Alright guys, this is set in the X-Men Evolution universe (when they're in high school. Shut up, it was the one I grew up on). I'm just trying this fic out, I'm not 100%sure where it's going to go, or even if I'm going to finish it. I want to get feedback and this is the best place for this I could think of. Let me know what you think. PS, even if I do get positive feedback on this, it could be a while before I update. I'm trying to focus on my Pride and Prejudice fic at the moment. Just warning you.
I was a test tube cocktail baby. A little of this, a little of that, fifty percent this, thirty percent that, five percent of something else. Add a handful of minor donors too unimportant to get more than a passing mention, and what do we have? A perfect cocktail for a lab experiment. Shaken, not stirred, and look what we have here. Whoop-dee-fricking-doo.
I wondered if they were still looking for me.
My one eyed view of the world from under my rain-drenched hair showed me the city. The city I had eked a living off of (as much as a sixteen year old could) for a year. If what I had done could be considered living. It was a seething maze, practically pulsing with light and life. It was not where I belonged.
Freak, monster. Their words echoed in my head, bouncing like pinballs, their truth settling in my bones. I was a freak, a monster. Not meant to be alive. A crazy scientist's failed shot at perfection. That was what I was, a failure. No matter what I did to try and redeem myself, I would always be a worthless gutter rat.
I turned away from the bright lights of the city and pulled my black trench coat tighter around myself. Alone again. It was a long walk to the train station.
I stared at my half-visible reflection in the train window, distorted by the raindrops racing across its surface. Distorted. That was a recurring theme in my life.
The scientists who had raised me in the lab, they never told me who I really was, what I really was, until one day I had my powers. I got to celebrate by having needles and blades shoved in me. No one had told me what they were injecting into me, or what was going on, or what the hell was expected of me except 'take your pills, Lily,' 'don't talk back, Lily,' 'stay still for your shots, Lily.'
I was sick of being used as an experiment. Weapon X could collapse into rubble, burn in the eternal fires of hell- I really didn't like them. My one visible eye looked normal for the time being, but if I was to show my true face, like had accidently happened back in Vancouver, people freaked out. Something about glowing white eyes, among other things, unsettled some people.
"This seat taken?" asked a middle aged man, pointing to the seat across from me. Immediately slamming into risk-assessment mode, I took in his off-the-rack suit, the dark circles under his eyes, and the worn briefcase clutched in his hand. Not exactly a tough guy. I arched an eyebrow at him, smirking slightly. I had three possible escape routes from where I sat and knew a multitude of ways to incapacitate him before he could twitch.
"Naw, my invisible friend is sitting here today," I said, patting the empty chair to my right. He smiled slightly and wearily settled across from me. I nudged my black backpack over so it wouldn't be in the way of his feet.
"What's a young lady like you doing on the 11:30PM train?" the man asked eventually, setting the worn paperback he'd been reading down. I turned my attention to him. Now I'd never know who won that particular raindrop race across the train window, dang it.
"Going to see the rest of Canada, man," I said nonchalantly, pulling my orangey red hair over one shoulder.
"You seem awfully young to be doing that," He commented. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Please, excuse me for prying, but are you running away from home?"
I couldn't help it, I burst into laughter. Home. I'd never had a home to run away from. I grew up in a lab, a land of cold steel and needles. I escaped with one of the few female scientist's help when I was thirteen. I'd gone from city to city since then, stealing and working wherever I had the chance. I had no home. Never had, never will. Home wasn't something that could ever exist for me, both for my safety and that of those around me.
"I guess you could say that," I finally said, wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. He frowned at me, and I sputtered into laughter again. I'd dealt with people like him before. It really was a shame. They were just trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately, the right thing meant getting locked up in Juvie, or in some cell over night until they figured out what to do with me. It had only happened twice before, but I wan't about to let it happen again.
"There's places you can go for that, you know. People can help you," He said, looking incredibly serious, I drummed my skater-shoe clad feet on the carpeted floor of the train. I didn't want him turning me in. It would be easy to get out if I was put in Juvie or something, but I didn't want to have to do that. I'd have to steal another backpack, another jacket. I liked the ones I had, thank you very much.
"Look, sir, no disrespect intended, but you don't know what I've been through. My life has been nothing but a huge mistake," I said, my mirth quickly draining away. Huh, probably one of the most honest things I'd said to anyone since escaping. Huh.
"I'm sure it's not as bad as you make it seem," he said, prompting me to roll my eyes.
"What if it is?" I grabbed my backpack from the floor and left.
I stood in the middle of the tracks, train speeding away behind me. It really had been too easy to jump off the caboose of that thing. It hadn't even taken any mental preparation.
Maybe I should seek help. Suicidal thoughts were never good.
Someone beat me to Weapon X.
I listened to the last echoing boom of the explosion as I watched the smoke billow from Mount Mikena, obscuring the bright blue sky. I grabbed my backpack from where I had set it on the ground and started making my way towards the mountain. Had to make sure no one important was left alive.
"I was gonna blow them up, not fair," I muttered. It was a couple days after the train incident and I was still on the lookout for police officers. The man had meant well, but I couldn't get caught. The cops had caught up to me at Edmonton, and I had had to be pretty quick to ditch them.
Technically, I didn't exist. I didn't have a birth certificate, no social insurance number, nothing. That would raise a few questions. If the government didn't know you were a thing that had happened, anything could happen to you with no repercussions as long as you kept it under wraps. That was kind of the whole point, to be honest; why the scientists had made me.
I rounded an out cropping of rock, and was suddenly a few meters from a rather beaten-up looking man. I recognized him, but he wasn't one of the scientists. His yellow and black uniform was in tatters. He had a rather distinctive face, placing him should have been easy.
Before I could piece together who he was, the man, rather out of it, quickly navigated the few meters separating us and stabbed me in the stomach. With claws coming from between his fingers. So that's who he was.
"Who the hell are you?" He growled, his eyes unfocused. Blood loss wasn't fun. I winced as his claws moved in my gut. I wasn't too worried about it though. I healed very quickly. This man, Wolverine, did too, but I healed quicker. I could see his flesh struggling to knit back together under his rather ridiculous looking uniform. His powers were knitting together his internal organs before worrying about his skin. I knew that rather unpleasant fact from experience.
"That would be none of your concern, Pops. I would appreciate it if you removed your claws from my stomach, though," I deadpanned before wincing once more as the claws retracted. A look of horror fell over his face as he realized he had just stabbed a teenage girl in the stomach.
"I-I-" I held up a hand, rolling my head on my shoulders as I felt my stomach healing. I pulled up my shirt, exposing where he had stabbed me. The three neat little gashes were already sealing over, the only thing left being a dribble of blood under each wound.
"I'm fine, my shirt though…" I frowned, poking a finger through my turquois tank top. "Come on, man, this was my favorite." I think I was mostly babbling now. I didn't really want to think about the fact that I'd just found the man responsible for thirty percent of my DNA.
I had stolen a bunch of files from Weapon X before I ran away, and they had a lot of information about my genetics. I was fifty percent Mystique, thirty percent Wolverine, five percent Sabertooth, and the other fifteen was from about twenty other mutants. They hadn't found it necessary to mention who they were, only list their powers. The ability to create things from pure energy, amplifying the powers of others, things like that.
I let my shirt go and turned back to Wolverine. "Where you headed? You're gonna need some help." There was still exposed metal showing on his head, part of his ribs exposed. He started to growl that he didn't need help, but I slid myself under his arm and held him up. For an underweight girl of five foot five inches I was pretty strong.
"If you're not gonna tell me where you're going, I'll just take you somewhere," I threatened.
He looked at me appraisingly, frowned, and gestured east.
It wasn't too long before two people sitting on a log came into view through the trees and fog.
"Mr. Logan?!" Called one excitedly. One of them was a girl a couple years younger than me, long brown hair in a ponytail. The other was blue.
My attention was taken from those two when Wolverine grunted, then proceeded to put more weight on me until it became difficult to move
"Stop gaping at me and assist," I ground out as my knees started shaking. The other two snapped their jaws shut and helped me lower Wolverine to the snowy ground. I let a sigh out from between my teeth and turned to the two new people, who were glaring at me suspiciously.
Today was not my day.
"So, Kitty and Night crawler. What sort of place is this school?" I asked dubiously, double checking the straps securing my sort-of-dad in the seat of the "X-jet" (X-men, X-jet, what the heck? Do these people have an X fetish?).
"It's pretty cooool, Aggy," Nightcrawler, Kurt, told me, using the fake name I had given them. Not like I had an actual name. Lack of birth certificate and all. Kurt had warmed up to me pretty quickly, but Kitty remained suspicious. Good for her. A little suspicion was healthy for the system. "We have training sessions every morning, before we go to school, then we have more training after." I snorted with derision as I flopped into my chair.
Poor lad didn't know what freedom was.
"If it's a school- oh, I'm sorry – institution, then why don't we learn math and English and crap there?" They ignored me.
"The Professor is going to want to talk to you when we get to the institute," Kitty said, barely glancing at me from where she was seated in the pilot's chair. Auto-pilot required supervision apparently.
"Cool," I said, pulling my feet up onto my chair, resting my chin on my knees. I would have to figure a way out of here before then. Or… I hadn't set out to find my "dad," but now that I had found him maybe I could… find out more about Weapon X, their operatives, other locations, stuff like that.
"So Aggy, what were you doing in Canada?" Kurt asked, vaporizing in a cloud of blue smoke in the chair beside me.
"I'm Canadian?" I raised one eyebrow. Was the middle of November a popular time to tour Canada or was he dense?
"Wow, really? Do you have a pet polar bear?" He asked innocently.
My other eyebrow rose to join the first one. "Sweetie, if your accent wasn't so cute I would smack you, eh?" The last word was tacked on as an afterthought.
As the jet lowered itself into the landing bay, I felt something brush my mind. Telepath. Before I could even think about it, my mental barrier slammed into place. It was one of those unnamed mutant's powers. Poor guy apparently couldn't do anything else but block telepaths from entering his mind. Weapon X thought that was a useful thing to have though, so boom, into the bubbling cauldron it went.
A man in a wheelchair and a… African-American woman with white hair (? What?) met us in the landing bay of the 'X-jet.' Kurt poofed out to them and went with the white haired woman, presumably to get a stretcher, while Kitty lowered the ramp for the man in the wheelchair. Him. He was the telepath, and a strong one at that.
I sighed and grabbed my backpack, ready to get read the riot act and then kicked out. Or make a break for it. Whichever presented the opportunity first. That was what normally happened when I was found in places I shouldn't be. He would be bound to ask me about my mental barrier. Hmm, feign ignorance, or be hostile? Decisions decisions.
The thought of getting yelled at and then exiled once more made me think. What did I want to do from here? Mikena was destroyed, and I had no idea where else to look for Weapon X. I glanced and my 'father,' wondering if he'd know more than me. Or if he even knew I existed.
"Welcome to the Institute," said the man, wheeling up to me. "I'm professor Xavier. The gurney will be here in a moment." He glanced up at me, then went back to checking Wolverine's injuries.
"He'll be fine. Just got some internal damage. Nothing big." Huh, that probably sounded weird to anyone who could heal almost instantaneously. "Should be conscious in…" I did a rough estimation in my head. My healing was much quicker than his, my file said, due to… something something genetics. "Half an hour, tops." It was the best I could do. There wasn't an exact formula for these things.
"Sorry, I didn't catch your name," Xavier said, finally looking at me properly as Kurt and the white haired woman returned with a stretcher. I had a strict policy of not trusting anyone. Ever. He had kind eyes, but his mental energy was still there, pressing at my head, trying to find a way in. It felt like he was doing it subconsciously. I had met a couple telepaths on my whirlwind adventures, and I knew some who didn't even know they were telepathic.
"Aggy," I said, narrowing my eyes at him, thanking my honed ability to lie. Even if he couldn't get in my head, telepaths were good at reading faces and body language. "Could you please stop that?" I asked, touching my head.
"Oh, sorry." He wheeled out of their way and I stepped back. The woman gave me a quizzical look, but didn't say anything .
We walked behind Wolverine as he was taken to their medical room in silence. The hallways were utilitarian, white washed walls with blue-tiled floors. The lack of windows told me we were still underground, despite the incline of the hallway.
They set Wolverine down on a stainless steel table next to an array of surgical tools and larger equipment. An MRI blinked sleepily in one corner. I hoped they weren't planning on putting him in one of those. There was a reason you had to take off all jewelry and metal things before going in one of those.
"I thought this was just a school for us freaks – it's a hospital too? Weird," I said, running a finger along the table holding the scalpels and other things I recognized from the lab. I could feel a panic attack coming on. The combination of the smell of bleach and the tools was too similar, too familiar.
"We have to have these facilities. A lot of us can't go to a normal hospital because our mutations would be immediately obvious," Xavier said.
"Like blue boy?" I smirked. I needed to get out of there. I could feel my breath speeding up. I carried on without waiting for an answer. "Nice meeting you folks, you seem cool! Now, I have to get going." Without waiting for an answer, I spun on my heel and headed back towards the landing bay.
"Wait a minute... Aggy," said Xavier, wheeling along behind me. "Do you have anywhere to go? A home, parents?" I felt a little better once I was out of the medical room, my breath slowed down and I felt my pulse returning to normal. I stopped and turned to him, smiling slightly.
"You're nice, I don't want to lie to you more than I already have. Please don't ask me anything else." Surprisingly, I meant it. He did seem really nice, and I didn't want to lie to him. Maybe I was losing my touch. Shrugging internally, I turned around again.
I only made two steps before-
"Aggy, wait!" yelled Kurt, poofing in front of me. "You could stay here with us, if you want. It's not too bad." He peered around me, to look at Xavier. The bald man nodded.
I looked back through the door to the medical room at Wolverine laying on the table, getting bandaged by the white-haired woman. Maybe he knew about me, about what I was supposed to be, what I was supposed to do.
I glanced at Xavier, then back to Wolverine.
"Maybe for a bit," I conceded.
Xavier had a nice office. There wasn't too much personal in it, but it gave off a general aura of 'professional but relatable.'
A lot of mahogany was involved.
"Now, if you are going to be staying with us for any length of time, I'm going to have to know your real name." Xavier looked at me over steepled fingers. I raised an eyebrow.
"I just want to talk to Wolverine. We have a lot in common." I tapped my fingers on my knee. Xavier didn't say anything, just looked at me, waiting for me to respond. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek for a moment, then sighed.
"I don't have a real name," I told him. "You'll never find my birth certificate, or any other government traceable document in my name. 'cause I don't have one." He seemed to believe me, but still seemed sceptical.
I crossed my ankles, sticking them under his desk.
"The scientists called me Lilly, if that helps." He nodded.
"And what are your powers?" I clicked my tongue against my teeth.
"That's more of a difficult question to answer."
Alright guys, tell me what you think! Like I said before, I'm just testing things out with this fic, I'm not even sure if I want to write too much more... let me know how it is please!