Book 1-Chapter 3
3/20/2023
Westchester County/New York
At the rear of the school and training with the rest of the Hellions is Xander who was wielding a wooden sword of all things while fighting against Warren. Who thought training was a waste of time but despite his overwhelming strength advantage, Warren was put on the backfoot by Xander's level of skill.
In a real fight with weapons, Xander knew that Warren would win but since he hasn't taken any training seriously, Xander currently had the edge before Warren leaned to the side and caught Xander in the side with one of his wings, which knocked Xander down.
The wings were a lot tougher than they look and Xander had just learned that the hard way…For the tenth time since the training drills started.
The skill [Long Sword Mastery] has levelled up! Level: 14-15!
The skill [Physical Pain Resistance] has levelled up! Level: 9-10!
The job [Fighter] has levelled up! Level: 1-2! You have earned the skill [Power Slash]!
Xander dusted himself off as he stood up and dismissed the skill alerts that appeared in front of him.
"What are those things made out of?" Xander asked as he felt a bit sore.
"Bone and hatred." Warren replied in a sour tone of voice, making Xander roll his eyes in response. Warren is a pain a lot of the time but during training he becomes a kid throwing a tantrum when he doesn't win, or gets his butt kicked for a decent amount of time.
"If you're that pissed about this, then take training seriously and put in more of an effort so you won't be on the losing end of things." Xander replied to his training partner without caring about how he feels at the moment.
"What was that?" Warren asked with a scowl.
"I said you need to put in more effort and take this training seriously." Xander said back to Warren before Colossus stepped up to the duo in his metallic form.
"Easy you two. Training is meant to sharpen your skills, not your grudges." Peter said in a calm voice.
"I don't have a grudge against him sir but I'm tired of him being negative all the time when it comes to training. He throws a tantrum when things don't go his way and doesn't even bother to try and get better." Xander said back to his teacher.
"That is true." Peter said before looking over at Warren. "Warren, you have a habit of overestimating your capabilities and eventually that will get you hurt. So, put in more of an effort to improve and maybe you'll become as tough as you make yourself out to be."
Warren simply rolled his eyes in response before walking off. Normally Peter or Emma would go after him, but training was coming to an end today anyway.
"Alright everyone. That will end things for today." Emma said as the training class was dismissed, and the Hellions dispersed and went their own separate ways for the rest of the day.
"Training wasn't too bad for today." Xander said to himself before Albion materialized in the air as Xander laid down in his bed.
"You're coming along well master. Your constant training has set you down the path of a proper fighter, but I would say that you would progress faster with a bit more battle experience." Albion said as he hovered in the air.
"I know but it's not like I can just randomly stumble into a dungeon and clear it out for more power." Xander said back to his Embryo.
"I understand master. I am simply stating my thoughts." Albion replied with what Xander assumed was a sly smile on his face before they both heard a knock at the door to Xander's room. Luckily enough he was still dressed in just jeans and a black tank top, so he had no issue getting the door and saw none other than Angelica, dressed in a dark short sleeved shirt and jeans with a purse slung over her shoulders and basic sneakers on her feet.
"Angelica? What brings you by?" Xander asked in a bit of confusion.
"Well, the Hellions and the New Warriors are gathering together for a night out on the town later and I wanted to invite you to the party." Angelica said with a smile.
"A party?" Xander asked with some hesitation.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No, it's just…I was never really invited to many parties or anything so, you just caught me off guard." Xander said back with a bit of a nervous chuckle as Angelica let out a gasp.
"Well, now you have to come with us. I can't sit by and let you go another day without having a fun time at a party with your friends." Angelica said back and Xander simply smiled back in response.
"Sure. Tell me the time and place, and I'll be there."
"You don't have to worry about that. I'll come and get you later. So, make sure you wear something nice but not to flashy." Angelica said before she left and allowed Xander to crawl back onto his bed with a fresh smile on his face.
"A party. I think it will be fun master." Albion said with encouragement in his voice.
"Me too. Angelica is nice and I don't think she'd invite me to a party just to prank me or something." Xander said and the rest of the day went on smoothly until sunset when Angelica knocked on Xander's door.
Xander left the room, dressed in a punk rock shirt and jeans with boots on his feet, as he tried to look cool or something, while Angelica was still dressed in the same outfit she wore after training.
"So, where are we actually going?" Xander asked as the duo walked the halls of the school for a while until they entered the car garage and saw the rest of the large group.
"Where going to the prom at Midtown High School. Well…One of their proms anyway." Angelica said back and Xander felt as if a rock had just formed in his stomach as he and Angelica made their way to the group. Xander took notice that Warren and Paul weren't here with them as he looked on at the other mutant teens.
Scott, Jean, Anna, Robert, Alison, Tabitha, Kurt, Katherine, Jubilee, Douglas, Jeanne and Samuel. In order of codenames, they are Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Rogue, Iceman, Dazzler, Boom-Boom, Nightcrawler, Kitty, Jubilation, Cypher, Aurora, Cannonball, Firestar and Xander himself, codenamed Dragonborn.
Xander gave the excuse that the name was clever because he could summon a dragon but honestly, he was just ripping off DnD and Skyrim. Then again, the other codenames were fairly obvious ones so Xander didn't feel too bad about his name.
"So, what exactly are we going to be doing?" Kurt asked as Xander got a good look at the teleporter and could understand why some people might fear him, but after talking with the guy, Xander knew he was one of the nicest guys in the world.
"We're going to one of the many proms that Midtown has to offer, so we can all have a fun time together as fellow X-men in training." Jean said to everyone as Tabitha crossed her arms.
"This coming from one of the official X-men members." Tabitha said back.
"Were only barely X-men, due to certain circumstances. Experience wise we are like the rest of you, except for being out on a handful of official missions that got us put in the spotlight. The missions weren't full of action or anything, but they got some attention." Scott explained honestly and Tabitha simply rolled her eyes in response.
"But what if they don't let me in?" Kurt asked as he was clearly concerned about his appearance.
"That's actually another reason why we are going out. Professor McCoy designed this technological watch for you Kurt. The science of it goes over my head but basically it does something with light waves or whatever and makes you look normal." Jubilee said before handing Kurt a watch that he put on, and when he pressed a button, he visibly changed into a fair skinned and blue haired teen in baggy clothes.
"Whoa." Douglas said with wide eyes.
"This is amazing." Kurt said as he looked himself over.
"It doesn't change you physically, just visibly. It's like a trick of the light, so be careful if you let someone touch you or something." Jean said to Kurt with a supportive smile before the group started piling up into cars. Xander was actually a bit shocked by the fact that Scott, Jean and Samuel could each drive cars and that Scott and Jean both had access to four-seater cars while Samuel had a van in the garage of this school, but he didn't bother asking questions.
He got into Scott's car along with Douglas, Angelica and Alison, as the large group made their way towards Midtown High School.
When they arrived, they saw that the school was very active and festive despite how late it was. The music was loud, and people were having fun. Jean used some of her mind abilities to let the group gain access into the prom. She wasn't happy about it and wouldn't make a habit of it, but the group was happy with Jean none the less.
"This is a prom?" Kurt asked with a bit of confusion as he looked around at the school gym and the prom scenery. Apparently the prom had some kind of medieval knight and royalty theme going on with knight statues and pictures of castles and what not.
"Is this your first prom too?" Angelica asked Kurt before she put an arm over Xander and pulled him close. "This is Xander's first prom too. You two need to have as much fun as possible." Angelica said and soon enough everyone started having a good time. Dancing, drinking fruit punch, talking to some of the people and overall, it was a pretty good time.
"Well, look at what we have here." A familiar voice said loudly, getting a small bit of attention.
"Oh no." Xander said before he turned around and saw Flash walking up to him along with a few of his buddies.
"Xander. I didn't think I'd ever see your sorry ass here at Midtown again, but it looks like this prom is going to be fun." Flash said with a cocky smile.
"Flash I'm not here looking for trouble." Xander said back to Flash.
"Too bad for you then. I'll give you a choice. Do you want a swirlie in the toilet or in the punch bowl…Oh, who am I kidding. I'll probably do both." Flash said as he and the other jocks took a step or two towards Xander before some of his friends came up to him.
"Xander, is this guy one of your friends or something?" Samuel asked as he, Alison and Jubilee stepped onto the scene.
"He used to be, before he turned into a jerk. Right now, he is threatening to dunk my head into the fruit punch and the toilet." Xander said back.
"Look at his boys. Little, puny Xander made some friends." Flash said mockingly.
"Wow. You really are a meat headed jock stereotype huh?" Jubilee asked, making Flash's arrogant grin turn into an annoyed scowl.
"What'd you say?" Flash asked back.
"Oh, your death too." Jubilee said back mockingly.
"Watch it girly." Another jock said back in anger.
"Come on Xander. Don't bother with this jerk." Samuel said before he turned around and started to walk away, with Xander, Jubilee and Alison following him and before Flash could do something stupid, everyone at the prom heard a massive explosion as one of the walls caved in, sending in a bunch of dust and debris into the gym, making students panic and head for the exit.
"What the hell?" Xander asked as Jean used her telekinetic abilities to clear away the dust and revealed several armed soldiers with rifles. Before any of the X-men could react, the soldiers fired their rifles. Luckily Jean protected herself and some of the other students behind her but Xander, Jubilee, Samuel, Alison, Douglas and Jeanne each got shot, but not with bullets and instead with several tranquilizers that knocked them out before they hit the ground.
Cyclops lifted his shades and fired his optic blasts towards some of the armored goons and he managed to knock a few of them back. Their armor protected them and somehow seemed to slightly nullify the impact of his eye beams before the other mutant teens got blinded by one of the soldiers firing what a flash bang like explosive from his gun.
"We've got enough! Go! Go! Go!" One of the soldiers said before laying down some suppressing fire by shooting live rounds at the roof and brough down parts of it down onto the ground, forcing the other mutants to evacuate out of the building as the other soldiers gathered the unconscious teens and headed out of the wall they burst through. They loaded the teens into a containment vehicle before speeding off into the darkness.
1
"Ow. My head." Xander said with some slight pain as he opened his eyes and saw that he wasn't at Midtown High School anymore and instead he was somewhere entirely different. Xander saw that he was inside of what looked to me a metallic prison cell, that looked filthy and unclean as well as being in what could have been some kind of underground dungeon given all the weird chains and devices he saw outside of his cell.
"Where am I?" Xander asked himself as he went up to the bars and grabbed them before getting a nasty shock that quickly made him let go of his grasp on the bars.
"Sorry but you're not going to want to touch those again." A voice said as Xander saw a group of people coming towards him from the right side of the hallway. These people are clad in body armor with skull paintjobs on them and in the center of the group is a middle-aged man in a business suit.
William Stryker, Level 14
Former Sergeant
"I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you're the boss of the goons who shot at me?" Xander asked with a scowl on his face.
"Smart, aren't you?" William asked before stepping close to the bars. "You and your friends are going to be staying here for a while. I need you for some important research after all. The blood of you and your high priority friends will help me learn what I need to learn. Sadly, you're not a high priority, so you're going to be down here for a while with the…Mistakes." William said before he turned around to leave with his men. "Don't worry kid. You'll be more then eager to do what I want, soon enough."
William and his men left and sure enough Xander was by himself and started hearing some unsettling noises nearby.
"Are you alright master? I've just woken up from our forced sleep." Albion said telepathically to Xander, which got the teen to calm down a bit and let out a breath.
"Yeah, I'm fine but the others might be in danger." Xander said before taking a moment to think about what his next move should be. "We, need to get out of here Albion and save our teammates."
"If that's what you want, then I'm with you." Albion said before materializing near Xander as Xander saw a quest alert appear in front of him.
Quest Alert!
Name: Escape Stryker's Hidden Base
Objective: Find all your teammates and escape this place together!
Rewards: 15,000 EXP, 1 Loot Orb!
Do you accept this quest? Y/N?
Xander's eyes narrowed in a serious expression as he didn't hesitate to accept the quest and save his friends. Of course, the first step in this reckless plan was to figure out a way out of this jail cell.
"Albion can you focus your Pyro Sphere into intense heat and hold it near the bars?" Xander asked as Albion thought about it for a moment.
"I should be able to. It won't be a problem." Albion replied before he hovered near one of the bars and generated the sphere of energy but held it in his jaw as he focused and made the sphere generate intense heat and for a moment Albion held it as the bar started heating up before it slowly started melting until a section of the one bar melted into goop.
You have generated the [Blaze] skill! Also, you can now share skills with Albion, meaning you both have access to the same skills!
Xander, ignored the game screen that appeared before Albion went to work on the upper section of the bar and soon melted a part of that too, making the single bar fall onto the ground as Albion then did the process to some of the other bars until Xander was able to walk through the bars of the cell.
"First part of the plan is done but I shouldn't go the same way the guards came in, unless I plan on getting shot." Xander said before he and Albion headed in the opposite direction of the hallway and soon found some disturbing things. Dead bodies on metal tables, tubes of preserving gel containing body parts and all sorts of strange equipment all over the place.
"What is this house of horrors?" Xander asked as he went over to one of the medical beds and looked over the equipment and saw an actual long sword…Or at least it seemed like one. It was just a long piece of sharpened steel with a handle. "I guess this is better than nothing."
"A strange looking device. I don't want to think about what it has been used for." Albion said bluntly and Xander felt the same in that regard before they heard something knock over a nearby table and when they looked forward, they saw what caused the crash.
Mutated Abomination, Level: 21
The monster has skin with various rips and tears in it, its body was thin but fit and it has several medical tubes coming out of its back with sharpened bone like claws on its hands and feet along with a brown sack over its head, showing only one red eye. Its skin is a bleached unnatural white as well and it was naked but seemed to lack any genitals at all.
"Dear god." Xander said in total shock at what he was looking at before the abomination let out a low pitch groan before it started heading towards Xander. In response Xander panicked but thrusted his strange weapon towards the monster and stabbed it through the chest but the monster tried swiping at Xander's face.
"Pyro Sphere." Albion said as he fired a blast at the monster's head staggering it a bit before Xander raised his foot and kicked the monster, forcing it off of his blade before Xander thrust again and this time aimed at its head, killing it as it collapsed onto the ground after Xander dislodged his weapon with a heavy and panicked breath.
Xander ignored the EXP he gained before swallowing a lump of saliva in his mouth as he slowly reached down and removed the sack from the monster's head and saw that it looked like a person buts the face was contorted and morphed into a bizarre appearance that almost made Xander vomit.
"This…Used to be a person." Xander said in disgust and discomfort.
"It's horrible master. I can't imagine what this person has been through, but we can't dwell on it or else that fate might happen to us." Albion said before he landed on Xander's shoulder to try and comfort him as Xander let out a heavy sigh and focused.
"Your right." Xander said before glancing down at the blood coating his makeshift weapon. "We have to move." Xander said before he and Albion heard more noises nearby.
2
To call this place a labyrinth would be an understatement in Xander's mind as he and Albion found themselves going through a series of passageways filled with…Failed experiments as Albion and Xander made their way through the monsters with various, but weakened abilities and recently Xander started getting loot drops from the monsters which contributed to his new gear.
Equipment!
Head: None
Torso: Light Weight Twisted Chest Piece
Under Torso: Punk Rock Shirt
Right Arm: Light Weight Twisted Arm Piece
Left Arm: Light Weight Twisted Arm Piece
Left Leg: Light Weight Twisted Leg Piece
Right Leg: Light Weight Twisted Leg Piece
Accessory Slot 1: None
Accessory Slot 2: None
Accessory Slot 3: None
End!
The twisted pieces of armor looked like pieces of light leather scout armor from Skyrim, but the difference was that the armor pieces looked to be made from scaley skin with rough bone bumps and small spikes lining them and they weren't nearly as strong as the armor and their durability was piss poor.
However, Xander did advance his job class a bit and even picked up a skill book or two.
"Looks like we finally found the way-out master." Albion said as they came up to a metallic door that they could go through. They just levelled up and were refreshed and ready to continue with their quest.
"First I should learn some of these skills that the monsters dropped." Xander said as he opened his Inventory and selected the skill books that got dropped and learned the following skills.
[Invisibility, Active Level: 1
You can use your mana to bend the light around you and make you invisible to the naked eye.
Warning! You will be visible with certain vision powers, detection technology and so on.
Cost: 10 MP per minute!]
[Crescent Blade, Active Level: 1
You can harness your mana into a bladed weapon and fire a crescent shaped blade at your enemies!
Cost: 20 MP!]
[Bronze Skin, Active Level: 1
You can focus your mana throughout your body and give it the density and toughness of bronze for extra protection!
Grants: 10 DT while active!
Duration: 45 Seconds!
Cost: 30 MP!]
"Awesome." Xander said to himself as he temporarily stashed his bladed weapon away for a moment before he opened the door and saw that he had entered what looked to be an advanced scientific building. "Albion, go into hiding. I'll call you if I need help." Xander said before Albion de-materialized and Xander closed the metal door behind him before turning invisible and made his way into this new section of the building and carefully sneaked passed a few moving guards, which allowed his to develop his Stealth skill a bit before he also pocketed some important files being left around by scientist as well as getting his hands on a floor plan for the entire complex and where he could go to locate his friends.
END!
A/N: Okay another chapter done, and I will say that chapters might be longer after I post this. I don't want to spoil any surprises, but I am working on something that has revitalized my creative juices as well as getting some writing tips and ideas to help things. In any case we are already in the first arc of the story, and I hope you guys will enjoy it.
Please, fav, follow and review.