Merge:Prodigy

Skill mimicry. When in proximity with another person, David acquires mental and physical abilities, be it knowledge over a subject, a foreign language, or mastery of a fighting style. However, the knowledge fades after he leaves the person. David learned of his abilities, but kept them secret from his family. Frustrated at forgetting the skills he had picked up, he studied hard to try to learn all he could about them. He came into contact with Xi'an Coy Mahn at the library of the college she attended, so when Dani Moonstar came looking for a mutant, she knew it was him. She tried to keep Dani away from him until a local anti-mutant group targeted him, revealing to his parents that he was a mutant. After a failed attack on him by Purity, David agreed to go to Charles Xavier's school, where he became fast friends with Kevin Ford, Sofia Mantega and Laurie Collins.

After a fight with the Reavers, he was roomed with Josh Foley, whom he immediately disliked because Foley was a former Reaver himself. David began to warm up to Josh, and even accompanied him and Wolfsbane on a mission to find a mutant in Salem Center. They returned with the girl, Noriko Ashida, who disliked David due to his seemingly close-minded attitude towards Josh. Eventually, David realized that he regarded Josh as a little brother, and wanted to keep him from hurting himself. As a member of the New Mutants squad, David's keen intellect allowed him to strategize and direct his teammates most effectively. Due to this, and Sofia's self-doubt about her leadership, Prodigy agreed to join her as a co-squad leader.

After enduring repeated taunts by Hellion regarding his usefulness in battle, David asked Dani and Emma to find out if he had a mental block preventing him from retaining his absorbed knowledge. They found the block, and telepathically put David through a mental scenario (though he didn't know it at the time) that showed what he would do without it, as the world's smartest man.

In the scenario, David quickly outgrew the Xavier Institute and within three months cured AIDS and cancer, though it cost Elixir his life. Eighteen years later, David was married to Nori and President of the United States. All countries except China had joined the US, and David was planning to drop nuclear bombs across all of China. When Dani confronted him, he killed her, and blew up the X-Men on a satellite. The surviving New Mutants joined the terrorist Hellions and attacked the White House, but Prodigy, Sage and the X.S.E. killed them all except Surge II, who overloaded her gauntlets and blew herself and David to bits.

After seeing the potential damage his full power could do, David decided not to remove his mental block. Since then he felt very awkward around Surge, and tried to avoid her. After the semester he contemplated leaving the Institute altogether. However, Sofia managed to get the team to talk about their interpersonal problems and he stayed. During this time David created a "Danger Cave" with skills gleaned from Beast and others. The room, situated in the old Morlock tunnels, was equipped with holographic projectors linked to a database of the X-Men's greatest missions. His teammates could be "clothed" to match the X-Men members and other people from those missions.

Following M-Day, David was de-powered and was going to go home, but before doing so, he showed his friends the Danger Cave. Fortunately he was not on the bus that was blown up by Stryker. However, his parents didn't really want him to come home, so he ended up with nowhere to go and stayed in the Institute.