Author's Note: Updated poll to reflect changes to world history I made
Chapter 8: Landslide
Sunday morning saw Trunks soaring through the sky laughing as he flew off towards pretty much his favorite place on the new Earth he and Gohan had found themselves.
The Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters was where young mutants, a sub-type of enhanced humans based on inborn genetic mutations, trained to control their powers.
Honestly most days Trunks kind of wished he could go there as a full student instead of a kind of honorary visitor. He liked Midtown well enough, but being a normal kid had lost its luster after the first month or two.
At the Xavier Institute he was often allowed to spar with other students and even teachers in the Danger Room, though that was mostly under the instruction of Wolverine, the alias of one of the instructors there, most of the other instructors restricted things to cooperative scenarios.
But man did he enjoy having an outlet, no matter how much Gohan seemed to defy it himself, Trunks had a lot of Saiyan in him. The urge to have a good fight and test his limits was very strong in him. Like his father if his mom was to be believed.
Luckily for Trunks, Wolverine was on duty for the optional Sunday training, and his favorite opponent was game.
As the Saiyan and his chosen opponent did some light stretching in the Danger Room, Logan's voice came over the intercom,
"Alright, you two know the rules. Don't wreck the place. Don't do any permanent damage to each other. Knock out or surrender. Let's go, bubs."
"Mr. Wolverine are you drinking a bee-" Hope Summers' voice came through just as the intercom cut off.
Trunks and his sparring partner both chuckled before falling into their fighting stances.
The boy across from him was about six months younger than Trunks' fourteen and a half, Mikhail Rasputin has had his birthday just last week.
For a young teenager he was quite tall and broad, just like his father, already taller than Trunks and Logan. If it weren't cheating with his powers he could be playing Junior Varsity as a linebacker at a public high school.
While he had his father's build he had his mother's light brown hair and had been trained in martial arts from a young age by Kitty and her own mentor, Logan.
And with his density shifting powers, he was a perfect match up for Trunks.
A low shift on density allowed Mikhail to shoot up into the air before spinning around and using a high shift to plummet back down to the ground at Trunks' head.
Powering up Trunks grinned madly as he put his hands up into the air and with a grunt, and a slight buckling of the floor underneath them, caught the powerful drop kick the mutant had unleashed.
When he tossed the boy away another low shift caused him to simply glide across the room to a landing.
And thus the match began in earnest.
Trunks would unleash flurries of blows, but they would be stopped by either intangibility or maddeningly dense flesh.
Mikhail, or Eidolon as he liked to be called apparently having named himself after a Dungeons and Dragons monster with the ability to move incorporeally, was himself stymied from making progress by Trunks' own incredible speed and strength. No matter how quick and light he made himself Trunks was quicker. No matter how dense he made himself Trunks could catch his blows and throw him away, though often with some effort.
Both were exhilarated by the fight.
And then Mikhail tried something new. He knew he had more control over increasing density than his mother did, and had experimented at length with how that new twist on his mother's power he gained from his father could be used.
So he shifted most of his body low to float and then alternated high shifting small parts of his body to use gravity to generate a lot of momentum.
He was flying. In fact as he circled the room he built himself up to at least sixty miles per hour.
Which was of course nothing to Trunks' speed.
With a yelp the young mutant went fully intangible and ghosted through Trunks' body when the Saiyan flickered and appeared in front of him in the air.
And then something strange happened.
Trunks screamed in pain and dropped out of the air like a stone.
Immediately Logan was on the intercom, "Stop! We're coming down!"
Quickly the doors opened and Logan, Marvel Girl (Hope Summers), and her older brother Nathan ran into the room.
By this point Mikhail had landed and rushed over to his friend, who was slowly sitting up looking very groggy.
"You okay, Bub? What happened there?"
"I...I think when he phased through me Mik's own natural ki disrupted mine," He rubbed his templed with his hands in pain, "Pretty painfully, too."
Logan's eyebrow went up, he'd been watching Trunks' power through a lot in the last few months of his visits to the Institute and hadn't seen the boy act pained even once, not even when blasted by lasers or taking a punch from Colossus.
Hope grimaced, she had spent the most time around Trunks and thus knew the most about ki, and she had also felt the psychic backlash of his pain.
"I'm fine now though," Trunks hopped up onto his feet, "I think this means you win though Mikhail, and now I have another move to look out for in the future!"
The half-Russian mutant scratched the back of his head and laughed, "You are one crazy guy, Trunks."
"Well, now that when I fight it isn't for my life, I find that I really really like it!"
Hope smacked him, "Then be more careful, dolt!"
"Hey!"
She smacked him again, "And stop projecting when you do get hurt!"
"Hey!"
She smacked him again, "And I just felt like that one!"
"You know I barely actually feel these righ-"
He was cut off by her borrowing a bit of Mikhail's power and hitting him with a density shifted fist.
"Ow!" Yep that one would leave a small red mark.
At that point Nathan walked over and put a hand on his sister's shoulder, "Okay, squirt I think he gets the point."
Hope huffed and turned to leave, at the door she turned back around, "No one else coming for Power Ball?"
Quickly everyone followed, kickball with super powers was always a big draw for the kids.
The next day had Trunks landing beside his school from a quick flight in from upstate and sneaking in the backdoor just before the bell rang.
He'd sensed Gohan's power spike the night before and was a little worried, but it hadn't been quite as high as Super Saiyan so he figured it wasn't too big of a deal.
Apparently he'd been seen in Germany in his ridiculous Ox Knight get-up so Trunks knew the mission was still ongoing.
It was halfway through homeroom when things got really weird.
A minor earthquake shook the room, the whole building in fact.
"New York isn't on a fault line..." Liz whispered as everyone else in the room also came to that conclusion.
And then there was a major explosion out in the distance.
And everyone in the room was old enough to remember the Hulk and Abomination's rampage through Harlem.
Quickly the intercom came on, "This is a black alert. School buses are pulling up to the front of the school. A state of emergency has been declared and the city is being evacuated."
The voice sounded the kind of fake calm you get from someone barely holding it together.
The evacuation was anything but orderly however.
Trunks helped keep his own classmates calm and helped the teacher get everyone out to the buses, they were some of the first to arrive not acting like a scared mob.
Unfortunately the scared mobs of the other classes took far too long to get onto the buses.
Once again it was Liz who pointed out something, "What are those?"
Strange dots were flying towards the school.
"Are they birds?"
"Planes?"
"Drones?"
"Wait they're getting closer are those...monsters on hover bikes?!"
That's when Trunks new he had to act.
"Trunks, what are you doing?" The teacher called as he crawled out the bus window.
"Helping."
And just then the flying figures unleashed laser fire down upon his classmates.
And with a burst of wind Trunks was there in front of them deflecting all eight blasts.
There was silence, then murmuring.
"You want to pick on someone that can fight back?" Trunks yelled.
"Well then..." he cupped his hands at his side, "Take this! Ka...me...hame...HA!"
A beam of blue and white ki shot upwards and outwards obliterating the squad of aliens.
Trunks turned around to the stares of everyone, before they erupted into cheers.
Well, Trunks thought, this will be nice while it lasts. Before the questions start.
