Every since he was nine years old, Jack Farley was addicted to comic books. His favourite, the X-Men of course! They were just ordinary people with extraordinary abilities. Outwardly, they looked the same (most of them anyway), spoke the same, came from the same planet (unlike the well known Superman), and were overall, just easier to relate to.

This, however, was real life. No matter how hard he tried Xavier and his band or X-Men would never be real. It was a fact; people didn't mutate and acquire the powers described in his comic books just because of stress during puberty. Jack knew that, his family knew that and everyone else living in the world knew that.

Jack was now seventeen, living in his childhood home in Denver, Colorado, and had long forgotten the comic books he used to read. He had given them up for his high school soccer team and his spot in the jazz band. His deep brown mushroom cut and dinosaur t-shirts had also been replaced by longish, curly hair that fell like a wavy mop on his head, and band shirts. He had started off in school being the shortest kid in the class, always being poked at for his height. Now, he was taller than all the boys who had ever made fun of him. He wasn't the tallest in his class but he was at least 6"2.

Recently, the news castors had been reporting of many cases of children winding up in hospital because of a strange new disease that seems to put a child through a series of horrendous, and traumatizing events and sometimes, slight deformities before settling down into a dormant occurrence. So far, no cure had been discovered for the new series of ailments but it wasn't a priority. The main thing was to handle the victims when the violent outbursts began.

It was ten months before the first reports surfaced that sealed the fate of hundreds of people around the world. The new disease had been classified as a genetic mutation and was able to change its victim enough to allow them new talents. All the news centres were commenting on the event, one station even stated that it sounded like the famous comic book X-Men that most people had read as adolescence. Everyone joked about it until a small but powerful political group emerged demanding to be listened to. They called themselves the Protectors and had placed a new idea into the thoughts of the general populace, fear.

The Protectors had one main platform. Get rid of the rising mutant population and save humanity from disaster. They believed that mutants would soon become to high a population percentage and use their power to take over the world. Most people were able to shake off the new found group, calling them right wing, religious extremists who didn't get that everyone has a right to live. Others, started to shift their views and slowly but surely, the party grew. They gained more political respect and soon moved to become a national organization. So it began the war between the mutants and the humans. One wanted to live, the other feared what they didn't, couldn't understand.

Then again, what did an issue concerning, humanities freak shows, and politics have to do with a seventeen year old boy living in Denver? Quite a bit actually. It was the very end of the soccer season and the two final teams were preparing for the final showdown. Jack's Denver Secondary School, verses the Catholic school down the road. Every year, the same two teams made it to the finals. Jack was a superb goalie and had only let in two goals by the end of the second half. The score was tied, two – two. The referee and coaches had decided to continue play until one team scored. Jack prepared himself in the net, crouched to the ground as the Catholic team's captain and centre forward raced towards him passing the ball around to his team members. They avoided the defence and Jack was now faced with three, unchallenged forwards trying to score. The captain took aim, and fired the ball straight for the upper left corner. Jack jumped, and smacked the ball away with his chest, dropping down to grab the ball he noticed it sliding back towards the line. Diving he caught the ball just as the Catholic school's right forward was aiming another kick. This one missed the ball and connected straight with Jack's head. The game was halted immediately and unconscious Jack was carried off the field, while his coach was screaming at his Catholic counterpart.

Jack woke up three days later in hospital and quickly took in his surroundings. Everything was white, so white it hurt his eyes. The place reeked of hand sanitizer and the bustling of nurses, doctors, patients, and visitors shuffling around in the corridor. Lying back down Jack began to remember the game and as soon as his parents came in he sat up and called to them, asking who had won the game. Quietly they told him to sit back and listen to them.

"Jack," his mother started, "There is something we have to tell you. After the game there was a huge boom and the skies opened up. Lightening was everywhere. Three boys on the other team were struck by lightening."

"I don't get it, why are you telling me this."

"We want you to know that whatever happens, whatever people say, we are still your parents and we love you. As soon as we can, we're going to take you home and a nurse will visit everyday," said his father calmly, "Once she thinks that you're fit enough to get back to your normal life, you are going to get on a plane to New York, and live in a small apartment that your mother bought when she was in graduate school. You will stay there and will probably never hear from us again."

"What!" the prospect of leaving everything he had behind confused him completely. Why did his parents want him to leave? Then it hit him like a smack on the head. "People thought I created the lightening, didn't they?"

His parents nodded. They must have rehearsed this several times before coming to see him. Everything seemed so planned, so arranged.

Not knowing what else to say, his parents left him to his own thoughts. As soon as they left, Jack drifted back into a dream and from then until his hospital release, to the release from the temporary health care given at home, Jack really stopped caring. It felt like years that he had been cooped up in the care of Nurse Francesca Betty, but in reality, it had only been two weeks. In under a month, his bags were packed, and he was sharing one last hug with his best friends Jim and Suzanne in front of the terminal before boarding the flight the New York. Jim gave him a pat on the back and a strong hug, and Suzanne left him with a peck on the cheek and a promise that she and Jim would find him some day. Jim and Suzanne had started dating, weeks after their first meeting but they never would abandon Jack, their third member. Both of Jack's parents had dropped him off at the airport and drove off as if they never had a son. What he had't noticed was that as soon as he had gotten out of the car, his mother took her cell phone out of her purse and made a short, but vital long distance phone call.

Jack took his seat in coach class, right on top of the engine, and prepared for a long night. There were a few old movies, but Jack spent most of the flight sleeping, awaking only for dinner and breakfast the next morning, two hours before landing. When the plane finally landed in John F. Kennedy Airport a mechanized sounding voice greeted the travel weary passengers to the Big Apple and told them to enjoy their stay. Wandering out of the terminal, baggage in hand, Jack quickly hailed a taxi which took him to a nice enough apartment. When he finally got up the elevator and managed to work the key into the lock he opened the door to reveal a fair sized room, with pink tiling in the bathroom, white shag carpet in the main room and bedroom, and absolutely disgusting dark cream colour wallpaper in every room. This was definitely his mother's taste. Dropping his bags in the bedroom, he continued on to the rest of the apartment to inspect. He found, one bathroom, one bedroom, a small kitchen, a den, and a medium sized living and dining room. Not bad, at least he wouldn't be living in a small apartment in the middle of nowhere.

Quickly, Jack opened his bag and removed some basic food supplies. Stuffing them into the kitchen he sat down to fully absorb his new surroundings, and frankly, he was disgusted. He was going to have to spend at least a few years in his mother's paradise until he could get out of university, get a job and either redecorate or get the hell out of the death trap of pink and white that surrounded him. Jack spent the next two weeks working at the coffee shop in the food court across the street, something until his university term started for the year. Unfortunately, Jack never got around to going to university. It seemed the world had better things in mind for Jack Farley.

One day, after working the late shift and going out to a nearby bar with his new friend Tom, Jack returned home to find that his home had been entered and his things rummaged through. He ran through the apartment to see if anything was stolen or the culprit was still inside. When he arrived at the small den which was just beside the kitchen he glanced in, saw nothing and ran right past. Then, on his way back to the kitchen, he noticed a smell coming from the room, smoke! Turning in, he saw that his apartment wasn't on fire but instead, there was a man of about thirty, sitting down, watching the muted updates for the recent football game.

"Who are you?" he questioned

"Oh, you've finally noticed have you? I like what you've done with the place," replied the man, failing to hide his smirk.

"My sentiments exactly. Now, could you please tell me what you're doing in my apartment?"

"Happily, my name is Wolverine, and I've come with a message from Professor Xavier."

Something in those names sounded familiar, of course...

"Professor Xavier? Wolverine? Let me guess, Storm is driving the X-Jet with Jean Gray and you have adamantium claws. Please, I read those comics when I was nine, mutants may exist but I highly doubt that Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters is real."

"Come with me and you'll find out."

"I'd rather not, thanks for the offer."

"If I were you, I'd come. If you don't, Magneto will be here by tomorrow morning and unlike me, he won't give you a choice."

"Prove it; prove to me that you really are Wolverine."

Instantly, six claws shot out from between Wolverine's knuckles and sliced through the pink slipcover on the old couch.

"Now," he said, "will you be kind enough to get follow me?"

"After you, my mutant friend."

Wolverine led Jack down stairs to the curb out front and seated both himself and Jack on a gleaming black motorcycle.

"The only way to travel!" said Wolverine as they sped off down the freeway.

It was a two hour ride to the Xavier Institue and by the end of it, Jack was fully knowledgeable as to what was fact and what was fiction in the comic version of the X-Men.

Wolverine parked the car in the garage and led Jack up to the main hall.

"Welcome home, buddy."

Jack looked around the hall, this wasn't anything like the images in his comics.