Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters, except for those I invent. Marie is a character I invented. I will always call her Marie, and I will refer to Rogue/Marie as Rogue.
D.C. is a character I invented. For details, please see "D.C. and the CN Tower" chapters one, two, three, four, and five.
Marie and Jean-Pierre are also characters I invented. For details, see "An American Ka-Boom! in Paris" chapters one through eight.
Pain. That was D.C.'s first thought. He felt like his head, neck, chest and abdomen were on fire. He unconsciously sifted around for a power source with his scanning power. He located one. Then, purely by instinct, he drew out electricity, and his body used it to repair itself. The pain quickly subsided, and D.C. came back to his senses.
He sat up. He was in a hospital bed, but the room he was in didn't look like a hospital room at all. It was made entirely of gray concrete and cement. It was a small room, about the size of a public restroom, and the door was located at the wall opposite him. It was made of what looked like steel. However, upon scanning it, D.C. found to his surprise it was lead surrounded by a shield of adamantium. He also found to his even greater surprise that he was deep underground. Very deep. But…that could only mean…no, it couldn't…yes, it is. An underground nuclear testing silo.
The police. The police must have bought him here. But why? Unless…oh dear. I think my friends in New York City took a photo of me before I escaped. Either that or they built a silo like this for every mutant they capture.
D.C. noticed a TV camera above the door and his suspicious were confirmed. If this was a silo used for testing nuclear bombs, why bother putting a camera in? To make sure the bomb didn't get up and run away?
D.C. waved at the camera with a smile on his face. He lay down in the bed, closed his eyes and concentrated. He saw the camera in his mind. Then he mentally went inside it and traveled up the cord. Professor X could do something similar, but only with human minds. D.C. could do it only to machines and electrical systems. He had done this many times on the road, sending his mind's eye through power lines to find suitable spots to spend the night.
So now he used this power to go up the closed circuit line leading up from the camera up through ¾ of a mile of cable up into a high tech control room on the surface. It was located on a mountain near Westchester.
The control room was in an old mine town at the entrance of an abandoned mine shaft. It was a darkened room with dozens of monitors and computers. About a hundred soldiers were present. With a shock of surprise and anger D.C. saw the monitors showing every member of the school. Other monitors showed children and adults D.C. didn't know. But there was no doubt they too were mutants.
One child had green colored skin and vivid purple eyes. A woman was attempting to escape using low frequency sound waves. D.C. saw the door shaking like mad but it didn't give way. The woman looked very tired, and D.C. had the feeling that what his mind's eye was seeing wasn't the peak of her powers.
A young man with red eyes wearing a trench coat kept taking deck cards out of his pocket. When he held them in his hand they glowed a brilliant red. He threw them at the door. When they hit the adamantium they exploded. But they were unsuccessful as well. Every time they failed, the man swore in French and tried again.
Another man, an old one, seemed resigned to his fate. He sat on the ground, staring into nothingness, a great mound of dirt behind him, where the ceiling had somehow given way.
A girl, perhaps six or seven, was just as scared, but she was running around and screaming. D.C. could tell it was a girl by her screaming. She was running around so fast she was only a blur.
In another room, D.C. saw Bobby flash freezing the room over and over again, trying to open up a crack. But the concrete had no cracks for the ice to get into, and so Bobby would try to make a crack from time to time, but he only got a bruised hand.
Katie, Jean-Pierre, and Professor X were all unconscious. It was obviously because their powers were too dangerous. Katie could walk through walls. Jean-Pierre could control geological activity. And Professor X could control people's thoughts and actions.
And so it went. D.C. checked every monitor. He saw all sorts of people. Some were using their powers to try to escape, but all were unsuccessful. Those who could get out no problem were under the influence of sedatives. Some people just sat on their beds or on the floor, staring into space. Others were screaming, running around, begging the camera to let them go, and other such things. D.C. saw little children sitting in corners, tears running down their cheeks, crying out for their parents.
D.C. found that the army was using highly advanced technology to monitor and study the mutant prisoners. They were all trying to figure out how mutant powers work, so that they could be used in warfare. D.C. found lists of names, and discovered that every mutant in the nation was going to one of four prisons. This one here, another near Denver, another near Salt Lake City, and the last one in the Arizona desert. All were located in mines. All were being filled to capacity. And all had been being built ever since the mutant population began to rise.
D.C. had seen enough. He returned to his own room, opened his eyes, and sat up. He began to ponder what he was going to do. He could probably attack the computer core, shutting it down. No, if anything that would heighten security, and somebody could easily get killed. But what then? He had to figure out some way to get the army out of the way, free all the prisoners, then get to those other prisons and set them free as well. But how? D.C. thought and thought until his head hurt. He was stumbling on the seed of a plan, when the door gave a series of thuds and swung open. A dozen soldiers came in, surrounding two doctors. One of them held something in his hand.
Oh no. Sedatives!
"Mutant number 158362 is out."
Up in the control room, a doctor and a general sat next to each other. They looked intently at the screen showing D.C.'s room. It showed the soldiers and doctors leaving the room, leaving D.C. on the bed, out for the count. They both got up and walked out of the control room into a small conference room. A table was there, and the two men sat down at opposite ends of it.
"So doctor. Tell me what has been done so far."
"Well General Hardington, we have rounded up about three-quarters of the estimated mutant population. And we discovered mutants with incredible powers.
"A woman we found can manipulate the climate around her. A girl can somehow drain energy from life forms. She seems to have caused a boy's coma in Mississippi.
"A senior man can change the brain waves of other people and mutants. He seems to be the leader of a mutant rebellion. He ran some sort of a school that taught mutant children how to use their powers for war purposes.
"Another man we found can shoot giant bursts of kinetic energy from his eyes. A younger man has a similar power, but he concentrates the energy into physical objects.
"A boy can create ice and freezing temperatures at will. A little girl found in Maryland can run at fantastic speeds averaging about 400 miles per hour.
"We had a problem with this one man. Scared the living daylights of my men because he looks like some sort of a giant blue ape. He surrendered almost immediately, blabbering something about showing the world that mutants are people too.
"A little boy has telekinetic power, as does a totally unrelated woman. A woman from Washington, D.C. can emit low frequency sound waves. A teenage boy can control geologically related events.
"All the former mutants can control and command certain forms of energy. But I called you here today to discuss about the power of the mutant we just saw.
"He can control energy and convert it from one form to another. He can even turn ordinary matter into energy and vice versa. And we believe he could adapt his power to include every other mutant power on the planet.
"Imagine it! This kid could be a kind of ultra mutant! A kid about 20 years old commanding every force known! He could take on the appearance of others using holograms! He could control the weather by administering energy to air masses! He could create ice blankets over anything he wished by converting energy into ice crystals! He could even have telekinetic ability. Just use some spare energy and move objects! Our scientists and doctors can think of a million things this kid can do.
"That is why I called you out here today. This kid could be the most dangerous person in the history of the mankind. We don't think he knows his full capabilities, but it is only a matter of time. If he knew, why, he could take over the world. If he wanted too, he could encase the planet in ice. He could cause an explosion in the teraton range. He could cause an F-10 tornado. He could set off a volcano the size of Alaska. He holds the fate of humanity in his hands, and he doesn't even know it.
"Sir, many of these mutants discovered their powers when they were scared or angry. Imagine what would happen if that kid gets pissed off.
"We need to figure out to do with this kid, before he wipes us all out."
For those who don't know, "Tera" is a unit used like kilo, mega, or giga. A teraton would be equal to about one quadrillion tons of TNT. One quadrillion is a one followed by fifteen zeros.