Chapter 11: A Reunion (2)
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"Time moves slowly, but passes quickly."
- Author. Alice Walker, (The Color Purple)
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<(Atem POV)>
"Jeff, is that you?" I asked doubtfully, my voice filled with disbelief as the Hulk-sized shark hugged me with a happy expression on its face like a dog meeting its owner after a long time.
*Shhhhhark* The shark made a deep sound that came from its mouth and stomach that seemed too much like a Pokemon saying its own name in order to communicate with other people.
"I'll take that as a yes then." I chuckled seeing the huge shark sport a huge smile on its face that showed all of its teeth.
"Hey, are you guys ignoring me? Also, why the hell are you hugging him, Jeff? He is my future husbando and you are my pet. I should be the one hugging both of you. Furthermore, he was only gone for barely a month anyway, so stop the drama." The earlier shrill voice complained from behind the huge shark.
"Gwen, how is my favorite Elasticgirl doing?" I asked with a grin as Gwenpool, the official canon otherworldly reincarnate of Marvel jumped on me to give me a bear hug.
In the comics, she was supposed to be a reincarnate from an ordinary world into the world of Marvel supers. Her character was designed to be something like that of the female counterpart of Deadpool with OP reality-bending powers but unfortunately for her in this world, she doesn't have those same powers and instead possesses more or less the same abilities of Gomu Gomu no mi's rubber powers with the addition of having the unique ability to generate clones and heal herself immeasurably along with owning a type of biological immortality.
But she was still attractive and fun nevertheless, especially after she recognized me as a fellow reincarnation and decided to stick with me in a bid to get her own hot romantic adult comedy arc with me as her 'lead'.
"I missed you my otherworldly honey bunny. Next time you leave, take me with you. Us otherworlders should stick together you know." She whispered cutely in my ears.
"I'll try to but as I have said multiple times before, stop spewing the secrets about our origin out loud," I replied as I almost felt a tick mark on my head due to the immense amount of annoyance I felt at her due to her divulging what was supposed to be the ultimate secret among reincarnations, like some kind of useless small talk.
"Oh yeah, I forgot about it. Sorry." She said sticking her tongue out to show a sorry expression.
"Anyway, what happened to Jeff? The last time I saw him, he was just a kid. How did he grow up to... this in just a single month when he never had a growth spurt in the last ten years?" I asked looking at the brute happily watching us.
"Well, we actually snuck in Miss. Sinister's lab last week and he got tempted by a shiny pink liquid kept in one of her test tubes and drank it, turning him into such a huge shark from a baby one" She revealed.
"... Why would you even do that? Why drink the first toxic-looking weird thing you come across? I mean it makes perfect sense since we are talking about you here but still why?" I asked the overgrown shark with a sigh.
"Because it's fun stupid." She answered on behalf of Jeff while giggling like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"You know what, let's go inside. The others would want to meet you too. Having a decent conversation with her isn't really healthy for our remaining brain cells." Jean interrupted their talks.
"Hey, that's rude. I can have a healthy conversation. I have entertaining conversations with myself every day." Gwenpool whined while pointing her index finger at Jean accusingly.
"I stand by my earlier statement." The red-haired telepath only doubled down with a straight face.
"Okay, stop it. I have no liking for arguments, even if they are just friendly banters on the surface. Let's go and meet with the others now. We will catch up later Gwen, maybe on a date or something." I tried to appease her.
"YES, I got a date. You see that Jeff, that's how you get dates. Your papa is the biggest simp for your hottest mama." She celebrated.
Not really but sure, ok. Truthfully, I don't have the heart to correct her, by telling her that the God of Domination is a simp for no one, so I won't. Whatever makes her happy, right?
"Shhhhaaark" Jeffrey the now muscular shark who looked more like King Shark from DC than his previous version of baby shark happily uttered as it picked up Gwenpool on its back and began to walk behind me in a cheerful manner with Gwen still happily whirling in her delusions.
The inside of the main school building was as grand as the outside with premium-level architecture and designs as well as top-of-the-line security with cameras in every corner along with a vast majority of other types of sensors.
Even the cafeteria looked like a luxury restaurant made for catering only to the elites.
"The school of the elite, huh?" I muttered subconsciously to myself as I looked around while going towards our destination.
The construction of the academy was completed only three weeks ago and I hadn't seen it in its completed form when I left but seeing it now really made me wonder if I had spent too much money on making the school seem like the best premium school in the world, because it definitely was what it advertised, absolute premium.
"Lord Atem, is that you?" A cheerful voice spoke up as soon as I entered the exclusive danger room of the school meant only for use by X-Force members.
"Hey, Wanda. How is your magic practice going? Also, don't call me Lord. It's really cliche." I said, looking at the dozens of destroyed ordinary-grade sentinels lying like a heap of trash in front of her.
"It's going amazing Lo-Atem. The books on magic you gave me are immensely helpful. I have been growing better and better at magic every day. I think I'll be able to start going to real missions with my sister and brother soon." Wanda happily remarked smiling at his arrival.
"I see. However, Wanda, remember not to compare yourself with your other siblings too much. Their powers although strong are also a lot more easily controllable than yours giving them an advantage over you. In comparison to your sister's electromagnetic spectrum manipulation and your brother's super speed, you need much more practice, focus, and determination to use your own chaos magic giving you a disadvantage. But once you are truly able to master this power, you will be more or less unstoppable. Only a few omega-level metahumans and other supers could even hope to match you in terms of pure ability." I tried to increase her confidence.
"Thank you for the encouragement Atem. Thanks for everything. If not for you, I would have still been in that hellhole of a country being chased by angry villagers to burn me at the stake." Wanda shivered slightly as she remembered the unfortunate memory that she had once lived through.
"It's okay. That was my job as a god. Anyway, where are the other members of the X-Force? I don't see anyone else here." I asked curiously.
"Well, Pietro, Piotr, Lorna, and Anna are on a mission against a cartel of metahuman smugglers in Libya. As for logan and Hank, they went to help Laura as a backup in a certain mission. Apparently, she was ambushed by hundreds of mutated animals and needed rescue. And the Frost Quintuplets are doing maintenance and familiarizing themselves at the new and improved Cerebra" Wanda informed.
"I see. I guess they can handle it since it's them. But this reminds me to recruit more metahumans in the team since it looks like the team lacks enough numbers to truly have a global reach after we started going after extraordinary international criminals and crime syndicates." I murmured to myself.
By the way, I wasn't doing all this for charity or out of the goodness of my heart. Besides being marketing gimmicks to increase the reputation of metahumans globally, they were also very good ways to earn money and resources. Normally, the organization X-Force goes after having a lot of funding and this funding after their defeat is entirely and silently pocketed by X-Force as minor compensation for their services, thereby increasing the funds available for the school and me as a whole. In fact, we get lots of rare and unique resources too like smuggled magical artifacts, stolen tech, rare minerals, and even the DNA of other metahumans to research making the entire operation a win-win for everyone.
"I guess I'll have to wait for them then," I stated as I turned around to exit the danger room.
"Atem, I actually had something to ask you. Do you think that you could go on a date..." Wanda quickly tried to stop me from leaving as she started to speak but was interrupted.
"Just a few days after we got the big news that Tony Stark is still alive, we are bringing you another big news that a high-tech robot, yes you heard me right, a big goddamn robot was seen a few hours ago raiding a village in Afghanistan where it was seen killing dozens of men brutally with various modern weaponry. Some sources have stated that this village may be linked with terrorist activities but there is no solid proof as to that yet. But there are some rumors that this robot is the newest Stark Industries doomsday product. Now, this comes only a few days after the CEO of the company recently declared that they are completely closing off their weapons business. We will go into the discussions after just a short break. I am J. Jonah. Jameson and you are watching Daily Bugle." The voice from a nearby TV in the danger room boomed like a madman yelling about the world being destroyed.
The face of Wanda had undergone a drastic change at the mention of the name of Tony Stark in the news from slight shyness to intense anger and hatred as she looked like she wanted to strangle Tony and kill him in the most painful way possible.
This surprised me quite a lot. I knew that she hated Tony Stark with a passion because her parents' deaths were caused by one of his company missiles but this was the first time I realized just how deep and wild the hatred ran.
The truth was that Tony was not at all responsible for her misfortune. He might have made the missile but it was used by someone else for their own profit and selfish reasons. Even if he hadn't made it, someone else would have, some other missile with someone else's name on it would have still destroyed her home. So, her reasoning for blaming the first name she sees printed on the missile was completely and obviously wrong but the question was how to explain it to her without angering her.
Maybe, I should just explain it to her when the time comes. She isn't going to meet Tony soon anyway, so, it doesn't matter even if she has some misconceptions about him for the time being.
For now, I should focus on leaching as many benefits as I can from this. Maybe, it's time to give Tony Stark another visit.
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