Marvel owns the X-Men and related characters not me. Feel free to post. Takes place in an alternate third season that diverges sometime after "The Toad, the Witch and the Wardrobe." And, Spyke's powers are not going out of control. The Spider-Stone incident still happened, though.
A/N As a biochemistry student, I refuse to use the term "human" to distinguish non-mutants. I use the proper scientific term: wild type.
PG-13
Chapter the First
Essex's. The sign shown brightly over the "teen nightclub." 7:00 pm.
"Vow," whispered Kurt to Scott. "A nightclub designed specifically for mutants! Awesome!"
"Yeah," admitted Scott. "It is pretty cool."
Scott, Kurt, Kitty, Evan, Rogue, Bobby, Amara, and Jean walked into the club. It was specifically designed for teenagers; no alcohol, everything clean and good, nothing to worry parents about.
Scott walked up to the concessions and bought sodas for all of the group. While they were drinking, they spotted Pietro, Wanda, Blob, Todd, Tabby, and Lance on the other side of the room.
"Like, hello!" said Kitty to Lance. For a change, the Brotherhood seemed at ease to be around the X-Men. No anger, no rivalry, no nothing.
Kurt noted that there were a few wild-type humans hanging around. Most of them seemed like they wanted to see what the "freaks" were doing, but a few just seemed to want a good time.
There was dancing, but as the evening wore on, everyone seemed to be getting tired and more and more out of it.
"This is like, so weird!" exclaimed Kitty to Pietro. "I feel so dizzy! You?"
"Yeah, X-geek," said Pietro, but without any malice. "I don't feel so good, either. Maybe we should go home."
But upon shaking Wanda's arm, Pietro found her to be a virtual zombie, dancing slowly along with Scott to the music.
"Scott, man, Wanda's out of it!"
"Huh? Oh, that's strange." Scott couldn't help it, the fuzz in his head kept getting fuzzier. He could barely keep track of what was going on.
"Vow. I feel... I can't keep my thoughts together..." whispered Kurt from the concessions stand.
The next thing they knew, they were all waking up. Not in the mansion, but in the club. It was 3 am, and the Professor and Mystique were there, as well as Magneto and the Acolytes.
"When you weren't home by curfew, I got worried," explained the Professor to Jean and Scott, who had been passed out on the floor and were just waking up. "I called, but they said you had left when the place closed at 11:00 pm." I couldn't detect you with Cerebro, but eventually I decided to look here. This place has apparently been abandoned."
"What happened?" asked Scott.
"You appear to have been drugged," said the Professor. Probably in your drinks. And this nightclub was supposed to provide a safe place for teens to be on Saturdays!"
Mystique looked around, angry. "He even called me, and I decided to look for you in case you'd gotten yourself in trouble - which you have!"
"It wasn't their fault," said the Professor.
"Owww..." said Kurt as he woke up. "My arm!" There was a large chunk of hair missing and it was obvious that a tissue sample had been taken. "Someone cut me!"
"Hmmm..." said Magneto. "I have an idea who might have wanted to do this... get you drugged, then perform some experiments on you... or at least take some tissue samples. He has taken them, apparently, from all of the mutants in town."
"Most o' dem, anyway," said Gambit, "not us."
"Well, the teenagers. Or more precisely, those at the club. But he would definitely like your DNA as well. He has mine already."
"How?" asked Chuck.
"Do you think that I managed to enhance my mutant powers all by myself? I know of a professor who studies mutants very carefully. He is sort of a mutant himself, although not quite... his abilities were given to him, he wasn't born with them. He discovered the gems of Cytorak and gave them to your brother, Charles."
"So that is how Cain activated his X-gene?"
"Yes. He was the first enhanced mutant. I am another."
"Fascinating."
"The man I am thinking of was a friend of mine after you and I went our separate ways. But we also had a falling out. He believes that the future belongs only to 'super mutants,' whereas I believe that all mutants can live in peace with each other - just not with wild types. He refers to us not as Homo superior, but as Homo sapiens superior. True Homo superior are only those like me and Cain - enhanced."
"What is his name?"
"Same as this place. Essex. Dr. Nathaniel Essex."
Wanda suddenly walked out of the pool room. She looked disheveled, and she was desperately trying to cover herself with only her jacket, all the rest of her clothes being gone.
"What, what happened?"
"Nothing," said Wanda. Charles didn't try to scan her, as she could turn his power back on himself and fry his brain if he tried. "I just appear to have lost my clothes. Probably got drunk or something and got hot, so I took off my clothes to cool down." She looked at Magneto and turned beet red.
