Chapter 18: Strange Objects
Gasping for air, Jean dropped to one knee, sweating profusely and arms feeling heavy like lead as she heard the sound of someone collapsing to the ground. "Ow," Esau muttered from where he was laid out on the ground, having fallen face first onto the ground.
It was such a silly thing.
Something so bizarre and out of place from what had just happened that Jean couldn't stop herself from laughing. A tiny peal of laughter made Esau shift his head slightly glaring at her, still primarily unmoving.
"You find this funny? I think I've torn every muscle in my body trying to break free from your grip." He said, frowning deeply as he tried to shift his body and failing to do much more than wriggle on the ground. His body wasn't in as bad a condition as it had been after his fight against Juggernaut, but he was exhausted. Jean had been powerful, more so than he had expected and she had been able to restrain him with such force that he had honestly thought he had bitten off more than he could chew.
'Though, thinking about it, I only one because she let go first.' He thought to himself. 'It was my loss.'
Jean shook her head. "You won that, not me." He looked at her momentarily confused before he rolled his eyes.
"Right, I forgot you're also a telepath."
Again, something so silly but in her delirious state of exhaustion, Jean couldn't stop herself from laughing lightly. "Yeah, I am. Though it's strange I can hear your thoughts now, I couldn't even read your surface thoughts properly towards the end."
"Surface thoughts?" He murmured confusedly, finally managing to raise one arm.
"The thoughts that you have when taking note of stuff. Not actual deeper thoughts, but things that just pop into your head randomly, I call them surface thoughts." Esau grunted in understanding, trying then to push himself up, only to fail. "Honestly, I'm shocked I can read them when I couldn't before."
"It's, I guess you could call it the only real weakness of my powers." He said, trying once more, his second hand shifting to give him some help. "Mystique says that my powers are linked to my adrenaline and only work when adrenaline is pumping through my body. The stronger my opponent the quicker I adapt. But once that adrenaline wears off, so do most of the powers I gain from fighting. Something about my body adapting too quickly to be permanent."
Jean looked at him with a raised brow. "And you're sharing this with me, why?" She could admit, while not knowing much about Esau's powers besides his ability to grow stronger, it did make sense. The idea that it was linked to adrenaline which often allowed humans to go above and beyond their natural limits made sense. The idea that his powers don't work the same without adrenaline and instead decline after it's worn off due to his body not adapting were all valid reasons.
After all, if his powers were adaption-based like his thoughts showed, then his body would still have limits. His powers allowed his body to adapt specifically to his surroundings at the time, but that specificity limited him in different ways. If he came across someone incredibly durable, but perhaps very slow and lacking speed like the Blob. Then naturally, only his strength would increase in response to his opponent's durability, but without his own durability increasing concurrently, then eventually his body would not be able to handle his strength.
It was a double-edged sword and naturally, when the fight was over, his body that had been pushed beyond its limit would only retain a portion of what he had at his peak because his body couldn't handle it all.
"Because it's not really much of a weakness, is it?" He questioned, Jean a little lost as to how he didn't see that as a weakness. "I mean, I thought the Juggernaut, right? I managed to match him blow for blow in strength and was actually gaining the upperhand for a time. Sure, after that I didn't retain all my strength. But after that fight, I thought Blob. The fatass is still stronger than me today, but I managed to get strong enough to beat Juggernaut who was stronger than Blob, I can do the same to Blob who while stronger than me, is weaker than Juggernaut."
"That's true," Jean said, starting to get a deeper understanding of who Esau was.
He was simple and a bit of an idiot, but not necessarily stupid.
"But one thing Wolverine says is that fights aren't always as simple as that." That made Esau frown, but he said nothing as he finally managed to push himself onto his knees. Jean herself got to her feet, leaning against the wall as her legs were still a bit unsteady. "I mean, look at what just happened with us, I held you in place for a while, long enough for the X-Men to surround you and attack you several times. Just because you thought Juggernaut to a standstill, doesn't me you're unbeatable."
Esau rose a brow. "You're being pretty concerned about me, aren't you?" Then he smirked. "You hot for me, Red, that it?"
That made Jean scowl, a swipe of her hand launching Esau across the side of the alley into a dumpster. Though as she did, Jean's legs gave out a little as she slid down the side of the wall. "You're not even funny."
"I beg to differ." He muttered, shifting much more easily into a seated position, frowning in displeasure as he threw some trash off him and to one side. "Really though, a trash pile. That's just plain nasty."
"Should have thought about that before opening your mouth and keep calling me Red and see what happens?"
"Is that a promise or a threat?" The response made her roll her eyes, another pile of trash dropping on his head at her indication. Something that made him cry out in shock much to her amusement. "Someone's recovering quickly, thought I exhausted you pretty good earlier, Red?"
"Aren't you doing the same, you freak of nature?"
"Touche."
For a moment, the two of them just sat in silence, both allowing themselves a moment to recover as much as possible. Though they hadn't fought, both had been unwilling to back down from this test and had given their all in their respective tasks. It was a pride thing and neither had come away with theirs intact, but strangely, they didn't hold it against one another.
There was respect there.
"So, tell me something, Red." The use of her newly given nickname made Jean frown, mostly because of how uninspired it was. "Your powers are pretty darn useful and I'll admit it right now, pretty fucking scary. You hit the jackpot with them, but how come you're not super powerful yet? Surely by training one you'd be training the other just as a side effect, right? I mean, up until the whole Juggernaut thing, Lance just saw you as a bit of a pushover."
"What? A pushover?" She snapped angrily.
Esau chuckled. "Oh yeah. Said that if it wasn't for one eye holding your hand he'd be confident in just sending Toad after you." That was a slap to the face if she had ever heard one. "Now, I get Blob and Quickie are assholes, arrogant assholes. But Lance ain't like that all the time and when he said that, I took it as fact."
"Then I'll make him know that I don't need my hand to be held."
"Oh, he knows." Esau laughed out. "You forgot already, Lance is absolutely terrified of you after what you did to Juggernaut. I fully believe that if he had drawn your name out of the hat he'd of pissed himself, and probably cried himself to sleep as well. But I mean, surely you should be strong enough that little old me can't exhaust you."
The wiggle of his eyebrows made Jean roll her eyes, and a rotting bag of food was thrown into his face making him splutter in disgust. "It's because telepathy isn't an easy power to get the hang of you. To you, I've drawn hit the jackpot, but do you have any idea how hard it is to focus when you hear everyone's thoughts about every little thing? I have to spend most of my time focusing on blocking out everyone's thoughts and so, I don't have much time to focus on training."
"Well, shit," Esau muttered, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "That sucks."
Jean nodded her head tiredly. "Yeah, it does." Then she smiled. "Honestly though, I was kind of glad when I couldn't read your thoughts towards the end. I've gotten pretty good at blocking out people's thoughts within a certain radius. The only one whose thoughts I could read was yours and when you became resistant to it, all I could hear was silence. It was a little weird, but also nice to hear nothing."
"And now?"
Jean frowned lightly. "I can hear everything." Then her nose scrunched up. "That was disgusting. You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
The uproarious laughter Esau gave afterwards made her smile, slowly joining him in his laughter. But that laughter, the moment of levity came to a stop as two metal balls appeared before them, streaking down from the sky and landing gently, a light breeze rushing over them.
"What are these things?" Jean asked, looking at the two floating objects in curiosity and caution.
"I have no idea," Esau replied, frowning. "But I think they might have something to do with this whole mission we were given."
Before Jean could respond, dozens of metal tentacles burst out from the balls, each one focusing on one of them. Quickly, Jean surrounded herself with a telekinetic bubble, the tentacles wrapping around the shield and squeezing tightly, Jean gritting her teeth as she tried to push as much of her exhausted power into the shield.
Esau faired much worse though.
His body was still recovering and he didn't have the mobility to dodge as well as he would do normally. Nor did he have any power that would allow him to block the tentacles as Jean did. Instead, he gripped those he could, trying his best to rip them off as others wrapped around his body.
"I didn't sign up for shit like this!" Esau roared out.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Carrots123
Carrots123 So here we go, another chapter is done and with it, Esau and Jean interact a little more with a little insight into Jean's current power problems and Esau's own struggles. However, before things can progress they are attacked by two strange objects that are aiming to take them. Hope you all enjoyed and if you have any questions or suggestions for the story or harem, please let me know.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone