[Sama in the MU] Part 1

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Type: Fanfiction (Marvel Universe)

Background: Sama is basically taking the place of the dead Jessica Drew (although not her identity per se). This story is set in older Marveldom, starting with stories in the 70’s, although the ‘background’ is more 80’s/90’s. In short, it is before the first Champions team was formed, before the X-Men visited Jessica, and before she lost her powers to the silly stuff with Morgan Le Fey.

I’ll be a little loose with proper order of things, especially since I’m only doing a few years and not the huge stories of that and later times.

This is a stand-alone and sample piece, although I certainly could develop it further, or rewrite it to start at a simpler level.

It was amusing enough to see that Jessica Drew didn’t really have any powers that Sama couldn’t emulate with Tats, and Sama’s actually stronger.

Sama’s ability to replicate powers is similar to her ability to emulate genetics and racial levels. However, it is much more restricted then the ability of, say, Rogue. Rogue’s abilities stack higher and higher, while Sama’s just go sideways for breadth, more tools in the kit.

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                The shadows coming over me were interrupting my sunshine. I tilted my head back to look up at who was being rude.

                The three of them were quite impressive. An almost godly handsome blond man; a towering muscular fellow with dark hair, and a rather stunning black woman with flowing white hair and blue eyes.

                Okay, there was no way I could mistake Angel, Colossus, and Storm of the X-Men for who they were. Only... why were they here and messing with me?

                “Hello there,” handsome blond guy smiled, with a heart-pitter-pat smile. He seemed pretty confident of his good looks, and the way he carried himself, and the cut of his clothes, and he smelled of money. Given Warren Worthington was a billionaire, that was all true.

                “Good afternoon?” I replied, getting to my feet smoothly. They all read the motion for what it was, and tensed despite themselves.

                It was Storm who stepped forwards. “We apologize for disturbing you, but we do not know your name.” I just looked at her and her smooth African accent, and she went on smoothly. “I am Ororo Munroe, this is Piotr Rasputin, and Warren Worthington,” she introduced all of them.

                I gave each of them a glance of appraisal, and decided being courteous wouldn’t hurt. “Sama Rantha,” I replied cordially. “You sound like you came a long way to find me, somehow,” I noted suspiciously, staring at the trio. Like, east coast to the west.

                “Tell me, Sama, have you ever heard of the X-Men?” Ororo asked.

                Yes. “No?” I replied reasonably. “I’ve been rather caught up with events around here. Should I know them?”

                “The X-Men are a group dedicated to protecting and helping mutants, wherever they may be.” At my stare, she continued. “A few days ago, we detected the signals of several powerful new mutants here in the San Francisco area. Our portable unit has led us to you.”

                I arched an eyebrow. “I’m a lot of things, but pretty sure I’m not a mutant the way you are thinking. What powers I do have were catalyzed artificially, I didn’t have them from birth. Most of my skills are learned, not made.”

                They looked at one another in both relief and consternation. “Cerebro is rarely wrong about such things, Miss Rantha,” Handsome Blond smiled easily.

                “Bring it out. What is it reading?” I asked calmly.

                It was the big Russian who pulled out a tablet-sized device. “The reading from you is very faint,” he admitted in a fair accent.

                “Not something that would register as strong from across the country?” I inquired.

                They looked at one another again. “No,” admitted Ororo.

                I lined up my cells, and sparks sizzled between my fingers. The device almost whooped and binged, startling them. “Yeah, when I line up my bioelectricity, it must be on the frequency your device is looking for.” I snapped them off, and the signal faded almost to nothing again. “It must be right on the edge of your device’s threshold, which isn’t a surprise. There isn’t much difference between mutant auras and mutate auras, after all.”

                That startled all three of them. “You have experience in this area, Miss Rantha?” Warren asked curiously.

                “I am an expert in the intersection of magical, mundane, spiritual, and psionic energies and physiologies,” I admitted calmly. “My catalyzed power resulted in a massive ramping up of my physical vitality, which I’ve channeled into an increase in overall physical prowess. It also means I generate a lot more bioelectricity than others, which I’m working on controlling. However, the nature of my skills means it is limited to within four inches of my body, and is not something I can project.” I sent a crackling flow of it spiraling around and up my arm as they watched in fascination. “My skills give me awareness and control over my mind, body, and spirit. I have an excellent foundation, and a better control over that foundation than most people.”

                “Is this something that others can learn?” Ororo asked.

                “Of course. I was taught, it can certainly be taught to others.” I eyed the trio. “You’re all mutants?”

                They nodded, looking for my reaction, but I could hardly care at all. “The style you would use would be very different from mine. You’re Powered, you have flexible souls. I’m a Null, I have a very rigid soul. It’s why the range of my control is only four inches... that is the maximum distance my soul can radiate past my skin.”

                They all blinked again, not understanding why I had the restriction, and I just waved my hand. “Regardless, I’m not a mutant, I’m just registering because my energies are on the fringe of your calibration range. Which isn’t a bad thing... the last thing you should be doing is differentiating between mutants and mutates, after all.”

                Their mouths opened for a moment. “What?” I asked them. “Is there really any difference between a mutant who can set themselves on fire, and the Human Torch?”

                “People tend to hate and fear mutants more than other heroes,” Worthington immediately pointed out.

                “And why is that? Because mutants try to hide themselves and their powers, like concealed weapons, springing out and any moment to surprise and kill normal people, who have no defense against them? Because the agenda of so many of the groups is pro-mutants, and either anti-human or ignores them entirely?” I cocked my head at them, as they looked a little flustered. “Come on, you three. This is California, heart of liberalism. This kind of talk goes on all the time. People will call you out for being secretive douchebags, and all kinds of heroic acts don’t change the fact that you’re not doing them to be heroes, you’re doing them to stop others from picking on your chosen ethnicity. I don’t know much about the X-Men, but I know about Magneto, and he’s basically a mutant Nazi... and he gets far more airplay than you do.

                “You have a public image problem, and you are not addressing it, and so it’s only getting worse. As soon as you make your switch from being about mutants to being about people with super-powers, you’re on the road to doing what you need to do.

                “If you don’t, history has shown what people do to other people they believe are threats to them, and all they are seeing from you lot is threats hidden and public.”

                I crossed my arms and looked at them, and they kind of stared back at me.

                “We are not trying to discriminate against humans, Miss Rantha,” Ororo began, and I waved my hand to stop her.

                “Do you teach any former humans-now-mutates in your band? Are there any of them among you?” They looked at one another. “You discriminate. Openly, flagrantly. And people are seeing it. You are building walls around yourselves. You are singing out that you are different than other humans, that you are inherently better.” I leaned forwards. “Do better than that.”

                I could see I had struck a chord. Ororo came from a very poor background and life. Piotr was born a communist believer. Warren was a billionaire and a philanthropist.

                “So! You said several mutant signatures in San Francisco. That’s not surprising, as there’s a fairly sizable mutant population here, although you’ll find most of them are not so genetically gifted as yourselves.” I eyed them all. “At least, you’ve seemed to hit the mutant lottery prize. What all can you do?”

                “I can control the weather,” Ororo was the first to reply. She held up her hand, and a small whirlwind began to circle on her palms.

                “That’s just aerokinesis.” I looked up. “Make that cloud a smiley-face,” I pointed out.

                She blinked, smiled, and looked up. I watched as the white vapors moved and churned at her will, and cotton-puffs shifted and rolled almost naturally into the momentary form of a smiley-face.

                I could see some of the people following our gazes, looking up, pointing, and a couple people with cameras were snapping pictures.

                “That is a freaking huge amount of ergakinetic power,” I admitted frankly. “You just moved around thousands of tons of air and water without much visible effort. I take it you can control the lightning and the air temperature, too?”

                She glanced at me again, obviously never having thought about her powers that way. “Yes...” she admitted slowly.

                “Any man who can picture how much power that takes would be utterly terrified of you. You are aware that an average thunderstorm contains about as much power as an atomic bomb, right? And just how much damage something like that can do across an immense area?” I met her eyes. “I know you don’t have malicious intent, Miss Munroe, but you are a walking cataclysm waiting to be unleashed. You said it yourself... you can control the weather, not merely draw on aspects of it. You are terrifying.” She seemed to blush despite herself.

                I moved my gaze away from her to the big guy. “And you, what can you do?”

                “I can turn myself into organic steel,” he stated solemnly, and I took a step back.

                “Are you radioactive?” I asked promptly, warily, as they all stared at me.

                “Ah, no?” he replied hesitantly.

                “Let me get this straight.” I waved my hand and put it to my forehead. “You engage in matter transmutation of flesh to some form of metal.” He nodded. “Okay, alchemists have been trying to do that for millennia, although the objective was gold. It’s impossible because the sheer amount of energy involved is planet-cracking.” His face was hilarious to see. “Seriously. Do you know how a hydrogen bomb works? They ram together hydrogen to form helium. Then they crack the helium apart back into hydrogen. But you know what happens?” He hesitated, and shook his head. “When you combine hydrogen to helium, it’s not one plus one equals two. It’s like one plus one equals two point zero zero one. And you know that one-one thousandth? That’s the part that makes the hydrogen bomb.”

                I reached out and poked his chest. “You are made largely of carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, calcium, and oxygen. You are transmuting all that stuff up the periodic scale to... what? What kind of metal? I’m sure you’ve tested for similarities?”

                “Ah, osmium?” he said feebly.

                I rolled my eyes. “Osmium. You’re shitting me.” He slowly shook his head. “So, you turn yourself from a mass of low periodic elements, all the way up to densest element 76, and the world around you for ten miles doesn’t just freeze as it is drained of all energy to do that.” He shook his head even more slowly. “And then... you revert to human form, and a sixty-mile wide atomic explosion doesn’t crack the planet’s mantle and set the atmosphere on fire?” His lips were pursed as he slowly shook his head again. I just stared at him. “You know that if you let go the energy equivalent to the first joint of your finger undergoing that transformation, you’d take San Francisco off the map, right?”

                “No, I did not know that...” he answered in a very small voice.

                “Okay, a walking national disaster, and a world-ending motile osmium bomb. Jesus and his mother,” I murmured, turning to Mr. Cover Model, who looked a little wide-eyed at the moment. “What do you do? Smile, and enthrall every woman who looks at you, or something?”

                He grinned despite himself. “I have wings and can fly?”

                “Namor wings on the heels? Bird wings on the arms?” I looked him over.

                “Ah, my codename is Angel,” he supplied helpfully.

                “Oh, you. The very photogenic one. You use a facial fuzzer, so I didn’t recognize you from the pin-ups.” He had the grace to almost look abashed. “Wingspan of twenty-four feet or so?” I went on, startling him. “You are aware that is less than half the wingspan of a hang glider, which only allows a person to glide, not actually fly, right? To actually generate enough lift to fly, your wings would have to be moving like a hummingbird. I have seen videos of you flying, usually with breathy women in the background, and you violate every principle of aerodynamics known to man, so I assume you realize you aren’t actually flying like a bird, and all your wings do is provide agility and control, right?”

                He kind of looked at me warily. “I cannot fly without my wings,” he stated, and I just rolled my eyes.

                “You can’t fly WITH your wings. Your wings are big enough to support someone weighing maybe forty pounds.” I poked his chest. “I’ve seen videos of you carrying people. It is IMPOSSIBLE by physics. Go talk to any airplane designer. Go learn basic principles of lift and aerodynamics. Go learn wing surface to mass ratios. The only way you could fly with those wings is if you are always moving sixty-plus miles an hour... and just where the hell do you get your motive force from? You flit about like a damn hummingbird at times. You do know there’s other heroes that can fly, right? And you’re more agile then just about all of them, and they don’t have to depend on wings?

                “You’re a functioning self-telekinetic with a mental block and dependence on your wings. Given how powerful some of you mutant telekinetics are, I’m not sure I want to know how fast you can really move when you stop holding yourself back.

                “You should be able to overcome your own mental blocks. Just go do your research. When you realize there’s no bloody way you can fly with your wings, I think you’ll start to unlock how powerful you really are.

                “Not to mention, you should know avian physiology. If you actually had muscles beating your wings, you’d have a breastbone out two feet from your chest. Angels just fly, sport... they don’t need to beat their wings to do so.”

                He just looked at me, then at his associates. “You have a very different outlook on things, Miss Rantha,” he admitted.

                “Everyone can be superpowered, one way or another,” I shrugged. “All they have to do is want it, and be shown the way, and be willing to make the sacrifices to do so.” I waved my finger at all of them. “You’re just the lucky sots who got the power without having to work for it.” I rolled my eyes. “Freaking mass kinetics and a living transmuter. Ugh! The math is so annoying.”

                “Would that not also apply to you too, Miss Rantha?” big Piotr asked softly.

                “No. I learned everything I have. Have you heard of Spider-woman?” I inquired. They looked at one another, and nodded. “She was a friend of mine. The bioelectric boost I have comes from her genetics and me replicating them physiospiritually... with the restriction that I’m not Powered and can’t broadcast them like she could. She could toss electricity a few dozen yards somehow.”

                They all looked amazed. “You can decipher and imitate the powers of others, Miss Rantha?” Ororo asked.

                “Sure, just need an ounce or two of blood. Natural powers like yours are always triggered genetically. Run the right kind of energy through them, and then just replicate it bodywide. So, for instance, if I were to drink or inject a vial of your blood, I’d be able to control the weather, too... within four inches of my skin.”

                She started to say something, then smiled ruefully. She glanced at Piotr in interest. “But Colossus’ ability to transform to steel, or Angel’s wings?”

                I eyed them both. “If he’s actually doing transmutation, I don’t have the internal power to replicate that. Seriously, you’re talking super-atomic bomb levels of energy, and I don’t have that kind of internal power. As for the wings...” I shrugged. “Maybe I could grow them, maybe not. The kinetic flying is probably replicable, and I probably have the power for it.”

                “How long would this process take you?” Ororo asked, clearly intrigued.

                “That is highly dependent on the power and who it comes from. Anywhere from minutes to hours... especially if I have to filter out deleterious effects and only apply the positive benefits.”

                “Was there any harm to Spider-woman when you did that?” Warren asked, thinking ahead.

                “She was dead at the time, killed by multiple close-range thermite bombs by the organization you may have heard of called Hydra.” My fingers crackled sharply. “My miniaturized excuse for her powers is all that is left of her.

                “As for your concerns... I need genetic material, I’m not a vampire. I can do it off locks of hair or by taking blood. It’s an intellectual problem, not a power-sucking thing.”

                “I would like to see this,” Piotr said forthrightly, eyes gleaming.

                “Peter,” Warren started to warn him, but the Russian just waved him away.

                “She is not a villain. What have you been doing since the death of Spider-woman?” he asked calmly.

                “Ah, the papers are calling me Dynamo. I’ve been beating on Hydra, and there’s a group of supervillains called the Pride who are trying to take over all West Coast crime. They think I don’t know about them, and we’ve been butting heads.” I shrugged. “I try to keep a low profile. Most of the stuff I do people don’t know about at all.”

                “Aren’t you supposed to be a black woman?” Warren asked, startled.

                My skin shaded to a Nubian hue deeper than Ororo’s in a heartbeat, blue eyes went black. “What you know about black women, white boy?” I asked in completely different voice and accent. They all blinked in shock at me, and I reverted back just as smoothly.

                “Oh, very cool!” Piotr grinned widely. “You have met a shapechanger?”

                “Yes. I can’t do much with my bones, so my height doesn’t change much, but I can move body mass around some to affect my build, and I keep around twenty extra pounds of compressed fat around my organs I can shift around if needed.” I patted my abs as all their eyebrows went up. “Doesn’t change any fundamentals.” I turned and flexed one arm, and suddenly it swelled up to half again normal size, looking like I was a mad powerlifter. “Just looks, no stronger than before.”

                “A very useful ability for infiltration,” Ororo agreed, smiling despite herself.

                “Can you pretend to be a man?” Warren asked instantly, blue eyes gleaming.

                “Yes. But like I said, I can’t change bone structure, my bones are way too hard.” I shifted mass around, squaring up my face some, more to the upper body, looking thicker and pulling back my bosom, while reweaving my shoulders and shrinking my long hair down to a mullet. I spread my hands as they all looked at my androgynous, rather pretty face, but I definitely looked male.

                “K-Kritcher Howard?” Warren blurted out. It was my turn to blink at him.

                “Well now,” I said in a smooth tenor, straightening up slightly. “I’ve only been in two shows. Surprised you’ve seen them.”

                “My girlfriend is a dancer. She made me watch Feet of Dreams!” he admitted. “She gushed all over you and Lindsay McCabe!”

                “Well, thank you. It was a good opportunity, and rather fun. The other actors had no idea I was playing dress-up with them.”

                “Do you dance as well as a woman?” Warren had to press.

                I gave him a certain look. “If you see me really dance, you will not have your girlfriend long, Master Worthington. I can dance on ALL the levels if I choose. You merely saw technical expertise combined with a high strength to weight ratio, optimal flexibility, and perfect balance. Profound dancing is very dangerous for the unprepared to see.”

                He had a certain light in his eyes as I said that. “I should invite you to New York City.”

                “I don’t think you want your girlfriend dumping you,” I smiled back, as I smoothly shuffled around twenty pounds of mass and reverted to myself.

                “Let us see this ability of yours to replicate powers,” Piotr stated, holding out his arm. “What do you need?”

                I gave him an eyebrow, and my hair fetched a short syringe out of my Masspack, which they hadn’t noticed, and the movement of my hair made them twitch again.

                “Another power?” Ororo asked, staring at my hair.

                “The Weaver is the head of the local mutant community, and is a friend of mine. Her power is low-end, but finely controlled telekinesis. It is very hard for her to manipulate large or solid objects. Naturally, my range is restricted to four inches from my body.” My hair flicked out and brushed her nose a step away. “And my hair is part of my body. Ergo, long hair, very useful.”

                I pulled out the stop in my teeth, lifted the syringe, ran my finger up an impressive forearm, and slid it into his artery so smoothly he blinked at how painless it was. It filled up in seconds, I pulled it out, tapped the spot, and it didn’t even bleed as I micro-teke’d the skin back together.

                I didn’t inject it into myself, as they thought I might. I just stuck the needle in my mouth, and squirted it down my throat.

                “This will take a few minutes, so why don’t you sit down.” I waved at the grass as I sank down into crossed-legs, and they looked at one another before following suit. “I’ll put a couple thought streams to work on the decoding. While I do, why don’t you tell me about yourselves and the X-Men in more detail? I’m sure I could get some details off the internet, but I’d like to hear about your points of view first, if I may.”

                They all sat down willingly enough on the grass, as it was a typical nice San Francisco day out, and started talking while I answered questions

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