Ezekiel was seated on top of some water in the little pond he made last time he visited here. His eyes were closed and he was trying to sense the universal energy around him, with little luck so far. He was training his chakra control and training his sensor ability to look for universal energy. His concentration was broken when someone came into range of his ability. He smirked a little as he realized who it was, before he cooled his expression. A few moments later he could hear leaves rustling then the soft sound of boots touching the soft dirt.
"I didn't think you would show up. Let alone, show up almost an hour early."
"I wanted to talk before Charles arrived."
Ezekiel stood up from the water and opened his eyes to look at Magneto as he asked, "What do you wish to discuss?"
Magneto's hands clenched slightly before he relaxed them and asked, "How much of what you showed Raven was really the future?"
"In theory, all of them are the future. But which will happen to us? None of them if I have my way."
Magneto frowned as he asked, "So it only gets better for mutants when you are the one leading us?"
Ezekiel smiled as he shook his head and said, "No, it gets better for everyone."
Magneto began to shake a little as his hands clenched and he spit out, "You wish to help humans? The same ones who hate us? Who fear us? Who attack us?"
The ground around Ezekiel and Magneto was beginning to shake and Magneto's voice was rising as he said, "The same ones who kill us? Who kidnap and experiment on us? Why? Because we are different from them? You really wish to help those people?!?"
“Those types of people? No, I don’t plan to help them. But normal people who haven’t done anything? I will gladly help them.”
The ground was still shaking as Magneto said in a low tone filled with enmity, “All humans are the same.”
Ezekiel shook his head and said, “Just because you have powers doesn’t mean you are no longer human.”
Spikes of metal shot up out of the ground all around the clearing and forest in a circle with Magneto as the center, who snarled out, “I am not a human! I am a mutant! Homo-superior! Look around you, this is the difference between mutants and humans!”
Ezekiel smiled and asked, “If you are no longer human and the same goes for other mutants, then what about your parents? They weren’t mutants, were they?”
Magneto was quiet for a moment before he said in a more normal tone of voice, “No, but I was one of the first who was blessed to become Homo-superior.”
Ezekiel started to laugh, Magneto began to frown again. Before he could say anything, Ezekiel raised a hand up to stop him as he tried to stop laughing. When he stopped he smirked and said, “You have no idea how ignorant that statement is. It just shows how much you don’t know about the world and universe in general. You aren’t even close to being one of the first mutants in the universe, let alone on earth. The first mutant was made about a million years ago, yes I said made. That ‘Homo-superior’ gene you are so proud of having, it was made and implanted into humans as an experiment. The first real ‘Homo-superior’ was born on earth sometime around 15,000 B.C. and in case you were wondering, she is still alive.”
Magneto’s frown dropped and he studied Ezekiel for a while before he asked, “How do you know any of this?”
“It’s not hard when you can see the past and the future. And before you ask, the beings who created the mutant gene were so powerful that you, with all of your power, would look like an ant to them.”
Magneto looked a little lost as he thought about what Ezekiel had just told him. Ezekiel spoke up and said, "How about once Xavier and his group arrive, I will show all of you some proof of what I am talking about."
Magneto didn't speak but nodded his head in reply as he stood there, looking at nothing in particular. It was a somewhat awkward silence as they waited for the others. Ezekiel went back to practicing his skills, while Magneto just stood there quietly thinking about what Ezekiel just told him.
After half an hour, Ezekiel sensed a few people approaching and stood up as he said, "Xavier is here."
Magneto looked up to the sky, a minute later Xavier, Storm, Logan and Mystique came into view and then landed close to Magneto. They looked around at the metal spikes, before Logan asked, "What happened, Magneto tried to fight you again?"
"No, more like he threw a tantrum."
Storm smirked slightly as Logan laughed, while Xavier and Mystique looked at Magneto in worry. Magneto made no real reaction besides turning to face Ezekiel. Logan stopped his laughter as he and everyone else looked at Magneto. Xavier studied his friend for a moment before he asked in concern, "What did you do to him?"
"I believe he is in shock after I destroyed his world view."
Everyone looked from Magneto to Ezekiel, who smiled and said, "Time for a quick history lesson." As he was speaking he was doing hand signs behind his back with one hand. The next moment everyone was seated in an amphitheater with Ezekiel standing on the stage, behind him was a projection screen. Displayed on the screen was a chibi Ezekiel and next to that was a title, 'What are mutants?'
Ezekiel looked at everyone and said, "Thanks for coming to my TED talk, my name is Ezekiel. Mmmm, that’s not right. Welcome to my history lesson on who made mutants, ya, that sounds better.”
Everyone was kinda looking around in slight shock for a moment before they focused on Ezekiel, who was walking to one side of the stage. He stopped once he was there and looked at his audience before he said, “So about a million years ago, a group of God-like cosmic beings called the Celestials visited earth. Their goal was to experiment on, and judge, lower life-forms. They created two lifeforms, the Eternals and the Deviants from selected species and inserted a latent gene into baseline humanity that causes mutations. The thing you all call the X-gene.”
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A video was playing on the screen as Ezekiel talked, it was showing everything Ezekiel talked about. It even showed each of the Eternals who were created and pictures of them on earth. As it showed more modern day pictures of each Eternal, it stopped on the last picture of Kingo as Ezekiel said, “That is Sri Kingo, one of the Eternals and a Bollywood star. If you trace back his family in the movies you will notice he looks strangely similar to his great-great-grandfather, great-grandfather, grandfather and father.” As he talked, images came up of each person before they overlapped and they were all almost a perfect copy of the same person.
Ezekiel smiled and asked, “Any questions so far?”
Magneto spoke up and asked, “So we could go find these people and confirm everything you are saying?”
Ezekiel nodded as he smirked, before he said, “Yes, you could do that. But I should warn you that each one of them is stronger than you and don’t like it when people come around asking about stuff they shouldn’t know. That being said, feel free to try, I would love to see how well that works out for you.”
Magneto frowned slightly but said nothing else. Ezekiel looked up at the screen and the images changed to a stunning looking woman with pale white skin, raven black hair, and icy blue eyes. She was wearing very trendy looking clothing and was seated in a cafe with the Eiffel tower in the background behind her. “Selene Gallio, the first true born ‘mutant’ of earth. She is about seventeen thousand years old and is extremely dangerous. Her main mutant power is life-force absorption through touch, kinda like a vampire but without the teeth. She can use that life-force to power herself in other ways, super strength, speed, endurance, reflexes. She is also a high order telepath, a telekinetic and has pyrokinesis. Oh she is also a master of the mystic arts and immortal. I am mostly telling you this so in case you find yourself meeting her, you know to be cautious and leave as quickly as possible.”
Mystique spoke up and asked, “Mystic arts? You mean like magic? Magic isn’t real… Right?”
“Magic is very real, I work with the current Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. I will introduce you to them if you join us.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment before Xavier spoke up and asked, “You said she is like a vampire, you don’t mean to imply vampires are real, correct?”
Ezekiel chuckled and said, “Vampires are very real and can be very dangerous to normal humans and even less powerful Metahumans.”
Xavier spoke up again and asked, “Metahumans as in mutants?”
“Yes, but also others, like me. I am a Metahuman, a powered individual who doesn’t have an x-gene. There are also the Eternals, Inhumans, powered people like me, half breeds with aliens, people who were experimented on. All of those people and us fall under the term Metahuman, plus it sounds so much better than mutant. Mutant just sounds bad when you say it, I am pretty sure whoever coined the term designed it that way.”
Magneto was the next to speak and said, “So you plan to work with all of these Metahumans?”
Ezekiel nodded and said, “I am already working with some people, some are Metahumans, others are just normal humans. But we are all working together to make the world a better place. Which is why I want to invite you both to join us.”
Xavier and Magneto shared a look for a few moments, before they looked at Ezekiel again and Xavier said, “We would like to join you.” Magneto nodded yes as Xavier spoke.
Ezekiel smiled at that and said, “Great, I was hoping you would both join us. But keep in mind, while you joined us. The main group is going to remain a secret from all of you. I will introduce you to a few select people and share resources with you. But the main group and our base of operations will stay hidden for now for security reasons.”
Magneto nodded his head as he said, “Understandable, trust is earned not given.”
Ezekiel smiled and said, “Exactly, now first order of business. I have been searching for a hidden facility owned by a certain group. They are technically the same ones who injected Logan’s skeleton with metal. They have also been kidnapping Metahumans and doing experiments on them.”
Logan snarled out, “Stryker?!?”
Ezekiel smiled as some files popped up on the screen that had top secret info about the weapon-X project and Logan. A picture of Logan with some weird looking gear on popped up and next to him was standing a man in an Army military uniform. Ezekiel looked directly at Logan and said, “If we are lucky we will find him at the facility I am looking for.”
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Theo was sitting at the computer in a booster seat, his parents had finally allowed him to use it under supervision. His father was sitting next to him and looking at the book Theo had memorized from the library. They checked it back out so he could understand what Theo was typing on the computer. But he didn’t really understand it and asked, “So what does this stuff you are typing there mean?” His father pointed at a piece of code as he asked.
Theo let out a sigh and said, “It’s an ‘if’ statement dad. It’s on page 184, the third paragraph explains about it.”
“Ya but I asked you what it means.”
Theo stopped typing and looked at his dad as he said, “You know if you just let me type I could show you when it’s all done. But if you must know, an ‘if’ statement is a true or false question. They ask the program if something is true, and tell it what to do next based on the answer.”
Theo’s dad rubbed his head with one hand and said, “That wasn’t that hard now was it?” Theo frowned a little at his father as he said, “Alright, alright I won’t bug you anymore, I will just watch.”
“You said that when I started.”
Theo’s dad smiled and said, “But it’s boring just watching you type.”
Theo turned back around and started to type again as he said, “I told you and mom it was going to be boring, but you said I needed to be supervised. Maybe read something, since you aren’t really reading the coding book.”
“The book is boring also, it might be more boring than watching you type.”
“Not my problem dad.”
His dad looked over to his wife who was playing with Milly and asked, “Wanna trade?”
His wife just shook her head no, before she said, “You were the one who insisted he should be supervised, I said we could just check on him every once in a while. It’s not like we can’t look over and see him.”
“But it’s so boring!”
His wife shook her head and said, “Today you get to supervise him like you wanted, tomorrow maybe we will change the policy.” She looked down at Milly and asked, “Isn’t that right, Milly?”
Milly nodded her head as she said, “Daddy said he would watch Te-o today, so daddy needs to watch Te-o.”
Theo’s dad let out a sigh and asked, “Milly sweetie, can daddy join you and mommy? Please?”
Milly shook her head and said, “No, daddy needs to watch Te-o.”
Theo’s dad smiled as he said, “Milly sweetie, you know daddy is the one who makes cookies right?”
Milly’s head snapped to look at her father and asked, “Daddy will make cookies?”
Theo’s dad smiled a little wider and said, “I could make cookies.” He let out a sigh, “But I have to stay here and watch Theo.”
Milly shook her head and said, “No, daddy can go make cookies. Mommy will watch Te-o”
Theo’s dad smirked as he said, “Hear that honey? You need to watch Theo and I will go make some cookies.”
Theo’s mom shook her head and smiled as she said, “No you can stay there, I will make cookies with Milly. Come on Milly, momma's gonna make peanut butter cookies.”
Milly’s head snapped to look at her mother as she asked, “Momma can make cookies too?”