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.
Headmaster's office, Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
–Mike–
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?"
The question and the change in countenance was so abrupt that he was just a beat too late to reply, even as Alcina remained silent and maintained that impassive stare.
"W-What do you mean? Her name is Alcina. She is–"
"Nice to meet you, Ms.Alcina," Charles interrupted him, not even looking at him as he spoke once more in that apathetic tone of his, which was in stark contrast to the way he spoke until now, "I will ask once more. What are you? Because you are not human, I can tell that much. Logan confirmed as such. You may have been human once upon a time, but not anymore."
Charles then turned to him, "She has not spoken once since we saw her. Her breathing pattern is off, she is in perfect control over her muscles, not a twitch out of place, her eyes are a shade too yellow, the shape of pupils wrong, her one tone fixation on you. Need I go on?"
He opened his mouth to speak, to correct the man, to weave some sort of elaborate lie, but once he looked at Charles, he sighed and slumped, realising that he would not be able to fool the man, not as he was now, not without some external ability granted by the Chaos Gacha. Realising that he was beaten and he was not someone who could pull one over the old f*cks of this universe, he instead tried a different, more palatable answer than a functionally no different than my slave. My cannibal vampiric slave.
He snorted at the last thought. It sounded like the title of a BDSM story written by a teenager, posted on the internet with zero regards as to how cringe it could be. Damn, he missed the ff website sometimes.
"She is my bodyguard." Yes, in a way, she was his bodyguard. One of the first sets of commands, the ones he fine tuned layer on to account for levels of threats, was to guard him, even if it cost her her own life.
"Bodyguard?" Charles looked at him, doubtful, as he alternated his gaze between Alcina and him. Alcina, meanwhile, was continuing her usual routine, and he mentally hit himself in the head for not even thinking of someone noticing her inhuman nature, her enhanced stamina, her unique dietary requirements, her perfect control over herself, and her limited shapeshifting abilities.
"Yes. She is a bodyguard. I cannot tell you much except the fact that she will listen to what I have to say and will not hurt anyone here as long as she does not hurt me." He laid out all the cards that he reasonably could, without going into the specifics.
"And if I wish to know anyway?"
"Then we'll leave." He replied confidently because no matter the power-up he might get from getting the energy of anybody here, it would be the height of folly to expose his powers here. It felt fundamentally wrong to do so, as if something inside him snapped back in revulsion at the very thought of someone else finding out about the Chaos Gacha.
It might just be a compulsion that the Gacha placed on him, but he did not have the time to think of that right now.
"She was given to you, by someone," Charles said, all of a sudden and he had to hold himself back from acting on the surprise he felt at the statement. It truly felt as if it had come out of nowhere. Knowing that giving out any more information would just backfire on him, even more so than it already has, he just spoke with a sense of finality.
"I cannot say any more. It will have vast repercussions that the world is not ready to handle. Trust me on that. I assume you can easily confirm what I told you about Trask Industries?"
Charles nodded hesitantly.
"Then do that. We can stay away until you feel you can trust my information. We have our ways of disappearing if need be." Especially since he had that Tarot card. He could now teleport out of his Pocket Dimension into any of the places he had been to without any issue whatsoever, so no worries of anyone hijacking that specific door. Well, at least for a week.
That was the cooldown period for that card. Good thing that he would not have to really transport anything else with him because he could just dump everything into the Pocket Beach Dimension and then transport himself to wherever he wanted to, with the key to that dimension in his item space.
Charles was then silent and he debated saying something more that could help his situation somewhat but before he could be a fool again and give out more information unprompted, the resident telepath spoke up, "I believe that even if we don't go ahead with your long term stay here, you can still enjoy a tour and a short stay, until I can confirm some things. Will that be alright?"
"I suppose that's fine." It was not. He tried really hard not to show that on his face as the door behind him opened up. He was not surprised since he already felt the walking inferno of magic headed their way. The timing of the door opening was likely guided by the bald telepath in front of him so that was not a surprise.
Turning around, he was not surprised to see a young adult with ruby red quartz glasses, built into a visor, appear through the door, in normal casual clothing. For some reason, he expected Scott to be in full uniform, but that was clearly not the case here. He also sensed an energy signature tinged with fire but that was a whole other can of worms he was not even going to touch.
Even if by some miracle Jean Grey, host of the Phoenix Force, agreed to share her energy with him, he would not take that, or if he did have to take it, he would treat it as if he were holding a live bomb, because Mythical ability or not, one did not treat the Phoenix Force lightly. Who knew if it would heal him or burn him inside out for daring to use its energy without being a proper host that had to deal with tragedy and mental trauma all their life.
"Scott, just in time." Charles said in a jovial tone, acting as if the mental transmissions were absent, "Meet Mr.Mike and his companion, Alcina."
Scott shook his hand and offered the same to Alcina, who just eyed the offending limb and did not shake his hand. Acting as if nothing happened, Scott just turned to Charles as the man said, "Give them a small tour of the public areas, will you, Scott? In the meantime, I will have Hank arrange their temporary living quarters."
"Alright," Scott said, like a good little soldier before walking out of the office with a "Follow me."
As he walked behind the current or future X-Men leader, he noted the areas of the school he could see for now. For one, there was a big lawn in between what he assumed to be the administrative building and a giant building that likely housed all the other students of this place.
He could feel faint traces of energy from them but not much, which either meant the powers were weak in terms of energy transmission or they were far away from him. The only reason he could even sense what he thought to be the Phoenix Force despite standing next to pretty powerful mutants in the form of Charles Xavier, Scott Summers, and Alcina for some reason, was because of the sheer intensity of that particular brand of energy. It made sense only because of the Phoenix Force.
"This is the main administrative building," Scott began, showing them the mess, the offices, the storage spaces, the corridor that led to an elevator with no floor above it, as well as the staff quarters.
"So you're staff here?" He asked the man since he did not look old enough for that.
"Yes. Probationary for now, but I am faculty as of now." Scott looked all too pleased about that, and he had to wonder if Charles was playing some sick mental games on him as well, because that was a thing in some fanon he read as well. The dude acted way too loyal to the cause, despite effectively doing the same thing over and over again without any noticeable change in results.
He tried, he really did, not to paint Charles as some comical villain who mind controlled everyone in his life to act according to his ideals, and always align to his ideas of how the world worked, but so far, he had not seen any evidence to the contrary. Here's hoping that he actually did what he promised and kept a significant number of mutants safe and away from the dangers they might have faced.
That would work in his favour if the argument was his liberal use of powers.
Soon enough, towards the end of the tour, Scott abruptly paused, just minutely before turning to them and saying stiffly, "This way, please, your temporary quarters are ready."
Once again, liberal use of telepathy just rubbed him the wrong way. Would he get to see just more and more such instances of using what was essentially breaching one's mind for mundane tasks that could be handled by the PA system or by a phone call if you wanted things to remain semi-private?
No way in hell was he consenting to this mode of communication unless they were in an actual warzone. Which is why he immediately made plans to bail and get out of this place very soon. By the time they went around the administrative building, which was probably just the building used for X-man activities, and reached another white building that was probably empty, he'd made up his mind.
Once he had the Mythical Ability in one of the slots and had the basic know-how on how it worked and what conditions and limitations it had, he would make his decision to stay or bail out of this place.
They were shown to a room with a bunk bed, attached washrooms, and everything. It nearly brought him to tears because he had to go out in the open until now and hadn't had a proper bathroom experience in weeks, if not for his entire stay in this universe. There was not a single soul in the entire building, at least not from what he could either see or sense, so this was likely just a quarantine in the name of hospitality from Xavier.
"If you need anything, just press this button. Someone from the staff will either come here or Professor Xavier will contact you directly." Uh, not if he had any say in that matter, but understanding the intent, he nodded and closed the door. Soon enough, Scott's energy signature faded from active awareness, but it was still there, sitting in the background, strong enough to stand out from any other energy he might be sensing.
Just like he could still sense Xavier, Alcina, and, faintly what he hoped was Jean Grey as well. Other than them, there might be other strong mutants here but they must either be like Wolverine, who was just physically blessed, or too far away to be sensed by him.
He tried to check for any bugs or cameras in the room, but halfway through, he just gave up. He did not have any skills that could help with that, and Alcina also did not have any way to do so aside from a cursory check around the room to look for something obvious like an exposed camera. He did not think they were amateur enough to do that, though, so, resigned to the fact that they will know about his pocket dimension one way or another, he resolved to get the Mythical Ability information out of the way before rolling for his Mandatory Curse, which was just absurd and unfair in his opinion. Then again, why would something like the Chaos Gacha care about his opinion?
With a mental switch, he switched out Sense Air for Spirit Gathering and smiled, slumping as he plopped his ass down on the bed with a relieved smile on his face. As expected of something that came with the Mythical tag, the ability really was awesome.
Spirit Gathering, as the name suggested, allowed him to gather energy from someone and then use it as if it were his own. In some cases, even better than the original user if they were not practiced enough in it.
All he needed was the consent of the person whose energy he needed to borrow and their permission to temporarily brand them with a pinkish arrow of sorts that would be visible on their body, signalling their willingness to share their innate energy. The mark will glow a bright pink whenever the energy is being siphoned off.
They could, of course, dispel the brand or tattoo with a thought, revoking his energy privileges. It was totally one sided, which kind of sucked, but he would take it for now. Also, some of the limitations the original user might have were outright negated for him. For example, he would be able to release the energy in any manner, from any area on his body, without any issue.
So, yes, Scott Summers' beams coming from his hands, legs, and entire body was possible, and since the man had a theoretical infinite amount of it, he could just rampage about without any hesitation.
Secondly, distance was not an issue when using it. Also, he could brand as many people as he wanted with the tattoo, creating a chain network of sorts, and could use their ability. Even using multiple energy types at once was possible, but he got a sense that it would be straining on his body and would need a much stronger body to sustain that.
Any mental effects like the energy acting as a corrupting influence would also be limited and will not be long lasting, to a certain point. He took that last warning to heart since he knew that even with the Mythical ability doing most of the heavy lifting, he would not be able to get away with using energies that are notorious for being equally harmful for the user. Say, for example, using Chaos Magic would almost certainly leave its mark on him, Mythical Ability or not.
To a certain extent, he also received the skill of the original user with the energy if they had any, so taking psionic energy from Xaviers would also give him the know-how on how to use that agility.
Learning the specifics of this ability just made him want to stay in this place more and more. His gaze turned thoughtful as he looked at Alcina standing by the bed, looking blankly into space and feeling the vast amounts of energy within her body. He wondered what that energy was. As far as he could tell, most of her abilities were rather physical in nature. Also, she derived most of her energy from her food, which would not explain the energy within her.
The thought of using her as the first experimental mule for his new and shiny ability was promptly discarded due to the risk of her nature bleeding over and more importantly, the countdown timer that just spawned in his vision once more, warning him that time was running out.
With his decision made, he judged the risk of revealing his pocket dimension worth it to stay here and went to the bathroom door, summoned the key in his hand, and opened the portal to his pocket dimension. Before entering, however, he turned around and said in the general direction of the room, "Don't worry, I'll be back soon. In this exact place."
Closing the portal behind him, he took in a deep breath of the familiar air mixed in with a fishy smell and turned around to see the Deathclaws feasting on the fish that Gama brought them from the ocean that automagically refilled the stock of fish in the ocean, no matter how much Gama fished.
Once, out of sheer boredom and curiosity, he had Gama just go deep, look for schools of fish, gather them in his tongue, and pile them on top of one another. By the time Gama ran out of energy, the pile of fish was higher than him, and yet, he knew that there was more in the ocean.
The Deathclaws, a breeding pair, had made quick work of all that fish, and since then, he had tasked Gama with regularly feeding the Deathclaws, which he supposed was happening right now.
Running a fair distance away, he made sure Alcina had her daily dose of blood from the unending vial of blood and then instructed her to keep watch over him, with food and water nearby if he needed it, and then, after mentally preparing himself, rolled for the Curse.
Bracing for the severity of the curse, he just blinked for a second as he read through the description of the curse.
[Slow Slots]
|Severity 12|
Your ability cooldowns have gone from a 5-minute cooldown to a 1-hour cooldown. Once you swap an ability slot, you must wait at least 1 hour to change that ability slot again.
|Resolve: Acquire at least 5 speed boosting abilities, items, or traits.|
That's it?
Just the cooldown changing from 5 minutes to an hour? He was expecting something that would impede his every movement, like becoming allergic to the sun or something. Now, that would have been a real curse.
This? This was just a minor inconvenience.
Sighing in relief, he was about to roll for the bronze ticket he had lying around from earlier, he paused when he felt it, the impending arrival of another ticket.
TING! For getting cursed with a rather low tier curse, Bronze Ticket X1
Ignoring the sass, he rolled both the bronze tickets, content with the minor curse, so much so that he would be happy even if he didn't get anything from these rolls.
[Cottonmouth]
|Trash Familiar|
A smart cottonmouth snake companion, there is not much else about it, they are at the peak of what a cottonmouth snake could be and are smarter than average, but that's about it.
[Jaw]
|Common Ability|
Allow you to turn your teeth into very sharp and durable fangs.
Letting the snake out, he watched it slither away and ignored the ability as it was not all that useful when compared to Stone Skin and Spirit Gathering before all but collapsing on the sand, looking at the bright sun overhead.
It was kind of stabbing his eyes right now, but he was just so relaxed, he did not feel like walking for five minutes to get under his tent to get a good night's sleep. No way was he going to go back to Xavier's just to sleep.
For now, just the sheer relief from the absence of that particular sword that was hanging over his head had him nearly passing out from relief.
He wondered what Xavier was thinking right now since he must have known by now what had happened