Chapter 22
Three months was enough for me to track down Johann Schmidt. Apparently, I inherited more from the original Sabretooth than I had assumed. In the comics, he had a bulldog's grip. If he got on someone's tail, he found them a hundred times out of a hundred.
So I found him too. And killed him. What did you think? That I was going to just look at him? I simply climbed into his bedroom at night and snapped his neck while he slept.
Then I shoved the remaining fifth grenade into the corpse's mouth and activated the detonation. I burned all his documents and notes. Everything. All the laboratory journals, the laboratory itself. At the end, I also triggered the facility's self-destruct sequence. Fortunately or unfortunately, I couldn't find the Tesseract. But honestly, I wasn't looking very hard. What do I need it for?
Another two weeks went into tracking down Klaus Schmidt. This one wasn't even really hiding. He just moved from Auschwitz to Buchenwald.
With him, it was both easier and harder at the same time. This bastard saw the one who was killing him. Oh, how his eyes widened when he recognized me!
How did I manage to kill a mutant who controls energy? Quite simply. There were no windows in his bedroom in the camp. And I jammed the door. I stuffed the ventilation with a rag. And then I opened twenty tin canisters of Zyklon B. He managed to wake up. He even tried to break through the wall. But he couldn't. Apparently, my leg that tripped him and my ass that sat on top of his back got in the way.
I got hold of another grenade at Johann's hideout. I think he won't take offense anymore.
I shoved it into this corpse's mouth too. True, just in case, I cut off the head first. And I placed a second grenade under the body.
From a safe distance, I observed the detonation and the body turning to ash. Only then did I leave. With these mutants, you have to control things until the very end, down to the ashes... I know from my own experience.
Having finished with this business, I returned to Max in the Swiss Alps, where he and I had already lived for a month in a house I bought before the start of my hunt.
I entered. Max came downstairs at the sound of the opening door and looked expectantly into my eyes. I lowered my eyelids affirmatively. Max, or rather already Erik, as I registered him in the documents, leaned his back against the wall and slowly slid down it. He squatted down, throwing his hands on top of his knees and leaning against the wall, staring straight ahead.
I sat down exactly the same way next to him.
"Are you sure?" he asked quietly.
"Couldn't be more sure," I replied.
We remained silent, each thinking about our own things.
Erik... I perceived him as a little brother. Not a son, no. Just a little brother. And that is exactly how I documented our history. Victor and Erik Lehnsherr.
While we were in the Soviet Union, I secretly shaved my head, on which hair had started to grow back a month after the escape. I also shaved my eyebrows. And my beard. Maintaining the image in which I was originally seen. I didn't shave with iron. With fire. Painful, but worth it. It was enough for a week, then the stubble would start breaking through again.
When we escaped, I stopped doing that. And my hair and eyebrows grew back. I am a blond again, not a bald knee.
Erik dyed his gray hair after escaping from the front. He is also a blond now.
I don't think they are looking for us... particularly actively. Why? Twenty minutes after I left the telepath's zone of influence with the kid on my shoulder, the entire territory was covered by volleys of Katyushas. They ironed the earth for more than an hour. I don't think that after something like that, it would be possible to make out anything there. The bodies that remained there must have been ground into mush and scattered all over the impact zone.
But it's still worth exercising reasonable caution.
"And what now?" Erik finally asked.
"Nothing," I shrugged. "You'll go to the local school, get a normal secondary education. Then... We'll think about it."
"Do you think it's worth it?" he sluggishly raised his head to look at me.
"Your power is physics. That means you need to know physics. To know it, you have to study," I shrugged.
"Logical," he sighed.
"Don't worry," I dropped my massive paw on his shoulders. "What do you have to fear after Auschwitz? You've seen hell. Try to live normally."
"Normally? And how is that?"
"Like before the war," I replied. "Only without mom."
He lowered his head and remained silent. Me too. The main thing had already been said. To talk about something else... I'm no master at that.
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