Chapter 5 Making Moves/Meeting the X-men

Seth was in his office in his warehouse working on some new tech while he had Cortana searching every database for someone who could make clones of himself. Looks like it might be time to meet the X-Men. Although he found it might be a bit difficult none of his abilities would give off any signal of being a mutant so he had to get a mutants' powers first and have an "outburst" to get Charles' attention.

Just then, the monitor which was showing Cortana look through many different photos of people with known mutations. When it reached the specific mutant they were looking for it showed a hit. A mutant by the name of James Arthur Madrox also called Multiple Man. has the power to create perfect copies of himself, and all items on his person (clothing, weaponry, etc.) through impact when he absorbs kinetic energy (although this sometimes has happened at will) through an unknown process.

Most of the time, this is caused by him snapping his fingers, stomping his foot, being struck, or collisions. Each of the duplicates has exactly the same power as James himself, and has independent thought, though Madrox "Prime" is usually telepathically and empathically linked to the duplicates.

James "Prime" can absorb a duplicate back into himself at will, which also makes him absorb the memories, knowledge, and skills of the duplicate. The duplicate usually appears right beside the body it "springs" from. It has been noted that duplicates have trouble creating more duplicates themselves if they have not used their powers in a while, while Madrox himself is able to use his ability whenever he wants without any such issue.

Cortana found him robbing six banks simultaneously and it appeared he had a record and it showed counts of manslaughter, arson and of course B&E. So Seth had no qualms about killing him besides he was a side character but this thought made Seth realize that he was getting more and more ruthless and while he doesn't normally care he doesn't want to get to a point where he would just kill indiscriminately so he would just catch him as Apex and make it so he was in jail and absorb his ability and train it in secret till he was proficient enough to use it to keep his identities secret.

Seth put on his suit so he could apprehend James in his Apex persona and get his ability without a way to figure out which James was James "prime" he decided this time he would go to each bank individually and subdue them each with his MagTech and whichever one he felt the most connection with while using his power would be the "prime".

Apex went towards the bank that was closest to him first and as luck would have it when he showed up he found himself already absorbing the ability so he knew that he was James "Prime".

Apex ran over, and grabbed James and just headbutted him to knock him out before he even had the chance to make any more copies and just beat the hell outta the current copies. Apex wrapped them all up with rope and then gave them to the police.

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Seth has spent the last few months learning how his ability works but put himself in a special room that protects against Psychic interference so Charles doesn't find him yet. Seth ran into a problem as he still couldn't change his face and he would either have to use more holographic technology, which isn't reliable as EMP devices exist.

So, Seth attempted to find Mystique to use her power to create perfect shapeshifting clones. He searched for a couple months and came up empty and then out of nowhere, as Seth was just walking through the city, he felt he was absorbing an ability. Seth knew the ability was actually Mystique and he had to pretend it didn't affect him as he looked around for Mystique and he eventually found a large black raven flying from a tree.

'HAHHAHA Who would've thought i'd be so lucky'

Seth then decided it was time and decided to make his main copies. He made 4 copies. One copy looked like Apex and one where he looked like Seth and one where he looked sort of like Sung Jin Woo from Solo leveling but more American than Korean, which he was going to use as his S.H.I.E.L.D Agent persona. His last copy looked like Damon Salvatore from the show The Vampire Diaries although he had a beard.

Then he flew to a forest near central park and started duplicating like crazy so when Xavier showed up he would see that Seth was out of control because he knew that Xavier already sensed him when he first activated his ability outside the special room.

About 15 minutes passed and as he expected the X-Jet showed up in the sky and flew down into the forest and saw that Seth was repeatedly making copies of his 4th copy and looked to be in pain. Jean Grey, Scott Summers, and Ororo Monroe walked out from the jet, Jean saw my condition and immediately tried to sense which was the original me but fell to the floor screaming in pain. Scott ran over to her and asked what was wrong and she said

"it's him, all of the copies have their own minds and they are all screaming in their minds. I was nearly overwhelmed from the pure pain I felt from all of them. Thankfully I was able to find the original. I have to calm him down."

Jean then isolated my mind and found she wasn't able to delve further than surface level of my thoughts.

'Apparently I'm somewhat immune to mental manipulation while I have many copies made since my mind is somewhat split between them and I'm linked to all the copies.'

(AN: To show communication through and thoughts in that are heard through telepathy I will use (<" "> )

He then heard Jean's voice it said

<"It's okay, I am speaking to you mind mind.">

<"You must calm down as you may injure yourself or others.">

<"Try this breathing exercise. Breath in deeply through your nose, hold it for three seconds, then exhale slowly, letting all breath out. Rinse and repeat these steps to help calm yourself.">

Seth had to admit her voice was really soothing and nice to listen to as she repeated the breathing excercise in his mind. Seth took deep breaths and was slowly getting himself to calm down, when instantly all the copies were absorbed and he "fainted"

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They took him to the mansion and he "woke up" in one of the rooms in the mansion. It seems that they didn't deem my condition worthy of being in the medical quarters or they didn't trust me enough. Either way he'll be there eventually, Jean seemed to sense I was awake and walked in and asked "How are feeling?"

"A lot better now."

I feigned ignorance and said "What happened to me?"

She just smiled and said "I sent a message into your mind telling you to calm down. This seemed to get you to calm down enough to stop duplicating."

Keeping up with my act I yelled while jumping off of the bed getting into one of my martial arts stances and said "You were the voice in my mind. I thought it was my own thoughts! Are you going to try to control my mind!!!"

Jean looked a little hurt as she said "No, I would never control someone against their will I just wanted to stop your pain."

"Oh."

Still making himself seem on guard he said "Where the hell am I?"

"You're at the Xavier institute for gifted youngsters."

"Youngsters? I'm almost 30!" Jack joked.

Jean had a small smile at my joke and said "It's just the name of the institute. We brought you here because we exist to help people who have activated their mutant gene and allow them to have control over it and make sure they don't hurt themselves or others."

"Oh, that makes more sense, so you brought me here to help me control my ability which seems to be making copies."

Jean was surprised at how well I was taking all of this and said "You seem to be taking this very well."

"Well, I've always had a very analytical mind and thinking things through, it could be worse. I could have become some strange monster, never able to have normal human relationships again."

Jean nodded and then a thought popped in her head and said "I can't believe I forgot to introduce myself, My name's Jean Grey."

"Nice to meet you Jean, name's Jackson Thomas but I usually go by Jack."

Jean smiled and decided she should probably take the role of showing him around especially since he is probably most comfortable with her now and said

"Nice to meet you Jack. So how would you like the grand tour?"

(AN: From now on to differentiate between my different character identities I will just use their first name to show I'm talking about them. Also I have aged up all the X-men.)

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Jack was glad. He seemed to have actually gained some form of friendship with Jean although only budding and could use her to vouch for him with the rest of the X-men.

Jack winked and said "Lead the way, gorgeous."

Jean blushed a little, but gestured to walk to the right. At this point in time she was still single I guess Scott never started dating her.

[This might have something to do with my interference with the timelines and the X-men timelines are all over the damn place.]

Jean then directed Jack through the different rooms and each room he went to he tried to look for the main X-Men specifically Logan so he can get his healing factor and bone claws that he can actually cover with a mix of proto-adamantium and vibranium until he gets the real adamantium from Logan. It seemed that Logan wasn't in the mansion though. Neither was Nightcrawler or Cyclops

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Jack eventually met some of the X-Men that are still students i.e. Rogue, Iceman, and Shadowcat. Jack first met Rogue and went in for a handshake with Rogue curious if he'd be affected but he didn't think so with his control over his natural Bio-electrical field. Not to mention he's not a natural mutant so she can't take his power even if he was affected.

Rogue, as well as the others were shocked that he wasn't affected by Rogue and started staring at him with their jaws on the floor. Jack pretended to be confused and asked

"Why are you all looking at me like that??"

Jean quickly came out of her stupor and said "With how Rogue's powers work she should have hurt you and borrowed your ability."

"Borrowed my ability? What do you mean borrowed?"

"Whenever Rogue touches someone, she takes their energy, their life-force. In the case of mutants she absorbs their powers for a short while."

Jack instantly looked excited and was about to speak in a very animated tone and was grabbing Rogue's shoulders without realizing. He then paused and took a thinking posture with his hand on his chin

"Oh my god that sounds like you're feeding off of their natural bio-electric field that's amazing. Although if that's the case then you could never touch anyone without hurting them!!"

Rogue was still shocked and finally came out of it and immediately ran to Jack and hugged him. This shocked Jack because he didn't expect it and she said with tears in her eyes.

"This is the first time I've been able to hug someone in over 7 years."

So Jack hugged her back tightly and let her cry her tears of joy. Once she calmed down he said to her.

"Y'know I have a degree in Biochemistry and Engineering as well as Physics. I could probably create a device to allow you to touch people again if you want. I mean I'd have to study how the reaction of how your power works against a volunteer, but I'm sure I could work something out."

Rogue was overcome with happiness that without thinking she grabbed Jack's face and kissed him. Jack was definitely not expecting such a reaction but then he remembered how she actually was in the movies.

Rogue had Finally realized what she did and her face turned beet red and she screamed.

"Sorry! sorry! sorry! sorry! sorry!" as she was running away.

Jack had a huge smile on his face then turned towards Jean and said with a smug smirk "I think I'm going to like it here."

Jean looked at his smirk and rolled her eyes and said "Well, I'm sorry about that, how about we continue the tour."

"Sure, no problem."

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They walked into some more rooms and eventually he met Iceman one of his favorite characters in the X-men universe he walked over hiding his excitement and said

"Hey, my name is Jack I just got here this afternoon." Jack could already feel him absorbing his power.

Iceman looked over and shook Jack's hand and said "Bobby Drake, nice to meet you." when Bobby grabbed Jack's hand he used a little bit of his power on it like Bobby did when he met first met Logan in the second movie.

Jack and Bobby talked for a little bit just talking about life and their powers until Jean interrupted saying.

"Jack, we're almost done with the tour and then I'll take you to meet the professor."

Jack said goodbye to Bobby who apparently was already dating Kitty, still can't believe he left Rogue for her but whatever it's not really a problem since that means he can have Rogue.

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Jean took Jack to a few more rooms where he met Kitty and absorbed her ability while he was talking to her and then made sure he would train it later. Unfortunately Nightcrawler wasn't here since he didn't stay in the canon of the movies so it looks like I will have to find him if I want that badass ability.

They went to two more rooms before they would be done and ready to meet the professor and Jack was shocked to see Angel in one of the rooms I guess he joined after the events of the 3rd movie which didn't happen the same way since in this timeline Jean didn't have the seals placed on her mind by Xavier when she was little so all that happened was the war with the brotherhood and all the protests about the cure which Rogue didn't end up taking after being convinced by Logan against it.

After Jack met Angel he found it to be the hardest ability to suppress because he almost started to grow his wings right then and there. They were supposed to always be out without a way to bring them in at least not without training so right as Jack started feeling like he was going to grow wings he immediately ordered his main body in the form of Seth who was training in his own version of the danger room to manifest the wings and start training with them it gave him enough control to keep them from showing up on his clone by allowing them to appear on the main body.

Jack had about a ten minute conversation with Angel about how it felt to fly with the wings and if he could fly him around one day. Angel seemed to get along with Jack's easy going personality really well and just said "We'll see, maybe when you're less busy."

Jack said okay and left to the last room on the tour where he met Spike, Storm's nephew he didn't decide to get his ability since it honestly wasn't that useful to him and just had a simple conversation and headed out into the hallway.

Jack looked at Jean and said "If that's the end of the tour, I'm ready to meet this professor you keep talking about."

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(Xavier's Office)

Xavier heard a knock a the door knowing it was Jean and the new mutant they picked up that morning so he said aloud "Come in"

Jean looked up and said "Hello, Professor this is Jackson Thomas or Jack for short."

Jack knew that Xavier would try to read his mind without permission because he has no boundaries so he made it so he would only show what happened the last couple hours which included him walking in the park and his powers activating he also allowed access to his surface thoughts which were just

[What the hell is this bald dude in a chair looking at me like that for. Is he one of those old guys that prey on young men and little boys.]

Jack got a kick out of seeing Xavier's face flinch when he got to his surface thoughts but immediately brought back his gentle grandfather like smile and said "It's a pleasure to meet you you Mr. Thomas."

"It's nice to meet you as well, you must be this professor everyone was talking about. Do you run this place?"

"I suppose I would be what you would call a principal of this school. Dr. Jean Grey behind you is one of the teachers here."

"Oh, I didn't know you were a doctor but I guess if you were the one taking care of me after I passed out you must've been at least a nurse or someone with some type of Medical background."

Xavier looked interested and thought to himself ["He is very smart and from what I heard from Jean he has a few degrees and has a way to help Rogue with her power."]

Xavier decided he would help him with training his ability for a little bit and then see if he can get him to join the X-men. They could definitely use someone with his technical expertise to keep up with all the new technology cropping up from both Stark Industries and the new McCauley Tech that has even more advanced technology than Stark.

He looked at Jack and said "I'll let you settle in and tomorrow we can see just what your power can do and if you want we can help you train it."

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