Multiverse Networking

Disclaimer:

I do not own the X-Men or Dungeons & Dragons. This is a work of parody created for non-commercial purposes.



Warning:

NC, Femslash, and other naughtiness sure to offend prudes.



Chapter 1



Professor Charles Xavier was many things.



Humanitarian, teacher, mutant, man of science, idealist, and (perhaps most importantly) founder of the X-Men and most powerful telepath on the planet (although this trait was now somewhat in doubt).



But there was a limit to Xavier’s idealism, and (although this was not widely known) he could also be a calculating manipulator.



However, despite all of Charles Xavier’s vast knowledge, resources, intelligence, and power, sometimes his manipulations blew up in his face.



As the founder of the X-Men and the man known as Beast observed the comatose Emma Frost, Professor Xavier reluctantly came to the conclusion that this was one of those times.



He had been aware of the extramarital affair Scott Summers had been having with Emma. As an extremely powerful and experienced psychic, Charles could hardly help noticing that two people under his roof were having sex telepathically.



If such an event had involved any of the X-Men but Scott Summers and Jean Grey The Professor probably wouldn’t have become involved. But in many ways Scott had always been the son Xavier never had and Jean his beloved…daughter.



The mutant activist didn’t want to see them unhappy or apart. It felt WRONG to Xavier on a fundamental level.



Moreover, there were more practical considerations.

If Jean found out that Emma Frost was in an ongoing affair with her husband, she would probably become enraged. An event that could have disastrous consequences thanks to Grey’s connection to the Phoenix Force.



So he had done his best to make sure that Jean Grey didn’t stumble across the fact that Cyclops was cheating on her.



Hoping that the X-Men’s team leader would finally start demonstrating the maturity and courage in his personal life as Scott Summers as he had usually shown in his ‘professional’ one as Cyclops.



Instead Scott had continued his affair with Emma Frost until Jean had somehow found out about it.



She had then confronted her husband and his mistress.

Jean had attacked Emma Frost (leaving her in her current pitiful state) while Scott had simply walked away. Unmindful of the fact his lover and his wife seemed intent on destroying each other.



Charles Xavier ceased his brooding for a moment to once more try to probe Emma’s mind.



Frost retreated so far within herself that he could barely sense her psychic presence, while at the same time erecting powerful mental shields. The psychic equivalent of hiding in the deepest and darkest hole you could find.



“What is her mental state?” Doctor McCoy asked.



Xavier sighed.

While he and Emma Frost had never been that close, and he knew that she had joined his side more out of guilt and loneliness than any real belief in his dream of harmonious human/mutant coexistence, it still pained him to see a strong and vibrant woman like Emma so hurt and vulnerable.



“Unchanged” he finally replied sadly.



Then he turned to the blue furred mutant and asked “are you SURE it was Jean?”



“I am afraid there isn’t much room for doubt Charles…Jean brought Emma here herself…and she confessed that she…tried to break Emma” Beast replied slowly.



As Professor X hung his head in despair, McCoy said as he tried to reassure his old friend “she seemed very confused and upset…I think she was ashamed.”



“Well a least she wasn’t gloating or proud” Xavier thought as he desperately tried to look on the bright side.



While Xavier continued to brood, Hank McCoy tried to busy himself by checking the read outs for the life support equipment Emma and Sophie were plugged into. He was disappointed (but not surprised) to see that the young Cuckoo’s status had not improved despite her sisters best efforts.



Then Beast’s cell phone rang.



After he answered the phone his cat like features grew even more somber, and he wordlessly hung up.



Though the mutant known as Beast had a tendency to be verbose (or even long winded) he didn’t feel up to much talking given the circumstances.



So he simply told his companion the essentials.



“Professor we need to go…one of the students has been murdered.”







The victim was Todd Williams.



Todd Williams was a pale skinny 16 year old whose upbeat personality and witty one liners seemed totally at odds with his mutant power of invisibility.

Todd was funny and well liked, and didn’t seem to have an enemy on campus.



Now he was dead, and headmaster Xavier had to figure out how to tell his parents (a duty the founder of the X-Men always hated).



Todd Williams body had been found in a dumpster outside the student dorms by Wolverine, who had been attracted by the smell of a rotting corpse.



Charles Xavier thought it was probably a good thing that Logan had come by this area today, for trash pick up was tomorrow, and if Todd’s body had been taken to the dump they might never have found it.



Of course it said something about the current state of things at the Xavier Institute that finding a dead body could be considered lucky.



“Hell of a week..eh Chuck…first Quire and his gang….then Emma got herself into a coma again…now this” Wolverine said as he gestured towards the mutilated corpse.



Xavier would have been offended by Logan’s seemingly caviler attitude, but he knew by now that adopting a gruff exterior was one of the amazingly durable mutant’s ways of coping with loss.



Wolverine and the headmaster waited outside by the dumpster while Beast examined the corpse to help determine the cause of death. Xavier used the time to telepathically contact the other X-Men on campus and inform them of the situation, and Logan simply stood guard to make sure McCoy was undisturbed.



After less than 5 minutes Beast left the body and approached the other two mutants.



Then he delivered his diagnosis in the cool tones of a doctor who had already seen far too much in his life.



“Well I will need to do a full autopsy to confirm it…but I believe the victim died when a hole was made in his skull and his brain was removed.”







The X-Men team leader known as Storm, rushed back to the Institute as soon as she heard the news. Ororo Munroe knew her friend was in trouble and didn’t want her to face it alone.



Even if it was mostly Jean’s fault.







Professor Charles Xavier had decided not to inform the local police of Todd Williams murder.



The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning had already received plenty of bad publicity thanks to Quentin Quire’s attempted take over of the school during Open Day. Another murder scandal was the last thing the Institute needed.



Especially if Williams murderer was a student.



Beast was now performing Todd’s autopsy to investigate that very possibility. While Xavier waited in his study.



The Professor was waiting for the results of the autopsy and for Scott Summers to show up.

The mutant called Cyclops had ignored all attempts to contact him after his wife had almost lobotomized his mistress, but he had responded immediately to Xavier’s telepathic summons when he had learned the Xavier Institute itself could be in danger (due to Williams murderer).



After what seemed like hours, Henry McCoy called the headmaster with his results. Professor Xavier could have simply taken the knowledge from the doctor’s mind, but he tried not to violate his X-Men’s mental privacy when their was no need to.



“I have good news Professor…it appears that the hole was made in Todd Williams head using some kind of natural acid…and I think we can take most of the students off the suspect list.”



“But several students are capable of making natural acids and toxins” the headmaster replied.



“Yes but I found what I believe to be skin flakes from the attacker mixed with the acid…and DNA analysis proves they didn’t come from anything remotely human” Beast answered with a kind of grim satisfaction.





Jean Grey was not usually a heavy drinker, but after what had happened between her, Emma Frost, and Cyclops she felt an unusual urge to drown her sorrows in alcohol.



To simply take a break from being…herself (if that was possible).



Haunted by the way that she had psychically savaged Emma and the fact that her husband Scott Summers had just LEFT them there, Jean wandered from bar to bar in New York City.

Staying and drinking until the thoughts or words of the patrons annoyed her (more than a few drunken men tried coming on to the attractive redhead or simply entertained erotic fantasies about her that Jean picked up) and then moving on to another bar.



Jean Grey rather liked the one she was in now.

It was an upscale establishment with a techno theme, and most of the patrons seemed to be women in their late teens to early forties. Everyone was very friendly and seemed to want to buy her a drink.



If the telepath had not been so drunk and upset she would have realized why. But the woman known as Phoenix was in no condition to notice such things.



Storm found her there a few hours later.

Ororo Munroe was wearing a white sun dress that looked good against her dark brown skin (Jean was wearing faded blue jeans and a COCA COLA T-shirt that was clearly too small for the well endowed mutant).



The red haired telepath grimaced when she saw her friend. Dreading what she knew the wind rider was going to say.



Ororo gently put her hand on Jean’s shoulder, and said compassionately “Jean…this isn’t like you…you can’t just run away…come back to the mansion.”



Grey jerked away from the comforting hand and sat on another nearby barstool.



“No…I’m not going back.”



The words were slightly slurred but Storm had no trouble understanding them.



“But Jean there’s been a…” the black mutant began.



However, Jean angrily interrupted her saying “so what…there’s always a crisis…always a looming disaster….what does it matter if you can’t trust the ones you depend on.”



Munroe was silent in face of Jean’s rage. For she couldn’t assure her friend that Scott Summers would start acting like a decent husband.



Because she did not believe such a thing would happen herself.



“Did you KNOW that Scott and Emma were having an affair?” Jean suddenly asked.



“No but I suspected something…I think we all did” Storm answered slowly.



The redhead didn’t seem to respond, and appeared to be contemplating her empty wine glass.



“I didn’t…I didn’t want to hurt him…I just wanted him to say it wasn’t serious…to say that he still really wanted me…to let me yell at him for a while and then say it would be okay…but he just left” Grey eventually said in a slow slurred voice.



“So you took out all your anger, betrayal, and outrage on Emma”

Jean’s conscious whispered.



After a while the redhead muttered “I’n not coming back until Scott gets here and sayz he’s sorry.”



“Jean…Emma hasn’t woken up…Henry thinks you may have severely damaged her mind” Storm softly explained.



“No…I couldn’t…that’s not possible…I just…” the telepath tried to rationalize and explain. But then she remembered her confrontation with the former White Queen.



She recalled how the Phoenix Force had answered her call of rage, she remembered the way that she had dredged up Emma’s most painful and traumatic memories, and she could not forget how she had ignored all of the blonde telepath’s attempts to reason with her or plead for mercy.



And worst of all, she suddenly recalled that she had only stopped her overwhelming psychic assault against Frost because Emma had eventually retreated so far within herself that Jean (temporarily) could not sense her.



“I suppose…I sup..pose that makes sense” Cyclops wife finally whispered drunkenly.



“Jean you need to come back…you may be the only one who can heal her” Ororo said softly as she once more put a comforting hand on her fellow X-Woman’s shoulder.



“Why are you doing this…you hate her too” Jean wondered aloud.



“Because you’re my friend… and you will never forgive yourself if you don’t do this” Munroe answered sincerely.



For the first time since the former African goddess had come into the bar, Jean really looked at her. She looked into her friend’s eyes and into her mind and she saw Ororo Munroe’s faith in her.



Even after all she had done Storm still believed in her.

And despite everything, Jean did NOT want to let someone else who believed in her down.



Jean Grey got to her feet and took her friend’s hand. As they were leaving the building though, Ororo asked a question that had been bothering her.



“Jean…why did you go to a lesbian bar?”







The creature set foot on the grounds of the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning once again.



It was basically humanoid in shape and its features were mostly obscured by the black hooded robe it wore. Nothing could be seen of its face except its two gleaming white eyes and the four greenish tentacles that protruded from its hood.



The body beneath the robe was hardly beautiful, for he was a natural predator of the most horrifying kind.



But the tentacled creature was feeling unusually happy and mellow today, for this area had proven to be a prime hunting ground last time.



These…mutants had such…delicious minds.