CH 73: Strange Events
After informing everyone of what had happened, Lex finally left the main room and stepped outside for a little while, needing the quiet after everything that had happened that day. Nanami and Derek had already decided to return to Japan, and before they left, Lex had handed each of them a Super Serum. It seemed like a useful little gift, especially considering that both of them would be spending plenty of time dealing with supernatural threats, and Lex had more than enough ways to improve the people working under him. Once the two had departed, the mansion gradually settled back into something resembling normalcy, with the chaos of the day becoming another strange story that would probably be discussed over dinner.
Gwen, meanwhile, had taken Ben aside and was apparently giving him a very long lecture about the number of alternate versions of him that had turned out to be villains. Ben had tried defending himself several times, but Gwen didn't seem particularly interested in hearing it, especially since this version of Ben was technically a completely different person from the ones responsible for whatever crimes she had encountered in her own experience. Lex could hear their voices from elsewhere in the mansion, occasionally catching fragments of Gwen's increasingly exasperated explanations and Ben's attempts to insist that he wasn't one of those Bens. It was probably going to take Gwen some time before she completely stopped associating the name Ben Tennyson with the possibility of an interdimensional disaster.
Inside the kitchen, Grayfia had already returned to cooking as though the appearance of a cosmic entity, an attack by an Celestial, the death and resurrection of two members of the team, and the arrival of a new summon were all merely events that could be filed away until after dinner. Sharon was with her, helping where she could while the two talked about something Lex couldn't quite hear from where he was standing. The ordinary domesticity of the scene was almost surreal after everything that had happened, but somehow that made it feel even better. Kara and Donna were sitting together in front of the television, occasionally commenting on whatever was playing, while Lex remained nearby, simply watching them for a moment.
Looking at all of them together, Lex couldn't help feeling a strange warmth settle in his chest.
He had started this life with practically nothing except a few Essences, and a new perspective for life. Now the place was filled with people who had become part of his life, each of them carrying their own personalities, problems, abilities, and histories, yet somehow all of them had ended up here together. It wasn't perfect, obviously, because his life had become considerably more complicated than anything he could have imagined, but there was something comforting about knowing that there would always be someone in the next room.
Of course, there were still plenty of problems waiting for him.
Ultron had escaped, which was certainly something he couldn't simply ignore. There were aliens who now knew that Earth existed, and considering how frequently powerful extraterrestrial civilizations seemed to wander into Earth's vicinity, another invasion wasn't exactly a distant possibility. Then there was the Queen of Nevers, whatever she truly was, the strange bloodline he had only just awakened, the growing number of worlds connected to his life, and the fact that he still didn't understand exactly what his own Father had planned.
Still, for the moment, things were good.
While he was enjoying the quiet, Lex continued working on the Templates he had acquired from the Gacha. H'El's Template had turned out to be considerably more complicated than he had initially expected, and although Raphael had already begun processing the information contained within it, the Template itself wasn't something that could simply be downloaded into their minds all at once. What they currently possessed was only the beginning, with fragments of H'El's knowledge and understanding gradually becoming clearer as Raphael deciphered the information contained within the Template.
Raphael was already running countless simulations in the background, comparing the technological principles she understood with those contained within H'El's knowledge and attempting to determine how the various systems fit together. She wasn't struggling with the information so much as steadily unpacking it, separating concepts that were immediately comprehensible from those that required additional context before they could be properly understood. The more she deciphered, the further the Template would progress toward complete assimilation, and Lex suspected that by the time it was finished, Raphael would have an entirely new understanding of technology that went far beyond anything she currently possessed.
Lex's own attention was focused on the Yuuki Template.
Unlike H'El's Template, Yuuki's abilities were much more immediately relevant to Lex himself. The Template contained three major Skills, two of them Unique Skills and one Ultimate Skill, but since he had only just begun assimilating it, he couldn't access everything yet. At the moment, the only ability he could actually use was the Unique Skill Anti-Skill, which allowed him to become immune to Skills or magic depending on what was being targeted, although the distinction between the two was something Lex still needed to understand properly.
And that raised a rather important question.
What exactly counted as a Skill?
Lex had been thinking about the difference for a while, and the more he considered it, the more he realized that the answer wasn't quite as simple as he had originally assumed. His current theory was that Skills were abilities rooted in the individual themselves, using the user's own existence as their foundation, whereas magic was something external that a person manipulated through supernatural energy, techniques, formulas, or other methods.
It was only a theory, however, and Lex knew better than to treat it as fact without testing it.
There were already enough strange abilities in his possession to make the distinction complicated, especially considering that some Skills could manipulate supernatural energy while certain forms of magic could become deeply integrated with the user. He would need to experiment with different systems, compare their effects, and determine where the actual dividing line existed. For now, though, this was the best explanation he could come up with, and simply having a hypothesis gave him somewhere to start.
By the time dinner was over, the mansion had become considerably quieter. Gwen eventually decided that Ben shouldn't stay in the mansion, mostly because she didn't think having a teenage boy surrounded by Lex's rather unusual household was particularly appropriate, so she took him to Lex's penthouse instead. Gwen went along with him, naturally, both because she was responsible for him and because she had no intention of spending another night in the mansion after barely surviving the previous evening's chaos.
Lex, meanwhile, had no such plans.
Later that night, he found himself once again sharing the bedroom with Grayfia, Kara, Donna, and Sharon. There was no grand discussion about it and certainly no particular ceremony; it had simply become one of those things that happened naturally between them. The rest of the mansion gradually fell quiet while the five of them disappeared into the bedroom together, leaving whatever happened behind the closed door private.
---
At the X-Mansion, however, Jubilee was having a very strange day.
Actually, calling the day strange wasn't quite enough anymore.
Something had been wrong for roughly a week, although the problem hadn't begun at its current severity. At first, it had been something everyone could dismiss as a strange coincidence, but each passing day had brought another inconsistency, another memory that didn't quite line up, another detail that felt wrong in a way Jubilee couldn't properly explain.
It had started with the dreams.
Almost everyone in the school had experienced the same nightmare, seeing themselves surrounded by flames while they screamed for help. The images had been vivid enough that they could still remember the sensation of heat against their skin even after waking, and the fact that so many people had experienced the exact same dream immediately made everyone suspect some sort of psychic attack or mutant ability. Yet nothing had been found. There had been no obvious attacker, no psychic signature that anyone could trace, and no explanation for why the entire school had seemingly shared the same nightmare.
The strangest part was that Jubilee hadn't experienced it at all.
Then the headaches started.
Students complained about them first, but before long even some of the teachers began acting strangely. At first Jubilee thought they were simply tired or stressed, but then people started forgetting things. Small things at first, details that could easily be dismissed as normal forgetfulness, until the mistakes became increasingly obvious and nobody seemed to realize anything was wrong.
Except Jubilee.
Anna had somehow forgotten that her powers activated through touch and had casually reached out to shake Jubilee's hand. Jubilee had instinctively expected her abilities to activate, only to discover that nothing happened at all. Anna hadn't reacted because, as far as she was concerned, nothing unusual had happened in the first place.
Even Scott had apparently forgotten that he wasn't a student anymore.
He had attended classes as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and the disturbing part wasn't merely that he had done it. Nobody around him seemed to think there was anything strange about it either. The entire situation felt as though reality itself had quietly shifted beneath them while everyone except Jubilee had simply accepted the new version of events.
She had tried talking to everyone.
Nobody listened.
She had tried speaking with Professor Xavier, only for him to refuse to even meet with her, which was perhaps the most unsettling thing of all. Xavier refusing to speak with her without explanation was so far outside what she considered normal that it had immediately pushed him much higher on her list of suspects, although she had no idea what exactly he could be doing.
Domino was another strange case.
She had simply left the mansion several days earlier for no obvious reason, and Jubilee couldn't shake the feeling that her disappearance was connected to everything else. What Jubilee didn't know was that Domino had simply been lucky enough to leave before the phenomenon reached her, meaning that her absence had accidentally spared her from whatever was happening inside the mansion.
Jubilee had considered calling for outside help several times, but she hadn't known who she could trust.
Then, only a short while ago, something happened that finally convinced her she couldn't keep trying to deal with this alone.
Time had reversed.
It had lasted only a few minutes, perhaps five at most, but Jubilee remembered both versions of events with perfect clarity. One moment she had been doing something completely ordinary, and the next she had found herself several minutes earlier, with events she had already experienced suddenly happening again. She had no idea why it had happened, and because she didn't understand what was causing the phenomenon, she naturally assumed it was connected to the same strange problem affecting everyone else.
She didn't know that something entirely different had caused it.
She only knew that reality itself was becoming impossible to trust.
“Tabby, I think it's about time I call Lex,” Jubilee finally said, her frustration giving way to genuine worry. “That guy... he's so powerful. He should be able to help, right?”
“Who's Lex?” Tabitha asked.
Jubilee stared at her.
That question hurt far more than it should have.
For the last three months, she had talked about Lex to Tabitha and Anna constantly. At first, almost everything she had said had been positive, especially when she had been excited about the strange, powerful man she had met, but eventually the relationship had become more complicated. He had gone weeks without calling her, and then she had discovered that he had apparently left the world entirely.
Now, however, he was back.
She had even seen the news earlier that day.
Calling him herself didn't seem unreasonable anymore, especially if it could help solve whatever was happening at the mansion. And, perhaps selfishly, Jubilee wouldn't mind having an excuse to talk to him again.
Unfortunately, he didn't answer.
Neither did he answer the second time.
Or the third.
Jubilee even tried calling Kara, but she received no response from her either. What she didn't know was that Lex was currently rather occupied, and Kara was equally unavailable for exactly the same reason.
---
Meanwhile, Gwen and Ben arrived at Lex's penthouse and discovered that it was considerably livelier than they had expected.
Kitty, Regan, and Alison had apparently decided that the best way to spend the evening was with a pizza party, and they had been joined by Wanda and Pietro, who were still relatively new additions to Lex's growing group. Boxes were scattered across the table, conversations overlapped from different corners of the room, and the atmosphere was relaxed enough that Ben immediately seemed to forget about the rather unusual events of the day.
He looked around at the assembled heroes before raising the question that had apparently been bothering him the most.
“Hey, guys, does anyone else have to go to school while still being a hero?”
Ben's question earned several looks.
“Gwen thinks we should probably attend high school,” Wanda explained, reaching for another slice of pizza, “but we're already adults, so I've been trying to avoid that particular fate.”
Ben looked almost relieved that he wasn't the only person who found the idea ridiculous.
Alison, meanwhile, looked between Ben and Gwen with considerably more curiosity. “I'm still more surprised that Gwen's cousin is a hero too. I've never heard of you before.”
Ben gave an awkward little smile, clearly unsure how much of his own story he should explain. Before he could answer, however, his attention was drawn toward Regan, who had been sitting somewhat apart from everyone else. Unlike the others, she wasn't laughing or eating, and there was a lingering sadness in her expression that made it obvious that she wasn't really participating in the party.
“What happened to her?” Ben asked quietly.
Kitty's expression softened as she glanced toward Regan. “She lost someone, her death has been affecting her, so we're trying to cheer her up.”
“No, she's not dead,” Regan immediately protested, her voice carrying more emotion than before. “They're just saying that. She's... she's missing. I'm sure she's still out there.”
There was such certainty in her voice that nobody immediately contradicted her.
Gwen looked at Regan for a moment before deciding that arguing wasn't going to accomplish anything. Instead, she leaned slightly closer and spoke in a gentler tone.
“It's alright. How about we try searching for her?”
Regan's eyes immediately brightened.
“You guys are magicians, right?” she asked, suddenly looking hopeful. “Can you do some magic and find her?”
Gwen hadn't been expecting Regan to latch onto the idea quite so quickly, but she wasn't about to crush that hope without at least trying. “Sure. Tell me more about her.”
“Well... Monet is a sweet girl. She's always been my best friend, since childhood. She's a prodigy, she's brilliant, everything about her is perfect, and she...” Regan began, but Gwen gently interrupted before she could continue describing Monet's personality.
“I mean something that could actually help us find her,” Gwen clarified. “Do you have something that belonged to her? Something she used frequently?”
Regan thought about it before reaching into her things.
“I have her T-shirt,” she said hesitantly. “I've worn it too, though. Would that still work?”
“Sure.”
Gwen took the shirt and examined it briefly before beginning the spell. Pink mana gathered around her almost immediately, shimmering around her fingers as the Anodite magic responded to her will. She wasn't expecting much from the attempt; locating someone across dimensional boundaries was certainly possible for her at this point, but Regan's certainty that Monet was alive had been little more than an emotional intuition.
Then the spell responded.
Gwen's expression changed.
The magic stretched outward, beyond ordinary distance, beyond the boundaries of the world around them, searching through layers of reality that most beings couldn't even perceive.
For several seconds, she simply stared.
Then Gwen finally spoke.
“Monet is alive... but she's in another dimension.”