The blood on her face was fresh.
Dr. Kinney's blood and her own mixed with dozens of the other facility personnel. The way X-23 moved when she sensed me something was wrong.
She spun before I could step back. Green eyes wild, unfocused, and feral.
I opened my mouth. Didn't get the chance.
She was fast.
She threw all her power into that first lunge. I twisted, felt her claws missing my throat by centimeters. The wall behind me exploded into concrete dust.
"X—"
Her foot caught my ribs. Heard two crack. The air punched out of my lungs as I hit the opposite wall.
No recognition in those eyes. No awareness. Just killing intent.
Four minutes since Omega Red died. My heart rate's still elevated. My breathing shallow from the spores. Ribs are compromised, she's faster than me right now.
I rolled left. Her claws buried six inches into the floor where my head had been. Yanked them out without pause, already pivoting.
Strings shot from my fingers. Twenty threads, razor-thin, formed a defensive web between us.
She charged straight through them.
What—
The strings should've opened her skin to bone. Instead they parted flesh that sealed behind them instantly. Her healing factor erasing damage faster than I could inflict it.
Her claws caught my shoulder. All six inches.
Focus.
I grabbed her wrist with both hands, used her momentum to swing her into the wall. The impact would've killed a normal person. She twisted mid-flight like a cat, landed feet-first against the concrete, and launched back at me.
I was already moving. Barely.
We met in the center of the corridor. My strings versus her claws. The screech of metal on synthetic fiber filled the hallway. She snarled, feral and animalistic and suddenly she was inside my guard.
Claws across my chest. Shallow. I arched back, felt them trace lines from my collarbone to sternum.
My elbow caught her temple. Would've stunned anyone else. She didn't even blink.
I assessed the situation. She's not fighting tactically. Pure aggression. No defense. She's trying to kill me and doesn't care if she gets hurt doing it.
That realization was almost worse than the pain.
I'd sparred with x-23 for years. Knew her patterns. Her tells. The way she'd test defenses before committing. The split-second calculation behind those green eyes.
This wasn't her.
This was the weapon in its purest form. The thing they'd built before she learned to be human.
My strings wrapped around her right arm. She yanked—pulling me forward instead of being restrained—and drove her knee into my already-broken ribs.
Gray spots ate my vision as I tasted blood.
Three broken ribs now. Possibly four. Blood loss moderate but accelerating. Death spores still in my system. My cognitive functions were dropping.
I hit the ground. Rolled. Her foot smashed through the concrete where my spine had been a heartbeat before.
I had to end this. Had to—
She was on me. Straddling my chest. Claws raised for a killing blow.
No time.
Strings erupted from both palms. Not to cut—to bind. They wrapped her wrists, her elbows, pulled them apart with enough force to dislocate shoulders. Her healing factor would fix it. I just needed time.
"Hey, it's me—"
She screamed.
Her foot claw extended toward my throat.
I bucked, threw her off balance. My strings tightened—pulling her arms wider, forcing her back. She fought it with superhuman strength that was winning against my leverage.
Can't hold her. Can't hurt her fast enough. Can't kill her.
Won't kill her.
That left one option.
I shifted my perception. Let the physical world blur. Focused on the strings I couldn't touch—the web of causality that connected everything.
Reality fractured into infinite threads.
X-23 blazed in my altered vision. A nexus of causes and effects. Trauma threads from her conditioning. Memory threads from the Facility. Emotional threads linking her to Dr. Kinney's corpse.
And something else. Something wrong.
A thread that pulsed red. Artificial. Chemical. It wrapped around her brain like a parasite, pumping fury directly into her nervous system.
A scent.
In the physical world, X-23 broke my hold. Her claws descended toward my face.
I followed the red thread backward. Through the air. Back to—
Me.
Omega Red's belt. The vial. It broke when he fell. The scent got on me.
In seconds I understood everything.
I was covered in the trigger scent. To her enhanced senses, I was the enemy. The target. The thing that needed to die.
Her claws were six inches from my eyes.
No time to wash it off. No time to run. Only one option.
I'd never done this before. Wasn't sure I could do this.
Causal strings were hard to interfere with. I couldn't just cut cause and effect without plausibility. That would—
Her claws touched my cheek. Began to press.
Fuck.
I grabbed the red thread with my will. My power. Every ounce of concentration I had left.
It felt like gripping a live wire. It felt wrong, impossible. The thread thrashed in my mental grip, trying to maintain its connection. Trying to keep her locked in her berserk state.
Blood ran down my face. Her claws sinking deeper.
Break.
I pulled. Twisted. Severed.
The red thread snapped with a sensation like reality tearing.
X-23's eyes cleared mid-strike.
The feral fury drained from her face. Replaced by confusion. Then horror.
"No—"
She tried to stop the momentum. Too late. Physics didn't care about intention.
My strings caught her wrists a centimeter from my skull. Stopped the killing blow with nothing to spare.
We froze. Her claws pressed against my forehead. My strings wrapped around her forearms. Both of us breathing hard.
"...Zero?"
My designation. The only name I had.
"Yeah." My voice came out hoarse. "It's me."
Her gaze dropped to the wounds on my chest. My shoulder. The blood—mine and hers—coating us both.
"I didn't—I couldn't—"
"I know." I lowered my strings. Let her wrists go. "It was the trigger scent. You weren't in control."
She pulled back her claws. Retracted them with a snikt sound that seemed too loud in the sudden quiet. Looked at her hands like they belonged to someone else.
"Dr. Kinney." Her voice broke. "I killed her. I didn't want to—the scent, they—I tried to fight it, but—"
"Its not your fault."
"I tore her apart." Tears cut tracks through the blood on her face. "She was trying to help me escape and I—"
The corridor tilted. Or maybe that was me.
Adrenaline wearing off. Blood loss catching up. Spores still in system. Over use of my powers. I'm going into shock.
"Zero?"
X-23's face swam in my vision. She looked scared. Couldn't remember ever seeing her scared before.
"I'm fine." The words slurred. "Just need to—"
The floor rushed up. Or I fell down. Hard to tell.
She caught me before I hit concrete. Her arms careful around my broken ribs. Gentle despite the strength that could rip through steel.
"Stay awake." Her voice seemed far away. "Don't—you can't—"
I wanted to tell her it was fine. That we'd made it. That we were both still alive and we'd won.
But the darkness pulled too hard.
The last thing I felt was X-23's hand gripping mine. The first intentional touch we'd ever shared.
Then nothing.