Hank McCoy walked out of the main operations room of X-men with a deep frown creasing his blue-furred face.
He moved quickly down the corridor. A teenage mutant with fire powers ran past him, laughing as he tossed a small fireball between his hands like a toy.
Hank reached out with one long arm and snuffed the flame mid-air with a quick swipe.
"No playing with fire in the mansion, Jamie," Hank said in his usual calm, professorial tone. "You know the rules. Last time you singed the wallpaper in the library, and Professor Xavier had to explain to the insurance company why his school has scorch marks shaped like smiley faces."
Jamie grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, Dr. Beast. Won't happen again."
Hank shook his head with a small smile. "I've heard that before. Go practice outside before you turn the rec room into a barbecue pit."
The boy ran off. Hank continued walking. His frown returned. He needed to speak to Charles. Now.
He reached the professor's private study. The door was open. Charles Xavier sat in his wheelchair near the window, eyes closed, hands resting on the arms of the chair.
He looked peaceful, almost meditative. But Hank knew better. Charles always knew when someone approached.
Charles opened his eyes the moment Hank stepped inside. "What's wrong, Hank? You feel troubled."
Hank walked closer and closed the door behind him. "It seems someone had hacked into our servers and database."
Charles raised an eyebrow. His voice stayed calm, but Hank could hear the concern underneath. "I hope you managed to stop them. It would be very troublesome if someone managed to bypass your defences."
Hank shook his head. "No. Whoever it was, was good. Very good. He broke through firewalls after firewalls. Cracked complex passwords in seconds. Whoever it is, is a genius in hacking."
Charles leaned forward slightly. "A techno-mutant perhaps?"
"Might be one," Hank replied. "But the speed was unreal. It felt like they knew exactly where every vulnerability was. Like they had a map of our entire system before they even started."
Charles folded his hands. "What all information did the hacker manage to get?"
Hank took a breath. "He managed to find out our exact location. How mutants came to be. Data on some of the mutants here. Their basic information. Before he could go further, I deleted the information itself so he could not get anything more. We still have it in a backup drive though."
Charles nodded slowly. "Good. Can we find whoever was responsible for it?"
Hank gave a wry smile. "I don't think there is a need. The person had left us a message. 'Earth's mightiest heroes are on their way to us.' With a peace emoji, a smiling face, and a winking smiley."
Charles chuckled despite the situation. "Oh, quite an amusing person. But you said 'we'? So there are more than one person. Earth's mightiest heroes. Now that's an amusing name too. Maybe they are some mutant children and want to join the X-Men?"
Hank shook his head. "From what I gathered, whoever it was, he or she was quite interested in the history of mutants and how they came to be. After that they focused on the different abilities of the mutants as if wanting to find a specific ability."
Charles leaned back in his chair. "That likely means that they are in need of a particular mutant with a specific ability. And since they are on their way, they likely found the mutant they want or want more information.Perhaps to accomplish whatever goal they have in mind."
Hank crossed his arms. "But what if they are not hostile?"
Charles looked out the window for a moment. "That does not matter. Tell the members of the X-Men to be ready and geared up. If whoever they are is hostile, we need to stop them at the gates. We cannot have them near our children or fight near them. If they come here peacefully, then we might have a chat."
Hank nodded. "Understood."
He turned and walked out. Charles watched him go. The professor closed his eyes again. He reached out with his mind, gently brushing against the thoughts of every student and teacher in the school.
Hank moved through the halls again. He headed toward the training wing. Logan was there, leaning against a wall with a cigar in his mouth. The gruff man looked up as Hank approached.
"Logan," Hank called.
"What is it?" Logan asked. His voice was rough. Smoke curled from the cigar.
Hank stopped in front of him. "Gather the X-Men. We might soon have company."
Logan took the cigar out of his mouth. "Magneto and his brotherhood?"
Hank shook his head. "Fortunately no. Someone else who managed to break all the defences that I set up on our servers. But unfortunately we do not know their identity either. So Professor has deemed it that we better be prepared if the people are hostile."
Logan grunted. "Never liked the technology."
He walked toward the communicator on the wall. He pressed the button.
"Scott, Jean, Ororo, Bobby, Kurt, Warren. Gather up. We need to prepare for guests."
A voice came back over the speaker of Scott Summers. "What kind of guests?"
Logan answered in his usual gruff tone. "We do not know if they are hostile or not. But we are going to give them a warm welcome if they are coming here peacefully."
He paused.
"And if they are not, we are going to give them an even warmer welcome."
The line went quiet for a moment. Then Scott's voice returned.
"Understood. We're on our way."
Logan released the button. He looked at Hank.
"You sure about this, Hank? Sounds like a lot of trouble for some hacker."
Hank adjusted his glasses. "It is not just some hacker. Whoever did this got deeper into our systems than anyone ever has. They knew exactly what they were looking for."
Logan put the cigar back in his mouth. "Fine"
Hank nodded. "I'll check the perimeter defences. You get the team geared up."
-----Author Notes---------
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