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Vol. 1 Story 4: Franklin Legionnaire and Other Discoveries. By Wraith and Shockwave
***WARNING*** This story contains mature themes and elements (Profanity, Violence, Drug Use, etc.)
The Matthias Chronicles
Vol. 1 Story 4: Franklin Legionnaire and Other Discoveries
By Wraith and Shockwave
Franklin Legionnaire sat in spacious mansion on the outskirts of Philadelphia, PA contemplating his next move. If he could not draw out Jamal and Chris to him; then his future timeline was in jeopardy. Everything he saw in the future hinged on these two young men and their offspring. Legionnaire spent the past 2000 years of his life on a quest to find the women who would give birth to the two men who had the ability to lead the mutant race into war for independence; and whose grandchildren would lead the mutantkind to a utopia never seen before. As soon as he found these women he would do his best to corrupt them, so their children would be his. In fact, just last week Legionnaire traveled into this timeline's future to jump-start the process of weakening the boy's hearts and souls.
Those who served him likened him to Magneto. Yet how wrong could they be?! Magneto fought for the advancement of all mutantkind; Legionnaire however, had one goal: To rule the world! Cliché though it sounds, Legionnaire knew that eventually he would succeed. He was destined. This was pre-ordained. And anyone, human or otherwise, who attempted to stand in his way would be utterly decimated. Legionnaire was simply facing a small kink in his plans, but after a short nap he would be refreshed and his thinking would be lucid. He would soon have a plan. Besides that scuffle with Apocalypse earlier took more out of him that he first acknowledged.
********************
Emma Frost sat in her office staring at Sara Kain; who in turn was staring at an encyclopedia. Emma suggested that Sara study small animals before attempting her ani-morphing ability. Right now Sara was studying a biological diagram of a chipmunk. As she continued to concentrate, she slowly took on the physical qualities of a chipmunk. First she began to grow fur. Next she started to shrink, while taking on the animal's facial qualities. Last but not least she grew a slight tail. The chipmunk climbed onto Ms. Frost's desk.
"All right Sara, now change back."
Almost immediately, Sara began to lose her tail. Soon after she began to grow in size and regain human facial features. Finally she lost her fur. There she stood, all 5'10" and 110 pounds of her; nude on Ms. Frost's desk. Ms. Frost hardly seemed to notice, as she was staring at her stopwatch.
"Sara, you took one whole minute. That is entirely too long for battle standards. I think you should practice the chipmunk form until you can cut your total transformation time under 15 seconds. It must become second nature. Oh! Don't forget that your report on Prof. McCoy's essay, "The Genetics of Homo Sapian Superior", is due on Friday. Ms. Frost then handed Sara a robe to cover herself.
"Yes Ms. Frost." Sara's voice was despondent and preoccupied.
"Sara I know you miss Jamal, but he'll be back this afternoon. Besides you can't allow a man to control your emotions so much. You're a young woman still! Far too young to be playing the faithful, Stepford wife to him."
Ignoring her teacher's words Sara went off to her room to plan a night with Jamal when he returned. Since he and Everett shared a similar power it was thought that the two young men should spend about a week with some X-Men (specifically Gambit, Iceman, Storm, Wolverine, and Cyclops) on a road trip. On paper the trip was to help the young men develop their powers further by attempting to copy a number of different types of powers. However Henry McCoy said it best when he told his comrades to "get out of the house and stop brooding so damned much!".
As Sara reached her dorm room door, she noticed Monet standing, waiting.
"Hello Sara, I heard that you were planning a night out with Jamal."
"Well nothing too big, just a few hours out at a club. Why?"
"Would you mind terribly if Everett and I tagged along?"
"No problem, the more the merrier!"
"Thanks a lot Sara."
Monet turned and went downstairs. Sara then went into her room to start on her report. She hadn't even LOOKED at Prof. McCoy's essay yet.
********************
Jubilation Lee was out in the backyard playing Chris Storm in a friendly game of basketball. She was losing by 10 points, but she didn't care. All she could think about was the young man in front of her.
"This is it Jubilation! Your first official crush! My God, here we are no more than 3 inches away from each other. I can't believe it. He's making my heart race, he's making my palms sweat. The last time I felt like this, Magsy crashed Illyana's funeral."
"Jubilee, you wanna give up yet? I mean I'm up by 10 and you're not even tryin to guard me anymore. I think it's obvious who won."
"Yeah well… we'll see."
"Sorry Jubes, but I gotta bounce anyway. I gotta start my report on McCoy's essay."
"Maybe you could help me. I'm no good at those report thingies."
"'Fraid it would just be the blind leading the blind. I probably suck even worse then you. That's why Paige is givin me a hand. You're welcome to crash our study session if you really need that much help."
"No…no I think I'll be fine just banging out some school drek on my own. Wouldn't want to be a third wheel."
"OK. I'll see ya later then, besides you might wanna brush up on your game while I'm gone."
"Yeah…later." She knew he was taken, but still something about him made her nervous whenever he was around her. Not the bad kinda nervous; the good kind. The kind where you found yourself staring at him in class instead of studying The Iliad. The kind where you saw yourself with him and a kid in 10 years. The kind where--
"LEE!!!"
The yell snapped Jubilee out of her stupor.
"Huh!? What the…!?" Jubilee turned around to see who was yelling in her ear. It was Monet, her new best friend. "Sheesh-and-a-half Monet! Why did you yell at me? I'm right here!"
"Well Lee, your body most certainly is here but your mind was definitely on Venus somewhere. Besides I tried calling you in a normal voice, but I got no response."
"Yeah well, what is it?"
"I was going out to buy Ev something for his birthday, its next week you know; and I know how close you and he are. I figured you'd wanna come along too."
"Sure I'd love to. Lord knows you could use someone with her finger on the pulse of teen America to help you buy for him. I mean we both know what a slave to fashion he is." At that, the young women shared a belly laugh. Both knew that Everett's wardrobe consisted of precisely 3 pairs of jeans and about 5 shirts. The man wasn't exactly a clotheshorse.
"By the way Lee, what were you zoned out about back there?"
"Huh? Oh it was nothing."
********************
Chris was headed inside through the back door. He was going to Paige's room so she could help him with his report. However, before he could get up the stairs, he heard a car pulling up in the driveway. He went to see who it was. He saw the Jeep that was the trademark vehicle of the man known as Wolverine. In the car were Everett, Jamal, Logan, and the man that convinced Chris to join Generation-X, Robert Drake.
"Hey Bobby!"
"Chris! How are ya kid?"
"I'm fine, how are you?"
"I'm hanging in there. What's your code name by the way?"
"Me? Its Shockwave."
"Really--"
Just then Logan abruptly broke in to the conversation. "Hey kid. Have you seen Jubilee around?"
"Uh, sure. Just five minutes ago in the back."
"Thanks." With that, Logan headed off towards the back.
Jamal and Everett started taking their bags out of the car. Jamal stopped and began talking to Chris and Bobby.
"So how do you guys know each other?"
Chris began, "Well, Bobby here is the guy who convinced me to join up."
Bobby then continued, "Well back after I left the X-Men and before I joined X-Factor, I was an accountant. Chris' foster family hired me to help with their taxes, but I ended up also helping all the kids there."
"Ya see, my family always adopted mutants, and when Bobby would stop by, he'd also help us come to terms with our abilities. Eventually, about a month ago, he stopped by to ask if anyone wanted to join the school."
"Chris here was the only one who said 'yes'," Bobby said, with a look of pride in his eye.
"Everett was looking around the main foyer impatiently. "Guys this is such a touching moment, but have you seen Monet around, Chris?"
"Nope, sorry," Chris replied.
Everett continued up the stairs towards the male dorms. "Thanks anyway Chris. I'm gonna unpack, and debrief Ms. Frost on our road trip and what Jamal and I learned. I'll see you all later."
********************
Jubilee's body was in the sporting goods store with Monet; shopping Everett's birthday present. Her mind however, was somewhere else entirely. She was mentally reliving every aspect of the basketball game she played with Chris earlier. She didn't understand why she always fell for the guys she knew she couldn't have. First was Everett (when she knew from the beginning that he liked Monet); and then there was Chris (who got snatched up by Paige before she even had a chance). She had no luck with guys! And before she didn't know why! She'd just have to talk to the other girls about what she was doing wrong when she got home--
"LEE!!"
"Doyahavetoyallatmesodamnedloudalliwasdoingwasthinkingaboutsomeone! Sheesh!"
"The same someone that you were thinking about earlier? Hmm?"
"Did I say 'someone' I meant 'something'"
"You aren't hiding anything from me, are you Lee?
"O.K. I'll tell ya on the way home. Deal?
"Deal! Now do you think that Everett would like a football or a baseball?"
"Jersey?"
Monet looked Jubilee right in her eye, and with a straight face replied. "No, not jersey. Professional team, they're rather cheap in South America you know."
"Cheese-n-rice Monet! How much are you planing to spend on him?!"
"I'm kidding Lee, of course I mean jersey."
After a chuckle, Jubilee continued. "Ya know Monet, when you're not being a total pain in my southern region, you can be a pretty cool person to hang out with."
"Well Lee, when you're not being an immature underachieving, high-and-mighty former X-Man, you can be pretty cool too."
"Yeah well-- HEY! Whaddaya mean 'underachieving'? I thought we had a truce thing going on here!"
"We do Lee, I'm just saying that you have so much raw potential, but you refuse to take your abilities farther than you already have. Why do you continue to hold back? What are you afraid of?"
Jubilation Lee thought for a while about the question her new best friend had just posed. "I--I don't know Monet."
********************
Franklin Legionnaire awoke from his nap refreshed and with a plethora of new schemes buzzing about his brain. Not the least of which was how to get Jamal to blindly enter his trap. Chris would inevitably follow Jamal and then the trap could be snapped shut! God he loved being him! But this was no time to pat himself on the back, now was the time to head north to the (former) Massachusetts Acadamy.
********************
Sara was in her dorm room, finishing up her work on Prof. McCoy's essay. In an hour she and Jamal would leave with Everett and Monet for a night of dancing. But for now, she was intensely focused on her work. So much so, in fact, that she almost didn't hear the knocking on her door. She got up to answer and on the other side of the door was the last person in the world she expected to see, her long dead father.
********************
Emma Frost was lazily staring at the security monitors. She really paid no attention until she glanced at the monitor for the camera in front of Sara's room. She saw the face of a man she thought was long dead from Strife's genetic virus, Jason Wyndgard, the Mastermind. Wyndgard was once one of the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle. In the time Emma had known him, she learned two things about his ability to create elaborate mental hoaxes. The first thing was that no one could see through his illusions without sufficient training. The other thing Emma learned was that his illusions didn't transmit well through electronic devices (such as the closed-circuit television system she was watching him through) so there was no way to tell what Wyndgard was projecting to Sara, much less what he was doing there. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.
********************
"Daddy?"
"Yes pumpkin, it's me."
"Daddy! My god, we all thought you were dead!"
His facial features began to contort and he took on the face of Franklin Legionnaire. "Well bitch, hate to break it to you, but daddy dearest is still dead. Rotting away in his cheap press board coffin. Hell the coffin has probably rotted away by now and he's just laying in the ground with worms borrowing their way through his skull." Where the Mastermind once stood, there was now a 6' 11", 262-pound specimen of a man. Quite a sight indeed. Fair of complexion and face, with his shoulder length bleached blonde (though for all intents and purposes it could've been described as being white) hair braided into a ponytail. He was dressed in a dark purple silk suit with a matching cape attached.
With that Sara fainted. Legionnaire picked her up and placed her body over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Just then, Emma ran into the hallway and saw Legionnaire holding Sara on his shoulder. She then spoke inside his mind. <<Jason, it's over. I found you out so leave before I have to get ugly with you! That girl is my charge so I suggest you drop her, gently and leave!>>
<<Jason? Oh you think I'm really Mastermind and this is merely an illusion? Sorry to disappoint Ms. Frost, but it's the other way around. I'm really who you see before you right now. Wyndgard was merely a mask to gain the girl's trust. You did know that he was the girl's father didn't you? Oh well, no matter. I cannot allow you to interfere with my plan.>> He raised his hand to Emma with his fingers outstretched and his hand began to glow an unearthly shade of neon yellow. "Good night Ms. Frost."
The last thing Emma saw before she blacked out from the blast, was Sara, and the man she didn't know (yet), disappearing into a sphere of blue light.
