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XGO CHAPTER 14
🕑 Added 2025-04-11 10:34:12 +0000 UTCFour Arms moved with mechanical precision.
His four massive hands tore through the wreckage, lifting slabs of concrete with calculated efficiency. The dust choked the air, the smoke burned his eyes, but his face remained expressionless. Another task. Another obligation. Nothing more.
People cowered at first.
A woman screamed when he loomed over her, clutching her child close. Her terror reflected in his crimson eyes—a look he'd grown accustomed to.
A man flinched when Four Arms reached toward him, raising his arms as if to ward off a blow.
They weren't sure if he was saving them— Or if he was just another monster.
Just like the scientists had made him.
But that hesitation dissolved when he methodically lifted a crushed beam off an old man, his movements precise, emotionless. When he cradled a crying child in two of his arms while pulling a trapped woman free with the others, his face remained stone—even as the child reached up to touch his face with innocent wonder.
When he positioned himself between civilians and a collapsing storefront, debris shattering against his unmovable body, he didn't flinch. Didn't react. Just calculated angles, impact forces, survival probabilities.
Whispers spread among the survivors.
"He's helping us…"
"He saved my son—"
"God, he—he stopped that whole building from falling—"
Someone reached out, gripping his arm. A foreign sensation. Physical contact that wasn't meant to harm.
"Thank you," a man gasped, voice shaking.
Four Arms stared at the hand on his arm. Something stirred within his chest—a distant memory trying to surface through layers of scar tissue and mental conditioning.
His mother's voice. Faint. Almost forgotten.
"Being good isn't always easy, Alex. Sometimes it's the hardest thing in the world."
His chest ached.
Not from the fight— But from this.
This... conflict. This war between what they had made him to be and what she had taught him to become.
Why did doing the right thing feel so wrong?
Why did it feel like betrayal to the cold, efficient killer they had made him in their labs?
Why did these strangers' gratitude burn worse than any torture he'd endured?
As he mechanically extracted another survivor from the rubble, a familiar metallic click rang through the street.
Guns. Aimed at him.
Four Arms didn't startle. Didn't tense. Weapons had been pointed at him his entire life. in lab.
He turned with calculated slowness.
SHIELD agents surrounded him, weapons raised, faces hidden behind tactical visors. He counted them reflexively. Thirteen. . Seven seconds that's it to kill them all.
No. That's not what she would want.
Colson stepped forward, his face unreadable behind dark sunglasses.
"Alex—transform back. Now."
Four Arms analyzed his options. Fighting would be efficient. Escapeing will be easy but civilians were here. he can beat them later after getting out of here.
He exhaled, something almost human flickering across his face.
In a flash of blue light, his massive form shrank— And Alex stood in his place. Tall, scarred, eyes cold as arctic ice.
Colson's voice was calm but firm.
"Under federal law, all unregistered mutant activity is subject to immediate detainment. Surrender now, and we can—"
A snikt cut through the air.
Alex didn't react. His pulse remained steady. His breathing even. Just another variable in the equation.
Colson stiffened.
A familiar, gravelly voice growled—
"You're not takin' him anywhere."
Logan.
Wolverine stepped forward, claws extended, eyes cold as steel.
Behind him, the rest of the X-Men materialized from the smoke. Alex cataloged them without emotion. Assets. Allies of convenience. Not friends. He didn't have those.
Colson sighed, adjusting his cuffs. "Logan."
"Colson." Logan rolled his neck. "I'm not gonna ask twice. He's with us."
The tension between them crackled like electricity.
Then— Colson exhaled and stepped back.
"Fine. But this isn't over."
Logan smirked. "Yeah, yeah. It never is."
Alex didn't wait.
He stepped away as Logan and Colson kept talking, his movements methodical, economical. No wasted energy. No sign of the turmoil beneath.
Then— He saw Storm and Cyclops approaching.
His face remained impassive, but something in his eyes shifted. A microscopic tell that no one but the scientists who had studied him for years would notice.
"How are Rogue and Kitty?" he asked, voice flat. Clinical. As if requesting a mission status update.
But beneath that veneer, an unfamiliar feeling clawed at his chest. Something dangerously close to... concern.
Storm hesitated.
Kitty's fine, she wanted to say.
Instead, she sighed.
"Kitty is safe," she said. "But—"
She met his eyes.
"Rogue has been taken."
Alex didn't move. Didn't blink. The only change was the almost imperceptible dilation of his pupils.
Then, in a voice so low it barely carried: "...What?"
"We came as soon as we heard the fight," Storm explained. "But midway, we found Kitty lying on the road—barely conscious."
She didn't add what Alex already knew: that Kitty had tried to protect Rogue. That she had fought until she couldn't stand anymore. That she had failed.
Just like he had.
Alex's fists clenched.
The temperature around him dropped several degrees—not from his powers, but from the cold fury that radiated from him like a physical force.
No. No.
His chest constricted, not with panic or grief, but with something far more dangerous—the cold, calculated rage of a weapon being primed.
He should have been there. He should have stayed with them.
And now— Now Rogue was gone.
His eyes hardened to chips of ice.
"Where?" The single word carried the promise of violence.
Storm recognized the look. It wasn't the face of a hero about to save someone.
It was the face of a predator about to hunt.
