Jack's morning had been more eventful than he had planned. He had suffered quite a few setbacks losing not only his car but also the portal to his own private pocket dimension and almost lost everything else to a man that should have had no idea he even existed.
Still there were some positives to go along with the negatives.
"Welcome to Smith Innovations, where cutting-edge Technology comes alive." Jack exclaimed with a raised arm to a small group of high schoolers led by a gently smiling Ororo.
The group consisted of a tallish brown-haired guy who wore sunglasses indoors, a pretty redhead that walked close to his side, a skinny blue haired German and Ororo's bleached blond nephew.
Jack grinned broadly as he conducted the factory's first tour to a group that he hoped to be allies with in the future.
After Ororo's timely rescue from Jack's newest archenemy, Jack pounced on the opportunity to network. He only paused to collect his shrunken metal belongings and check on Wanda who while dazed from her tumble and furious at her father's escape was otherwise unharmed.
Surprisingly, it was Wuya who seemed the most affected by the encounter, she moodily stalked back to the compound not even acknowledging the rescue.
Jack had a good idea what was going through her mind, she was kicking herself for underestimating the enemy.
She had probably been picturing a scenario where she would rescue Jack trounce Magneto's forces and Wanda would strike down her father making Jack look weak and her appear strong in front of the young witch thus raising her standing in the little group Jack had made.
Unfortunately, Magneto was just a little too much for her to handle.
Then this new person swoops in snatches all the glory she had hoped to have for herself without breaking a sweat.
She would regain her composure quickly but, in the moment, she was frustrated.
Jack on the other hand was brimming with energy. He had survived first contact with an enemy he had not been properly prepared for and now had the opportunity to strengthen the budding alliance he had with Xavier's school, something which was suspiciously fortunate for a certain wheelchair bound psychic.
Jack did not mind entering a relationship from a position of weakness. Common sense would dictate that it is better to enter any professional relationship from a position of strength, but Jack had always found that if you could get your foot in the door opportunities would arrive naturally and you simply had to seize them.
In this instance him being in debt to Ororo was a great thing as he quickly used the situation to invite Xavier's faction to the factory to give them the ground tour and show off how much he had to offer.
Unfortunately, Xavier himself didn't come but several Wanda aged students had accepted the offer and Jack was now treating them all to the VIP experience.
Fancy limos to pick them up, fine food and free giftbags with the latest stuff from his own stock. They seemed to be having a grand time and the tour hadn't even started.
The tour itself had been designed by Phil for display to the public so rather than showcasing all the new technologies Jack had for enemies to steal the tour focused more on being visibly impressive. Wide sweeping grounds that featured a beautiful botanical garden interspersed with sleek robotic workers to maintain them. The workers design had deviated far from the jackbot look though they weren't truly any more advanced. These things were designed to be beautiful occasionally complementing the plantlife with elegant colors and designs and sometimes clashing in sleek white porcelain outer shells that bustled about tending to the garden and ensuring that everything was immaculately maintained.
The overall effect was one of clashing frenzy and serenity. Jack wasn't sure what he thought about the whole thing. Sure, he had started experimenting with magically enhanced plant growth, but he had little to do with this place.
It was one of Phil's pet projects.
The whole thing had started as part of Phil's puppet company Irons Constructions. At least it had started out as a puppet company.
Phil had somehow gotten the contract to reconstruct Harlem after a rampaging monster fight trashed the place and with unrestricted access to the company's equipment and finances performed what a few years ago would be considered a miracle doing in weeks what should have taken months or years. Harlem was almost completely rebuilt and at a fraction of the estimated cost.
Irons Construction caught the attention of the world and Phil pounced. He offered cheap rates to rebuilding areas that had suffered from some attack or disaster while also expanding into the civilian center charging slightly less than competitors to build faster superior homes.
Then he expanded into landscaping, that was what this was, a prototype. Phil was planning on charging millions to the ludicrously wealthy in order to install extravagant gardens and Smith Innovations was Irons Landscaping's first customer, and from the call Phil had received from Justin Hammer just this morning they would not be the last. If this kept up Phil's project would end up more profitable than Smith Innovations.
That just meant that Jack would have to do a little branching out himself. His talk with Magneto had brought to his attention the danger politically powerful people posed. People like William Stryker who used their power and influence to stamp out mutants.
People like that could not simply be fought with a swarm of robots. They had the government on their side and if you wanted to counter them you needed influence, you needed important people to listen to you, you needed a voice in the media and a fleet of lawyers to protect you from the backlash when other powerful people disagreed with you.
Jack was going to have to get political.
But that was for the future right now the inventor had to make a good impression on the underlings of one such politically powerful person.
The full extent of Xavier's influence was unknown but going off what he had seen thus far the man could at least partially counter a political landscape that seemed to hate mutants.
By himself.
Jack knew the winning team when he saw them and there were far worse people to throw your lot in with than Xavier.
Focusing on the group in front of him Jack had little trouble piecing together their personalities. Sunglasses boy was the straightlaced type whose main motivation apart from "doing the right thing" was impressing the redhead next to him.
Readhead herself seemed like a typical popular girl who got people to like her by being kind to everyone, Jack bet that a lot of ugly or nerdy guys had had their hearts broken by a few friendly words from her.
Ororo's nephew was a jock, fun loving and sporty he seemed like the kind of guy who would be up for a game of basketball.
The German kid with the blue hair caught Jack's attention the most. Not because of the constant bad jokes, which Jack could appreciate, but because of the watch on his arm.
The thing pinged his security as a hologram projector, which was odd but fine, the crazy thing was it wasn't one of Jack's.
He would get to the bottom of that little mystery later because for now he had a tour to conduct. He had put some thought into what he wanted the public to see when they visited Smith innovations and after pondering what face he wanted to show the world inspiration struck him.
The world of course should see his face.
The tour was a glorious tribute to the splendor that was Jack Spicer though he referred to himself as Smith from the purposes of the tour. From his childhood creating autonomous robots to his discovery of magic to the foundation of his company, his encounter with Amora and Scourge in which he saved the kidnapped children, the "rescue" of Wanda and his defeat of Chase Young. He told the story of himself to an increasingly skeptical crowd.
Jack led them through rooms with his personality history, slightly dramatized, painted on the back walls while giant windows overlooked the factory floors displaying a hive of activity that was difficult for the layman to parse.
At the end of the art trail Mike and Raph were found halfway through painting a depiction of Magneto being struck down by lightning by a flying Ororo while Jack cheered her on. The two worked with robotic efficiency and the image was coming along almost as quickly as a page coming out of a printer.
The students all had dropped jaws at the display while the woman herself merely chuckled.
"You certainly have a flair for the dramatic Jack, will this portrait be on display in your tour on a permanent basis?" Ororo asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"I can take it down if you like but I personally think it is a flattering depiction." It wasn't Jack who spoke but instead Mike who had just signed the corner of the painting with a flourish that was much less mechanical than his previous technique.
Mike elbowed Raph in the side who sighed before adding his own much small signature beneath Mike's.
'No. I rather like it." Ororo said as she studied the artists far more closely than the painting.
"Allow me to introduce a couple of your soon to be classmates." Jack announced with a grin.
The group, whose attention had been divided between the painting, the artists and Ororo, turned their heads to the brothers. Raph looked a little embarrassed scratching the back of his head a while he put on an awkward grin Mike however was not so reserved.
"Hey guys I'm Mikey and this is Raph. It's great to meet you. How is the tour going, did you like the paintings? I did em myself, well Raph helped a bit, but the creative vision was all me." Raph rolled his eyes at this but didn't disagree.
It was the German boy who broke ranks to return Mikes greeting seeming almost as enthusiastic to socialize as Mikey.
"Hello I am Kurt Wagner. Ya it is a beautiful portrait. It is amazing how quickly you paint yes, how do you do it?" Kurt asked while he stepped forward to shake Mikey's hand which the robot enthusiastically did.
"How do I do it? Talent my friends oodles and oodles of raw talent, plus the supercomputer brain and mechanically perfect precsion." Mikey bragged.
It was true. Any of the boys or Phil could, with access to the right paints and equipment, print off images similar to printing out a photo but Mikey had the talent of picturing what he wanted to paint instead of just recreating an image something Raph could also do to an extent, but Phil, Don and Leo just couldn't manage.
"Wait, you have a robot brain?" Kurt blurted out.
"I have a robot everything!" As Mike shouted this his eyes started glowing blue and his mouth opened wider than a human could manage without a significant amount of surgery.
Kurt shrieked and leapt backwards while Mikey broke down in laughter. The laughter ended as Raph cuffed the back of his brother's head.
"Sorry about him he has poor impulse control." Raph said bowing his head slightly.
"Aw c'mon man it was funny. Kurt doesn't mind. Do ya Kurt?" Mikey said rubbing the back of his head.
"What is going on!" yelled indoor sunglasses as he gripped his eyewear in a stance that would look aggressive if glasses were dangerous.
"Man, we always have to hide who we are, but now we don't have cuz were gonna be friends." Mike stated as if that explained anything.
"Allow me to again introduce my sons, brought to life through a combination of sorcery and circuitry. New life brought into being by imbuing my work with ancient life granting magics to create a new branch of mankind, truly the next stage of humanity's evolution." Jack said spreading his arms grandly towards Mikey and Raph who each seemed to shrink into themselves with embarrassment.
Perfect it was a father's duty to embarrass his children. He had taken the lines from Magnetos little spiel about how great mutants were and of course couldn't allow anyone to think they were better than his kids, Homo Superier indeed, what a laugh.
All the students stared dumbfounded at Jack while Ororo gave him a deadpan glare, she knew exactly the sentiment he was referencing, and it wasn't held by only Magneto.
"Now of course we are trying to keep that on a need to know basis, but I have a feeling you guys can keep a secret." He gave an exaggerated wink towards the mutants.
Kurt was the first to react excitedly rushing to Mikey and peppering him with a deluge of questions. The others soon followed afterwards caught up in the atmosphere of friendly positivity given off by Mikey and Kurt.
Jack breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at the sight of Mikey finally getting the chance to make the friends he desired. He was the obvious choice to spearhead the meeting of the two groups. Mikey was a natural diplomat and any thought of "They aren't really alive; they are only machines." Quickly vanished in the face of his obvious personhood.
"Was that truly necessary." Ororo spoke as she stepped to his side and joined him in watching the soon to be classmates interacted.
"Yes." Jack said simply.
"It truly is a toxic mindset to hold, best viewed from the outside looking in to see its flaws." Jack said conversationally.
"Mutant kind is quite literally the next step in human evolution. That is simply true as far as Xavier's research indicates but the accompanying narrative is dangerous and self-destructive. I had a chance to speak with Eric before we fought and the man illuminated some quite troubling problems facing the mutant community. His us vs them destroy the enemy mentality is a common one that we will have to face from the other side, many men will seek to destroy mutantkind for a simple instinctive sense of competition. It is built into the DNA of Humanity mutants included, destroy the opposition." Jack grimly stated.
Ororo's eyes widened at the bleak sentiment that sprung from a formerly jovial atmosphere.
"It is not just mutants either, artificial intelligences, aliens, super solidiers, sorcerers, empowered beasts and who knows how many others, all set as enemies to each other and mankind simply because they exist. The lines between us must be blurred if we hope to lead all of us into a harmonious future together or we leave the situation alone and I guarantee the future will end up a bloody one."
Jack felt the heavy weight of Ororo's gaze burrowing into him. Her face was expressionless as she mulled over his little speech. Finally, she huffed and turned her head to her students.
"That kind of unity is nice but unrealistic, people don't accept what they don't understand, they never have, and they never will." She said wistfully.
"Its not nearly as unrealistic as you might think." Jack spoke with a grin.
He looked at the group of students interacting like they had known each other ages. Kurt, Mikey and Ororo's nephew were excitedly discussing some game or another and the redhead was having a quiet but intense conversation with Raph while glasses occasionally chimed in.
"We just have to make some friends."
In an asteroid turned fortress in low earth orbit Magneto read a series of reports about his newest enemy. His anger had faded from the burning hatred he had felt after witnessing him in his daughter's cell not so long ago.
The situation was not nearly so bad as he had feared.
His retreat from battle was regrettable but the presence of Storm in an open area in addition to the strange size altering abilities Jack possessed made the fight far to even for him to be comfortable. With his daughter's ability to nullify his own power added to the mix he may have even lost which was completely unacceptable so he had been forced to resort to plan B.
Mystique had infiltrated Jack's factory and begun gathering information while their main fighting force was away, and her work had been as superlative as ever. He had before him files on nine individuals and one on the factory itself. At first, he had thought Mystique had been forced to retreat before she could collect everything but no, there were only nine people of any significance.
This boy Jack had seemingly created a multimillion-dollar enterprise in less than a year out of thin air. The factory itself, while formidable to one other than he, could be crushed by him at any time. It seemed that in this instance he had an overwhelming advantage against his mechanical opponents.
He relaxed as classical music filled his office and he pondered these latest developments. He knew that he could crush Jack at any time due to the bulk of the boy's forces being metallic and now he paused to consider how to gain the most out of the situation.
Charles seemed intent to make the boy another of his pawns and that meant that Wanda would find her way into Charles' influence just as he had originally intended so the urgency that had taken him before was gone. Mesmero was injured having a boulder strike him in the side had shattered his arm and three ribs. He would be fine but until he healed up a little, he would not be up to convincing his daughter to change sides.
He could wait for Charles to work his magic for a month or two before he reacquired his wayward child, but for now it was best to test the waters. He would see how his daughter handled being reunited with her brother before he would meet her again.
He dismissed the files of Jack's pet robots and turned his attention to the bronze skinned witch who represented the most uncertainty.
It was better to be more prepared than less, now who did he know who practiced magic?