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I own nothing of Marvel, and I claim no money from this fanfiction. The only thing I own are my OC's/Original Characters and ideas.

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Issue #5: Breaking the Rules

10th of May/2024

Salem, New York/Xavier's school for gifted youngsters

"I don't need you to help me walk through the halls you know." Abraham said while walking through the halls next to Alani who had been helping him while his right leg was still in a cast to heal.

"I'm sorry but did you just say that you don't want me to carry your food trays during breakfast, lunch and dinner for you while you're healing?" Alani asked sarcastically, which made Abraham clear his throat a bit.

"What I meant to say was; can you please keep helping me until my leg is fixed?" Abraham quickly asked, making Alani chuckle.

"That's what I thought." Alani replied before asking a serious question. "So, how has your training with the cuckoos been?"

"They are extremely skilled, but they are strict instructors. They certainly take after their mother. Also, Phoebe scares me during training and when we're not training." Abraham quickly said as a mental image of Phoebe dressed as a gender bent Shao Khan from Mortal Kombat appeared in his mind with a hammer in one hand and a skull in the other.

That image made him shudder and shake his head in mild terror.

"There are easier ways for you to contact me, you know." Abraham said out loud, making Alani look at him with confusion before she realized that the cuckoos must have contacted him telepathically.

"Where's the fun in that? Besides, you asked us to train you, so you'd better be ready for all form of mental training because the bad guys sure as hell won't give you any warning." All three of the cuckoos said to Abraham through their shared telepathy before they spoke to Alani. "Alani, we can take things from here."

After speaking that message, the girls known as Phoebe, Celeste and Irma walked out of their room all dressed identically in white blazers that had black accents and collars along with blue shirts shown underneath the open blazers along with slightly tight blue jeans and black boots with slightly high heels and on each of their faces are designer sunglasses.

"Good luck." Alani said before walking away with a bit of speed in her steps while Abraham followed the girls into their dorm room, where Abraham sat on the bed while the girls stood in place in front of him as they formed a telepathic bond to one another to formally start the training.

The first exercise took place within Abraham's Mind Palace which took the form of an urban city of all things. Devoid of life and people except for the girls of course.

"Just like last time, you have to try and find us with your telepathy while we are trying to mask out psychic presence." Irma said before Abraham spoke.

"You can just say that this is a psychic version of hide and seek, you know."

"Shut it. Now start using your telepathy and try to find us." Phoebe said before the girls vanished before Abraham's eyes.

With a steady breath he called upon his telepathy and started searching for the cuckoo's mental impressions within his mind as far as his skill would allow him to search.

Within his mind he was able to walk and move around with ease compared to his damaged state in reality but that proved to help very little since the girls constantly moved around and tried to trick his senses to make the search more difficult.

Abraham didn't know how long it took but once he sat down on the mentally projected ground he began to meditate while using his telepathy to not only try to help improve his searching capabilities but to also destress and sure enough after some time his telepathy range has steadily increased at a faster rate and through his telepathy he managed to lock down on the location of each girl and spoke with them.

"I found you." Abraham said confidently with a smile before the training session came to an end and each person exited Abraham's Mind Palace and found themselves back in the real world.

[The skill [Telepathy] has leveled up! Level: 16-19]

[The skill [Meditation] has leveled up! Level: 24-26]

"Not bad. You learn fast." Irma complimented while Abraham mentally dismissed the game screens before his eyes.

"I try my best. How long were we training for?" Abraham asked before Celeste looked at the wall mounted clock in the shared room.

"An hour and thirty minutes. So, the time it took you to find us isn't great but then again, we only have people like Professor Xaviers, Frost, Xorn and Jean to compare you against and those people are monsters in term of telepathy." Celeste explained calmly.

"I'll take what I can get, I guess. Also, did any of you manage to figure out anything about the X-men's disappearance? Xorn and the others aren't telling me or any of the other squads anything." Abraham said before Irma spoke.

"We might have overheard a few thoughts. But if you're looking to help, you'd have to be willing to keep a secret." Irma said cryptically which confused Abraham before he saw a new quest screen appear before his eyes.

[Quest Alert!

Name: Rescue the X-men

The Cuckoo's have information regarding the missing X-men and are willing to help bring them home if you keep your mouth shut about the details and don't tell the other senior X-men.

Objective 1: Agree to secrecy.

Other objectives are to be determined.

Rewards: 7,000 XP, increased Reputation with other X-men training teams, massively decreased Reputation with '?' faction.

Failure: Possible Death.

Do you accept this quest? Y/N?]

Abraham mentally accepted the quest without a second thought before he spoke.

"I can keep a secret." He replied before the girls looked at each other for a moment before nodding their heads in agreement.

"Come with us. The first thing we need to do is get your leg healed and we happen to know a mutant here that can do that." Phoebe said with a smile and soon enough, Abraham followed the girls out of the room and through the halls of the school before coming towards an empty classroom where Abraham saw several students from different X-men squads all banded together.

"Joshua, can you fix Abraham's leg? Pretty please?" Celeste asked with a bat of her eye lashes towards the teen with golden skin who quickly bolted up from his seat.

"Y-Yeah. No problem." Joshua said with a light dark tinge of color appearing on his cheeks before he helped Abraham sit down in a nearby seat.

"You can heal my leg?" Abraham asked.

"Yeah, and sorry I didn't do it earlier. I've been healing people back and forth since the attack and when I overuse my powers I tend to blackout." Joshua said before he touched Abraham's knee with both hands and Abraham felt a sense of euphoria wash over him. "I'm speeding up your bodies recovery speed to heal your leg. It isn't a fun feeling so I'm stimulating your endorphins to act as a pain killer. So, the good news is that your leg will be healed but the bad news is that, due to overstimulation. You'll have a monster hangover tomorrow."

"Don't care. Love healing magic." Abraham said in a blissful voice, but he wasn't too far out of it to take notice of everyone who was in the room.

In addition to the three-in-one and Joshua. The other students are Umbra aka Patrick Nesbitt. Sidney Green. Megan Gwynn and Hisako Ichiki. Elixir and Umbra were the two most unfamiliar faces to Abraham, but they seemed nice enough despite him not knowing much about either teen.

"So, do we need to go over the plan again?" Patrick asked with a slight bit of confusion while looking at Abraham.

"We were going to do that anyway, Patrick. Besides, Abraham can keep a secret and if he can't we could simply make him think that all of this is a dream and nothing more." Phoebe said with a causal shrug, of her shoulders.

"This dude helped me fight off an alien. He's solid as far as I'm concerned." Hisako said in a serious tone of voice. "What happened to Wing can't happen to anyone else."

"What do you mean?" Abraham asked.

"My friend you helped save. His codename is Wing, but his friends call him Eddie…The alien guy injected Eddie with some experimental anti-mutation serum that nullifies the X-gene. Professor McCoy said that the serum isn't permanent, but the effects could possibly last years or decades before his, mutation resurfaces." Hisako explained with clenched fists. "I'm going to make that fucker pay for what he did."

Abraham's blissful state vanished after what he heard. Along with the fact that Joshua finished healing his leg. Abraham removed his cast with the gold-skinned teen's help before standing on both feet with a serious expression on his face.

"What do you all have planned?" Abraham asked before Sidney spoke up.

"Celeste, Irma and Phoebe's telepathy are linked to each other in a unique way that can amplify their power. Together they could use Cerebro to locate the teachers and principals. After that Megan and Patrick can fly the X-jet to the location and we rescue everyone." Sidney explained calmly.

"What about informing the remaining X-men?" Abraham asked before Irma spoke up.

"The other adults don't think we're ready to handle Cerebro because Vice-Principal Frost is still trying to coddle use. We are more than prepared. The adults are also needed here to protect the remaining students in case more people attack, so its best if we keep this little mission to ourselves."

"We're taking on a lot of risk here. We could possibly get expelled if things go south." Said Abraham who rested a hand on the back of his head while carefully going over the details of the plan that he was just informed about.

"If we don't do something, things we'll get worse regardless. We're being trained to be X-men, so what's the point in training if we aren't going to put the training to use." Patrick said heatedly.

"Abraham. Everyone here has been rocked by what happened and we all know someone that was seriously hurt or worse. We need to do this not just for the X-men. But for the people that got hurt because we let our guards down. So, are you in or are you out?" Celeste asked in her own serious voice, causing Abraham to look over at the girl before letting out a sigh.

"Tell me what I need to do."

1

"This is a horrible idea." Abraham said while standing in the school's science lab for students while the class is currently empty of students or teachers.

"I agree but it's the best way to cause a distraction." Megan said while hovering outside of the opened classroom window of the second floor while Abraham had a vial of chemicals in each hand along with a large container on the table in front of him.

"And your sure that the sprinkler system is still working?" Abraham asked with clear hesitation.

"I have been reassured that the sprinkler system is fully functional and remember that we aren't starting a fire. We're making a stink bomb." Megan replied, which allowed Abraham to take a quick breath before he stopped hesitating and placed the two liquid chemicals into the container and nearly instantly a green smoke came out of the container and showed no signs of stopping.

Abraham quickly ran over to Megan and grabbed her hand which allowed the teen to pull Abraham out through the window while being carried by the girl thanks to her wings. They heard the school alarms and sprinklers sound off while they made their escape and headed towards the southern side of the school.

Elsewhere in the underground portion of the school were the three-in-one who stood in front of the telepathy amplifying device known as Cerebro while having Sidney standing guard.

"It's now or never." Sidney quickly said to the girls who prepared themselves. Phoebe was the one who took the seat and placed the helmet on her head while Irma and Celeste started up the machine before placing their hands on Phoebe's shoulders.

With their minds linked they winced in pain and clenched their teeth from the sheer feedback and power it took to control Cerebro as it connected to every human and mutant mind on the planet.

Phoebe's breath started to quicken and sweat started forming on her face and started making some of her make-up run, but she persisted and focused her mind.

"It's so much psychic energy…So much power." Phoebe grimaced while she and her sisters did the best they could while trying to focus on the unique brainwaves of Emma Frost, whom they shared a telepathic link with and sure enough they managed to find her just before Phoebe screamed in pain before Celeste and Irma quickly pulled the helmet off her head while not fairing any better due to the sheer mental strain of Cerebro.

"Are you girls, ok?" Sidney quickly asked while moving towards them.

"The U-men…They have the X-men." Phoebe said weakly before forcing herself to stand. "We don't have a lot of time. We have to go now."

Afterwards, the makeshift team gathered in the X-men's docking bay for the X-men's Blackbird jet. They quickly changed into various black suits with yellow 'X's that marked them as potential X-men before Megan and Patrick took the pilot and co-pilot seats and prepped the jet for take-off.

"Guys…We need to go now." Celeste quickly said, catching the attention of the entire group before she spoke some more. "The X-men are coming, and they aren't happy."

"Too late now as they say." Megan said before the platform the jet was on started to rise into the air before the roof above them split vertically which allowed the jet to reach the outside or more specifically the basketball court of the school before Megan and Patrick made the jet take to the skies as the group headed towards, the Utah Badlands.

'Now's as good a time as any I suppose.' Abraham said to himself before he mentally summoned his Inventory screen and selected the rare skill book he earned some time ago.

[You have learned the [Psychic Bomb] skill!]

[Name: Psychic Bomb

Tier: 3

Category: Destruction

Level: 1

You have learned how to harness your psionic energy in order to form a large ball of kinetic energy that you launch at an enemy to deal massive damage on impact as well as area-of-effect damage on top of that.

Size: 10 Meter Sphere

Distance: 33 Meters

AOE: 20 by 15 full radius around target location.

Damage: 350 Damage

Scales with INT

Cost: 150 PSI]

Abraham knew, a finishing move when he saw one and he certainly wasn't going to use this move unless he wanted to deal some serious damage. And the damned skill was at level one which means that it's only going to get more powerful as time goes on.

"Are you nervous?" Sidney asked Abraham from his seated position on the ground of the jet instead of a normal seat.

"A little bit. But it's too late to turn back now." Abraham admitted to the guy.

"Good. I was thinking that I was the only nervous one here. What were doing could get us expelled but when I think about what happened…I just can't sit back and do nothing." Sidney replied with his own serious tone of voice.

"Without you and your team, the evacuations would have been in chaos and that could have led to more deaths." Abraham pointed out before Sidney sighed before rubbing his rocky head.

"I know and I'm grateful to have used my training to help people. But I just can't shake the feeling of failing to protect my friends when it matters, y'know. It's like I have to do this for them and for myself. I need to know that I can do this when things get rough." Sidney said honestly and Abraham could understand his new friend's point of view because he felt the same way.

"We could be walking into a trap, but even so…I'm not going to just sit back and let our teachers and principals be hurt when we could help save them." Abraham replied before looking out one of the jets windows while noticing just how fast they were moving.

The clouds going past them along with the sights of buildings and whatnot. Thankfully, the jet was in its stealth mode which prevented the group from being found by the United States Airforce. Although, that did little to ease the anxiety or restlessness that each teen felt.

The flight lasted for several hours and when they reached a safe landing zone in the Utah Badlands, it had gotten late into the night while Megan and Patrick had to ignore several communication attempts from the school.

"We're finally here." Abraham said with a yawn as he took a short nap on the flight along with the other teens. Thankfully, the three-in-one were able to mentally learn everything about flying the X-jet from Megan and Patrick, so they could also rest.

"You girls know where the base is, right?" Joshua asked with a bit of nervousness as the entire group got out of the jet.

"We do. And from now on, we're using our codenames in the field. As far as the enemy is concerned, were real X-men and we need to act like it." Phoebe said sternly to the group and everyone nodded in agreement.

"I don't have a codename yet." Abraham pointed out bluntly.

"Well…It's the perfect time to make one for yourself." Celeste pointed out a bit awkwardly and with her own form of bluntness.

"Ok…From now on, my codename is Typhoon." Abraham said proudly before Megan spoke up.

"Is that a reference to that alien horror game?"

"The game is called 'Prey' and yes, it is totally a reference." Abraham replied with a proud smirk.

"Whatever. Let's just get moving." Hisako said impatiently before the group started making their way towards U-men's last known location.

2

"This place just screams 'evil villains' life here', right?" Abraham asked sarcastically to the group while everyone was looking at a large building complex surrounded by a few guards wearing high tech suits and weaponry.

"What was your first clue?" Elixir asked with his own level of sarcasm.

"Enough with the funny business. We need to make a plan. The suits are blocking our telepathy and if we brute force our way in. Things could go from bad to worse and they end up killing Emma and the others." Phoebe said in a serious tone while leaning against a tall pillar of rock.

"I could try to fly around the building and look for a weak point we could use." Megan suggested before Irma nodded her head in rejection of the idea.

"Too risky. They've likely taken precautions against air forces spying on them due to the number of satellites they have installed, and we don't want to risk you getting shot down by their guns."

"We also don't have a good way to check out the situation on foot either. Too many open gaps between rocks. One wrong step and we'd be getting shot at." Patrick added while crossing his arms.

"Can't go at it from the sides and can't go from above. So, that leaves the underground." Abraham suggested which got the group's attention. "A place this big must have an underground facility and with underground facilities comes sewer or exit tunnels nearby. And I'm positive that I saw some rank sludge during our walk up here. All, we've got to do is follow it to the tunnels."

"That's as good a plan as any. Count me in." Sidney said with a nod of his head and everyone else quickly agreed before the group set out in search of said sewer or a passageway that leads underground.

The search took roughly twenty minutes before they found a large tube blocked off by a large gate that Sidney easily pried off which allowed them entrance into the descending passageway only lit with small florescent lightbulbs.

"Rank was an understatement. This place smells like death and dukey." Patrick said while covering his nose as the group walked through deep waste that gave off a rotting and somehow metallic smell. When Patrick took a step, he noticed that he stepped on something hard and that caused him to look down and receive the shock of his life.

Underneath his foot was a severed hand in the late stages of decomposition. The moment he was about to scream, Celeste covered his mouth before the entire group felt a mental intrusion hit them all at once.

[The perk [Players Mind] has failed to negate the [Mental Intrusion] effect!]

[Your emotional state is being altered!]

"Everyone, keep calm. If we freak out, we're going to attract attention. So, we're nullifying your brain's ability to generate fear for a short time until we are done walking through this tunnel." The combined voices of Phoebe, Celeste and Irma said in a hushed voice through the minds of each teen who finally noticed just what type of sludge they're walking through.

Decomposing body parts, used or expired medical equipment and even broken parts of technology or items found in a hospital.

"I'm suddenly having second thoughts." Abraham said while not feeling fear but instead anxiety before that was also suppressed by the three-in-one.

"Too late now. But this does make me want to know; just what was the U-men up to? And who they are." Sidney said while having to bend forwards a bit to fit in the tunnel they were walking through.

The walk was awkward since the group didn't exactly consent to having their minds altered, but in this case, it proved to be the right decision when they started walking past more intact bodies.

The sloshing sounds echoing through the tunnels while the metallic smell of blood and waste burned their noses while the lights flickered on and off.

The experience set a horrifying tone, straight out of a horror movie. The three-in-one seemed to be having difficulties maintaining their telepathy as they suppressed the group's fears and anxiety on top of their own and just when they all started reaching a breaking point, they saw the exit in sight in the form of light coming through another barred gate.

Sideny was first in line as he grabbed the gate and pushed forward to break it open and allow the group to walk out of the nightmare tunnel and notice that they were in some type of waste disposal room and luckily enough the room had wall mounted maps to tell people where they were located and what rooms are available to travel to.

The three-in-one released their mental holds on the teens and on themselves to help alleviate the intense headache they each felt before they noticed that the walls of the room were glass and looking at them from across the room are five soldiers in high-tech suits with rifles in their hands.

"Intruders! Sound the alarms!" The leader of the group said before they started to open fire at the teens. Sidney and the three-in-one functioned as the group's defense as the girls shifted into their diamond forms while Sidney simply crossed his arms, and the four teens blocked the bullets from hitting the rest of the group.

"So, much for being stealthy." Abraham groaned in annoyance while hiding behind Sidney.

END!

Narrator: Our heroes have successfully broken into the U-men's headquarters but have tragically lost the benefits of stealth and are now under attack and will soon have the entire base gunning for them. How will they make it out of this mess alive and with the more seasoned X-men? Stay tuned for the next issue to find out.

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