Wizard with a Mutation : Chapter 23 : Scott's Inheritance pt.3

Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP. 

Beneath Winters Manor, Magical Britain [31st October, 1980]

–Scott Winters–

The happenings of the day were proving clearly way too much for him. He had, never in a million years, thought that he would be someone out of this reality.

Then, the video feed in front of him changed, only this time it included his father as well. His thoughts all came to a screeching halt as he saw his mother, holding on to a glowing white ball, that she thrust upwards, and he saw a section of the roof cave in and then reassemble itself as soon as the white ball passed through.

"I am assuming those are my memories?"

"...Yes."

He nodded but kept his eyes focused on the view in front of him. Soon after the orb was into the ceiling, his father and his mother talked, with her eyes still glowing orange and red. He was expecting something to happen after his mother plucked him out of the multiverse but not that.

His mother's neck snapped upward, her entire body flaming orange and red as she floated up a bit. Normally, something like that would be accompanied by an expression that was decidedly not the one his mother was sporting. It was a look of utter horror as she clutched her stomach with tears running down her face.

The video feed paused as soon as his mother looked down at her stomach and then raised her hand to do…something.

"What? Why did it stop? Show me!" He demanded Athena but all he got in return was the humanoid shape of Athena shaking her head.

"I don't have any video feed beyond this point but I do have other data. Motion sensors, proximity sensing, weight sensing, infrared sensors, and more. I have collected data from all of that before forming a rough picture of what happened."

"What?!"

"...Your mother, she used her powers and realised something that she did not realise when she first crash landed here and her powers were sealed off by the universe. She was of the opinion that wizards, the normal kind, were the strongest entities on this planet and matched her own powers with that of the strongest wizards so she considered herself absurdly strong compared to them."

His eyes widened in comprehension as well, "So, you mean.."

Athena nodded as she showed him a graph, "Yes. I strongly believe that there are entities much stronger than Jean on this planet, hidden in plain sight. They are rather strong, at least stronger than Jean was in that state and much more in number because your mother, she, gave birth to you at that instant, using her powers to forcibly safeguard you against any side effects."

"...So, I was born early?"

"Almost an entire month early."

"...And what happened after? Where did she go, after giving birth to me? Where did father go?"

"Jean gave birth to you, tore a hole in space, and then left the Winters Manor, never to be seen again."

"...I see. And my father?"

"...I do not know. Nathaniel was the one who last saw Nathan and he has refused to share with me what happened that day, so I believe you will have to ask him yourself. Now, your memories are ready to be assimilated. Do you wish to go ahead with the process?"

He took in a deep breath and exhaled. Today was a little too much for him, way too much in fact. Ever since he was little, he had to do all the thinking and decision making for himself. In fact, it was encouraged at the boarding school to make all the decisions pertaining to yourself by yourself, without any outside guidance, save for books.

So, he read and read, trying to learn everything there was about the outside world, and through that, he made decisions. He missed many times but he learned through them.

That was why he knew, even in the mentally disoriented state that he was in, to ask Athena, "How will it affect me?"

"....."

"..Athena, how will assimilating these memories affect me?" He pressed the question because he had to know. He was not the same person as the memories. He had his own personality, his own thoughts shaped by his experiences in this world. He might share a soul with the set of memories that Athena had with her but for him, he was an entirely different person now.

He was not the person whose memories he would be taking in and that would create some sort of disturbance, something that might imbalance the entire thing, imbalance his very identity and that was a very big taboo in the wizarding community.

One's magic was very tightly tied to their identity, their sense of self. It has been theorised that a strong sense of self, a strong self belief was the key to a strong soul and a strong soul was the key to very strong magic. Magical imbalances were caused when one had an identity crisis, something that Nazi Wizards actually experimented on when they told unaware Jews to kill their fellow people by telling them that they were Aryans.

In the end, once confronted with the truth, the Jews' minds collapsed, resulting in the creation of Obscurials. The research was promptly confiscated and swiftly buried but he had made liberal use of the authority granted to him as an Archmage to read each and every record that MACUSA had on magic, be it forbidden or otherwise.

"..I am not sure." The reply finally came and he all but sagged in place, all the steam he had been building up crumbled.

"..I see. How sure are you that I will not be suppressed? That we will not be creating some sort of magical disaster?" He asked her.

"...Simulations suggest that your magical mental defenses should prove far superior to the non existent ones that the soul previously had."

"Are you sure?"

"97.77% certain."

He sighed, "Fair enough. Begin the process." Because despite his caution, there was a burning need inside of him that all but compelled him to take these memories. In fact, had it not been for his multiple mental deep dives into his psyche that he did with the help of multiple mental health experts around the world, he would not have been able to control this urge.

He had a hunch that the compulsion to protect the Winters family also came from his mother. Her being a master of telepathy further added to his theory. He had to get his memories and hope for the best.

A white ball manifested in Athena's hand as it began floating towards him. He closed his eyes as it neared him, knowing what was to come and yet, not feeling ready for it.

__xx____

Outside the ship

"He's taken the orb," Athena commented as Nathaniel sat on the bench, cross legged, meditating.

He slowly opened his eyes, "Did you tell him everything?"

"No. I left out the part about Nathan, as you requested. I do hope though that you will tell him about Nathan soon enough. I can't imagine him being happy that you kept such a secret from him."

"All in due time, Athena. All in due time." Nathaniel said as all the blue veins around the ship and the underground chamber dimmed slightly, due to the very act of sustaining the process that safely integrates a set of memories into a fully functioning soul, something that was nigh impossible and was only possible because Jean, in her full powers, had bestowed the energy and the method required to do so, onto Athena's code.

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I already have upto 10 extra chapters published there.