AUTHOR: Black Iris
DISCLAIMER: You know the deal. We don't own 'em, we don't have any money,
so don't sue us. .Please.
NOTE: Sorry, we know everyone hates character insertion, but, in our modest
opinions, we think this is rather well written, thank you very much, so
live with it. Or we'll shoot you. (Read and understand.) Six months after X-
2.
CHAPTER 1: Discovery
Kathrynne Cassaway sighed deeply as she lowered her forehead onto the cool pages of her Latin textbook. Try as she might, there was just no room in her head for all of the vocabulary and the grammar required for the advanced placement Latin V course. With the final exam tomorrow, things did not look good. Kathrynne lifted her head from the page; it stuck to her skin from the humidity. The heat was not helping her concentration much. She tugged another vocabulary sheet, already covered with red correct marks. Iaceo, Iacere. To.to.she thought. To throw? She cautiously turned the sheet over. To lie down. Wrong again. With a scream of frustration she hurled the heavy textbook into the wall-she wasn't getting anywhere. She would never be able to memorize all this-even if she stayed up all night.
She exhaled sharply, and glared down at the hated book, which had fallen open to pages 102 and 103. She loathed it, she despised it. She would have liked nothing more at that moment than to have it out of her life forever, and she couldn't find enough reason in herself to tell stop blaming an inanimate object for her own incompetence. She had failed, she just couldn't do it. She wanted the book to be destroyed, to just die.
The Latin book exploded in a ball of fire, the charred remains of the pages drifting down to the pale pink carpeting of her bedroom. Kathrynne's eyes widened, and her hand flew to her mouth. She sat erect on the bed, in shock. What had she done?
* * *
"Damned fucking. thing! AAAAAAAAARGHHH!" Her hands slammed down on either side of her text book. Aria Bendell was mad, and everyone knew it.
"Aria! Don't use that language in this house! We've had this conversation!" A frustrated sigh followed the high-pitched words up the stairs. "Now. Don't you want to place AP Chem?" The doorknob began to turn on Aria's bedroom door.
"Mother, you open that door and you die," she warned. The knob stopped turning. Footsteps thumped back down the stairs. "Good fucking riddance," she whispered to herself.
She tried to concentrate, tried to keep her attention on the words before her, but for some odd reason, they kept slipping in and out of focus. Sighing with weariness, she stood and padded into her bathroom. Maybe there was something in her eye.
The marble countertop felt comforting and cool beneath her sweating hands; this summer heat was tearing her mind into a thousand pieces. She lifted her head slowly, wincing as the taught muscles across her neck and shoulders strained in vain to keep her upright. Something was pulling her down; gravity seemed to have increased upon her body. Perspiration broke out on her face and down her spine as she involuntarily sunk to the tiled floor. Or she thought she did.
Her eyes finally opened. Before her was. nothing. She was. missing, honestly. She tried to lift her hand in front of her face to find a slight shadow in the shape of her arm rise instead. She looked into the mirror over her sink to discover That her whole body was the same way. Looked down at the floor. For some reason, her shoes and socks hadn't evaporated along with the rest of her clothes. She was still wearing her signature floor- length black skirt and halter-top, maroon today, but her boots sat, uninhabited, on her bathroom floor.
Tears rose to her eyes, but she pushed them back quickly, swallowing the rising lump in her throat. She turned all her energy towards getting herself back together, and discovered, much to her delight, that it wasn't difficult in the least. And it didn't even hurt! She smiled slightly to herself. this could be very cool.
.But wait. What about her family? Her friends? The smile fell from her face as quickly as it had appeared, and the tears made themselves evident as the fingers of her right hand began to disappear again. It seemed that though it was no problem bringing herself together again, keeping herself that way was another matter. Her body seemed to want to stay. what, exactly? Invisible? No, because there was still a faint, vague outline of a human body. Shadow. She wanted to stay shadow. Things were not as good as she had first supposed.
* * *
Kathrynne didn't know what to do. She has just...destroyed something. With her mind. Which meant she was...no. It couldn't be. She would lose everything. Everything she had ever known would shun her. Her parents. Her friends. Her school. There was no way. She almost refused to believe it. .But something was there. In the back of her mind. Lurking. Could she really be a...mutant? The word sounded alien, even in her own head. She had to be sure. Maybe there was a mistake, this was all some cruel joke. Maybe she had fallen asleep studying, and dreamed of destroying the Latin book. She would wake up safe on her bed, the cloying summer heat and impending test notwithstanding. She had to wake up from this horrible nightmare. She raised her hand to her shoulder and raked her fingernails down her arm as hard as she could, hoping the pain would deliver her out of this terrifying false reality. She shut her eyes and counted to ten, telling her self that when she opened them again she would be normal, just Kathrynne Cassaway, not some freak who could destroy textbooks with a mere thought. She cautiously opened one eye.
The blackened pages of her Latin book, the burned corners of the paper curling up from the heat, stared her in the face. She looked down at her arm; blood welled up in four long lines. This was real. She ran her finger up one of the scratches, and stared at the blood pooled on her finger, fascinated. The pain felt distant, unreal, like the rest of her life. She looked down at the four scratches again. Wait-three scratches. Why were there only three scratches? She turned her hand over; there were crimson stains on four of her fingernails. So why were there only three scratches? She tentatively touched the third angry red line; the blood had begun to drip in a tiny river making its way toward her elbow. She watched as her skin merged before her eyes. In a matter of seconds, all that remained of the scratch was a faint pink line. In a few more seconds, it was as good as new. She had just healed herself. She was now sure of it; she was a mutant. Oh, my God.
* * *
She had to do something. Had to get out. She'd wanted to for a long time, now she had a valid excuse. But who to tell? Anybody? Anyone at all? Though she'd always worn the "me-against-the-world" façade pretty well, she wasn't like that at all on the inside. God, no. She knew it was going into pop psychology, but there was small child residing in her walled heart, and the only who was ever allowed to see that little girl, the only one allowed inside the wrought iron gates, was the other side of her coin. Kathrynne Cassaway. If anyone would should know, deserved to know, it was Kat.
Aria drew a shuddering breath into her shaking frame, literally pulled herself together, and slipped back into her room. Her midnight hair, tipped with fire-engine red, flowed down to her waist and spilled over her shoulders as she flopped onto her bed and tugged her phone to her. Her fingers flew over the keypad in the memorized pattern of Kat's number. As she listened to the ringing, she thought of what she had to do.
Parents couldn't know - they didn't deserve it. They'd shove her out of the door quicker than she could get herself out. Other friends? What other friends? All of her teachers wouldn't care enough. Plus, it wasn't like they could do anything, anyway. They wouldn't want to. Though they all promoted equality, it didn't take a rocket scientist (or even average intelligence) to figure out that none of them actually believed it. Boyfriend? She'd never had one. Never had wanted one, either. Her mind was made up. She would run away to Westchester, New York. Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. She heard about it when one of her classmates, Alex Brown, had left in the middle of last year. Apparently she was telekinetic.
The other end of the line picked up, and Kat's shaking voice answered tentatively.
* * *
What could she do? Everyone she knew was anti mutant. Her parents, her teachers, her friends all agreed with senator Kelly-mutants and humans didn't belong together. She had heard the acid whispers of speculating parents, the rumors that a girl who had left her school in late November was a mutant who had run away from home. She vividly remembered overhearing the mothers of her school friends talking amongst themselves at a field hockey game.
"Good riddance," one mother had said, quietly so others wouldn't hear. She hadn't know Kathrynne had bent to pick up a paper cup underneath the bleachers. "We don't want one of them associating with our children."
Kathrynne remembered clearly how the woman had said "them": she had practically been spitting venom. These people would never accept her for what she was. There was only one person that she could think of who would understand. She reached for the phone on her night table, preparing to call her best friend, the best friend who was like a sister to her. The only person who would understand. She needed to contact Aria.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated under her fingers, the shrill ring cutting into her thoughts like her fingernails had cut into her arm a moment ago. She had forgotten her arm in the wake of the new knowledge; the blood was drying, still tacky on her pale skin. She jumped, and pressed the "talk" button. "H-hello?" she said shakily. The hand that held the phone trembled.
"Kat? I need to tell you something." Aria's usually strong voice sounded as weak and faltering as her own.
"Me too."
* * *
. "So what should we do?" Kat asked, her voice slightly obscured by telephone static. They'd both told the other what had happened, and had both let out subconsciously held breaths when they discovered that the other was just like her.
"I have absolutely no idea."
"That's awfully helpful."
"Thank you."
"Seriously, now." Frustrated sighs, discarded ideas, and rare, mirthless laughter toppled one over the other for the better part of an hour until the two friends decided on a plan of action.
"Ok," said Aria. "One more time. So. I pack, you pack. Two suitcases each, tops."
"Which I'm not very happy about."
"But which you're going to live with, or I'll shoot you."
"Right."
"Then, at precisely eleven twenty-five, I sneak out of my house with the car keys, and steal the Jeep."
"Which is a shitty car."
"But which you're going to live with, or I'll shoot you."
"Right."
"You are on your front step at midnight on the dot with your suitcases and no cops courtesy of your lovely parents, you hop in car, and we drive to New York."
"Right." They sighed and paused for a moment.
"So I'll see you then."
"Yeah." Another pause. Then, simultaneously, "Bye."
CHAPTER 1: Discovery
Kathrynne Cassaway sighed deeply as she lowered her forehead onto the cool pages of her Latin textbook. Try as she might, there was just no room in her head for all of the vocabulary and the grammar required for the advanced placement Latin V course. With the final exam tomorrow, things did not look good. Kathrynne lifted her head from the page; it stuck to her skin from the humidity. The heat was not helping her concentration much. She tugged another vocabulary sheet, already covered with red correct marks. Iaceo, Iacere. To.to.she thought. To throw? She cautiously turned the sheet over. To lie down. Wrong again. With a scream of frustration she hurled the heavy textbook into the wall-she wasn't getting anywhere. She would never be able to memorize all this-even if she stayed up all night.
She exhaled sharply, and glared down at the hated book, which had fallen open to pages 102 and 103. She loathed it, she despised it. She would have liked nothing more at that moment than to have it out of her life forever, and she couldn't find enough reason in herself to tell stop blaming an inanimate object for her own incompetence. She had failed, she just couldn't do it. She wanted the book to be destroyed, to just die.
The Latin book exploded in a ball of fire, the charred remains of the pages drifting down to the pale pink carpeting of her bedroom. Kathrynne's eyes widened, and her hand flew to her mouth. She sat erect on the bed, in shock. What had she done?
* * *
"Damned fucking. thing! AAAAAAAAARGHHH!" Her hands slammed down on either side of her text book. Aria Bendell was mad, and everyone knew it.
"Aria! Don't use that language in this house! We've had this conversation!" A frustrated sigh followed the high-pitched words up the stairs. "Now. Don't you want to place AP Chem?" The doorknob began to turn on Aria's bedroom door.
"Mother, you open that door and you die," she warned. The knob stopped turning. Footsteps thumped back down the stairs. "Good fucking riddance," she whispered to herself.
She tried to concentrate, tried to keep her attention on the words before her, but for some odd reason, they kept slipping in and out of focus. Sighing with weariness, she stood and padded into her bathroom. Maybe there was something in her eye.
The marble countertop felt comforting and cool beneath her sweating hands; this summer heat was tearing her mind into a thousand pieces. She lifted her head slowly, wincing as the taught muscles across her neck and shoulders strained in vain to keep her upright. Something was pulling her down; gravity seemed to have increased upon her body. Perspiration broke out on her face and down her spine as she involuntarily sunk to the tiled floor. Or she thought she did.
Her eyes finally opened. Before her was. nothing. She was. missing, honestly. She tried to lift her hand in front of her face to find a slight shadow in the shape of her arm rise instead. She looked into the mirror over her sink to discover That her whole body was the same way. Looked down at the floor. For some reason, her shoes and socks hadn't evaporated along with the rest of her clothes. She was still wearing her signature floor- length black skirt and halter-top, maroon today, but her boots sat, uninhabited, on her bathroom floor.
Tears rose to her eyes, but she pushed them back quickly, swallowing the rising lump in her throat. She turned all her energy towards getting herself back together, and discovered, much to her delight, that it wasn't difficult in the least. And it didn't even hurt! She smiled slightly to herself. this could be very cool.
.But wait. What about her family? Her friends? The smile fell from her face as quickly as it had appeared, and the tears made themselves evident as the fingers of her right hand began to disappear again. It seemed that though it was no problem bringing herself together again, keeping herself that way was another matter. Her body seemed to want to stay. what, exactly? Invisible? No, because there was still a faint, vague outline of a human body. Shadow. She wanted to stay shadow. Things were not as good as she had first supposed.
* * *
Kathrynne didn't know what to do. She has just...destroyed something. With her mind. Which meant she was...no. It couldn't be. She would lose everything. Everything she had ever known would shun her. Her parents. Her friends. Her school. There was no way. She almost refused to believe it. .But something was there. In the back of her mind. Lurking. Could she really be a...mutant? The word sounded alien, even in her own head. She had to be sure. Maybe there was a mistake, this was all some cruel joke. Maybe she had fallen asleep studying, and dreamed of destroying the Latin book. She would wake up safe on her bed, the cloying summer heat and impending test notwithstanding. She had to wake up from this horrible nightmare. She raised her hand to her shoulder and raked her fingernails down her arm as hard as she could, hoping the pain would deliver her out of this terrifying false reality. She shut her eyes and counted to ten, telling her self that when she opened them again she would be normal, just Kathrynne Cassaway, not some freak who could destroy textbooks with a mere thought. She cautiously opened one eye.
The blackened pages of her Latin book, the burned corners of the paper curling up from the heat, stared her in the face. She looked down at her arm; blood welled up in four long lines. This was real. She ran her finger up one of the scratches, and stared at the blood pooled on her finger, fascinated. The pain felt distant, unreal, like the rest of her life. She looked down at the four scratches again. Wait-three scratches. Why were there only three scratches? She turned her hand over; there were crimson stains on four of her fingernails. So why were there only three scratches? She tentatively touched the third angry red line; the blood had begun to drip in a tiny river making its way toward her elbow. She watched as her skin merged before her eyes. In a matter of seconds, all that remained of the scratch was a faint pink line. In a few more seconds, it was as good as new. She had just healed herself. She was now sure of it; she was a mutant. Oh, my God.
* * *
She had to do something. Had to get out. She'd wanted to for a long time, now she had a valid excuse. But who to tell? Anybody? Anyone at all? Though she'd always worn the "me-against-the-world" façade pretty well, she wasn't like that at all on the inside. God, no. She knew it was going into pop psychology, but there was small child residing in her walled heart, and the only who was ever allowed to see that little girl, the only one allowed inside the wrought iron gates, was the other side of her coin. Kathrynne Cassaway. If anyone would should know, deserved to know, it was Kat.
Aria drew a shuddering breath into her shaking frame, literally pulled herself together, and slipped back into her room. Her midnight hair, tipped with fire-engine red, flowed down to her waist and spilled over her shoulders as she flopped onto her bed and tugged her phone to her. Her fingers flew over the keypad in the memorized pattern of Kat's number. As she listened to the ringing, she thought of what she had to do.
Parents couldn't know - they didn't deserve it. They'd shove her out of the door quicker than she could get herself out. Other friends? What other friends? All of her teachers wouldn't care enough. Plus, it wasn't like they could do anything, anyway. They wouldn't want to. Though they all promoted equality, it didn't take a rocket scientist (or even average intelligence) to figure out that none of them actually believed it. Boyfriend? She'd never had one. Never had wanted one, either. Her mind was made up. She would run away to Westchester, New York. Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. She heard about it when one of her classmates, Alex Brown, had left in the middle of last year. Apparently she was telekinetic.
The other end of the line picked up, and Kat's shaking voice answered tentatively.
* * *
What could she do? Everyone she knew was anti mutant. Her parents, her teachers, her friends all agreed with senator Kelly-mutants and humans didn't belong together. She had heard the acid whispers of speculating parents, the rumors that a girl who had left her school in late November was a mutant who had run away from home. She vividly remembered overhearing the mothers of her school friends talking amongst themselves at a field hockey game.
"Good riddance," one mother had said, quietly so others wouldn't hear. She hadn't know Kathrynne had bent to pick up a paper cup underneath the bleachers. "We don't want one of them associating with our children."
Kathrynne remembered clearly how the woman had said "them": she had practically been spitting venom. These people would never accept her for what she was. There was only one person that she could think of who would understand. She reached for the phone on her night table, preparing to call her best friend, the best friend who was like a sister to her. The only person who would understand. She needed to contact Aria.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated under her fingers, the shrill ring cutting into her thoughts like her fingernails had cut into her arm a moment ago. She had forgotten her arm in the wake of the new knowledge; the blood was drying, still tacky on her pale skin. She jumped, and pressed the "talk" button. "H-hello?" she said shakily. The hand that held the phone trembled.
"Kat? I need to tell you something." Aria's usually strong voice sounded as weak and faltering as her own.
"Me too."
* * *
. "So what should we do?" Kat asked, her voice slightly obscured by telephone static. They'd both told the other what had happened, and had both let out subconsciously held breaths when they discovered that the other was just like her.
"I have absolutely no idea."
"That's awfully helpful."
"Thank you."
"Seriously, now." Frustrated sighs, discarded ideas, and rare, mirthless laughter toppled one over the other for the better part of an hour until the two friends decided on a plan of action.
"Ok," said Aria. "One more time. So. I pack, you pack. Two suitcases each, tops."
"Which I'm not very happy about."
"But which you're going to live with, or I'll shoot you."
"Right."
"Then, at precisely eleven twenty-five, I sneak out of my house with the car keys, and steal the Jeep."
"Which is a shitty car."
"But which you're going to live with, or I'll shoot you."
"Right."
"You are on your front step at midnight on the dot with your suitcases and no cops courtesy of your lovely parents, you hop in car, and we drive to New York."
"Right." They sighed and paused for a moment.
"So I'll see you then."
"Yeah." Another pause. Then, simultaneously, "Bye."