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XGO : CHAPTER 52
🕑 Added 2025-05-10 10:15:43 +0000 UTCThe arrival of Task Force X shifted the balance irrevocably. The granite-skinned mutant absorbed Colossus's mightiest blows with barely a grunt, returning punches that buckled the X-Man’s organic steel plates and sent him staggering backward, metallic groans echoing with each hit. The speedster ran literal circles around Nightcrawler, anticipating his teleport patterns with uncanny precision, landing a flurry of disorienting blows before Kurt could fully rematerialize, finally catching him mid-bamf with a vicious, calculated clothesline that sent the blue elf crashing heavily to the ground, stunned. The energy-blaster engaged Jubilee directly, his focused beams of raw concussive force punching through her weakened light shows with contemptuous ease, throwing her back against the mansion wall hard enough to knock the wind out of her.
The students were overwhelmed. The intensified suppression field crippled their already strained powers, while Task Force X, likely equipped with personalized shielding technology or possessing abilities less susceptible to the dampening effect, pressed their advantage relentlessly, clinically.
Logan found himself battling both the speedster and the granite mutant simultaneously. He fought with the desperate fury of a cornered wolverine, claws flashing, weaving, dodging, but he was constantly forced onto the defensive, unable to land a solid blow. His healing factor, already sluggish under the field's influence, couldn't keep pace with the relentless damage inflicted by the speedster's thousand-cut attacks and the granite mutant's bone-jarring impacts. Rogue, while trying to protect a group of younger students near the fountain, saw the moment it happened. The speedster, a crimson blur, created an opening, and the granite mutant slammed Logan with a blow that audibly cracked ribs. As Logan stumbled, the speedster darted in, a high-tech collar in hand.
"Logan! NO!" Rogue screamed, a wave of pure, uncontrolled telekinetic energy erupting from her, shoving the students behind her further back even as it blasted a half-dozen approaching soldiers off their feet.
But it was too late. The speedster, with a final, contemptuous smirk, slapped the secondary, more potent dampening collar around Logan’s thick neck.
Logan roared, a sound of pure, animalistic frustration and agony, as his adamantium claws retracted against his will, the familiar, comforting weight vanishing, leaving his knuckles feeling strangely bare, vulnerable. His enhanced strength evaporated like mist, leaving him feeling terrifyingly weak, merely human after decades of being something more. His eyes met Rogue’s for a split second, a flicker of pain, apology, and a silent plea passing between them before he was swarmed. Pinned beneath the crushing weight of the granite mutant, reinforced restraints designed to hold beings far stronger than baseline humans snapped shut around his wrists and ankles, biting cruelly into his flesh.
Seeing Logan fall, seeing him caged like an animal, something inside Rogue shattered. The carefully constructed dams she’d maintained around the overwhelming power absorbed from Alex’s Mewtwo form didn’t just crack; they exploded. The violet energy that had flickered around her hands erupted into a towering, incandescent corona, a visible aura of immense psychic force that pulsed with raw, untamed power, pushing back the effects of the suppression field in her immediate vicinity through sheer overwhelming output [cite: 4613-4614]. Her eyes became solid pools of amethyst light, pupils lost in the glare. The dual voices resonated from her throat, no longer a subtle undertone but a dominant, terrifying harmony – her own Southern drawl interwoven with the cold and infinitely powerful psychic resonance of Mewtwo
"You... will... PAY!" the combined voice thundered, each word a physical impact that made the air shudder and the remaining windows of the mansion rattle in their frames.
She rose from the ground, not flying, but levitating, the cracked paving stones around her feet lifting as if gravity itself was her plaything. Her gaze swept across the battlefield, locking onto the nearest military APC – a ten-ton armored personnel carrier that was disgorging more soldiers.
With an almost contemptuous flick of her wrist, the APC was ripped from the ground as if it weighed nothing. Metal screamed in protest as it was torn from its moorings, soldiers inside shouting in terror as they were lifted twenty, then thirty feet into the air. Rogue held it there for a moment, the massive vehicle dwarfed by the sheer scale of her telekinetic grip, then, with another guttural scream that was more psychic force than sound, she hurled it. The APC tumbled end-over-end through the air like a child’s discarded toy, crashing down directly onto a deployed mortar position and two light-armored jeeps. The explosion was cataclysmic. A fireball erupted, sending shrapnel, soldiers, and vehicle parts flying in all directions. The shockwave alone knocked a dozen more soldiers off their feet. The screams of the wounded were abruptly silenced.
"What in God's name is that?" a terrified soldier shrieked into his radio, scrambling backward from the carnage. "She's... she's tearing us apart!"
General Ross, watching from his command position, felt a cold knot of actual fear tighten in his stomach for the first time. His intelligence reports on Rogue had indicated power absorption, some enhanced strength. Nothing like this. "Task Force X! Neutralize her! All units, concentrate fire! Use incendiaries! Use explosives! Bring her down!"
Grenade launchers thumped, sending a volley of explosives arcing towards Rogue. She didn't even flinch. A shimmering dome of violet psychic energy materialized around her, more defined, more potent than before. The grenades struck the shield and detonated prematurely, the explosions harmlessly absorbed and then, impossibly, redirected. With a sharp, focused gesture, Rogue sent the concussive force of half a dozen grenades, now amplified by her own power, hurtling back towards the soldiers who had fired them. They barely had time to register their own ordnance returning before it struck their lines. The screams were cut short by the violent blasts. Bodies were thrown like broken dolls, their tactical gear offering no protection against such focused, overwhelming force.
The granite-skinned Task Force X mutant charged, bellowing in rage, his fists like wrecking balls. Rogue met his charge, not with physical force, but with a wave of pure telekinetic power that slammed into him like an invisible freight train. His stone-like skin cracked and shattered under the assault, great fissures appearing across his chest and limbs. He roared in agony, his charge faltering, before being lifted bodily into the air, struggling against her psychic grip.
"You like to hit things?" the dual voice whispered, directly into his mind and echoing across the lawn. "Let's see how you like it!"
She slammed him into the ground with enough force to create a ten-foot crater, the impact shaking the very foundations of the mansion. Then again. And again. Each impact was punctuated by the sickening crunch of stone and, presumably, bone. After the fourth impact, the granite mutant lay still, his form broken and half-buried in the shattered earth.
The energy-blaster from Task Force X, seeing his teammate fall, unleashed a continuous torrent of concussive blasts, hoping to overwhelm her. Rogue simply raised a hand. The air before her shimmered, and each blast was caught, frozen in mid-air, held suspended in individual bubbles of violet energy. With a contemptuous sneer that was more Mewtwo than Rogue, she sent them all hurtling back at their source. The energy-blaster screamed as his own power, amplified and redirected, tore through his defenses, sending him crashing through the wall of the nearby gymnasium.
Soldiers were breaking ranks now, terror etched on their faces. Some dropped their weapons and ran. The speedster from Task Force X, who had been trying to find an opening, simply vanished in a blur, retreating from a fight he clearly knew was unwinnable against this new, terrifying force.
"I didn't sign up for this!" one soldier screamed, throwing his rifle down as he turned to flee, only to be caught by a telekinetically thrown jeep that crushed him against a tree. "This is an Omega-level event! She's a goddamn monster!"
But the sheer, unrestrained output of cosmic-level psychic power was taking a visible, devastating toll on Rogue. Her nose began to bleed profusely, dark crimson staining her pale skin. Tremors wracked her body, not from fear, but from the strain of channeling energies her human physiology was never meant to contain. The violet aura around her flickered violently, sometimes dimming to a faint shimmer, then flaring back with even greater intensity, like a star on the verge of supernova. The suppression field, though partially overwhelmed in her immediate vicinity, still exerted its insidious influence, creating a painful, destabilizing feedback loop within her. Each exertion of power felt like tearing herself apart from the inside.
"Can't... control..." she gasped, the human part of her voice now strained, terrified. Her body was a conduit for energies that could reshape worlds, but it was a fragile, cracking vessel.
With a final, desperate, defiant roar that was more psychic shockwave than sound, Rogue unleashed everything. The remaining power within her erupted outwards in an uncontrolled, omnidirectional nova of pure violet psychic energy. It wasn't a focused attack; it was a catastrophic detonation of everything she couldn't hold any longer.
The wave expanded with terrifying speed, vaporizing everything in its immediate path. Trees were uprooted and disintegrated. The remaining military vehicles were torn apart as if made of paper. Soldiers and Task Force X members still within a hundred-foot radius were caught in the blast. Their bodies didn't just get thrown; they were unmade. Armor atomized. Flesh and bone dissolved into screaming particles of light and energy. Those at the edge of the blast radius were luckier, merely thrown hundreds of feet, their bodies broken and battered, their minds shattered by the psychic overload. One Task Force X member, the one with energy absorption abilities, managed to raise a last-second shield. It held for a fraction of a second before he was simply erased from existence, his final, horrified thought echoing in the psychic aftermath: "This isn't power... this is... the end..."
And then, as suddenly as it had erupted, the energy imploded. It collapsed back into Rogue, a violent, inward rush that seemed to suck the very light from the air. Her eyes, which had been blazing infernos of violet light, rolled back in her head, showing only whites. A single, choked gasp escaped her lips, and she crumpled to the scarred, smoking earth, unconscious, the last vestiges of the Mewtwo power receding like a dying tide, leaving only the faintest, almost imperceptible violet shimmer around the white streak in her hair.
A profound, ringing silence descended upon the battlefield, broken only by the crackling of fires, the distant, panicked wail of approaching sirens, and the pained, terrified whimpers of the few surviving soldiers who were still conscious. General Ross, who had taken cover behind an overturned, burning APC, slowly rose to his feet, his face pale, his uniform singed, his eyes wide with a mixture of horror and a strange, almost religious awe. He had witnessed power beyond his comprehension, destruction on a scale he had only ever theorized.
He stared at Rogue's still form, then at the devastation around him. Most of his conventional forces were dead or incapacitated. Task Force X was shattered, its surviving members in no condition to fight. He had come for a device, expecting to subdue a school. He had instead poked a god.
"Secure... secure the asset," he finally choked out, his voice hoarse, barely audible. He gestured towards Rogue. "And Weapon X. Get them on the transports. Now. Before... before anything else happens."
His remaining soldiers, shaken to their core, moved with hesitant, fearful steps to retrieve their high-value prisoners from the field of slaughter. The battle for Xavier's school was over. The cost had been staggering. And the true war, Ross suspected with a chilling certainty, had only just begun.
NOTICE
I'm writing to let you know that there will likely be some irregularities in my uploads and activity from Monday, May 13th, 2025, to Monday, June 2nd, 2025.
This is primarily because I have a very demanding academic schedule during this period, with practicals, assignments, and final exams that require my full attention.
Additionally, as I am based in India, you may be aware of the currently heightened tensions and ongoing military actions between India and Pakistan. Honestly, I'm not sure how this situation will develop or whether it will directly affect me or my ability to work as things unfold. It's an uncertain time, and like many here, I'm just taking things as they come.
I apologize in advance for any disruption to the usual schedule during these few weeks. I'm committed to my work/content here and will do my best to manage everything.
I'm hopeful that once my academic commitments are completed and the situation hopefully stabilizes, I’ll be able to return to my regular upload schedule after June 2nd.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Comments
Smoking_ash12
When will the Mc do anything about this. I mean he should have gotten report before this.
