X-Men Re-Evolved
Chapter 1
"Now class, if I may advise you to turn to page 666 – very fitting, considering the little hellspawns some of you no doubt are..."
Booooring, thought Megan. Seriously, could the little hand on the clock move any slower? Bad enough that she and her family had to move from Wales all the way to America; Wales was pretty! And fun. Why in Oberon's name did they ever have to move, and for reasons that her parents never seemed to want to explain to her other than, 'Well deary, we figured a change in scenery would do us all a world o' good, help yer ailing granda' to be certain...'? It just didn't make any sense to her at all. And now, here she was, sitting down on her tush all day listening to old men and women drone on and on and on. Mind you, that was how it tended to be in Wales anyway, but at least for her, things tended to be a bit more... interesting, is all. At the least, her old highschool always had the most gorgeous view of the tall veridian woods. Funny, that; she always seemed to have a certain... longing for those woods, or any woods, really. Hell, she'd even thought about running starkers through them once or twice- but enough of that. At that moment, the clock turned to three, and that was that. Time for action, adventure, excitement! ...Well, perhaps not so much of either, but it would still be better than that horribly long day of class she just had to sit through. She ran her hands through her blonde hair – which always had just a tinge of pink to it, for reasons that, again, her parents never bothered to explain to her, but everyone else merely thought it was dye – and darted straight out of the class. Time for home, for freedom, for pixie-sticks, for-
"Hey, mutie!"
Now that was odd. 'Mutie?' She hadn't been in America that long, but you'd think she would have heard that particular oddity elsewhere in her lifetime. She slowly whirred her head, but when she got a look at whoever just threw out that... insult, perhaps? Whoever said that, it didn't actually seem to be directed at her. Instead, it was... why, she was just a girl! It was... three, yes, three boys, all ganging up on a defenseless girl. How could they do such a thing?
"Oi, wankers!"
The boys slowly turned around, giving Megan a few rather mean looks. Megan didn't so much as bat an eyelash, and why should she? The tossers, picking on a-
And then she got a good look at the girl. Her back was facing the lockers, and she was practically quivering, but right next to her right foot was a rather wide headband. And right smackdab in the middle of her forehead-
Wait. "Is that a third eye you've got there?"
"You can see it, can't you?", said one of the boys. "My girl said she got a real good luck at it the other day. Had to see if it was true. Well, guess what? It's frickin' true!"
Well now. That was a different... no. No.
"No. You know what?", said Megan. "It's certainly a bit strange, to be certain, but, you know, people are.. people are all different, yeah? I mean, so what if you've got brown hair, black skin... a third eye, we're all still people here now, are we not? I mean, what if you had a, a, I don't know, a third ass? What about that?!"
"...You implyin' I already had a second ass?", said the boy, as he drew out a very fine switchknife.
"...Uh, ahem... no," said Megan. "No, not... not particularly, no, eh-heh..."
She just had to go one too far. Then again, it wouldn't have been the first time. Just back away, thought Megan. Just back away slowly...
"Uh, hey; Welsh girl?", said the boy. "You might want to not be takin' so many steps back..."
The boy's warnings didn't really register. "What do you mean, 'not taking so many steps back?!' I mean, it's not like I said you had, you had three asses,or anything of the sort, right, right!?"
"Uh, girl...," said the boy.
"I mean, come on," said Megan, "we're all friends here, right-!"
OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD, OHCRAP, WHY DIDN'T I NOTICE THE BLOODY CONSTRUCTION TAPE, SURE THERE WAS A RAILING, SO BLOODY HIGH UP, ONLY PART OF IT WAS UNDER CONSTRUCTION FOR WHO KNOWS WHY- huh?
Somewhere in between her frantic, desperate thoughts and what would surely be her inevitable bloody fall to the long floor below, Megan finally noticed that something was... different about her. Come to think of it, the world wasn't upside down anymore. And she did hear a rather loud sound – sort of like a 'RIP' – coming straight from her back. Almost like her shirt – wait; did she suddenly spurt new arms from her back or something? Because she felt something there...
She turned her head to try and see just what was going on with her back, and-
"Oh... my... God..."
She could scarcely believe it. And, how could she not? Jutting out from her back were too rather large and rather fairy-like wings. And they were flapping like a mad bee. Funnily enough, it seemed that all it took was consciously thinking about her wings flying, and-
"Oh no, not again-!"
Come on you wings, right, flap flap flap flap flap, COME ON, FLAP FLAP FLAP FLAP FUCKING FLAP-!
Just several feet before she would have hit the ground, her wings started flapping like a motorboat once again. Now all she had to do was land – a task easier said then done, but slowly, oh-so-slowly she went, bobbing about in the air like a breeze on the wind until finally, at long last, she landed.
Wings. I've got wings. How's that gonna' work? Although, this is actually kind o' cool!...Hey, is it just me going into well-justified hysteria, or-
No; Megan was not mistaken. She was, in fact, getting shorter.
Oh, come on...!
Once looking over all at a magnificent 6'2, Pixie could swear she was now no higher than a 4'0, and she now had the slumping, baggy clothes to prove it. She almost thought they might just slip away, but strangely, she seemed rather comfortable with that thought. And the fields – the fields, the forest; it was almost as if they were... calling to her-
"Oh my God," said someone from the crowd," is that-"
"It's a fuckin' mutie!", said another.
"Hey, are the mutie's pants about to fall off?"
"Who cares? Freak of nature, that's what they all are...
"Hey, are you gettin' this on your phone?"
"Come on! Mutants are people too!"
"Have you ever eaten with one?"
"It's a mutie! Someone call the cops!"
'Mutie?' Isn't that what they were calling the girl from just a moment ago? But... come to think of it, she had heard reports of them back in Wales every now and then, but she supposed she must have had paid little attention to them, if she wasn't remembering them on the spot. And why should she have? They couldn't have possibly had anything to do with her, right?
Right?
"Hey,," said another bystander, "whatchu' all doin'? Get that friggin' mutie!"
She had to get out of here. If anything else, she knew that. But...
She had to take the girl with her. She was a 'mutant' too, right? She flapped her wings again, almost instinctively now, and flew up to the broken tape that she'd previously fallen through. Whoever was working on putting in a new set of rails, they had better be fired after her rather near-death experince, if nothing else. Actually, other more... 'mischievous' thoughts came to mind about the potential fates of the various construction workers, but she pushed those aside; she needed to get the girl. She also found herself pushing aside her hair; it seemed rather shaggy now, maybe even long; she swore she could feel it brushing against her heels as she flew. She flew up and landed straight down in front of the girl, who had been looking at the sight below, her eyes wide and her mouth agape, and now, she turned to face Megan, and –
"No," said the girl, "no, get away from me!"
What?
"...What?", said Megan.
"No, no," said the girl, "you're, you're a mutant, aren't you?! Get away!"
"But," said Megan, "but you're a mutant too," said Megan, "aren't you?"
"No!" The girl was practically screaming at the top of her lungs. "You're a, you're a mutantmutant!
"'Mutant mutant?'," said Pixie. " Lass, that has to be the most inane, blighted- look. You remember me, right? I tried to save you, right?"
"You're, you're different now," said the girl." You've got... you've got pink hair, black eyes, elf ears, huge wings... hey..." The girls' expression gradually seemed to change from one of fear, to one of immense glee. "You're a fairy!"
Well, that was a quick turnaround ,wasn't it, thought Megan. "Uh, yes! Yes, I'm a... I'm a fairy, a pixie, that's right! Now, if the both of us can get out of here in just a tick..."
"HEY!", yelled another kid. "THE MUTIE'S OVER HERE! AND... YEAH! THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!"
"Yeah, you're right!," yelled yet another kid. "...The younger one looks mostly normal, 'cept for the eye. But the other one-"
"Yeah," said the other kid, "the other one's a fucking morlock! Get her!"
"Is that a jet?"," said another kid.
"Come on lass!" said Megan.
"But-"
"No buts!" She took the girl – who didn't honestly know what to think at this point – and flew out through one of the open windows, into the fine spring air. And it just so happened that the first thing she saw was-
"Is that a jet?"
She could scarcely believe it. Coming down from the blue skies above like a crowing blackbird was a sleek, humming mass of black metal. It landed on the wide school fields. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was here to carry her and the girl away from this awful, awful dream. ...Except it probably wasn't a dream, was it? Though in some ways, it might as well have been. On the one hand, she could now soar into the very heavens themselves, she bet. And somehow... it just felt right. As if this was how things were supposed to be all along. Funny how she still wanted to just tear it all straight off and-
"Hey, is that a-", said a civilain.
"It's a mutant! Run!", said another.
"And we," said Megan, " should be doin' the same. Come-"
Wait...
Okay; that last thought was nother own. What in-
Hello there. Megan Gwenn, is it?
...What's it to you? And how do you know my name? And how are you in my head? ...Maybe this is all a dream. Maybe my fantasies of strutting starkers in the forests were just the first signs, and everything else is just the rest of a bizzare psychotic episode that's been building up in my blessed noggin for years now...
Okay, Megan? Take it from someone who's actually had 'psychotic episodes'; this is anything but a 'psychotic episode.' Yes, you do in fact have pink hair, black eyes, large wings, your clothes are starting to fall off-
Wait; how can you be seeing me from-
I'm 'hijacking' another set of eyes, as it were. Not actually controlling them or their thoughts; I'm just hitching a ride for a bit. But Megan; you don't really know what you are. Not really. And trust this from someone's who gone through so much that I hope you never have to go through; this is real. This is reality. And if you walk away – or fly away, as it were – if you fly away now, things are not going to be easy for you. And your friend won't be much better off either. Not to mention, you don't even understand yourself that well-
How do you know how well I understand-
You've already been having... strange thoughts, haven't you? With some of us, the change is only physical; on the outside. But for others-
Wait; how are you doing all this? Is this some sort of... some sort of super-secret techno-telepath thing? Because if it is, that would be both incredibly scary, and incredibly cool-
Megan. The jet is opening it's doors as we think. I do want to help you, but to do that, I need you to come with us. We might be able to see your parents later, but-
'Might?'
Megan, we're only trying to help. Please...
'Help', she said. On the one hand, this telepathic whatzitz, whatever it was, was... rather awesome. On the other hand... but still, she didn't really have much of a choice, did she? It was either flying off into the for- ...flying off to who knows where, staying here and letting things fall as they may, or getting onto the... very cool jet that looked like something you'd only see in the movies and was so shiny and cool and-
"Hey, girl," said Megan to her passenger. "You want to take a little trip?"
"...You mean on the jet?"," said the girl.
"Yeah," said Megan.
"...Cool!"," said the girl.
And as Megan flew off into towards the jet, she couldn't help but agree. It was cool. Scary, but cool. Much like her own personal changes. But perhaps whoever she had just 'spoken' with could make the 'scary' part much less scary. And as the she flew up the jet's ramp, and as the jet's door's closed, and as the massive crowd upon the campus began to surround it in wonder, and as it began to take off high into the air, the woman who had put her thoughts into Megan's spoke to her once more...
Oh, and by the way? I'm Jean Grey.
Tidy.