Chapter 4
(In which yet another new fic gets a continuation rather than finishing up one of his old ones.)
"Does anyone have anything to say before we begin?" Professor Xavier asked, "No? Good, let's begin by dealing with the name of our genus, Homo-superior."
"I suppose I failed to question the designation because of both ego and having met so many superior minds who were mutants," Hank offered, deciding to go first, "but he does have a point, I cannot say that Toad or Blob or indeed any number of mutants that spring to mind are superior to Albert Einstein. Truthfully I'd hesitate to name myself Einstein's superior, much less Reed Richards."
"How did you choose the name in the first place?" Ororo asked curiously.
"At the time I was working with Erik Lensherr and our work suggested that mutants were the next stage in human development, as was stated the human race is the dominant species on the planet because it is so adaptable and we have plenty of cases where humans have suddenly mutated and developed powers in reaction to radical changes in their environment in order to survive. While even latent X-gene carriers are on the whole healthier and more hardy than normal humans and have a lower threshold to mutate. It just seemed natural to propose that we were superior."
"I vote we rename our species Homo-adaptatus or whatever the proper Latin phrase is, because I can easily see where normal humans would have a problem with people claiming they were a superior breed, it smacks too much of the Nazis and their 'master race'," James Madrox said.
"I suppose I was influenced a bit much by Erik," Charles admitted, "fortunately being the world's foremost authority on mutants means I can get the name changed with little fuss. Any thoughts on having humans on the teams?"
"Mutants have an edge that most humans don't," Logan said bluntly, "using their powers as a focal point for their training I can turn out decent fighters in a fraction of the time it takes with normal humans."
"How about those without active mutations that lend themselves to combat?" Jean asked curiously.
Logan grinned. "All mutations have combat uses, the trick is finding them."
"Even Cypher's?" Hank asked.
"Violence is a form of body language," Logan smirked, "martial arts are just regional accents."
"I don't know whether to be surprised or scared that you thought that up," Scott said after a moment of absolute silence.
"How did you get his mind to make the connection?" Profession Xavier asked eagerly, seeing how Cypher's powers could greatly enhance his fighting skills.
"Interpretive dance," Logan deadpanned.
"Yes, I can see where the next logical step from full body movement as language to martial arts would fit," Hank replied thoughtfully.
"I made him watch an interpretive dance session at the local college and talk to the dancers afterward," Logan continued, "then I told him that if he didn't learn what I was teaching him… I'd make him take the course."
"So did his mind make the logical connection or was it the threat of taking the course that motivated him?" Ororo asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"You can't threaten someone with culture!" Jean burst out.
"Can and did," Logan said smugly, smirking around his cigar. "Cypher mastered the basic movements of three related disciplines in a single day and the other boys started putting some real effort into their training too, either to try and keep up or so I wouldn't feel the need to threaten them with it."
"While this is all well and good, but let's get back on topic; the majority of mutants I've recruited were chosen because they needed help controlling their powers. That is the main reason I designed this institute. I suppose we could train some normal humans alongside the New Mutants but they'd have to be exceptional athletes to keep up, considering the drive our students have," Professor Xavier stated.
"I'm not sure our students have that strong a drive so much as they're driven," Jamie snickered.
"Well, whatever the case I approve of the addition of more students and I'd suggest getting additional teachers as well," Ororo said, "it will prevent disruptions when we are called away or are recovering from injuries if we have staff on hand to cover for us."
"This meeting certainly has been productive," Xavier said cheerfully, "I believe all we have left is code names and how Michael is being treated."
"The code names stay," Logan said flatly, "it's part of our battle persona and a very useful psychological tool. The kid was just lashing out with that one, even un-powered humans like Hawkeye and the Black Widow use them."
"Agreed," Professor Xavier said after everyone murmured agreement. "How have we treated Michael different?"
"I tend to avoid him a bit," James Madrox admitted, "because I recall quite clearly how he admitted that with my power he could take over the world. I know he's shown no signs of doing so but it's like he's a stick of dynamite and I'm a match, so I decided to remove the temptation as much as possible."
"I treat him a bit rougher than the others," Logan said, "to help remove the temptation of copying my power, because my personality is part of my power and us feral types have a certain response to each other."
"I avoid direct contact as my powers are dangerous to one untrained in using them," Ororo explained, "but I don't avoid him."
Jean Grey nodded. "Same here."
Cyclops tapped his visor. "Not to mention Calvin's actions still stick in my mind, even though the two are nothing alike; so I don't treat him quite like I do the others."
Beast shrugged. "I've allowed him to copy my powers for when I need a decent opponent in basketball."
"And the students, well some of them have taken our avoiding contact to mean that he's not to be trusted because he's an artificial mutant," Professor Xavier sighed, "we really should have talked about this ages ago. Michael doesn't need to touch you to copy your powers."
"What?" Jamie burst out.
"He's let everyone have the impression that he has to touch them to copy their powers to reduce some of the paranoia about him, because of how his brother acted and so he knows who doesn't mind him borrowing their powers and who to leave alone. If you avoid physical contact he assumes you'd have problems with him borrowing from you," Charles explained.
"Well his clone didn't seem to have that problem," Jamie pointed out.
"His clone has had his powers for less than a day from what I read, and while he may have Michael's memories he has no experience actually using his abilities so he copied them by accident."
"Did you get anything from peeking in his head," Logan asked, puffing his cigar.
"I didn't peek …" Charles blushed, "well I didn't mean to peek but he wasn't exaggerating when he said his mind was different. If you scan his brain the way you would a normal human's you end up hitting an animalistic persona connected directly to his id, I slid a probe to where you'd normally find the id and found his surface thoughts instead … mostly, and reexamining what was happening while I did so I discovered his mind was actually causing a low level drain on my abilities while I scanned him, although for what reason I can't say; but he may have had a reason to be angry with me that I didn't understand at the time."
"Stay out of his head, got it," Jamie summed up, "now, what can you tell us about him?"
"Well the story he related to Logan was true, while fantastic it's really no stranger than some of the others we've run across. But back to Michael for a moment, please try and treat him like the rest of the students and encourage the students to do the same, he's not going to accidentally copy your powers or do so without your permission."
0oOo0
After some more detailed explanations …
"You are very childish," Sue said disapprovingly as Johnny, Ben and Peter rolled around on the floor laughing.
"Hmmm," Reed said thoughtfully.
"Surely you're not planning on helping him?" Sue asked.
"It is a fascinating idea," Reed replied as his fingers danced across the keyboard, bringing up and modifying a raygun design on the fly.
"Boys!" Sue snorted and left.
"Yes, I believe it will work," Reed said with a smile, "and I have psionic dampeners in stock."
"Make me one too?" Peter burst out between chuckles, "I know a couple of people I could use it on!"
"I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I gotta have one too!" Ben quickly added.
"Yes, the times and places one would be of use are limited; but it would be a shame not to have one on hand," Reed declared with a chuckle, "I'll just add a regenerative power supply and a dimensional shunt ..."
0oOo0
"What should we do about Michael's clone?" Scott asked. "He knows all our secrets and has Jamie's powers already, and while I no longer have any qualms about Michael, I know nothing about him."
"What little I did get from him was mostly positive, the only really negative trait I noticed was the ability to hold a grudge … for a very long time, long past the point where anyone sane would let things go."
"Do you think he'll hold a grudge for me shooting him or your scanning him?" Scott asked.
The air shimmered as a light disc appeared, dropping Xander in the center of the table, wearing a glowing silver headband and a skin tight black suit, a shiny new raygun in his hand.
Scott's hand was only halfway to his visor before Xander's first shot took him out. Wolverine leapt back, kicking his chair away and bared his claws before charging forward, just as Xander's second shot knocked Xavier from his seat.
Xander teleported out a fraction of a second before Wolverine's claws would have speared him.
Jean rushed to Scott's side while Hank helped Professor Xavier back into his chair, but despite everyone's worry they both seemed to be fine.
"I don't think he's quite forgiven us yet," Professor X admitted while scratching his scalp.
"Well at least his response was mild," Scott said, rubbing his head, "zapping me with a light concussive blast like I zapped him with should make us even."
Professor X's scalp suddenly burst into life like a jack in the box, popping out a three foot tall afro that unbalanced him and toppled him backwards to the ground again.
Scott fell face forward, his own newly grown afro covering a significant chunk of the table.
Wolverine fell over laughing as Xander faded into sight in the back of the room holding a video camera.
"Now we're even," Xander chortled, before teleporting out.
0oOo0
Xander handed the video recorder to Reed who quickly hooked it up to a massive monitor and hit play.
Spiderman laughed so hard he webbed himself to his seat.
"I'll make everyone a copy," Reed promised.
"Well, that was a great prank... Now on to serious business," Xander said, "how do we get me home?"
"I've scanned your dimensional trace," Reed said thoughtfully, "and I have a 92% chance of getting you into the right universe, but only a 35% chance at the right time line. I'd suggest consulting with Doctor Strange first, he has a lot more experience with dimensional travel than I do," he finished.
Xander's symbiont altered itself to mimic Spiderman's covering his head and face. "Give me the directions and I'll swing on over."
"Decided to play me for the day?" Spiderman asked, amused.
"I've always wanted to web swing," Xander replied, "and since your symbiont was kind enough to share what it knows with mine, I can! Plus, imagine the look on JJ's face if I let someone photograph me taking off my mask." Xander sent his symbiont a series of imagines and when he reached up and pulled off his mask it revealed a face completely unlike his own.
Spiderman accidentally webbed himself again.
0oOo0
Xander was just getting the hang of web slinging when his head started throbbing and he was attacked by a green blur and slammed out of the air.
"I have you now wall crawler …" The Vulture's voice trailed off as Spiderman hit the roof and multiplied.
Xander stood up holding his side from where the Vulture's talons had almost taken a chunk out of him, thinking once more how much he loved The Suit.
"Oh god," The Vulture moaned, "I'm having a flashback, I knew eating that pot brownie back in college would come back to haunt me!"
All thirty Spidermen raised their wrists and inexpertly sent webbing flying toward the freaked out criminal.
The Vulture didn't even try to dodge, thinking that most of it was all in his head and having no idea which ones were real and was shortly pulled from his perch and webbed to a chimney, while a dozen or so Spidermen worked themselves free from each other's webbing.
Xander absorbed his duplicates one by one until only he remained, noticing that his side felt a lot better for some reason, facing the Vulture he looked the balding criminal dead in the eye and called his raygun to his hand, noting he had three charges left for the day.
Seeing Spiderman silently holding a gun worried the Vulture; Spiderman was always laughing and joking, but not this time then he remembered the news clip with Spiderman earlier today and almost wet himself. He figured Spiderman wasn't actually seeing him when he looked at him, he was seeing the guy that killed his girlfriend! "Hey Spidey, it's me the Vulture! I rob banks, I don't kill people, and I certainly don't know your secret identity!"
Fuck subtlety, the Vulture wanted to LIVE!
Spiderman's left hand slowly reached up and removed his mask, much to the Vulture's horror.
'Oh shit, I know who he is! Now he has to kill me!' The Vulture thought to himself.
Xander kept his face as still as possible, using the suit to make sure the news copter was still filming him; he wasn't sure how it had gotten here so fast but he wasn't about to waste the chance! This was perfect.
0oOo0
JJ watched the TV in the newsroom as Spiderman pulled off some new trick, making it look like there were dozens of him.
"That's new," Robby the assistant editor said.
"That freak has more tricks than a dozen magicians," JJ growled.
"Is that a gun?" Robby asked.
"Yes!" Jonah cheered, "Come on Spiderman, show the world your true colors!"
"He's reaching for his mask," Robby pointed out.
"It's like my birthday and Christmas all rolled into one!" Jonah cheered, only to fall silent and stare in horror at what was revealed.
"I loved her," the young black woman said, "and you killed her."
Jonah flinched when the gun went off and the Vulture collapsed, hanging loose in the webbing.
Robby turned to Jonah. "You've been prosecuting a young, black, lesbian, Jew while wearing a Hitler mustache and her lover was killed by a villain. The city is going to rise up as one and lynch you."
0oOo0
"I think he had a heart attack," Peter said worriedly.
"Nah, he's just passed out," Ben said, "you can tell by the way he just went limp, he'd have gone tense first if he'd had a heart attack."
Everyone watched as Spiderman leapt to HER death in the East River, not casting a web line.
Peter's cell phone rang and he answered it, "Hey Robby, what? Really? Uh, sure I'll help. Tell him to get to the roof, it's no problem."
"What is it?" Johnny asked as Peter hung up his phone.
Peter turned to Johnny. "We need to borrow the Fantasticar, we're going to smuggle JJ into Mexico. It'll be at least six months before I have to see his face again!"
AN: Typing by Godogma!