85 – A mind experiment

85 – A mind experiment

[A/N: I'm alive. It's just been a shit year so far. A few more of my friends have died, as well as two of my Aunts. I'm also suffering from the widely known cancerous dating scene that is modern dating. FYI, don't do online dating; it never worked for me despite trying for almost three years at this point, rip. If you're reading this, you'll likely find that I'm also posting some chapters for other fics, including some I've been posting solely to Patreon. Speaking of my Patreon, I was still writing cafe on it and posting, reaching ch 102 on the Patreon, so there's that]

Amid my day, I was certainly not expecting a love tap on the protections I put in place on Joshua's mind and soul, nor was I expecting that love tap to suddenly become a wrecking ball that plowed through my warding with little effort. By the time I could force the intruder out, they had already gotten what they wanted and a peak under Joshua's hood, so to speak. Whoever or whatever it was managed to scan most of Joshua's memories before I kicked them out, that means they know what Joshua is capable of, what he has done, the blood on his hands, and the lives he has saved.

I thought the wards and barriers I put up were sufficient against whatever could be thrown at it, but that was proved wrong by whoever or whatever did this. I could improve the barriers even more, but that would take a few hours, and Joshua would need to be completely unconscious for me to set them up.

Splitting myself to form another clone, I walked over to the simulator, where I found Joshua throwing his new 'students' at an unbeatable challenge, especially for their levels. Despite that, they were making quite the progress, as I could see them scouring through a war-torn battlefield within the streets of New Vegas in front of the Lucky 13 Casino; they set up traps using mines and explosives, and one of them even made a Bouncy Betty, an explosive they hid under rock and dirt, that would activate from pressure, that would send a grenade up into the air.

"How are they doing?" I asked Joshua, who looked no worse for wear despite the mind-probing, not that he noticed it.

"Decent. The large thug is less skilled than Caesar's Centurions. He has no skill with a blade, and his marksmanship and strength are the only thing passable about his skills. The redhead is by far the most skilled of all of them. She has taken the lead and shows the others in between the waves how to make traps to thin out the enemy's numbers. The last two, however, are complete novices; they have already made several mistakes that should have been fatal if not for the thug and redhead that saved them," Joshua explained, his eyes not leaving the scene below us.

"What are they fighting?" I asked, curious.

"At the moment, they are fighting the wasteland filth, Raiders, Fiends, Jackals, Great Khan, Powder Gangers, Ghouls, and the lesser of the NCR's army," Joshua informed with displeasure.

"And they are struggling? What's in the next wave?" I asked, baffled, looking down at the four.

Swiping his hand, the wave manager appeared before me while Joshua explained his thought process.

"What did you do?" he asked hastily.

"What did I do?" I parroted, confused, tilting my head slate to show it.

"Charles," Logan emphasized. "What did you do to Charles?" he asked again, clearly concerned for the mind-rapist many of the X-Men community despised despite his 'good' deeds towards mutant kind.

"Ah, so that's who attempted to attack my employee," I spoke with realization.

"Attack?" Logan questioned, confused.

"Yes? Did you not know?" I asked, curious.

"Charles? He'd never do something like that!" Wolverine aggressively defended the 'Professor' of the mutant institution.

"He's really got his hooks dug deep, doesn't he?" I wondered aloud, what would happen if I ripped out Charles's mental hooks on Wolverine? Would Logan still want to save the beloved Professor, or would he try and finish the deed himself?

Without so much as a continued response, I instead reached out, a void of energy capping around my clawed hand as I gripped Logan's skull tightly. My magic seeped into his head, sifting through his ancient, compared to humans, mind, and began to pluck every string of Charles's influence on the old mutant's mind.

I had no doubt that this would cause a bit of chaos, especially once Logan begins to think and see clearly. There was certainly quite a bit of tampering done to Logan's mind, from blocked memories to influenced feelings and attitudes toward certain individuals such as Magneto and even Charles himself.