Author's Note: Hello! It's been a hundred chapters you've been putting up with me, and hopefully you are enjoying the story and how it is playing out. I put out this every hundred chapters, self-styling pen-twirler that I am.
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“You can open those bit by bit, though,” I reassured Scott Summers, getting up and lifting him effortlessly with me. “I’m going to go sit you down in a hot tub while these two go take showers.”
He didn’t argue, barely even conscious.
Vier dragged the other two to their feet, despite their complaints. “Out. Hit the showers. Pee-yew, stinky mutant scum.” I made a face and waved my hand between us, and they grinned despite themselves, tottering for the elevators and the residential level directly above.
I headed for the central shaft and calmly hopped my way up the wall to the next floor, and another floor, where he could enjoy a hot bath as he recovered from possibly the most traumatic experience in his life.
He could see what color his eyes were when he looked at himself in the mirror for the first time in years.
Xavier wasn’t going to like the fact that he was going to lose ALL his students, and his little mutant paramilitary camp was going to be crushed in its infancy. But, he had a way out right in front of him.
Whether the elitist sunuvabitch could downgrade to teaching both humans and Powered of all types was on him.
Hank McCoy and Robert Drake were on the way. McCoy was growing blue fur, and definitely wanted the ability to pass for human. Drake wanted to be able to quench lingering fears of being bound in ice forever, or something.
Either way, Psion training was going to be good for them, and get them out of the mold of only having a set array of things they were born with defining them.
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More time passes as Xavier’s X-men hit team goes poof...
Assessment, Hank McCoy...
“So, parse out Sagan’s Quantum Singularity theory for me,” I asked Hank casually.
Hank McCoy was another certified genius, a polymath adept in many areas, with exceptional manners, a passion for the arts, and a refined love of knowledge that was a pleasure to be around.
Being around a woman as smart as I was, albeit in some different areas of knowledge, was hitting all his buttons, and if I was physically more dangerous than he was, he didn’t seem to mind much. I was also completely unafraid of him and how he looked, accepted him as he was, and suddenly him, Parker, and Gwen Stacey were as thick as thieves and colluding on stuff.
Hank looked at the yellow long knife in his hand. The similarly-hued staff that had been in Drake’s hand had been over four feet long, indicating Drake’s ice powers required a far more massive psionic Core to use than did his own. It wasn’t quite at Scott Summers’ level, but a projecting psychokinetic with his potential was just sick.
Drake compared pretty favorably to Jean Grey’s baseline ability. Of course, her Core's power was being enhanced by the Phoenix, so it was basically without a cap, growing as rapidly as she could master it.
“Um,” Hank said blankly, looking at me and blinking rather owlishly. He ran a normal-sized hand through his brown hair, face suddenly awkward. “I... can’t remember right now? It’s exciting stuff, dealing with time and gravity and...” His face fell suddenly. “Wait. Am I... dumber?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yes. Your enhanced intellect is, like your enhanced physique, a product of your mutant Powered status. I’m guessing you are, like your physical ability, sitting at the human average, with training and conditioning.”
His dark eyes almost popped. “No way!” he blurted out.
“I believe you normally say ‘oh my stars and garters?’” I noted to him.
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He gaped at me, and at the mindblade in his hand. “I have to give up my brains to look normal?” he protested.
“Interesting conundrum, isn’t it?” I said, steepling my fingers. “You’re Powered, you’re a natural Psion, but it’s your mutant form which would best make a natural Psion, being as intelligent as you are there. I daresay that being anything other than a biopsi will be very difficult for you, as Psions generally require high mental standards for any Discipline but Psychometabolism.”
He slumped down into his chair as his mindblade dispersed. “I, just, wow,” he admitted, stunned by the implications.
“Not something you thought would apply to you, right? Genius is a mutation, you know.”
“I-I did, but I didn’t think it applied to me...” He stared at his very normal Caucasian hands. His manner of speech was more Midwestern than educated, his tones having evolved with his education and exposure to intellectuals, even if he was still a high schooler. With the loss of that intellect, he was back to his roots once more.
“Here’s your situation,” I said to him, getting his attention. He was still an attentive student. “Anything you learn as a Psion, you can use in your other form, but you won’t be able to expand on it. Meridian development can’t occur on an active mutant Core. So, if you want to gain Levels in Psion, it has to be as you are now.
“Otherwise, you’re restricted to whatever Class you are taking as your other form, which is probably a variation on one of the Minstrel Classes geared more towards Intellect than normal. You aren’t carrying enough Gear to claim to be an Artificer, although that may also apply.”
He could even be a straight Expert. I was being generous with Minstrel because of his combat training, but I hadn’t really seen any advanced combat skills that weren’t reliant on his greatly superior strength and agility to pull off. He was a good fighter because he had the Stat line, not because he devoted himself to the skills.
Which was fine. Genius will as genius does, and he preferred his brains to his brawn.
“You are, however, in a unique position for a genius.”
“Oh?” He blinked in surprise. “How’s that?”
“You are suddenly unable to grasp the big picture.” He stared at me in confusion. “Hank, you’re a genius, right? You can remember thinking about all sorts of stuff, right? Up the scale, down the scale, how this little thing could explode into relevance and affect this operation over here, how these events work on those events, the significance of the aliens among us and Powered being born and non-Powered sitting atop the scale, and the High Guard out there and the death of the Phoenix and so, so many implications... right?”
He took a look at my face, and nodded slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, I understand. I think about... thought about? That stuff all the time. That’s... it’s why I was always reading, looking for more, trying to find solutions, or answers...”
“But you’re not thinking about that right now.”
He blinked at me again. “No... I’m not.” He looked startled at the realization.
“And that’s because normal people don’t think about that kind of stuff. They think about what’s relevant now, what’s going to be relevant in the immediate future, and long-term stuff is stuff they’ll address as they get the time and it comes closer. Future of the human race, implications of unlocking the genetic codes, threats alien and internal... that’s all stuff for others to think about who have the time.
“You’ve just got to think about getting your biopsi up, right?”
He blinked again at me. “Uh, right?” He scratched his head again. “That’s really spooky, Dyna...”
“No, you’re thinking how normal people think. You can go from being the genius thinking about everything and the implications thereof, down to none of that being a concern and just considering how to grow your biopsi, just like a normal person would do.”
“Huh.” He concentrated to consider that. “It’s... a big switch in viewpoints,” he noticed of himself, getting the point of it. “Going from Hank Genius to Hank Average...”
“It will keep you grounded, and focused. What’s the job of random average dude Hank?” I pointed at him.
“Getting my Psion Levels up!” he declared immediately, making a fist.
“What’s the job of Hank McCoy, big blue boy genius?”
He paused for a second. “Uh, everything else?” he guessed.
“Sound like a plan to you?” I asked him archly.
“Sure!” he nodded along.
“On that note, how would you like to go to a normal high school?” I asked him, raising my eyebrows. “We both know that your blue side is way past that level, but you know what?” I leaned in towards him. “You ain’t, farmboy. You can actually have a really good time there.”
He blinked at me again. “You know... that actually sounds pretty fun.” He looked at his hands, flexed his arms. “I could probably, you know, play in some sports, right? Now that I can’t just dominate them?” he asked wistfully.
“Well, it’ll mean you’ll have an incredibly busy schedule, I’m sure, but if you won’t have to go around rousting other mutants, it shouldn’t be as much of a problem.” I tossed a thumb over my elbow. “You keep doing work in there, and there’s no problem subletting you an apartment here, either. You’ll be financially independent, you can stretch your brains and be blue without feeling out of place, and you can go out and mingle whenever you feel like it.
“Dr. Richards has been designing a new training room to accommodate more power ranges than the Four currently have, too, so we’ll be able to keep up at least the illusion of a decent training schema for you, or you can join the other kids at SHIELD, who I’m sure would absolutely flip to have an intellect of your caliber working with them.”
“Wow! That sounds pretty good!” he admitted. “Uh, how much money?” he asked hopefully.
“Ask Peter what his first royalty check was.”
“He already told me! He...” His eyes got bigger. “Oh, wouldn’t that be sweet...”
“Improve the world, get paid for it,” I told him, slapping the table. “Sound like a plan?”
“I’m down for that!” he grinned, giving me a big thumbs-up.
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Assessment, Robert Drake...
The slender brown-haired young man waved the big yellow bar around, impressed with himself somewhat, having seen vids of other mindblades and knowing how big they were.
Of course, Scott’s massive sword kinda set a high bar to pass, but his was still VERY impressive.
Given the size of his Core, of course his mutant powers were impressive, too. Probably far more than he realized.
Well, definitely, if I knew the comics at all, and I definitely did. The breadth of his power was fairly narrow, but the depth of it was immense.
He was the biggest hydro- and cryokinetic on the planet now, let alone if he actually learned how his powers worked.
For all that, he was kinda a shy kid who wasn’t the combative type.
Welp, learning about the true extent of his powers early wasn’t going to hurt him. It was just going to give him goals to meet and to surpass.
I was pretty down with telling him more about himself, and letting him grow into the kind of powerhouse he could be.