Morning came slowly in the tunnels, but Eli was already awake.
The light from the overhead wiring buzzed faintly as a city train screamed by in the distance. A fine layer of dust hung in the air. He sat on the edge of his mattress, hunched forward, elbows on knees, head bowed.
His hoodie was stiff with dried blood.
He peeled it off with a grunt, revealing the bruises underneath. Ugly purples stretched along his ribs. A line of crusted red marked where the knife had grazed him.
He rolled his shoulder and winced.
The pain wasn't gone, but it was manageable. He'd had worse.
He washed the blood from his hands in a busted sink connected to a scavenged water tank. The cold bit through his skin. He scrubbed until the water ran clear, but a faint pink tint still clung to his knuckles.
His reflection stared back at him in a cracked mirror propped up on a cinder block.
Messy dark hair. Strong jaw. One faint bruise under his eye.
He didn't look like someone who had nearly been killed the night before.
He looked… calm.
Too calm.
Outside, the wind knifed through the alleys of Chicago like it had a grudge.
Eli pulled his hoodie back on, this time a different one—gray, oversized, no stains. He moved through the back streets with practiced ease, keeping to the shadows, tracking the rhythm of the city.
He wasn't hungry yet, but he had work to do. Scouting. Watching. Feeling the street beneath his feet.
That's when he saw them.
A group of kids, no older than seven or eight, kicking around a flat basketball in a patch of cracked asphalt between two buildings. One wore a winter jacket far too big for his frame. Another had shoes so thin they bent backward at the toes.
Eli stopped at the edge of the alley and watched.
One of the kids slipped. The others laughed—not cruelly, but in that way only children could. Their voices carried like echoes from another life.
Eli leaned against the wall, arms crossed, hood up.
He didn't smile.
But he stayed.
And watched.
For a long time.
He headed toward a known corner store not far from the station lines. The man who ran it didn't ask questions, and sometimes Eli did small errands for him—delivering "forgotten" bags, returning borrowed equipment.
Today, the old man squinted at him through the metal grate in the door.
"You hear what they're saying about you, boy?" he asked in a low voice.
Eli blinked. "No."
"They're calling you Knuckle Rat."
Eli raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"
"Got a ring to it." The man shrugged. "Word is you nearly killed Marcus. Flattened half his crew. That true?"
Eli didn't answer.
The man snorted. "Didn't think so. You're too quiet for that. Still…" He handed Eli a brown paper bag. "Take this to Carmen on Fifth. Tell her it's from me."
Eli nodded and turned to leave.
"Oh—and Navarro?"
He paused.
"Eyes are on you now. Not the kind you can see. Be careful."
———————————————————————————
That night, two states away in Westchester, New York, a soft chime echoed through a circular room filled with glowing interfaces.
Professor Charles Xavier sat before the main Cerebro node, eyes closed, mind focused. The pulse had come in sharply—stronger than expected for a new mutant.
He slowly opened his eyes.
"Hank," he said aloud, tapping the interface. "Can you come take a look at this?"
A moment later, Hank McCoy—Beast—entered with his usual unhurried gait and a tablet under one arm. "Something interesting?"
"Potentially. A spike from Chicago. Strong emotional distress followed by a brief burst of power."
"Any injuries reported?"
Xavier nodded. "Assaults. Some damage. Nothing supernatural. But the signature is… unusual."
Hank pulled up the readings on a screen. "Tissue reinforcement? Adaptive strength? That's rare. Could be similar to Maria Coss or that boy in Winnipeg."
Xavier folded his hands. "It's not quite the same. His genetic markers are inconsistent with any known mutation branches."
"Still mutant?"
Xavier nodded. "Yes. Unmistakably. But atypical."
Down the hall, Jean Grey leaned in the doorway with a cup of coffee. "Another anomaly?"
Xavier turned. "More like a slow bloom. Likely trauma-induced. He's about seventeen. Homeless, judging by pattern recognition. High adaptability. Cerebro labels it as 'Reactive Augmentation.'"
Jean stepped closer. "Is he dangerous?"
"He's a survivor."
"Same thing sometimes."
Beast chuckled. "What do we call him?"
Xavier tapped the entry. "'Subject 617B.' Until we know more."
A few hours later, in one of the school's strategy rooms, a small team gathered—Jean, Beast, Nightcrawler, and Scott Summers.
The file on Subject 617B was open on the holotable.
"Great," Scott muttered. "Another underground brawler. What's next? Sewer gladiators?"
Jean gave him a sidelong look. "You're awfully dismissive today."
"Because we've got real threats on the board. Mutants with explosive volatility. Not every street punk needs a lecture and a bed."
"You ever think maybe a lecture and a bed would've changed someone's life?" she said softly.
Scott looked away.
Nightcrawler smiled gently. "What is it we say? Mutants protecting mutants. Even the quiet ones."
Beast turned the projection. "He doesn't appear dangerous. At least, not by our standards. But there's a strength curve here that worries me."
Jean stared at the red spike in the graph. "That kind of acceleration… doesn't look like adrenaline."
Xavier, entering from behind them, added, "We don't approach yet. We watch. This one's lived a long time by staying invisible. We owe him the same patience."
———————————————————————————
Back in Chicago, Eli sat on the roof of a building overlooking the alley where he'd fought Marcus. It was quiet now. Empty.
He didn't come back here out of guilt.
He came to remember.
Every scrape of brick, every stain, every dent in the dumpster was burned into his mind.
It had felt good.
Clean.
In that moment, when his body moved faster than thought, when his fists landed with perfect weight, when the world narrowed to instinct and motion—he'd felt peace.
Not something he could explain. Definitely not something he could admit.
He wasn't addicted to violence.
But it was the only time life made sense.
He stood, bones still aching, and started walking back toward the tunnels.
Somewhere behind him, a phone camera shutter clicked quietly.
Eli stopped.
The sound didn't come again.
But the hairs on his neck stayed standing.
He exhaled slowly and kept moving.
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