Ascension: The One Who Takes

The refinery was behind me, its alarms distant echoes in the night. I moved fast, following the last trail of breadcrumbs Project Reclamation had left behind.

Lorne wasn't hiding. He was waiting.

Every lead, every scrap of intel pointed to one location—a decommissioned research facility outside the city, buried under layers of forgotten history. It had been wiped from the grid, its records erased from every known database. But black sites never truly disappeared. Someone always knew.

And now, so did I.

The air shifted the moment I stepped inside. It wasn't abandoned. It was operational.

A long corridor stretched ahead, sterile white, the hum of unseen machinery thrumming beneath my boots. I kept moving, energy coiled tight in my muscles, every sense sharp.

Then the doors slammed shut behind me.

I didn't flinch.

Ahead, a figure emerged from the dim overhead lights.

Dr. Everett Lorne.

He looked exactly as I expected—sharp, calculating, a man who had spent years orchestrating things from the shadows. But what caught my attention wasn't him.

It was what stood beside him.

It wasn't just a mutant. It was something else—a fusion of powers, a failed attempt at something greater. Its presence warped the space around it, energy barely contained within its form. The stolen abilities flickered and pulsed, overlapping in unstable chaos.

Lorne had tried to force what I did naturally.

He had failed.

"You've done well to get this far," he said, voice measured.

I cracked my knuckles. "You're about to regret that."

The creature attacked.

It flickered forward in an unstable burst—density shifting in and out, phasing through space with a movement eerily similar to the mutant I had taken down before. But this thing wasn't just slipping through matter. The moment it solidified, kinetic force erupted from its limbs, sending a shockwave through the air.

I dodged, but it was already adapting. Electricity arced across its body, currents feeding into its movements.

Storm Vein. The same ability I had—but raw, untamed.

I read its attack. Waited for the opening.

Then I caught it.

Titan's Grip locked onto its shifting form, and for a moment, it tried to phase through me. But I was already adapting.

My grip held.

All For One.

And I took everything.

The moment the stolen powers unraveled into me, something different happened.

They didn't just add.

They fused.

Storm Vein crackled through my system, but now it was stronger. Faster discharge, wider arc, the electricity no longer needing a physical point of contact to spread. My body could conduct the charge, letting it leap between surfaces like a living storm.

The density-shifting wasn't just an evasive trick anymore. The minor phasing I had stolen before fused with it completely, creating a seamless ability to phase, harden, or manipulate my solidity at will. I could now control the degree of my density, choosing between phasing, extreme durability, or something in between. A state where force passed through me selectively, negating damage while keeping my strikes lethal.

And two more powers surfaced—ones the creature had wielded but never mastered.

Gravitational Compression—the ability to condense space around a point, increasing weight, pressure, and density in an instant.

Reactive Regeneration—not just healing, but adapting. My body could now reinforce against damage types it had already suffered, making repeated attacks less effective.

I exhaled, the weight of new strength settling effortlessly into my instincts.

The failed experiment crumpled to the ground, its stolen gifts returned to something greater.

I turned to Lorne.

And I saw it.

Awe.

For years, he had been trying to force something unnatural. To break the limits of biology and forge evolution itself.

I had just done it—naturally.

Effortlessly.

Lorne's hands twitched at his sides, his mind racing. I could see it in his eyes—the denial, the desperate grasp for an explanation that didn't shatter everything he had built. Project Reclamation had been his life's work. Every experiment, every ruined body in that facility had been justified in his mind by the pursuit of something greater.

And now, I had proven him wrong just by existing.

"You…" His voice was hoarse, almost reverent. "You're the proof of concept. The ideal we've been chasing."

His breath steadied as if he had found solid ground again. His fingers curled into a fist.

"If you think I fear you, you're mistaken." His voice hardened. "This—" he gestured to the remains of his failed experiment, to the walls of the facility humming with unseen power, "—is bigger than one man. Even you. I didn't do this for control. I did it to push humanity forward. To save us from stagnation. From extinction."

I let him talk. Let him rationalize.

Then I extended my hand. Not as an offer.

As a command.

"Then let's see what else you know."

Lorne hesitated. But only for a moment.

Then he stepped forward.

Ascension continues.