A/N:
" " : Dialogue,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy,
"Bold text": Shadows,
[ ] : System,
| | : Artificial Intelligence.
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Omniscient POV
They all headed to the Danger Room to test out Ashwani's combat aptitude, as well as see the extent of Ashwani's abilities and powers.
Ashwani headed to the main testing area, while Charles and the others went to the control booth to set up the hazards that Ashwani would face.
Ashwani noted that although the Danger Room had become as advanced as this, it was still not up to the level that he was familiar with. That being Danger from the 616 timeline, where the Danger Room had been upgraded with alien technology, causing it to mutate and develop a sentient artificial intelligence within.
As he waited, he put his mind to work, analyzing the entirety of the Danger Room, and making improvements in his head, that he would apply when he created his own training room.
"Okay, Ashwani. We're about to begin. Are you ready?" Hank called out from the control booth, and Ashwani nodded. Taking that as his approval, Hank pushed a button, and some of the walls in the room opened to release multiple humanoid robots. While some other panels on the walls opened up, revealing flamethrowers, spike guns and many other traps and weapons.
The robots immediately charged at him, their combat program taking hold of their movements. Ashwani's hoodie started to flicker and morph, before its form shifted into a pair of gauntlets with three openings on the back of the palms.
A few spikes were fired at him, but he moved slightly, dodging them by a millimeter. And as soon as the robots got close, three claws, reminiscent of Logan's claws popped out of the gauntlets, and Ashwani began to slice the robots apart with frightening ease.
Despite having used the Danger Room for whole teams, Charles and the others were shocked at how easily Ashwani dispatched the robots and destroyed the traps. While he engaged the robots with hand-to-hand combat, he controlled darkforce, shaping it into spears and blunt weapons that destroyed the traps and other weapons.
It didn't even take him more than five minutes to finish everything, which made everyone understand that Ashwani truly was one of the more skilled people on the planet already, as he did all this without using his army.
At least this was Charles's thought, as he had come across some skilled combatants in his time, and most of the time, they didn't have armies on top of their own skills and powers.
*Knock X3.* They heard knocks on the walls of the control booth, which were followed by Ashwani's body coming through said walls. "Well, I believe that's enough for me to refamiliarize myself to the Danger Room." He said, a nonchalant smile on his face.
"So, how about we get to Cerebro now?" He said, reforming the shadow gauntlets on his arms back into a hoodie. "Ah, yes. Of course. It's just... I didn't expect you to be..." Charles said with a pause.
"This powerful or skilled? There have been over a hundred billion humans that have died on Earth, Charles. And that's just humans, imagine me including mystical creatures, extra dimensional creatures and extraterrestrials. This level of skill is to be expected at this point." Ashwani said with a smirk.
Before anyone could reply, Ashwani turned his head to the screen that showed those in the control booth what was happening in the main training area of the Danger Room.
There, he saw some of the panels on the wall open up to release some more robots, these ones looking like they were designed to be used to clean up the Danger Room after sessions.
"Oh, right. Where was I? I think we were about to head to Cerebro, right?" Ashwani said, not caring for the revelation he had given to them. "Yes. Of course. Right this way." Charles said, leading the way out of the Danger Room.
After a few minutes of walking through the hallways, they eventually come in front of a metallic door with a large X embossed on it and a camera installed at the center point of the door.
Charles walked up to the door, still with a slight hitch in his steps, then bent down a bit, so that his eye could align to the camera. As his eye aligned, the camera scanned his eye, then an automated voice came from the door. |Welcome, Professor.|
The door opened, and revealed the machine that had been a cornerstone in the development of the X-Men. The entire wall was a collection of metal screens, and a small bridge led to a console with a helmet on it. This was Cerebro.
As they walked inside, Charles looked behind, and was a bit surprised to see his hoverchair still following them. "I just brought it in case you'd need to sit down." Ashwani said with a wave of his hand, telekinetically pushing the chair to Charles.
"Ah. Thank you." Charles said, then sat down, as his legs were still feeling the aches from use after atrophy. "Well, I guess I better begin." Ashwani said, walked to the console, and pulled out the helmet. As he held the helmet, he smiled, as his nanomachines scanned not only the console, but also the entirety of Cerebro, which was the room they were currently in.
Using Ruler's Authority, Ashwani kept the helmet levitating in the air, while he began moving his hands to cast a spell. As he moved his hands, golden sparks signifying Eldritch magic manifested, being shaped into two magic circles that intersect at their centers.
If any of the other metahumans in the room were familiar with magic, they would have noticed that each line of each magic circle was in fact, a very long string of characters that were shrunken and put close together to appear as a line.
Ashwani stopped moving his hands around, and suddenly clapped. Following that, the magic circles expanded to a diameter over 8 feet, then suddenly shrunk smaller than the helmet, and were imprinted into the helmet.
"There. This should protect anyone that uses Cerebro from the full telepathic assault of an Omega level telepath, in the case that they ever make an enemy of one." He said as he placed the helmet back onto the console.
"I see. Thank you, Ashwani." Charles said from his hoverchair. "No problem. Besides, you and Erik are every bit as important to us metahumans getting better treatment worldwide as I am. So I think it'd be best if you don't get your mind literally blown." Ashwani said, shaking Charles's hand.
"Well, this has all been quite pleasant, but I've got to get going now. A lot of stuff to do to get more powerful before I begin making moves." Ashwani said, then walked up to Logan.
"By the way, you're going to be experiencing a bit of pain for a while." He said, shocking everyone. "Why would he be in pain? Didn't you remove the adamantium from his skeleton?" Ororo asked Ashwani, and he nodded.
"I did, but in doing so, I have removed the thing that placed a considerable number of physical limits on him." Ashwani said, then proceeded to elaborate.
"The adamantium held his skeleton back from growing, which is why Victor is so much bigger than he is. It also messed with the orientation of his claws, but the new grafting has corrected those. So no more claws popping out of your wrists, or being treated like a dwarf, Logan." Ashwani said, and Logan responded by grabbing him and giving him an affectionate noogie on his head.
"Thanks, kid. But is there anything else?" Logan asked as he let go of Ashwani. "Oh, yeah. You might act a lot more feral as time goes on. As it turns out, you and Victor have a gene that causes atavistic evolution of some sort, making the both of you act more feral and primal as time goes on. Since your body was focusing on keeping the adamantium from killing you, you didn't feel it before, but you're gonna be feeling it a lot more now." Ashwani explained, giving them a heads-up for the possibility of Logan going wild.
"I see. Do you have any estimation on how soon it could happen?" Hank asked. "Honestly, I don't. The only advice I'd give is to make sure he doesn't go into a rage. If he does, let's just say that dealing with the Brotherhood would be more desirable." Ashwani said, then bid them farewell, as he slipped into Stealth, used Stop Time, then booked it out of the building.
Upon reaching a good distance of 5 miles away from the area, he quickly used his nanomachines to make another Royal Fang, which he set on a course to New York City, specifically to the Midland Circle Financial building, where the closest dragon skeleton lay dozens of meters underground.
Before he left Midland Circle Financial the night before, he went to the lowest basement floor in the building, then turned intangible, going below the foundation of the building. Upon reaching there, he felt a source of chi, then created small robotic drills with chi sensing capabilities, and after a few minutes, they came across a dragon skeleton.
Figuring that he could come back to it later, Ashwani caused the nanomachines in the drills to replicate wildly and reform to cover the entire dragon skeleton. Now, he was headed there to take the full skeleton for himself.
Landing the invisible aircraft on top of the building, he instructed the nanomachines covering the skeleton to reform with teleportation runes. With that, he began teleporting each part of the dragon skeleton and placing the bones in his inventory.
After about an hour of this, he teleported the last part of the skeleton that was underground, the skull, which was easily multiple times larger than your average tank.
"Finally. With this I've now got two of the other ingredients for my version of the SSS. Now, just the Heart-shaped herb remains, and I'll have gotten everything I need. I can very easily form the Vita Ray chamber, and add the ability to use Dark Matter from the Darkforce dimension in a similar way." Ashwani said, as he organized his plans in his head.
...
Nicholas Joseph Fury had experienced quite a number of things in his life. He had even met with extraterrestrial lifeforms, and come in contact with what was arguably the most powerful item that had ever appeared on Earth, that he knew of, the Tesseract.
But he had never witnessed the panic that an unsupervised Omega level mutant could cause S.H.I.E.L.D from just awakening their powers, not that they knew of that. Due to their prior experience with Zero Matter, S.H.I.E.L.D had commissioned Howard Stark to create detectors for Zero Matter.
Zero Matter, or more accurately, Darkforce, originates from the Darkforce dimension, so Ashwani's awakening caused these detectors to go off, with their readings being off the charts. Of course, S.H.I.E.L.D had no idea that these readings were being caused by a mutant awakening their powers, and assumed that someone had opened up another Darkforce rift in New York.
Some agents had been sent to investigate along with some scientists, the most notable of them being Leopold James Fitz and Jemma Anne Simmons. They had been able to track the strongest signal to an apartment building in Brooklyn, but were faced with a different problem.
"Fitz, Simmons, give me a sitrep." They heard a voice from a walkie talkie. "Sir, we've been unable to find the exact point where the rift could have formed, but we do have something to report." Leopold said.
"What is it?" The voice asked with an exasperated tone, clearly implying that they speak quickly. "The building we got as the general location for the rift... Agent Bourne's family used to live here." Leopold said, and the voice on the other end went quiet.
"What happened to them?" The voice asked. "Well... The wife has been confirmed deceased as of 21 days ago. And as for the son, we asked the owner, and he said that he saw him leave the building yesterday, and he hasn't been seen since." Leopold said solemnly.
"Okay, then. Keep me posted." The voice said, then cut off the communication. "I wonder what's happened to the boy. He's lost both his parents in a span of just four months, and now he's left the only home he knows. I can only imagine what he's feeling now." Jemma said, concerned for Ashwani's condition.
"Well, maybe it's best we don't stress about it too much, and try to find the epicenter of the rift." Leopold said, then headed into the building, hoping to find the source of Darkforce in the area. It hadn't yet occurred to them that this was all because of Ashwani's awakening as an Omega level mutant.
Leopold and Jemma entered the building behind the other field agents with their Darkforce detectors active, but even then, they received nothing showing the presence of any residue of Darkforce.
Despite it being the true epicenter of the appearance of Darkforce, the apartment was devoid of any of it. This was because Ashwani had fully reabsorbed every bit of Darkforce that was produced, be it at his former home, or anywhere else that he had used his Darkforce abilities.
So while they could detect the Darkforce at the points that Ashwani used it, specifically when used in great amounts, they couldn't find any residue. But this didn't mean that their investigation was going to be fruitless.
After spending thirty minutes checking other apartments, they soon got to the apartment where the Bourne family used to stay. "Hey, Leo. Do you think that Jason could have gotten into something shady?" Jemma asked.
"We work for S.H.I.E.L.D, Jemma. I believe that's as shady as one could get." Leopold said, as the apartment manager opened the door to the apartment. As they entered, they were surprised to see that the entire apartment was clean, far too clean and well arranged.
"Well, you do know how to prepare an apartment for new tenants." Jemma said as she looked around. "Oh, I didn't do this. The kid did." The apartment manager said, causing them to look at him. "Really, a 12-year-old boy cleaned this place up to this extent?" Leopold asked.
"Y-Yeah. He only came downstairs and gave me the keys before he left. I only saw the place last night myself." The apartment manager said. "Huh. Maybe the kid's got OCD." Jemma said as she looked around the apartment.
"Then he's also got super strength too, either that or telekinesis." Leopold said as he continued inspecting the apartment. "What, are you suggesting that he might be a mutant?" Jemma asked from the bedroom area.
"It's a possibility that can't be overlooked. He did move quite a lot of heavy stuff without anyone helping him. No one did help him, right?" Leopold said, asking the apartment manager. "No. Apart from the kid, no one else has been in here, until you guys." The apartment manager said, fully confident that he was telling the truth.
"Hey, Leo. I think we may have more on our hands than we thought." Jemma said as she came back to the living room. "How so?" Leopold asked, but Jemma turned to the apartment manager.
"Did you see the kid with a backpack or luggage box, or anything like that?" She asked him. "No, I only saw him with a hoodie and some jeans on. Why?" The apartment manager asked. "Because this place is empty." Jemma said.
"What do you mean, empty?" Leopold asked. "Well, there's no books, no clothes, no computers, no personal belongings of any kind . It's only empty shelves, tables and closets in there." Jemma said, causing alarm bells to ring in Leopold's head.
Among the abilities that he had read that Darkforce could grant people, he remembered one that allowed a person to convert matter into Darkforce and absorb it. "Jemma, I think I know where the Zero Matter may have gone." Leopold said.
"You don't think that Jason could have something to do with it, right?" Jemma asked. "It's either that, or the boy's a mutant. And him being a mutant is looking a lot more likely." Leopold said, then brought his walkie talkie to his mouth.
"Sir, there's been a development." He said, then waited for the voice on the other side to respond. "What is it?" The voice asked sternly. "After a bit of investigation, we've come to something of a conclusion. It's very possible that the Zero Matter that was detected here is now with Agent Bourne's son." Leopold said, waiting for an outrage from the other end.
"Explain." The voice said coolly. "Assuming that Agent Bourne didn't perform any unsanctioned experiments, there are only two possible ways for the Zero Matter to have appeared here. One, someone came here and not only opened a rift, but also somehow fully reabsorbed all of the Zero Matter. Or… Agent Bourne's son has become a mutant with the ability to manipulate Zero Matter." Leopold said, letting out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"Bourne's allegiance and honesty isn't something that can be questioned. He was stellar as an agent and a man of integrity. If he had any connections to Zero Matter, he'd have let us know. The trespasser angle seems highly unlikely, especially if the manager isn't lying. But still, a mutant, huh?" The voice said with confidence and skepticism.
"So far that's the most likely case. After all, we don't know the full extent of changes that one can experience when they become a mutant." Leopold said, then waited for the voice on the other side to speak.
"Okay. Pack up from there and try to get your hands on any CCTV footage of the kid. Notify me immediately you find him." The voice said sternly. "Of course, Mr. Sitwell." Leopold said, and the communication was cut off.
Obeying his orders, Leopold and Jemma asked the apartment manager if the building's CCTV network was active, which he said it was. But unfortunately, they wouldn't find anything about Ashwani, the X-Men or the Brotherhood of Mutants, as Ashwani had manipulated the footage to make him and them imperceptible to all forms of surveillance.
And when Ashwani left, he secretively erased the memory of seeing Charles, Logan, Ororo, Erik and Raven from the apartment manager's mind, leaving almost anyone who'd try investigating with no clues to use.
Chapter End.
Word Count: 3,087
Thanks for reading!