finding family, an X-men fanfiction Chapter 1: Alaska and Alarick, a x-men fanfic

Authors note: this is my first X-men fan fiction, if i portrayed the characters wrongly or botched the powers please let me know.

Disclaimer: all marvel characters belong to marvel, not me. i only own Alarick, Steven, and the story line. Dale belongs to Robbospades and is used with their permission.

Moonfly7 signing out

Whittier Alaska, a small former military base that was converted into a town at the end of the cold war. The town has a population of roughly 220 people, almost all of whom live in Begich towers, a housing skyrise built during the cold war. Whittier's only claim to fame is the 2.6 mile, one lane tunnel that connects it to the outside world, the tunnel is closed at night and is the main reason that Whittier Alaska is considered the most isolated town in America.

Needless to say, it has been many years since anyone has even thought of moving to this sleepy little town, hidden away behind Alaska's mountains. Which is probably why, when two new, surprisingly young men, came to Whittier with the intent to stay for awhile, it made front page news.

(pov switch, first person)

"Wake up" i said, as i poked the teen who was asleep in the passenger seat "wake up Dale, were here" i said again. As i parked the van i was driving in an empty, snow coated parking spot.

"Wha..what?" came my blue eyed compatriots reply "were here?"

"Yes, were here. We have arrived, finished our journey, vamoosed from our old abode, and yadda yadda yadda. You wanna help me get the bags or would you rather we just sit in the car until the heat runs out and we freeze to death?"i said, sarcasm oozing in my voice so heavily, that Dale could have drowned in it. Luckily, Dale was an adept Sarcasm swimmer.

"Right" he responded, as we got out of the van and opened up the back, Dale grabbing our two suitcases, while i grabbed the decidedly lumpy duffle bag we had brought.

"Forgetting something Alarick?" dale asked as he tossed me my backpack, and slung his own over his shoulders.

"Thanks" i said, as i donned my backpack and began to trudge to the door of the high rise we had parked in front of.

"Honestly, i don't know what you'd do without me, fruit mix." Dae said happily, using the nickname that referenced my strange eyes, one a deep purple, and the other a wild, manic orange. Dale had once told me that they reminded him of a fruit mix of grapes and oranges, and the name stuck.

"Without you, blue eyes?" i said, using the nickname that Dale had gone by since as long as i had known him. "I'd probably be the president of the senior class of lanmourn high, getting excellent grades, and be captain of some dumb sports team."

"And bored out of your mind" Dale said, not missing a beat.

"True, good thing i met a blue eyed troublemaker who gave me more crazy adventures than i know what to do with." i said, as i draped one arm over my best friend as we pushed the glass doors of the apartment building aside and walked in.

(pov switch, third person)

Harold Bloomer was the front desk worker at Begic towers, and had been for twenty years. He had seen it all, the only robbery ever held in Whittier? He saw it. When Melissa Hendrix made out with Tommy Rosefield in the parking lot? He caught it all on the closed circuit cameras. That time old man Ross tried to bring a bear into his apartment on the grounds that it was a support animal? Harold had helped animal control lead the bear back into the woods. But nothing would ever compare to the sight that he got when two new, high school aged boys, walked into the lobby and asked to rent some rooms.

The two teens entered the lobby while Harold was writing some information in the apartments logbooks, and he didn't even look up from his work, figuring that they were just some of the regular towns folk who called the tower home. Oh, how mistaken he was.

"Hey, counter boy, can we get some help over here?" came a rough voice that sent shivers down Harolds spine, what's more, it was a new voice, and those were almost unheard of down in whittier.

So spurred on by curiosity, and the fact that he had a job to do, Harold slowly looked up from his book, and almost screamed in terror at the sight that greeted him. There, directly in front of the counter, were two of the strangest men he had ever laid eyes on.

The one who had spoken was about five foot seven and was wearing a large, heavy trench coat, which was unbuttoned. Underneath the trench coat he wore a pair of slightly baggy, olive green cargo pants, and a tan muscle shirt, which would have provided no protection from the cold. The stranger looked to be 18, but held himself as if he was a man, a man who had seen more than anyone ever should, and a man who should not be annoyed.

And his physical features were just as strange as his posture and clothing. His hands, which looked normal enough, upon closer inspection appeared to be surmounted by natural looking claws, claws that were a dull black. The figures hair was brown and heavily unkempt and ragged, and looked more like a mane than an actual head of hair. His teeth were also the same dull black, and they grew in points, which made them look like the fangs of a wolf. But the strangest thing about him was not his claws or teeth, nor was it his messy hair or how he dressed, no, it was his eyes. The boys eyes were of two seperate colors, one eye a deep, intellectual looking purple, and the other, an insane looking, wild orange.

Harold took all this in within a picosecond, and switched his gaze from the terrifying person in front of him to the teens compatriot, hoping to see a less strange and terrifying person. His hopes were short lived. The man beside the speaker was much taller, though his face appeared slightly younger, though only by a year or so. If asked to specify a height and age for this silent man, Harold would have probably said that he was easily six foot ten, and about sixteen in age.

The second, taller figure, was dressed in light looking blue jeans and a grey muscle shirt, over which he wore a black leather jacket. The man's skin was a dull grey, as was most of him, Harold realized. Even his clothes were much, much duller than they should have been, as if someone had leached the color out of him, and everything he wore. The only exceptions to these dull colors was his jet black hair, which was pushed back in a greaser hairstyle, and his eyes, which were an amazing electric blue, that were so beautiful that Harold found himself staring at them for much longer than needed. And when he tore his gaze away, it caused a chuckle to admit itself from the lips of the grey man in front of him.

Harold, a veteran of many a strange encounter, quickly found his bearings and addressed the teen who had spoken, the scruffy, orange and purple eyed one.

"How may i help you today, sir" Harold asked, the sir added as an afterthought, just so the man wouldn't think him impolite.

"We need an apartment" the stranger said, as if he was stating the obvious, which he was.

"Ah, yes yes, how long will you be with us?" Harold asked, as he grabbed one of the few vacant room keys and set it on the counter.

"Don't know, a few months at least, but probably longer" the man answered "how much in advance do i need to pay?"

"Well, three months ahead, that will be five hundred dollars, utilities and wifi included." Harold stammered, wanting to be done with this encounter as soon as possible.

"Good, we'll take it." the man answered, and with that, he slapped five hundred dollars in cash onto the table and reached for the key, only to have Harold stop him.

"One more thing" Harold said "i need both of your names and ages"

The stranger sighed, as if this was something annoying that happened all the time.

"I'm 21, he's 20. My name is Alarick, and that's Dale" he said, pointing to the two of them respectively "now do you have any more stupid questions, or can we go?"

Harold shook his head and watched the two young men take the elevator to their new apartment. He doubted that they were the ages they claimed, and was slightly concerned by the fact that they paid in cash, but considering that two teenagers couldn't be that dangerous, and that there wasn't any police to report them to, he decided to let the matter slide.

(pov switch, Alarick)

One year later

I woke to the sound of whistling and bacon frying coming from the kitchen, which told me that Dale was up all ready. This didn't really surprise me, considering that he had done this every morning since i had known him, which was pretty much all of my life. Sighing, i rolled out of bed, put on my clothes, the only clothes i owned, and walked into the kitchen.

"Hey there, blue eyes, sleep ok?" i said, as i grabbed a plate and slid into a chair.

"Yep, what about you fruit mix?" Dale responded, as he pulled the frying pan off the stove and unceremoniously dumped half the bacon onto my plate, and half onto his.

"Pretty good, pretty good" i said, as i crunched on my bacon. "What's on the news this morning?" i asked, knowing that his answer could very well uproot our lives, and send us running to yet another deadbeat town in the middle of nowhere.

"Nothing to much new, the president screwed something up again, some crazy maniac tried to shrink New York, but the Avengers stopped him, of course. Oh, and there was some crazy guy who was trying to convince world leaders that galactus was coming back, turns out he was just nutso." Dale told me, before taking a deep draft of his french vanilla.

"So, there's no news about… people like us then?" i said, wanting to make doubly sure.

In response Dale sighed and shook his head saying "you mean mutant news? No, and if there was i'd have woken you immediately so we could make a plan of action, honestly, fruit mix, you may be older than me, but only by two years, i'm not a child anymore."

"Your right, your right. I'm sorry, it's just nerve racking sometimes, you know? Having to worry about people finding us out. Having to move every time someone gets even close to figuring out the truth about us." i said, remembering all the places we had to flee just because of our abilities.

"Yeah, i know, it sucks." Dale said, nodding "lucky for us no one here even knows who the current president is, let alone that mutants exist. And since were the only ones who use the cable news station, it'll stay that way"

Dale was right, so long as we were here, no one would ever come for us. The entire building was of the mind that Dale and i had both been born with rare birth defects, and that we had become close as a family because we were the only people on earth that understood each other. They were closer than you might think. Dale and i were both mutants, Dale could read minds, and could knock people out from a distance if he focused hard enough.

Dale was one of the lucky mutants, the only physical features his mutation tampered with was his grey skin and his bright blue eyes, and both of those could be explained away as just natural human genetic defects. My mutations were a little more noticable, for one, my eye colors were anything but natural, and instantly identified me as a mutant. But my eyes were my least distinguishing mutant features, that title belonged to my fangs and claws, which were made of some form of naturally growing, stronger than titanium, material. It wasn't bone, i knew that for sure ever since i had shattered my humerus, the shards were as white as normal bones. My bone color was the only part of me shattering my humerus that was normal, it was an injury that should have taken months to heal, and made my arm weaker and harder to use for the rest of my life. Instead, i healed in three days, and my shattered bones regrew. That was how i discovered that i had a mild healing factor. The only other mutations i had were considerably less noticeable, i had hearing much more powerful than the average human, which was a bother when someone turned on a dog whistle. I also had what appeared to be the standard strength and agility mutations, meaning that my reaction time and my natural strength were a lot more than the average human, but nowhere near as powerful as some other mutants.

"Hey, earth to Alarick" Dale said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Huh, sorry, i was thinking about something" i told him "what were you saying?"

"I was saying, that if your done with breakfast we could go train, you know, like we have every day" he said, as i nodded and we both stood and went to get our training equipment.

I went into my room and grabbed the two shoulder holsters that set on my bedside table and quickly put them on, the holsters held my two glock 17's, guns that i had grown very accustomed to.

After i grabbed my guns, i walked out of my room, and waited for Dale who emerged a few minutes later with his knife belt on, and a heavy baseball bat resting on his shoulder.

"Ready to go, Blue eyes?" i asked

"Yep, let's get going" Dale replied, as he opened the door and we both walked into the hallway.

(time skip about thirty minutes later)

We were in our normal practice spot, a small clearing in the trees a couple miles from the town. Dale and i had found this spot a week after our arrival, and had been using it for combat practice ever since. Despite what others would have expected, we never practiced with our mutant powers here, in fact, we almost never used our mutations at all, since we didn't know what kind of things could be monitoring potential mutants nowadays. So what we practiced here, in this clearing was normal combat techniques.

For me that meant shooting my pistols until i could hit a target while both me and it were sprinting at breakneck speed, in opposite directions. This made me a crack shot with my hand guns, something that could come in very handy if we ever had to fight our way out of a dangerous situation. Dale practised throwing his knives until not even flies were safe from his blades. In addition to his knife throwing, Dale, who was already an amazing fighter with his baseball bat, began to have me shoot at him, as he deflected the bullets with his custom made, solid titanium baseball bat.

Some people might say that the practice we went through was pointless now that we were more than proficient at our chosen skills, but we were of the belief that there is no thing as too much practice.

"You ready" i called to Dale, as i raised both my guns at him, ready to let some lead fly.

"Yep" he said, and in the next second i released a hailstorm of lead.

Now i was a good shot, and i aimed directly at Dale, but not a bullet hit him. The trees around us, however, were sprayed with a almost every bullet i had shot. Which was normal, what was not normal was the fact that one small area of trees, that was normally sprayed with bullets, was completely unharmed. Intrigued by this, i turned my ears attention to that area as i went to congratulate Dale.

"Good job, blue eyes, some more practice, and a machine gun wouldn't be able to…" my voice trailed off as i heard the slightest sound of human breathing from the small, undamaged, grove of trees.

"We need to go, now." i whispered to Dale, who nodded almost imperceptibly, and then followed me without hesitation as i began to run through the trees, towards our apartment.

As we ran, i heard the unmistakable sounds of a man releasing a sigh, before yelling:

"Don't run! Please!"

Which was absolutely no reason for us to stop, considering that many men in suits had yelled that at us before shooting willy nilly. Although, to this guy's credit, he didn't shoot at us.

"Don't stop, not until you reach the van, if it's not there, it means i got to it first, if that's the case, run to the tunnel, i'll pick you up there. If you get to the car first, drive to the tunnel, and i'll go there to get picked up." i said to Dale, who nodded before we both peeled off in opposite directions to make it harder for pursuers to catch us.

Darn it, but whoever this guy was, he was smart, he had been waiting for me to unload my clips, and for both of us to be exhausted by training, before he tried to strike. I had this in mind as i made my way through the woods, meeting no resistance until i reached the very end of the forest, which i broke through, expecting to see nothing but snow, and a large apartment building.

Instead what i saw was a man who appeared to be grossly obese, and a very short, ugly guy who was dressed in some sort of medieval costume. I didn't no who the fat guy was, but i had seen the short one on a show called "top ten stupidest super villains", the guys name was Toad, and he had a long tongue, literally. His only powers were a long tongue, and jumping, so i wasn't to worried.

"Stop" weezed Toad, looking like the exertion of speaking might make him puke. "We just want to talk" he said, right before i did my best impression of a wolf and flying tackled him into the snow.

"Stay down, wonder tongue, or you'll get more than that." i said, a smile playing at my lips. My words, however, fell on deaf ears, because my jump tackle had knocked Toad out cold.

"Hey, good job." came a voice to my left, which, as i turned, i saw it belonged to the fat guy i had seen earlier.

"I think your a reasonable guy, heck, your first instincts are good, if you know to beat the snot out of Toad the minute you see him" the man continued, a chuckle escaping his lips. "The names Blob by the way, n'case you wanted a name for this beautiful face. No need to go attacking me, i'm a mutant, just like you obviously are, and my powers make it so i can't be moved or hurt by anything short of an armour piercing tank round, and even then, i'd only need a bandage so your little powers aint gonna hurt me, so we'll just have a nice, long chat while we wait for my buddies."

"Right, because that sounds just peachy" i said, and then a smile crept over my face.

"Why you smilin', your trapped, you can't beat me, and if you tried to run, my friends would catch you before you made it to that building over their." the Blob said, looking slightly smug.

"Yeah, i guess you're right, ignoramus, but there's just one thing you forgot." i replied

"Oh yeah what?" he asked, his smug grin still cemented on his features.

"You came here for two mutants, not one" i said, right as Dale, who had snuck behind him, used his powers to send the blob into unconsciousness.

"Where would you be without me, fruit mix?" Dale asked with a smile.

"No time for that, lets run!" i said, as we dashed for the parking lot.

We ran full tilt, not even stopping to deal with the other mutants that were after us. instead, Dale just sent them to dreamy town as we ran. I breathed a silent prayer of thanks to God as we made it to the van and jumped in, before turning the key and pulling out, peeling out of town and into the tunnel as fast as the van could go, the pedal pressed so hard to the floor that i thought my foot would go through it.

"Where are we headed now?" i asked Dale, who was rummaging through the notebook we kept in the glove compartment, the notebook that had detailed directions to where we planned on hiding next.

"To the nearest airport, its in Anchorage, it's about fifty two miles from here, i'll give you better directions when were out of this tunnel" he said, flipping through our notes.

"How long will the dweeb squad back there be out for?" i asked, wanting to know just how much of a head start we had.

" 'bout three hours, plenty of time for us to grab a plane out of here." Dale answered before pointing a finger down the dim tunnel.

I looked to where he was pointing and saw a man standing in the road, with his hands held out. He was dressed in a helmet and cape, the colors of which i couldn't discern in this low light setting. I went to run him over, as i had a feeling that he was another one of the goons from before. But, the gas pedal actually pushed up, and the brake pedal came slamming down, before the cars door swung open of their own accord and our seats flung us out of the car, directly in front of the man in the cape.

"Ah good, you've stopped" he said with a chuckle "i am Magneto, master of magnetism, leader of the brotherhood of mutants, and i have come to extend the brotherhoods hand of protection and friendship to you, young brothers." he said, obviously trying his best to sound like a kind, protective old man.

"Yeah, no dice" i said, as Dale and i rose to our feet. "I don't know much about the rest of the mutant population, but i do watch the news, i've seen your radical, "protection" of mutants, it looks more like a slaughter of humans, really. We won't be coming with you, and you'll be too tired to stop us, Dale?" i said, as Dale made a finger gun and pulled the trigger, sending Magneto sleeping to the floor.

At least, that's what should've happened, instead, Magneto laughed, amused at our attempt at escape.

"You should have done more than watch the news about me, then you might know that my helmet is designed to keep out the likes of Charles Xavier, arguably the most powerful psychic to date. So no knockout parlor trick will take me down, now, come peaceably, i do not wish to hurt innocent mutants." he said, once again extending his hand to us.

Dale however, was not keen on defeat, and slammed his eyes shut, and blasted the man in front of us with every last bit of his power. And even though his powers were virtually untrained and untapped, i watched the so called "master of magnetism" sway, and then slowly collapse to the ground, with a clunk. Proceeded by Dale also falling, but unlike magneto, i was there to catch him.

I picked him up and set him in the back of the van, and drove off, heading for the airport.

Authors note: i hope you all enjoyed this fic. please comment what you think can be improved so that i can make this story better.

Moonfly7, signing off.