Negasonic Teenage Warhead

Ellie Phimister had never fit in, even before she started catching on fire.

When she was twelve she had run away from her home in the suburbs and joined the self-proclaimed 'rat pack,' a motley collection of other displaced youths who, like her, had no where else that they belonged. She had spent the next two years of her life – two of the best years – stealing food, acting twice her age to get into homeless shelters without suspicion, and generally being on the run from the cops (even though she doubted her parents were looking too hard for her). The others members of the pack called her Warhead, a nickname they had come up with after seeing her explosive temper.

The first time she heard of the mutants she standing on a street corner, watching the TV in a deli when the movie was interrupted for a broadcast: explosions in the downtown area, believed to be the work of dangerous mutants. The people in the deli gasped, and Ellie made a mental note to avoid anything that caused a worse reaction than the homeless tramp on the street.

She saw one next, although she didn't know he was a mutant at the time, while she was hiding in a small, cramped ally, waiting for the cops to pass. As the large shape came around the corner, she pressed herself farther into the crevice between the rubbish and the wall, barely able to glimpse him. Only when she was certain he was no cop did she look closer, and realize that he was unlike anything she had ever seen: tall and pale with sunken features. He looked like a human-shaped candle. Had she not lived on the streets long enough to know true horrors of starvation and deprivation she might have screamed. ¬Ellie ran from the small alley and told Rat, the leader of their little pack, what she had seen and his face darkened. "They're freaks," he said. "Mutants that live in abandoned Cold War shelters in town. Stay away from them Ellie." She didn't need to be told twice, the word mutant sending a chill up her spine.

Living on the streets was no easy life, but for Ellie Phimister it was easier than being at home.

Colossus

Piotr Nikolaievitch Rasputin had liked his life before he turned into a giant, silver man.

The collective farm was hard work and Soviet Russia was not a pleasant place, but he had his family and that was all that mattered to him. When his sister was in danger, and his abnormality revealed, it was with a heavy heart that he joined the strange professor, although he knew that he would be working for the greater good.

America was strange to him, and he was forced to learn their language in order to communicate with his new teammates, the X-Men. The customs were more difficult to learn than the language, and although parts of it confused and terrified him, it had its benefits. He no longer had to worry about anyone going hungry, as there was always enough food to go around (although he felt guilty having so much when those he loved back home had so little).

It was both a curse and a blessing when Illyana exhibited signs of mutant powers and was brought to the X-Mansion. It meant that she was free of the Soviets, but it placed her in a new found danger: a house that periodically blew up. Both siblings soon learned to control their powers and became full members of the X-Men team. Colossus found it hard not to continually watch out for his sister even though she certainly didn't need it. It was because of his caring nature (and his indestructible skin) that Professor Xavier approached him to search out a new mutant.

Author's Notes

I tweaked what little we know of the comic's Negasonic Teenage Warhead to make her more inline with the movie version. But I also think she retains a bit of her precognitive powers from the comics.

I've never read the comics (I can't, they give me a headache), but I've seen Deadpool and the X-Men films (and listened to my best friend talk about the comics for hours), so this is my best approximation of how Negasonic Teenage Warhead (aka Ellie Phimister) might have joined the X-Men. Liberties have been taken.

What I've done is basically meld what I've learned (through the internet) of the comics to fit into the movie universe. So yes I did play with (read: leave out) large portions of Magik's backstory. I didn't feel like trying to explain it (or understanding it well enough to explain because man is it confusing). And to be completely honest Magik is not a very important character in this story. I almost left her out entirely.

The title of the first two chapters is borrowed from the Billy Joel song.

In case it isn't perfectly clear, the mutant Ellie sees in the alley is meant to be Calliban, the Morlock.

Colossus is – to me – an interesting character because of his background in Soviet Russia (which we just finished studying in my History of Europe class) and I want to really, really explore the aftermath of that upbringing as much as possible. Magik might appear as a character a few times (my friend and I have decided that she and Warhead like to mess with Colossus).

Let me know what you think, please. I'm really out of my comfort zone with this story because I've never written for any kind of super hero before. But this was a plot bunny I couldn't get rid of!

I promise there will be less notes and more story from now on.