Chapter 5: Discussion of the Future
Around the table, sat the most powerful and influential mutants of the remaining 200. Besides Jack's mother and sister, there were:
- Emma Frost and Scott Summers who were now the leaders of the remaining mutants
- Logan, one of the deadliest and most experienced mutants around. Also, the second oldest of them all as he was nearly 200 years old.
- Alex Summers, the middle Summers brother, and a powerful Alpha-level mutant. He had also been on many important teams, including the Avengers and Magneto's Acolytes. Also Lorna's current boyfriend.
- Lorna, the daughter of Magneto and a powerful mutant herself. She had also led an X-Men team in the past which performed several important missions that saved the lives of countless mutants and humans.
- Gabriel Summers, an Omega-Level mutant, the youngest Summers brother, and Alexis's husband.
- Hank McCoy, their chief science officer
- Ororo Munroe, who was one of the most powerful women on the planet and an Omega-Level mutant. She had the most leadership experience of all the mutants present and could easily step up if she ever needed to.
- Callisto, former leader of the Morlocks, the mutants who had physical deformations and lived in the sewers of New York. Her mutation helped her be an excellent leader that survived many battles with the 'surface' world
- And lastly was Namor, the King of Atlantis and one of the oldest mutants. He was prideful, powerful, and a full-blown asshole.
Each one of these figures could lead their own faction of mutants when their population was at its peak. And now they had gathered together to discuss the future of their people.
"As we were saying," Emma started, her eyes darting between Alex and Nick, "O*N*E is going to stay here and monitor us for now. They are supposed to assist us and the pilots seem friendly enough but to fully trust the government would be..."
"Stupid," Logan interrupted
"Foolish," Emma continued. "We are looking at other locations that we can relocate to that would be better strategic locations. The mansion is too open and we have too few defenses to properly ensure the safety of the mutants here."
"We have 3 potential spots," Scott took over, "The first is an island off the coast of San Francisco which is the remainder of Astroid M. The second is to relocate the school to Limbo with the help of Magik. Lastly, we would move to Genosha. Although it has yet to be... cleaned up, the number of resources makes it very tempting to relocate there."
"Are we voting here, Slim?" Wolverine asked, already noting that it seemed like Emma and Scott were going to make the final decision.
"We are taking your opinions into consideration," Emma answered like a true politician
"Heh," Logan snorted in response. No matter whether it was a true vote or not, he could see that the sides were already chosen.
Scott and Emma were on the same side. Both of his brothers would side with him as well as their loves. And Mei would not disagree with her daughter. Lastly, Namor was Emma's former lover so she could easily manipulate him. No matter how he, Ororo, Hank, and Callisto voted, the decision had already been made.
"I vote for California," Alexis shared her vote. Gabriel and Mei followed and agreed with her. Lorna and Alex then voted, also for California followed by Namor who voted with them, his excuse being that the location was an island which would be advantageous for him.
Ororo, Callisto, and Hank also voted with them but Logan could tell that they genuinely thought it was the best option.
"Fine. Let's start making the preparations to move to the island," Logan gave up on voting for anything. Besides, that was the one he agreed with the most.
In Limbo, if their teleporters got taken out, they would be trapped there. They would also have to deal with demon attacks and the unstable time stream there.
As for Genosha... there was too much tragedy there. To head there would just be too painful for too many mutants, especially since they would have to clean the place up.
Everyone thought the vote had come to an end but Emma said something no one was expecting.
"Nicholas? What is your opinion on the matter?"
Everyone's eyes turned to Nick, many of them showing confusion. Most assumed that Nick had lost his powers on M-Day so he was no longer a mutant. Plus, he also was not one of the mutant leaders. They had plenty of others who had been on various teams that had far more experience than him so their opinion would be taken more seriously.
And Nick knew this.
"Don't ask me. Not like I will be living there," he answered tactfully, not truly answering whether or not he was still a mutant.
"But Mei, Alexis, and Stella will all be moving with us. You don't care about how easy it would be to visit them?" Emma pressed on
"No, Emma. Not my concern," Nick answered with sharpness in his voice he did not mean to add. He knew what Emma was getting at and that she was concerned but he did not want to get any more involved with the mutants. They were nothing but trouble.
"Then we have come to a conclusion. We will have Beast and several others skilled in technology or carpentry head over to the island and start rebuilding it in secret," Scott announced to the others, stopping Emma from asking any other questions for Nick.
Emma looked like she wanted to continue but decided against it. She dropped the matter as they started to decide on who would go to Utopia, the name they decided on for the island.
The people present also decided which students would be allowed on the new X-Men training team called the New X-Men. They picked the best students from the now-defunct training squads in order to train them as X-Men and send them on smaller missions under the lead of more experienced mutants.
While they were deciding this, Nick just sat back and listened. None of this concerned him since he was not going to be a part of it.
When the meeting was finally done, the group went inside to do whatever they wanted. Nick followed behind his mother and sister since he had originally come to speak with them anyway.
But as they were walking through the lobby, he heard a sweet voice calling out.
"Daddy!"
Nick turned to see a young, brunette holding onto a small child with one hand. The child had black hair with green highlights as well as sparkling green eyes that were staring at Nick.
"Daddy?" the little child called out again, this time as a question. Tears began forming in her eyes, ready to spill out at any time. But Nick did not respond.
"I'll come back another day," Nick told the others before heading outside and getting on his bike. Luckily, none of the kids had ridden it, all of them inside the mansion or spying on the meeting at the back.
He got on the bike and started driving towards the gate, unwilling to look back at the child that was surely crying and being comforted by the others.
'This is why I didn't want to come back. I can't handle this,' Nick thought to himself as his bike neared the gate. But before he could pass through, he and the bike were suddenly hit by something, both igniting and being scattered into dozens of pieces.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone