They walked in silence for several minutes, the dark gray sky of the outer sanctuary pressing down like a heavy blanket. The rusted skeletons of water treatment tanks loomed in the distance, their corroded frames jutting against the bleak horizon like the ribs of some long-dead mechanical beast.
One fell into step beside Steven, his fingers drumming a light, rhythmic pattern against his own thigh—a habit he used when processing thought. He'd been quiet since the interrogation, his sharp mind clearly turning over something.
"Hey Steven," he said, his voice low, almost tentative.
Steven glanced down at him in bewilderment.
"Yes?"
One hesitated, then spoke.
"That mutant chameleon back there said something about a 'Class-four strength mutant.'
He said it like it meant something. Like it was... a real thing."
He looked up at Steven, genuine confusion in his eyes. "I thought mutants don't have levels, that we're just... us. Different powers and strengths, with no system and rankings."
Steven was silent for a moment, his stride still unbroken. Then he nodded, a slight, almost imperceptible movement.
"They don't," he said finally. His eyes flickered with a dawn of understanding, now knowing where One's confusion came from. He calmly explained
"The levels that mutant mention—they're just rudimentary and numerical labels assigned based on observable destructive capacity, physical metrics, energy output and nothing more."
He turned his head slightly, his eyes scanning the shanties around them, the desperate lives huddled in corrugated metal and scavenged concrete.
"To a truly strong mutant, those numbers mean nothing. They're garbage. A crude sorting mechanism for the weak to avoid offending the strong, a way for the frightened to categorize what they don't understand."
One listened intently, his drumming fingers stilling.
"Consider a mutant whose power is absolute control over mechanical constructs, needing no blueprints nor material limits. He conceives, and machines spring into existence—complex, functional, and beyond anything conventional engineering could produce. How do you measure that? What 'class' do you assign?"
One's eyes widened slightly.
He knew exactly who Steven was describing.
"Marco," Steven said, confirming it. "His power isn't strength, speed nor energy projection in any form these outer sanctuary fools would recognize. He builds, and creates. His constructs operate on principles that defy the physics these 'class' systems are built upon. Is he a class-one? A class-five? A class-ten? The question itself is absurd. The classification collapses under the weight of his ability."
Steven's jaw tightened, a flash of something, respect, perhaps, or memory—crossing his features.
"And what of mutants whose powers are conceptual? Whose abilities bend reality itself, not through force but through existence? A mutant who can rewrite probability. Another who exists in multiple timelines simultaneously. How do you grade that ? What number do you pin to something that transcends the very framework of measurement?"
He shook his head, a curt, definitive motion.
"These levels—one through five, sometimes stretched to ten by the ambitious—are pure nonsense.
They're not official nor scientific. They're just social tools. A mutant in the outer sanctuary hears 'class-four' and knows: don't fight that one. Don't insult that one. Give that one a wide berth. It's fear dressed as taxonomy. Survival instinct masquerading as knowledge."
One walked beside him, processing. He was inwardly suprised by Steven's explanation.
"So when that chameleon said 'class-four brawler,'"
One said slowly,
"he wasn't describing strength, but fear. He was saying 'this one was scary, and even he couldn't break through."
"Exactly," Steven said.
"The number was irrelevant. What mattered was the implication: Mason's work is durable enough to stop something that frightens people. The 'class-four' label adds no meaningful data. It's noise. The real thing there's the outcome—broken hands, broken ribs, intact wall."
One fell silent again, but his expression had changed. Understanding had settled into his features, and with it, a quiet pride, or the recognition of a truth he'd felt but never articulated.
He's right, One thought.
He thought of Marco. His mentor. Marco with his impossible machines, his constructs that shouldn't exist, the power that laughed at the very idea of "levels." Marco, who could build a fortress from scrap metal and willpower, could create weapons that made class-five energy projectors look like children with sparklers.
What class would they give him?
One wondered. If they saw him build a mech from nothing, a walking fortress that could level city blocks? Would they call him class-five? Class-ten? Class-one-hundred?
The thought was almost laughable.
One realized. They wouldn't know what to call him at all. His power isn't on their scale nor any scale they could comprehend. They'd look at him and see something that broke their neat little system, that made their numbers meaningless. And they'd be right to be afraid—not because of a label, but because he was beyond it.
He thought of others too. Mutants he'd encountered, and different powers he'd witnessed. A woman who could fold space with a gesture, the man whose presence caused time to stutter and skip.
None of them fit and could be pinned to a chart, ranked on a ladder, reduced to a digit.
The strong don't need levels,
One thought, his understanding crystallizing. The strong simply are. And the weak create levels to pretend they understand what stands before them.
It was a comforting thought, in a way. And a terrifying one.
Because if the levels were garbage, then the sanctuary was filled with unknowns.
Mutants who wore low numbers like disguises, hiding powers that defied categorization and let the fearful call them "class-two" or "class-three" while they cultivated something far more dangerous beneath the surface.
One thought, his mind sharpening.
And somewhere in that gray, chaotic sprawl, Talon and Vanya were spreading whispers about a serum that could multiply strength sixfold. A serum that had rebuilt a shattered man into something that made "class" systems look like children's games.
They think they're manipulating the inner circle?
They think they're playing a clever game. But they don't understand. The inner circle isn't filled with "class-fives" waiting to be mobilized. It's filled with unknowns, variables and powers that don't fit the math.
(This's just my extra writing. One, nor the group know about this yet)
One glanced at Steven.
At the 2.1-meter frame that moved with controlled, devastating precision, his eyes that saw the world in calculations and outcomes, and had almost died and been reborn, measuring his own strength in tons and found it wanting, grown beyond the limits of his own previous existence.
Steven doesn't have a class,
One realized that he never did. Even before the serum, he was something the system couldn't hold. And now?
Now he was something else entirely.
"Steven," One said, his voice steadier now, the confusion burned away by understanding.
"Yes?"
"These levels system used here, although basic, is much to my liking. And since we'll be staying here for a while, i guess we also should give ourselves some levels. In case the situation arrives, we'll just give them the numbers for better communication. Because since they'll know it's just bullshiting, it doesn't really matter, but it'll help us more if we're to integrate with the people here faster."
Steven's thought a little about it then nodded. Thinking inwardly about how sensible and wise the suggestion was. He quickly nodded as a form of approval.
They continued their journey in silence towards the eastern fringe, finding the builder Mason, while One brainstormed what levels he should give to the others that'll suit them perfectly should the situation whereby they're requested to present them occurs.
And in the shadows, far behind, Talon and Vanya continued their work—spreading rumors, stoking greed, building an army of the offended and the entitled. They thought they understood the game, thought they knew the pieces.
They didn't know that the board itself was about to be overturned.