Training

Munching upon his cereal, Esau looked out across the empty room silently in thought. He had no idea how to respond or deal with the loss he had suffered, it was his first time experiencing defeat. The strange feeling that came with it, just made the whole thing even more confusing and frustrating.

What made it even more frustrating was that his plan had backfired.

He wanted to take out the Blob, establish himself at the top and then not have to deal with all the problems of not being at the top of the food chain. Except, he had lost and now he was probably going to be looked down on again. The others are no doubt going to try and use this defeat to put themselves above him.

The thought of that made Esau clench his fists in anger.

As he finished his bowl off, he rose to his feet sharply and marched to the door where he found the Brotherhood training. Apparently, a little before he joined up, the Brotherhood and X-Men had this fight at a camp or something like that. No one talked about it to him, what information he had was just from the little tidbits he had picked up here and there.

This at least explained why the Brotherhood was training much more than usual under the guidance of Mystique. Something they apparently didn't do this often or for as long. Personally, Esau had not been one for training either, but as he watched Blob just stand there taking blows from the fast Quicksilver, acting like a punching bag, Esau's fists tighten even further.

"I want a rematch." Esau declared, Mystique who had noticed arrival and stood silently, rose a brow.

"A rematch? With Blob?" Esau nodded his head and instantly, Mystique shook her head. "That's not happening, it's something that I wouldn't have allowed in the first place. Your choices should have been limited to either Toad or Avalanche, not pitting you against Blob. You're lucky that Blob wasn't able to put the full strength behind his blows because you would have been dead otherwise."

What Mystique wouldn't say was that the reason Blob didn't put his full strength behind the blow was more than likely because of the unusual feeling of pain he was experiencing. The strange sensation he had possibly never felt before had put Blob off-balance mentally and was unable to properly fight back as he would have done.

Esau ignored that though. "Why not? I did a pretty good job against him last time, I can do better this time around."

"Quite possibly, but I already have a suspicion what your Mutant ability is and I want to test that theory out." Leaving the other Brotherhood to their usual routine, Mystique led Esau over to the corner of the room where a little gym set was there, though it looked to be largely untouched. "How much weight could you lift before this?"

She had a suspicion that Esau's power was something like adaptive evolution. In her time spent wandering the world, Mystique had met people whose bodies adapted to better survive in certain environments. Esau seemed to do something similar, though in a different way. Whereas their bodies adapted to better survive in harsh environments, Esau's body adapted in response to a threat or possibly a desire.

Esau wanted strength to hurt Blob and so his body adapted, evolving to exert more power with each blow. However, it did not adapt to make his body capable of withstanding the strength of his blows leading to his arms completely shattering.

The fact that he was up and moving now, a mere three weeks later said a great deal and hinted at a possible healing factor as well. Not the most effective or strongest healing factor she had seen, but certainly nothing to scoff at and would prove helpful to him in the future.

The question she wanted answering now was whether the adaptions he had were temporary or whether they were permanent? If so, how much was permanent, was it the full totality or a fraction of it?

All things she wanted and needed to know.

This could determine whether Esau could become her greatest asset or just another one of her tools.

It would also determine how she would train him in the future.

Only for Esau to shrug. "Dunno never went to the gym before." As soon as he said those words, Mystique sighed heavily.

A prodigious talent for fighting and possibly an incredibly effective mutant ability, but belonging to someone who had seemingly never needed to work for what he had. It was just her luck to be stuck with someone like that.

"Alright then." She moved on from that though. "Avalance! Come here."

A few moments later, the teen in question came over. "You needed me?"

"I want the weight Esau can lift on all these machines recorded, that's your job. Make sure that he does the proper techniques as well." Mystique ordered, Avalanche nodding his head. "I want his one-rep maxes for each."

"Then what?" Esau asked.

"Then you're going to get what you want, a rematch with Blob." On the bright side, this could be used to her advantage, making Blob far stronger as well. At least this way, she could improve Blob's pain tolerance so that if he did come across something in the future that could make him experience pain then he wouldn't be useless.

Either way, despite this setback, Mystique could not deny that things were looking up.

Her charter of the Brotherhood was going to get stronger and then she could get her boss to stop looking over her shoulder at every turn. Even though she was an Acolyte and one of the first to join the Brotherhood, she was under the most scrutiny.

-X- Line Break -X-

Grunting as his head was whipped to one side, Esau growled angrily, glaring around at his surroundings. Only for his head to be whipped to the other side, something hitting him in the side of the face faster than he could see or react to.

But he could see nothing.

His opponent, Quicksilver, moved at such speeds that no matter how hard he tried, Esau couldn't see a thing. He couldn't see where he was going to come from, how he was going to hit him, when he was going to hit him?

Nothing.

Esau was completely exposed, nothing more than a punching bag for Quicksilver and there was not a damn thing he could do to change that fact. All he could do was stand there, raise his guard and just try to weather the storm for as long as he could. Except he had never been taught to guard, never taught to defend himself because up until this point, there had never been a reason to.

Well, now there was a reason because even with his guard raised, Quicksilver's blows kept breathing through. If he guarded his head, Quicksilver would go for his body. If Esau defended his body, Quicksilver went for his face. Nothing he did made a difference and it wasn't like these blows were light either, no they were heavy and fast.

The speeds at which Quicksilver made it so that his blows carried a great deal of momentum behind them. That was where his strength came from and Esau was feeling every single bit of it.

'This is just like being that fucking coward all over again.' Esau thought with grit teeth, thinking back to a time in which he cowered away from bullies, both kids and his own father alike. When he used to cower behind a feeble guard in an attempt to avoid pain as best as he could. 'I won't be a coward.'

Lowering his guard, instantly Esau was struck across the face once more, left foot sliding back to better catch him before he fell. Only for him to be struck head-on, he falling back, rolling back into a crouch.

But as he looked up, Esau saw the fist coming right to his face again.

There was nothing he could do to stop it.

At that moment, as it smashed into his nose, blood spurting out, Esau didn't care in the slightest.

Why should he?

For just that split second, Esau had seen the blow coming.

That was all Esau needed to see to get back to his feet with a bloody smile. Even as Mystique called a stop to the fight, Esau wiping his nose, the smile didn't once lessen. He had seen the blow, just for a moment, but he had seen it. Though he may not have been able to react to it, that didn't matter because he had seen it.

'With these powers, I can just keep getting stronger.' Esau looked down at his hands with an ever-widening smile. 'Whatever comes my way, I can keep getting stronger bit by bit. Then I'll stand at the top with no one above me. No one to make me feel like that cowardly piece of shit again.'