[center][img]https://images.cooltext.com/5050635.png[/img][/center][hr][COLOR=Gold][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]XAVIER INSTITUTE FOR HIGHER LEARNING[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][/COLOR]
[INDENT][INDENT][color=black][sup]November 12, 2017  |  3:13 P.M.  |  Salem Center, New York[/sup][/color][/INDENT][/INDENT]
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Calvin Rankin; the Mimic, super-powered hero and adventurer, and, as of one hour ago, [i]former[/i] field leader of the metahuman group called the X-Men. Cerebro; a large, and complex device designed by several brilliant minds, including Professor Charles Xavier and Dr. Hank McCoy, that amplified the brainwaves of telepaths in order to detect the presence of certain individuals across the globe, namely those possessing the Meta-gene. Two days ago, Calvin had stood in this very room staring at the machine, and at the way Charles Xavier utilized it to narrow down the signatures of metahumans with the intent of offering them a place at his school, the Xavier Institute for Higher Learning. Despite having seen both Cerebro and the professor in action countless times, it had always left Calvin with a sense of awe. After all, a device of this nature, the magnitude of power it offered, it was nothing short of incredible. 

Now, however, as Calvin stood before the remains of the device, and rubble of the room that had contained it, none of that awe remained. Instead, concern, frustration, and a determined focus were in its place. Less than twenty-four hours ago, an explosion rocked this room, completely decimating Cerebro itself, and seriously damaging the integrity of the surrounding walls and adjacent rooms. Professor Xavier, who had been present in the room at the time, had also been gravely wounded. And although he was being attended to by their resident nurse, Cecilia Reyes, and would make a full recovery in time, the same could not be said for Cerebro. 

Hank McCoy had notified Calvin that there was no hope of repairing what little remained intact of the device. The structure of the room, and those around it, could be fixed easily enough, but the intricate machine that had practically been a modern technological wonder would need to be rebuilt from the ground up. A process that would take months under current optimal circumstances. Months they did not have the luxury of.

Anna Marie, the woman known to most as Rogue, was missing, and presumably taken. After the explosion occurred yesterday, and it was discovered that Cerebro had been destroyed, and the professor injured, Calvin had assigned several X-Men in pairs to chase down potential leads, and return with information regarding probable perpetrators of the attack. He had paired Rogue, long-time member and often a secondary leader of the X-Men, with young Megan Gwynn. Codenamed Pixie, Megan was an X-Man in-training, and showed excellent promise. Calvin placed absolute trust in Rogue, and had faith in Megan, believing that the two together could bring back information of some value. 

However, this was not to be the case. Megan returned on her own, reporting that, after briefly splitting up on their fact-finding mission and later returning to their rendezvous spot, Rogue was nowhere to be found. Rogue was more than capable of taking care of herself, Calvin knew that better than just about anyone, but after almost twenty hours of no contact since then, he was worried, and officially declared her missing-in-action. And along with that worry came frustration over the fastest and most assured method of locating her now lying scattered in pieces, and crushed beneath a ton of rubble.

"Convenient timing, isn't it?"

The voice called out over Calvin's shoulder, from the partially busted doorway, the frame warped and bent outwards. He didn't bother turning around to look, already having sensed his friend coming from down the hallway. Even distracted by concerned thoughts, Calvin's mimicked enhanced senses had picked up Scott Summers' scent approaching long before he reached the doorway. 

"Rogue disappearing just hours after Cerebro gets destroyed," Scott continued, seeming to have read Calvin's thoughts. Ironic, given the borrowed telepathy the latter possessed. 

"You think they're connected?" Calvin had been considering it, admittedly, and did not like how close the two events had occurred to one another, but he wasn't convinced of any correlation.

"You don't?"

"Honestly?" Cal sighed, shaking his head. "I doubt it. There are so few that know about Cerebro outside of school faculty and the X-Men, that only leaves a handful of possible candidates. I'm more concerned that Charles may have been the intended target." He could sense Scott stiffen ever so slightly at this.

"You think it was [i]him?[/i]" If Scott was worried by the possibility, he didn't let it show in his voice. 

"Magneto? Maybe. Not his usual method, though." Calvin answered. 

"No one's heard from him in almost a year," said Scott, "who knows what he's been planning since the last time we fought the Brotherhood."

Scott had a point, Calvin knew. In December of last year, the metahuman terrorist Erik Lehnsherr, commonly known as Magneto, and self-professed as the 'master of magnetism,' had attempted to appropriate several nuclear warheads from one of the United States' [i]Ohio-Class[/i] submarines. Calvin, Scott, and the rest of the X-Men had managed to stop Magneto and his 'Brotherhood of Mutant Supremacy' before they could do so, but the would-be revolutionaries managed to escape by forcing Calvin's hand; have his team save the sinking submarine, and its crew, or get into a prolonged battle they couldn't afford. But there had been no sign of Magneto, nor his Brotherhood, since. A worrisome fact given the terrorist leader's former proclivity to attack the X-Men seemingly every month. 

"You're right," Cal conceded, "and until we know more, we can't afford to take risks. This could be the work of any number of our enemies, for any number of reasons. There's certainly no shortage of them."

"We'll keep tracking down those who knew about Cerebro, see if we find any leads from there." Scott took a few steps forward, and placed a hand on Cal's shoulder, a gesture of reassurance. "And we'll keep an eye on the professor, make sure he's protected in case it [i]was[/i] an attempt on his life."

With Scott closer, he could see that Calvin seemed distant, his focus elsewhere. Not that Scott could blame his friend, after all, if it had been Jean missing... 

"Are you sure you want to do this? Go off alone, I mean. You could take a team with you, or we can call in Victor," he suggested. "After all you've done for him, you know he'd help without hesitation." 

Victor Creed, Sabretooth; close friend, and drinking buddy of Calvin, as well as one of the toughest X-Men Cal's ever had the pleasure to fight alongside. Almost a decade ago, Calvin had led the X-Men against a clandestine, Canadian government program called Weapon X that was running genetic experiments on dozens of metahumans. In the process of taking the department down, they rescued two such individuals whom had been captive for years. Victor, and a young boy who had been taken at such a young age that he had no real name; they, however, took to calling him James, and eventually Leech. Both were brought back to the mansion for healing, and Calvin had been able to convince the angry and vengeful Victor that he could find better justice with them, by joining the X-Men and ensuring nothing like this would happen to another metahuman ever again. 

After a moment's consideration, Calvin responded. "I know. And that's why we're not going to call him. Vic's off handling his own business. He may not have told us what it was, but I got the idea it was important, and I'm not going to pull him away from whatever that is. Besides," Cal paused to tap his nose with a single finger. "I may not have Victor's full senses, but I can still track with the best of them." 

"Then the team, we can assign-"

"No. No team, no assignments," Cal interrupted. "We can't be sure that the mansion won't come under another attack, and if it does I want all hands on deck. We're not going to have another incident like in oh-eight. We can't afford to keep rebuilding the school, not if we intend to begin pushing for more outreach on mutant-human relations."

As Calvin said this, he finally turned to face his long-time friend, and teammate. The familiar ruby-quartz glasses, and all-too-serious expression greeting him. Sometimes Calvin missed the former days, back when things were simpler, and Scott smiled more. When it was just the six of them; Scott and Hank, Jean Grey, Bobby Drake, Warren Worthington, and himself. Before alien wars, demonic invasions, and the need to rebuild the mansion every few years. Long before Calvin was practically responsible for an entire new generation of metahumans, and their future. Before he was the face, the ideal, that the younger mutants looked up to, and he was saddled with the pressure of changing public perception of metahumans as a whole. Even before...

No, not before Rogue. Of all the things that had happened to him since he had been taken under the wing of Charles Xavier, of all the people he had met, nothing had given him greater joy than her. Calvin would gladly fight a thousand Shi'ar Death Commandos, and go toe-to-toe with Apocalypse day after exhausting day if it meant he'd still have gotten to meet, and be with Rogue. No matter how much more simple things had been before, regardless of how much more stress he had to bare nowadays, Calvin would never give his life with her up to go back to that era. And he certainly wasn't going to give her up now, not to whoever was stupid enough to try and take her away from him.

"No," continued Cal, "I'll handle the search for Rogue, you handle keeping everyone here safe. I'll [i]find[/i] her. And I'll find whoever took her from me. I won't rest until I do."

That Scott knew to be true. Fifteen years of knowing Calvin, and Scott truly believed that, out of anyone, Cal could accomplish anything he put his mind to. Out of all of the adventures in his life, of all the people he's encountered, Scott had yet to meet someone more determined than Calvin Rankin when he had set himself a goal. So if Calvin said he would find Rogue, then Scott had no doubt in his mind that that statement would eventually become reality. He just hoped it wouldn't be too late by the time it did. 

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