Chapter 97 - Mutants

In the living room, Rose sat on the couch with her back straight fully focused on Acheron that stood in front of her.

"Before we begin, here…" Acheron tossed a book towards Rose.

"That will fill in the spaces if you still have questions or want to learn more after my little presentation. Athena? Would you be so kind to be in charge of the hologram projections?"

Athena popped up sitting next to the unaware Rose as she was too busy looking at the title of the book that had been given to her.

"Acheron's Guide To Mutants For Dummies?" Rose read out loud.

"Funny right? I made it a couple of years ago, only 10 were ever made. Anyway, I'm going to be talking a lot, please hold all questions until the end." Acheron said as he received a nod of understanding from Rose.

A hologram of the earth appeared in between Acheron and Rose just as he started to speak.

"Thousands of years ago, before writing even existed, humanity went through an unprecedented and unrecorded event. By some external factor, the DNA of some humans were rewritten or changed. Seemingly out of nowhere, humans gained access to powers that were never thought to be imagined, or even possible. Giving birth to the first mutant."

Behind Acheron, a DNA double helix strand appeared.

"After 1,500 years of research and experimentation, I found this!"

The DNA strand turned to a gene projection.

"A hidden gene! I first called it the 'Mutagen gene' but ever since the X-men comics came out, people have started to name it the 'X-gene', A fitting name I guess… this is as far as anyone on earth has gotten but I'm not just anyone. My research has been going on far longer and more extensive than anyone else."

A glowing purple energy light projection appeared over the gene projection.

"I found that this 'X-gene' allows access to some sort of cosmic energy, I believe one not from this dimension… or at least not one we can perceive"

A collective gasp escaped from the 5 people in front of Acheron. At some point, the 3 daughters appeared and sat on the floor in front of Rose and Athena.

"I have had some success with this but its too complicated to explain and not something you need to know anyway. Now, I know you know somethings and aren't completely ignorant of mutants, but I have limited your exposure as you are, but a regular human, and I am an overprotective dad"

Videos of people picking things up with their minds started to appear, then people controlling fire, water, and all sorts of things. Then the roar of a half-man, half-bull creature appeared as a group of people were skewered like a shish kabob with its massive horns.

"Every legend, myth, fairytale, or monster story you have ever heard has some truth to it. Greek gods were real, so were the Egyptian ones, the Norse gods, The Lamia, The Arachne, The Lochness Monster, Merlin, Hercules, Solomon, Jesus. Every story or legend that has some sort of fantastical, magical, or supernatural theme to it, there's a chance that they existed. That goes for monsters too of course. For more information on a certain individual, please check your book."

Acheron started to pace back and forth as images of monsters slowly transitioned through the hologram.

"Now, when I said 'gods' I meant it as that's what they were recorded as they were by all means just mutants. Zeus was powerful but by no means he was immortal, I saw him die on his deathbed on Mt. Olympia, he was over 10,000 years old when he died. 'Not all men are created equal', that saying rings even more true when it comes to mutants.

The power mutants gain, as far as I can tell, are completely random and don't necessarily have to be unique. But that only applies to Type-A mutants.

The rest of the world classifies mutants in a barbaric, less sophisticated way than I, and I expect you to follow my classifications. For those outside our family, mutants are classified as either human or monster. There are some countries that use the word 'Demi-humans' to classify those that are not entirely human, which is more to my taste, but I digress…

Type-A mutants are what countries call Espers. Not all countries use 'Esper' to classify their mutants, others, like Great Britain, also use 'Wizards and Witches' or 'Warlocks'. For the U.S, if you don't fall into the category of 'Esper', you fall under 'Super', that's short for 'Superhuman' or 'Superpower'. Anyone else is categorized as a 'Monster' and kicked from human society.

In simpler terms, if Zeus were alive today, he would be classified as a Type-A. An Esper, or more specifically, an electrokinetic, the ability to absorb and control lightning. Now, if he was in the U.S for example, he would be rated as a '10 star' the highest level of their star rating system.

While in the UK, he would be labeled as an 'Omega class', as a wizard? I don't know… an Arch Mage maybe? I don't really care for their rating system… Oh, just do you know, Japan uses a level system from 'level 1-100' and China uses a cultivation system but that's just mostly a color system."

Hela suddenly chimed in,

"You're a wizard, daddy!"

Acheron, without missing a beat, said in a low tone voice,

"Do not cite the deep magic to me, daughter. I was there when it was written."

That caused a squeal of giggles from his daughters and thumps up as Acheron continued with his explanation.

"Since we are talking about wizards… No, magic does not exist. Some would argue that powers could be considered magic but the truth behind magic is that very few mutants have ever had multiple powers. For example, a wizard with water and fire magic, which is just hydrokinesis and pyrokinesis, that hardly ever happens…. You only get just one but the way you use it is key... The only person I have ever known that could control the four elements was Merlin.

Essentially, every Type-A is an Esper, doesn't matter what you call it.

Do you get the gist of what I'm trying to say?"

Fives heads nodded in confirmation.

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Papa Ainz The Bone Daddy's Announcements:

1) The delay of this chapter is on me. This chapter gave me a writer's block trying to come up with an explanation for mutants, I still hope it makes some kind of sense...

2) A big thank you to Josh Hamm for their $1 pledge!