ch.4

Sorry for the late chapter work is squeezing every last minute of my time before Christmas vacation and I didn't have time to finish it until now.

I will be celebrating Christmas and New Year with my family, so there won't be any releases for any of my stories in the Christmas and New Year weeks(21 December - 4 January)

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I opened my mouth before closing it just as fast.

I had no idea what to say. Of all the people I expected to be standing outside my door, the X-men weren't one of them.

I glance at the strangely curious Laura standing behind me, but maybe I should have expected it.

But why now?

Laura's x-gene had activated years ago. Xavier couldn't have picked up on her just the day she found her way to me, right?

Seeing that I wasn't going to say anything any time soon, the bald man in the wheelchair took the chance to introduce himself and those with him, "Good day Mr. Shade, my name is Professor Charles Xavier, and these are my associates," he first nodded to the chocolate goddess standing on his right, "Ororo Munroe," before turning to the short man with a permanent scowl on his face, "and Logan."

"May we come in?" Xavier asked, but my eyes were glued to Logan.

He was short, as in really short, the top of his head barely made it to my shoulders. No wonder Laura was as tiny as she was.

"What do you want?" I asked bluntly after a moment, breaking the awkward silence that had taken place.

"We represent a school for special kids," Xavier explained, "kids like you."

Wait, what did he just say? Kids like me?

Do they think I'm a mutant? They aren't here for Laura?

Well, that makes this a lot easier, "not interested, have a nice day." I said, closing the door in their faces. Or at least trying to do so, Logan had taken hold of the door and stopped it in its tracks.

"This is important, Bub!" He growled.

"Are your parents home?" Ororo asked diplomatically after positioning herself between Logan and me. She gave me a smile that was supposed to set me at ease, but all it did was make me warier of them.

"My parents are dead."

Ororo winced slightly at my blunt reply, "our condolences, is there someone else we can talk to?"

"No." I let out a sigh. It doesn't appear that they will leave of their own volition any time soon. Leaving them standing outside my door where every Tom, Dick, and Harry could see them and think I belonged with them also wasn't an option.

I turned around and started walking to the living room with Laura in tow. Taking that as the invitation it was, the X-men followed me inside.

The moment Wolverine sets foot in the living room, he and X-23 both stop in their tracks before sniffing the air at the same time. A strange look comes over both their faces as they size each other up. Not knowing Wolverine, I can only speculate that his look was one of puzzlement, Laura's look, however, I have seen before when she was slaughtering the ninjas of The Hand.

Ah shit, here we go again.

Laura lets out a small whisper of a growl and gets in a fighting stance.

Knowing that I need to do something if I don't want my house to become a warzone, I take hold of Laura, lift her up, and plop down on the living room couch with her in my lap, all in the span of a second.

At first, she resists and tries to get out of my embrace, her body tense and ready to fight, but after a while, she calms down and leans back against my chest. She doesn't stop glaring at Wolverine, however.

The X-men look at us strangely. I go to apologize when I find myself somewhere else. The place I found myself in was green. The air, the sky, everything around me had a tint of green to it. Huge rocks with strange buildings on them floated around randomly, and purple doors could be seen all over the place.

I was in the Ghost Zone.

I looked down at myself and...yep, I had changed into my ghost form without noticing.

What the hell am I doing here, wasn't I just sitting on my living room couch a minute ago?

Feeling a strange but urgent sense calling me, I follow it to one of the purple doors. The moment I touch the door, it opens and sucks me in.

Transporting me to who knows where.

All this teleporting around is starting to get on my nerves!

When I opened my eyes next, I was still in the ghost zone, only this time I was standing on a big ass rock, instead of floating in space.

Streams of images were being projected in the green sky above the rock. I inspected a few of the images and came to the conclusion that they were my memories, and sitting in his wheelchair looking at them was Charles Xavier.

Fury like no other rises from deep inside me. He was sitting there like he had no care in the world, not caring that he was invading my privacy, raping my mind.

Before I know what I'm doing, I am already rushing him.

Green thunderclouds form above us, and lightning starts falling from them, chipping away at the rock we were standing on, but I don't care. I don't even notice. All that mattered was the fear-filled eyes of Xavier that were locked with my red rage-filled ones.

A yellow barrier appears in front of Xavier when I am inches away from bashing into him. The barrier may as well have been made of wet toilet paper with the ease I break through it, Xavier's eyes widen in shock just before I tackle him out of his wheelchair.

Xavier coughs out a mouthful of blood as he hits the ground back first, cracking and cratering the stone under him. My hands light up with ecto-energy, ready to obliterate him where he lay.

"Nathan, wait!" Xavier yells desperately.

The use of my old name splashes over me like ice-cold water, dousing the flames of my anger before waking me up from my mindless rage. My red eyes turn back to their normal glowing toxic green, and the lightning clouds disperse into thin air.

Calming myself down, I think, and I mean really think about what I was about to do.

Killing Xavier here, in my mind, would in, the best-case scenario, turn him into a brain-dead zombie. If that were to happen, the whole X-men would be after my ass for pretty much killing their leader. But I also couldn't let him leave, knowing what he knew.

I looked down at where Xavier was lying on the cratered floor. His breathing was labored, and his body kept flickering in and out of existence. My hit had damaged him quite a bit. Not surprisingly, I did hit him with enough force to snap a bulldozer in two, after all. The bastard was lucky that that was all I did to him.

Making up my mind, I concentrated on throwing Xavier out of my mind, which was easy without him fighting to stay. Xavier's body became transparent before fading from my mind entirely.

Reaching out with my metaphysical fingers, I grabbed hold of as much of the ecto-energy around me, which felt endless now that I was paying attention to it. I imagined all the ecto-energy coming together before shaping it into an impenetrable shield around my mind.

Now that that is done with, I just have to figure out why my mind looks like the Ghost Zone, but that is for another time.

I opened my eyes, my real ones this time, to see Laura standing in front of me, her claws were out and pointing at Wolverine, who was standing in front of Xavier with his own claws out. I was still in my ghost form, my hands glowing with ecto-energy, ready for battle.

Storm was kneeling at the Professor's side, helping him sit upright, and asking him what had happened.

Xavier himself was looking the worse for wear, his nose was bleeding heavily, his eyes were dull, and his skin was pale and clammy.

Noticing that I was awake, Xavier opens his mouth to say something, but I don't give him a chance. Becoming intangible, I fly through Laura and Logan and right into Xavier.

I have no idea how to possess someone. But this was a do-or-die moment, and I wasn't about to let something as insignificant as not knowing how, stop me!

With those thoughts and intent running through my mind, I feel something click, and I suddenly find myself in a well-protected mind. In the back of my mind, I feel myself take control of Xavier's body like a well-worn meat suit.

That wasn't important, however. I didn't want to possess his body. I wanted to possess his mind.

Xavier's mind was a copy of the X-Mansion if the mansion was in disrepair and looked like a bomb had just exploded in it, that is.

I am going out on a limb and guess that it has all of the defenses the real mansion has, plus a few extras that the real mansion doesn't. Detecting my presence, 4 turrets slid out the mansion walls, two in front of me and two behind me, like those.

Before I could react, the turrets opened fire and started discharging yellow energy bolts at me.

My first instinct was to go intangible and let the bolts pass through me, which turned out to be a big mistake when one of the bolts hit my intangible arm.

I cry out in both surprise and pain as a hole gets blasted in my right bicep. Instinctively I push my hands out in front of myself as if I'm warding off the attacks. A green bubble shield made out of ecto-energy forms around me, protecting me from any further attacks.

Motherfucker has defenses against fucking intangible people. And to think that this is a weakened Xavier, who's psyche just got damaged and was attacked by surprise.

I look down at the hole in my arm and see that it is bleeding Ectoplasm, unlike the time when Laura cut me, I was truly hurt this time.

Cracks begin appearing on my shield as it defends me from a barrage of energy bolts. I had at most 30 seconds before it shattered and left me defenseless.

Focusing on my core, I extract some ecto-energy with the intention of patching up the hole in my bicep. I watch as the hole lights up with ecto-energy before disappearing like it was never there, to begin with, leaving my arm as good as new.

I study the position of every turret and get ready.

The bubble shield takes one more shot before shattering into a thousand pieces. Making use of the moment between shots, I dodge around the rest of the bolts and fly away from my previous position. The turrets turn to follow me, but it is already too late. Gathering ecto-energy in my hands, I fire off four ghost rays, and blast the turrets into scrap metal.

Knowing what to expect now, I fly through the mansion to where my senses tell me the center of Xavier's mind is, blasting away at everything even remotely threatening looking, and a few walls and rooms while I was at it.

Was it petty to damage Xavier's mind even more than it already was?

Yes, it was.

Was that going to stop me?

Nope.

A few minutes later, I find myself in the basement levels of the mansion standing in front of a big round metal door with an X on it. Having read a few X-men comics and seen most of the movies, I knew exactly where I was. I was in front of the door leading to Cerebro.

I shot a ghost ray at the door, only for it to dissipate without so much as leaving a scratch on the extremely durable door.

I knew that it wouldn't be that easy.

I doubt going through it intangible would work or even be smart considering what his other defenses do to intangible beings.

Getting in a familiar stance, I cupped my hands to my side and focused all my ecto-energy in the palms of my hands. A green ball of concentrated ecto-energy appeared between my cupped hands and started becoming bigger and bigger until it enveloped my hands.

"Haa!" I screamed, throwing my hands out.

A green beam of ecto-energy half my size fires out of my cupped hands and to the last barrier standing between me and the memories Xavier stole.

The door stopped my enhanced ghost ray for all of 2 seconds before succumbing to its force and getting a hole blasted in it. The beam didn't stop there, however. It continued into the room before speeding out of sight.

I dropped to my knees and started panting. That was the most ecto-energy I had used, ever. I was exhausted. My whole body felt like it had been squeezed dry of energy.

A moment later, I felt my core disperse a good amount of eco-energy inside my body, charging me back up.

Neat!

Standing up, I walked to the hole in the middle of the door and peered inside. The room inside looked just like I imagined it, a big dome with a platform suspended in the middle of the room, except for the big hole at the other side of the dome leading away, that is.

Oops.

I stepped inside slowly, ready to dodge or destroy any more surprises Xavier's defenses wanted to throw at me.

The moment I set foot inside the room, a hologram of Xavier's head gets projected from the ceiling of the dome, looking down at me.

"Don't do this, Nathan!" the hologram pressed me as I approached the console containing Cerebro.

Of all things he could have said, that was exactly the wrong thing to say, the use of my old name only helped to remind me what he did, that he went in my mind like it was nothing more than a public library and took whatever he wanted.

The rage that had been simmering in the back of my mind was once again stirred into a raging inferno.

It wasn't obvious at first, but a closer look showed that even the hologram was looking weary, its eyes dull and tired. I doubt he could do more than beg me to stop at this point.

"We can talk about this," Xavier continued, a touch of desperation creeping in his voice as I kept ignoring him, "You don't know what you are doing. You could do irreversible damage to both of our minds."

"You should have thought about that before you waltzed inside my mind like you owned the place and took whatever the hell you wanted!" I roared up at the hologram in rage, my eyes turning red once again without me knowing.

Xavier's head flinched back in shock.

"I am sorry for invading your privacy." Xavier apologized, his voice full of regret, "But this isn't the answer!"

I don't know if he was truly sorry, or he was just sorry that he got caught. Either way, I didn't care. I was done listening.

Arriving at the console containing Cerebro, I made myself intangible before flying in it, fusing myself with Cerebro.

Instead of being inside Xavier's mind, I became Xavier. I knew everything he knew, remembered everything he remembered, felt everything he felt. There was no way to tell where Xavier began and, I ended, we were the same person to the very last thought.

Except I was in control, and I still remembered that I was Damien, even though I was also Xavier.

Bringing up everything Xavier has about me was as easy as thinking about it and remembering it.

And there was a whole lot to remember. In the short time, Xavier was in my mind. He got the history of Daniel, the history of Nathan, that I was reborn, what my powers were, and even snippets about the Marvel Universe.

"Son of a bitch!"

I deleted every memory related to me using both Xavier's telepathy and my powers. Destroying them in such a way that there was absolutely no way he could ever recover them. The only memory I leave him with is why he was at my house.

Thinking of any hidden places in Xavier's mind using his own mind finds me a few protected cubbyholes he had hidden, I find some disturbing things he had done for the 'greater good' in them and a few facts about the possible X-men futures he stole from me, which I delete as soon as I find them, but other than those nothing else. It seems like he only had enough time to put one thing in his cubbyhole, and he chose the future.

With every passing second, I can feel Xavier's ego get more and more lucid, remembering that he was the real Xavier and that I didn't belong. He isn't the strongest telepath in the world for nothing, I guess. Even in his weakened state, he was resisting our merge.

Instead of fighting back, I leave him with one last message before evacuating his mind and body, letting him regain control of himself.

I had everything I came for anyway.

Laura and Wolverine were still in a standoff, not sure what to do, and Storm was looking Xavier over. From their perspective, only a few seconds have passed since I vanished in Xavier's body, instead of the few minutes I spent in Xavier's mind.

Storm jumps to her feet as I leave Xavier's body and fly past her and Wolverine to stand next to Laura. A relieved Laura gives me a once over to make sure I'm okay, while I do the same with her.

Taking advantage of our split-second distraction, Wolverine lunges at me. Just before he reaches me, I go intangible and let him pass through me. Becoming tangible again, I grab him by the back of the neck like a newborn kitten and throw him against Storm, who was imitating her namesake and had started a mini storm in my living room.

I was just glad that none of my roommates were home to witness all our stuff get thrown around and fried.

The two collide with a hard thump and go down in a heap of limbs. I may have thrown Wolverine a little harder against Storm than absolutely needed, but she was wrecking my fucking living room. I worked hard to live here, dammit!

A narrow-eyed Laura goes to finish them off when they are down, but my hand on her shoulder stops her. She turns to me, and I shake my head, no.

"Why?!" She asks angrily.

"They aren't enemies," is all I say.

Wolverine and Storm stand back up, Storm's eyes were completely white, and her face was set in a stony scowl. Wolverine, on the other hand, was calmer and warier, making him all the more dangerous.

Thunder booms outside, a glance at the window shows that the previous clear day had turned dark and cloudy.

"Stop!" Xavier screams from where he was slumped over in his wheelchair.

The two teachers stop and gape at the now lucid Xavier.

"What the hell is going on, Chuck?!" Wolverine growls, "first, that brat transforms, and you start bleeding, and then he goes in your body like a fucking ghost."

"I would also like some answers," Storm agreed, her eyes turning back to normal.

Xavier ignored them and looked at me in surprise. and even though he was trying to hide it, fear.

"The next time you try to treat my mind like a movie theater, I will blast a hole in your head, understood?!" I threatened. And I meant it. This was his first and last warning, there will be no next time, even if it makes me the enemy of the X-men.

Wolverine takes a step forward at my threat, but a look from the professor stops him before he can try his luck with me again. Good, because I wasn't in the mood for any more shit right now.

Storm, however, was staring at the professor when she heard my accusation.

"Understood," Xavier said seriously, verifying my accusation as the truth, "It won't happen again."

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," Xavier admitted regretfully.

"You think?" I asked sarcastically, "Who are you people, really?"

I, of course, already knew who they were, but this was both for the benefit of Laura and to not tip them off that I already knew about them.

"You didn't get that from my mind?" Xavier asks, a little taken aback. While he didn't know exactly what Damien had done in his mind, he knew that for a brief moment, Damien had complete control over his mind and could have tracked down his every secret if he wanted to.

"Unlike you, I don't go around raping other people's minds!" I said, glaring at him.

Xavier winced at the accusation, not liking being compared to a rapist, but he couldn't refute it either because that is exactly what he had done.

"As I already said, I am Professor Charles Xavier, and these are Logan and Ororo Munroe. We teach at a school for mutants, where we teach young mutants such as yourself to control their powers and blend into society."

I wasn't surprised that he thought I was a mutant, already having learned it from his mind when I searched for everything he knew about me. I don't know if he is right and that my mutant powers just mimicked those of Danny Phantom or something else, and honestly, I didn't care all that much.

Power is power. As long as it is mine and not borrowed, I don't care if it is because of an extra gene in my DNA or not.

"I would like to invite you to my school," he glanced next to me, where Laura was standing with her claws still out, "the both of you."

"Like hell, we will," I scoffed, "I don't know in what kind of fantasyland you live in, but we are going nowhere with someone that goes around mind raping people willy nilly,"

Xavier winced again at the mention of rape. He really hated being compared to a rapist, which is exactly why I was doing it at much as I did. Maybe this will teach him to not treat people's minds like something he could enter whenever he wanted.

"I am a telepath," Xavier explained, "reading people's surface thoughts is something I do automatically, It's like using any of my other senses at this point."

Xavier didn't seem to be lying. He really believed that reading my surface thoughts is all he did. He must have read something surprising from my surface thoughts that made him probe deeper, like the fact that I recognized and knew them by name.

I glanced at Laura, who was still tense and ready for a fight. I let out a sight before fully calming down and sitting back down on the couch, pulling Laura with me. Laura already lost her mother. It would be dickish of me to let her become estranged from her father over something I had already fixed.

But that didn't mean that I won't keep a close eye on Professor X over there.

There were also benefits to becoming a student at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, starting with having him make a real identity for Laura. If I remember right, Xavier had a lot of friends in high places.

My original plan was to possess a government worker and wing it from there. I honestly had no idea how all of it worked.

"We are listening."

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Before you guys ask, no that wasn't the explanation of Damien's mutation just his own theory. There are a few more chapters before his mutation gets explained.