74 Education
"Charles Xavier was in his office at the X-mansion. He could feel all the young minds moving about in the large mansion and outside, learning, playing, talking, and... well, maybe he should not monitor the school premises, which holds a lot of teens, with a psychic scan.
"Spring of youth, indeed," Charles sighed and checked the number of new applicants. With the mutant nation of Genosha being a mecca for mutants, many schools and colleges for mutants had sprung up on the island nation. His own school was seeing the effects of it too. He smiled at the happy losses.
While he was thinking about relocating his school to Genosha as well, he felt it. A massive energy wave had swept through the world. It didn't feel physical, psychic, or anything that he had ever felt. It felt like the energy wave was scraping away at the very fabric of reality itself.
Charles thought of his estranged son, who had only recently been able to control his enormous powers. This wave felt similar to the reality-warping that Legion would have done. But this felt countless times more massive than his son's powers. Did it affect the whole world?
He was brought out of his thoughts by the wailing and shouting of the kids outside his office. There was fear and panic in the air. Charles knew the prophesized darkness of the mutants had arrived. Their most trying times were ahead of them. For now, he had to soothe the kids and find out the extent of the damage.
With his powers fully extended, Charles scanned the whole world, and what he saw was devastating. There were no more than a thousand mutants left on the planet. All other mutants had been depowered. Of those who remained, a hundred or so had powers at Omega-level or beyond. At least they still had the numbers and powers to pose a threat, should anyone try to use this moment of weakness to destroy all mutants.
Charles barely managed to calm the students down, but he couldn't imagine what the situation was like in the newly formed nation of mutants. It was a nation that heavily relied on mutant powers to function, and with those powers gone, there would be a lot of chaos. But at least Magneto and the others still had their powers, so it should be fine.
"It seems that the Scarlet Witch's curse has been spoken. Chthon must be proud of her for sending out a multiversal spell. I wonder how many versions of Wanda it took to send out a spell like this. Reality warping on a multiversal scale," Charles, who was looking at the sulking kids out the window, heard the voice he recognized immediately.
Behind him, he saw Savant using the coffee machine to make tea. It was one of the many quirks of Savant that he had been learning to ignore over the few times he had met the guy.
"Can it be reversed? Maybe Legion..." Charles still bore some hope.
"David, his name is David. You should pay more attention to your son, Charles. Especially since he has immeasurable powers and a messed-up psyche. And no, Legion is powerful but not enough to reverse a spell of this magnitude," Savant dashed the hope that Charles had of using his son's powers.
"But, there is still hope. The spell only erases the mutant powers of the existing mutants. When a new mutant is born, the mutant-kind will be revitalized again. You just have to wait for that Hope," Savant tried out the mysterious prophecy act.
He knew that with the birth of Hope Summers, new mutants would begin to pop up again. The mutants just had to wait for Scott and Jean to conceive. He wasn't sure whether it was the effects of the reality-warping being removed over time or the birth of Hope Summers that caused the phenomenon, but it didn't matter all that much to him either way.
"What will we do until then? Will the Earth Federation guarantee our safety?" Charles asked worriedly.
"There is no guarantee of anything. Even Doom faces assassination attempts every once in a while. The Federation and Doom have suppressed them, but we both know that there are plenty of humans who are zealously bent on wiping out your kind. So my best suggestion is to continue cooperating with Doom while finding a new sanctuary for mutants," Savant shrugged while sipping on the tea from the coffee machine.
Charles sighed, "Where will we even find such a sanctuary?"
"I have some ideas," Savant smiled, "There is a living island out there somewhere in the ocean. You might have already encountered it. You should contact it."
Charles remembered fighting a monster-like island some years back. They had managed to beat it away, but that was it. "I couldn't communicate with that entity psychically. How will we negotiate with such a being?"
"You need a translator, of course." Charles stared at Savant with dead eyes. Did he mean that they should use that translation app his company makes to talk to a living planet?
"I know what you are thinking. The translator I am speaking of is Doug Ramsey. He is an Omnilinguist. There isn't anything he can't communicate with as long as the other party is capable of communication. You can ask for his help to communicate with the island," Savant explained further.
Charles nodded and asked with some reservations, "Why are you helping us like this?"
Savant shrugged, "I see the mutants as a new sub-species of humans. And for the future of humanity that I envision, mutants are an integral part. It never hurts to have a race of people with great powers with you at all times."
Charles used Savant's chatty mood to ask some more questions, "And what do you envision?"
"Just the total domination of all of the multiverse and whatever lies beyond at the hands of humans. Maybe humans reaching a higher state of being like turning into higher-dimensional creatures? I don't really know. I just want to witness it myself," Savant said excitedly as his eyes glowed.
Charles looked into the glowing golden eyes. He could almost see those visions manifest in the golden shine of those eyes. Maybe such a time would really arrive for humanity when they reach a state of being higher than the multiverse itself. It was something worth looking forward to.
The sudden disappearance of mutant powers didn't go unnoticed by the world at large. Countries like China and India, which had been using the mutant abilities to bridge the gap between them and the Western developed countries, were feeling the effect of the event the most.
Mutants were being used for all kinds of jobs, from construction, farming, and pollution control to bureaucracy, desk jobs, and scientific research. The sudden loss of these powers affected them quite a lot. But because the mutants had only been in the jobs for the last couple of years, the effect was still manageable.
While the world was panicking, the Earth Federation sent out a press release reassuring the people that everything was fine and the loss of the mutant powers was caused by some external energy wave that the EAS was studying.
It was also immediately announced that 10 schools for teaching magic were established all over the world. They would be beginning their classes very soon. Those who are eligible would be magically getting their invitations soon.
Stephen Strange and Kamar-Taj, the Order of the Sages, the Taoists, the witches, and other fringe magical groups had come together to establish the magic schools. And to the utter confusion of all the very wise people, Savant had managed to force some of his fantastical elements into the schools.
At his own expense and effort, Savant had created a central magic detector that could detect the magical potential of everyone on Earth. Since kids just hitting their pre-teens were the most likely to develop magical potential, the magic detector would search for potential students every year.
When those kids were identified, they would be sent an invitation letter using magical constructs. Savant was adamant that it be owls. The invitations were another design from Savant that had a complicated mental illusion spell on it. That spell will test the kids' mental fortitude, their psychology, and their general intelligence.
Unless the kid is mentally very weak, a psychopath, or does not meet the intelligence required for magic, they would then be allowed to enter the magic school. The curriculum, management of the students, and the rest of the academic things were handled by Strange and the others.
The news of a magic school managed to alleviate a lot of the panic about the sudden disappearance of mutant powers. There was a lot of anticipation among everyone from the young to the old about getting to learn magic.
Some of them might have been dissuaded if they found out that every mage from the school would have to serve the Federation for three to five years, depending on factors like their grades, age, and performance during their academics. But that was for later, for now, everyone was waiting for the magic letters to appear."
