The TARDIS spun through the Time Vortex as the Doctor checked the console again. “Still on course, old girl,” she said to the TARDIS. “I’m surprised you didn’t want to take us back to the Motherlobe.”
“Doctor,” called Amy as she entered the console room, “you said you wanted our psychic abilities trained up.”
“That I do, only you need to check out another school,” replied the Doctor.
“There’s a Psychonauts school?” asked Amy.
“No, more like a school for gifted people,” explained the Doctor.
A bald man in a wheelchair was in his office. He did some paperwork, then he heard a noise. He looked up as the TARDIS faded into view. “Doctor?” muttered the man. The TARDIS fully materialized and the doors opened with the Doctor stepping out. She saw the man and smiled.
“Charles Xavier!” she greeted.
“Welcome back, Doctor!” replied the man, Professor Charles Xavier, AKA Professor X. He used his own mental abilities to wheel himself to the Doctor. The two shook hands. “I haven’t seen you since that business with the Silurians!” said Professor X.
“Not questioning the new face then?” asked the Doctor with a grin as her friends stepped out.
“You know me,” replied Professor X. “Who are your friends?”
“New psychics,” answered the Doctor. “Meet Amy Rose and Lurra Rus. Amy, Lurra, meet Professor Charles Xavier, founder of the Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters!”
“It’s been renamed, Doctor,” said Professor X. “Now it’s the Xavier Institute. Still a safe haven for mutants.”
“Well, as long as the mission doesn’t change,” remarked the Doctor. Someone then burst through the door.
“PROFESSOR! ARE YOU-?!” It was a young man with fingerless gloves. He blinked as he saw the scene. “…Erm, Professor…?” he asked.
“It’s quite all right, young Davies,” assured Professor X. “I’m just catching up with an old friend.”
“How do you do, young man?” asked the Doctor. “I’m the Doctor. That’s Amy Rose. And that’s Lurra Rus.”
“Doctor?” asked the kid. “…Did you take a guy called William Davies on a journey?”
“Why yes!” replied the Doctor. “Do you know him?”
“That’s my big brother! I’m Brandon!” He stuck out his hand for a handshake.
“Good to meet you!” greeted the Doctor. “…You know, he mentioned that…”
“I was adopted?” finished Brandon. “I think you can guess why. Professor, could I open your window, please?”
“Of course,” replied Professor X. Brandon opened the window, then pointed his palms outside. He used his thumbs to press a button on each glove and force beams fired from his palms.
“HEY!” called a voice.
“Oh, shoot!” he yelped as he pressed the buttons on his gloves again and cut off the force beams. “S-Sorry, Mrs. LeBeau!” A woman with brown hair that was white in the middle glared at the office before storming off. “…I’m getting extra homework for that.”
“Your blood parents didn’t!” hissed the Doctor.
“They did,” replied Brandon. “Their child was born a mutant and they didn’t want that, so they just dumped me in an orphanage. Then Mr and Mrs. Davies adopted me and tried to help me cope with my powers, then the X-Men found me and gave me a chance for a normal life here. They still visit from time to time. In fact, William’s here as well.”
“William?!” asked the Doctor. “Think he has time for an old friend?”
“Let’s all see him,” suggested Professor X. Brandon helped Professor X move around the mansion as various mutants walked around, talking about classes, their love lives, current events, all that stuff.
“…Is Brandon’s treatment from his old family the norm against mutants?” asked Lurra Rus. “Why?”
“They’re declared not normal, thus they’re not human,” replied the Doctor. “Same as any minority group. Blacks, Asians, Pakistanis, Native Americans, Indians, Hispanics, LGBTQIA, and Mutants, they’re all beaten down when they just want to live life and be comfortable. That’s why safe places need to be made, such as Xavier’s school.”
“Here we are!” called Brandon. “Hey, Bro! You-!”
“Investigating a scene right now!” replied a familiar voice.
“Sir, you were out cold!” protested a second voice.
“No, I wasn’t!” said a third. The team rounded a corner to see someone covered in spikes sitting on the stairs with Dr. William Davies and a tall black woman with white hair in her X-Man outfit. The woman was Ororo Munroe, wife to King T’Challa of Wakanda and the X-Man known as Storm.
“So, what’s going on here, Ororo?” asked William.
“I called the medical staff,” explained Storm, “because this young man passed out and he’s refusing to get checked out!”
“That’s because I didn’t pass out!” insisted the kid.
“Yes, you did!” replied Storm. “And then you fell down the stairs!”
“No, I didn’t!” argued the kid.
“And human bowling-balled into that lamp!”
“No, I didn’t!”
“And then you peed your pants!”
“No, I…” The kid then looked down and…he couldn’t deny it; he peed his pants. “…You know, on second thought, I might need to see the school medical staff.”
“Wise choice, young man,” replied William.
“Still putting your degree into action, hm?” asked the Doctor.
“That voice!” whispered William. He looked behind him to see her! “DOCTOR! Hey, give me a minute to finish up here! We’ll catch up after this!”
“Sounds great, William!”
After taking care of the kid, William rejoined the Doctor and her team. “So, checking up on things, Doctor?” he asked.
“Well, yes and no,” replied the Doctor. “I think I had better put you in the picture. Amy and I traveled a bit, then we picked up Lurra Rus here.”
“So they’re real?” asked William as she pointed to Lurra Rus. “The Twi’leks?”
“Well, they WERE real at one point,” said the Doctor. “They’re gone by this time. But all that stuff in her galaxy DID happen.”
“Yikes, caught up in Skywalker family drama!” winced William.
“Yes, I learned about who Vader used to be and what happened to that…Death Star above Yavin,” said Lurra Rus.
“Then we had an adventure on Gallifrey that brought back the Time Lords,” continued Amy.
“So they’re back! Congrats, Doctor!” praised William.
“And then we stumbled across a truth from Batman during an adventure with the Justice League,” the Doctor went on. “There’s an event coming called the Grouping where various points in time blend together.”
“…That’s alarming,” remarked William. “What started it?”
“We don’t know. We’re trying to make it manageable, but certain races intend to capitalize on it.”
“The Daleks leap readily to mind,” shuddered William.
“Don’t remind me of those monsters,” grumbled Lurra Rus.
“So why are you guys here?” asked William.
“Lurra Rus and I have some small measure of psychic powers,” replied Amy, “but we want to learn from other psychics outside the Psychonauts.”
“They’re real too?” quizzed William.
“Oh yeah,” answered the Doctor.
“Why not learn from the Psychonauts?”
“Because right now, an Empath is still working on his mental state after someone went after their Nona’s life.”
“Well, there’s plenty of psychics here,” said William. “Let’s see if Professor X can get Amy and Lurra Rus into some classes. I can cover the bill.” As the Doctor was about to object, someone screamed. “That’s never a good sign!” yelped William as he rushed to the source of the scream. Someone was kneeling over a person bleeding out with a stab wound in the knee. “Okay, step back, everyone!” called William. He then approached the stabbed guy. “Please tell me this was an accident!” he said as he opened his medical bag.
“I can’t say that!” replied the poor guy. “A guy shouted ‘Die, Mutie!’ and stabbed me in the leg only because I moved too fast for him to get my heart!”
“Well, I’m gonna need to apply a tourniquet to stop the bleeding,” advised William. “But I have to warn you, it’s gonna hurt.”
“I don’t care, man! Do it!” the patient insisted. William applied the tourniquet and tightened it. The patient DID feel pain from how tight it was, but he was glad he was okay.
“All right, that should stabilize you until the hospital can take care of your leg.”
“Ambulance and police are on their way,” called another student.
“Good to know,” said William. “Now…we’ve got a little whodunnit on our hands!”
“Not exactly how I wanted to spend seeing you again,” sighed the Doctor.
“The real question is this,” remarked William, “is it a human? An Inhuman? A mutant with shapeshifter powers? A Skrull?”
“Why a mutant with shapeshifter powers?” asked Amy.
“Because, since they’re as human as William deep down, not all mutants share the same goals,” replied the Doctor.
“…Oh no, don’t tell me!” sighed Amy. “One bad apple?”
“Yep,” replied William. “And the most infamous bad apple among mutants is Professor X’s friend/enemy, has a few names. Max Eisenhardt, Erik Lehnsherr, Magnus, but among the X-Men, he’s…right there.” An old man was walking up to them. “Mr. Eisenhardt, we were just talking about you.”
“I heard a student here was attacked,” replied the man.
“And there’s a few possibilities that leap to mind, some of them being a mutant framing people like me,” said William.
“Sir, I’m the Doctor, an old friend of Charles Xavier,” introduced the Doctor.
“I’ve heard about you, Doctor, and your many faces,” said Max.
“William was about to tell me what the X-Men call you.”
“It’s a name I picked. I am power, men call me Magneto.”