161 Issue #5

Jack and Emma finished their showers together before each of them left their room and went their own ways. Jack to his office, Emma toward her homeroom.

Just after Jack walked into his room, Stella came in right after him. Jack smiled at her which she quickly returned.

"Hey, Stella."

"Father. It has been a while since you have stuck around for more than a night with Mother so I decided not to waste this chance to spend some time with you."

Jack laughed at the joke and sat down in his seat before pouring a cup of hot cocoa for him and Stella. The latter took it with a smile.

"Hmm. I'm a terrible father," Jack admitted before drinking the cocoa

Stella shook her head when she heard him say that.

"You're not. All the memories I have of you from a child are the best that any child could. You were there for me as much as you could be and made every moment the best it could be.

As for how you are currently: I am not a child and you are burdened with ensuring the future changes from the one I had. The reason that you are not around very often is that you are making sure that when the version of me of this timeline is born, she does not have to suffer the same fate that I did."

Jack smiled in appreciation. The women in his life truly understood what he was doing and why he could not be around as much as he wanted to be.

"Good. I hope that we are able to live as well as we did in your memories after this is all over."

Jack and Stella spent another hour in the office just talking and enjoying each other's company. It wasn't until Logan and Scott came in that Stella excused herself since it appeared that the two had something to discuss with Jack.

Scott and Logan took the seats in front of Jack with an unusual level of seriousness on their faces. Jack was surprised since he had never seen the pair like this.

"What's up?" Jack asked

Logan's straight lips curled up before he turned to Scott to taunt him.

"Tell him the news. Please tell him before I get the chance to," Logan urged

Scott's lips curled up as well in a self-mocking smile. He knew that he should not have told Logan first.

"Due to certain..."

"Slim knocked up Red, haha! After all his talks about 'using protection' and 'making sure you don't have any unexpected surprises', Slim knocked up Red on accident!"

"Hahaha! Guess no 'Jeanie in a bikini' this summer for you, Summers."

Jack also burst out laughing. He couldn't believe that Scott Summers, out of everyone, would be the first person in their generation to have a kid.

With the two of them laughing at him as they were, Jack was really regretting letting it slip that Jean had gotten pregnant.

'The two biggest assholes in this entire school now know. I have minutes before everyone else does.'

Scott glared at Jack and decided to fire his own ammunition at him.

"What are you laughing at? According to Rachel, Stella is older than her by a few days," Scott gloated

As soon as he said that, Jack's expression froze for a moment before he quickly recovered.

"Tsk. Don't try and play that with me. Me and Emma would know if she was pregnant. Looks like the timeline got a little messed up and Stella will be born after Rachel."

Scott wanted to say something but Jack got out of his chair and carried the pair to the door before throwing them out. He didn't want them to try and convince him that Emma was pregnant just because Scott didn't know how not to be a fool and wrap his tool.

But unfortunately, Scott's words had reached deep into Jack's mind so he could not help but reach out to Emma telepathically and ask her for confirmation.

{Emma! Are you pregnant?!}

{Huh? Of course n... maybe. I've missed a couple of periods but I just figured it was because of my high-stress life. I'll go get a pregnancy test soon but I wouldn't worry about it.}

Jack felt lightheaded when he heard Emma admit that she had missed several periods but calmed down slightly when he remembered that she was a successful woman that had a lot on her plate. A missed period or two was nothing out of the ordinary for her which is why she didn't mention it.

The rest of Jack's day was very peaceful. He stayed in his office and helped Emma deal with a few matters related to the Hellfire and Frost International. Although his position in the Hellfire Club was more of a deterrent to Shaw, he still needed to make sure that everything was progressing according to Emma's plans, which even he wasn't completely sure about what they were.

As for Frost International, they wanted to design a new type of aircraft that could ensure steadier flights under high levels of turbulence. It only took Jack a few minutes to come up with 3 different blueprints that could be used for commercial, personal, and military use.

'And send!'

With the blueprints sent off to the engineering department to review and the legal department to get the patents ready, Jack started to look at other parts of the company that was in need of assistance.

It wasn't until he heard a knock on his door that Jack looked up and realized that the sun was starting to set. He pulled up his phone and noticed that it was already 6:02.

'Oh. Guess it is time for their training sessions.'

"Head down to the Danger Room and make sure that you are uniform. I'll be down there soon!" Jack shouted through the door

"Understood, Mr. Frost," Laura responded on the others' behalf. Jack could feel that they had left the hallway and were making their way down together.

Jack closed all the windows on his computer before he shut it down. He then teleported down to the Danger Room's control center before turning on the Year One Scenario.

'A:5, B:5, C:5, I:5, and M: 10. That should be enough of a challenge for any of the training squads. Let's see what these guys can handle without any training.'

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"So... what do you think we will be doing in the Danger Room?" Melody asked.

She was the most vocal and friendly of the group. And she found walking around in constant awkward silence to be very weird.

Each of the other squad members was looking at her as if she was an idiot.

'Right, Melody. Danger Room. X-Men training Squad. What we are doing should be pretty obvious.'

The group walked into the room and was greeted by a surprising sight. 5 people wearing the original version of the X-Men uniform were standing in front of them.

All of them wore the same blue and yellow uniform that came with a head but each person was different in certain ways. One of them resembled an ape-man hybrid, one of them had red visors, one of them had red hair, another had angel wings, while the last person looked to be entirely made of snow.

"Oh, shit! It's the original X-Men," Quentin said in surprise before he summoned a pistol made of pure psionic energy. The other members of the squad also got into battle positions and activated their powers.

The test was about to begin.