The sound of doors getting swung open wildly echoed throughout the halls of the infirmary and the sound of hurrying footsteps scraping against the shiny marble floor could be heard, becoming more louder indicating that someone was fast approaching.

Moments later, Mako busted through the final door, finally entering into one of the recovery

rooms.

“Where is he? What happened? Is he okay?” Mako fired a barrage of questions at Erin without even acknowledging the presence of a teacher which was Professor Curtis who was also inside the room.

Mako’s attention was only on Erin who was sitting next to a female nurse with the healing ability who was trying to restore Erin’s injured hand that got burned when she touched Bill. Professor Curtis didn’t mind too much about Mako’s out-of-line behaviour considering the situation where his friend had almost killed himself so It was natural for him to be this worried for him.

After her mutant gene had deactivated and the rush of adrenaline had left her body, Erin really began to feel the pain caused by her severely burned hand because even as she was getting healed which should have soothed her pain, she was still in so much pain and shock that the nurse had to give her a powerful sedative which would numb all of her pain receptors, temporarily placing her in a blank state of mind which meant that she couldn’t even look straight at Mako or reply to his barrage of questions.

“Calm down, son. He’s going to be alright… He’s just about to be back from surgery.” Professor Curtis calmly stated as he patted Mako gently on his back.

“Surgery…? What the hell happened to him?” Mako asked the man who tried to calm him down, not knowing that he was an acquaintance of Commander Sable.

Professor Curtis remained unfazed at Mako’s erratic behavior and gestured for him to calm down and sit with him.

******************

{Minutes Earlier…}

As soon as the nurses had transported Bill’s body over to the head nurse’s office, she was at a loss for words after observing the amount of damage Bill had done to his own body.

Without wasting a single precious moment, she ordered all of the highest healing ability users to report to her inside the operating room as they immediately began surgery to repair Bill’s most critical blood vessels and mana highways which would have otherwise led to organ failure and power core collapse.

Professor Curtis led Erin to another recovery room and had one of the stand-by nurses take a look at her hand which was still sizzling and hurting as if a million very sharp needles were injecting themselves deep inside her flesh.

However, even in all of this pain, Erin was still more concerned about her friend. She had already lost her best friend and she didn’t want another one to die.

The female nurse kept trying to calm Erin down and to try and properly assess her wound but she kept reluctantly moving away knowing that the overwhelming pain would soon become too much for her to bear and she had something she needed to do first before she got sedated or collapsed for the pain.

With her left hand, she slowly wiggled out her military card from her front right pocket and began typing random symbols that made absolutely no sense.

“Miss, you have to let me take a look at your hand, that burn looks very serious.” The concerned nurse continued to plead with Erin, but she didn’t stop typing.

“I have to let him know… He is the only one… who can talk some sense into him,” Erin said weakly as the pain was getting intolerable.

As soon as Erin pressed send, she finally collapsed onto the floor with tears overflowing down her face as she screamed in absolute pain and agony.

She finally allowed the nurse to come close and treat her wound, knowing that the rest would now be taken care of.

*****************

Professor Curtis explained everything to Mako regarding their mutant gene training and how Bill went berserk after he activated his mutant gene.

A moment of shock and fear erupted in Mako’s heart as he listened to Professor Curtis’ complete explanation.

He had absolutely no idea that the mutant gene that had been achieved could have such an adverse effect on the body.

When Commander Sable had approached him, a day before his transfer to military school, he had actually wanted to invite him to the late-night meeting personally that Bill and Erin also attended that night; however, after he witnessed his determination to get stronger by himself and not relying on shortcuts like the mutant gene during their spar, he was convinced that it was better off for him to train in his own path and not worry too much about the mutant gene just yet.

While Mako had been training tirelessly with Magnus and learning about Mana with Rose, Erin and Bill were trying to tame and master their power which they had prematurely awakened under Professor Curtis’ guidance and supervision.

****************

After a lengthy discussion, Mako was now aware of all the details and Erin had somewhat recovered from the sedative after the nurse had left after she had done what she could to heal her hand.

“The reason why I provoked Bill was because I wanted to see if his training had bore any fruit and whether he was able to compose himself from activating his second-stage mutant gene but I must say even I was surprised to see that his training had almost zero effect as he lost control immediately,” Professor Curtis stated.

“I also wanted to test Erin’s ability to control her own power and try to fight back and reach her friend whom I did suspect to lose control which she did beautifully, injecting the suppressing agent into his body, a complete 10 seconds before the damage would have become irreversible.” He continued.

“As a precaution, I did have two guards with injectors on standby to neutralize Bill if Erin had failed, but it turned out to not be needed.” Professor Curtis quickly added so as to not get Mako riled up again after he had finally somewhat calmed down.

“However, I am still surprised and a bit shocked to see Bill lose control so easily. I understand that Iris was an important person in his life but still, I would have expected him to show some kind of resistance before eventually giving in to the growing desire of his mutant gene to become unleashed.” Professor Curtis said as he finished his analysis of the whole situation. “No, Professor…” Erin voiced out weakly from her bed that was opposite where Mako and Professor Curtis were seated.

“He didn’t lose control… Up until the very end, he was still conscious of his mind and body,” Erin added.

“What…? How can this be? I sensed a change in his core the moment I delivered the news, and I didn’t see any sign of resistance the entire time the mutant gene was active…” Professor Curtis said with a look of surprise and confusion.

“As I was battling to get close enough to him… There was a moment when our eyes met and even though the mutant gene was in control of his ability and was using it to rampage wildly, I could see clearly in his eyes that he wasn’t lost, but rather…” Erin paused mid-sentence with her lips started to quiver.

“Rather what? What happened to him?” Mako asked, getting a bit restless.

With a heavy heart, Erin continued,” Rather… it felt to me that he allowed the mutant gene to freely expand as if he… as if he… wanted it to kill him!”

A sudden silence ensued in the room as the tension was so thick, you could cut with a knife.

“Erin… what are you trying to say…” Mako asked out in desperation, hoping that he had just misheard her words.

“Please… don’t make me repeat it…” Erin replied on the verge of crying again. “His eyes looked devoid of hope and his expression was that of a person who had given up. If he was actually causing a rampage out of anger then he would have used his body but that wasn’t the case, he stood completely still and endured as the mutant gene ravaged his body and erupted

with power on the outside.”

“That idiot…” Mako said with his voice also beginning to crack a bit.

However, the greatest shock was felt by Professor Curtis, who sank back into his chair, his

heart heavy with regret. He had trained many students before, and accidents like Bill’s had occurred in the past. However, he had never witnessed anything like this. The worst part was that he had unknowingly triggered it, not realizing how important Iris was to Bill and how fragile his emotional state had been.

Just then, the door to the recovery room swung wide open, and two male nurses carefully moved a stretcher with a body covered in bandages from top to bottom inside the room.

They were very careful not to make any sudden movements and carefully wheeled the stretched up against the wall, in the center of the room. The male nurses then began to hook up several different machines to the body which was none other than Bill. Shortly after the head nurse walked into the room to check and make sure everything was hooked up correctly, and Professor Curtis excused himself to talk outside with the head nurse while Mako and Erin could have a chance to talk to Bill privately.