"That's right, people like you and me, people born with a gene in them that gives them special powers." Jean Grey said, tilting her head. The teen raised his eyebrow as her long red hair shifted around her shoulders. Beside her, the bald man who had introduced himself as Charles Xavier sat in his wheelchair with his fingers pressed together and his elbows on the armrests, watching him with interest.
"So, Raul, have you made your decision concerning the academy?" Professor X spoke from his spot beside Jean, and Raul turned to face him.
"Do you think I could like, take a tour or something to see if I like it? I mean, this can hardly be called a power, so I don't really want to go to some secluded freak school if I really don't have to." The teen brushed hair from his face again, his long, well-manicured black nails catching the light from the open window.
"I think we could arrange that. How about you stay with us for a week and then see if you'd like to return home or not?" The professor replied. Raul nodded.
"Should I go pack my things?" Turning away, Raul Sedlak waited for a nod of confirmation before sprinting up the stairs to gather his things together.
Of course, he had known he was different for quite a while, now. He had figured it out when he had gone to get his blood taken and the blood in the syringe had melted straight through, making the young nurse scream. At eleven he had watched in horror as his own blood dripped through the glass of the syringe and burnt holes deep into the chair where the small ruby droplets had landed. Raul had always been a quick healer, but for some reason after that point his healing had constantly become faster, until it reached the point where if he were to stab a knife through his hand and twist it around now, the wound would heal in a little over a minute.
Sighing, the pale boy yanked open the curtains that cut off his closet from the rest of the room and picked out articles of clothing. He could already hear his mother lecturing him about taking 'flashy' clothing, but he could care less. He'd just grab casual things for every flashy outfit he packed. It only took him a few minutes, since he was only staying for a week. After that point it only took him just shy of ten minutes to scurry around the house gathering random items.
Deciding he was fully packed, Raul slid into the bathroom to examine himself. His older brother Derrick picked on him nearly non-stop because of his slight obsession with his appearance, but it didn't stop him from spending over an hour in front of the mirror every day before school. He ran a brush through his longer fringes and snatched some hairspray, taming the shorter hair that stuck around an inch off the rest of his head into small, messy spikes. He straightened his black long-sleeved shirt over his belt and sighed, but as he turned to leave he stopped to touch a finger to the corner of his right eye affectionately. Unlike his left eye, which was a stormy blue, Raul's right eye was a bright, gold-flecked green. He really needed to get contacts for it.
Sighing again, he examined his hair one more time before scooting out of the bathroom and taking the stairs two at a time.
"-cares a little too much about his appearance, though I've tried to get him out of that several times…" He caught his mother saying as he casually rounded the corner into the living room, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder. He watched Jean laugh politely at his mother's comment and he rolled his eyes dramatically at her on his way by.
"Do not." He said as his mother yanked him into a hug. She smiled and made as if to ruffle his hair, but he had squirmed free and leapt away before she had a chance. She laughed warmly at this. "Not funny." He said dryly as he re-straightened his shirt and scooped his bag up off the floor.
Jean and the Professor had made their way outside and he followed them out. Out of nowhere he was shoved playfully from behind and he stumbled, dropping his bag again. He whipped around to see his older brother Derrick grinning at him from the doorway, his arms wide. Raul refused to budge.
"Think you could sneak away without sayin' bye to me, Brat?" The older boy was tanned and a lot better built that Raul, his chestnut colored hair un-dyed and cut short.
"Well, I tried…" He muttered sarcastically as he hugged his brother goodbye. He bent down to pick up his bag again but stopped and straightened, looking around. Satisfied that no one was going to attack him this time Raul scooped up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. He turned to face the Professor, who nodded.
A large black van drove around the corner and attempted to take his life. He dodged it rather skillfully, he thought, as Jean opened a door and got in. She held the door open for him, and he handed her his bag. When he got inside he managed to get a good look at the guy who had tried to kill him with his crazy driving.
Jean must have seen him looking, because she smiled and introduced them. "This is another one of the X-men, Scott Summers. Scott, this is our newest student, Raul Sedlak." She turned back to him and shrugged. "Scott gets a little full of himself from time to time, but as long as you respect his car and don't bug him about his shades, he's a pretty cool guy."
Scott grinned at him from behind the wheel. "Glad to have you join us."
The drive to the institute was a fairly long one, but Jean passed the time fast by explaining the basics of life at the academy. It sounded pretty fun, so he listened intently, wondering if he'd fit in easily.
At one point Jean stopped talking and looked out the window, a proud smile playing across her face. "We're here, welcome to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters!" Scott said as he pulled into the driveway of a huge mansion. Raul glued himself to the window as they drove by a group of teenagers playing what appeared to be football, gasping lightly as one of them transformed into a reddish dog and chased after the ball.
Scott pulled into a garage next to a fancy red sports car, and Jean leaned close. "That's his car." She said as she pointed to the sparkling vehicle. He nodded his understanding as he hopped out, holding the door for her. She tossed him his bag and he shouldered it, taking several steps out of the garage and looking around.
"Now," Professor Xavier said as he wheeled towards the door to the mighty building. "Come inside and I'll call everyone here, I'll introduce you."
Raul followed the professor through the large double doors, looking around in awe at the fancy double stairways and huge hanging chandelier. The Professor told him that he was summoning everyone mentally, and Raul folded his arms across his chest. He would never admit it, but he was rather nervous to learn what type of people attended such a strange place.
Raul jumped as he heard a muffled 'Bamf' sound above him, and he looked up to see a boy hanging from the chandelier, small wisps of smoke fading around him. The boy did an odd flip and leapt to the floor in front of him. Brushing his dark blue hair out of his face and grinning, the boy showed off straight white teeth that rivaled his own. Jean and Scott welcomed him one last time before they wandered off up the stairs, talking and laughing with each other.
The boy looked him up and down as another teenager entered the room, this one through the wall to his left. She looked normal enough, with long brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail. "Another new Student?" She asked as she took a spot beside the blue-haired boy. Raul kept his silence as he watched the two, wondering why the others were taking so much longer to get here.
"We'll wait for the others to arrive before we begin the introductions." The Professor announced after a moment, waiting patiently.
He was answered by the door at the top of the stairs banging open, a small group of people shuffling through. One of them, a dark-skinned boy on a skateboard, ground down the railing of the stairs and flipped his board into his hand at the bottom, lifting a hand to him. "Yo!" He said warmly, unclipping his helmet. The others hurried down the stairs after him, one of them a very pretty girl with auburn hair and white streaked bangs. He took note of her purple lipstick and decided to compliment her on it later. He heard another person come in from the same doors he and the Professor had entered through, and he turned his head to watch a gruff, blue haired man stroll up to the Professor's chair, a dark skinned woman with long white hair walking with him.
Looking around, the Professor cleared his throat. "Everyone, this is the newest student at the academy, Raul Sedlak." he heard murmurs break out amongst the mutants, and the one directly in front of him, the boy who had appeared on the chandelier, extended his hand.
"Hi!" He said, his voice coated in a soft German accent. "My name is Kurt Wagner. The Professor told me that you're going to be staying in my room."
Raul smiled, "Hey, nice to meet you."
Behind him, the Professor spoke again. "Kurt, take off your image inducer for him."
In response to this the boy, Kurt, clicked a button on his watch and Raul watched with wide eyes as his smooth skin gave away to velvety looking blue fur that coated his entire body. He watched as four fingers dissolved to two, his feet changed to only have two toes each, and a long, slender blue tail flicked out behind him, tipped with a hairless blue barb. Kurt watched him as though judging his response, and he couldn't help but look him up and down several times. However, he found that though the boy looked like some strange pointy-eared demon, his easy smiles wiped away any thought of fear, or even shock. He grabbed Kurt's still-extended hand and shook it warmly; unable to resist brushing his thumb along the other boy's to feel his soft fur. Kurt let go of his hand and shuffled off to the side a bit, making room for the next person to introduce themself.
"Kurt's code name is 'Nightcrawler'. Also, Jean forgot to mention it, but Scott's is 'Cyclops'." The Professor pitched in, smiling at him in a rather fatherly way.
Next, the girl who had walked through the wall stepped forward and extended her hand. Raul took it and shook it lightly, meeting her eyes and watching in amusement as she blushed lightly. "My name is Katherine Pryde." She said with a slight valley girl accent, releasing his hand quickly. "My power is the ability to like, phase through solid objects, like you saw me pass through the wall just now. My code name is 'Shadowcat'."
He smiled at her and nodded. "That must be handy, nice to meet you."
She shuffled aside almost instantly and Raul watched with a slight smirk as the others glanced at each other as though deciding amongst themselves who would go next. The dark skinned boy rolled up on his skateboard and extended his hand as the first two had. "Evan Daniels. Code name Spyke. Welcome to the team, man." He said as he shook Raul's hand, keeping the chat short and moving off to the side.
The rest of them came up one after another, introducing themselves to him. He figured out the pretty girl was called Rogue, and her power was to absorb memories and abilities through skin-to-skin contact. That's why she covered up so much of her skin. He thought that was a shame, though. It must suck not being able to touch anyone. The gruff man turned out to be named Logan, and the white haired woman was named Ororo. When everyone had introduced themselves he paused, then remembered something.
"Oh, hey, I haven't said what my power is yet, have I?" He asked, crossing his arms again. "My blood is corrosive. Oh, and I heal really fast."
A few people commented on how odd that was, and he stood around with them and chatted for around fifteen minutes before the Professor must have decided that he was fitting in find. "Alright, you people have things to get back to?" He said, wheeling himself forward. "Kurt, could you take Raul to your room and get him settled in? I'm putting him into your hands, so I expect you to show him around and help him with anything he needs during his one week stay."
Kitty, as Raul had learned she was called, turned to the Professor and pouted ever so slightly, most likely without realizing it. "He's only staying for a week?" She asked with slight disappointment.
"His power isn't in need of much control, so if he doesn't feel the need to stay here, he can freely leave after his one week stay is over. He is very welcome, and encouraged, to stay if he likes it here, though. I hope that you will all help him fit in."
"Oh." Kitty replied, nodding her understanding. "I really hope you stay, though!"
"Alright, we should get going," Kurt said, placing his two fingered hand on Raul's arm. Raul resisted the strong urge to jerk away and instead managed only a small flinch. Kurt's eyes softened at that, as though he had taken the small action personally, but as Raul opened his mouth to apologize he found himself surrounded in dense nothingness, but the instant the strange sensation had fully washed over him it was gone again. The smell of sulfur filled his senses and he found himself stumbling into Kurt.
Kurt caught him and held his shoulders straight, and Raul blinked at him in confusion. "Sorry about that." The blue mutant said with a small smile. "My power is teleportation, if you couldn't guess. This is your room now."
Raul looked around, and was surprised to see Jean and Scott standing beside a second bed that was pushed against the wall next to a window. "Hey!" Jean said with a big smile. "We brought your bed in here while you were being introduced to everyone." Raul nodded for the bazillionth time that day and watched as the two older mutants let themselves out of the room, closing the door gently behind them.
Walking over to the bed and dropping his bag beside it, Raul flopped down rather inelegantly. Letting his eyelids flutter closed, he sighed heavily and crossed his arms behind his head, twitching slightly to shoo his bangs from his face. The sounds of Kurt moving across the room floated to him, but he couldn't tell what he was doing, until he spoke from much closer than Raul had realized he had moved. "I guess this is a pretty big change for you, but if you want I can show you around now."
Raul barely heard the words and instead focused on the boy's accent. He caught enough key words to piece it together, though, and he opened one eye and focused it on the blue boy.
"Sure, just let me get over this sudden burst of lazy." He mumbled as he shifted and brought his right arm out from under his head and dropped it over his face instead. He watched with half lidded eyes as Kurt moved to sit cross legged on the end of the bed. "I don't know why, but all those introductions must have taken a lot out of me."
"That's understandable, I guess. It took me a while to get settled in here, when I first came. But, that was also because I had never been able to show my face in public." Kurt said as he rested his chin in his hands, his elbow in turn resting on his knee. "Since I look like this, I tend to scare normal people if I don't have my holo-watch activated."
Raul sat up and nodded. "Yeah. I'm assuming the Professor gave it to you? I couldn't imagine having to live my life hiding my face from everyone for fear if their judgment. Must have been super tough. Personally, I think the combination of pointy ears, two digits on the end of each limb and a barbed tail work rather well for you."
Kurt made a small noise that resembled a laugh and looked away, his cheeks darkening in what Raul assumed by his expression was the beginnings of a blush. Raul smirked inwardly. Apparently Kurt wasn't used to being complimented about his appearance.
Stretching, the lean mutant dragged himself off the bed and cracked his wrists with a series of quiet clicks. "Alright." He said to Kurt as he made his way over to the large mirror that sat mounted above the dark wooden dresser. He leaned against the dresser with his palm flat to the surface, his other hand running through his bangs. He furrowed his eyebrows at the seventeen year old that was reflected in the glass. His roots were growing in, and it disgusted him. He murmured to himself about buying more hair dye and smoothed his bangs into place. They almost reached down to his chin, so he decided that it was time for a bit of a make-over. He remembered what he had been doing as he was smoothing his shirt and he saw Kurt moving in the reflection.
"Heh, sorry. So how about we go wander around now, hey?" He smiled as his first mutant friend agreed and led him out the door. For some reason he felt as though he was going to fit in just fine.