Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men or any of its' derivatives. I am not making nor seeking profit in writing this, excepting the profit of taking pride in my own work and imaginative capability.

Note: This is primarily an X-Men: Evolution story because of the possibilities for insertion. At some point I may bring in themes or ideas from the other X-Men universes (i.e. The movies and the comics). My character is mine and mine alone, but if you want to borrow, just ask. I don't mean to offend Anyone by using the name Azrael, it's just the only one that seemed to fit right.

Distribution: If you want it, ask. Otherwise, don't.

'aaa' thoughts, introspective, etc.

-aaa- telepathy (Jean and Xavier talking in someone else's head)

To Fly on Metal Wings

Chapter 3

Unknown

When Greg became aware of his surroundings he found himself in an unfamiliar place. He couldn't remember much past exiting his school and seeing that weird guy in armor then everything just went … 'wait minute, why am I seeing everything in silver?'. Shock and fear galvanizing him into motion Greg leapt up searching for danger in any form. He became more alert and found himself in a non-descript room with grey walls and a heavy-looking door, there was no window, and nothing but a mirror, a bed, and a toilet in the way of furniture.

"Great, just fucking great!" Greg yelled. "Where the frilly heck am I now!?"

Greg walked over to the door and began to reach for the handle he assumed would be there, he stopped when he realized there was no handle. 'Oh great, now I get to be cliché: … I have a really bad feeling about this' Greg muttered. He walked over to the mirror and looked in. 'Okay, two arms, two legs, head, torso, five fingers on each hand, I'll assume the feet are fine due to the fact that I can walk and I'm not screaming in pain, … why don't I have pupils, or cornea, or eyes?!!!' looking back at him was a shiny pair of flawless silver marbles that somehow still worked as his eyes should.

"ohmigod, OhmiGod, OH My God!!! My eyes!! What the Fuck happened to My Eyes!!!!" Greg screamed.

"To put it quite simply, Mr. Lever, your latent gene awoke. Congratulations! You're a mutant!" stated a voice from behind him. "The first group of mutants put here under government protection, for your safety, and ours."

Greg spun on his heel to face the person who had addressed him as he had his panic attack in front of the mirror. There was a man standing in the previously closed door. He stood around five and a half feet tall with soft features and short cut light-brown hair. He wore the traditional "mad scientist" lab coat over a rather unremarkable set of casual clothes, a pair of tan slacks and a white polo shirt. He had no nametag on either the coat or around his neck.

"You were brought here by the military detachment that was sent to search for Magneto and his associates, they dropped you and two other students off before leaving. The had to help with the recovery effort at your High School." the man stated.

"Recovery effort? What do you mean, the last thing I remember was that weird guy in armor and the Halloween reject making an earthquake showing up after the SUNY assembly."

"Your school was the epicenter of a very localized earthquake caused by Magneto's associate he calls himse-"

"Who's this Magneto guy you keep mentioning anyway?" Greg cut in.

"I believe you referred to him as a 'weird guy in armor', the government has recently discovered that he calls himself Magneto." the scientist replied.

"So … who are you?" Greg asked.

"My name is Dr. Micelli, and I will be your observer." the man replied.

"Observer, what do you mean by that?"

"As the name implies, I observe; specifically, I will observe you as you come into your mutation. We have a vested interest in discovering exactly what happens to a mutant and when, so we can learn if it can be stopped or altered in any way."

"Wait, you're gonna experiment on me?" Greg was shocked, 'tell me this ain't happening, please God, tell me they're not gonna cut me open to find out what makes me tick'.

"No, no, nothing so invasive. We simply wish to do a case study of a mutant's natural growth." Dr. Micelli quickly refuted.

"Do I get a choice in this?" Greg inquired.

"Well, no, not really, no; you see you face culpability as a contributing factor to the destruction of your High School, and the injury of some 73 of your classmates. You have the choice of facing criminal charges or participation in a three-year study funded by the government to research the growth of a mutant into maturity." the doctor explained.

"WHAT??? What do you mean contributing factor?!!" Greg yelled at the man.

"You were witnessed releasing a tremendous amount of unknown power in the vicinity of the North wing of your school, that particular area is now naught but a 30 foot pile of rubble. We are not sure who precisely destroyed the building, but you are one of the main suspects."

"But … but I don't remember that, I couldn't have done that! My friends! They were with me, what happened to them?" Greg was panicking.

"The injury reports aren't complete but as far as I know there have been no fatalities reported as of yet and the worst I have heard about was a spiral fracture of a boy's right arm."

"Thank God! Is there any way I can find out if my friends are alright, please tell me, I have to know! And my parents, they have to be told about this, and-"

"I'm afraid that that's impossible at the moment, the Governor has declared a state of emergency and only high-priority messages are to be sent at the moment. Your parents are being sent for as we speak, and I will find out about your friends before our next meeting. Try to get some rest, we'll speak more in a group session in a few hours. Right now I need to go see to the other two students that were brought in with you." Doctor Micelli left the room and closed the door behind himself, it was accompanied by several clicks and a bang. That led Greg to believe that he wasn't getting out of the room without permission anytime soon.

Greg sat down on the bed and tried to organize his thoughts about what he had been told. 'Okaaaay, Item 1: I'm no longer recessive for the mutant gene. Item 2: So far as I know the extent of my ability at this point is, well, nothing. I have weird fucked up eyes and that's it. I suppose I could just do nothing and have a physical mutation only, that'd be fine. Item 3: Item 2 is flawed because I'm partially responsible for destroying my high school, I get to live every teenager's dream of destroying the high school, but in typical me fashion I get caught in the process. Item 4: I'm almost required to stay under military jurisdiction for the next three years or face an open and shut case of destruction of State property. Gahhhh my life is Hell.' Greg laid down and decided to try to nap, maybe this was all a bad dream and he'd wake up at home to do the day over again. He'd had dreams like that before, they were surprisingly detailed too.

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Okay, for anyone that's actually still looking at this: yes, I'm late, again, I know. Life's a bitch sometimes. I'm planning on a rather large time skip next because otherwise I'll be bogged down in explanations for the next 4 chapters and we won't be having any x-men involved for a good long while. I also realized I was following traditional and well used plot lines even without knowing it and it annoyed me so I had to re-think my character's motivation and near future, that took a while. Chapter four is already in the works and I know nobody is gonna expect what's going to happen. Stay on those tenterhooks people!