บท 10: Retelling
The teenage X-Men all began to rapidly speak at once, which gave me the distraction I needed to pull a device from my cube and hand it to Laura.
"Put this on the back of your neck" I whispered to her. She looked confused but nodded and did as I asked. The device lit up for a second before fading into her skin and disappearing.
"You're all back!" Xavier exclaimed. Ororo had a smile on her face at our reappearance while Logan moved next to Laura and put his hand on her shoulder.
"What happened to you?" Xavier asked.
"Kurt accidentally activated a device I was working on to travel to other dimensions," I said.
"That's what I thought, but it worked? You were sent to another dimension?" Reed asked excitedly.
"Apologies, this is Reed Richards and Sue Storm, although you probably already know who they are. I called them in since they are the foremost experts on dimensional technology." Xavier explained.
"Yeah it worked, we ended up in a whole other universe with different superheroes," Kitty said.
"Fascinating. And you were able to build this device yourself? Do you still have it?" Reed asked.
"No, I don't know where the one that sent us there went and the one I built to bring us back broke when we returned," I said, holding up the pieces of the broken device I had pulled out of my cube.
"Unfortunate, but you still know how to make one. Would you be willing to come to the Baxter Building and work on designs for a new dimensional device?" Reed asked.
"Reed, they just got back from another dimension, you could give him a minute to adjust" Sue chided.
"It's fine. To answer your question, no I won't. I think that we're better off not accessing parallel universes like that. We could end up bringing something we don't want into this universe," I answered.
"But think of the possibilities. Infinite realities, infinite different possibilities. Maybe one decision we made could've gone differently and changed the whole world. We could learn a lot by studying them," Reed protested.
"Then crack it yourself, I'm not making a new device."
"Fine, then I have a different offer. How would you like to come to the Baxter Building as an intern? We could use someone with your intelligence to work on some of my projects." Reed suggested.
"Paid or unpaid?" I asked.
"Paid, we have a sizeable grant to pay for any employees we may hire."
"Then I'm in, I don't exactly have all that much money to my name, it'd be good to have a source of income," I said.
"Are you sure Casper? You still have to keep up with your studies and training, do you really want to pile something else on?" Xavier asked, not sounding exactly happy with my internship.
"I'm sure, I'd like to have my own source of income and it could be interesting work," I told him.
"Come to the Baxter Building sometime in the next couple of days and we'll get all of the specifics ironed out," Reed said.
"Yes well, now that that's settled, I think we would all be interested in hearing about the other universe you were in and what happened," Xavier said.
"Ooh, there were other heroes like us there and they were our age," Kitty said excitedly.
"I was there for most of it, so I can tell the story" I suggested.
"Very well, Casper. We'll all move to the living room and we can hear your story," Xavier said, with the entire group including Sue and Reed moving to sit down on the couches and chairs.
I then launched into a retelling of what happened, talking about our group waking up in an alley up to the point where we decided to break into Wayne Tower for supplies.
"It was a dire situation, but I still don't condone the use of your abilities for thievery," Xavier said.
Scott had a smirk on his face at what Xavier said, but Logan's next words wiped it off his face.
"Their story ain't exactly believable. They adapted in the field and found a way to get what they needed to get home."
From there I continued, glossing over the details of the theft since I didn't feel like dealing with Xavier's "high ground", and continuing to the point where we met the Team and beat them.
"It would've been better to simply allow them to read your minds instead of starting a conflict with them," Xavier said with a disappointed face.
"That's the issue with telepaths isn't it, you're so used to rooting around in other people's heads that you don't have a concept of what it's like to have someone do it to you. None of us particularly wanted our mind read, so they didn't leave us another choice," I said, with murmurs of agreement from the rest of the X-Men, including Scott.
I continued the story up to the Justice League intervening and everyone passed out besides me and Laura. While I was telling this part of the story, I felt a light buzz in my pocket and I couldn't help but feel relieved that I had given Laura my device beforehand.
Instead of detailing my freak-out and subsequent thrashing of the League, I just said they couldn't damage me when I absorbed Adamantium and managed to take all of them down, which led to them agreeing to leave us be while I built our device to return home.
"It sounds like you all had quite the adventure, I believe a couple of days off is at hand for you to recover and get used to being home again," Xavier said.
"I'm exhausted, I'm ready to go to sleep," Kitty said.
"Me too, I just want to put the whole thing behind me," Kurt said.
"Take this as a lesson to be more careful when interacting with technology you don't understand," Xavier said.
Kurt rubbed the back of his head and said "I will."
The various students made their way towards their rooms, with Sue and Reed leaving as well after I told them I'd be over to the Baxter Building in a day or two. Walking towards my room with Bobby, I saw Laura and Logan go somewhere to talk to each other.
"Feels weird to be back in my own bed," Bobby said as he lay down on his.
"I guess, I kind of felt more at home camped out in the warehouse. Maybe it's just nostalgia." I said.
"I don't know how you lived moving around constantly. I like living in one place, not everyone is built for the nomad life." Bobby said.
'Nomad huh.'
Looking back at Bobby, I saw he had already managed to fall asleep. I heard a knock on the door, so I moved to open it. Looking in the hall, I found Laura waiting for me.
"Can we talk?" She asked.
"Yeah, Bobby's asleep though, can we use your room?" I asked.
"Alright."
We walked to her room and I sat down in a chair while she sat down on her bed.
"What'd you want to talk about?" I asked.
"What was that device you gave me?" Laura asked.
"It was something I built to stop anyone from reading another person's mind. I gave it to you because I wanted to see if Xavier would try to read yours to find out what happened and if he did I didn't want him to succeed." I said, pulling out my phone and showing the alerts that were sent to my phone at the points at which Xavier tried to read her mind.
Laura growled a little as her claws popped out slightly, before receding back into her hand.
"He's not exactly frugal with his use of his power, but then again neither am I. I just made sure he couldn't use it on you anymore." I said.
"He needs to learn boundaries," Laura said.
"Yeah, he does, like trying to get me not to do the internship. It'll be nice to have some money, need to start building a life outside of the X-Men." I said, muttering the last part to myself.
Laura seemed to have a realization as she said "You're leaving, aren't you?"
I wasn't going to bother to hide it from her. "Yeah, not right now, but eventually I will. The X-Men were never going to be a long turn place for me."
"Then I'm coming with you," Laura said, decidedly.
"What about Logan? Are you just going to leave him?" I asked.
"I can still come back and see him. I can't spend my whole life near him, but I would like to have longer to spend with him," Laura said.
"Well I'm not leaving for a little while anyways, I still need to amass some money and get a house. It'll take some time to earn enough working at the Baxter Building," I said, not noticing that I had implied I would take her with me.
"Good, then I'll spend my time here with Logan and we can leave when you're ready," Laura said with a nod.
"Well alright then," I said, not really putting up much protest. I didn't mind Laura leaving with me, it would be nice to have some company.
"I think we should talk about the fact that you know I can absorb powers now," I said, realizing we had never really talked about the fact that she saw me use a bunch of powers.
"Why? I've known for a while." Laura said back, causing my face to change to one of surprise.
"How?"
"When I first attacked you I had been watching you for a while. I saw you making ice, but I didn't realize you had copied a power until I met Bobby."
"And you just didn't mention it?" I asked, confused.
"I figured you had a reason not to say anything or show it, so I left it alone until you wanted to tell me since you helped me with Kimura," Laura said.
"Well, I appreciate it. I'd rather everyone else not know I can absorb powers until I'm ready to leave." I said.
Laura nodded at my thanks and I stood up, heading to the door.
"Night Laura," I said as I left.
"Good night Casper." I heard behind me as I closed the door and returned to my room. Getting into bed, I thought about what else I needed to take care of before I left.
'I need to absorb the powers of the rest of the X-Men, but I don't want to lose control again. I need to get away from the Institute and practice with my powers more, to make sure I stay in control if I'm going to be absorbing more. Then I'll absorb Kurt's first since he is the most useful, followed by the rest as long as I stay in control. The Baxter Building Internship was a good opportunity, it will let me make money and have access to one of the best research labs in the world. I've been trying to get stronger, but I still don't know what exactly I want to do with my life other than make sure the planet doesn't blow up.
With my plan set, I turned off the light and went to sleep, ready to devote a lot of my time to work soon.
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AbsentMind
AbsentMind This is a transition chapter. He'll be working at the Baxter Building to get resources and set up a base of operations. I need to speed up the timeline of Earth because at the moment there aren't that many heroes active.
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