by Ballinger Lippincott » Thu Sep 10, 2020 7:41 pm
"Three, two, one.
Mark."
With a deafening roar, a drone blasted it's way over campus, emitting a stream of colored smoke behind it, coating the quad and the exterior areas of campus in a fog. If students attempted to get indoors away from it, they'd find the ventilation systems cranked into reverse, spewing out more of the stuff, getting on their skin, into their lungs, all around them.
Tear gas? No...no, not quite. Some kind of anesthesia? Not...not really.
At first, in fact, it seemed to have done nothing at all; just cloud the battlefield and clog people's vision. But then, slowly, people began to catch on.
For telepaths, the world gradually became...silent. The constant underbubbling of people's thoughts faded away, replaced by...nothingness. Just before her extra vision faded away, Sam could catch a glimpse of a cavalcade of sparks, floating up and out, twirling and vanishing into the haze.
For shifters, the world became solid. For flyers, the ground rapildy became solid, too! Jez found herself suddenly in one place, not many.
"What you are experiencing," Lippencott's damned calm voice continued over the loudspeaker, "is your X-Genes being blocked from expressing themselves. You will likely experience some confusion and perhaps some discomfort, but I assure you, from all our experiments, this effect should be temporary.
I must say, starting a massive fight on campus, while unexpected, was likely an added boon. You see, most of our research on each and every one of you came under stressful conditions; the better to isolate the X-Gene's performance. I suppose, under the stressful conditions of combat and protest, it made your particular mutations that much easier to target.
I do apologize for misleading you, but let me assure you, your sacrifice is for a good cause. As we speak, my laboratory in the Point is breaking down and analyzing the extracted powers from each of you. We have been taking samples of your DNA since we arrived on campus, and combined with the energy sources we were able to acquire from you just now, we will reach a breakthrough. The X-Gene can be activated by...
...Well, I won't bore you with the details. Be assured, however, that because of your sacrifices, we believe we have a way to forcefully activate the dormant X-Gene in the wider population. By this time of day in 48 hours, there will not be a Flatscan in Britain. Your powers will spawn a new nation, one in which every man, woman and child has reached their ultimate state of evolution.
When we are all mutants, there will be no discrimination of mutants. No hatred, no violence. No more people killed because they are different. For when we are all different, none of us will be.
I thank you for your service."