Chapter 6: A Day With The X-Men (2)

A/N:

" " : Dialogue,

' ' : Thought,

"Italicized text" : Telepathy,

"Bold text" : Shadows,

[ ] : System,

| | : Artificial Intelligence.

----------------------------------------------------------

Narrator POV

Everyone looked at Ashwani, confused and appalled at what he'd just said. Logan brought out his claws and snarled, a small well of anger beginning to bubble within him. "The hell do you think you're saying, bub?" He said with a growl.

"Well, when a doctor wants to work on a patient, the patient isn't fully clothed, are they?" Everyone looked at Ashwani, even more confused. "Patient? Listen, bub. I'm healthier than anyone on the planet can possibly be, so take that shit somewhere else." Logan said and retracted his claws.

"Really? I wouldn't call you having your entire skeleton grafted with a material that is highly toxic to humans healthy. Or having a bullet made of said material lodged in your brain." Everyone looked at Ashwani, multiple questions in their minds.

"What do you mean toxic?" "How did you know that it's his entire skeleton?" "How is he not dead?" "When did he get a bullet in his brain?" "Is that what caused him to become an amnesiac?" The questions were sent out to Ashwani at rapid fire, but he clapped loudly enough to suspend their thoughts of speaking.

"Okay. First, adamantium is inherently toxic to the human body. This is just a part of its composition, so asking me why it's toxic isn't going to get you any proper answers. Second, I used magic. Third, his healing factor is strong enough to heal the damage caused by the presence of adamantium in his body faster than it takes place, for now at least. Fourth, from what I can tell from those that interacted with him, probably sometime in the late 80s to mid-90s. And lastly, the bullet is most likely what caused his amnesia. " Ashwani answers their questions.

"And what are you gonna do, rip the metal outta me?" Logan asked from behind clenched teeth. "Well, basically yes. But I'll need to do something first." Ashwani said as he walked to Logan, then he suddenly pulled his left arm backward and hit Logan in the chest with his palm.

Charles's eyes widened, as he saw Logan had been quite literally pushed out of his own body. "What the fuck?! Kid, what the hell did you do to me?!" Logan asked, his astral form floating behind his now soulless body. "Well, I can't have you going berserk from the pain, so I've pushed you out for now." Ashwani said, then covered himself and Logan's body in darkness.

Ashwani POV

Now that that's done, I can finally get some adamantium to enhance my nanobots. I send my nanomachines into Logan's body to basically consume all the adamantium in his body, the bullet in his brain included. They do so pretty quickly as they release high frequency vibrations that break down the bonds in the metal, basically making it less of a hassle to do, while also staying away from the biological matter.

After confirming that there is no presence of adamantium within Logan's body, I decide to give him a better grafting, one that no longer caused the different issues that adamantium caused for him. Since vibranium is its template material, I've tweaked it so that the kinetic dispersion doesn't blow his body apart, and also so that the radiation that's normally in vibranium is absent, while still keeping the durability and sharpness that his adamantium skeleton and claws had.

I program the nanobots to have similar functions to the Panther Habit that is used by the Black Panther, and code in a lightweight spell, making Logan's body weigh the same as a normal human body of the same size. I also apply the electromagnetic blockage function of Gatelinium, so that Erik can't pull this grafting out.

And lastly, I take a sizable amount of his blood and stem cells, so that I can use them in the enhanced version of the Super Soldier Serum that I'm planning to make much later.

After I finish, I drop the darkness curtain, and with a quick tug with my hand, I pull Logan's astral form back into his body. He collapsed to the floor, and Ororo starts to move toward him, but I stop her. "You wouldn't want to get hit while they rush in." I tell her as I keep an eye on Logan.

"Rush in? What's rushing in?" She asks me, her voice soft but alarmed. "His memories." Immediately as I say that his eyes open forcefully, then he lets out a shout so loud, it could pass for a roar very easily.

I begin casting multiple spells to make sure that no one gets hurt. I cast one to make sure no sound leaves the room, another to shield everyone else, and one to bind Logan's body.

As the memories rush in, he lets out growls and struggles to get free for a while, and eventually his anger reaches a boiling point, and he shouts out. "Stryker!!!" The shout is loud enough that it releases a very small shockwave, causing many things in the room to shake.

Using magic, I reach into his mind to communicate with him. "Logan, James, Jimmy. Whichever one you choose to answer to, wake up already, you dumbass!" The presence of a loud voice within his mind jolts him to regain his senses.

He looks around while panting and sees everyone else looking at him with worry. "What the hell did you do to me, kid?" He asks with bated breath. "I just took out the bad stuff and replaced it with something better, your healing did the rest." I say with a shrug.

He pops out his claws and is surprised to see that they are still covered in metal. "So what's this supposed to be?" He asks, seemingly eager to test them on someone. "Vibranium. Which unlike adamantium is beneficial to the human body, with the right work done to it, of course." I say and he retracts his claws.

"How are you sure about that?" Hank asks me as he looks at Logan with slightly curious eyes. "That's for me to know and the rest of the world to find out." I say with a smile. Seriously, the advantages of being able to keep telepaths out of your head cannot be overstated.

"But if such information is known, we could use it to better the world." I put my hand up to stop him from continuing to speak. "Let's say that that information gets more widely known, would you be able to handle the repercussions of doing that?" I say, looking at him with eyes that are clearly telling him that I won't be entertaining the idea of spreading such knowledge.

"Did you happen to forget that I said that Hydra is in control of many parts of human society, let alone just the US?" His protest immediately fizzles away as I remind him of one of the adversaries that we'd have to face before we can properly work on humanity.

"Hey, kid." Logan calls me. "Thanks for this. And also, don't call me Jimmy. It brings up some unpleasant memories." He says, referring to his "brother", Victor Creed, otherwise known as Sabertooth.

"Now that that's done, how about you, Charles? Feel like walking again?" I ask the resident cripple while flourishing some magic in my hands. "I'm not so sure that that'll be good for us." He says, probably referring to the pseudo healing serum that Hank gave him all those years ago that let him walk at the expense of his telepathic powers.

"Don't worry. You won't lose any connection to your powers with this." His eyes widen subtly, but I catch it. "The only thing that might be required after the healing would be some physical therapy. Although, knowing you, I don't think you'll need it for all that long." I say, continuing the light show in my hands.

Hank, Ororo and Forge look at him with encouraging gazes, then he nods. "If that is so, then please, do what you feel needs to be done." He says resolutely. "Okay." I say and snap my fingers, creating a dome around Charles.

I lift him off the hoverchair using Ruler's Authority and turn him around. I'd already fully scanned his body, so I knew exactly where I needed to heal.

I put my hand on his lumbar spinal area and begin casting an improved version of an Eldritch healing spell, while sending some nanobots into his body to bolster the regeneration process. As the spell takes effect, his body begins restoring itself to its proper working conditions, healing every bit of physical damage that wasn't attributed to aging.

Unlike Logan's operation, healing Charles only took about a minute, after which I retract my nanomachines. "Done." I say as I gently return Charles to his hoverchair. "Really? I thought it would take much longer." He said, a teensy bit skeptical.

"Well, why don't you try moving your legs? I'm sure you've missed being able to walk on your own two feet." I tell him, and he struggles to stand up. Thinking of something that may speed up his recovery, I take out a single HP potion from my inventory. It was one of the drops that I got from killing Gao.

Hank supports Charles, helping him walk out from the table. Charles pats Hank on his shoulder, and tells him to let him walk by himself. He balances himself, then begins walking towards me, a determined expression on his face. His steps are shaky, thanks to the muscle atrophying over the years, yet each step he took resounded strongly in everyone's ears.

At the end of his struggle, he made it to me and put his hands on my shoulders to keep himself from falling. "Thank you, Ashwani. This means a lot to me." He said with hitched breaths. "No problem, Charles. But I still have a question for you?" I say, then show off the potion for everyone to see.

"Do you want to recover faster, or struggle to do so?" He looks up at the potion with a questioning gaze, and I smile, as I notice Hank's eyes dart to the potion in my hand with the same inquisitive gaze he would use on things that interest him.

"And what exactly would that do to aid his recovery?" Hank asks with narrowed eyes. "This is a health recovery potion. And before you start thinking of ways to reverse engineer it, its creation is a purely magical process, so relying on science isn't really gonna help you out." He deflates as I point out one of the limitations he would face when trying to recreate it.

"When it's consumed, it basically charges the vitality in whatever living being consumes it, helping them heal from most things pretty quickly." Charles looks at me with surprise. "So wanna take it?" I ask him and he pauses. "Do you have any more?" He asks, concern on his face.

"Right now? No. But I can make more, so there's no need to worry about it." I say, and hand the potion over to Charles, trying out an experiment. Charles takes the potion from my hand, then pops off the cover, much to my surprise, and downs its contents.

The fact that he could hold onto the potion bottle showed another difference between my system and the one that the architect, Kandiaru, had given to Sung Jin-Woo. Was it because I said that I didn't want his interference that this has now happened? If so, then I'd have to make my own way for me to keep my stuff out of just anyone's hands.

After he finishes the potion, he tries stepping away, and he does so with comparatively more ease than before. His face bore an anticipatory expression, as if wanting to ask for more, but he stopped himself from doing so, lest I start to see him as greedy.

"By the way, Forge. If you don't mind, can I take a look at the Danger Room?" I say as I clap my hands together. "Sure, but why? You've definitely gotten the experience of it by now, right?" Forge says, bringing up a good point.

"That I have. But I want to see how well I do in there with my current powers." I say with a smile. Forge looks around the room for everyone's opinions on the matter. "I say let the kid go ahead and check it out. It's not like it'll harm us." Logan says as he checks his claws.

"I also have no issue with it. He may not be an X-Man, but he's given his word that he'll do what has to be done for the betterment of mankind." Charles says, walking around the room to refamiliarize himself with functional legs.

"I concur. It would also help us see what he can deal with as he is now." Hank says, masking his inquisitive intent with care. "As long as you can be sure that you'll be alright, then I've got no problem." Ororo says with a sigh. Piotr stays quiet, knowing that he wasn't amongst those being asked.

"All right. I guess you can go ahead and experience the Danger Room. But you don't need us to get you there, do you?" Forge asks rhetorically. "I don't, but it'd be impolite if I just went there on my own. Also, Charles. I want to take a look at Cerebro. See if I can place some magic defenses for the user." I say, running through the multiple mental defense spells in my head, to see which one's effect I can essentially engrave into Cerebro.

Charles looks at me with a slight suspicion, but nods anyway. "Thanks. By the way, you can still use the chair every once in a while, since you're trying to get used to your legs." I say, and head out of the room, with everyone else following behind me. I bring the hoverchair with us, just in case Charles may need it.

...

After a few minutes of walking in silence, we reach the elevator to the underground parts of the X-Mansion, and I move out of the way so that any of them can use the biometric scanner to open it up. Forge goes through the scans and unlocks the elevator doors, and we go down, revealing the technologically advanced base of the X-Men.

We all walk out of the elevator, with the door closing behind us. I look around with a slight sense of nostalgia, as the memories of the deceased play in my mind. But my reminiscing is stopped when I see another X-Man walking about.

He's at a relatively tall height of 6' 2", and his most notable feature is the white pair of wings at his back. This is none other than Warren Kenneth Worthington III, more fondly known as Angel. Luckily for him, he's not been heading down his 616 or Fox storyline.

"Oh, hey guys. Who's this? And how's the professor walking right now?" He asks, surprised by the fact that Charles is walking, albeit with some support. "I'm Ashwani, Ashwani Bourne. Nice to meet you, Warren." I say, surprising him that I know his name, until it clicks.

"Oh, so he's the kid you were talking about yesterday, Professor. Pleasure to meet you too, Ashwani." He says, putting out his hand for a handshake. "Professor, I remember asking you if there was anyone else that needed to know I was here. Why'd you say that there wasn't?" Angel looks at Charles, wondering the same.

"Ehem. I didn't expect that you'd want to see what we had going on down here. So I wrote him off, seeing as he prefers staying down here most of the time." Now, this I didn't know. But at the same time, I hadn't received any memories linked to the Death Angel, Warren's 616 alter ego, before he was recruited by Charles.

"I see. Oh well. No harm, no foul. I'm sure you can just give him the details of the meeting telepathically." I say, and begin heading towards one of the three technological wonders of the X-Men, the Danger Room.

Chapter End.

Word Count: 2,682

Thanks for reading!