As promised, here is the next chapter on Wednesday (at least in my time zone)
"When do we get our suits?" Rogue asked, looking at the X-Men suits stored in the jet. They all had the same basic design of black leather with a raised "X" on the chest, but there were slight variations, probably dealing with the wearer's powers and personal preferences. Matt was glad that they at least hadn't gone the brightly colored spandex route in costumes.
"And do we get cool names?" Matt asked jokingly. He knew that their mission was important, but he still couldn't take the superhero thing seriously, even though—or maybe because—the supervillains were right there in the same plane.
They had all loaded up on the X-Jet—as the plane was apparently called—the next morning. Logan, Jean, Storm, and Kurt were all at the front of the plane; Magneto, Mystique, and Andrew were sitting in the back of the plane; and the other teenagers were standing in the middle of the plane where a panel pulled out to reveal the stored costumes.
"I don't care about names, but you aren't getting suits for a few years," Logan said.
"What's your codename?" Matt asked. "Claws? Logan Scissorknuckles? Poky?"
"Wolverine," Logan said gruffly, rolling his eyes at his Matt's comments.
"Weird, but cool sounding," Matt evaluated. He turned to his friends. "So, do you have some picked out?" he asked. "Wait, let me guess; Flamy, Icy, and, um, Absorby? Wait, no, that's terrible, I don't have a guess for you," he said to Rogue. He couldn't think of a name based off of her powers, and he wasn't sure the extent of her powers since no one told him anything about them.
Rogue scowled. "I just go by Rogue."
Matt nodded. It was as good a name as he could come up with off the top of his head. There might actually be an advantage there with her name not giving away her powers.
"It's Pyro," John said in annoyance, "as in fire."
"Flamy had to do with fire too," Matt pointed out.
"I've been thinking of Iceman," Bobby said.
"That's pretty cheesy."
"Then you come up with a better one," Bobby challenged, taking offense.
"Cryo? Icy? Coldshot?" Matt suggested.
"Those are cheesy too," Bobby decided. "I'll stick with what I picked. What about you, Matt?"
"I told you what you should use."
Bobby shook his head. "No, what do you want to be called."
Matt gaped, shocked and confused that they'd turned the conversation back on him. Okay, maybe he, Andrew, and Steve had discussed superhero names back when they'd first gotten their powers, but only jokingly and ironically. They'd never even come up with anything good. "Um, I'm not joining your little team. I'm just sticking around to deal with this Stryker guy and then finishing out high school."
"You're avoiding the question."
"I don't need one, though. Anyways, ice and fire are way easier to make names for. What would you suggest, something like Kinetical?"
Rogue laughed. "That is the worst one I've ever heard. You could base your name on your flight power, too," she suggested. She thought for a moment. "Aerial or something like that."
"Sounds too much like a mermaid," John objected.
Matt nodded in agreement. "A definite no on that one." He turned to the back of the plane. "Hey Andrew!"
His cousin, who had been staring intently at the walls of the plane and looking extremely bored, looked over at him in annoyance. Magneto and Mystique—Matt was almost over the fact she was blue since Kurt was blue too and it was obviously another form of mutation, but it was still weird and kinda distracting that she was naked—looked over too, obviously wanting to watch the discussion.
"What's your name?" Matt asked.
"You know my name," Andrew said dryly.
"No, your superpower name. Apparently it's a rule to have one."
"That's stupid."
"I know but come on," Matt begged. As long as his name didn't suck as much as Andrew's, he could actually handle one.
They all looked expectantly at Andrew, who thought for a moment before saying, "Apex."
Matt snorted. "That is so fucking pretentious. Seriously? You're still on that apex predator crap?"
"It's not crap, it's a philosophy," Andrew said angrily.
"I know what a philosophy is," Matt insisted, "and that's a messed up one."
"I don't tell you how to live your life!" Andrew yelled, standing up.
Rogue, John, and Bobby backed up a step and Magneto just smiled creepily. Before Matt could yell back, Storm yelled back from the controls, "We're fifteen minutes away. We should discuss our strategy."
"So this Stryker guy is planning on using the professor and Cerebro to kill all of the mutants?" Bobby asked unbelievingly as they had their strategy and planning session on the jet before it landed. "Where did he even get the plans for Cerebro?"
"I helped Charles design Cerebro, and Stryker has effective methods for getting information," Magneto said almost apologetically.
"Wait, I still don't understand what this Cerebro is," Matt interrupted. He'd heard mention of it a lot, but no one had explained what is was.
"It's a machine that allows Charles to amplify his powers and telepathically connect to all mutants," Magneto explained. "But if he concentrates on a mutant, he could kill them."
"Why would you build a machine that could do that?" Matt exclaimed.
Magneto answered, "It's actually designed to track down mutants."
"What I still don't understand is how Stryker could force someone as strong as the professor to do this," Logan interrupted.
"As I was trying to say," Magneto said, "Stryker has a serum that allows him to control mutants. It is what he used to question me and probably what he used on Mr. Wagner here." He pointed towards Kurt, who nodded in agreement. "Of course, Charles's mind powers will probably make him impervious to it; however, Stryker probably got the serum from his son, Jason."
"He has a son?" Logan asked in surprise.
"He has the power of illusion generation," Andrew said. "His father, father of the year right here, keeps him in a wheelchair and hooked up to a tube that extracts fluid from his spinal cord. If injected into another person's spinal cord, it can be used to control said person. He'll probably have Jason put this Charles guy in an illusion though instead of using the serum."
Everyone except for Magneto and Mystique looked at him, confused at how he had gotten this information. "I stole and read all of Stryker's files," Andrew explained proudly.
They were about to land, so they returned to actually planning their attack. The blueprints and then looks out of the window showed that they were at a large lake—"Alkali Lake"—formed by a large dam in a remote forest. Apparently the compound was all underground or in the dam.
They ended up having Mystique enter the compound through the spillway while disguised as Logan. She'd fight the guards off and get to the control room, where she could let everyone else in—excluding Matt, Rogue, Bobby, and John.
"But Andrew's only seventeen, so why does he get to go and we don't?" Matt had whined, with some help from John who really wanted to be in on the mission. Andrew just stood there and rolled his eyes while smirking at his cousin.
"Because we're in charge of you, not him," Storm had said. "You're still a student at the school, so as a teacher, I can say that you four have to stay here."
Matt and John had scowled but relented to sitting in the plane like kids while everyone else entered the compound.