The Lorsos, Magi, and the DIso are mine. So's Quincy and Skyierleigh Academy. Other than that, I make twenty five bucks a month. Suing won't help you.
Ronny looked out the window as the jet lifted away and sighed, not sure if he had done the right thing.
Bobby was perfect. That was the first thing that always came to mind when he thought of his older brother. Bobby'd brought home perfect grades, his teachers loved him, and so did his peers. Bobby's angst-filled look as he'd stared back at the house before getting on the jet had accepted him and his friends as passengers. Ronny had to suppress the urge to sigh out loud.
"Why couldn't you be more like Bobby?" Screamed Georgia Drake at her younger son, her voice shrill with anger. "Why did you do it!" The issue wasn't very big, more like unsubstantial. Ronny had been holding the ceramic salad bowl when he'd tripped over the dog. The bowl broke, and, so did, if Ronny's boding was right, his wrists, maybe one thumb on his right hand.
"Well, I don't want to be Bobby!" Ronny decided that he wasn't going to take it anymore. He'd applied, he'd been accepted, and his dad had signed the slips to let him go. "I'm leaving. Skyierleigh accepted me."
Skyierleigh Academy was one of the few private institutions that was wholly secular and non academic. Though they taught academics, Skyierleigh was a school for the arts, for sports, and really, a school to create the leaders o f tomorrow. It made no bones about the fact that it accepted mutants and humans, and that it didn't care that others thought it was wrong.
Ronny had read about it, and decided that he wasnted to attend. Admissions were rigorous. He'd had to convice fifteen separate people to write him recommendations. After those were accepted, a series of three essays.
Finally, he'd had to give three interviews. One with the head of school. One with the Dean of Admissions. And one with a random student. Ronny was sure he'd botched them.
He'd gotten the letter by special messenger, an affair on heavy cream colored parchment, the letter itself carefully written in beautiful calligraphy.
Acceptance. At last.
Ronny's arrival had been hell. He'd come in on the greyhound, and the kids who'd been watching outside had laughed. He'd had to walk to the headmaster's office dressed in the remains of the outfit he'd worn the week before when he'd left Boston.
Quincy looked up from his paperwork to see someone at the door. He blinked, and the door opened.
"Come in, Mr. Drake." The boy shook his head as he entered the room.
"Don't bother. My mom's revoked my rights to the name. It's Ronny, now, I suppose, or I may decide to u se my da's old name, before he changed it to her's."
"I'm sorry that you've separated from your family." Quincy knew that they were the 'right' words to say, but he wasn't sure if the young man now sitting in the chair across from him would care. "May I ask why you did not contact us for help? You are, after all, a member of the student body."
"I didn't want to ask for help. I managed to be accepted without my family's help, without the help of anyone, and I wanted to make sure that this is the right place for me."
Quincy nodded.
"I'll have a student take you to your room, the stuff that you sent a few weeks ago is already there, waiting, and if you've left anything behind at your family's home, we can have it shipped." Ronny smiled.
There were soldiers in the night. The words repeated through Ronny's mind as he led ten of the other students through the woods that had hidden an exit from Skyierleigh. He'd seen three of the teachers killed, fifteen of the students, and screams had sounded through the school.
He'd spent the last year and a half making Skyierleigh his home, despite the battles between the students, the raging politics, and his own powers. That was right. He'd actually developed powers, from his father's side of the family.
David Drake was born David Maja. He'd told his younger son the truth of his heritage, that of the Maja 'Protection' Tribe, and their own powers. Mutation was a chance change in David Drake, the real power lay in his ability to make small things protected. He never lost anything. Rarely did anything break.
Ronny's gift was far more powerful, he was a touch-seer. When he touched an object, touched someone, he'd see the past, the present, future even, and he could tell which was which, in his opinion, a good thing. They developed swiftly, going in days from simple smell, to full range vision sequences, and he'd started flashing if he wore someone else's clothes, or used a different pillowcase.
"Ronny?" The youngest in their group was eight, and she was walking barefoot through the wet grass. Ronny took a chance and swung her, her name was Lorna, up into his arms, balancing her on a hip. "Where're we going?" Ronny's eyes flashed closed, his mind seeing a brass name plate, his brother's face, another girl, curled up in his arms, and a the girl with white stripes in her hair, she'd been at the house with Bobby.
"Xavier's."
"Hello, welcome to …Ronny?" Bobby looked at his younger brother, grimy in sleepclothes, a little girl in his arms and nine other teens and preadolescents behind him., an extralarge van sat in the driveway, and Bobby could see an enscribed "S' on the side.
"We need to speak to the Headmaster." Ronny stated, and Bobby saw the gloves on his younger brother's hands.
"The Professor's dead." Ronny and several of the other Skyierleigh students gasped in shock. "Our Headmistress is Storm, now."
"Bobby, let them in." Storm's voice was stern, and Bobby opened the door. "Ron Magi, I presume?" Her tone was as if she already knew the answer, and Bobby bit back a gasp at hearing his brother being called by their father's former surname. "When I heard that Skyierleigh was attacked, I'd hoped that you would find sanctuary here with us."
"Lady Storm." Ronny bowed. "May we stay here, for a bit at least?"
"Of course. Quincy knew that his students were always welcome here in times of need."
"This is certainly a time of need."
"What is Skyierleigh Academy?" Logan asked Ororo. "And why do you give their students sanctuary?"
"Their headmaster is or was a man named Quincy. A telekinetic of the Diso Tribe, related to Ron and Bobby on their father's side. The Diso and Magi tribes are not mutants, thgouh they have powers like those of mutants. They have hereditary gifts that have gone back generations, and they technically aren't homo sapiens sapiens or homo sapiens superior. They are, scientifically, homo sapiens victus, a third branch on our tree." She paused. "Quincy's family was kicked out of the Diso tribe, and Quincy was educated to use his minor telekinesis here. He went on to found the Skyierleigh Academy, which taught the leaders of the future, and the leaders of today's kids."
"Why would Skyierleigh be attacked?" Logan asked, and Ororo frowned.
"I think that that is because Skyierleigh allowed mutants through its doors, and humans. That, and many of the children who attend would be useful if bargaining with their parents." Ororo knew that the professor had always worried about Skyierleigh, it had seemed like the peace there had been too good to be true.
Ronny padded downstairs from the spare bedroom he was sharing, following the hallways in slippered feet, going into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator with a gloved hand, hating the feel of the over-sized garden gloves that he wore to bed squishing beneath his hand. His eyes searched throhgu the refrigerator, seeing orange juice, chocolate milk, water… "Is there anything harder in here?" He asked, exasperated. He heard a snort and spun around, seeing his older brother in a chiar with a bowl of icecream.
"This is a school." Bobby said. "But we do have some soda in the cupboard." Ronny snorted and dropped into a seat across from him.
"Sorry about calling the police." Ronny said. "I've meant to come by and say sorry for awhile, but I had things to do, always, and Quincy wanted me to help the kids, the ones like me to settle in."
"Apology accepted. Why Ronny?" Bobby had to know, though he wasn't sure why.
"You were always Bobby the Great. Mom and I would have arguments, and she'd yell, 'why can't you be more like Bobby?' I came out to them, and mom said that, yelled that. She couldn't accept it, but she could accept you being a mutant? Another set of genes then hers? Of course she could. I suppose calling the police was my revenge on her. Dad and I talked about it later, without her. He knew about the favoritism, the arguments, and he let me try for Skyierleigh."
"I hate this place." Ronny's eyes were to the horizon as the sun broke through the clouds. He hadn't been able to sleep, with visions flashing through his mind.
"What's so bad about it?" The man lounging against the doorwell smoking a cigar asked, and Ronny grimaced.
"Too many people, too much Bobby."
"You don't like Bobby." Logan stated.
"I love him, but I hate him. Everyone expects me to be like him, the golden child. I'm so not like him my mom disowned me." Ronny stated. "You teach art?"
"Physical Education. I was babysitting the Mansion when soldiers came in the night."
"Ah."
"Why aren't you in bed?" Logan knew that the question could be asked of him too.
"Couldn't sleep. Someone else'd slept on that pillow, in those sheets. No matter how much washing is done, I can feel them when I sleep." Ronny's voice was sad. "I can remember every single time my skin has touched something that is not wholly mine."
"You're of the Lorsos, aren't you?" Logan had encountered them during his travels, a totally different life form, lifestyle than what he was used to, and spent three years with them.
"Of the Lorsos people, born of the Magi Tribe. I touch-see and dream-see." Logan nodded. He'd met one, once, with the Magi, probably Ronny's aunt. She had problems realizing when or where she was, she'd been driven so mad by her magic.
"Are you related to Riala of the Magi?" Logan asked. Ronny nodded.
"She is my father's sister. I met her over holiday break. It was seeing her that made me decide that gloves were always worth it. She touched some one, a friend, and that sent her bonkers." Ronny's voice was sad, introspective. "I don't want to become like that."
"So you wear gloves, sleep in your own sheets, etc?"
"Yeah." Ronny paused. "I've gotten visions from leaves before. The gloves help, some, I guess."