The detention centre was a crooked little thing. It was a SHIELD black site in downtown Danville. It had served it's purpose of housing various people over the years. Everything from political dissidents to superpowered terrorists. On this particular day, it housed two fifteen-year-old boys. A pair of brothers. Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher. A gang of SHIELD agents beat the piss out of them outside of a lab on the eastern side. Evidently, the head of the pair had very nearly convinced someone at the facility to pass on some yellowcake uranium to them.
Phineas continued to smile, even though he wore a massive shiner that he received from the steel-toed boot of a SHIELD agent. His brother was expressionless, which was typical of him, even in a situation that should have stressed him out. The room was plain grey and the pair of them had these strange glowing collars on. It gave them a mild headache, but outside of that, they felt dandy. Outside they could hear their guard, a middle-aged alcoholic with arthritis suddenly grumble to attention. Probably sweating a lot in his stupid SHIELD issue bodysuit.
"Soldier, I heard you had a pair of boys in there. If you don't let me in you're inviting a world of nightmares on yourself," said a voice that commanded attention
"Feel free to, sir." said the agent, his words dripping with dismissive and bitterness.
In he swaggered, a tall muscular man dressed in the stars and stripes. Sam Wilson, Captain America. Behind his goggles, Phineas could see his eyes briefly widen with shock as he registered him.
"Say, aren't you boy's a little young to be arrested for domestic terrorism?" he asked, chuckling a bit at his own joke to try to ease the tension, and perhaps to focus on something that wasn't Phineas's bizarre head.
Phineas smiled a bit, "No, no. We aren't terrorists sir, this is a massive misunderstanding. We've worked with you guys before. You weren't there, but I'm sure it was notable."
"Well, from what I've heard the pair of you tried to get some radioactive elements. Care to tell me what you were planning, bud?" Said Cap.
"We were going to use it to power a generator, ideally it was eventually going to power a small grid in the neighbourhood to run a carnival."
"A carnival?"
"That's right."
"To what end?"
"For fun? I'm afraid I don't follow you."
"How were you planning on paying for the uranium? There's no way either of you has the money to get it, so someone must be backing you. Who arranged this?"
"Nobody arranged anything, we just swung by and I asked."
"Just like that? You just ask people for access to high-level scientific equipment and they just hand it over?"
"Yeah, pretty much. We've been doing things like that for nearly...what is it, three years now?" Phineas turned to Ferb who acknowledged his guestimation with a nod and a thumbs up.
"So, this happens a lot? And you say this started around the age of...what, twelve? Thirteen?"
"Just about, yeah?"
"Have you ever used your way with words or machines to...hurt anyone, son?"
"Why would I do that? Isn't it the point of life for everyone to have a good time?"
"I suppose. You've never convinced like say, a friend to do something to hurt themselves?"
"Never, I would never."
Before Sam Wilson could respond the agent from outside passed him a document that was printed out on cheap paper that was still hot from whatever machine it came in on. His eyes scanned the document before going back to the brothers. He clicked his tongue against his teeth.
"Tell me, how aware are you two boys about mutation or mutants in general?"
"Outside of the rare movie, nothing. We're more engineers than anything else."
Sam clicked his tongue again, was this kid with the triangular head messing with him? He honestly couldn't have been that ignorant about what should have been obvious, could he?
"Tell you what, I'm going to clear this for the two of you. Only, I want to make an offer. For this summer, I want the pair of you to leave Danville."
"Why?"
"Thing's will be a little hot under the collar for a bit and I'll need you two to make yourselves scarce. There is a school in New York that you can attend."
"Come on, man. It's the middle of summer."
" Don't come on, man, me. You two just have to spend a few months there and things will be square. After that, you two can come back here and do what you like. But, I'm sure things would be more comfortable if you two were to hone your natural abilities."
The brothers exchanged a look with one another and then looked back to Sam Wilson. This time it was Ferb who spoke.
"Where in New York?"
The Jean Grey School for Higher Learning was a great building that was overlooking Lexington Avenue. It looked like any other skyscraper that was filled in the backdrop of Manhattan. Only, most of the skyscrapers in New York didn't have a flock of flying teenagers circling it's roof like pigeons. As they neared the building's gate Phineas wondered how on earth this wasn't the biggest attraction in the entire city. Surely, someone else had to have noticed the flying people.
Phineas looked to Captain America who was dressed in a plain t-shirt instead of his superhero costume, "Why hasn't anyone noticed the people flying around the building?"
"The way I hear it is nobody sees it because they have a bunch of psychics in the basement. Nobody sees it unless they're in the know. Y'know? Mutants."
"Ah, That's really inefficient. We could probably whip together something that could do that better."
"Well, I'm sure whoever's running the show would love to hear your ideas, Phineas. They rounded a corner that lead towards the front entrance and with it the little guard's booth. In the booth was a forty-year-old woman with a mess of dirty blond hair whose skin was entirely carved out of marble. At first, they thought she was a funny statue wearing a wig and a yellow and blue polo shirt. Then she turned her head and growled at Sam.
"What do you want, dumbshit!?"
The rock woman was named Bridget Fitzsimmons and she was scowling a very cruel scowl at Sam for some reason.
"Just dropping off a pair of students for their first day," said Sam, who was smiling through gritted teeth.
He gently patted the two boys on the head. Some small part of him hoped they could trigger something to make this tense moment pass buy a bit faster.
"They can go in but you can't, fucking Craptain American't, piece of shit." She growled.
Sam audibly winced, "Will you boys be able to find things safely?"
"Yeah, I think we can manage. Thank you, sir."
The boy's very quickly filed past the gate and it's guard. Sam waved at her as he started to walk off, "Always a pleasure to see you, Bridget."
"Why don't you suck my fucking cock," She sneered before going back to staring off into space, "Fucking star-spangled muppet ass bitch."
The two boys gave a light jog across the micro quad, putting as much distance between themselves and the horrid gate guard as humanly possible. As they entered the building proper, they were suddenly hit by a sense of familiarity, despite being in a completely alien environment. To Phineas, the twisting maze of halls reminded him of the lines and circuitry on a motherboard. Ferb could hear the machines in the walls. He could hear the gentle, emotive chirps and chimes of the cameras and the sensors in the walls chit-chatting with one another. Before long they found themselves at their destination. Room 84.
Inside there was a classroom like any other. There were a handful of desks arranged in six, neat little rows while at the head of the room was a woman in her mid-forties. At a glance, she looked like a very plain white woman in a purple pantsuit. But, if you allowed your gaze to linger you'd notice that her skin had the exact same scale texture as a horned toad, with a series of sharper scales lining her jaw. Her name was Emma Tutweiller and she likes to start her day with one simple task.
As she starts the day, at four in the morning she locks herself in her 1979 Ford Pinto, she sips whiskey out of a jug and sobs. The boys are seeing her come off of a hangover.
The boys decided to ignore her as she tried to put her personality together at her desk. Instead, their focus was on the eight-foot-tall golem made of candlewax that was standing on the opposite side of the room. It seemed to be on the receiving end of a conversation with a profoundly short black girl who was dressed in a rainbow fringe leather jacket that seemed to have a small pile of glitter amassing on the ground behind her. The boys walked over to investigate what was happening, but as they approached they felt a kind of electric quality in the air. Calling it electricity diminishes what it was, it was an ultra-positive sort of energy. Supernatural kinship between strangers. The girl definitely took notice and stopped talking to the golem.
She did a turn on the heels of her bright yellow cowboy boots and faced down the two brothers, her eyes were incredibly wide and a deep shade of brown that almost matched the black of her irises. She had a toothy smile was wearing a reverse tie-dyed K.D Lang Boom Tour T-shirt.
Before either boy could say anything she thrust her hand out to Phineas, and said only one single word, "Goo."
Phineas stood there stunned by every dramatic turn of the girl before them. "I'm sorry?"
The girl blinked rapidly for a second, her smile briefly vanishing into a look of equal confusion before ultimately returning with a vengeance. She retracted her hand and drummed her fingers along the hard colourful fabric of her jacket.
"Oh, jeez, I'm sorry. I forgot, got a little strayed, there. My name is Goo. Nice to meet the two of you. How are the two of you today?" Goo's words fired off with machine-gun rapidity.
"My name is Phineas and this is my brother Ferb," Phineas relaxed, this was mostly nothing new for either of them.
"You have a very pleasantly shaped skull, Phineas. It reminds me of someone I created when I was six. The triangular shape evokes a pleasant feeling of approachable friendliness."
Phineas was genuinely floored by everything about that sentence. His hand went to rub the back of his head, but then he started processing the middle of the sentence, "Some one that you created?"
"Oh, yeah. That's my thing. I make friends. If that makes any sense."
"I'm not going to lie, Goo. I might need you to walk me through it."
Somehow, Goo's smile widened. It was as though someone had broken open the lock on a box.
"Well, where do I start? When I linger on a thought, any thought about a possible being it just comes into existence. I can make very simple things quickly, or great big complex things like dear Big Jim, here!"
Goo gave a dramatic turn, making sure that the tassels on her jacket moved all about as she turned before coming to rest her hand on the leg of the gigantic wax monster that had stood behind her.
"That's incredible...Where do they come from though, you can't exactly make something out of nothing."
"Not sure," The girl shrugged. "They kind of just appear, but I have to take them apart or they'll gain complete sentience and get violent towards anyone who isn't me. Then if I'm not focused on my thoughts I could get sidetracked and make a bunch in a single sitting."
She made a finger gun and took aim at Big Jim, making a small, almost sad "Whoosh" with her mouth and in an instant Big Jim was gone. Goo then took a seat in a rolling desk chair, taking an only mildly sudden spin in the chair before coming back to face them again.
"So, what can you guys do?"
Phineas and Ferb exchanged a glance before turning back to her, "We build things."
Saying it out loud kind of made their Modus Operandi seem pedestrian when compared to Goo's spontanious creation of life.
"That's neat. Have you guys been here long?"
"Just arrived, you?"
"About a week. I flooded my old school with bear men and they sent me here. I like it here, though. Most of the teachers are nice."
She developed a strange kind of feigned aggressive pout as she looked over Ferb's shoulder and at Ms Tutweiller. Ferb and Phineas looked over at the teacher who was sneakily eating a little thing of plain Pringles while browsing the internet on her desktop.
"Is there something wrong with her?"
Her look of fake annoyance vanished and she started again, "Oh, no. She's just fine. I get the feeling that she's not exactly happy to be here. Y'know?"
Following that the trio took their seats as two older boys entered the room. The boy at the lead was a dark skinned boy who had a mess of incredible long black hair. He was dressed in a dull blue shirt and jorts. This boy was named Joseph to contrast, next to him was a bizarre and weirdly skinny boy. His face was a mess of acne scars and were it not for his unibrow, his ginger buzzcut would be his most prominant physical feature. He was dressed unseasonably in a big green trenchcoat and baggy jeans. His name, was Ed. Joseph and Ed seemed enthralled in a quiet conversation about Death Grips when they took their seats. They sat down next to eachother on the opposite side of the room, far away from their younger classmates.
Emma Tutweiller took a walk to the front of the room, she expected the classroom was as full as it would be. There was a sudden, cacaphonus bell that sounded. Only, it wasn't so much an actual sound. It seemed to come from the direct center of everyone's minds and shake them to their collective core. It even shook Ms Tutweiller, who fancied herself immune to psychic attacks of all sorts.
She sucked on her teeth and gave everyone a moment to collect themselves.
"Good morning all, welcome to homeroom. My name is Ms. Tutweiller. Now, you're all here because your manifesting abilities have recently been proven to be some cause for concern. Hence, why you're here doing the X-summer school in New York rather than the academy in Westchester."
Her face dropped slightly at the thought of the Westchester school.
"Now, don't get me wrong. The curriculum for the most part will focus on that of any other school. A curriculum that mostly falls on me because somehow, despite the rising mutant population, i'm the only one they could find that has an actual background as a teacher. Every other teacher here is horrifically underqualified. I say this as someone who basically had to wrangle little rich bastards on a cruise ship for three years. Then, I start to grow scales and I can only get work with the Xavier Group, next thing I know the feds have blown away the Westchester school. Now, I'm here."
Emma paused and took a sip from a bottle of water on her desk.
The class had a moment to stare at Miss Tutweiller in the wake of her manic rant before a blast of energy sent the knob of the door flying away and into the wall opposite it. They all froze and turned their attention on the man who walked was dressed head to toe in a strange, black plastic suit. It looked to most of them like if H.R Giger designed the Apollo astronaut suits. It had a clear plastic visor that showed the pale face of it's occupant, his eyes narrowed and focused. There were a mess of tubes and wires that ran to a mess of metal tanks on his back, while in his hands he held a grotesque weapon. The base of the gun reminded Joseph of an assault rifle, but as their eyes went to the where the barrel should be, they were met by a tetached human arm. The dead limb radiated magenta energy and had a tangled nest of wires that stuck out of it's flesh and fed into a black cylinder on the stock.
The U-Man, turned his attention to Joseph and focused the arm-gun on him. Emma Tutweiller ran and stepped between them, arms akimbo, ready to face the bastard down, properly or die. Then something else happened. As the man readied himself to blast through her, he started screaming.
The a sudden inverted dome of absolute darkness stared it's way up, slowly. Severing his legs at the shins. Causing the rest of his body to fall into the dome's void. Eventually it formed into a large sphere and vanished, taking most of the man and part of the floor with him. In it's place there was a large crater and a small pile of flesh and plastic that seemed to have come from his thigh.
Across the room, Goo simply chose to shut her mind off. The brightness in her eyes dimmed and she slumped down. Phineas and Ferb focused on the crater in the floor and watched as Ms. Tutweiller focused her attention on Joseph. His eyes were as black as the void sphere and he breathed out a single sigh like someone sated after a large meal. Then they all watched as he registered what he did. A look of horror replaced his blankly pleased expression. He collapsed to the floor and started to dry heave. All the while repeating.
"I'm sorry, oh dear god. I...I didn't mean to take all of him."
The only one who didn't seem upset by the whole tragic turn of events was Ed, who had gotten up to examine the crater and the pile of flesh in it's center.
It was the first time most of them had seen a man die.