The new day dawned better than Ethan expected.
When he woke up, the first thing he felt was the sun's rays penetrating his window and touching his eyes as he woke up slowly, stretching his limbs and letting out a long yawn.
For a moment, he wondered what had happened to have woken up in a comfortable bed and not on the cold floor of some abandoned building. But it just took him remember the events of the previous day for his doubts to die.
It was still hard to believe that now he was in a place where he could rest, relax and not worry about any kind of danger, because there would be other people to protect him
The institute was definitely the best place he had ever been since he arrived in that world. You couldn't argue about that.
After letting the last sparks of sleep disappear and stretching a little more, Ethan got up and looked at the clock in the room.
It was 8:17. It was relatively early for him, so he decided to do some small exercises before tidying up.
As breakfast would only be served at 8:30, he decided to do some simple exercises before getting ready and going down.
It was nothing very complex, just some simple stretches and some push-ups. This also ended up becoming part of his routine during the days when he trained tirelessly.
10 minutes later, he finished and entered the bathroom, where he repeated the same cleaning process from the previous day, but this time less excessively because he had already removed most of the dirt from his body the day before.
30 minutes later, he came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and another towel he used to dry his now long and messy hair. He once again reminded himself that he needed to cut them as soon as possible.
Opening his new closet and seeing a whole large selection of clothes that he didn't know how the X-men had put there, he chose a simple set: black T-shirt, blue jeans and gray coat because the weather was very cold even though it was still February.
Just when he had just dressed, Ethan was whistling some random song while looking nowhere, when a girl passed through his door.
Ethan's eyes widened when he understood what he had just seen.
She hadn't entered the door using the handle or a key like an ordinary person, she literally passed through the door as if it were made of air and entered his room without asking permission.
Even still surprised, Ethan mentally complained about the lack of respect for his personal space. What if he was naked? The situation would have been very strange.
The girl in question had brown hair and eyes, she was a little shorter than Ethan and probably younger too, because she seemed to be about 13/14 years old. Maybe 15. Ethan would be 18 next month.
Her eyes went all over the room before finally landing on Ethan, who looked at her with an expression that said 'Who the hell told you to disturb my peace? '
"You must be Ethan, right? "The girl asked very rhetorically as she approached and extended her hand to him "My name is Kitty Pryde, but you can call me Shadow Cat. It's a pleasure to meet you! "
The girl continued with her hand outstretched, probably hoping that Ethan would accept the handshake. Ethan, however, did not accept and remained in the same position, with his arms crossed and his expression transmitting clear irritation.
He wouldn't greet her. First, she had entered his room without permission, without caring about his privacy. It's okay that her power was to passively through walls or doors, but that already put her at the top of his blacklist. Second, just by looking at her, he already felt that she would be a big headache and nuisance in his life, so keeping distance was the best.
The girl realized that Ethan would not accept the grip and quickly pulled her hand back, clearly uncomfortable and embarrassed. Not that Ethan cared.
"Well, um... I just wanted to let you know that if you're hungry, breakfast is being served now" Said the girl, her tone now lower and less excited than before
Ethan just kept looking at her. He didn't wave, he didn't answer, he just kept looking at her in silence with an expression that said 'get out of here now'
"Well, it was just... bye" Said the girl as she retreated back before finally passing through the door again and leaving the room.
Ethan sighed watching her leave.
She hadn't even apologized for entering without permission. Was there any kind of lock in this world that is proof of intangible people?
Meh, probably. He just had to search well.
Deciding to focus on something more important, Ethan put on a pair of black All-stars and put his old clothes (the same ones he wore every day for 3 months) in the trash, before driving out of the room to go to the cafeteria.
But before going, Ethan remembered something important. His fusion rate. The strange phenomenon that had made his fusion rate increase so suddenly.
Ethan decided to check his merger rate to see if it had increased again. Once again, he was amazed by what he saw.
5.43%
Something very strange was happening.
Once again, he wasn't complaining. The more his fusion rate increased, the better for him. He became stronger, gained more powers, and a greater chance of surviving. But a situation like this required him to think about the problem in front of him and try to find a solution.
His rate went from 4.87% to 5.43% in a single night, that's when he essentially did nothing but sleep. And as far as he knew, his fusion rate didn't increase just for sleeping.
So it had to be an external factor, something that was messing with his fusion rate and making it increase suddenly.
...
No, that's not how it worked. As far as he knew, the system was some kind of entity coming from outside the Marvel universe, operating through a set of its own rules and being protected from any kind of external influence. At least that was the answer he received when he asked to the system some time ago.
That is, there was no external way to be manipulating the system. It was simply impossible. But if it wasn't the system's fault, then why was his fusion rate was increasing so fast?
I didn't make sense... Unless...
It was something that was directly linked to him.
The fusion rate only increased when he practiced his powers or became more like Enerjak. The only way it could have increased was if he had done something. But he hadn't done anything.
That is, the external factor he theorized before was not linked to the system, but to himself. Something was acting on him, acting on his body, and was making the fusion rate continue to increase.
This theory seemed more plausible. But there were still many questions to be answered.
First he needed when these sudden increases in the merger rate. The last one he had checked yesterday, she had stopped at 4.98%. But earlier that same day, the fusion rate was 4.87%. And the second time he checked was after he arrived at the institute.
The most logical would be to deduce that these sudden increases began after he arrived at the institute. But this also opened up space for more questions.
What was in the institute that was making his fusion rate increase so fast? Would it keep increasing like this or would it stop at some point? What was acting on him that made his fusion rate increase like this?
Was it the X-men? Had he trusted them too soon? What could they have done that was affecting him and making his fusion rate increase?
...
5.63%
Ethan's line of thought was cut when he saw the fusion rate increasing once again. He also took advantage and looked at the clock, seeing that he spent almost 15 whole minutes thinking.
"I'll take care of it later" He thought "For now, I'll feed myself first"
He could think about it later. The point was that now, until he knew what was really happening, no one was reliable.
Not even the X-men.
Ethan left the room with a cold and suspicious expression, eventually bumping into some of his new colleagues as he continued his way to the cafeteria.
His mind kept creating theories and answers to try to find out what was happening to him. His mind creating and trying to decipher all kinds of possible scenarios to explain your situation...
Until he stopped.
It was as if he had pressed the off button of some machine that made his brain return to normal.
Ethan began to go over everything he had done since he woke up. And when analyzing his own actions, he realized that it didn't even seem to have been him who had done all that.
To begin with, he would never have come to such a complex conclusion to try to explain why his fusion rate was increasing so fast. Ethan was the kind of person who tried not to worry too much about the things around him, because he knew that eventually bad things would happen to him and the best thing was to just accept it. So he normally wouldn't have worried so much and would just accept that his fusion rate was increasing without him doing anything.
In addition, to think the way he thought before, you had to be very detailed and very attentive to details, in addition to being very intelligent, all things that he was not.
He also stopped to analyze the way he behaved with Kitty. That wasn't him.
Ethan didn't like it when someone entered his room without permission, honestly no one liked it, but he wasn't that extreme. Looking back, he took that invasion more as a personal offense than as simply someone entering his room without authorization.
Looking now, it even seemed like it was someone else and not Ethan himself who had done that. Still, he remembered having that and also remembered everything he felt, so undeniably, he had been the one who did that.
Maybe it was Enerjak's influence?
The system had said something about its personality changing as his fusion rate increases. That he would start to gain more Enerjak features when his fusion rate got higher.
A more refined way of thinking and a more "cold" personality... would these be Enerjak's characteristics?
Perhaps these sudden increases in the fusion rate were making him assimilate more characteristics of the original Enerjak in a more crude way, causing this sudden change in personality.
For now, he wouldn't think. At least not on an empty stomach.
In the cafeteria... |
Despite having already seen the cafeteria the day before, Ethan was still surprised by how big the cafeteria was. The Xavier institute had almost 300 students, but they all fit inside the cafeteria without getting tight.
And the smell of food only brought more joy to Ethan.
Looking at everything at his disposal (eggs, pancakes, bacon, fruits and others) Ethan filled the plate without any kind of shame and was debating with himself whether to take more or not. He hadn't eaten well for months, he would obviously take advantage of the chance he had and eat everything he wanted.
Satisfied to see his plate with an absurd amount of food, Ethan spent a few minutes looking for an empty table, because he was not willing to interact with any "colleague" today.
During his search, he saw the blue demon (Kurt) waving at him as if he was calling him to sit with him and his group of friends, which included Kitty and 3 other people Ethan didn't know.
Ethan pretended not to see them and sat at an empty table. He wasn't in the mood to listen to the devil speak again.
Soon Ethan began his meal, enjoying every bite he took of the food and letting out a few sighs of satisfaction after so long without decent food.
He still had a lot to think about and a lot of problems to solve, but he still wanted to enjoy these little ones of joy.
As soon as he finished eating and was already going to order more, he felt something strange.
Almost like an attraction. Some kind of force pulling him in a specific direction.
He turned his head in that direction and saw something he didn't expect to see. It was a girl.
A girl his age with long black hair and brown eyes. She wore a look that could be described as gothic and had an Ankh necklace around her neck.
The girl looked at him and in that brief moment when their eyes met, he felt.
A spark. A reaction.
The girl probably must have felt the same, because she quickly looked away and pretended that nothing had happened.
Ethan kept looking, analyzing her from top to bottom and created a mental note for himself:
He should stay as far away from that girl as possible. She was a problem, and Ethan wanted to stay away from more problems for now