Overcharge 3

Jack overestimated the distance once more and found himself slamming into an asteroid twice the size of an SUV, thankfully it didn't hurt nearly as much as he expected it should. He wasn't sure whether that was because of his spacesuit or if it was a facet of Julie's power, but he was thankful all the same.

"You lack any frame of reference for the relative size of objects or their exact distance from you visually," Friday explained through his communicator, "that's not going to be a problem on Earth, but in space it is advisable to rely on your sensors. If you'll check your HUD, you'll find it will give you the exact distance from anything you focus your eyes on, which will also help you determine your speed as you approach it."

"Got it," Jack said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice, as it was mostly at himself since he knew Friday wasn't responsible for Jack's mistakes. He grabbed the tumbling rock and slowly pushed against it, getting it to stop spinning after a couple of minutes of careful bursts of power as he had a tendency to over correct, before accelerating it towards Friday, who had resumed his usual white with silver trim coloration making him easier to see.

"A little slower, please," Friday said, "the current speed of the asteroid would strain the tractor beam to catch unless I matched velocities."

Jack stopped pushing and considered how best to slow it down. He could just spin it around and give a bit of a push in the opposite direction since he had a good grip on it, but that risked setting it spinning again, and he did not want to deal with that on top of slowing it down. He flew around the massive rock and placed his hands on it, feeling it pushing against him. He tried to get a feel for it as he activated the acceleration ability and gave it a quick burst.

"Jack?" Friday's voice came over the communicator.

"Yeah?" Jack asked.

"You stopped it," Friday replied with amusement.

"What? Completely?" Jack asked in disbelief.

"Completely," Friday assured him.

Jack just stared at the asteroid and then looked around, seeing that Friday didn't appear to be getting any closer, but at the distance they were that would have taken some time to notice anyway. "I don't think I'm good enough with Julie's power to match something's acceleration that exactly," Jack finally said, "gotta be something instinctive, or a way of absorbing it rather than matching it… at least a bit."

"Or a combination of those factors," Friday agreed.

"Okay, let's try this again, but at a slower rate," Jack said, flying around to the backside of the asteroid and gently pushing it for a few seconds before letting the power cut out and simply floating alongside it. "How's that?"

"That's fine, it should arrive at my position within a reasonable amount of time without straining the tractor beam," Friday replied. "I have located another asteroid of similar size that's unusually dense, making scanning it difficult. I'll relay its position to your HUD."

"This would be a lot easier with those brain implants," Jack grumbled.

"You can change the HUD to something you're more comfortable with by altering the settings," Friday suggested. "Just say 'input device: keyboard' and you'll be able to adjust the various options available."

"That would be a big help," Jack said, before activating the holographic keyboard and starting to play with the display settings.

Friday watched with confusion as Jack made some rather unusual choices in display options, changing several to auditory, one to radiant heat, and a couple to scent based cues. "Skunk and Bacon?" Friday asked in confusion.

"It takes very little skunk to go a long way," Jack replied cheerfully, "I'll be avoiding it before I even realize I'm smelling it."

"And bacon?" the confused AI asked.

"Bacon means success!" Jack declared with a grin, before suddenly accelerating, easily avoiding even the tiny asteroids he couldn't see without assistance, as he located the one he was looking for and propelled it towards Friday, peeling off a second later to locate another surprisingly dense asteroid that read as being composed of at least thirty percent heavy minerals before Friday could direct him to it.

Friday watched bemused as Jack grew increasingly comfortable with the display and the acceleration ability over the next three hours before he called a halt to their mining efforts, "Jack, I have more than enough ore to process for now, you should come in and get something to eat."

Jack stopped the asteroid he'd been about to send Friday's way and noticed how the smartship was now triple the size of what it had been earlier with a large tube below the main body of the ship that the tractor beams pulled the asteroids he'd collected into, many of which were waiting to be processed. "On my way," he replied, flying towards the ship at a rapid rate, but keeping a close eye on his display, the numbers shifting towards red as he approached.

Realizing he was moving too fast and was probably going to have to circle around if he didn't get it right, Jack turned and prepared to use acceleration to slow himself down, trying to get a feel for how much thrust he'd need to allow himself to glide into the airlock at something less than a hundred miles an hour, he tapped into acceleration and appeared in the airlock in a burst of blue light.

"Jack," Friday said curiously.

"Yeah?" Jack replied absently, as he checked to make sure he still had all his limbs.

"I believe you just teleported," the smartship noted.

"Yeah, I believe I did too," Jack agreed. "Kofi managed to teleport three people from orbit to planetside, so it's not that impressive. We really should have been trying to figure out if Julie could teleport once we saw him jumping around like that. Of course it could be because I have more than one power and they work together in ways they can't apart, not sure how we can check that."

"Prayer and meditation," Friday told him as Jack entered the ship and ordered his costume off.

"What?" Jack asked, finding that answer to be more of a shock than teleporting.

"The Kymellians are a very spiritual people," Friday told him, "Aelfyre developed his powers to such an extent through what you would term prayer and meditation."

"The Technocrat didn't seem all that spiritual," Jack said with a frown.

"Yes, that's why he and his people were relying so much on technology rather than the innate powers that Kymellians can tap into," Friday explained.

"Huh," Jack said thoughtfully. "Kymellian tech is pretty awesome, but the powers are pretty awesome too. This is probably one of the things where they talk about balance being important, because choosing between you and my powers… Well, I would choose you, because friends are more important than power, but I'd also sulk for a while."

Friday actually chuckled, something that the AI rarely did.

"What I'm trying to say and probably screwing it up, is that the spiritual part is probably as important as the rest of it," Jack explained.

"That is what the traditional Kymellians believe as well," Friday agreed, "meditation involved intimate knowledge of scientific theorems and how they interacted with the world around them. By gaining a… feel for each ability, through knowledge and meditation on it, they found the strength and versatility improved."

Jack groaned. "Not exactly a boy genius here and I'm probably way behind what a Kymellian kid is at the same age, so that may not help me all that much at least until I get the implants and spend some time hitting the books."

"I have good news on the implants," Friday said. "While checking to see if there were any advances in the standard brain implants and their use in aliens, I discovered that the majority of the tests that needed to be done were already done by the Technocrat, so he could program the pseudoplasm clones of your parents and older brother more easily. I should have the tests using your own cells completed within a couple of hours."

"That is very good news," Jack said with a grin. "Um… any way I can get some clothes so I'm not just standing around in my underwear when I'm not in costume?"

"I've already prepared some clothes for you as well as lunch," Friday replied, a rack of clothes extending from one wall as a glass of blue fluid and a nutrient bar appeared on the table.

"I have got to introduce you to pizza," Jack said as he picked up the nutrient bar.

0o0o0o0o0

Wolverine wheeled Professor X back into his office where the Power family was waiting. "I'm sorry, even using Cerebro I was unable to locate Jack," Xavier said as he was placed behind his desk.

"I thought you could find anyone in the world," Julie said.

"Given enough time, unless they are dead, unconscious, or shielded in some manner," Professor X replied. "Often I can locate someone who is hidden from my sight by looking through the eyes of others around them, but even using that method I can't find a trace of the young man in all of New York or even the East Coast."

"So he's sleeping?" Katie asked hopefully.

Professor X shook his head. "No, I can locate sleeping minds. Unconscious in this case would refer to a state of minimal brain activity, such as a coma or heavily drugged."

"Kid's tricky, but I don't think he has the knowledge or resources to drug himself to avoid detection," Wolverine offered gruffly. "He may have figured out a way to shield himself from telepaths using one of your powers."

Maggie turned to her husband. "What are we going to do?"

Jim sighed. "I'm not sure. Reed may have some way of tracking him, possibly by using his cellphone."

"Jack doesn't have his cellphone," Katie said. "You attacked him in his sleep."

"We didn't attack him," Jim said firmly, "we simply tried to remove his power, so he had a chance to see what life as a normal high school student was like."

"The last person who tried to remove our powers was Queen Maraud," Katie said, "she'd prefer us to be normal kids too."

"And if you didn't have powers she wouldn't have come after you," Jim argued.

"That's true," Katie agreed, "because we'd all be dead, along with everyone on Earth."

"Things would be a lot easier if we could call him and talk this out," Julie said anxiously, looking out the window.

*ring*ring*

"Pardon me for a moment," Xavier said, picking up the headset. "Hello, this is Charles Xavier."

"The Snarks are no longer at war and Maraud has been captured," Jim told his daughter, "you'll be perfectly safe without the ability to take down skyscrapers."

"Right, because monsters, demons, and supervillains only attack those who can defend themselves," Katie said.

"Jack, we were just talking about you," Professor X said loudly. "Perhaps I should put this on speaker so you can speak with your parents." He hit a button on his desk.

"Sure, if you wish to hear a bunch of yelling," Jack's voice came out of the speaker.

"Young man, you come home right now!" Maggie yelled.

"No," the cold tone of Jack's voice made several people wince. "Professor, I'd advise checking my parents to see if they've been mentally screwed with, since originally they were programmed not to be able to tell their kids had powers and even with that removed it may have just altered it to wanting their kids not to have powers until they are adults."

"We don't need to have our minds altered to want our children to be safe," Jim argued.

"Yes and making us less able to defend ourselves when we have been attacked by aliens and demons does such a good job of that," Jack fired back. "They are either mentally programmed or morons and I'd like to know which one."

"That is no way to talk to your parents," Maggie snapped out.

"You had me attacked in my sleep, something Alex and Julie both seem to agree with, so the only family I am willing to claim right now is Katie," Jack said coldly.

Julie paled and Alex seemed to shrink into himself while Katie frowned and chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"May I?" Professor X asked the upset parents.

"I'm sure we're both in our right minds," Jim said, "but in the interest of settling this matter, go ahead."

Professor X nodded and closed his eyes for a moment, frowning in thought. "I can see the heavy handed alterations that have been made to your thought processes in your memories, but they appear to have been removed." He opened his eyes. "Your current thoughts are your own, possibly influenced by what was done to you, but not controlled by them."

"It was a faint hope," Jack admitted with a sigh. "Oh well, that's all I wanted to check on."

"If I may ask, how have you managed to shield your mind?" Professor X asked.

"If I told you, you'd find a way around it in a matter of seconds," Jack told him.

Wolverine chuckled. "Hey, Kid?"

"Yeah?"

"You sure you want to throw away your family over this? There are a lot of kids here who would give their right arm to have their family back," Wolverine pointed out.

"And those families are the types who would attack them in their sleep and want them to get rid of their powers too, so I don't think they've lost all that much," Jack said.

"What are you going to do for money?" Katie spoke up, while Jim comforted his trembling wife.

Jack laughed. "I've got density, acceleration, and your power," he told her, "and while I don't want to give away any details on where I am… let's just say I decided to mine for valuable minerals in international territory and I'm currently sitting on over a ton of gold. Money is not something I'm going to have a problem with unless I do something stupid like try and buy Bolivia."

"And your education?" Professor X asked.

"Already making plans for that," Jack assured him, "I'd give you details, but once again, I don't want to be hunted down, so I'm keeping it to myself."

"How long have you been planning this?" Julie asked. "I mean, you managed to block Professor X and get rich in… hours? You had to have planned out all of this a long way in advance."

"Planned to have Alex try and cripple me in my sleep with almost everyone's approval and end up crashing through my bedroom window and flying off with your power? I'm not Tattletale, and you'd have to be a precog to see this coming. I mean, I thought if there was one place it was safe to sleep at, it would be at home."

"You should come home, we can talk about this," Jim pleaded with his youngest son.

"You should have thought of that before attacking me," Jack snapped out, "I no longer feel safe around any of you."

"Jack," Professor X said reasonably, "would you consider staying at the mansion while we see if we can mediate this situation?"

Jack sighed. "I'm a bit busy right now and I don't see how I can ever trust them again. I appreciate the thought though."

Professor X inwardly winced at how those words affected Jack's family.

"You free this weekend?" Wolverine spoke up. "We are an accredited school, on top of everything else we do, so if you're serious about continuing your education, we're your best bet to make sure you get the credit, even if your schedule is a bit chaotic."

"Yeah, I can swing by," Jack agreed. "I'll see you Saturday morning. Later."

There was a click and the dial tone sounded. Professor Xavier tapped a button to shut it off before tapping another one. "Any luck?" he asked.

"Sorry Professor, I traced it as far as I could, but the trail dead ends at the telecom satellite," Kitty's voice replied over the intercom, "no trace of it from there."

"Thank you for trying," he said as he shut off the intercom, before turning to Wolverine. "I'm surprised you got him to agree and that you appealed to his need for an education."

"Kid ain't going to get over what happened to him all that easy or quick," Wolverine replied, "I know I wouldn't. Best bet is going to be soft sell and that's going to need someplace to pass messages and occasionally meet up. This is the place for that, as he'll know most of the people here will be sympathetic to what he's going through."

"What he's going through?" Maggie repeated in disbelief.

"You tried to take away part of him, like sawing off a limb in his sleep," Wolverine said bluntly, thinking about how many of their students would feel if their powers had been stolen from them while they were defenseless by people they trusted. "He would have woken up unable to fly, less able to protect himself, and any injuries he received from being weakened like that would have been slower to heal. I'm not sure if he has any additional or enhanced senses from his power, but if he does you would have stripped those away too."

"I… hadn't thought of it like that," Jim admitted as he held his silently crying wife.

Alex laid a hand on Katie's shoulder and winced when she almost flinched away. His hand glowed for a second before he pulled it away, gaining a shocked look from her.

"I just thought it would mean no more fights with supervillains," Maggie admitted.

"Let's go home," Alex spoke up. "This isn't going to be something we can fix in an afternoon, and I have a bus to catch. I'll see if Jack will talk to me in a week or two, when he calms down."

"That's probably for the best," Jim agreed. "Thank you for your help, let me know if there's anything we can do to help… fix this."

"If the squirt doesn't mind, it'd be a good idea to have her here when Jack visits," Wolverine suggested, "remind him he has family and keep in touch. I know him, he won't stay angry forever."

"I'll be here," Katie said, not waiting for her parents to answer.

Beta by: Abyssal Angel & Mist of Shadows