Xmen OC with Doomsday powers; Immortality with adaptation
Synopsis
In a world where being different means being hunted, seventeen-year-old Alex Chen thought he was just another victim of circumstance. Bullied, beaten, and broken, he seemed destined for a life of suffering in the small town of Millbrook.
Until he died.
And came back.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger takes on a whole new meaning when death itself becomes your greatest teacher. Every time Alex dies, he returns to life with one crucial advantage: complete immunity to whatever killed him. Bullets, fire, poison, psychic attacks—each death adds another layer to his growing invulnerability.
But power comes with a price, and immortality is a burden few can bear.
Thrust into the dark and dangerous world of mutants, Alex must navigate the treacherous halls of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters while grappling with enemies who see his potential as either a weapon to be controlled or a threat to be eliminated. Government conspiracies, ancient mutant conflicts, and cosmic-level threats await—and Alex will face them all, one death at a time.
From a weak, frightened teenager to something approaching a god, this is the story of evolution through suffering, of finding strength in the darkest moments, and of discovering that sometimes the only way forward is through death itself.
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Chapter 1: The First Death
The taste of copper filled my mouth as I spat blood onto the concrete. My ribs screamed in protest with every breath, and I was pretty sure my left arm was broken. Again.
"Look at this pathetic freak," Jake Morrison sneered, his boot connecting with my stomach. "Still think you're better than us?"
I curled into a ball, trying to protect my vital organs. Three against one wasn't fair, but when had life ever been fair to me? At seventeen, I'd learned that being different in a small town like Millbrook was basically painting a target on your back.
"Please," I gasped, "I didn't do anything to you guys."
"Didn't do anything?" Derek, Jake's loyal lapdog, grabbed my hair and yanked my head up. "You exist. That's enough."
The third one, Tommy, was already pulling out his phone. "This is going on social media. 'Freak gets what he deserves.'"
I closed my eyes, waiting for it to be over. This had become routine over the past year. Ever since the incident at school where I'd somehow survived that chemical explosion in the lab when I should have died, people looked at me differently. Whispered about me. Called me names.
Mutant. Freak. Monster.
The worst part? They weren't wrong. Something was different about me. I healed faster than normal people, could take more punishment. But I was still weak. Still vulnerable. Still just a punching bag for anyone who wanted to feel better about themselves.
"Hey, maybe we should dump him in the river," Jake said, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "See if freaks can swim."
My blood ran cold. The Millbrook River was swollen from recent rains, moving fast and dangerous. Even good swimmers had drowned in it this year.
"I can't swim," I whispered, panic creeping into my voice.
"Perfect," Derek grinned.
They dragged me toward the riverbank, my protests falling on deaf ears. The water was black and churning, and I could hear the roar of the current even from here. My heart hammered against my ribs as they hauled me closer.
"Please, don't do this," I begged. "I'll do anything. I'll give you money, I'll—"
"Shut up," Jake shoved me toward the edge. "Time to see what you're really made of, freak."
The push came suddenly. One moment I was on solid ground, the next I was falling through the air, arms windmilling uselessly. The water hit me like a concrete wall, driving the air from my lungs and shocking my system with its freezing temperature.
I went under immediately.
The current was stronger than I'd imagined, pulling me down and spinning me around until I couldn't tell which way was up. My lungs burned as I fought against the water, but I was never a strong swimmer even in calm conditions. Here, in this churning nightmare, I was helpless.
Water filled my mouth and nose. I thrashed desperately, but my heavy clothes and shoes dragged me down. The surface seemed impossibly far away, a faint shimmer of light that grew dimmer with each passing second.
This is it, I thought with strange clarity. This is how I die.
My vision started to fade at the edges, black spots dancing in front of my eyes. My lungs felt like they were going to explode, but I couldn't stop myself from breathing in more water. The cold was seeping into my bones, making my movements sluggish and uncoordinated.
I don't want to die like this.
But wanting and reality were two different things. My struggles grew weaker, my body growing heavy and unresponsive. The last thing I saw was the murky water closing over my head as I sank toward the riverbed.
Then everything went dark.
I woke up coughing and retching, river water pouring from my mouth and nose. My body convulsed as I expelled what felt like gallons of water, my throat raw and burning. Sand and mud clung to my soaked clothes, and I could taste blood and silt.
But I was alive.
Somehow, impossibly, I was alive.
I pushed myself up on shaking arms, looking around in confusion. I was on a small beach about half a mile downstream from where I'd fallen in. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. How long had I been unconscious?
More importantly, how was I breathing?
I should be dead. I knew I should be dead. I'd drowned in that river, felt the life leaving my body. But here I was, waterlogged and miserable, but undeniably alive.
Something was wrong with me. Something more than just healing faster than normal.
I staggered to my feet, my legs shaky and weak. My clothes were torn and muddy, my phone was waterlogged and dead, and I had no idea how to explain where I'd been for the past several hours.
But as I started the long walk home, I noticed something strange. The cut on my forehead from Jake's ring was gone. The bruises on my ribs had faded to barely visible marks. Even my broken arm seemed to be working fine.
Whatever was happening to me, it was getting stronger.
And somehow, I had the feeling that drowning was just the beginning.
Chapter 2: Questions Without Answers
The walk home took forever. My waterlogged shoes squelched with every step, and my clothes clung to my skin like a cold, wet prison. But the strangest part wasn't the discomfort—it was how *good* I felt underneath it all.
My ribs didn't hurt. The cut on my lip was gone. Even the chronic ache in my back from sleeping on a lumpy mattress had disappeared completely.
I'd drowned. I was sure of it. The memory was crystal clear: the water filling my lungs, the burning sensation, the darkness closing in. But here I was, walking down Maple Street like nothing had happened.
*What the hell is wrong with me?*
Our trailer sat at the end of the street, looking as run-down as always. The porch light was out again, and I could see the blue glow of the TV through the thin curtains. Mom was probably passed out on the couch with an empty bottle in her hand. She'd stopped asking where I went after school months ago.
I tried to slip in quietly, but the screen door squeaked like a dying animal.
"Alex?" Mom's voice was slurred but alert. "That you, baby?"
"Yeah, Mom. Just me."
She appeared in the doorway to the living room, swaying slightly. Her blonde hair was a mess, and her makeup had smudged under her eyes. She looked older than her thirty-five years.
"You're soaking wet," she said, squinting at me in the dim light. "What happened?"
"Fell in a puddle," I lied smoothly. "I'm gonna shower and go to bed."
She nodded absently, already turning back toward the TV. "There's leftover pizza in the fridge if you want it."
The shower felt amazing against my skin, washing away the river mud and the lingering taste of dirty water. But as I stood under the hot spray, I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened.
I'd died. Actually died. And somehow come back.
This wasn't like the minor healing I'd noticed before. This was something else entirely. Something impossible.
I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror after I dried off. Same brown eyes, same black hair, same average face that girls never looked at twice. But something felt different. I looked... healthier? The dark circles under my eyes were gone, and my skin had a vitality it hadn't possessed in years.
*Maybe I'm going crazy,* I thought. *Maybe I hit my head and imagined the whole thing.*
But the memory was too vivid, too real. I could still feel the water rushing into my lungs, still remember the moment my heart stopped beating.
I barely slept that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in the river, drowning all over again. When morning came, I felt exhausted but somehow physically perfect—like my body had reset itself while my mind wrestled with the impossible.
School was going to be hell. Jake and his friends probably thought they'd killed me. What would they do when I showed up alive and unharmed?
*Only one way to find out.*
---
Millbrook High looked the same as always—a cluster of aging brick buildings surrounded by cracked parking lots and dead grass. I kept my hood up as I walked through the front doors, hoping to avoid attention until I figured out what I was going to say.
No such luck.
"Holy shit," I heard Derek whisper to someone near the lockers. "Look who decided to show up."
The hallway fell silent as students noticed me. Whispers started immediately, spreading like wildfire through the crowd.
"Isn't that the kid who fell in the river?"
"I heard they found his backpack downstream."
"My dad's on the volunteer fire department. They called off the search yesterday."
Jake appeared at the end of the hallway, his face pale as he stared at me. Our eyes met across the crowded space, and I saw something I'd never seen in his expression before: fear.
Good. Let him be afraid.
I walked past him without a word, heading for my first period class. But I could feel his eyes on me the entire time, boring into my back like laser beams.
Mrs. Patterson, my English teacher, did a double-take when I walked into her classroom.
"Alex?" She blinked rapidly behind her thick glasses. "I... we were told you were missing. The police came by yesterday asking questions."
"I'm fine," I said simply, taking my usual seat in the back corner.
"But the river... they said you fell in the river."
Every eye in the classroom was on me now. I could feel their stares like physical weight, pressing down on my shoulders. Some looked curious, others suspicious. A few seemed genuinely concerned.
"I got out," I said. "Managed to swim to shore downstream."
It wasn't technically a lie. I had ended up downstream. The swimming part was just... creative interpretation.
Mrs. Patterson looked like she wanted to ask more questions, but the bell rang, saving me from further interrogation. She launched into her lesson about symbolism in literature, but I couldn't focus on her words.
Instead, I found myself thinking about what had happened to me. The drowning was just the latest in a series of incidents where I should have been seriously hurt but somehow wasn't. The chemical explosion in the lab. The time I fell off the roof of the gym. The car accident last month where I walked away without a scratch while the other driver went to the hospital.
I'd always chalked it up to luck. Good reflexes. Divine intervention, maybe.
But now I was starting to see a pattern.
The lunch bell rang, jolting me out of my thoughts. I packed up my things and headed for the cafeteria, my stomach growling. Apparently, coming back from the dead worked up an appetite.
I was halfway through a soggy hamburger when Jake and his crew cornered me.
"We need to talk," Jake said, his voice tight with barely controlled panic.
I looked up at him, chewing slowly. "Do we?"
"You were supposed to..." He glanced around nervously, then leaned closer and lowered his voice. "You were supposed to be dead."
"Sorry to disappoint you."
Derek grabbed my shoulder, his grip tight enough to bruise. "This isn't a joke, freak. We saw you go under. We waited for twenty minutes. Nobody could have survived that."
I looked at his hand on my shoulder, then back at his face. "Take your hand off me, Derek."
"Or what?"
For a moment, something dark flickered in my chest. A cold anger that felt different from anything I'd experienced before. Derek must have seen it in my eyes because he actually took a step back.
"Nothing," I said quietly. "Just... take your hand off me."
He did, his face pale.
Jake was staring at me like I was some kind of alien. "What are you?"
*Good question,* I thought. *I wish I knew.*
"I'm the kid you tried to murder yesterday," I said, loud enough for nearby students to hear. "And I'm still here."
The color drained from Jake's face completely. A few other students had turned to watch our conversation, and I could see the wheels turning in their heads. Jake Morrison, star quarterback, looking terrified of Alex Chen, school punching bag.
"I... we didn't..." Jake stammered.
"Didn't what? Didn't push me into a flooded river? Didn't stand there and watch me drown?" I stood up, and for the first time in my life, Jake actually backed away from me. "Be more careful next time. You might not get so lucky."
I walked away, leaving them standing there in stunned silence. But as I headed for the exit, I caught a glimpse of someone watching me from across the cafeteria.
A woman I'd never seen before. Middle-aged, professional looking, with steel-gray hair and sharp eyes that seemed to see right through me. She was dressed like a teacher, but something about her felt different. Dangerous.
When our eyes met, she smiled—but it wasn't a friendly expression.
It was the smile of a predator who'd just found interesting prey.
Chapter 3: Unwanted Attention
The woman was gone when I looked back.
I scanned the cafeteria, but she'd vanished like smoke. Students chatted and laughed at their tables, completely oblivious to the predator that had been watching from among them. Maybe I'd imagined her. Maybe the stress of everything was getting to me.
But the feeling of being watched didn't go away.
I spent the rest of the school day looking over my shoulder, jumping at shadows. Every teacher seemed suspicious, every janitor potentially dangerous. By the time the final bell rang, my nerves were stretched thinner than piano wire.
The parking lot was mostly empty when I stepped outside. Most kids had already left for home or after-school activities. I preferred it this way—fewer people meant fewer chances for confrontation.
"Alex Chen?"
I spun around, my heart hammering. The woman from the cafeteria stood about ten feet away, hands clasped behind her back. Up close, she looked even more dangerous. Her suit was expensive, her posture military-straight, and her smile had all the warmth of a shark's.
"Do I know you?" I asked, taking a step back.
"Not yet. But I know you." She pulled out a badge, flashing it briefly before tucking it away. "Agent Sarah Reyes, Department of Mutant Affairs. We need to talk."
My blood turned to ice. Department of Mutant Affairs. I'd heard whispers about them—government agents who hunted down people like me. People who were different.
"I think you have the wrong person," I said, continuing to back away.
"Do I?" She tilted her head, studying me like a specimen under a microscope. "Yesterday you drowned in the Millbrook River. Witnesses saw you go under and not come back up. A search and rescue team spent hours looking for your body."
I bumped into something solid—a parked car. Trapped.
"Yet here you are," Agent Reyes continued, "without so much as a scratch. That's very interesting, don't you think?"
"I'm a good swimmer."
"In flood conditions? With a current moving at twelve miles per hour? In water cold enough to cause hypothermia in minutes?" She shook her head. "I don't think so."
My mouth went dry. She knew. Somehow, this government agent knew exactly what had happened to me.
"What do you want?" I whispered.
"Just to talk. To offer you some options." She reached into her jacket, and I tensed, ready to run. But she only pulled out a business card. "You're not in trouble, Alex. Not yet. But you will be if you don't learn to control what's happening to you."
"Nothing's happening to me."
"Really?" Her smile widened. "Then you won't mind if I do this."
She moved faster than I thought possible, pulling something from her belt—a taser. The electrodes hit my chest before I could react, sending fifty thousand volts coursing through my body.
I screamed and collapsed, my muscles seizing uncontrollably. The pain was incredible, like being struck by lightning. My vision went white, then black, then—
Nothing.
---
I woke up in a concrete room with no windows.
The air smelled like disinfectant and fear. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in harsh white light. I was lying on a narrow cot with a thin mattress that felt like it was stuffed with rocks.
"You're awake," Agent Reyes said from a chair near the door. "Good. We have a lot to discuss."
I sat up slowly, my head spinning. The last thing I remembered was the taser hitting me in the school parking lot. But I felt fine now—better than fine, actually. The chronic tension I usually carried in my shoulders was gone, and my breathing felt easier.
"Where am I?"
"A secure facility about two hours outside Millbrook. Don't worry—your mother thinks you're staying at a friend's house for the weekend. I had one of my people call her."
"You kidnapped me."
"I recruited you. There's a difference." She stood up, smoothing down her suit. "Though I admit our methods are a bit unorthodox."
I looked around the room. Concrete walls, steel door, no obvious way out. "This doesn't feel like recruitment."
"The taser killed you, Alex. Fifty thousand volts straight to the heart. You were clinically dead for four minutes and thirty-seven seconds." She consulted a tablet in her hands. "Then you just... came back. Heart started beating on its own, brain activity resumed, no lasting damage. Care to explain how that's possible?"
My throat felt like sandpaper. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't lie to me. We've been watching you for weeks. The chemical explosion at school where you should have died from toxic exposure but walked away fine. The car accident where you should have had internal bleeding but showed no injuries. The fall from the gymnasium roof that should have shattered every bone in your body."
She pulled up footage on her tablet, showing me security camera videos I'd never known existed. Me walking away from accidents that should have killed me. Me healing from injuries that should have left permanent damage.
"You're a mutant, Alex. A very special kind of mutant. And we want to help you."
"Help me do what?"
"Control your abilities. Understand what you're becoming. Because right now, you're a ticking time bomb. Each time you die and come back, you get stronger. Each time you survive something that should kill you, you adapt." She leaned forward, her eyes intense. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that makes you?"
I thought about the anger I'd felt in the cafeteria, the way Derek had backed down from me. The strange confidence that had been growing since my resurrection.
"What do you want from me?"
"Service. To your country. To humanity." She set the tablet aside. "You have the potential to become one of the most powerful mutants alive. We want to make sure you use that power responsibly."
"And if I refuse?"
Her smile returned, cold and sharp. "Then you'll spend the rest of your very long life in a cell like this one. For everyone's safety, including your own."
The threat hung in the air between us like a blade. I was trapped, and we both knew it. Even if I could somehow escape this room, where would I go? Back to Millbrook, where everyone now knew something was wrong with me? Back to a mother who barely noticed when I was gone?
"What kind of service?" I asked quietly.
"Field operations. Dealing with dangerous mutants who threaten civilian populations. Think of it as... pest control."
The casual way she said it made my skin crawl. "You want me to kill other mutants."
"I want you to neutralize threats. Sometimes that means capture. Sometimes it means elimination. But always, it means protecting innocent people from monsters."
"What makes you think I'm not a monster too?"
"Because monsters don't ask that question." She stood up and walked to the door. "You have twenty-four hours to decide, Alex. Join us willingly, and you'll have training, resources, purpose. Refuse, and..."
She let the sentence hang unfinished as she left the room. The heavy steel door slammed shut behind her, followed by the sound of multiple locks engaging.
I was alone in my concrete box, with a choice that wasn't really a choice at all.
Serve the government as their pet killer, or spend eternity in a cage.
As I lay back on the uncomfortable cot, staring at the fluorescent lights, I couldn't help but wonder if drowning in the river would have been preferable to this. At least then, I would have stayed dead.
But even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it wasn't true. Whatever was happening to me, whatever I was becoming, I wanted to live. I wanted to grow stronger.
And maybe, just maybe, I could find a way to turn their own weapon against them.
The first step was surviving long enough to learn how.
Chapter 4: The Test
Sleep didn't come easy on the concrete cot. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the taser's electricity coursing through my body again. The memory of dying—really dying—was harder to shake off the second time around.
But what disturbed me more was how quickly I'd recovered. After drowning, it had taken hours to feel normal again. This time, I'd woken up feeling refreshed, like I'd had the best sleep of my life instead of being electrocuted to death.
*Each time you die and come back, you get stronger.*
Agent Reyes' words echoed in my mind. Was that what was happening to me? Was each death making the next resurrection easier?
The sound of locks disengaging interrupted my thoughts. The door swung open, revealing a different person this time—a tall man in military fatigues with sergeant stripes on his sleeve. His face looked like it had been carved from granite, all hard angles and suspicious eyes.
"Chen. On your feet."
I sat up slowly, my muscles still feeling loose and relaxed despite the uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. "Where are we going?"
"Testing. Move."
He stepped aside, gesturing for me to exit the room. Two more soldiers flanked the doorway, both armed with what looked like high-tech weapons instead of regular firearms. The message was clear: don't try anything stupid.
The hallway beyond my cell was as sterile and unwelcoming as the room itself. Concrete walls, fluorescent lighting, and the constant hum of ventilation systems. We passed several other doors, all sealed tight, and I wondered if there were other prisoners—other mutants—locked away behind them.
"How many others are here?" I asked as we walked.
The sergeant didn't answer.
We took an elevator down three floors, then walked through a maze of corridors until we reached a set of double doors marked with warning signs I couldn't quite read. The sergeant pressed his palm against a scanner, and the doors hissed open.
The room beyond was massive—easily the size of a basketball court, with a ceiling that disappeared into shadows above. Most of the floor space was taken up by what looked like an obstacle course from hell. Spinning blades, electrified barriers, pits filled with spikes, and walls that moved at unpredictable intervals.
Agent Reyes stood on an observation platform overlooking the course, her tablet in hand as always. She smiled when she saw me.
"Good morning, Alex. I trust you slept well?"
"Like the dead," I said dryly.
Her smile widened. "How appropriate. Today we're going to test the limits of your abilities. See exactly what you're capable of."
I looked at the obstacle course again, understanding dawning. "You want me to run through that death trap."
"Oh, it's not just a death trap. It's specifically designed to kill you in as many different ways as possible." She gestured to various sections of the course. "Drowning, electrocution, crushing, piercing, burning, freezing, toxic gas exposure—we've covered all the basics."
My stomach twisted. "And if I refuse?"
"Then you'll be sedated and dragged through it unconscious. At least this way, you'll learn something from the experience."
The casual way she discussed my death—multiple deaths—made me want to punch her perfectly composed face. But I was surrounded by armed guards, and violence would only make things worse.
For now.
"Fine," I said. "But I want something in return."
"You're hardly in a position to negotiate."
"Aren't I? You need to know what I can do, and I'm the only one who can show you. So here's the deal: I'll run your murder maze, but afterward, you answer my questions. About what I am, about what's happening to me, about what you really want."
Agent Reyes considered this for a moment, then nodded. "Acceptable. But only if you complete the entire course."
"Deal."
She pressed a button on her tablet, and the obstacle course hummed to life. Blades began spinning, electricity crackled between metal bars, and the air filled with the sound of grinding machinery.
"Whenever you're ready," she said.
I walked to the starting line, my heart pounding despite my attempt to stay calm. The first obstacle was simple enough—a narrow beam suspended over a pit of spikes. Easy to cross if you had good balance. Easy to fall and die if you didn't.
*Here goes nothing.*
I stepped onto the beam, arms outstretched for balance. It was only about ten feet long, but it felt like walking a tightrope over the Grand Canyon. Halfway across, the beam suddenly tilted to one side, trying to dump me into the spikes below.
I threw myself forward, diving for the platform on the other side. My chest hit the edge hard enough to knock the wind out of me, but I managed to haul myself up before the beam could tilt back and knock me loose.
"Interesting," I heard Agent Reyes say through speakers mounted on the walls. "Most subjects fall on the first obstacle. Your reflexes are already enhanced."
The second obstacle was a tunnel filled with spinning blades. I could see the exit on the other side, but getting there meant timing my movements perfectly to avoid being chopped into pieces.
I took a deep breath and sprinted forward, ducking under the first blade as it whistled over my head. The second one came from the side, and I had to throw myself against the tunnel wall to avoid it. The third—
I wasn't fast enough. The blade caught me across the stomach, slicing through skin and muscle like I was made of paper. Blood sprayed across the tunnel walls as I collapsed, my hands pressed against the wound.
The pain was incredible, white-hot agony that made thinking impossible. I could feel my life bleeding out through my fingers, feel my vision starting to tunnel.
*This is it. Death number three.*
But even as the darkness closed in, I felt something else. A tingling sensation in my stomach, like tiny needles working under my skin. The bleeding slowed, then stopped entirely. The pain began to fade.
I looked down at my hands, expecting to see blood, but they were clean. I lifted my shirt, searching for the wound that should have killed me.
Nothing. Not even a scar.
"Remarkable," Agent Reyes' voice echoed through the tunnel. "You didn't just survive that cut—you adapted to it. I'm reading enhanced muscle density and skin thickness in the affected area. You're literally evolving in real time."
I stood up on shaking legs, staring at where the blade had nearly cut me in half. The spinning death trap was still active, but somehow it didn't seem as threatening anymore. I could see the pattern now, the timing of each blade's rotation.
I made it through the rest of the tunnel without another scratch.
The third obstacle was a pit filled with electrified water. There were stepping stones scattered across the surface, but they were irregularly spaced and some of them sparked with electrical discharge.
I'd already died from electricity once. My body had adapted to survive that.
*Time to test the theory.*
Instead of trying to hop from stone to stone, I jumped directly into the water.
The electrical shock hit me like a freight train, every muscle in my body seizing simultaneously. But this time, instead of stopping my heart, the electricity seemed to flow through me and dissipate harmlessly. It hurt—God, it hurt—but it didn't kill me.
I waded through the electrified water like it was a normal swimming pool, ignoring the crackling energy dancing across my skin.
"Impossible," someone whispered over the speakers.
But I was just getting started.
The fourth obstacle tried to crush me with hydraulic pistons. They slammed down with enough force to pancake a normal person, but my bones didn't break. My enhanced durability absorbed the impact, and I crawled through the narrow gap between crushing walls.
The fifth obstacle filled a sealed chamber with toxic gas. I held my breath as long as I could, but eventually, I had to breathe. The poison burned my lungs and made my vision blur, but my body filtered out the toxins faster than they could accumulate.
By the time I reached the end of the course, I felt like a different person. Stronger, faster, more resilient. Each challenge had pushed my body to adapt, to evolve, to become something beyond human limitations.
Agent Reyes was waiting for me at the finish line, her expression a mixture of amazement and hunger.
"Incredible," she breathed. "In thirty minutes, you've undergone more evolutionary adaptation than most species experience in millennia."
I wiped sweat from my forehead, surprised to find that I wasn't even breathing hard. "Now you answer my questions."
"Of course. You've earned it." She gestured to a nearby chair. "What would you like to know?"
"Everything. What I am, what you want from me, and why you're really keeping me here."
She sat down across from me, suddenly looking older than her years. "You're a mutant, Alex. But not just any mutant. You're what we call an Omega-level threat—a being with the potential for unlimited power growth."
"Omega-level?"
"The highest classification we have. Mutants capable of affecting change on a global or even cosmic scale. There are fewer than a dozen confirmed Omega-level mutants in the world, and most of them are either dead or in hiding."
My mouth went dry. "And you think I'm one of them?"
"I know you are. Your power isn't just resurrection or adaptation—it's evolution itself. Every time you face a threat, your body doesn't just survive it, it becomes immune to it. And those immunities stack, creating exponential growth in your capabilities."
She pulled up a chart on her tablet, showing readings from my run through the obstacle course.
"When you started, your physical parameters were slightly above human normal. By the end, you were registering strength levels comparable to enhanced soldiers, reaction times in the top percentile of human performance, and damage resistance that would make you bulletproof."
"All from thirty minutes?"
"All from thirty minutes of controlled death and adaptation. Imagine what you could become after a year of training. A decade. A century."
The implications hit me like a physical blow. If she was right, I wasn't just immortal—I was becoming something beyond human comprehension.
"Now do you understand why we need you?" Agent Reyes leaned forward, her eyes intense. "There are other Omega-level mutants out there. Beings who could end civilization with a thought. You might be the only thing capable of stopping them."
"Or I might become the thing that needs stopping."
"That's a risk we're willing to take. The question is: are you?"
I stared at her, processing everything she'd told me. Power beyond imagination, but at the cost of becoming a weapon for people who saw me as nothing more than a useful tool.
"I need time to think."
"Time is a luxury we don't have. There's a situation developing that requires immediate attention. A mutant in Boston has been killing civilians, and conventional forces can't touch him." She stood up, smoothing down her suit. "This is your chance to prove that you can be a hero instead of just another monster."
"And if I refuse?"
"Then a lot of innocent people are going to die while you sit in your cell, wondering if you could have made a difference."
The manipulation was obvious, but that didn't make it less effective. People were dying, and I might be able to save them.
But was I ready to become the government's attack dog?
*Guess I'm about to find out.*