"It turned out to be him."
Ryan stared at the photograph for a moment longer before the memory finally clicked into place.
Chris Bradley.
The name immediately connected to an old piece of knowledge buried in Ryan's mind. Bradley had once been part of a covert mutant strike team led by William Stryker. In that group were several dangerous individuals, including Logan—the man who would one day become Wolverine—as well as Victor Creed, the brutal mutant later known as Sabretooth.
Bradley had worked alongside them during a series of secret operations that most governments preferred to pretend never happened.
At some point, however, things changed.
Just like Logan, Bradley eventually abandoned Stryker's team and disappeared from the military world entirely. According to scattered rumors, he had retreated into anonymity and ended up working at a traveling amusement park.
Instead of fighting wars, he now used his powers to run small scams that fooled unsuspecting tourists.
Ryan remembered something else as well.
Bradley's story didn't end happily.
If the events Ryan remembered unfolded the same way in this world, Bradley would eventually cross paths with Sabretooth again—and that meeting would end in death.
So this was the mutant Erik wanted him to recruit.
Ryan couldn't help feeling a bit conflicted.
Bradley's ability allowed him to control electrical currents, but the power shown in the movie version had been fairly limited. He could restore electricity to dead circuits or keep a light bulb glowing even after it had been unplugged.
Impressive for a street trick.
Not particularly useful in a fight.
"Ryan, is there a problem?"
Erik's voice broke his train of thought.
Ryan looked up and realized Erik had been watching him closely.
For a moment Ryan considered voicing his doubts about the man's usefulness. In the end, however, he simply shook his head.
"No problem."
"Good," Erik said with a short nod.
"Go back and get ready. We leave in half an hour."
Without waiting for further discussion, Erik turned and pushed open the office door before walking out.
Ryan closed the file and stood up as well.
"Professor, if there's nothing else, I'll head back too."
Just as he turned toward the door, Charles spoke again.
"Ryan."
Ryan paused.
"I explained quite a bit earlier," Charles said thoughtfully. "Aren't you curious about the kind of enemy we're preparing to fight?"
Ryan glanced back with a faint smile.
To Charles Xavier, most people were like open books.
Even without deliberately reading someone's memories, Charles could sense emotional currents and fragments of thought drifting through the human mind. Very few people could hide anything from him.
But Ryan was different.
For reasons Charles couldn't explain, his psychic ability seemed to slide right past Ryan without finding anything to grasp. It was like trying to read a book whose pages were completely blank.
Ryan shrugged lightly.
"When the time comes, I'll naturally find out," he replied.
He didn't elaborate further and quietly left the room.
Charles watched the door close behind him and sighed softly.
Despite Ryan's young age, the boy carried himself with remarkable composure. He was far steadier than most teenagers Charles had met.
Perhaps some responsibilities really could be entrusted to him.
Meanwhile, the situation surrounding Sebastian Shaw was growing increasingly troubling.
Shaw's activities were becoming more frequent, yet every attempt Charles made to locate him with his telepathy ended in failure. Shaw had a psychic working alongside him—someone powerful enough to completely block Charles' perception.
Even the Cerebro prototype couldn't penetrate that barrier.
As a result, Charles had been forced to cooperate with the CIA and rely on conventional intelligence gathering.
It was slow, complicated work.
Between that and several other matters demanding his attention, Charles was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
If Ryan had heard those thoughts, he probably would have laughed.
The reason he seemed so calm had nothing to do with exceptional maturity.
He simply already knew who their enemy was.
—
"Hey, Ryan!"
When Ryan returned to the apartment building inside the base, several mutants lounging in the living room immediately called out to him.
Sean, Angel, and the others were sitting around a low table playing cards. Empty soda bottles and scattered poker chips covered the surface.
"Ryan, what did Erik want with you?" Raven asked.
She tossed a card onto the pile and leaned forward with clear curiosity.
Ryan didn't see any reason to hide the truth.
"We're going to find someone," he said casually. "If everything goes well, we might have a new teammate soon."
"Really?"
Angel's eyes lit up instantly.
"Another mutant?"
"That's great!"
The room immediately grew lively.
For mutants, meeting others like themselves carried a powerful emotional weight. In many ways it was similar to running into someone from your hometown while traveling in a foreign country.
An unspoken connection formed immediately.
After all, mutants and ordinary humans were fundamentally different in ways society didn't fully understand yet.
Even Ryan himself, despite remembering his previous life, now belonged to this new group.
"Then why are you the one going?" Angel asked suddenly.
Her tone carried a faint hint of jealousy.
Everyone had arrived at the base around the same time. Yet Erik and Charles clearly treated Ryan differently from the rest.
Was it just because he was stronger?
Angel herself could fly and spit corrosive acid. Her mutation wasn't weak either.
Ryan shrugged casually.
"Maybe Erik just needed someone to drive the car."
He didn't give them time to question the explanation further and simply headed toward his room.
After changing clothes and packing a small bag, Ryan checked the clock.
Almost time.
A few minutes later, he met Erik in the parking area outside the building.
"Erik."
"Ryan."
They exchanged brief greetings before climbing into the car.
The engine roared to life, and the vehicle rolled out of the base toward the highway.
For a while neither of them spoke.
Then, halfway through the drive, Erik suddenly broke the silence.
"Ryan, can I ask you something?"
Ryan turned slightly toward him.
"Of course. What do you want to know?"
Erik kept his eyes on the road as he slowly turned the steering wheel.
"Do you think humans and mutants can truly understand each other?" he asked. "Can they really live together peacefully?"
Ryan blinked.
That was a very direct question.
"Charles believes they can," Erik added.
Ryan leaned back in his seat.
"And you?"
Erik finally glanced sideways.
"What do you believe?"
Ryan thought for a moment before answering.
"I don't know."
That response clearly surprised Erik.
Ryan continued calmly.
"Look at the way minority groups are treated in America," he said. "Even now, many people still struggle to be fully accepted by society."
He paused briefly.
"If Charles' vision ever becomes reality, it will probably take a very long time."
Erik nodded slowly.
"Why ask me this?" Ryan added.
Erik gave a faint smile and shifted his gaze back to the road.
"Just making conversation."
Ryan glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.
He didn't believe that explanation at all.
This felt more like a quiet test—an attempt to understand Ryan's stance on the growing conflict between humans and mutants.
Still, Ryan didn't push the matter further.
The car continued moving steadily along the highway.
—
Springfield, Ohio.
The amusement park glowed with bright lights and noisy laughter.
Music from the rides mixed with the chatter of crowds wandering between food stalls and carnival games. The air smelled like popcorn, grease, and cotton candy.
At one of the smaller game booths, Chris Bradley sat slumped in a chair.
From a distance he looked almost like a lazy orange cat basking in the warmth of the carnival lights.
"Hey, how do you play this?"
A cheerful voice finally pulled him out of his boredom.
Bradley opened one eye and saw a young couple standing in front of his stall. The blonde woman stared curiously at the light bulb sitting on the small table between them.
"It's simple," Bradley explained lazily.
"Turn off the light and you win the prize. Two tries for one dollar."
The rules sounded easy enough.
The blonde woman immediately paid the dollar and flipped the switch with excitement.
Click.
The switch snapped off.
The light bulb remained brightly lit.
"Well… that's weird."
She frowned and unplugged the power cord from the socket.
The bulb still glowed.
Now she looked confused.
Her boyfriend stepped forward with a skeptical expression. Within seconds he twisted the bulb out of its socket.
The glass bulb continued shining in his hand.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Then the man's expression shifted from confusion to fear.
"Freak," he muttered under his breath.
He quickly grabbed the blonde woman's arm and pulled her away from the booth.
Bradley watched them go with a tired sigh.
Not exactly good for business.
A few meters away, hidden within the moving crowd, two men observed the scene.
One of them grinned, revealing sharp teeth.
"Well," Victor Creed said with a low chuckle, "our little lightning man seems to be doing pretty well for himself."
He glanced toward the masked man standing beside him.
"What do you think, Zero?"
Without waiting for an answer, Sabretooth began walking straight toward Bradley's booth.