X-Men: Mutant Academy (A Mutant "Superhero" Quest)

The letter was nice, you had to give it that. I mean you'd rather have not taken the offer to go here in the first place, and instead accept the University of Chicago's offer to you, but that didn't exactly pan out now did it? You never thought that you of all people would be a...well...a mutant. I mean no one in your family was, and that's how it came down right, genetically? I mean you had read that Children of the Atom thing going around Facebook and Reddit, but that seems...unlikely. Just like the idea that it was a Russian or Chinese bioweapon or virus, it had no basis in scientific fact. Why would they want to give their enemy superpowers? The other story, that it somehow related to Captain America and Project: Rebirth seemed slightly more likely, but none of the talking heads knew what was going on. All that you knew was they were just urban legends and hip when your parents were college, then they weren't and became very real, the love feast that started when they were the subject of email chains was gone and public panic about them started and just kept rising the past nineteen years…

Taking account of the pink blob encasing the skeleton sitting the back seat, across from the blue furry devil, you couldn't say you blamed people too much. Sighing, you knew that made three mutants, including yourself, on the bus filled with about thirty heading through a small east-coast town heading in the middle of nowhere. There were probably more though. Maybe the freckled blonde in the varsity football jacket? The leggy goth girl in the mesh green shirt? The kid with dyed blue hair and massive headphones? Maybe it was racist or whatever to think this. Or was it, like you were mutant, or was that like self hating prejudice or whatever. How could you tell if someone was a mutant if they didn't look like the Monster Squad, like in the back?



Secret Origin:

1.) James Ohlmann: Hotshot linebacker of Carl Sandburg High School, in Orland Park. No jerk jock, or simple headed moose like in those crappy teen comedies, you were on the honor roll and student council too; somehow you managing to juggle all this and a million social gatherings at the same time like a juggler handling chainsaws with ease. Both your parents were accountants dismayed at your dreams of trying to go pro, or even worse and likely, becoming a successful lawyer (do you know how many lawyers there are? Now doctors, there is always a need for doctors, lot of money in that. Your uncle is an eyes, nose, and throat and….) and you didn't really care and enjoyed your upper middle class life, with no worries outside of which cheerleader you were taking to prom, or coming out to your parents and telling them you wouldn't exactly mind taking out the quarterback Sam Lindel either, not because your parents were conservative Catholics, but because you didn't want to explain what a bi-sexual or pan-sexual was, especially since you really didn't yourself despite one or the other, or who knows both. Taking their advice about the playing the odds in sports seriously, but only humoring them about the lawyer thing, you thought were heading the for the University of Chicago when you're powers kicked in. After a nasty accident in the showers and accidentally knocking the wall down between the boys and girls' locker room, you decided mostly on your own to take up Charles Xavier's offer. Going from Prince Charming to the local leper might have played a part; maybe a new setting is what you need to get back into your grove. [Gain Affluent Background, Naturally and Studiously Athletic, Prince Charming and Boy Scout Traits]

2.) Daniel Goldman: Making a living stealing cars in Miami isn't that hard, what's harder not to roll your eyes or get too angry when the people you're selling them ask if why you never got caught is because you're related to so many lawyers or some other "clever" joke about your Jewish heritage. It's a relatively low risk and high reward profession: there is a lot of people overseas who want a Jaguar or Mercedes, and there are even more will buy stolen parts from a car that's scrapped, and little enough jail time for a nonviolent crime for a young kid with no record and a 4.0 GPA who spends one day a weekend at the soup kitchen. A few months in a county jail when coupled with tens of thousands of dollars, isn't that bad of a deal; the only catch to the profession are the cowboy owners who watched Dirty Harry or Gran Torino too many times and decide to end your life for stealing their car radio. Indeed that's exactly what happened and would have been the very end until your powers manifested and you knocked that dude right on his ass. When someone walked up and asked, then pressured you to start doing hits instead, you just happened to receive this letter and decided to high tail it to New York. [Gain Criminal Background; Sly as a Fox, Born Warrior, and Hide and Seek Traits]

3.) Matthew Manson: Growing up black in America is hard. Growing up in Frazeysburg, Ohio, in the middle of nowhere was worse. Your father (your mom died a long time ago, breast cancer), made a decent living as a dentist, and in the middle of rural Ohio that meant a big house, a big pool, and no one to fill it. Maybe it was your interest in anime and dungeons and dragons, or that you understood how to program and build your own gaming laptop and didn't know how to play football or talk to anyone; but add that to there were a lot of houses that flew confederate flags despite being in the north, and it was clear you weren't ever going to feel welcome and accepted there. There was never a big incident, just a bunch of minor ones, and teasing and bullying that veered on that but stayed focused on your Star Trek t-shirts and whatever you were reading at the time. Even when your powers manifested, it never escalated or centered because of that, like it does for so many mutants. It was just...hinted at it, like you being African American. Maybe it was because your talents manifested in such a lame way and just caused you to spill some milk on the floor. In any case, you never had any real trouble handling your powers afterwards, but both you and your father thought this Xavier Institute is a great way to make some friends and get a free Ivy League education! [Gained Middle Class Background; Nerd, Computer Whiz, and X-Focused Traits]

4.) Ryan Tyrell: You were supposed to go to Brown, but you fucked that up. At least you weren't "settling" for the University of Chicago anymore though and going to a proper Ivy League school. Of course your parents weren't telling anyone why and basically were sending you were to not shame the family with your "disease". From old money, in New England (an old Providence founding family to boot, though your estate was in Cumberland, Rhode Island for more than a century) that was far worse than your partying problem, or any drug problem you could have picked up. That was normal, not to be condoned but normal. Sure your high socitey founds would gossip about you being picked out of the drunk tank or showing up to your school in the afternoon, dressed in yesterday's clothes and puking on your desk, but the old hens would be taking about the Sutherland kid who knocked up a maid, or the Holloway girl who was caught doing blackface the next week and it would all be forgotten. Now being a mutant? And one who couldn't even control himself? That would be the talk of their inner circle for years, with everyone asking in a pitying tone if "Ryan is doing alright? We heard..." at every cocktail or dinner party. That wouldn't stand; that couldn't stand. The Tyrells were too good for that, so unlike any trip to rehab, you were expected to actually get better and if anyone asked, that you somehow got your grades up at the last minute. [Rich Background; Party Animal, Prince Charming, X-Wild!]

5.) Peter Wilde: Boxing is your life. I mean it was karate when you were twelve, but the karate and Judo classes in West Virgina were just for middle schoolers and never serious. Boxing on the other hand, that was real there, and you could find someone who could train you dirt cheap, especially when people there aren't paid in more than dirt, if they're working at all. Your family had some money before the coal mines shut down and black lung took your father and grandfather, but those days were long gone by high-school. So was any hope for college, until scouts started noticing just how hard you could hit the baseball and how you were the best student in your school. It would mean giving up boxing though, and that would mean admitting how messed up how everything was outside of the ring or your notebooks. And admitting one mess up could make sure you wind up like some of the other kids hooked on meth or painkillers, or heading to a coal mine to possibly die, ironically made it more possible. You needed zen like mind make sure you didn't mess up, not any stress. At least that's what you told yourself before you blew the hole in your roof and were arrested by the police until Mr. Eisenhardt and Xaiver paid your bail and handed their invitation to you personally. You have no idea how they got past the guard, they weren't holding you legally in the first place, but hey money means lawyers and maybe they didn't want a lawsuit. [Poor Background; Nerd, Naturally and Studiously Athletic, Tall Dark and Brooding Traits Unlocked]

6.) Player/Reader Input.



Power Selection: (Note this will change and evolve as your character does)

A.) Gravity Manipulation: You can control and manipulate the gravitational pull or forces of yourself or any object you touch. Unless your powers are going haywire, this is limited to about three to four things, not including yourself, but Xavier states that barrier is mostly in your head not based on biological or physics based limitations.

B.) Light Projection: You can create and focus light. It takes little effort to make a hardish light that can knock someone down or punch a hole in a char, and you can flash extremely bright lights that can blind people or illuminate a room, but can only make a few basic shapes or images with the ability so far. Summers says that with a little focus though, I should be able to make detailed artwork or illusions with my mind. Also fight laser beams, I guess.

C.) Psionic: I have mental energies and I can make objects out of them. So far it's just basic shapes and silhouettes, I can make them soft as a pillow or sharper and harder than steel. Miss Grey is positive my psionic powers can either get more powerful and make more complicated, longer lasting objects, or are just a subset of psychic powers.

D.) Tank: I'm way faster and stronger than any professional athlete. Mr. McCoy has me clocked at about 70 miles per hour and I can currently bench press a motorcycle with ease, and can lift a compact car over my head with some serious effort. And that's me right now, I was eating world records before I got here and am doing this much with less than a month of training. He's too concerned to try any serious endurance tests though. Shame, I guess I will never know if I'm bullet proof.

E.) Shape-Shifting/Matter Manipulation: I can transform into animals or take on their attributes, but so far I can only something vaguely around my weight. Vaguely being the operative word there. Worthington tells me that given I'm not stuck to my actual matter, that I can do even more with my powers than turn into a wolf or small bear. He's trying to get me to just grow taller, or smaller, or walk through walls, but after my pants exploded and I ran into a concrete wall and broke my nose, Vice Principal Eisenhardt took over your training

F.) Temperature Control: At first, Drake thought I had the same power set as him, and almost everyday was a snowball fight or snowman making competition. Then I melted the snowman and a set a flag on fire, and Mr. Drake consulted with Miss Grey and Mr. Summers. Considering I can't come close to turning myself into mist or myself to ice, like Drake can, just make it creep up me, they figured I have a general ability to fluctuate the temperature around me to absurd degrees, and a body that can easily withstand it. Now everyday is a snowball fight and barbecue

G.) Insert Powerset here. Keep it open, but low key for now.

Xavier Institute For the Gifted Staff List:
List will be updated, adding more information, as you learn more and time moves on

Scott Summers: Various Athletic Extracurriculars, Mutant Power Safety 101 and 201. The later is mandatory. In normal school work he teaches Political Science Courses and Ethics, and is the teacher who is going to get the most slackers. Which seems like a bad idea because from your phone interview with him, he seems like a hardass. He's always wearing glasses or a visor, due to some head injury that makes him unable to control his powers otherwise, so maybe that isn't much of a surprise.
Powers: Powerful Optical Kinetic Blasts

Warren Kenneth Worthington III: Teaches various Business and applied maths in or related to that field. Teaches Practical Mutant Power Application 101 and 201, and according to the website teaches piloting? Whatever the case, along with the Xavier family, the Worthingtons are New York old money through and through, and are probably distant cousins considering how much each family married into each other up until the turn of the last century. Outside of Mr. Eisenhardt, he's probably the most famous Mutant here, having had a brief stint as a superhero who saved people from burning builds and car accidents up until a couple years ago.
Powers: Flight through his large feathered wings; super-strength and stamina that comes from being to fly at all from his wings.

Jean Grey: Psychology and Sociology professor. She along with Summers teaches the other mandatory "Mutant Class" Self Control 101 and 201, while also offering a mediation extracurricular for both those who are having trouble with said classes or just looking to calm down. According to her profile she's a telekinetic and telepathy, just like Xavier. Guess it goes to prove the internet wrong about the beielf all mutant powers were different and totally unique to said mutant.
Powers: Psychic abilities including telekinesis and telepathy

Robert "Bobby" Drake: The English professor here. From Contemporary Literature, or Classic Literature, to just English 101 to 201. He also teaches the "Creative Use of Gifts" class, and a total urban and isolated survival training program. Of the teachers here, he's the youngest and definitely acts it. You've seen his twitter and Instagram, just picture after picture of him on the beach and posing shirtless and fishing for likes.
Powers: Cryokinesis

Hank McCoy: Teaches Physics, a couple Mathematics fields, Astronomy, and Engineering courses. He has PHDs in a variety of such fields. He doesn't teach any Mutant centered classes however, outside of helping Miss Grey with Counseling hours. Also he's the only one without a picture up on the website or brochure, despite being the most "prominent" out of the staff. Weird.
Powers: Super Strength, Agility, and Durability

Max Eisenhardt: Outside of Vice Principal duties, he also teaches Biology, Biochemistry, Chemistry and Genetics. He also teaches a Special Self Defense Class and along with Professor Xavier teaches a Mutant Advocacy class. Pretty impressive for a man who according to both his Wikipedia page and the blurb on the school's website, is in his mid eighties. He doesn't look a day over fifty in these pictures though. Are they out of date?
Powers: Can generate and control magnetism and magnetic fields

Charles Xavier: Headmaster of the school bearing his name and teacher of History and Philosophy courses here. He also teaches a mutant focused class in Mutant Advocacy, but outside of that his office is open to students for a pretty wide window and he apparently focuses mostly on duties as headmaster. Apparently part of the problem is he is seeing medical specialists for some type of accident he had and he should be more hands on during the second semester, or next year at the latest. Come from old New York money like the Worthingtons, and the X-Mansion as it's called now, is older than the United States of America.
Powers: Psychic abilities including telepathy and telekinesis

Visiting professors from Cornell University and Empire State University come by a couple times a week to fill in the gaps of your formal education. The fuzzbutt is once Xavier has proven the success of his school in getting students to master their abilities, that you'd be able to go directly their campuses if you so choose.

Note: While I'm keeping this in the dark so far IC, OCC all the teachers of course comprise the first group of X-Men. They so far haven't been on many missions together, having done anywhere between half a dozen and a dozen in five years time. While prejudice against mutants is at an all time high, the wacky and brutal stuff isn't a common occurrence (yet.). I'm not going to get into spoilers here, yet, but every member was recruited or trained by Magneto or Professor X personally, individually or together. It was only with the recent spike in the mutant demographic and their proven track record that Xavier suggested opening a school.