As the golden energy bindings dissipated, Emma Frost rubbed her wrists, the tension in her face replaced by wary calm. Beside her, Blink’s gaze slowly cleared Nolan’s influence fading.
Before stepping into the swirling portal, Nolan turned back to Xavier and the others, voice cold and clear:
"If I find out you’ve secretly brought Mystique back...I won’t be this generous next time."
He vanished into the dimensional gateway. Beside him, Wanda lingered for a heartbeat. Her eyes locked on Erik, wordless emotion flashing then she too stepped through and disappeared.
The entire courtyard fell into silence.
The presence of Nolan, so overwhelming and relentless, had finally lifted.
Charles turned to Tony with guilt in his eyes. "I’m sorry. You lost a lot because of us."
Tony waved him off. "He would’ve cracked the nanotech eventually. He just got a shortcut."
But his tone wasn’t as light as his words. He knew exactly what Nolan wanted nanotech for: Sentinel prototypes faster, more adaptive, more lethal. He’d recently spoken with Helen Zhao, who confirmed that S.H.I.E.L.D. had buried sentinel-level biotech in classified vaults. And now, Nolan had access to a superior alternative.
"Nano-evolution beats cellular evolution. Faster, more versatile."
Tony had intended to keep that edge to counterbalance Nolan’s rapid growth. Now? The gap was closing fast.
"We need to bring Reed Richards in," he muttered.
He recalled how Rogers had offered full support for the Illuminati initiative on one condition: Reed Richards must be part of it. With Nolan accelerating, Tony had no more time to hesitate.
As he flew off toward the Baxter Building, he left Charles behind, staring at the stunned young mutants around them.
"Maybe he’s right..." Tony’s parting words echoed. "You mutants need to stop relying on what you’re born with and start learning how to evolve."
Charles looked down. And sighed.
Back in the Oscorp Deep Research Lab, Nolan walked in, shedding his coat. Mordo left silently, still emotionally shaken. Wanda hesitated, opened her mouth as if to speak, then changed her mind.
"I’m going to train," she said instead.
Nolan watched them go. His expression was unreadable.
"Mordo... I wonder if this’ll change him."
He knew Mordo revered the Ancient One saw her as the ultimate moral compass. Learning she’d secretly tapped into dark dimension energy... that could shatter his worldview. Possibly even corrupt him.
"If he falls to the dark side... I’ll just put him down."
Several days later, inside his gene sequencing chamber, Nolan peered at a holographic model of Emma Frost’s DNA.
"As expected... she’s special."
Emma’s two abilities, diamond skin and telepathy, were not from a unified mutation stream. They were entirely separate genetic trees.
"One’s physical... the other’s psychic. Completely different X-Gene architecture."
Most mutants only developed a single mutation pathway. Even those with "versatile" powers like Iceman only altered the expression of their primary X-Gene, not its structure.
> She broke the rule.
And that gave Nolan something he’d long pursued: a way to bypass the "one X-Gene per body" restriction.
Until now, every enhanced human under Oscorp, from Connors to Norman, could only integrate one stable enhancement. Multiple enhancements led to cellular rejection or neural collapse.
Even now, Nolan had a gnawing fear: what if someone injected Oscorp’s healing serum and then spontaneously awakened a mutant gene later?
That kind of dual conflict could cause spontaneous cellular meltdown and death.
But Emma changed everything.
"Her gene structure remains stable...
Meaning the compatibility comes from something deeper."
He scanned her base pairs, diving deeper.
"Wait... Her nucleobases aren’t static."
The base pairs in Emma’s DNA could shift, adapting to different environments.
He stared at the molecular simulation in awe. Her genome reconfigured itself, switching between two complete genetic operating modes.
It was unprecedented.
"She has two functional genetic blueprints. The body can switch between them like flipping a circuit."
This wasn’t just a random mutation.
It was programmable duality.
And with that breakthrough, Nolan finally synthesized a new compound:
🧬 Dual-Gene Adaptation Serum.
It had the potential to create a new breed of soldier multi-powered operatives, capable of switching between entirely distinct mutant abilities.
But he wasn’t ready to risk his key assets yet.
"Still needs human trials..."
He opened his secure line.
"Norman. Deploy Task Force Vulture to the West outpost. Tell them to bring back more test subjects."
He needed bodies. Volunteers were in short supply.
Soon, Oscorp’s labs would be filled again.
And the era of single-ability mutants... would be over.
[Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
For early access to advanced Chapters on p@treon:
Thank you so much for your support and for reading!q