Seeing the look on Selene's face had been worth it. Pure shock, the kind that froze her features mid-snarl. Logan, meanwhile, had doubled over, shoulders shaking as he ughed, as if he'd just heard the best joke of the century.

  I didn't join him. I just stared at her ftly, even though her anger amused me more than I cared to admit.

  Maybe it was the rage. Maybe the humiliation. Either way, she tried to move despite being, for all practical purposes, a psychic potato.

  "Ah ah." I angled the lightsaber until it hovered a hair's breadth from her throat. She'd caught me once with that psychic spike, sure, but I was confident I could take her head off long before she could worm her way back into my mind. "I believe we can work out a deal, can't we? You wouldn't have come here if you didn't want something."

  "You—" she hissed, the word scraping out of her like poison.

  "Yeah, Selene," Logan wheezed between ughs. "Listen to Sukon."

  She shot him a gre that could've burned steel, then turned back to me. The anger drained away, repced by something colder. Older. The dead-eyed stare of an immortal who'd watched humanity crawl from stone tools to cities.

  "Have you heard tales of Kun Grath?"

  Logan and I exchanged a gnce. I dug through my memory and came up empty. "No…?"

  "An ancient sorcerer," Selene said smoothly. "He lived in my era. I thought him long dead, but it seems the spineless coward found a way to linger."

  "The neckce," I said.

  She sniffed. "Quaint, isn't it. If I were him, I'd have done it better. Among my fellow Externals, none surpasses me in the art of magic. I could offer a far superior form of immortality, should you desire it. What are my fellow younglings paying you? You're quite the potent subject. Wouldn't you like—"

  I frowned and stayed quiet. I wasn't about to correct her assumption that I was working for some other immortal, and I definitely wasn't buying what she was selling.

  Logan cut in. "You're forgettin' the weird fuckin' demon deer. Expin that."

  She shot him a gre, then sighed. "A beast of Chthon."

  "Chthon?!" That was way above my pay grade. Fuck.

  Selene's smile thinned. "You are knowledgeable, I see. Chamabra, the forgotten lord of the woods. Kun likely made a pact with it to gain entrance to its domain. A mere pet of a god, yet still a formidable adversary."

  "Weaknesses?" I asked, eyes locked on her. "The fact that you're here and know all this means you had something pnned."

  "Ah ah." She looked smug now. "I've already paid half, dear. If you want the rest, you'll have to pay for it."

  Logan's cws slid out with a soft metallic whisper as he loomed closer. Selene ignored him completely, her gaze never leaving mine.

  "For starters, you can hand over that nifty ring of yours. I can sense it. Quite the potent healing aid. Help me, I help you. Simple, really."

  "Kid…" Logan warned.

  I shot him a look, then turned back to her. "How do I know you're not lying? How do I know this Chamabra doesn't just kill us instantly? Or that you're not stringing us along so you can avoid getting put in the ground for a few months?"

  "Mighty as it may be, it is still a beast wielding a cudgel," Selene replied calmly. "I assure you, I can bring it down. A brutish beast running instinct is no obstacle for me."

  "I see…" I shifted the lightsaber slightly away from her neck.

  Triumph flickered across her face.

  It was the st expression she ever wore.

  Her head left her shoulders in a blur of light. My lightsaber fshed again and again, carving through her body faster than thought. It wouldn't keep her dead, but there was no reason to make it easy.

  Logan watched with a raised eyebrow as I kept at it.

  "She was definitely going to betray us," I said, continuing to double-tap what was rapidly becoming a mess of ruined flesh. "I'm not trusting someone who literally eats people."

  The moment she'd tried to sway me, I'd tuned her out. Trying to outscheme a conniving immortal who'd been around since the Stone Age was a fool's errand. The Ancient One had already beaten that lesson into me.

  I was ninety-nine percent sure this was heading toward some X-Men team-up bullshit where we worked with a vilin to save the day and accidentally enabled something worse.

  "No compints from me, kid," Logan said, joining in by grinding her remains into the dirt. "But it was lookin' like we didn't have much of a choice."

  Normally, he'd be right. But the gacha provides.

  [Feat! Sy The Witch!]

  [+1 Ptinum Gacha Ticket]

  "We don't have to… hopefully," I said. "Step back a bit."

  Logan did, watching closely.

  Really hope this wasn't a dud.

  [Rolling Gold Ptinum Ticket]

  [VI – The Lovers]

  |Epic Item|

  Tarot Card – Allows you to select an ability from anyone within a 100-meter range and copy it into your ability slot for 1 hour. 120-hour cooldown.

  A card appeared in my palm. Ivory stock edged in gold, depicting two figures beneath a radiant angel. One faced the sun, the other the moon, their hands just barely touching as a red thread bound them together. Power hummed quietly through it.

  "The fuck is that?" Logan asked.

  I ignored him.

  The card sat heavy in my hand. As I focused on it, something in me shifted. Lights bloomed around us, faint at first, then sharpening as I let the sensation settle in. Pinpricks everywhere. Bugs in the dirt. Birds in the trees. Small, simple presences flickering in and out like distant stars.

  Then I looked at Logan.

  It was like staring at a consteltion.

  Points of light clustered and yered over him, some dim, some bzing. One burned brighter than all the rest. Instinctively, I knew what it was.

  His healing factor.

  If I wanted to, I could copy it.

  I grinned.

  "Hold this." I shoved the tarot card into his hand. "Whatever you do, don't use that. What do you see? How does this—"

  "The hell?" Logan squinted at it, brow furrowing. "Yeah. I'm seein' lights. Lots of 'em."

  I nodded, my mind racing.

  Ideas stacked fast. Logan copies teleportation, grabs people, runs interference while I handle the swarm. That could work. I was confident I could carve through whatever came crawling out of those woods.

  But moving civilians was another story. Too many bodies, even if they both got spatial dispcement.

  And then there was the real problem.

  A kaiju-scale, eldritch forest god didn't give a damn about clever footwork.

  For a split second, the thought crossed my mind.

  Should I roll another penalty?

  Then the card's wording surfaced again, clear as day.

  Anyone.

  Maybe…

  "I've got an idea…"

  "I don't like that look on your face, kid," Logan said slowly.

  —

  Kitty had a lot of ideas about how her life was supposed to go. She didn't usually say it out loud, but she knew she was pretty awesome. Music star. Astronaut. Actress. She'd run through the list more than once, usually sprawled on her bed with headphones on.

  None of those futures involved falling through her bedroom floor.

  Getting her power had been a bit of a hiccup…

  Okay, a big hiccup.

  Phasing through walls sounded cool until you realized gravity didn't care, and falling through floors sucked. Kitty had screamed, panicked, and then spent a couple of weeks being very quiet about it. Freaked out, for sure. But she probably would've worked through it on her own.

  Maybe…

  Then Professor Xavier showed up.

  He talked to her parents for a long time. Calm words. Reassuring smiles. Fancy expnations that went way over her head. Kitty didn't care about most of it. She caught the important part buried under all the symbol-of-peace talk.

  She was going to train to be a superhero!

  Like Iron Man. Or Captain America. Possibly even better!

  Which meant, according to unspoken superhero rule number one, that weird stuff was going to happen. That was why she'd agreed to tag along with Bobby, Jean, and Scott when rumors started floating around about Bigfoots in the woods. Dealing with monsters was kind of part of the job description.

  But well…

  A weirdo in the forest. A sharp pain. Then nothing.

  She woke up in a cage.

  Thick metal bars, ugly and cold against her hands when she tried to shift her weight. Kitty leaned forward to peer through them and immediately snapped back as a massive wolf-like thing lunged, its jaws cmping shut inches from her face.

  She yelped and stumbled back, heart hammering.

  Be brave. Be brave. Oh god it's so ugly.

  "Stop doing that," Scott snapped. He paced, tapping his foot against the dirt floor. "You're only going to piss them off more."

  "How about you shut the fuck up, wuss," Bobby shot back, his voice sharp and angry. "You wanna sit here and die?"

  "Stupidly pissing off the monsters isn't helping," Scott fired back without missing a beat.

  Bobby's shoulders tensed, looking completely ready to slug the new guy.

  "Bobby." Kitty raised her hands quickly. "It's fine. Scott's right. I'll be more careful."

  The tension didn't vanish, but it eased enough for the two boys to turn away from each other. Kitty let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She didn't really know Scott that well yet, but yeah, he could be kind of an ass. Still, being trapped in a cage for hours would mess with anyone. She could forgive him this time.

  Silence crept back in, leaving only the strange stillness of the forest. She hated it.

  "Is Jean doing okay?" Kitty asked quietly.

  "I think so," Bobby said, gncing sideways. His voice softened, and somehow that made it worse.

  Jean had tried to reach out earlier, just a small telepathy probe to reach the professor. She'd screamed and colpsed, dropping into that same unnatural, unmoving state the rest of the captives were in.

  Cherry on top of an already awful situation.

  Kitty looked past the bars, farther into the clearing. More cages were scattered among the trees. More people slumped inside them, eyes closed, bodies still.

  Her fingers curled tight around the bars as she stared, doing everything she could not to think about what came next.

  She didn't know what to do…

  Heavy footsteps dragged her out of the spiral. The ground felt different now, each impact thudding through the dirt and into her bones. She turned just in time to see it coming back, and both Scott and Bobby sucked in sharp, panicked breaths beside her. The monster looked bigger than before, bulkier, its silhouette blotting out what little light filtered through the trees.

  Oh. They were so screwed.

  "Guys, we need to—"

  "HEY!"

  The shout cracked through the clearing.

  Everything froze. Even the monster paused.

  Kitty's head snapped toward the sound. Short and dressed in a cheap tee shirt and pants, calm as could be, staring the monster down like it was an inconvenience instead of a walking horror movie.

  "Logan!" Bobby yelled, relief and disbelief tangled together.

  Her chest tightened. She felt it too—that sudden surge of hope that almost hurt. They'd found them!

  Then she saw the woods.

  Hundreds of those beasts lurked at the edges of the clearing, eyes gleaming. And beyond them, the giant shape loomed—vast, patient, every inch of it focused on Logan.

  Hope twisted into fear.

  "Run—" she didn't finish

  "Fight someone your own size!"

  Light fred from Logan's hands, too bright to look at directly. The air rippled. For a heartbeat, nothing made sense.

  Then Logan grew.

  Not fast. Not slow. He just… kept going. Taller and taller, his body stretching upward until the man who barely came up to her shoulder now rivaled the trees themselves. His outline swelled with muscle and fury.

  "RARGH!"

  His cws followed, lengthening until they were less like knives and more like cars made of steel.

  The monster lunged.

  Branches and glowing foliage smmed into Logan's chest, power detonating against him—but he didn't budge. He pnted his feet and drove a punch straight into the monster's face, the impact shaking the entire clearing.

  Kitty's jaw dropped.

  "What the hell…" Scott muttered.

  She couldn't even argue with that.

  She didn't have long to stay stunned. Thunder cpped. Not once, but again and again. The beasts around their cage split apart like paper. The bars sheared clean through and cttered to the ground.

  "Save the other people!" a voice yelled, already gone in a blur before another thundercp followed.

  "Come on!" Bobby grabbed her arm, hauling her to her feet.

  She let him pull her, even as she kept looking back, watching Logan trade blows like a freaking kaiju!

  Somewhere in the middle of the fear, the chaos, and the impossible, something bright sparked in her chest.

  So cool!

  ***

  Now no one can make short jokes about Logan ever again lolol. Also, I'm running a 50% discount till March 1st.

  Comments and Thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Likes are like a drug to me and boost my creative juices.

  I have advanced chapters on my if you wanna read ahead.