CHAPTER 31

[Draul St. Cross POV]

My hands looked ominous red and I could feel the energy coming of off it.

Destruction.

It was the only congregate feeling I got from it.

Chaotic.

Volatile.

Order.

Malleable.

Contradicting oscillations was what I could read from it, summing it all into destruction.

"Do you control the emissions or are they linear?" Basically Storm asked me if I could fire off Omega beams which I apparently can't… or can I? Hmm food for thought.

Maybe I'm the one who's been limiting what my abilities could do all this while by thinking they can't do it.

Shelving the thought of ripping Darkseid's™ off my mind I focused again on my arm and started congealing all the energy to my finger tips and watched as they left my skin and congested into a red glowing ominous ball.

"..l!"

"R…ul!"

"Draul!"

Hearing my name I snapped my attention away as the ball fizzled back inside my hands and saw the panicked on their faces.

"What?"

"We lost you for a second."

"Huh?"

"The X-Jet picked up intense heat signals and radioactive elements from your little ball of doom. You were about to doom us all." Scott practically yelled while the others looked at me with apprehension.

"My bad, sorry." I apologized since I did spook them out their pants and truly from what I felt that ball of energy could have blown this entire jet and everybody else in it to air dust. Maybe.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to bring him along on the mission?" Scott asked Logan who just shrugged.

I tuned whatever they were saying out as I tried to remember the feeling I got from the ball as I lost myself in it. Losing myself to my abilities had never happened like this, not if I didn't will it.

A power I couldn't control was useless to me. I didn't know the limit of my latest evolution and what better place to find out than the mutant stronghold.

This evolution however brought its own surprises, normally I couldn't bring out the energies in my body only allowing them to flow through but now I could freely emit it. Manipulation however is yet to be tested.

With that thought and using the radioactive elements in my body and boosting it with my optical receptors from my optic nerves, I applied it to my eyes and saw as the virtual image feedback that was sent to my brain change.

I unlocked X-ray vision. Quite easy if I had to say anything about it although the range is not that far.

It felt as if I was looking through water with all the objects gaining better clarity.

There was so much I wanted to test out but due to being on an airborne jet I refrained from doing so.

The jet was entertaining with small talks here and there while I… correction, while Kitty and I snacked on my doughnuts. If I had to say anything about her was that while she was as ever an energetic bundle of curiosity, she also looked quite young, her late teens maybe, which gave me a little idea on how long for the X-Men had come into existence.

Which also brought me to one of my previous confusions about this timeline.

It was a mishmash of the comics and the X-Men movies seeing as how Scott and the others outfit looked closely like those from the movies as opposed to the comics.

Just like how the X-Men timeline was fucked up, it looks like this one was too. And I hope things don't go the way they do in the movies.

"So where are you from?" The quiet guy, Reiner asked. I almost forgot he was there.

"New York."

"Uh New York?" Logan asked surprised.

"Yes. Why?"

"The school's in New York. Looks like we had nothing to worry about." Logan clarified and I was not surprised to have forgotten about that fact given I have been rather preoccupied during the past two years.

"I know."

"Hmm?"

"The school. It's in Salem right? I looked it up a few years back, wanted to come for a visit but I was… busy." I said absentmindedly.

They had look of surprises on their face when I said that, not at all expecting it.

"Why didn't you reach out afterwards?" Storm asked in a soft tone.

"Distractions.. And frankly I just didn't see the need." I said with a drawn out voice not wanting to come off as rude.

"What kinds of distractions?" She pushed on.

"The people kind." Was all I said as we devolved into a bout of silence before Scott called landing after a few minutes.

We landed by a stream of water that flowed downwards with thick trees around us.

"Where are we?" Kitty asked as she shivered from the likely cold atmosphere.

"An uninhabited island off the coast of Michigan. The Professor picked up words of a mutant base here." Scott said as the rest went to suit up. Though what he said made me frown which he picked up on.

"What? Got something against the cold?" He asked with a chuckle but I wasn't in the mood to humor him.

"How many miles out are we away from the mainland?" He frowned a little at that question but seeing as I wasn't joking he answered.

"I'd say twenty miles. Why?" He asked but that information already increased the frown on my face.

I had a mental map of HYDRA bases scattered all across the world and there was only one I knew was in Michigan, a few miles out from the main.

Scott seeing as I wasn't answering called out, gaining the attention of the others as he held my shoulders.

"What's the deal man? You know something about this place, if so mind sharing?" By this time everybody was ready and they all looked at me.

Violently shrugging off Scott's hand from my shoulders, I tore him a hard stare and told him what I contemplated. It wouldn't do for them to go in blind while I mostly likely had spot-on assumptions about the place. Regardless they would still come out on top so it didn't really matter at the end.

"It's a terrorist base. They deal in different things from guns, arms, human/mutant experiments to government subterfuge… and war." I said.

"And how do you know all this?" He wasn't buying it, none of them were.

Me? I didn't care. I just walked out the back of the jet towards the base, thankfully I got a free ride here.

"Hey! Wait up tiger." Logan called out to me as he caught up. "You planning on going alone?"

"Yeah."

"Think you could take them all on? "

"Not my first time." Came out my all too easy casual answer which even seemed to surprise the others while some had frowns of disapproval on their faces, Thunderbird and Storm, as if I would care.

"You don't mind if we tag along now do you?" I really didn't know what angle Logan was playing at. In the comics he was this father bear type character who had something for lost kids like in the movies, or sometimes just a dick. But regardless, I wouldn't say no to extra muscle, not one covering pure adamantium, and also… this was kind of their mission.

We walked towards the base with the others following behind us before they caught up.

We stopped a hundred meters away from the base… or rather they did while I just continued walking on.

"Hey! What are you doing? We need a plan of attack." Jean called out to me as she saw continue walking to the base.

"I have a plan…" I had the feeling I was pirating someone as I said that but as I couldn't remember who it was I continued, "Attack."

As I walked, I converged the energy at my finger tips and watched as it swirled into a glowing red ball of destructive energy. Instead of letting myself fall into a trance like last time, I focused on the alerted guards who started scrambling to a spot as they pointed whatever weapons they held at… 'okay this shit is starting to seriously piss me off.'

Without waiting for them to open fire, I released the hold I had on the ball of energy and watched as it travelled with a soft 'boom' and arrived a second later at the targeted location. The moment it made contact a resounding boom sounded through the entire vicinity as the area it landed was engulfed in raging flames killing everyone around it.

"You are welcome." I said without looking back as I walked to the base that was already blaring with emergency alarms.

I reached the front door of the base which was a reinforced steel door and wanting to test another improved tenet of my abilities I coated my hands in red 'I'm really starting to dig this color' and punched at the door and watched as it flew off its hinges.

Looks like my strength increased a lot, and that was without much effort. I walked inside and used my X-ray vision and while I couldn't cover the whole base, I did with a substantial part of it and saw some people running towards my position making me smile at that.

Finally.

I haven't really fought Mutants, Sam doesn't count, who were battle oriented or any at all so this was a welcoming challenge.

They were seven of them converging at our spot of entrance, I only managed to get a read of three of their abilities – one who somehow drew spike-like bones straight out of his body, another who turned into some kind of orange-colored wild animal without eyes and very prominent canines with a size bigger than that of a fully grown tiger and the last guy just buffed up to ridiculous degrees that showed his muscle fibers through his skin.

This will be… fun.

"Heads up, we got seven mutants incoming." I informed my slightly unwilling party.

"And you know that how?" Storm was too stuck up for my comfort so I replied her in kind.

"I just do." Okay, eeny meeny minny mo, who's the poor mutant that gets the blow? It landed on a dude that had a punk rocker look with the gothic black ink and spikes everywhere. Hopefully he could give me some insights on my abilities.

I started with a walk, then a jog and further devolved it into a full blown sprint which was timed  perfectly so that the moment the made the turn to face their intruders I caught my ill-picked opponent with a palm to the face and threw him backwards cutting off his entire kinetic motioned-sprint making his impact on the wall behind him more devastating.

His comrades only stopped once to attack me but seeing the unattended guest by the doorpost they forsook the idea and dove forth to welcome them with heightened vigor.

I looked at my opponent who looked pretty banged and he got up on shaky feet. "HOW DARE YOU?" He shrieked as he made light-green cuboid constructs out of thin air like some Green Lantern and sent them flying towards me with impressive speed.

Test 1: Natural Defense without Augmentation.

I let the constructs hit me and threw me back a few feet in the air before I coordinated myself mid-descent before footing a perfect landing.

That was impressive. Him I mean, but unfortunately it still wasn't what I was looking for. Should've just picked the hulking dude or the literal beast.

For his consolation though, he looked surprised that I shrugged off his constructs since they were blunt constructs with diminished lethality, which wasn't what I was looking for.

"W-wha.. How?" I didn't give him any second to calm himself as I appeared in front with a congratulatory punch gunning for his head which connected as his eyes widened in shock before he once again impacted the wall behind him almost completely breaking it down.

I couldn't help but frown at that. The moment my fist was millimeters face from crushing his face it struck something in between and the residual force was what flew him backwards rather than the punch itself.

"Hahahahaha!" Laughter flowed out from the mouth of the otherwise unscathed mutant cannonball. "You might be strong but not even you can break my barrier." He said with contemptuous glee as he looked at me.

I frowned harder at that, "Barrier?"

"Yes. None of your strikes could ever hope to reach me. While you might have an impressive offense, I have the perfect defense!" He said gleefully as he let out another laughing ovation.

If what he said was true then my first surprise attack most likely did no substantial damage as I would like to believe. If that was true then looking as how that barrier protected him with a firm strength at the last second of my attack then a huge percentage of his defense is subconsciously erected.

To test my theory I rush at his again but this time he was ready as he erected a wall in front of him to bar my intrusion. Without even thinking of stopping I activated my energy without much thought and almost moaned in pleasure as an intoxicating feeling of power flowed through my entire being with destructive force.

Reaching the wall I regulated the energy flowing through my hands subconsciously to the higher levels of my pre-evolution attack as I punched the wall and saw as he slid backwards for a few meters before stopping and raising his head to smile at me in success and mockery.

"Someone like you can't even dream of punching through my barriers." He sounded was too smug about it.

But something about the way he said it… brought a smile to my face.

"Looks like I just found the perfect punching bag." There must have been a shit eating grin on my face as I said that.

"Huh?"