but not to the point of rapid regeneration. It would take me a few minutes to heal the wounds on my side.

She continued to try to escape my grip, but I held onto her refusing to let her go. Lifting her up into the air, I slammed her into the ground repeatedly, trying to knock her out, but it wasn't working. Holding my hand out, I shifted it into a machete and stabbed it through her midsection with no hesitation. I wasn't sure if she was trying to kill me or knock me out, but either way, she'd live with this.

Pulling my arm back, the wound was quickly closing already.

"Casper, drop her. I'll handle it." I heard Logan's voice behind me.

"You sure? She might just bolt."

"She won't."

Taking his word for it, I dropped her. She rolled and jumped back up into a fighting position, but ignored me and stared at Logan. Taking a step forward, she ran at Logan with her claws extended. Instead of popping his out, he let her run at him and bury her claws in his chest.

"I know what happened to you kid," Logan said.

"I am not a kid" she growled, extending a claw from each of her feet and flipping over Logan's body, stabbing him in the back with them and sending him flying towards me. I caught him, stopping his momentum.

"Sure you don't want help?" I asked.

"Like I said, I'll handle it."

I let him go and he turned around towards the girl.

"Nobody should have to go through that." He said.

"The only reason I went through it was because of you!" she yelled, running at him again. Logan finally extended his claws, catching her claws with his own.

"I didn't know anything about this. I just found out from a letter your mom sent me. If I had known, I would have killed the men responsible." Logan said.

"Mom's dead," she said, staring at him and starting to hyperventilate as she took a half-hearted swing at him that he dodged.

"She told me your name. Laura, Laura Kinney. We're both victims here. I'm all you've got left. You and I, we're the closest thing each other got to family."

"I don't get to have a family," Laura said, her eyes watering as tears ran down her face.

"Let it out, kid," Logan said and wrapped his arms around her, letting her cry into his chest. Logan looked at me and nodded his head in the direction of the institute. I nodded and turned, walking away from the two of them.

'Laura Kinney huh? That was my first real super-powered fight. I didn't really win, more stalemated her. I couldn't take her down and she couldn't take me down. At least I got a couple of gains out of it.' I thought, looking at my body was still composed of adamantium. The wound on my side had healed back to normal as well.

Concentrating, I tried to shape the adamantium out of my body, but it only rippled.

'Come on, come on.'

I continued trying, slowly raising a small measure of adamantium out of my body and shaping it into the form of a ring. Panting from the exertion, my body returned to normal and the ring sat in my hand.

'It's not much, but it's something.' I thought as I put the ring on my finger. Testing it out, I absorbed the adamantium, and my entire arm was turned into it, but the rest of my body remained the way it was.

'It's not a big enough source. I can at least distribute it to whatever part of my body at once. I need to practice quickly shifting it to different parts of my body to block attacks. If I get some vibranium I can make half my body each of the metals.'

Turning my arm back to normal, I walked out of the forest and into the institute. I found everyone else standing in the entrance hall, talking to each other.

"We need to go look for him. She took all of us out, she might've gotten to him too." Jean said.

"Look for who?" I asked as I walked in.

"Casper, you're alright!" Jean said.

"I'm fine. I'm assuming the rest of you had a run-in with mini Logan as well?" I asked.

"Yeah, she attacked us on our way to school and knocked us out. Did you just wake up as well?" Scott asked.

"Nope, I beat her," I said proudly.

"This isn't the time to lie Casper," Scott said sternly.

"I'm not. Her claws were made of some kind of strong metal, I just absorbed it and she couldn't hurt me anymore."

"That metal is known as adamantium and it's one of the strongest metals on Earth. Virtually indestructible, I can see how you were able to beat her. Where is she?" Xavier asked.

"Her and Logan are having a chat."

"Man, who knew he had a daughter? And she's just as stabby as he is." Evan said.

"I'm sure we will find out more later. For now, I believe a day off is in order. You'll make up the Danger Room time tomorrow, but for the moment I believe this was a good enough lesson in being aware." Xavier said.

Most of the members nodded while I could see Scott looking at me strangely. It was somewhere between a look of annoyance and confusion.

'What's eating him?'

"Well, I'm going to go spend some time in the gym," I said.

I said and walked away from the group, heading to the institute's gym. Walking inside and looking at all the devices present, I was excited. I wanted to improve how strong I was in my base form, which would enhance how strong I was when I absorbed a material as well.

I went through a workout routine, doing various exercises to improve my entire body. My lifting max was pretty high for my size, 300 pounds, but that was nothing in this universe.

I was bench pressing when I heard someone come in and lift the bar up from my hands. Looking up, I found Logan looking down at me.

"Follow me." was all he said. Shrugging, I got up and followed him out the door and down to the underground level. He led me to the hangar, where the jet was.

"What're we doing here?" I asked.

"We're going on a mission."

"I haven't even had an official Danger Room session and you're taking me on a mission?" I asked, confused.

"Call it field experience. You're the only one who fits this mission." Logan said.

"Why?" I asked as he opened the ramp into the jet. Walking up it and inside, I found Laura sitting in one of the seats.

"Because you're not as unknown as you think you are. Chuck has connections and found out what happened to your parents and looked into what you did since then. You lived on the street, and not everything you did was on the up and up. Robbing ATMs, getting into fights. Chuck doesn't blame you and thinks he can reform you, but I know something else he doesn't. You've killed someone before. I don't know who and I don't know why, but I can tell, which means you're at the very least not unused to killing. We're going to take out the people who did this to Laura. Not down, out. So you in or not." Logan said.

Controlling my reaction, I thought about what he said.

'I didn't exactly hide the fact that I was homeless, or that Xavier found out what I did in that time. He's definitely got some kind of relationship with Fury. It wouldn't be hard for SHIELD to find an orphan with how many resources they have, and my past self wasn't as careful as he could've been. It doesn't really matter, their knowing changes nothing. My moral compass was never going to be that of an upholder of justice, and heroes who cling to that no-kill policy are part of the problem. This will be good field experience, and if I remember correctly, Laura's handler was Kimura. She could control her body in a different way than I can, but if I absorb her, will it strengthen my version, or give me another power? Her power is useful, so going on this mission could strengthen me a lot and give me some more combat experience.'

"Alright I'm in." I said and sat down in one of the seats opposite Laura.

She simply stared at me, not saying a word.

'This is going to be a long flight.'