A/N: I just watched X Men 3 and I laughed when I realized when I realized that Gene Summers really could be connected to the movies if Jean Grey and the guy Cyclops got married because Cyclops's last name is Summers. Yeah, I might need to change that. Enough of my nonsense! Here is the chapter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: For this chapter…I only own Gene. I don't own Slade.

Chapter 3

Journal 1: Part 2

Continuation…

The next thing I knew, I woke up with a start. I think I regretted even awakening. My whole body felt like a giant bruise. I seriously didn't know what I would be waking up to. With a shake of my pounding head, I pushed myself up a bit with a groan of pain. So far life wasn't appealing to me and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep.

"That feeling will wear off in a few minutes," someone said from behind me. It was Mr. Smoothness' voice. Even though I only knew the guy for less than an hour, I could never forget his voice. This time my reaction was the normal one. A shiver sparked up my spine as fear gripped my heart. I was in the hands of a madman! Of course I was freaked out!

I forced myself to my feet, but didn't stay there for too long. I stumbled on my wobbly legs then finally fell backwards and my back smashed against a wall. My head spun and I could swear I saw stars. I remember wincing at the feeling. At that moment…I was hating life.

"Where am I?" I asked, trying to uncomplicate my mind. Is uncomplicate even a word? I don't care. I'm using it anyways. But I needed my questions answered somehow if I was going or doing anything.

It was then that I noticed that Mr. Smoothness wasn't wearing his civilian clothes anymore. He had on a black and orange top with silver armor covering most of his body. He had black gloves and metal bottom shoes. His face was covered by a mask. One half of it was orange and the other half was black just like his shirt. Only one eye was shown as he stared silently at me. I wondered what happened to the covered one. I wasn't stupid enough to ask, though.

"You are not in Pennsylvania anymore, if that answers your question," Mr. Smoothness said while folding his arms in front of his chest. He looked at me up and down, perhaps sizing me up for something he had planned in his future. I was the kid that had been captured. I had no say in my near future right now.

I secretly scanned the room for any opening for me to get my butt out of there. Even though my brain had been shut down for hours and was forced into unfamiliar territory, it was working smoothly for once. I had been up for only a few seconds and I had already made a goal for myself. All I wanted was to escape from this crazy dude. That goal is a repetitive one.

Without warning, I dived to the side in an attempt to escape by surprise. My muscles protested against the sudden move, but I ignored my soreness and made a mad dash for the open metal door behind the man. He stepped to the side and actually let me pass him. He wasn't worried at all that I would escape. I figured this out when I made it to the door and ran into two robots that had appeared there.

The two robots looked very much alike Mr. Smoothness. The armor was exactly the same color and such. They grabbed my arms and turned me around to face my captor. I didn't like my little defeat and protested against it by shouting up a storm and kicking everything that came into contact with me…mostly the air. I didn't like the fact that I was being held somewhere against my own will. If I wasn't so mad I think I would be scared out of my mind. I didn't want to look like a wimp, so I kept trying to feel angry to not show my fear.

Some other robot came in with a simple wooden chair. My butt was shoved into it; and while one robot kept me in the seat, another put a pair of handcuffs on me. They then stood back and seemed to vanish into the shadows of the small room we were in. I glared at the robots and sulked in my chair, unable to move.

My anger front was working nicely up until this point. I looked back to where Mr. Smoothness was standing and gasped when I was suddenly staring into his face. Now that my anger was completely gone and my fear had returned, questions were now exploding in my head once again. I gulped as a lump of fear formed in my throat.

"Who are you?" I wasn't very original or creative with my question forming. After the first one came out, the others just spilled from my mouth rapidly. "Where am I? What do you want with me? What's so special about me? What did you do to me back in the park?"

I didn't get to finish my question spree. The man stepped back from me with an annoyed look in his eye. He held up a little remote and pressed a button on it. Instantly, a loud buzzing sound exploded in my head. It was intense and painful, like my full body muscle cramp that made me pass out. I stopped talking right away and winced. Once my talking had finished, he pressed the button again and the pain stopped.

I sat there in the chair, panting from the pain. "No more questions," the man said emotionlessly. I shook my head as the sting of the buzz slowly faded from my brain. He was controlling my nerves or something with that remote. He had already done it twice now. The thought of this man controlling me for the rest of my life didn't do anything good to my already spiked fear.

"What is th…," I began to ask him. I stopped when he held up the remote as if to hint that he was serious about my questions. "Fine," I spat out with frustration running deep in my voice. How was I to do anything if I didn't ask questions?

"I am wondering what that thing in your hand is," I said with a sly smile. "I am also wondering why I'm here and what you want with me."

Surprisingly enough, the man didn't look too annoyed at me. He nodded his head as if satisfied and put the remote back into his belt again. "We have a lot to cover in the next few years," the man said with a sigh. He looked down on me and asked, "How good of shape are you in?"

I averted my eyes away from him and to the ground. There was silence for a few seconds. I could feel the man's eye bore down on me with harshness. He wouldn't let me ask any questions! Why should I answer his?

"You were talking immensely just a minute ago, boy," the man said down to me. "Talk."

"First of all, I have a name, mister," I said. I stared straight back at him now. "You're the one who kidnapped me, so you should know it. Use it for once! And I would yours, but I don't freaking know it!" I sighed after my small tirade and muttered bitterly, "I don't know anything at this point."

"Your last sentence was the only intelligent one I've heard from you yet," the man said. He circled my chair while saying, "And that is why I refuse to call you Gene, boy. You know absolutely nothing; about me, about fighting, and even about yourself. Until you learn these things and win my respect, you're nothing more than a stupid schoolboy in my eyes."

"Fighting?" I asked. "Why would I want to know about fighting?"

He stopped in front of me with his hands clasped calmly behind his back. "So you do listen?" he asked me with a small sarcastic tone in his voice. I frowned at him. Boy was I frustrated with this man!

"So far I've listened to everything you've said," I stated, "And everything you've said is confusing. I just want my questions answered. Why can't you just answer one?"

The man stared down at me for a second or two. I think he was pondering my question. I didn't dare break my eye contact with him. I was afraid that if I did I wouldn't be worthy enough to him and he wouldn't say anything. Finally he motioned for his robots to leave the room. The metal medal door closed swiftly behind the last one. I realized I was alone with this man again. For some reason this made me more scared than before.

"I'll start by introducing myself," the man said once he was able to get my eye contact again. "I am Slade…but for now on you will call me Master." I went through at least three emotions in only the matter of seconds. First I was confused by the term Master. Then I got scared. It didn't take me long to get angry at Slade. I opened my mouth to say something to blow him off, but he simply fingered the remote on his belt. I shut my mouth and let the man continue. I hoped he wasn't button happy.

"You, boy, are not as simple as you might think," Slade said slowly. This sentence caught my attention and I gave him a quizzical look. "You are actually someone else," Slade explained, "Two people, in fact." This time I gave him a complete stupid look. He was beating around the bush. I wasn't getting any of his hints. "You're a clone, boy," Slade suddenly said boldly.

"Huh?" was the only thing I was able to say. I then surprisingly started to laugh. It was a weird moment. I thought I was getting punked or something. I was expecting Ashton to walk out any moment now. When my laughs had died down I asked, "You're not serious are you?" I giggled and said, "So I'm like Dolly the sheep."

"You're cloning process is faster than regular cloning," Slade said emotionlessly. "You are only five years old…but you grew very fast and now have a brain of an average 14-year-old. You will stop growing once you are six or seven years old. Both DNA strands that I fused to make you made you have a time limit to your growth."

"But then how come I have parents?" I asked. "Don't tell me I was adopted."

"I hired them to take care of you till the right age," Slade said simply. "Tell me, do you remember anything before the age of eleven?"

I was about to say yes, but then when I tried to remember just one memory I found none. "This has to be a joke," I said. "If I was a clone, wouldn't I have the same memories as the real people, or sense them? So far there is no definite proof."

"The memories will come in due time," Slade said. "But you won't have any connection if you don't interact with your original selves. Your powers should develop very soon, though. You won't have to worry about any of these things. I have your future planned out."

"Yeah, that makes me very calm," I said sarcastically. "Some madman is now planning my future. I'm completely fine with that." I rolled my eyes then asked, "And what exactly do you mean by powers? Whose DNA did you clone me from? Superman?"

"Their superheroes from the team Teen Titans," Slade answered after a thoughtful pause. "That is all I dare to tell you at the moment about them. Once your telekinetic, telepathic, and transportation powers start to develop, I'm going to have to tell you more about one of the Titans. She is very well disciplined in controlling them, and I hope you are too."

"You talk like all of this is real," I muttered. I have never really been a gullible person. I never fell for those lame jokes in school dealing with it either. Right now I didn't believe a word he was saying. He was making a good point here and there, but I could never see myself as a super powered clone. It was too ridiculous. But then again…it also felt right. Uh! Everything is so confusing these days!

"Believe it or not, boy," Slade said with an uninterested shrug. "But I made you." He walked behind me and suddenly grabbed the back of my chair. Effortlessly, he dragged me in the chair to the door. The robots were there to greet me again. They released me from the chair and we started to walk down a dark hallway, passing only a few labeled metal doors.

"Whoa! Wait!" I shouted, getting over my shock. "There is no point to this! Don't I get any say in this?"

"Actually, no," Slade said behind his shoulder. "This is only for your own safety. Plus, Guinea pigs have never had a choice in things in the many years science has been preformed on this earth." A hint of humor was in his usual unemotional voice as he said this.

I pushed back on my feet and struggled to get out of the grasp the robots had on my arms. "This has to illegal!" I shouted at Slade. The man only laughed at my lack of knowledge and kept walking briskly down the hallway ahead of me. The robots tightened their grip and dragged me roughly along.

Suddenly we stopped. Slade passed a card through a scanner on a metal door labeled in black letters "Cell Number Five". I watched silently as I was escorted into the metal cube like room. A large hole was in the middle of the floor of the room. I row of different colored buttons lined far wall. Slade pressed the blue one and a compartment came out of the wall.

"Nifty," I muttered. Slade glanced over to me, noticing that I was for once not freaking out in some way. He took out a file and pen from the compartment. I spotted the name and read it out loud. "Project: Mockingbird?" I asked.

"You're whole life is in this folder," Slade told me casually. His character was confusing me. When he was chasing me I thought of him of some psycho path. But now he seemed more like a strict father or something. It was weird.

"Drop him in," Slade told his robots after writing a few things in the folder. He closed it and put it back. He then pressed the green button and instantly the rows of bars opened up for the hole in the floor. I realized this was going to be my prison.

"This can't be happening," I muttered to myself. I was pushed to the edge of the side of the hole. "I'm only fourteen!" They unlocked the handcuffs. I was able to keep from falling the first time they tried to push me over the edge. I stared down into the hole with dread. It looked more like a dungeon than a jail cell.

The second time they pushed, I wasn't as lucky. With a cry of surprise, I tipped forward and fell into the hole. I landed on my back with a loud thud. I groaned as the pain washed over my body from the hard fall. I coughed as the dirt as the floor made a dust cloud around me. I sat up and looked straight up to where Slade was staring back down at me.

"This will keep you from boredom," Slade said while dropping something into my cell. The backpack landed a few feet away from me. I glanced over to it then back up to Slade. "I'll be checking up on you in a few days," he said. The man quickly added, "Don't try something stupid."

"Like what?" I shouted back up at him. "I'm stuck in a freaking hole!" Slade left without another word. "Get back here!" I screamed up at him. "You can't just keep me here for the rest of my life!" I kept yelling incoherently at no one but to myself after the bars came back above me and the door to my cell closed shut. I felt like a kid putting up a tantrum for candy in a grocery store, but I kept going.

Once I finally calmed down and spoke to myself that I was fine, I checked my surroundings with a depressed sigh. As I explained it before, it was a royal dump. I had been stripped of my watch, so I had no idea what the time or day it was. This ticked me off even more because I was always the person who looked at their watch when nervous or bored. It just became habit after a while. Watches become part of people. Yeah, I sounded crazy again, didn't I?

"Great!" I whispered sarcastically to myself. I looked up and spotted a camera looking down on my. I moved one way and it followed my move. I frowned up at it. Slade wasn't letting me escape easily. My mission from second one with this guy was getting away. It was still there telling me to escape. A plan was already forming in my head. The plan at the time was stupid, though. I won't go into details, but it was like something out of a Superman comic from way back when. I read too many comics.

But first things first.

I rushed to the small bathroom as my stomach lurched suddenly. I guess the sudden extreme stress and physical torment on my body had caught up with me. I opened the door and spotted the disgusting, fungus covered toilet and sink. There wasn't much a good choice. It was garbage or poop? I dived for the toilet and heaved up whatever I had eaten in the last 24 hours. It wasn't the greatest feeling and I'm sorry I had to tell you this, but it is important.

When I was done, I went to flush the grossness down the toilet. Suddenly I saw something metal in my vomit as the stuff swirled around. I dived into my toilet and clamped down onto the two metal bugs, spraying water and vomit all over my shirt. I winced at the smell, but it was worth it. I now had the things Slade had controlling me with in my very hands. I just knew the bugs had been the ones giving me those cramps and the extreme headache.

Thinking quickly, I grabbed a dirty plastic cup off the sink counter and put the bugs under it on the sink. I smiled to myself for my wonderful luck. My shirt now smelled like vomit, but my escape of this place had gotten brighter.

After that I mulled around my prison, busying myself by writing all this to you guys. I didn't know how I am exactly going to tap into my powers and send it to you or even if I can. (I'm actually hoping I can't.) I just needed to write. But now that I know my escape plan, I'm ready to leave this place. They have been keeping me in good health with plenty of clean water and dinner, but I'm not going to spend my life as Slade's worthless experiment. I'm going to get my butt out of here…tonight.

I've been thinking a lot about what Slade said to me a few days ago. I can't get the idea of me being a clone out of my head. I know I shouldn't believe him, but I keep thinking I am. To prove it, I'm going to go give the Teen Titans a visit once I get out here. They must know that they have been cloned. If not, I'm Gene, a normal kid with no powers and you guys won't be reading this right now.

Man, I miss you guys so much! I wish I could throw this all behind me, but I want to find out the truth about myself. I will see you again, I promise. But right now I need to do this. I hope you guys don't have to read this, because if you are, I have powers and what Slade said could be true. If you are reading this, I'll write more for you once I've escaped.

Later,

Gene

End of Journal 1

A/N: This chapter wasn't as great as my others. It was more like an informational chapter. The Titans will be in my next chapter, though. Gene's friends will be in it too. Please give a review!