Let's put it this way: if I owned Marvel, I wouldn't have to write any disclaimers! And I'd also be rich and be able to live in a houseboat in Paris.
So Marvel © Marvel.
Everything else © myself.
Thanks to butterflyKisses26 for the inspiration.
I know calling people 'Cat' and 'Dart' isn't really original, but I can't really gasp at the originality of 'Storm' and 'Beast', can I?
Read and enjoy (and feel free to review)!
12 Jun 07
14:32
I'm pretty sure I will become charred meat while I'm on watch tonight. Fireboy (Pyro, really, but Fireboy to me) was waltzing through our section of camp, trying to act all important, even though he really isn't.
I mean, he can't be more important than me— he can't even watch at night. Only a few of us can see in the dark, much less navigate quietly through it. There's me, there's that catty girl. There's others I don't know. But there's one black guy, Griffin Fox, who can see in infrared, by heat levels and I all. I don't know how he avoids trees and rocks.
So Fireboy was waltzing through our little circle of tents and flicking his annoying lighter as usual. I couldn't help but trip him, grab a stick and cut off his ankles with it. Fireboy fell, almost burned his face. Well, he would've if he didn't snuff it out. I'd probably be an overdone steak now, if it wasn't for Evaline. Sis may be a shrimp as far as being tall goes but she sure is tough. Evaline's older than me. Smarter, too.
Evaline's good to me, too. I remember this one time I asked her why she was so good to me. She said, "Ian, y'all are a fool if ya don't know why Ah'm here with you." (Sis flies.) "The birds can't give—" I didn't know the rest of what she said, because Magneto (Magnet Man, to me) started talking about Homo sapiens.
Magneto is the biggest Darwinist I've ever known, besides myself, at any rate. That's the best reason I'm here, really. Evaline and me, and the rest of us— we're superior to the Homo sapiens of the world. I don't know any of them who can see in the dark like I can, or from far away. And certainly none of them can fly without planes or whatnot. But Evaline can. Magneto can.
If there's a fight— and there will be— we will win. There's more of us, and we're fighting for something. Those others, they're fighting against us, and we won't let this be another Holocaust. Magneto says if we don't do something, we'll all be cured.
Not that there's anything wrong with us. We're the cure. Not them. We are better, and stronger, and on top of the food chain. Maybe we have our own food chain, but everyone on it deserves to be way on top of regular humans.
Of course, some of us would do more good for the world if they were six feet under. To say nothing of, say, Fireboy. Or that catty girl. Man, is she a piece of work. But she can see in the dark. That kind of makes up for everything.
At least, that's my excuse.
14:47
— Ian Rey.
---
Griffin Fox ducked under a tree branch, a cigarette clenched in his teeth. The burning end shone blue in his vision, and his nose was a bright orange. He loved infrared. Colors were nonexistent. Heat was all.
Griffin was looking for Cat, the Asian girl whose watch had just finished. She always surprised him when he found her— or rather, when she found him. Cat always jumped out at him, all feline-like, freaking Griffin out like a landlocked shark.
They played a cruel game— Griffin would look for Cat, Cat would jump out at him and steal his cigarette while she was at it, Cat would go back to camp, Griffin would do patrol. So far, Cat had won every time, which left Griffin spooked and without a cigarette. He didn't know what she did with the Camels she stole but fantasized about a whole tentful of cigarettes.
Pretty ridiculous, considering how bitchy Cat was, but Griffin could always dream. Of course, just then, Cat jumped him.
"MRARGH!"
Griffin scrambled backwards but Cat pounced right on target. He fell back, Cat pinning his knees with her feet and his chest with her fists. Her eyes flashed gold, triumphant. She jerked his Camel from his mouth, stuck it between her teeth, and sprung up onto a low branch. She scrambled through the trees and disappeared.
The whole affair lasted about a minute. Griffin was ashamed, but laughed all the same.
What's discourse and thievery among friends?
---
In actuality, the Camel cigarettes didn't even make it to camp. Cat would put them out on a tree she happened to stop on and drop them. Since Griffin was never out in the woods during the day, he couldn't see them. They were cold as rocks or wood by the next midnight, and virtually indiscernible from either in the infrared spectrum.
Dart snorted when he saw one on the ground and picked it up to stick in his mouth.
He had a lighter on him all the time, and he'd usually pick the thing up, wipe it off, and light it. He was only fifteen, but there was never much to do in Oak Harbor. Smoking, getting high— those were the real excitement in Dart's hometown.
Even though most of the camp slept, Dart liked to wander through the woods while Cat was doing her watch. They never ran into each other; Dart suspected that wasn't entirely coincidental. Cat was bitchy to people she was around, and she tried to be nice to him. What better way to go around it than staying away?
Besides, if Cat was hanging out with him, how could she make sure no one found out where they were? The government could be smart at times, but Magneto wanted them to be completely in the dark on the Brotherhood's whereabouts.
Dart could hardly argue with that— when he'd run away three years back, he sure didn't leave any clues on his destination. He did leave a false tip— he'd bought an airplane ticket to Florida on his mom's debit card.
He'd also given the ticket to a hobo in Seattle who was more than happy to go to warmer weather.
Dart grinned as he remembered the news feeds when his parents had made the police jump the plane and drag out said hobo. Maybe it had been cruel of him to use the guy, but it was funny in retrospect.
He took a drag on the newly lit Camel and exhaled slowly, trying and failing to make a smoke ring. He leaned up against a tree and closed his eyes.
"Dart!"
Dart jerked and banged his head on a branch. He lost his footing and slid down to sit cross-legged amidst the leaves.
"Damn it, Cat, don't do that!"
Cat dropped from above and sat down across from Dart. "You shouldn't smoke those."
"You do."
"I'm not fifteen." Cat raised her eyebrows and rubbed her cheek against her shoulder. "And I don't smoke Camels. They're bad make."
Dart harrumphed and stood up. He slapped his jeans a few times to unstick the leaves. "What do you smoke then, Cuban cigars?" Cat laughed and took the cigarette from Dart, rolling it between her fingers. "Hey!"
"Dart, these things will yellow your teeth and make you smell bad."
"Like the camp's a haven of nice-smelling flowers. When was the last timeyou bathed?"
"This morning." Cat was smug.
"With what shower?"
"I'm a cat, remember? We preen." Cat smirked at Dart's expression of revulsion. "Lolo, I'm kidding. But one of the people here can shoot water, it's as good of a bath as I'm getting out here. And I naturally smell delicious. Unlike some people I know." She gave Dart a significant look.
"It's not my fault the Morlocks live in the sewers!"
Cat suddenly stood and stared Dart in the eye, her nose crunched distastefully. "Did I say it was, birdbrain?" She turned and disappeared through the shadows beyond the circle of light cast by Dart's lighter. "Don't wait up, sewer rat," she called back. "And go see Fish!"
Dart frowned. "'Fish'?"
---
03:41
I don't really know why we have to watch. Can't Callisto just tell Magneto when there's someone coming? That'd sure make my life easier. And it's not like it takes any energy for her to tell. But doing watch... that's exhausting.
I have to do watch after the catty girl. It's damn near impossible to find her. Thank god I'm not Griffin— he says she pounces him when she finds him at the end of his watch. And steals his cigarettes! Absolutely ridiculous.
Though it does sound kind of funny, when you think about it. 'Large black man pounced on by catty Asian girl' would be a good article title for a Brotherhood Herald. Ha, ha.
I found Cat-girl easy enough today, though. She seemed in a bad mood (big surprise there) and didn't even call me a name. I asked her what was bothering her, and she snapped when I called her Cat-girl.
She said her name was Missy, which is about the stupidest name I've ever heard. I've decided not to tell anyone, since they'd probably just laugh at her and then she'd kill me or something.
Evaline said Missy was a nickname for Melissa, which is still a pretty bad name. Of course, I can't really talk, since Evaline's middle name is Meritxell. Yech.
But I suppose that's what she gets, for being named after a town.
03:51
—Ian Rey.
---
'Fish' turned out to be a pale twenty-ish guy with mussed brown hair.
"Mark Jacobson," he said. Dart took his extended hand; Mark's was slightly damp.
"Dart. Cat said you shoot water."
Mark Jacobson grinned. "Yeah." He wiped his hands on his shirt. "She's a piece of work, isn't she? She has a real attitude. But I guess I would too, if I had the mindset of a cat." At Dart's raised eyebrows, he said, "I mean, cats get pretty pissed real fast. You're petting them, and then their claws are two inches deep in your hand. That ever happen to you?"
Dart shook his head. "Cats tend to like me. I'm Perry Jephson."
"Is there a reason you're called Dart?"
"Obviously. He must shoot darts, Mark. Hi," a girl said. Mark and Dart turned as she crunched along a trampled path towards them. "I'm Nazeela Hena." Dart nodded. Nazeela slid her arm around Mark Jacobson's waist. "Shiva."
"I shoot poisoned darts. From the insides of my wrists."
"That's pretty sweet," Nazeela Hena said. "By the way, you positively reek, man. Where are you from, the sewers or something?"
Dart's nails drew little half-circles in his palms, but gracefully accepted Fish's offer of a 'shower'.
Nazeela Hena laughed, and skipped off through the woods, singing loud songs about men, destruction, and religious wars.