Memories
Not Quite Xavier's
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"Right, I'm only here as a favour to Dr Pym. I've had enough of teaching powered teenagers for a lifetime. Students of the Avengers Academy, I am Tora Logan, also known as Dragon, Tigress and the Teacher from the Depths of Hell. I am also your Superhuman Culture teacher. Heaven knows why… I make it my mission to ignore most people…"
The students were staring at her in amazement. Reptil raised a hand.
"What does 'Superhuman Culture' entail?"
"Basically, I'm going to explain the difference between mutants, mutates and other types, explain about the mutant sub-culture and the ties linking the different super-hero teams. Be prepared for a headache. What is about to follow is incredibly convoluted, confused, involves time-travel, alternate realities and aliens. This is a family tree that is considered curious even in our line of work. As I mention names, the pictures will come up on the slides. This is Scott Summers, Cyclops. This is his father, who was the captain of a motley crew of space-pirates. This is Scott's younger brother, Havok, who is dating Lorna Dane, Magneto's daughter. We'll go into his family tree later. This is Scott's youngest full brother, Vulcan, ex-ruler of the Shi'ar empire and general bad guy, as well as Professor X's brother-in-law and his half-brother's… wait, I'm not too sure… He married the aunt of his half-brother. His half-brother's uncle. This is Scott's half-Shi'ar half-brother Adam Nermani. This is Cyclop's first wife, Madelyne Pryor, a clone of Scott's second wife, Jean Grey. This is Scott and Madelyne's son, Nathan Christopher Charles Summers/Dayspring/whatever name he goes by. Cable was infected by the techno-organic virus as a baby after his mother –insane after Scott left her for her genetic template- tried to kill him. Cable was sent to the future. On Scott and Jean's wedding night, their minds were sent to the future into cloned bodies to spend twelve years raising Cable and avoiding Cable's evil clone, Stryfe, who was heir to Apocalypse. Have I lost you yet?"
The students were almost all staring open-mouthed at Tora, with the exception of Finesse. Tora nodded and went onto the next slide.
"This is Rachel Summers, Scott and Jean's daughter from an alternate reality and wife of the Franklin Richards of that reality. She is also the matriarch of the Askani, the religious sect that Cable grew up as a part of. This is Nate Grey, the baby of the family and Scott and Jean's son from another alternate reality and a result of genetic engineering as Scott is bad and Jean good in that reality. X-Man and Cable are not the same person through alternate realities. Cable is the son of Scott and Madelyne. X-Man is the son of Scott and Jean Grey. This is Hope Summers, the mutant messiah (maybe) and Cable's adoptive daughter and therefore Cyclop's adoptive granddaughter. Right, any questions?"
"Are all super-hero families that confusing?"
"I've not finished. Returning to Havok and Polaris. Ahem. Lorna is the daughter of Magneto. Her maybe sister Zaladane was High Priestess of Garok, an evil god from the Savage Land. Their half-siblings are Anya, who died; Quicksilver, one of your teachers who was married to a member of the Inhuman Royal Family but I think that's just one shade of unreal too far and the Scarlet Witch. The Scarlet Witch married the Vision, had two magical construct sons who died and were reincarnated as two of the Young Avengers, one of whom appears to be in a serious relationship with the heir of the Skrull Empire and also happens to be Captain Marvel's son. The Vision's mind was based on Simon Williams', also known as Wonder Man and the Vision was also Ultron's son. Ultron considers Dr Pym to be his father, thereby the Summers are related not only to the Maximoffs/Lehnsherrs/Eisenhardts but to the Pyms as well."
"Er…"
"I've not finished. Magneto, as a child, was adopted by Etana Bat Aleka, who was the three-thousand year old paternal niece of Nightcrawler, who was the son of Mystique and Azazel, his maternal half-brother was Graydon Creed, the human supremacist; his maternal foster-sister is Rogue whose other mother was Destiny. He also had a huge number of paternal half-siblings I will not go into as right now I'm really beginning to think that offering to do a family tree was an absolutely terrible idea. Etana also adopted Logan, the Wolverine. Therefore you also have Daken, his sixty-year-old psychotic son; Romulus, Daken's equally psychotic foster father; Laura Kinney, Logan's female clone and then me. I have three children. One is refreshingly unattached, which is very good seeing as she's only three. Jamie is now apparently engaged to Valeria Richards as she told him he was the only person she'd ever consider marrying. I'm not going into the FF family right now as my head is already ringing. The other son, Curt, is your age, dating a vampire , is heir to an alien empire and the bond-son of the Crown Prince, and has an alien symbiote bonded permanently to him. The symbiote is the clone of Toxin, the son of Carnage, grandson of Venom and therefore has almost all of Spider-Man's memories. Spider-Man has a huge number of clones and right now I'm going off to take an aspirin, have a coffee and ring Havok to tell him he can do his own family tree."
Most of the students were staring at her with glazed eyes. Tora grinned.
"And yes, that is the most confusing of the super-hero family you will have to worry about. Well, it is most of the major super-heroes now I come to think of it…"
"Please don't go through that again…"
"Yes? Mettle, is it?"
"Yeah. I was just wondering, why do you have Iron Fist's symbol on your chest?"
She groaned.
"For the eighth-thousandth time, he stole my symbol. This is the traditional symbol of the Dragon Song, has been since the beginning of the universe. Iron Fist is called 'Young Dragon'. He defeated a dragon when he was young called Shou-Lao, who had been cursed by the Dragon Song with immortality but a fatal weakness. It was to do with fraudulently taking the identity of the Dragon in an attempt to be worshipped which kind of annoyed the actual Dragon and there was some sort of prophecy that the one to kill Shou-Lao would be blessed and that actually happened and Daniel ended up with the symbol of the Dragon burnt into his chest, blah-de-blah-de-blah and we've already had that argument when he tried to sue me for copyright infringement and I ended up suing him back because he was the one stealing my symbol and by implicating it was the opposite way around he was committing libel. It's all ancient history now."
"So he's wearing your symbol?"
"Well, he earned it. Dragon can't actually kill because it's all to do with preservation but it can offer substantial rewards for those who do kill its enemies. Like Iron Fist. He gained the power to wield his chi, as reward for defeating a pretender to the title of the First Dragon, who unfortunately keeps getting reincarnated. It drives Dragon crazy. Right, we're way off topic. Onto the different groups of superhumans. I believe that most of you are mutates?"
"Huh?"
"You aren't genetically coded to have your powers. You either gained them through an accident or through chemicals, radiation, so on, so forth. Any gods?"
"Er…No?"
"Good. Right, so all of you are mutates. Maybe. Mutants were maybe the most prevalent of the powered community. Well, until quite recently. Mutants are born with their powers, or rather the potential to have their powers. We have one extra gene, the X-Gene, on one, or in the case of some second generation mutants, both, of our twenty-third chromosomes. We call the first use of powers, which often happens at puberty or times of extreme emotional strain, the manifestation. Mutants are not Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Instead, we are Homo Sapiens Superior. There are other Homo Sapiens subspecies, like Homo Mermanus, the Atlantians. Namor, the Sub-Mariner, goes by the incredibly complicated genus of… wait for it, Homo Mermanus Sapiens Superior. In other words, a human-Atlantian cross-breed who also happens to be a mutant. Homo Inhumanus, or the Inhumans are very interesting. They were simple Cro-Magnon, but the Kree spliced DNA from the Eternals, Homo Aeternus, who were the sucessful result of Celestial genetic manipulation and have been mistaken for gods over the years. The Deviants, Homo Deviare were the failures, which is something I find very sorrowful. An entire race, genetic failures? The Celestials have always been very…controversial. They meddle in the genetics of primitive races without even feeling the need to hide what they are doing. This has led to conflict with the Watchers. Interestingly, both the Watchers and the Celestials take one of the Life Duo as their patron. The Celestials claim that, by moving evolution forward huge bounds, they are helping the Phoenix, preventing stagnation and bringing more self-aware beings –more psionic energy- for it to feed upon. The Watchers revere the Dragon, the preservation of the old and the gathering of knowledge. Which, basically, reveals my entire purpose in life, at least according to the cosmic entity that seems to think it deserves room in my already rather cluttered head and I've gone way too much off topic, haven't I?"
"I think so."
"Right, we'll do the mutant sub-culture in the next lesson. I'm going to continue. Right… Where was I? I'd done the mutates, whose genetic structure was altered by an outside force such as radiation or chemicals; the mutants, born with an extra gene that gives them powers; the other human variations… Ah! Gods! Thor and his kind, as much as they seem to be, are not God with a capital G. Instead they are simply manifestations of the planet's potential biosphere and almost all were born of Gaia, the Mother Goddess. The gods do seem to have great power, but when outside Earth, they command little respect amongst those who do not worship them. The avatars of gods, such as Moon Knight or Juggernaut, who I believe you may have met, are humans who are merely vessels for the power of gods. I also have an arrangement like that, but with a cosmic entity which seems to regard my mind as the place to lie back and put its feet up. Now, on to one of the things I hate most. Magic!"
"Er, why do you hate magic?"
"It defies logic. Magic is basically the use of natural energy fields to mimic other, natural powers such as reality warping, telepathy and element control. Almost all people have at least some magical potential. I am, in the words of Dr Strange, quite extraordinary in my complete lack of magical ability. I can't even tap into my own, personal life energy."
"Huh?"
"Apparently you'll be having a set of lessons in magic later in your syllabus so I won't go into detail as I'm likely to get much of it wrong. But, all you need to know is that there are two classes of magic wielders. Those who control it and those who are gifted abilities by magic yet cannot use magic themselves. Dr Strange is one of the former, as –in a way- was the Scarlet Witch, only her powers came from her mutant ability and she was only a beginner in actual magical theory. Now… tech based heroes!"
"Excuse me, I don't get half of what you're saying."
"Just take notes and I'll explain it in different lessons. This is just me giving a brief overview."
"We're meant to be taking notes? Even on that whole terrible family tree!"
Tora groaned and tried to remember everything she had said.
"I wish this was Xavier's… Right, this is Scott Summers, Cyclops, leader of the X-Men. This is his father…"
Death burst out laughing at the look on Tora's face.
"How wonderful!"
"Death?"
"Yes?"
"Remind me to find a way to kill you later."
A.N. Thanks to the Guest who reviewed Chapter 154. It helps that I know I'm not just shooting this story off into the ether. I may be quite sporadic in updates as I have a family holiday with no Internet, despite me having written up to 160. Hope you're all still there.