Disclaimer: X-Men: Evolution and all related names belong to Marvel Entertainment, Inc.
All right, this should be the last entry in the story arc that I've been writing lately, last one was supposed to be, but I changed my mind. Heh.
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"You Always Hurt the One You Love"
By William Logan
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Lance Alvers sat on the couch in the living room of the Brotherhood boarding house, quietly thinking to himself about the events of the past couple days as he watched the paint peel off the walls (Something you could quite literally do in the Brotherhood pad). The entire landscape of his life had changed practically overnight when Magneto unveiled the existence of mutants to all mankind. He realized that people would now not only judge him by his rough appearance, but also due to the fact that the entire population of Bayville recognized him as a mutant, and in the public's eyes, the only thing worse than a mutant was a mutant hood. That word again, he winced at the very thought of it. Kitty, the only girl who had ever really gotten to know him, the only person who had ever even given him a chance, had bestowed him with that "honorary" title, the same thing that everyone else had. It was a wound that cut deeper than anything he'd gotten in his foster homes when he was younger. Also, once again, he was in charge of the Brotherhood, not that anyone really ever seemed to notice, they were too busy mocking the hurt Kitty had done to him. These were the few moments of peace that he had gotten outside of his room for the past few days, and that was only because Todd and Fred were out on a "shopping" spree. Lance ran a hand through his messy brown hair and sighed, leaning back and closing his eyes, thinking back to the more pleasant days when he and Kitty were so in love. True, they had exchanged those letters just yesterday, but that meant very little besides that she didn't completely hate him. He pulled the pink envelope out of his pocket again, slipping the letter out of it and staring at the words, not really reading it, just feeling closer to Kitty by seeing her writing. Absent-mindedly, he stroked at her signature at the bottom of the page.
"'I suppose we never know what the future holds for us,'" Lance read from the letter, holding dearly to the words as they left his mouth. It was certainly no promise, but it was the most hope the love-struck teenager was going to find.
"No, I guess we really don't, do we?" Lance turned, seeing Wanda standing over him, a smirk on her face.
"How long have you been standing there," he groaned.
"I've read the letter twice through since you pulled it out of your pocket. You really are a pair of saps, aren't you? It's enough to make me want to retch," Wanda said bitterly, crossing to the couch, grabbing the remote on her way.
"What happened to you wanting things to work out the way I wanted them to?" Lance had been surprised when Wanda had said that to him yesterday, it had been perhaps the first thing she had said that wasn't laced with venom since she arrived.
"I got over it," she muttered, flipping through the channels far too fast for her to really be looking for anything to watch. She blew a few strands of raven hair out of her eyes and glanced over at Lance. He was looking somewhat hurt, tucking the envelope back into his pocket as if he was ashamed to have been caught with it. "Hey, don't worry, I won't tell the other losers that you kept the letter from your pretty Kitty," she said, "or that you still have her picture on your night stand... I think just having to live with how pathetic you are is punishment enough." Wanda winced as she spoke the words, knowing that they were pointed enough to do some real damage to Lance, but she had to cover for herself. There was no way that she would let Lance even get a glimpse at how she really felt. Everything in her wanted to jump up and hug him, telling him that everything would be all right, but she couldn't.
"Hey, at least I'm not on some psychotic quest for vengeance," Lance snapped back. Wanda ground her teeth together, not noticing that a few random objects from around the room were beginning to float in the air. A discarded sneaker, pieces of a broken table lamp, and a TV Guide from two months ago started to orbit around Wanda rapidly.
"Shut up," she said, "you have no idea what it's like to have a father that hates you. To have a father who has you locked away for something you can't help! You'll never understand and neither will the other two idiots!" As Wanda's voice raised to a shout, the objects that floated around her began to move so fast that they appeared to become just a blur, like the electrons of an atom, with Wanda as the nucleus. The remote in her hand exploded, showering sparks and shards of plastic in Lance's direction. She jumped off of the couch, facing Lance down, glaring daggers at him. He met her challenge, standing and clenching his hands into tight fists.
"Is it a fight you want? You want to take out your anger on someone? Well, sister, here's your chance!" Lance's eyes rolled back into his head, giving him a very frightening appearance. The ground at Wanda's feet began to shake, knocking her off balance for but a moment. She let out a wail that sounded frighteningly like the scream of a banshee, and the objects that orbited around her flew off in different directions, the sneaker crashing through a window and landing out in the front yard. The ground began to shake even more fiercely, but now it had been redirected in Lance's direction. Pieces of plaster from the ceiling rained down on them, coating both of them in fine white powder.
"You really are pathetic, Lance, no wonder Kitty left you, she couldn't stand to see such a poor example of a mutant. I can even use your powers better than you can!" A seismic shockwave tore at the foundation of the house, rippling up under Lance and sending him flying backwards into a wall. He hit the ground with a thud, his face looking more furious than before. He leapt back to his feet, stomping a foot on the ground, sending a ripple of earth back towards Wanda, but she countered, sending it straight back at him, but this time he was ready. He pushed back with his powers, refusing to be beaten. A small mountain of worn carpeting and torn up, rotted floor boards rose up between them as they both pushed with all their might. Sweat poured down both of their faces from the strain, but their faces showed their determination to bury one another, and that neither of them would stop until the other was dead. They were so wrapped up in their battle of wills that they didn't notice the front door open, Fred and Todd entering with their arms full of junk food that they had bought from the convenience store using the money that Duncan had given them to join in his little vendetta with Scott Summers.
"Oh, man..." Fred said, his jaw dropping when he saw the destruction the two teenage mutants had caused.
"This ain't good," Todd said, putting his share of the bags down, "someone's gotta stop 'em before we're short a member." He shot his tongue out and wrapped it around Wanda's waist, yanking her a few feet away from the battle scene. As she was momentarily distracted, the built up seismic shockwave that Lance had been using against Wanda ended up tearing up a sizable chunk of the floor, and all but demolished the wall opposite where he was standing. The kitchen was now fully visible from the living room. Lance's pupils rolled back into view, and they were firmly fixed on his three teammates.
"Stay out of this, you two! This is between me and the Witch," he snarled, clenching his teeth. Blob crossed the living room and grabbed Lance by his collar and hauled him up off the ground.
"Put him down! Let me finish him!" Wanda screamed, firing a hexbolt at Fred, who simply shrugged it off.
"I may not be the smartest guy in the world," Fred said, only to be interrupted by Lance, whose legs were bicycling in the air in a futile attempt to get free of Blob's grip.
"Yeah, well, you won't hear any arguments there..." Fred just continued, raising his voice slightly to get his point across.
"Ahem... I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but I know that we shouldn't be fighting each other. We aren't enemies here!"
"Yeah, sweetums, why don't you tell your sweet li'l Toad what Lance did to make you so mad," Todd said, batting his eyelashes at Wanda. She just snarled, her mind finally catching up with the rest of her, realizing what she had just done to perhaps the first person she'd really cared about since her father abandoned her that night. She shoved Toad away, sending the younger mutant stumbling backwards.
"I'm sick of him moping about his stupid Kitty," she said, glaring fiercely at Lance.
"Well, I'm just as sick of her constantly ranting about her father and how he betrayed her. Some people just need to learn how to let things go," Lance said, finally giving up his struggle against Fred, looking rather ridiculous as he dangled in the air.
"Seems like the pot is calling the kettle black," Wanda's voice turned to ice. She felt as though she had been betrayed yet again, now she realized that even Lance thought she was just a psychotic witch.
"You guys need to let your differences go," Blob said, surprising everyone with his sagacity, "we're all in this together, whether we like it or not. Now apologize to Wanda."
"No!" Lance winced as he felt Fred's grip tighten around his collar, "All right, I'm sorry, Wanda."
"You can keep your apology!" She said, crossing her arms, "In fact, for all I care, you can die and rot!"
"Aw, c'mon, cuddlebumps, you know you don't really mean that," Todd automatically winced, a Pavlovian response that he had acquired to Wanda's constant abuse. This time it didn't come, he saw a slight softening of the Scarlet Witch's features as she watched Lance dangle like a rag doll. The walls she had put up came down for just a moment, and Todd could have sworn that he had seen her eyes grow moist, but that disappeared in a fraction of a second.
"Put him down, Fred," Wanda said, "I'm sorry, Lance," she murmured, "I guess I can't expect you to understand what I'm going through, can I?" Everyone except Toad looked shocked at her words, it was perhaps the second or third time they had heard her say something that wasn't threatening death to someone or something. As he came to the ground, Lance rubbed at the back of his neck, glancing at Fred angrily for a moment, then when he realized that his friend really had done him a favor, gave him a pat on his bulky arm.
"I guess you're right, Fred, we all need to stick together, more than ever now. We need to learn to understand one another's differences and respect them, not attack each other because our opinions differ," Lance said. There was a look of admiration in Wanda's eyes as she listened to Lance, and she allowed a small smile to appear for a few moments.
"Well, I still think you're going a little overboard on the whole Kitty thing," Fred said, until he caught a glance at the glare Lance was giving him, "of course, um, that's your... thing, and, uh, I'll respect it."
"That's better," Lance nodded with a smirk, "the important thing is that the Brotherhood is here to stay, and we'll stick together through thick and thin."
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FIN
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All right, this should be the last entry in the story arc that I've been writing lately, last one was supposed to be, but I changed my mind. Heh.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"You Always Hurt the One You Love"
By William Logan
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Lance Alvers sat on the couch in the living room of the Brotherhood boarding house, quietly thinking to himself about the events of the past couple days as he watched the paint peel off the walls (Something you could quite literally do in the Brotherhood pad). The entire landscape of his life had changed practically overnight when Magneto unveiled the existence of mutants to all mankind. He realized that people would now not only judge him by his rough appearance, but also due to the fact that the entire population of Bayville recognized him as a mutant, and in the public's eyes, the only thing worse than a mutant was a mutant hood. That word again, he winced at the very thought of it. Kitty, the only girl who had ever really gotten to know him, the only person who had ever even given him a chance, had bestowed him with that "honorary" title, the same thing that everyone else had. It was a wound that cut deeper than anything he'd gotten in his foster homes when he was younger. Also, once again, he was in charge of the Brotherhood, not that anyone really ever seemed to notice, they were too busy mocking the hurt Kitty had done to him. These were the few moments of peace that he had gotten outside of his room for the past few days, and that was only because Todd and Fred were out on a "shopping" spree. Lance ran a hand through his messy brown hair and sighed, leaning back and closing his eyes, thinking back to the more pleasant days when he and Kitty were so in love. True, they had exchanged those letters just yesterday, but that meant very little besides that she didn't completely hate him. He pulled the pink envelope out of his pocket again, slipping the letter out of it and staring at the words, not really reading it, just feeling closer to Kitty by seeing her writing. Absent-mindedly, he stroked at her signature at the bottom of the page.
"'I suppose we never know what the future holds for us,'" Lance read from the letter, holding dearly to the words as they left his mouth. It was certainly no promise, but it was the most hope the love-struck teenager was going to find.
"No, I guess we really don't, do we?" Lance turned, seeing Wanda standing over him, a smirk on her face.
"How long have you been standing there," he groaned.
"I've read the letter twice through since you pulled it out of your pocket. You really are a pair of saps, aren't you? It's enough to make me want to retch," Wanda said bitterly, crossing to the couch, grabbing the remote on her way.
"What happened to you wanting things to work out the way I wanted them to?" Lance had been surprised when Wanda had said that to him yesterday, it had been perhaps the first thing she had said that wasn't laced with venom since she arrived.
"I got over it," she muttered, flipping through the channels far too fast for her to really be looking for anything to watch. She blew a few strands of raven hair out of her eyes and glanced over at Lance. He was looking somewhat hurt, tucking the envelope back into his pocket as if he was ashamed to have been caught with it. "Hey, don't worry, I won't tell the other losers that you kept the letter from your pretty Kitty," she said, "or that you still have her picture on your night stand... I think just having to live with how pathetic you are is punishment enough." Wanda winced as she spoke the words, knowing that they were pointed enough to do some real damage to Lance, but she had to cover for herself. There was no way that she would let Lance even get a glimpse at how she really felt. Everything in her wanted to jump up and hug him, telling him that everything would be all right, but she couldn't.
"Hey, at least I'm not on some psychotic quest for vengeance," Lance snapped back. Wanda ground her teeth together, not noticing that a few random objects from around the room were beginning to float in the air. A discarded sneaker, pieces of a broken table lamp, and a TV Guide from two months ago started to orbit around Wanda rapidly.
"Shut up," she said, "you have no idea what it's like to have a father that hates you. To have a father who has you locked away for something you can't help! You'll never understand and neither will the other two idiots!" As Wanda's voice raised to a shout, the objects that floated around her began to move so fast that they appeared to become just a blur, like the electrons of an atom, with Wanda as the nucleus. The remote in her hand exploded, showering sparks and shards of plastic in Lance's direction. She jumped off of the couch, facing Lance down, glaring daggers at him. He met her challenge, standing and clenching his hands into tight fists.
"Is it a fight you want? You want to take out your anger on someone? Well, sister, here's your chance!" Lance's eyes rolled back into his head, giving him a very frightening appearance. The ground at Wanda's feet began to shake, knocking her off balance for but a moment. She let out a wail that sounded frighteningly like the scream of a banshee, and the objects that orbited around her flew off in different directions, the sneaker crashing through a window and landing out in the front yard. The ground began to shake even more fiercely, but now it had been redirected in Lance's direction. Pieces of plaster from the ceiling rained down on them, coating both of them in fine white powder.
"You really are pathetic, Lance, no wonder Kitty left you, she couldn't stand to see such a poor example of a mutant. I can even use your powers better than you can!" A seismic shockwave tore at the foundation of the house, rippling up under Lance and sending him flying backwards into a wall. He hit the ground with a thud, his face looking more furious than before. He leapt back to his feet, stomping a foot on the ground, sending a ripple of earth back towards Wanda, but she countered, sending it straight back at him, but this time he was ready. He pushed back with his powers, refusing to be beaten. A small mountain of worn carpeting and torn up, rotted floor boards rose up between them as they both pushed with all their might. Sweat poured down both of their faces from the strain, but their faces showed their determination to bury one another, and that neither of them would stop until the other was dead. They were so wrapped up in their battle of wills that they didn't notice the front door open, Fred and Todd entering with their arms full of junk food that they had bought from the convenience store using the money that Duncan had given them to join in his little vendetta with Scott Summers.
"Oh, man..." Fred said, his jaw dropping when he saw the destruction the two teenage mutants had caused.
"This ain't good," Todd said, putting his share of the bags down, "someone's gotta stop 'em before we're short a member." He shot his tongue out and wrapped it around Wanda's waist, yanking her a few feet away from the battle scene. As she was momentarily distracted, the built up seismic shockwave that Lance had been using against Wanda ended up tearing up a sizable chunk of the floor, and all but demolished the wall opposite where he was standing. The kitchen was now fully visible from the living room. Lance's pupils rolled back into view, and they were firmly fixed on his three teammates.
"Stay out of this, you two! This is between me and the Witch," he snarled, clenching his teeth. Blob crossed the living room and grabbed Lance by his collar and hauled him up off the ground.
"Put him down! Let me finish him!" Wanda screamed, firing a hexbolt at Fred, who simply shrugged it off.
"I may not be the smartest guy in the world," Fred said, only to be interrupted by Lance, whose legs were bicycling in the air in a futile attempt to get free of Blob's grip.
"Yeah, well, you won't hear any arguments there..." Fred just continued, raising his voice slightly to get his point across.
"Ahem... I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but I know that we shouldn't be fighting each other. We aren't enemies here!"
"Yeah, sweetums, why don't you tell your sweet li'l Toad what Lance did to make you so mad," Todd said, batting his eyelashes at Wanda. She just snarled, her mind finally catching up with the rest of her, realizing what she had just done to perhaps the first person she'd really cared about since her father abandoned her that night. She shoved Toad away, sending the younger mutant stumbling backwards.
"I'm sick of him moping about his stupid Kitty," she said, glaring fiercely at Lance.
"Well, I'm just as sick of her constantly ranting about her father and how he betrayed her. Some people just need to learn how to let things go," Lance said, finally giving up his struggle against Fred, looking rather ridiculous as he dangled in the air.
"Seems like the pot is calling the kettle black," Wanda's voice turned to ice. She felt as though she had been betrayed yet again, now she realized that even Lance thought she was just a psychotic witch.
"You guys need to let your differences go," Blob said, surprising everyone with his sagacity, "we're all in this together, whether we like it or not. Now apologize to Wanda."
"No!" Lance winced as he felt Fred's grip tighten around his collar, "All right, I'm sorry, Wanda."
"You can keep your apology!" She said, crossing her arms, "In fact, for all I care, you can die and rot!"
"Aw, c'mon, cuddlebumps, you know you don't really mean that," Todd automatically winced, a Pavlovian response that he had acquired to Wanda's constant abuse. This time it didn't come, he saw a slight softening of the Scarlet Witch's features as she watched Lance dangle like a rag doll. The walls she had put up came down for just a moment, and Todd could have sworn that he had seen her eyes grow moist, but that disappeared in a fraction of a second.
"Put him down, Fred," Wanda said, "I'm sorry, Lance," she murmured, "I guess I can't expect you to understand what I'm going through, can I?" Everyone except Toad looked shocked at her words, it was perhaps the second or third time they had heard her say something that wasn't threatening death to someone or something. As he came to the ground, Lance rubbed at the back of his neck, glancing at Fred angrily for a moment, then when he realized that his friend really had done him a favor, gave him a pat on his bulky arm.
"I guess you're right, Fred, we all need to stick together, more than ever now. We need to learn to understand one another's differences and respect them, not attack each other because our opinions differ," Lance said. There was a look of admiration in Wanda's eyes as she listened to Lance, and she allowed a small smile to appear for a few moments.
"Well, I still think you're going a little overboard on the whole Kitty thing," Fred said, until he caught a glance at the glare Lance was giving him, "of course, um, that's your... thing, and, uh, I'll respect it."
"That's better," Lance nodded with a smirk, "the important thing is that the Brotherhood is here to stay, and we'll stick together through thick and thin."
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FIN
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