1979,

In his third year of high-school, Kevin started to wonder what he would do for a living. He had applied to the "Xavier Institute" as a place to continue his education at. He figured he would get into the institute without too much trouble given his current situation and past history. The institute had an underground reputation for helping odd-ball characters. It was a small shock to him then as he read the letter from the institute: "We regret to inform you that you have not been accepted into the school." Kevin already had a plan 'B' for another institution and plan 'C' in case he couldn't get into the post-secondary education he was after: the air force.

Previously at the Institute.

The professor was just finishing up the lead on a discussion of students for the next semester. They were just about to vote on admission of a new student to the school. During admission season they processed a large number of students daily. Some were obvious candidates, others were obvious non-candidates, and some required a vote.

Wolverine speaking:

"So we're just going to leave the lad out in the cold ? He applied here, not many do given the student body." Wolverine was playing devil's advocate in the discussion. He knew in his heart the professor was probably right.

The professor spoke carefully,

"He's strong, self-sufficient, and has good control over his abilities. He's intelligent and fits well into the community at large. He has no obvious signs of mutation and frankly isn't actually a mutant. We can't take-in everyone who applies. We have to use our resources judiciously to help those who need it the most. There isn't actually all that much we could do for him that a regular school couldn't. I'm sure he'll make a fine graduate from a more conventional school." " Vote".

The vote came back, seven against, two for allowing Kevin into the school with several people not present. The professor's point was well taken.

"What about the letter from Kernel what's his name ?" Someone asked.

Storm replied: "The professor told the kernel he could take the letter and stuff it where the sun don't shine." "Not a factor in the decision."

Back at Kevin's Home

Kevin mulled over the response from the institute. He had hoped to make some new friends by attending the school. People he could more closely relate to. He wasn't overly disappointed since he was a bit of a loner to begin with. Kevin understood his situation and why he was the way he was.

The next day Kevin received a letter from his second post-secondary choice. He was turned down again. "Wow nobody likes me." Kevin murmured to himself. "All well there's always the air-force."

Unknown to Kevin an air-force kernel had spread the word that Kevin wouldn't be an acceptable candidate for post-secondary education outside of the air-force. The air-force wanted to recruit Kevin that badly. Almost any institute Kevin applied to would have turned him down. Politics.

The X-Suit

The situation called for muscle. The apparent catastrophe was an earthquake centered near a small city. Numerous buildings had collapsed. All hands were needed to dig survivors out of the rubble. The real catastrophe had been something completely different, involving perhaps the band of brothers or other lesser known forces. In any case Colussus was at the scene this time.

Kevin had been picking and choosing where he applied assistance. He had just moved aside a massive concrete beam in order to rescue someone. "It's all in the leverage." he commented. Trying to hide his strength.

"Come here for a second." Colossus spoke softly. "Someone who can exert 22,000 pounds of force on an object isn't normal." "I have a surprise for you." Colossus handed Kevin a carefully wrapped package containing a suit. "We've been keeping tabs on you, even though you didn't make it to the school.". "You've got a good rep with us." "This gift is in part for having the sense not to create a problem." Colossus was referring to the fight that almost, but didn't happen.

"Do not use it unless you absolutely have to. You've got the privilege of one of these suits for now. You're now an un-official member of the X-men. This is an X-suit. Nobody normal is even close to that strong or that fast. Maybe we made a mistake about you." Kevin was impressively strong and quick. Far beyond the ordinary. He'd even impressed an X-man. "The suit itself can attract it's own form of trouble so be wary about using it." Colossus finished.

Even though the X-men were a core team of people, there were a handful of X-men associates carefully chosen by the team, as people who represented the embodiment of the X-men's philosophy. It gave the X-men the appearance of having a greater range and impact that just the core team had. Many people did not know the actual X-man present, they only recognized the suit. A suit itself was enough to create a sense of presence.

The X-suit was impressive, made from a material like Kevlar able to take a lot of punishment, and it had a cloaking feature to it to boot. Kevin, being on the bright side, was able to determine almost immediately how to work the cloak without any prior instruction. He respected the value of the gift.

The Airplane

Kevin at Home (Present day)

Kevin lived by himself in a small condo in the upper part of an apartment building. He liked the view. It gave him some sense of flight and he could imaging he was gliding about on air currents.

He awoke with a grunt. It was the same dream again, memories of his childhood in the early 60's. He'd been born about 1962 the son of an east-coast fisherman. His family was dirt poor, or rather stone poor; there wasn't even any dirt to grow food with. They lived in the summer in a lean-to on the rock covered beach. In the winter they rented part of a boat-house to live in. Kevin could remember the cold winter's by the barrel of fire vividly. The dream was always the same.

About 1964 the east coast of Canada - Newfoundland

The infant screamed in pain, it felt as though his entire body was on fire. The DNA in every cell of his tiny two year old body was being altered, and the chemistry was generating a lot of heat. He'd caught the flu from a bird somehow. Most likely a result of poor living conditions near the nesting grounds of sea-birds. It was a version of the virus with the ability to transcribe genetic information between hosts - a mutanegenic virus. In this case bird DNA was being combined with human DNA. Rather than reject the infected cells, his tiny body was accepting the virally infected cells as part of his own body. He had a deathly fever for two weeks straight, but then one day his fever broke and he began to recuperate. The odds of this type of thing happening and the individual surviving are extremely remote. Tiny feathers sprouted on his scalp where his hair had fallen out. Kevin didn't have mutant DNA but forces of nature had turned him into genetic hybrid.

Present Day

Kevin kept his pager close by. There was no telling when he might be summoned to duty. Technically he was on call 24/7. He didn't mind the pager, it rarely beeped. And when it did it was always important. He was reasonably well compensated for the work he did, but his frugal lifestyle and lack of regular hours caused the neighbours to think he was unemployed.

Strange. He received a voice-mail message on the phone from the Kernel rather than a page. That meant it wasn't critical that he show up immediately. The message was short: "Meet me at hanger 13 at 1:00 pm." It was a coded message. It you didn't know what was really referred to you'd never get the message. Hanger 13 wasn't really hanger 13 but a special hanger at a secret location that housed top-secret aircraft. The unlucky number 13 was used as a bit of a jest for the test pilots.

Kernel Flakkenhead was an older gentleman nearing the end of his service career. He managed an elite team of airforce resources. In the present day, Kevin was in his mid-fifties but you'd never guess it. He looked like he was about 30, his altered DNA had altered his aging process as well.

1:15 pm at the hanger.

Kevin met the kernel at 1:00 pm sharp, the "hanger 13" location. He began to get the gist of the meeting when he spotted the aircraft. Half listening to what the kernel was saying and half gawking at the plane, Kevin had low hopes for the day. The aircraft was…. ugly to put it simply. Kevin was thinking that the thing couldn't possibly fly. It didn't look properly aero-dynamic. The wings were swept backwards and it looked like the aircraft was asymmetrical. The surface was ruffled and bumpy as if the thing had been in a smash-up derby. Even the control surfaces weren't smooth. And it was a ghastly orange in colour.

Kernel Flakkenhead continued on: "The problem with aircraft isn't that a better airplane can't be built, it's that no-one can pilot the better plane. For instance it was possible to construct an aircraft capable of 40G accelerations during flight manoeuvres, but the high G forces would kill any occupants. This project " The kernel waved his hand over to one side of the hangar. " was deemed a complete waste of taxpayer dollars, and shelved. The plane's been sitting in the hanger for years until I discovered it the other day. It's what happens when you give the tech guys the freedom to come up with whatever they can produce." "It's the aircraft capable of 40G accelerations among other things.".

"You, my boy" The Kernel was referring to Kevin "are one of a small number of people that can actually make good use of the aircraft.".

Kevin looked at the landing gear, it was a bit unusual.

Seeing Kevin's gaze the kernel commented.

"The plane is fairly heavy and kept blowing the tires out during testing, so the tech guys decided to use landing skids instead."

"The key to making this thing fly is the horse-power of the engines. It's a completely new kind of jet engine thought to be impossible to build, until one of the tech guys actually built a prototype. Each one of those engines is capable of four million pounds of thrust at peak power. This baby has as much horsepower behind it as a space-shuttle." The kernel pointed at the dual engine configuration.

"Yeah," Kevin agreed. "Given enough horse-power just about anything would fly." "So you want me to test fly the thing ?" Kevin queried.