Disclaimer - I don't own Marvel/Disney IP. I am just a humble keyboard warrior. Also, the Chaos Gacha was made by Bronz here. I am just dipping my toe in the water, so to speak.
Somewhere on the East Coast
–Mike–
His feet tapped the ground as his anxiety over the Curse counter continued to climb slowly. So far, the counter had warned him about the deadline two more times, which meant 30 minutes had passed since the last warning. He now had four hours before the system did something, and he was not keen on finding that out.
On the other hand, he was also not thrilled about Xavier and his merry band finding out about the mechanics of his power. No, he would much rather no one figure out what his power was.
Yes, he had trust issues, but it might have been an issue back in his home universe, but it was practically a necessity in this one, with not just mind control and mind breaking techniques seemingly available to everyone and their grandma, but reality warping being a possibility as well.
With that Sword hanging over his head, he wanted to get this over with and enter his private space ASAP so he could roll the Curse. Getting a somewhat strong trait had messed him up for more than a minute there, so he did not want to risk anything that was inherently bad according to the Chaos Gacha, if a reward could almost knock him out.
"How much longer? Are we going to the West Coast? " He shouted at the cabin in the front, where all three of them were seated, because apparently, he did not have the required privileges to sit in the pilot's cabin. Leaning against the seat, he looked at the stone faced Alcina and winced.
In the heat of the moment, he agreed to come to Xavier's school because he wanted some of the absurdly powerful energy based abilities in here, but the thought of Alcina and her appetite never crossed his mind. Let alone her cannibal nature, even if he revealed her blood drinking requirement, it would forever mark him as the one associated with a vampire.
It would pretty much kill any chance he would ever have to create a good rapport with the people there and get their permission to use their abilities. Hell, he didn't even know how that whole process worked. The know how of that ability will only come to him if he equipped it in one of the slots, and he was delaying that until he was in his safe cocoon, i.e, the Pocket Beach Dimension.
The thought of the Pocket Dimension had him groaning out loud in annoyance as he realised that he would have to come up with something to hide that ability from Xavier as well. Thankfully, the key was safely secured back in his item space, so anyone taking the key from him was a non issue. It would have been nice to have an anti-theft feature like the key automatically returning to his person if taken away, but the safe storage worked as well.
"Landing in 10 minutes," Storm spoke over the intercom system as he sighed in relief at the news. Now, if only he could find someplace after landing that would get him some privacy. No doubt the entire academy was covered with cameras and sensors of all kinds, installed by Xavier himself, which were valid because normal schools needed security, much less a school full of children a significant part of society vilified, but aside from that, he could guarantee the presence of at least half a dozen different satellites on the school campus, no matter what Xavier claims.
SHIELD should be one of the organisations keeping watch over the school, and the second he opens the portal to his pocket dimension, they would know, if they already had that specific energy signature, which he must assume they did, because how else would they know his last location so quickly. NYC, being an important city, must have SHIELD's attention, which is why they were found out so quickly.
The same will certainly happen once he opened that portal in Xavier's school, not to mention Xavier's cooperation with law enforcement, because the dude was doing everything above board. He was not running that school in secret, atleast not from the government anyway.
There were parts of the government that would much rather use the school as an experimental facility, but the saner parts of it were content with letting Xavier be the face of mutants and reap the benefits of seeing all those powers in action and combat, that too regularly.
The threat of the omega level telepathic and his secret boyfriend, also an extremely powerful mutant, rampaging and destroying major parts of civilization as they knew it before they could be put down, must also work wonders for getting those expedited permits.
Even then, even with these powers on his side, Xavier will most certainly fold if SHIELD came to him with a legitimate crime and some soft guarantee that he will not be tortured or experimented on. That will certainly be enough for Xavier to hand him over to the feds, not a desirable outcome for his continued growth.
Couldn't get information on his new, potentially most powerful ability, couldn't roll to get his curse without entering a safe space. BUT opening the gateway to that same space could lead to the cops catching up to him, most probably destroying any chances of him actually using that new powerful ability.
If he didn't open that door and went ahead with the Curse roll, he could roll for an extremely deliberating curse and find himself weakened or worse, knocked out in the middle of an unfamiliar territory, with unfamiliar people with no way to defend himself beyond Alcina, and frankly, he didn't really trust Alcina to make the right decision with the people in this universe.
If she somehow managed to kill someone important or even someone remotely related to a named character, he will then have to deal with people who are either powerful themselves or have the support of powerful people, all the time. Killing people in the Marvel Universe will almost certainly bring about an even greater response, no matter how many you end up killing.
After all, in a certain someone's words, the phrase "If we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn sure we'll avenge it" was hardcoded into every superhero's DNA here, whether they knew it or not. In the end, he will lose, provided he held onto even some vestiges of his humanity and did not become an unfeeling, all powerful monster who could not think of any solution beyond Kill, Kill, KILL!
As the jet landed, the only indication of their location being the dozens of distinct energy signatures that popped up in his mind, he made up his mind. Anyway, he was damned if he did, damned if he didn't, so might as well do stuff that would not endanger him right now. He could always find energy based superpower possessing people later on to get their permission.
He ignored the voice that spoke up from the back of his mind, Not these many people in a single place, starved of normal human interactions. He shook his head, trying to get those thoughts out of his mind as he undid the seatbelts on himself, agitated because of his mind unhelpfully pointing out the age and thus, the naivety and malleability of the minds here.
Alcina did the same, her eyes narrowing as she looked at him, but he did not speak, and she did not ask. He had undone some of the restrictions on her, but none that would allow her to express her true thoughts freely, the ones that would have Charles not just throw them out but also tag them as predators that had to be hunted down.
Honestly, he was just waiting to become strong enough to hold his own, allowing him to finally get rid of her, preferably in a way that would be a net benefit to him and humanity as a whole.
He knew that it made him a bad person, since he would be sending someone who essentially could not disobey him, to their deaths and there was a chance, however miniscule that this was not the real Alcina and just a clone that the Chaos Gacha put in his hands and they should not be held responsible for the crimes of their original, but their mindset was extremely revolting.
Alcina here clearly shared the same mindset and seemed set in her ways, so much so that the only way she could be changed even, was if he somehow got telepathic powers and changed her himself. Anyone else, and her defenses against foreign telepaths would activate, defending her mind until she died from the assault.
Such were the rules the Chaos Gacha had for Familiars. If he wanted to change her, he would have to do it himself and with that, came yet another moral quandary as changing her mind, in his opinion, would just be killing her current version.
But….would that be so bad?
He was brought out of his heavy thoughts by the door to the important people cabin opening with a slight whoosh, the ramp behind them slowly opening as well, with Storm and the rest walking/rolling on ahead, ignoring them.
"You need a red carpet?" Wolverine looked back and snarked at them as they began descending down the ramp. He followed suit, with Alcina's footsteps behind him being strangely reassuring as they looked at the Hangar that was clearly underground, with the giant doors above them closing up, showing him the blue sky in the last moments before it was closed off.
The sound of yet another door opening up had him scrambling to follow the X-Men as they stopped on top of a glowing white platform. His eyes glimmered as he realised what it could be and hastily stood on top of it, followed by Alcina, whose eyes widened as the floor detached itself from the floor and raised them towards the ceiling, which split up to reveal an elevator shaft.
The lift chugged along silently as it finally came to a stop, right in front of a door that read Dr.Charles Xavier. Wolverine and Storm walked off to two different sides, with Charles rolling forward in his tech wheelchair, the door to his office opening up on its own, as he shrugged and followed suit.
Before the door to Charles' office closed, he heard the sound of the floor closing up behind them as the super cool elevator went down again. Looking around the office, he noted that it was almost the same as the one the Dean of his Uni had in his previous universe.
Tons of Books. Corner office. Tall glass area. Chandelier. Seating area. Long table with more books behind him. All in all, a professional's office that also tried to make the people inside feel comfortable, but it only ended in making students feel intimidated as the ones who made the trip to the Dean hadn't even read as many books in the office total in their entire lives.
Charles rolled behind the desk, the reasons for the absence of a chair hitting him in the face like a sack of bricks as Charles gestured at the chairs in front of them, "Please. Take a seat."
He and Alcina both sat down in front of Charles as he began by offering them some beverages, and despite being slightly hungry, he rejected them for now, his paranoia getting the better of him even now. With that customary small talk out of the way, Charles got to the issue at hand.
"You are a wanted man, Mr…?"
"Mike." He gave Charles his name, which felt more and more right as time passed and then added, "And yes, I probably am wanted for assault on law enforcement."
Charles smiled at him, in a bid to reassure him but having some idea of what the man or his variants had done to both others and himself? The smile only gave him the creeps here, "Yes, that and some other things. I assure you, I am not here to judge you but there are some things I must tell you before we can move forward. I assume as a nature of your powers, you are aware of my deal with the government?"
"Wherein you keep the more radicalelements like Magneto contained, give them plenty of data on mutant powers in active combat, train potential super soldiers and also give the government a convenient location to raid, just in case they need to nab a few of your people, and in exchange they don't seize your assets and burn this place to the ground?"
He rattled off, purposefully, to put Charles a little off balance because he definitely needed all he the help in battling an ancient f*ck like him in a battle of the words. He didn't even know if all of that was true or not, but looking at it from an objective lens and having some context on the government and its favourite pastimes, most of the stuff he said was certainly plausible.
His gamble paid off but not in the way he expected it to, as he got a ticket for that.
For confirming Charles Xavier's suspicions regarding the deal he brokered with a suspiciously compliant government representative, Bronze Ticket X1
He held off on rolling that just now as Charles looked at him with a serious expression for what felt like minutes but were only seconds before sighing, "It was certainly not worded that way, but yes, it does feel like that on most days. Thank you, by the way, for confirming that. I should have listened to Raven when she told me," Charles whispered the last part but knowing the old f*ck, he probably meant for him to hear that.
He wanted to ask Charles if he couldn't just read their minds but he held off on that one since he did not want to lose momentum in this conversation, as cringey as that sounded, because he absolutely had to come out on top here.
He would be damned if he let that damned Curse counter ruin his plan to exploit his only high ranked ability to not be a Glass Cannon, dammit. No, atleast Glass Cannons have high offensive powers, he didn't even have that in him. He was worse than a Glass Cannon right now, and it offended him so much he couldn't even describe it, even though he was way stronger than he had any chance of being back home.
"I have seen the footage, and while you did assault them, they were left unharmed and safe....enough. Somebody stole their guns and badges before help could reach them. A call to 911 would have helped your case immensely there." Charles pointed out, and he grumbled at the chastising tone, as if he was a student here. No, sir, he left that title an entire universe away or multiverse away, whatever.
"Would have done that if I had a phone to do that." He probably wouldn't have. He was too afraid at the time of being captured, experimented on, and then lost what little taste of freedom he had in this universe.
It was funny. Back home, he was never going to get beyond an above average life with the way things were going, and that was perfectly fine because that's what seemed possible at the time. Like it was a reasonable ceiling someone of his status could aspire to, and realistically achieve.
All that changed when he was dropped here with a freaking Multiversal Ability/Item/People granter that just shattered any concept of a ceiling he might have in terms of power. Power in this case here just meant more freedom, and the mere possibility of having to let go of that, after getting a taste? That was just existentially terrifying, which is why he would have done the same as he did back then, which was just flee with no concept of slowing down or looking back because that would mean surrendering what little freedom and power he had tasted.
Charles made an understanding face at that, probably used to consoling lost teenagers, "I see. We have many students here who lost everything before coming here. I think–"
"We can talk about your school once we get past the issue of me being a felon now? A felon with powers, remember? Should I be expecting SHIELD to come knocking here soon?"
"Ah, I assume you know of them from your visions?" Charles said as he drank water from the cup that just sprouted from the table. It looked so old, like a piece of history, and yet, it had just that level of convenience tech in it. That was so awesome!
He could feel his inner tech nerd wake up at the sight of it as it had gone asleep when it had seen the prices of tech that was even remotely cool and how the industry as a whole was moving towards subscriptions/planned obsolescence/anti-repair and more.
He nodded, not having any desire whatsoever to correct them on that misconception. Technically, he did know of a future, it was just not reliable at all, except in cases like the Raven backstory and the rise of the Sentinels, which was mostly the same everywhere.
"Don't worry, I have not yet informed them of your existence. And let me assure you, I will never let them take any student of mine, atleast not for doing what I just saw."
Ah, the classic. The stick and the carrot.
You become a student of this school, letting me keep a closer watch over a seer, and I keep you outside SHIELD custody.
Fantastic.
"I have no intention of going through school again." He made that very clear.
Charles shook his head at that, "Unfortunately, Mr.Mike, every student that enrolls here has to complete their education in something, atleast until high school. After that, it is up to you. Now, you don't look like a high schooler to me so I assume you have already graduated? And are talking about college?
He went along with the old man, "In a manner of speaking, yes, I have already graduated from high school."
"Excellent. Then, pardon an old man for being intrusive, but I have one more question to ask before we can move ahead with your stay here." Charles Xavier, the most powerful telepath currently on the East Coast, then turned to face Alcina and said something that made a chill run down his spine.
"What are you?"