Kuzuri Part 2

Rogue was still frozen in place, panting, her hands hovering in front of her eyes just in case they started to destroy everything all over again. Clark was still standing close, concerned, ready to jump in and help; Kitty, like her, was too stunned to do anything but stare.

Stare at her and at the amount of damage she caused.

Impossibly, no one had been hurt, not even the unlucky guards in front of the destroyed door that led to the lab. They were shocked, pale as snow, but alive and unharmed.

And Rogue really hoped they remained alive, when a following explosion blasted them away from the destroyed doors; an explosion that came from inside the lab, obliterating what was left of the reinforced doors and knocking the guards out.

That one had nothing to do with Rogue, she defended herself silently, as they stared in shock.

"Stay here!" Clark told her and Kitty, before jumping towards the explosion so fast that the remaining flames were put out and disappearing into the destroyed lab door.

The two of them were in silence for a moment, still processing everything that happened; and then, as if they were one, they both jumped after him.

"The hell we will!" Rogue barked, pretty sure Clark wasn't even listening anymore.

Dr. Zander Rice groaned, feeling so much pain that his voice barely came out.

His arm… What was left of his right arm hurt so much that he could barely move. His head was pounding and spinning, his vision blurred, and he could barely breathe; the lab around him was up in flames, the chemicals they kept there no doubt initiating a catastrophic chain reaction once the bomb inside X-23 went off.

The result was utter chaos.

Fire everywhere, the air was barely breathable, smoke and poisonous fumes made impossible to see more than a few meters away. In the other rooms, constant explosions were happening, as the fire spread to the rest of the building.

Dr. Zander Rice's mind barely registered any of that. His world was pain.

Coughing, he twisted around, trying to move, trying to get away from the heat. His right arm was bleeding, ripped apart beyond recognition by the explosion, and the only reason he was moving at all was out of instinct.

Instinct was what probably made him look back.

At first, he wasn't really sure what he was looking at. The smoke was thick and his eyes were foggy, clouded by pain and the fumes, but Zander Rice somehow saw a small figure on the opposite side of the room. It was moving, dragging itself through the flames.

Better yet, dragging half of itself towards the other half.

He had to be hallucinating, Zander Rice thought, so shocked by what he was seeing that he stopped moving. The small figure continued, ignoring the flames burning it, until it finally reached its goal.

And then, in front of his terrified eyes, X-23 grabbed her own detached lower half and forced it against her torn apart waist.

The flesh reacted immediately, almost as if it knew that the body parts belonged together, and started to heal, to attach itself together, guts and severed organs rejoining, tendons reconnecting, muscles attaching to muscles, skin regenerating over it as if nothing had happened at all.

In seconds, X-23 was up, ignoring the fire burning her shoulders and hair as she stared at him; Zander Rice had never felt so afraid in his entire life.

She approached slowly, like a predator stalking a wounded prey, her feet sizzling at each step as her bare skin touched the scorching floor; if she felt pain, she didn't show it. The black smoke parted like a curtain, and then X-23 was in front of him.

He felt her little hands grab his face and he was suddenly pulled towards her, until their foreheads were almost touching.

"P-Please," Zander Rice begged, the word barely leaving his dry mouth. "X-23, please…"

"My name is Laura," X-23 interrupted, her eyes showing absolutely no mercy. "Laura Kinney. And I'm not an animal!"

When she said this, Zander Rice felt a sharp, terrible pain when her adamantium claws were unleashed, digging themselves on both sides of his face; the agony he felt as the claws pierced his skin, muscles and bones was indescribable, but no vital points were hit.

In his desperate torment, Zander Rice didn't know if that was a good or bad thing.

"But you are," X-23 finished.

Saying this, X-23 let out something that could only be described as the mix of a scream and a roar, and pulled her claws up; Dr. Zander Rice felt sharp, unbearable pain.

And then nothing at all.

The sight that greeted Clark once he emerged from the burning elevator shaft into the Biochemical Genetic Lab was easily describable.

Pure chaos.

The explosion they'd heard had quickly spread to the rest of the building, the flames feeding on the chemicals they no doubt stored everywhere, and the result was the all-consuming fire burning everything. The fire alarm was blaring, heavy fire-proof doors were closing, sealing off that section of the lab, and the sprinkler system was doing what it could to try and stop the flames, without success.

Clark closed his eyes for a moment, focusing. First things first: he needed to find the survivors and get them out.

Even with the roar of the fire, the loud alarm and the incessant explosions, it was easy for him to listen for the survivors, and Clark was already moving towards them before he even reopened his eyes. The heat grew as he approached the heart of the fire, and the fumes poisoning the air would've dropped a human in seconds, but none of that bothered him.

It was, however, more than just bothering the few survivors who hadn't escaped.

It took him less than a second to sweep the place with his x-ray vision. The survivors were scattered in three different places, the nearest one being the more likely to turn into a mass grave the quickest; the four scientists were lying down, trying to limit the amount of smoke they were forced to breathe, stuck inside the room behind a wall of fire. The door leading outside was blocked by flames — part of the ceiling had caved, exposing a gas pipe that had pretty much turned into a flamethrower — and there was simply no way out. They wouldn't last a minute without help.

Luckily for them, that's why he was there.

Clark ripped the door from its hinges and dove into the stream of fire without hesitation, blocking the flames with his bare hands. Before his shirt could even be singed, he bent the metal, twisting the pipe so it would no longer spit fire in front of the door.

And then, before the scientists could really understand what was going on, he grabbed them all like sacks of potatoes and ran to the nearest exit.

The exit had been sealed — a thick metal door simply fell down from the ceiling and closed off that section of the lab to stop the fire —, but it took Clark but a second to just lift the door a bit and slide the still confused scientists through.

The door was still closing itself back again when Clark reached the second room with survivors. This time, fire wasn't the problem they were facing; toxic smoke was.

Smoke and the huge machinery that had fallen over one of the scientists, too heavy for the other two to be able to move it.

To their credit, even with the thick smoke, the heat and the explosions that made everything shake, the two scientists were still trying to free their colleague; evil scientists or not, that was something Clark could respect.

Stopping at the door, Clark took a deep breath; a deep breath only his Kryptonian lungs could take.

The black smoke covering the entire room was immediately sucked into his lungs, almost as if a huge ventilator had appeared out of nowhere and cleared the place from the toxic gases. The taste and the smell were some of the worst Clark had ever experienced, but unlike the humans in the room, Clark's body wouldn't suffer any damage from it.

Holding his breath, ignoring the shocked looks from the terrified scientists, Clark easily lifted the machine pinning the man down and pulled him free. And, like the first time, he grabbed the three of them and ran to the exit, sliding them out the same way; he let the smoke out of his lungs the moment the door closed, wondering, not for the first time, how could people willingly develop smoking habits.

Two down, one to go; hopefully, Clark thought, worried, the mutant girl would be there and unharmed.

His worry grew almost immediately when he heard screams and gunshots.

However bad this situation was, it had just turned worse, Clark realized, running towards the sounds. The moved so fast that the flames in the corridors were put out, only slowing down when he arrived at the correct place.

He got there just in time to see a young girl decapitating an armed man, using what seemed to be a pair of actual metal claws coming out of her hands.

Clark Kent wasn't a betting man, but he would wager his hard-earned money that this was the mutant girl they were looking for, he thought, staring at the scene with wide eyes.

Laura Kinney assessed the new arrival, ignoring the flames roaring around her. It was a quick and practiced action, more instinct than reason; her heightened senses were entirely focused on the task, reading everything there was to learn about the man in the room.

Almost immediately, alarms bells started to ring in her head and her fight-and-flight response went into overdrive.

Whoever that man was — whatever that man was —, he was an unquantifiable threat, she knew right away. He didn't move like a human, he didn't smell like a human, his body — down to the chemicals flowing within him — was not of a human.

Laura Kinney had no idea what she was facing and that scared her.

Fear wasn't an unknown emotion to her, but years of conditioning had taught her to control it, to use it to her advantage; terror could be turned into burning rage quite easily, after all. That had helped her all her life, against all kinds of opponents. Armed soldiers, assassins, martial artists, beasts; Laura had singlehandedly killed packs of wolves, an enraged bear and a tiger filled with all kinds of experimental steroids and stimulants without hesitation during her training.

This time, however, she froze.

It lasted a few seconds, not even that, but Laura Kinney, the X-23, completely froze in fear. And the moment she shook it off, she reacted the only way she knew how: berserk rage.

Laura roared and attacked, unleashing all her six claws — two in each hand and one in each foot — to fight. She crossed the burning lab in an instant, turning into a spiral of death when she jumped, twisting midair so fast that her adamantium claws were but blurs.

And she missed each and every attack, falling back to the ground without even touching him.

She didn't even see him move, her senses simply didn't register the sheer speed. The man evaded every single swipe of her claws, and before Laura could even understand what happened, he was standing behind her. Laura felt a shiver running down her spine and tensed, every muscle contracting, waiting for the attack against her exposed back.

Except it never came; instead of attacking, the man raised his arms, as if telling her he wasn't a threat.

"I don't want to hurt you!" the man said, confirming her hypothesis.

That statement might've very well been true, but her fight-and-flight instincts were still locked in overdrive, the utter danger of being in the presence of something so powerful overruling her rational mind.

So Laura attacked again, faster and stronger than any time before, growling and roaring as she unleashed a barrage of strikes against the man; he he dodged every single one once again, moving just the bare minimum to avoid her claws, with such a carefree attitude that Laura couldn't help but to wonder just how slow he perceived her movements to be.

And then, suddenly, he grabbed her.

It wasn't an attack; in fact, if Laura wasn't in a near berserk state, she would've noticed he was deliberately gentle, so much so that he didn't leave even a single bruise on her. Nevertheless, it was effective.

The man grabbed her by her sides, his hands pressing her arms together against her own body. His arms — longer than hers — were stretched, to put space between them, preventing Laura to reach him even with her legs, and he was holding her arms a bit above the line of her elbows, which also prevented her to bend herself to try to bite him.

It was a ridiculous hold, something no martial art would ever attempt, simply because it would never work; it was like he was picking up a doll, instead of actually immobilizing her.

And yet, it was probably the strongest force Laura had ever experienced, and she was including the crazed tiger filled to his eyeballs with drugs in that comparison. She tried to move her arms, to jump, to go back and forth, anything to break or at least weaken his hold over her.

She would've had better chances trying to push an entire mountain, Laura suspected, groaning in frustration. Nothing she did managed to budge his fingers even a little bit, worse than that, he didn't seem to be putting any effort.

Laura Kinney grew desperate when the inevitable truth finally made itself clear: there was absolutely nothing she could do to escape this time.

"Please, I don't want to hurt you!" the man said, suddenly, his voice deliberately calm. "I'm here to help you."

Maybe it was the tone of his voice, cool, peaceful, even amongst that chaos. Maybe it was his smell; his body, as alien as it smelled to her, didn't have the scent of aggression or rage. Maybe it was the fact that even with all her struggle, his hands hadn't, at any moment, held her strongly enough to hurt. Maybe Laura's inner beast realized that she had, for once, met someone it couldn't defeat, no matter how much she tried to, and decided to submit.

Or maybe Laura herself had believed him, simply for the fact that she had to believe that someone out there had to be on her side, other than her own mother, Sarah Kinney.

She didn't know. All she knew was that, for some reason, she stopped fighting.

Slowly, moving as carefully as he could, the man released her; Laura looked into his blue eyes and took a deep breath.

And then she pulled her claws back.

He smiled at her, and Laura knew then she had made the right choice.

"Are you injured?" Clark asked, then paused as something important occurred to him. "Can you understand me?"

They were in Japan, after all, and the girl had Japanese features, which was probably a good indicator she was a local; the girl simply stared back at him, unblinking. Finally, she nodded, once.

He could already tell she would make Raven look talkative in comparison.

"That's good," Clark said, smiling at her. "Unless you also mean you're injured, then not so much."

She shook her head, once, just as quickly; the question, however, was more of a formality, because he was already scanning her, searching for any wounds. To his surprise, there really was nothing to find.

Absolutely nothing; thatwas not only weird, it was pretty much impossible.

Not that he thought the girl was lying to him, that wasn't the reason of his surprise. The reason of his surprise was the fact that the girl's body, from the skin to the very bones, showed no signs of past trauma; that should be impossible. No matter how sheltered of a life she had — and Clark doubted very much that was the case —, his Kryptonian eyes could easily see the marks left by the passage of the time. Small, almost invisible scars on the skin, healed microscopic cracks on the bones, microtears in the muscles fibers…

There was nothing to see, almost as if the girl in front of him had just been born.

Which contrasted heavily with the state of her clothes. They were torn apart, burned, stained with blood and god only knew what else, all indicators of what the girl had actually been through; and yet, there were no injuries to show.

If Clark still had any doubts the girl was a mutant, they were gone now. A mutant with the power to heal. And also bones claws capable of coming out of her hands and feet, seemingly artificially coated in metal.

Adamantium, Clark knew just by glancing at it. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. Incredibly dense, so much that he couldn't see through it; the only instances when that happened had involved lead, vibranium, Uru or straight up sorcery. He studied the claws, imagining just how sharp they would be. Sharp enough to cut him?

It seemed Natasha's tip had paid off, after all, because there was no way this was a coincidence.

He smiled at the girl again, trying to put her at ease. As composed as she looked now, Clark hadn't missed the sheer terror radiated by the girl when she was attacking him a few moments ago, and that pained him. What pained him the most, however, was imagining what that girl had been through at the hands of Yashida Corporation, because there was no doubt in his mind anymore that the girl in front of him was a victim, no matter the deaths she caused.

Experiments, torture, invasive surgeries, mental conditioning… For a moment there, Clark couldn't help but to see a small Natasha in front of him. The calculating look in her eyes was the same one Clark sometimes saw in Natasha's, before she caught herself.

The eyes of an assassin searching for a weak point. Natasha had learned to turn off that part of herself, for the most part, but the girl in front of him hadn't.

Not only they were experimenting on her, they were also using her as a weapon; when Clark caught the ones responsible for this, there would be Hell to pay. Doubly so, if they were, as he suspected, involved in the trading and stockpiling of adamantium for warfare purposes.

Slowly, Clark kneeled in front of the girl; she tensed, but didn't move.

"I'm very sorry about what happened to you, but it's going to be alright now. I promise."

Before he could go on, Clark heard approaching footsteps. He sighed; it seemed Rogue and Kitty had ignored him and decided to enter the lab, after all. He should've expected that.

Slow down, Rogue!" Kitty yelled, as she phased through the same flames that Rogue had just crossed without a second thought. "Not all of us have the gift of super-spe— WOW!"

The moment Kitty entered the same room Rogue had disappeared into, she jumped back; unless her eyes were deceiving her, and she really didn't think they were, there was a girl Wolverine growling at them.

Pissed off look? Check. Capacity to growl? Check. Retractable adamantium claws? Check!

Kitty knew immediately that they were dealing with something related to Weapon X; no one else in the entire world was so obsessed with Logan.

"They're with me, don't worry!" Clark said, fast, getting in front of kid Wolverine. "They're not going to hurt you, I promise."

Given the bloodbaths that tiny girl had caused all over Tokyo, Kitty didn't think she was the one in danger of getting hurt, but she kept that to herself as Clark calmed her down. Rogue approached her, a truly stunned look on her face.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?" she asked Kitty.

"Little Japanese girl Wolverine? Yep!"

"Oh, good, so I'm not hallucinating," Rogue exhaled, relieved. She paused for a moment. "What do you think we're dealing with here? Do you think she's his kid? Lab experiment? Alternate universe variant?"

"Let's check," Kitty said, simply, pulling something out of her pocket and carefully approaching them.

The mutant girl growled again. God, how could someone so cute be so scary?! She was like a Japanese porcelain doll with claws! Slowly, Kitty raised her hands, showing her the picture on her phone for the second time that day: Logan's picture.

"Do you know this man?" Kitty asked, talking to the girl the same way she would to a scared cat ready to pounce.

The growl stopped; that had to be a good sign, right?

"Weapon X," the girl said, bluntly. Then she met her eyes, almost threateningly. "I'm X-23."

Holy Hell, that was not good, Kitty thought. Logan would go berserk when he eventually learned about this.

"Clone," Rogue muttered, rubbing her forehead. "I should've thought of that. This is a genetic lab."

"Is this sort of thing common for you guys?" Clark asked, clearly bothered by the whole situation.

"More than you know," Kitty sighed, putting her phone away. "We'll explain later, I promise, but first…" She looked at the girl, kindly. "We need to get you somewhere safe, but before we go, do you know of any other mutant here, in this lab? Others… Like you?"

The girl, thankfully, just shook her head.

"First good news of the day, huh?" Kitty said. "What's your name?" She paused for a moment, an angry look flashing in her eyes for a moment. "Do you… Have one?"

Everyone turned to the girl, waiting for the answer.

"Laura Kinney," the girl said, almost inaudibly.

"Good, that's good. Listen, Laura, we are here to help you. We work in a team that helps others like us, other mutants. We're here in Japan because we learned what was going on with you. There's a safe place for us, and we can take you there if you want."

Kitty really hoped Laura would agree to come with them, because willingly or not, they would have to take her out of Tokyo; for her safety as well as everybody that crossed her path.

"Will Weapon X be there?" Laura asked.

"Logan, his name is Logan," Rogue answered for her, clearly sickened by the title. "And yes, he works with us."

The girl was quiet for a moment, completely ignoring the fire and the still going explosions around them. But then she nodded once, fast; Kitty smiled brightly.

"Great! Now let's get the hell out of—"

The moment she said that, another alarm started to ring, way louder than any other; it was coming from the room next to the one they were. Kitty had a really bad feeling about this. Without saying anything, feeling they should at least check what that was, Kitty left the room, following the sound.

It was coming from some kind of control room, full of computers and screens; computers that had been damaged quite severely by the explosions, but were still, for the most part, working.

Kitty frowned, trying to make sense of all that, ignoring Rogue, Clark and Laura as they arrived. And when she finally understood what was happening, what the alarm was trying to tell them, she promptly unleashed a stream of curses that would've made Colossus faint.

"Oh, no, no, no…" Kitty said, jumping towards the computers. "This is really, really bad!"

What?!" Rogue snapped.

Kitty turned to look at them, despair clear in her expression.

"You remember we just learned that Yashida Corporation has its own subway lines and trains?" she explained, quickly, as all of them got closer. "Well, this is one of the control rooms that manages all that. It controls their trains, it open ups the private tunnels, it pretty much runs the whole thing."

"So?" Rogue shrugged.

"So?! So it's busted!" Kitty was typing really fast, using her very limited Japanese as she tried to gain access. "The fire wrecked the controls and from what I'm seeing, three Yashida Corporation trains were dispatched from other stations before their schedule."

Clark Kent was the first one to understand why that was bad.

"Tokyo subway is opening right now," he whispered, checking his watch, eyes wide.

"And we have three runaway trains ready to cause a huge accident," Kitty finished for him.

Rogue, finally getting it, widened her eyes as well.

"Can't you stop them?!"

"If I could, I would have!" Kitty retorted, typing frantically. "I'm trying to stop others from leaving their stations, but something is wrong with the ones that already left, I can't stop them!"

"Well, call the people in charge of the subway and tell them!"

"Pretty sure they don't have access to Yashida Corporation's systems to stop them either, Rogue, and I'm also pretty sure they won't do anything just because I'm telling them!"

"Are the trains in route of collision?" Clark asked, urgently. "With any other train in Tokyo's subway line?"

Kitty quickly checked the monitors and the maps; her blood turned cold.

"Yes," she said, barely hearing herself. "In a few minutes one of those trains will crash head on against this one," Kitty pointed at the map, then turned to them. "It just left one the most overcrowded stations in the city, it's probably filled to the brim with people."

"My god…" Rogue exhaled, like Kitty unable to tear her eyes out of the screens. "What… What do we do?"

What could they do? If they had more time, Kitty was certain they could find a solution. If she were there, she could try to phase the train through the other, or at least take the people out. She could call the Professor and tell him to force the people in control of Tokyo's subway to redirect the train, or even Kurt to teleport everyone out.

Hell, at that point, even breaking Magneto out of his plastic cell and forcing him to help had crossed her mind!

But the simple fact of the matter was that none of those ideas were feasible in the limited time they had. Minutes, maybe less, not enough to even explain the situation to someone, much less form a practical plan.

All they could do was watch; or at least, that's what Kitty thought.

"Kitty, try to prevent other Yashida trains from going anywhere," Clark said, turning his back at them and walking to the middle of the room with purpose. "I'll deal with those three."

She believed for a moment that she had misheard him.

"Wha—"

Before Kitty could even ask, Clark simply moved so fast that the air around him boomed, and crashed directly against the floor, going through it, digging a tunnel down back to the subway, his body pretty much turning into the most powerful drill to ever exist as he moved tons and tons of earth and stone in a matter of seconds.

None of them had managed to process what they had just witnessed, when moments later a gasping Laura pointed at one of the screens; Clark was already in the tunnels, flying through them, going so fast that the cameras could barely keep up.

Rogue, Laura and Kitty were stunned, eyes glued to the many screens as Clark flew through the subway lines, navigating through them almost as if he did so every day; it took her a moment to remember that he could see through walls, so he most likely knew where he needed to go.

And he was going there fast, like a man-shaped Blackbird that had just decided to use the subway lines to get to its destination.He's flying!" Rogue muttered, shock clear in her voice, still unable to move. "How is he doing that?!"

Kitty had absolutely no idea, but Clark wasn't just flying, he was going so fast that it was a matter of moments before he reached the first Yashida Corporation train in front of him; not the one about to crash against a train filled of people, but one that would definitely cause an accident eventually if it weren't stopped. She just didn't know how exactly Clark would do that.

She got her answer a moment later: Clark just flew through it!

He lifted both arms in front of him and collided against the back of the train, going through the cars one after the other, his body making short work of the steel. The windows exploded, the metal was obliterated, and soon enough Clark emerged through the front of the train, moving with such speed and power that the whole thing was split open from the inside out.

Against everything they believed possible, the first Yashida Corporation's train was stopped; destroyed beyond any chance of repair, more like, but stopped nevertheless, and not an imminent threat anymore.

And by the looks of it, Clark was just getting started; Kitty forced herself to go back to work too.

Clark heard the train in front of him way before he saw it, and as soon as he turned into the tunnel, he finally caught up to it; not the empty train belonging to Yashida Corporation, however, but the one filled with people starting their day.

The train out of control was there as well, at the end of the tunnel, moving in the opposite direction.

He listened to the surprised exclamations and the brakes activating. Some of the people inside were tossed to the floor when the speed suddenly decreased, there were screams of fear and shock, but even if the train filled with people were to stop in time, Yashida Corporation's train wouldn't, and the result would be a crash that would leave no one alive.

They would need a helping hand.

Clark flew faster, easily catching up with the train filled with people, and going over it. There was little space to fly, and he felt his back scrapping the ceiling of the tunnel a few times, but in seconds he had already overtaken the train; now came the tricky part.

Too much strength, and his back would just punch through the metal of the train. Too little, and the train wouldn't slow down for enough time.

Very carefully, matching the speed of the train, he floated in front of it, pressing his back against it; almost instantly, he felt the metal bend, so he relaxed the pressure. Yashida Corporation's train was approaching fast from the other side of the tunnel, ready to crash head on against them. Ignoring it, Clark focused on trying to slow the train behind him down, opening his arms to widen his back and adjusting the amount of force. The speed decreased, and as soon as Clark was certain it was enough, he looked at Yashida Corporation's train.

His eyes burned red and he unleashed his heat vision.

The train in front of him was completely empty, so Clark's only concern was measuring the amount of energy he could unleash without damaging the tunnel itself; other than that, there was no need to hold back. The red energy beams unmade the train at a mere touch, cutting it in half and then liquifying the metal almost instantly, to the point that the entire thing just disappeared into a giant puddle of molten steel in a matter of seconds.

The train full of people wouldn't crash if there was nothing to crash against.

The heat wave filled the tunnel, and Clark slowly cooled it with his breath as he still held the train with his back, gently but surely forcing it to stop. The wheels made contact with the molten metal, slowing the train down even more, until eventually it finally stopped, safe and sound.

Clark made a note to come back and help release the stuck train once everything was settled, and then flew after the third runaway train.

"I can't believe this," Rogue whispered, incapable of looking away from the screens showing the subway lines.

None of them could, she realized, practically smelling Kitty, Laura and her shock. She knew Clark was powerful, she could feel that power coursing inside her, but that? That was simply unreal! That was the sort of power Rogue had only seen the likes of Magneto or Storm throw around, the Professor in a less showy fashion, but only the cream of the crop amongst mutants, and only when they truly needed to get things done.

And not only because of the sheer power, but because of the skill used to wield it.

What Clark did, stopping that train and saving those people, could only be done because he knew how to control that absurd power he had — and that was maybe even more rare than having great power to begin with.

Scott couldn't go anywhere without his glasses, Jean routinely gave them all headaches when control slipped, and Rogue herself was completely unable to touch anyone without draining them.

Destroying the train with a stream of pure energy? Impressive as hell, but what made that beyond incredible was the fact that he did so while saving a train full of people as well. He caught up with it — by flying no less! —, dosed his speed and strength so he could stop a moving train without killing anybody inside, and then, while doing all that, liquified an entire train without losing control and bringing down the tunnel on them.

And he made that look easy!

Not for the first time, Rogue dreaded what would've happened if Magneto had stumbled upon Clark and recruited him for his little club. Deep down, she knew by the memories and feelings inside her that Clark would never fall for it, but the mere thought of having to face someone like him on the opposite side of the battlefield scared her.

And also not for the first time Rogue had to wonder how the hell the Professor didn't find him using Cerebro!

There was no way someone that powerful didn't send ripples throughout the world, didn't glow like a beacon when the Professor peaked with Cerebro. The Professor had found a mutant whose power was having a slightly longer than normal neck, for god's sake! Unless the problem was exactly that: maybe Clark was too powerful, so much that Cerebro couldn't even register him.

Or maybe, Rogue suddenly wondered, maybe Clark wasn't a mutant at all.

Could it be? Memories and energy were one thing, but could her abilities even copy a non-mutant's powers? What would that make him, then? An enhanced — or mutate, that's how they called them back at the X-Mansion — of some kind? Was that the reason Clark's powers were so versatile?

Her eyes widened to the size of plates when that thought occurred her.

Super-strength, super-speed, super-senses, flight, red energy beams he could shoot from his eyes… It couldn't be, could it?!

Before Rogue could have the mother of all epiphanies, however, a terrible noise diverted her attention.

For a moment, she thought the place was starting to collapse, the screech of metal overpowering even the distant explosions. The sounds were coming from the hallway, however, more accurately, they were coming from one of the steel door that had blocked that section of the lab.

From the adamantium blades cutting the steel door!

Rogue almost immediately disregarded the idea that those blades belonged to Logan, simply because they were too long, shaped differently, and didn't come in a set of three; but they definitely were made of adamantium, given how easily they were cutting the thick steel door, almost as if it were made of paper.

Adamantium katanas, Rogue finally realized, stunned.

"Silver Samurais!" Laura growled, unleashing her own adamantium blades.

That didn't sound good at all; Rogue met Kitty's eyes.

"Deal with that, Rogue," she said, starting to type again. "I need to finish this."

She rolled her eyes; typical!

Leaving Kitty to her job, Rogue turned and stood by Laura's side, watching as the so called Silver Samurais cut the door down, slashing huge sections of steel with their adamantium swords. Rogue had no idea what she was about to face, but given the fact that Laura was extremely tense — and that they all had seen how deadly she was while studying those crime scenes —, it probably didn't mean anything good.

Rogue took a deep breath, taking a martial stance, feeling the usual nervousness before a fight; not only because she was about to fight what seemed to be a group of freaking samurais armed with adamantium but because of her limited grasp on her current set of powers.

She was, at the same time, worried for herself and her friends, and worried about the damage she could cause to her enemies; that was a frustrating state to be.

She needed to hold her strength back, but not enough to give them a chance to hurt her and others. She needed to move faster than her enemies, but not enough to launch herself far away or, worse, accidentally crash against someone and turn them to mush. She needed to use her senses to have an edge, but not enough to become overwhelmed.

If there was one thing Rogue felt confident about, was that she wouldn't start burning everything with her eyes once again; she could think of few things less arousing than fighting a bunch of men armed with adamantium katanas.

That had to count for something.

"Stay behind me," Rogue said to Laura, when sections of the door started to fall. "I'll deal with them."

As much as Rogue didn't want to kill or permanently hurt anyone, if she had to choose between protecting innocents — herself included — and a bunch of warriors fighting for people who experimented on children, she would side with the good guys every time. Trying was enough, but if she needed to go all out, she would.

Luckily, both the X-Men and Clark agreed on that, regardless their distaste for blood, so there wouldn't be any problem on that account.

Laura, on the other hand, seemed to disagree with that notion, if her growls and deadly eyes were anything to go by; Logan's genes, no doubt, because he also tended to deal permanently with people he really disliked. Well, Rogue wouldn't lose any sleep over it, but she would feel like crap if Laura got hurt or worse.

She had already fought alone enough, it was time for someone to stand with her.

A huge section of the door fell down and, almost by instinct, Rogue grabbed Laura and threw her behind her; a second later, a barrage of bullets was fired from the hole in the door. Rogue saw each and every one of them moving towards her, to the very details on their surface, and she was more than certain that she could've dodged them anytime.

But that would leave Laura unprotected, so she stood her ground; Clark implied he was bulletproof, so there was no better time to test that.

Rogue literally laughed when the bullets hit her, shredding her sleeves when she crossed both arms in front of herself, falling to the ground like harmless snowflakes. It barely tickled her.

"I'm bulletproof!" Rogue yelled, holding her laughs, informing Kitty. "How cool is that?"

"Big deal!" Kitty yelled back from the other room.

"No need to be jealous!" Rogue retorted. "Just because you have to let them phase through y—"

Her taunting was interrupted when her hearing caught the clang of metal coming from the other side of the door; Rogue widened her eyes, grabbing Laura and jumping to the side, just at the moment a spear made of adamantium was thrown against her.

Bullets were one thing, but Rogue didn't want to try her luck with that; she had seen what Logan's claws could do.

The spear flew fast, not faster than the bullets, but more than fast enough to hit a normal human. As it was, neither of them were there when the spear flew, embedding itself in the wall behind them, the adamantium so sharp that it nearly passed through the other room.

Almost at the same time, what was still left of the door fell down, and the Silver Samurais got in, followed by a group of armed men.

It was an intimidating sight, Rogue had to admit. Seven real-life samurais, each and every one fully clad in bright silver armor, with terrifying masks, katanas and spears, every piece of equipment forged with adamantium.

Rogue hesitated for a moment, knowing just how dangerous adamantium was, and just how screwed she would be if she hadn't copied Clark's gifts; she could only hope they didn't start to fade right when she needed them the most.

Her moment of hesitation was over when Laura roared and attacked.

Damn it, now it was not the time to freeze, Rogue thought, getting up and attacking too. Bullets flew, hitting both her and Laura, but none of them stopped, advancing towards the Silver Samurais and their armed henchmen.

And suddenly it was chaos

Blades swinging, bullets flying, claws slashing, punches and kicks being thrown around. Rogue's first hit was a direct punch against the chest of the closest samurai, right after she dodged his katana; the man flew against the wall, cracking a hole into it and disappearing into another room.

Maybe a little bit less strength, Rogue considered.