It would have been much easier to deal with Masquerade in the heat of the moment, and I had already begun to quietly regret not doing so right away. But, as they say, when you take on a task, you have to see it through. First, I had to calm Marrow down, and then justify myself to Callisto.
Honestly, I didn't have much hope that anything would come of this. Almost all the female Morlocks, except maybe Skyds, clearly exhibited Stockholm syndrome—that psychological condition where the hostage starts sympathizing with the captor. Nevertheless, I managed to persuade the girl with the bone crown on her head, and even the one-eyed brunette seemed to give me carte blanche to act.
Finding a comfortable spot for meditation, I sat down in my "non-lotus" pose. Personally, I call it the "sit-like-you're-in-a-chair" pose, only this time there was no chair. I approached the matter quite responsibly and spent a long time digging through the personality imprint I got from Masquerade.
I even had to touch him several times again, as the duration of his abilities was running out. But in the end, I learned everything possible. The freak in the cloak didn't bother me for nothing from the moment we met. He had serious mental issues, and for a long time, the Morlocks did everything they could to ensure those issues grew and morphed into something more severe.
Only a strong and skilled telepath could possibly heal him. Unfortunately, there were none in sight. On one hand, I could've tried to call in Charlene Xavier and ask the bald telepath for help, but to be honest, I doubted it would do much good.
Judging by the memories from the comics, half of the X-Men's problems stemmed from someone blocking certain parts of their memories. But no one could do it once and for all, and over time, it always turned into a real disaster.
I could have gathered all the Morlocks and detailed the perverted plans Masquerade had for each of them, but I decided not to play democracy anymore—I was tired of explaining what I was doing and why. The digging into someone else's memories hadn't been free; my head was pounding like crazy.
In short, I decided not to delay. Once I made my final decision, I got up from my spot and, under Callisto's worried gaze, approached Masquerade's unconscious body. My hand rested on his face, and I didn't pull it away until I felt that there was nothing left for my power to absorb. The grotesque mutant in the villain's cloak breathed his last, and I collapsed to the ground, exhausted.
He was dead, yet still alive, screaming hysterically in my head. Honestly, I didn't expect it to be so loud. In my past life, I had a bad experience with Orochimaru's Cursed Seal, and I must admit, I'd rather have that on me again than be forced to constantly hear the hysterical screeching of the dead man's personality imprint accusing me of his death!
The pressure was so overwhelming that I had no choice but to force myself into a meditative trance.
I spent two full days in a semi-conscious state. If I had access to chakra circulation and the ability to enter an inner world, I could've more easily isolated Masquerade's personality imprint. But as it was, I only managed to put up thin, flimsy barriers between his consciousness and mine, cornering him—nothing more.
Honestly, I even started to doubt whether I was really dealing with an artificial personality imprint or an actual fragment of his mental body and soul. Just thinking about it made me break out in cold sweat, so I tried not to dwell on it.
Even after two days, when I finally woke up, I could still hear his whispers in my head, but with enough effort, I could ignore them. I just wasn't sure how long I could coexist with such a neighbor in my mental space.
On the bright side, as I had hoped, Masquerade's abilities fully and irrevocably transferred to me. I took everything to the last drop, and they didn't even seem to run out! Something similar happened in the comics when Rogue accidentally killed Captain Marvel.
Back then, Rogue gained her powers permanently. Apparently, it worked the same way with me, though to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure it would. Some sources claimed Rogue got Marvel's powers permanently because they originally belonged to an alien, which caused a glitch allowing Rogue to keep them.
The original Rogue was quite a noble person, and I can't recall any other time she killed someone to permanently gain their powers and abilities.
As for me, I had a much more pragmatic approach to life, knowing that the world wasn't just black and white. There was a whole palette of shades, and sometimes, we had to do terrible things for the greater good, as a certain lemon slice-loving, hairy-man-butt-admiring figure often says.