Wait! Before you start reading!
Alright, this a project of mine I felt like doing, because I'm really more into DC at the moment for the following reason. Lately, Marvel Comics have been about one thing and one thing only. Watching bad things happen to good people. I don't believe that's what superheroes are for. Superheroes are there to inspire us and give us hope, not to show us that everyone suffers and we should all be depressed. For this reason, and because Marvel has many characters who, with little or no modification, could be truly great, I now present the Marvel Universe Neo; the Marvel Universe reinvented for those who, like myself, still read comic books in the way a child would; looking for something or someone totally awesome to look up to, or better yet, to look up AT.
Basically, the Neoverse, as I like to call it, is a different, ongoing marvel continuity, in which many things differ, while some remain the same. I will be messing with the ages, character traits, personalities, skills, histories, and even the powers of many of Marvel's finest characters in these stories, so if you're an original-continuity loyalist, you don't have to read, but I certainly hope you can keep an open enough mind to read this stuff. At first I was worried it wouldn't work out, but then, X-Men Evolution was fairly successful, and it did pretty much the exact same thing I'm doing here. This will be an ongoing series (at least one each month, like real comic books,) as will its counterpart; Tales from the Marvel Universe Neo. I'm not sure how long I'll keep doing these series. As long as I still enjoy it, I suppose. Anyways, I hope you enjoy Marvel Neo's first stories and will keep reading for more.
-Bra1n1ac-
The Xavier Institute Neo
Issue 1
"That's them right now." Professor Xavier said, looking out the window of his study to the driveway where the cars were letting off the students, "I want you to memorize their faces, Logan."
Logan clearly wasn't paying any more attention than he had to, however, so Xavier prompted him again.
"Logan."
"I saw 'em halfway up the drive, Chuck." Logan replied, "From this distance, I got their scents down too."
"Now, remember Logan." Charles Xavier said sternly, "You're not to tell the students your philosophies under any circumstances, and of course, you're not to raise a hand to them, much less a claw. This isn't an army camp. It's a school. Do anything to make it seem less like one, and I will truly force you off my property, and I don't care what things have been like in the past."
"I don't get you, Chuck." Logan replied, "You were never slow on the trigger during the war. How come you ain't teaching these kids what they need to survive?"
"Logan, the war is over, and we have peace now." the Professor replied, his chair wheeling him, by the stick on its armrest, closer to Logan's position, "Peace is something to be enjoyed..."
"But not taken for granted." Logan remarked disgustedly, "Chuck, these kids are going out into a war zone, whether you want to accept it or not, and unless you teach 'em what they need to know to hold their own in that war zone, they're gonna get real messed up."
"Why are you so determined to see wars where none exist, old friend?" Xavier asked, turning back to face the window as Logan stared long and hard at the back of his bald head.
"Because I know what life is like for a mutant outside this... this petting zoo you've built for yerself." Logan replied angrily, "Chuck, you know I ain't gonna trash yer dream about peace for everybody, but the fact of the matter is, there's lotsa mutants out there who want plenty of things more 'n peace. Humans too, come to think of it, but in humans you don't notice it so much, 'cause they ain't got the power to get those things. Tell me somethin', Chuck. If you wanted a supermodel, and you'd do anythin' to get her, you could, couldn't ya?"
"I would never do something like that." Charles Xavier replied icily.
"'Course not!" Logan said, still angry, "But there's lotsa guys out there who would. More who'd do anythin' for fame, or money, or power. You think humans'd hold 'emselves back if they could just use mutant powers to get what they want? I used to BE one of those guys, Chuck! Don't try to tell me everybody'll follow your dream, and it's all gonna go all nice. It don't work like that. These kids are gonna be part of a minority; people who still believe in doin' the right thing, and they're gonna have to fight to make it work."
"And how exactly does fighting prove that one can coexist peacefully with humans?" Xavier asked, raising an eyebrow at Logan.
"It ain't to prove a point, Chuck. If you get broken in two by some guy's weapon in a fight, it don't prove nothin', 'cept that he was strong and you weren't."
"Well, I am the one who makes the decisions here," Xavier replied with a heavy sigh, "and I believe that these children have been born into a more peaceful world than we were. They don't need to learn the hard life lessons you did Logan, and they certainly don't need to fight for their survival. Now, you will comply with my wishes."
"Yeah." Logan replied, still clearly upset, "It's the dumbest thing I ever heard, but yeah."
They were a relatively small group; only seven in all, and all of them between fourteen and eighteen, but one could tell just from looking at them that they weren't normal.
The first kid that caught Logan's attention was a boy with navy-blue skin, eyes that glowed gold, and long, pointed ears. Logan wasn't sure at first, until he turned around, but he also seemed to have a long tail with a point like an arrowhead on the end, and his hands and feet had a very odd number of fingers and toes. He only had three fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot; each one as thick as a sausage. He was visibly a mutant, unlike most of the others. He was wearing a red shirt with a collar, short sleeves, and long, brown pants that ended in dark socks that had clearly been specially designed to fit his feet, because they hugged his toes rather snugly.
The next of the group that seemed odd to Logan was another of the boys, closer to the front, and only because he was wearing sunglasses that looked like they were made out of rubies, and just might have been, Logan realized. He had dark, brown hair that was carefully, but abnormally combed, from the top down on all sides, as if he'd had to comb it without removing his glasses. He was dressed in a green athletic shirt and red shorts, leading to white sneakers, behind dull gray socks on his feet, and he had a watch on one wrist. He also had a rather stiff look in the parts of his face that Logan could see, as if he was carefully on his guard, even against the other students, in order to prepare himself for an attack. It was the sort of icy feeling that one might normally get from a war vet, or someone who's been picked on too often in their youth.
The third person who drew Logan's attention did so only after he'd finished evaluating the first two, and mostly because she'd chosen that moment to rise into the air, causing a gust a wind to wrinkle the clothes of those around her, and forcing the boy with the red sunglasses to push them further inward, onto his face, to keep them from flying off. The girl had dark brown skin, and bleach white hair, which was abnormal for someone her age, who wasn't accustomed to dying it, but there wasn't much about her blue eyes that seemed odd. She was dressed in a very short skirt, however, that was black, and a short-sleeved shirt of the same color, with boots that went almost up to her knees. Aside from that, she didn't seem to be wearing anything else, leaving her arms, legs, hands and neck quite visible, as well as parts of her stomach, but she acted as if she would have been happier to have nothing on. The reason she seemed to be flying was apparently that she thought it was fun. She was definitely having a good time, and even when she descended to join the other kids, Logan noticed that her feet never quite touched the ground.
After the flying girl, came another boy of noticeable height for his age. Not quite so tall as most adults, but definitely taller than Logan himself. Still, his well-toned muscle structure was the first thing Logan noticed about him. He'd definitely had some form of physical training in the past, whether it had been actual fight training or not. He had black hair that was slicked back, and was dressed in a green shirt, with tan pants and black sneakers.
After him, all the others just looked like plain, ordinary, human teenagers. There was one boy with brown hair and a smirk, who wore a light blue shirt and brown pants. There was a girl with short, dark hair that hung a couple inches below her ears, dark sunglasses, a pink, short-sleeved shirt, blue shorts, and brown boots, with a school bus-yellow overcoat. She seemed to be chewing on something. The last of the kids had hair like a fire engine, and she was, Logan noticed, quite beautiful. She was wearing a red polo shirt and a pair of typical brown pants, with black shoes on her feet, and she seemed to be looking around nervously.
"Just seven?" Logan asked as he and Charles Xavier headed for the doors of the Institute to welcome their new guests, "I thought ya said this was a school, Chuck."
"We're starting relatively small." Charles Xavier replied, "Many mutants and their guardians feel the Xavier Institute doesn't have a sufficient record of discretion yet to be worth the risk. I should also mention that the parent of one young mutant in particular is a noted professor herself, and has asked to be allowed to teach here for a semester, as she finds the idea thrilling, but wants to see it in action."
"...So she can figure out whether she wants her kid to come." Logan noted.
"No." the Professor replied, "She's already decided that she wants him to attend, but he's still too young for this sort of schooling."
In only a moment, the Professor pushed a button on the side of the main doors of the Institute, and they opened, revealing the seven students, all talking to one another as the cars that had driven them in noticed the professor's arrival, and began to pull away.
Charles Xavier was a very bald man of reasonable height, dressed in a full suit and jacket, however his height wasn't really noticeable, as he was seated in a wheelchair. Clearly, however, his torso and arms suffered no debilitating weakness, or lack of functionality in the way that his legs did, as he moved them readily when speaking to the students throughout the day. From what those present could tell, however, Xavier might not have had a single hair anywhere on him.
The man who stood next to him, however, gave a more intimidating impression, particularly to the girl with the sunglasses, whose name was Jubilation, as she'd had, or thought she'd had, some experience with his type before. He wasn't a very tall man, but he was very fit, and he was dressed, at the moment, in a white, short-sleeved shirt and black shoes and pants, the latter of which were very tight on him. He had lots of black hair that was almost as long as Jubilation's, but it was rather poorly-combed, if it had been combed recently at all. That man was Logan, and he had a gruff, cynical expression on his face most of the time, looking this way and that periodically as if expecting an attack.
"Welcome to the Xavier Institute." Charles Xavier began with a smile, "My name... excuse me... I said that..." EXCUSE ME!
That last exclamation was completely silent, but every student present heard it clearly in their minds, and suddenly, they were all paying attention.
"Thank you." Professor Xavier said, aloud that time, "As I was saying, welcome. My name is Charles Xavier, and as you can see, I, like yourselves, am a mutant. Now, I hope to get to know you all better in the days to come, but for the moment, there's orientation to get through, so that all of you will know your way around this school. I barely know my way around myself yet, but I'm sure we'll be able to figure things out together. Come in, please."
The professor quickly turned his wheelchair around, and followed on one side by Logan, proceeded back into the school. The kids seemed quite nervous at first, but followed slowly, with the white-haired young lady still never actually touching the ground, although she made a show of moving her legs, like the others.
For the next half hour or so, Xavier showed the group of students around the institute, which was clearly just an old mansion converted into a school. Many rooms that had obviously once been kitchens, or dining rooms, or rooms for special interests, like music or art, had been turned into classrooms, while many of the guest bedrooms had been used for something else. One guest room in particular had obviously just been intended as storage space before, and lights and insulation had been added only recently. Still, at the very least, there was enough room for everyone to live, learn and generally hang out when the need arose. The professor seemed to have run out of rooms past a certain point, and had garrisoned many of the mansion's recreational activities, couches and chairs in the open areas of the hallways, christening them "common areas," but it was more than anyone else there could have done with the place.
The impression was left upon the minds of many of the students that the professor was both a person of somewhat impressive wealth, and also budget-conscious in almost every detail.
"Now, there will be other staff members later on in the semester." the professor said as he lead them back towards a classroom near the center of the building, "and I'm certain there will be other students who'll wish to attend as well, at a later date, but for the moment, it's just the ten of us."
"Is Mister Logan a teacher?" The white-haired girl, whose name was Ororo, asked, still floating about an inch off the ground, as she had been the entire time.
"No." the professor replied in a hurry, "He's here for emergencies, which I don't expect to have. But if he gives anyone here any trouble, call out to me with your thoughts, and I'll speak with him about it."
Logan made a sound that sounded something like "Hmph" and looked away from the professor as he said that.
"You said ten." Scott; the boy in the red sunglasses remarked in some surprise, "Who's the tenth?"
"Professor Henry Mccoy." Xavier replied, "Like myself, Logan and all of you, he is a mutant, but I think that when you see him, you may be a bit... surprised. Try to maintain your composure around him, however. Regardless of appearances, he is among the wisest and gentlest souls I have ever known."
Xavier moved into the classroom, and looked back and forth for Professor Mccoy, but didn't see him at first. Then, suddenly, he heard Kurt (the navy-skinned boy with the pointed ears) exclaim "Himmel!" under his breath while looking directly up, followed by "So I am not the only one." in a heavy German accent.
All the students looked up as well, to see the large, broad-shouldered, blue-furred behemoth that was standing upside down on the ceiling of the classroom, reading from what appeared to be a textbook. It had long furry ears, that twitched slightly, as the students entered the classroom and looked at it, and it was dressed in a white lab coat, and long, thick blue pants. It had neither shoes nor socks on, however, but it was wearing a pair of reading glasses, which it removed with what was probably intended to be a friendly smile, as it turned to face the students, although its long, sharp fangs and dark claws, which bore a close resemblance to black guitar picks in both size and shape, made even the friendliest expressions look somewhat threatening. All of the students shook slightly, either in fear or in surprise as the blue-furred creature turned over in mid-air, releasing the ceiling with its feet, and fell to the floor with a crouching crash. Looking at it up close, the students could see it much better, and Bobby, in particular, felt very intimidated when he realized that each of its hands was bigger than his head.
"Students, this is Professor Mccoy." Xavier said, introducing them to the monstrous figure in the lab coat, that was casually tucking its reading glasses away in one of the coat's inner pockets as it spoke for the first time since they'd seen it.
"It's a pleasure to meet all of you. I'd offer you my hand to shake, but of course, most people find a handshake to be... unwelcome during their first meeting with me."
He said those things without seeming the least bit offended by their reaction to his appearance, but his assumption was, in that case, unfounded. Kurt had stepped forward, having removed his socks, and held out his own hand warmly to shake. As he saw that, Professor Mccoy smiled, and shook Kurt's hand with his own big, furry one.
"It is a pleasure to meet you sir." Kurt said, his smile never fading as he moved, barefoot, to stand behind Professor Mccoy.
"Well," Mccoy said, turning back to the other students, sure that Kurt had handed him a foothold into that group of kids, "Is my friend here alone, or does anyone else wish to shock me in the direction of a heart ailment?"
He said all those things in such a casual and carefree voice, that not one of the students could possibly have found his remarks offensive or derogatory, and in only a moment more, the tall kid with the slicked-back hair; Piotr stepped forward and shook Mccoy's hand with a stern expression on his face, then moved to take up a position next to Kurt, folding his arms as he did so.
From that, nearly all the other students decided to shake Mccoy's hand. In fact, it was only Jean; the girl with the bright red hair, who held back, but no one tried to convince her otherwise, and Mccoy didn't press the matter, stepping up to the front of the classroom and pulling a small television from under the desk there, then turning it on, although at first, there was nothing on the screen.
"Professor Mccoy will give you all a short briefing on the nature of mutant powers, then you can go unpack your things, and get acquainted." Xavier said, "I have some telephone calls to make, but I hope to see you all later on in the week during the 'mastery of mutant gifts' courses."
Then Xavier left the room with Logan following him closely, and Professor Mccoy began his lecture.
Most of the time, when a professor gives a lecture, students expect it to be boring, but Mccoy's lecture was kept interesting by the fact that much of the time, Mccoy would demonstrate what he was talking about in person, instead of just listing it. His announcement that mutants are born with special abilities or traits that non-mutants lack was kept low-key, since obviously, everyone present knew that, and his explanation of how the body of a mutant sometimes differs from that of a non-mutant was demonstrated when he held up both arms for the class to see the long, pointed nails on his fingers, a rather humorous gesture, since none of those present had stopped looking at his unusual physical traits since the lecture began. Of course, what was really interesting was when Mccoy explained the other type of mutant power, which he called "the extraforce power." According to Mccoy, just as human bodies generate biochemical energy that they often don't even need, so mutant bodies generate not only the same kind of energy, but energy of another sort, which he simplified by calling it "extraforce" or "X-Force" for short. Normally, that energy also did nothing, except being channeled back into the functions of the body, to make mutants tire less easily than non-mutants, but the energy also responded to the commands of their thoughts.
"Some mutants can use X-Force to perform unusual feats." Mccoy said, "In fact, I suspect many of you here can. Essentially, the mind of a mutant reaches out, either intentionally or in some cases, autonomicly; which means all the time, and forms a specific 'range' or 'territory' in which their X-Force can be used. For instance, if I tell my mind to form territories around my hands and feet, then channel my X-Force into those territories, the X-Force responds, changing the way my hands and feet react when they touch surfaces, like so..."
Mccoy then proceeded to walk freely and easily up the nearest wall, and reached sideways across the room, to flip a button on the television, showing a diagram of a human head projecting, by dotted lines, a circle into the air nearby. The circle was labeled "territory." Soon, the diagram changed; also showing the rest of the human body, which glowed in the chest area with a ball of light that said "X-Force" in the middle. Then, the diagram changed one more time, showing the X-Force as only a half circle, and the other half glowing in the dotted line circle, which read "mutant power." In each of those stages, Mccoy once again explained how mutants use energy to either project energy directly, to move existing energy and matter, or to change the way pre-existing matter works within their territory for a limited time, but the extent of those mutant powers was, he said, still limited by the amount of X-Force their bodies generated.
"But that's not the end of the story." Mccoy said, clicking the button on the television again, while still standing on the wall, which, the students found, made the lesson all the easier to listen to, "You see, X-Force isn't a simple battery inside you that'll run out over time. It reacts like a muscle, and if you come to a point where you can't use your mutant powers, or you begin to feel exhausted, it's probably just that your X-Force muscle is tired and needs rest, and like all muscles, if it's used regularly, and given sufficient rest at the proper times, and if you eat right, it'll grow stronger. That's the secret to strength, health and wellness in the body of a mutant, and in mutant powers."
With those words, Mccoy turned off the television, and resumed his place on the floor, saying, "Well, if you have any more questions, you can ask me anytime, of course, but I suspect many of you have other plans for the remainder of your day. The curriculum will be finished by this evening, so you'll all get a copy, and I can only hope you'll take it easy on me when classes begin."
He got a few chuckles from Bobby; the brown-haired boy in the blue, when he said that, and a couple of others, but most of the students were already on their way out, either waving good-bye to him or shaking his hand as they left.
By six in the evening, each student had found their room, and all the unpacking had been done. The Xavier Institute was a boarding school, which is to say, it offered students a place to live, while they attended, so unpacking, and in some cases, decorating had been a big thing. The school was, after all, going to be their home for the next several months, at least.
However, by six fifteen, many of the new students of the Xavier Institute had gathered in one of the "common areas." They'd exchanged greetings and names on the ride over, and during the tour, and so most of them felt somewhat more comfortable talking. Ororo was seated in mid-air, close to the ceiling, across from the other chairs in the room. Piotr and Jean were reading books, while Jubilation was seated on the couch, contemplating whether or not to turn on the television across the room. Kurt was perched on one of the nearby walls, deep in shadow, in imitation of the mutant power used by his new favorite teacher, and Scott was the last to arrive, seating himself in an armchair among the others.
"So what do you think of him, Kurt?" Scott asked the German boy who'd thought he'd been concealing himself near one of the corners of the ceiling, clinging to it barefoot as Mccoy had done, "Professor Xavier, I mean?"
"Oh! Scott..." Kurt said nervously, then for a few moments, he said nothing, but feeling he ought to respond, he eventually remarked, "Charles Xavier has my respect. I have no complaints about him. He has proven himself accepting of us... Logan is the one who worries me, but so long as it is Xavier I answer to, I see no real problems."
"Professor Xavier taught me how to control my powers." Scott admitted, "He made the glasses I'm wearing. Without them... I don't think I could ever be around people again. I guess I ought to trust him, but there's something about this school that, to me, doesn't seem... kosher."
"It is because it will go out of business soon." Piotr said, closing his book with a clap, "Xavier is cautious with his budget, but I do not believe he understands the risk of opening a school intended to admit people as naturally-reclusive as mutants. I do not know the size of his savings account, but it must be big indeed if he wishes to keep a school like this open on the meager tuition I gave him."
"He didn't ask me for a dime." Jubilation said, though she was looking more at the blank television screen than at the other students, "He might have worked out some deal with my dad, but I can't picture that lush giving him much."
This comment drew looks of concern from Jean, Ororo, and particularly Kurt. They weren't used to hearing someone talking that way about their own family.
"I don't think any of us could have given him a lot of money." Ororo said after a few moments, descending slowly from the ceiling to seat herself in mid-air near the others, "I like the idea of having greater control over my abilities, and I'm sure there are other things I can learn here too, but..." at that she paused, and trailed off.
"You don't think it'll last." Jean observed sadly, "I'd like to think it could. I mean, like you said, there's lots to discover here, but do you think Xavier can keep this thing going?"
"Doubt it." Jubilation replied.
"Hey guys! Whatcha talkin' about?" Bobby asked, the last to arrive.
"Nothin.'" Jubilation responded, snapping her sunglasses down over her eyes, even though it was already very dark in the room.
"Xavier loves peace." Piotr said, his expression hardening, "That is a bad omen."
"To love peace is no crime, Piotr." Kurt replied.
"No, but to be unprepared when war comes is." Piotr remarked sternly, "Xavier suspects nothing, because he hopes that nothing will disrupt this world he has built, but it cannot last."
Scott seemed to be thinking about that for a few moments, but eventually just scratched his head and stood up.
"Where are you going, Scott?" Jean asked.
"The gym." Scott replied, "I'm starting to feel half dead."
The others had no idea what he meant by that, however. After all, when one is extremely tired, doesn't it merit rest?
As for Bobby, over half of what had been said, even when he'd been there had gone right over his head.
There was no real cook in the Xavier Institute, although Mccoy seemed to have some skill at it, and had prepared a few dishes beforehand, which he'd left in the refrigerator to be reheated when need be, so most of the new students took some of that, It was good stuff, too. Some chicken, some fish, a few hamburgers and so forth. Only Scott hadn't agreed to have any, and only because he hadn't left the gym all evening.
Most of the kids had paid little attention to that, and Bobby had cracked a lame joke about how maybe, Scott's mutant trait was that he could only sleep in gyms, but Jean felt compelled to head down to the gym herself, and investigate the matter.
The "gym" was a fairly large room with all manner of exercise equipment inside. Gymnastic mats, metal and padded bars hanging from the walls and ceiling, punching bags of a very sturdy-looking type, weight sets that were close to some other advanced training equipment of a sort that Jean had never seen before, but which didn't look dangerous, and the edge of the gym was marked with distance lines like a track.
When Jean arrived at the gym, Scott wasn't using any of the equipment in the middle of the room. He was just running repeatedly around the track, and it was a strange sight for Jean, because she'd never seen anybody Scott's age run so fast for such a long time. After five minutes, then ten of that, Scott finally began, gradually, to slow down, and moved into the center of the room, towards the punching bags, then did something Jean had never expected to see.
As she watched Scott approach the punching bags, one of his legs darted out, slamming against the punching bag, then returning to the ground in under half a second, and then, from their places at his sides, his arms shot forward, delivering a volley of punches to the bag that Jean couldn't even keep track of. Jabs, crosses, and backhands were all in there, accompanied seamlessly by more kicks at regular intervals, but Jean couldn't keep track of them all, much less try to determine what kind of pattern he was using in his attack upon the stuffed bag. At last, in one swift motion, Scott leapt into the air, and swung backwards with his left leg, striking the punching bag across its front, causing it to twist all the way around in at least six turns on its rope, maybe seven. Then Scott was on the ground again, and Jean had never, at any point in that one day that they'd known each other, seen him with such a bright, happy smile on his face. It was among the oddest things Jean had ever seen. She'd been to gyms in the past, but the people there always seemed either upset, down, or at best, marginally pleased to be accomplishing something. Not Scott. He was enjoying himself. She could see it in his face. Scott was a very different sort of person than anyone else she'd known when it came to exercise and workouts.
Without even saying a word, or revealing her presence to him, Jean left the gym area to return to her room, filing away those new facts inside her mind. She had a chapter in a book that she wanted to finish, but Scott was, to her, both strange and mysterious in a way that none of the others really were, so she had a feeling that just like he had that day, he'd soon find other ways to capture her attention.
It was just past nine thirty, and Piotr was picking up books in the library, flipping through them, then putting them back where they belonged, his frown growing ever deeper as he did so. In fact, he was already considering leaving the Xavier Institute, but not because he expected it to close soon, as he'd said. It was more that he wasn't sure it had anything to offer him. Unlike Kurt, Piotr had no difficulties accepting Logan, or indeed, wanting to learn from him. Logan's gruff, ill-tempered attitude signified, to Piotr, someone who'd been scarred in his past by wars and violence, and that was just the sort of person he most wanted to speak with, particularly since none of the books he was searching through seemed to have anything pertaining to the martial arts in them.
Then, however, Piotr heard the sound of footsteps from the hallway that the Institute's library bordered, and putting away the book he'd been flipping through, went to see who it was. However, Piotr could not have received a less satisfactory answer to that question when he stepped into the hallway to look at the owner of the strong, yet delicate footfalls.
Piotr had never seen the girl before in his life.
She was a bit younger than him, but only by about a year or two. In short, she was in the right age range to be a student, and although it didn't really register to Piotr at the time, she was actually quite beautiful. She was dressed largely in red; deep red pants and a red shirt with bare arms, and on her wrist was a black watch. She also wore brown gloves on her hands, and brown, women's boots on her feet, the tops of which ran up into the legs of her pants. Her hair, however, seemed a little odd, as it was mostly brown, but with a white streak through the front.
"Who are you?" Piotr asked, suspiciously at first, but then a bit more relaxed, "Have you come to apply to the Institute?"
"Nawt exactly." the girl replied with a thick southern drawl in her voice, "Ah'm heah for the professah."
"Xavier?" Piotr asked, "What do you want with him?"
The girl didn't really reply. Instead she just shot Piotr a sinister smile, and small, blue sparks seemed to fly sideways from both of her eyes as she did so.
"It's a pahty in here." she said at last, "Ah was hoping he'd join..."
Piotr wasn't sure what exactly she meant by that, but he suspected the woman was drunk, so immediately, he summoned forth his X-Force, and formed his mutant territory, which surrounded his body, changing its composition in an instant. Suddenly, he was six inches taller than he'd been before, and looked as if he were made entirely of living metal.
"I suggest you stay right there." Piotr said, "I do not wish to hurt you."
"Don't worry. You won't." the girl simply said as she walked further down the hallway in Piotr's direction.
Piotr frowned when he saw that. Whoever that girl was, she had no idea what she was getting herself into. In his metal form, his strength and endurance were increased several fold, and he was capable of crushing most motor vehicles with his bare hands. If he had to, he would grab her and hold her until he could get the attention of one of the teachers, or even knock her out, but as much as his recent experiences had hardened his heart in some areas, he still disliked the idea of hitting a woman, so he gave her another warning.
"I warn you; stay back, or I will be forced to attack!"
"Whatevah floats your battleship." the girl replied as she continued getting closer. At last, Piotr felt he had no choice, and stepped into the girl's path.
"Honey..." she said, hesitating for a moment in her continual forward momentum, "Y'all wanna step aside?"
"Nyet." Piotr replied, "You will stay where..."
"Bang." the girl said enthusiastically, and faster than Piotr could keep track of, her right fist shot out, driving into his midsection, and the rest was a blur. He was sure that wood, brick and metal were twisting around him, and that he was moving with incredible speed through the air. He was also sure that his feet had left the ground completely, and that his stomach was in intense pain, but all his other senses delivered was a blur of rapid sounds and colors, as he crashed through barrier after barrier, unable to determine where he was, or where he would eventually stop.
Scott had finished his workout at close to eight o'clock, and taken a thorough shower after that, then spent a little time reading, and shortly after that, had remembered that he hadn't had dinner, and went to the kitchen to get something, but just as he was closing the kitchen door with a sandwich in one hand and a book in the other, he heard a tremendous, prolonged noise of crashing and banging, and large, heavy things collapsing, caving in, and generally being destroyed. At once, Scott rushed out into the hallway, to find a boy made of metal lying on the floor in a heap, with rubble all over him. His chest seemed to have partly caved in, and although Scott was afraid at first, as he looked closer, he could tell who the metal boy was.
"Piotr?" Scott asked, pronouncing the Russian name flawlessly, "Is that you? What happened to you?"
"A...a woman, Scott!" Piotr exclaimed as Ororo and Kurt appeared as well, Ororo flying to his location through a nearby doorway, and gasping in shock at the sight of him; so different than he'd been when they'd first met, and injured to boot, and Kurt appearing in a cloud of black smoke that released a foul scent into the air for a moment. He didn't gasp, but it was plain that he was just as shocked.
"She's after Xavier!" Piotr exclaimed, "Don't let her get Xavi..."
Then Piotr lost consciousness from the pain.
Scott frowned in grim determination as he turned to face Ororo and Kurt, then said, "I'm going to the professor's room. Kurt, you find Mccoy. Piotr needs a doctor. Ororo, see what you can do to slow this... woman down."
Ororo dared another glance at Piotr's bent chest, which did little for her self-esteem, but she nodded slowly and flew forward, back through the holes that Piotr's body had made in the mansion's walls on its trip through the air...
Pretty much everyone in the Institute had been woken by the crashing noises, but not everyone went running to see what it was. Xavier, for one thing, had no means of running, regardless of the situation, although he did begin searching the mansion with his mind to try to find the cause of the noise, and as soon as he touched Kurt and Ororo's minds, and realized what was happening, he slid himself forward off his bed, and into his chair. There wasn't, Charles Xavier suspected, much he could do physically, but if that mysterious girl was even still around, she'd found some way of shielding herself from his psychic probes, and that meant that if he wanted to know what was going on, he had to see her for himself.
There was, however, another who didn't even bother to head in Piotr's direction, and that was Logan. The moment he woke up, he started to pick up some strange scents. One scent in the mansion's second floor was new, but Xavier and the students were converging on it. There were others, though. One new scent was outside the mansion, and another inside that he wasn't familiar with, in the professor's study...
His long-subdued battle instincts kicking back into full gear, Logan flung open the door to his room and headed down to the Professor's study, aware that he was being watched, but he didn't really have time to care, so long as the eyes watching him belonged to one of the students...
Ororo hadn't had a difficult time finding the intruder, who'd headed almost directly towards the Professor's room, somehow knowing her way around the institute with ease. Ororo intercepted her about halfway there, and hung in mid-air in front of her, causing both to stop where they were.
"Y'all want an autograph or something?" the intruder asked jokingly, but Ororo didn't smile.
"I don't care who you are or what powers you have..." Ororo said angrily, "You are going to move, right now!"
With that, Ororo drew forth her X-Force, and channeled it into her territory; the entire atmosphere of planet Earth, though the changes she chose to make were in a very specific section of that territory.
The wind in the room kicked up, whipping the loose-fitting pants of the intruder around as the driving winds became visible suddenly, due to the air in that room being displaced with such incredible speed. In only a moment, tornadoes the size of watermelons had formed over Ororo's hands, but that didn't seem to frighten the intruder. On the contrary, she smiled.
"Wind expert..." she muttered, "Thanks, but no thanks. Ah got more than enough of that already."
Then, the mysterious intruder blinked, and suddenly, Ororo lost her balance, and fell to the floor; the winds she'd called up to use as weapons, and even to keep her in the air vanishing in an instant, and no matter how much of her X-Force she poured into the task of getting them back, the winds remained frozen, as the intruder stepped over to the door to the professor's room, raised one hand, and...
Logan heard the thunderclap as he snuck into the professor's study, but it made no difference in what he was trying to do. He was tracking a very different intruder, and although he had some difficulty seeing the man, partly because of the darkness, partly because he was dressed all in a skintight black fabric, complete with a mask that covered his entire face, he could smell him, and followed the scent carefully, staying behind him so that he himself wouldn't be noticed. Logan made no sound, casting no distracting shadows into the man's field of vision, until at last, he was directly behind the intruder. The man was at the computer terminal on the professor's desk, uploading something to a disc, which he carefully slid into a pocket on his outfit, then without turning around, spoke.
"That was very clever of you. I admit, I'm surprised. I didn't expect, in a school like this one, to find a master of the martial arts such as yourself."
Slowly, the man in the black turned to face Logan, who was clearly quite surprised and disappointed that the black-clad man had been able to detect him.
"Of course, just because it's a surprise doesn't mean I'm not grateful. Stealth skills are something I was woefully lacking in before today. Thank you for providing them."
Without saying a word, Logan leapt forward, and delivered a swift blow with his palm towards the black-clad man's head, but found that in only a second, the man had brushed his attack off and spun around to deliver a long, sweeping kick, that knocked Logan back into the far wall uncomfortably.
"What was that, bub?" Logan asked, wiping blood away from his mouth, "Tai Kwon Doe? Mui Tai?"
"Heavily modified." the man in the black replied, sounding completely confident as he spoke, "Jeet Kun Doe."
"Bruce Lee..." Logan muttered, his feelings of curiosity over that strange, but talented fighter swelling up in him.
"Unfortunately, no." the figure replied, "He was dead by the time I discovered my mutant powers. I had to settle for one of his pupils, and a few dozen experts who know how to modify techniques for greater effectiveness. Iron Fist, Shang-Chi, Captain America and the like."
"I know Cap." Logan muttered a reply. "He'd never teach a burglar."
"Unless he didn't realize he was teaching a burglar." the man replied, and Logan began to slowly understand a bit of what the mysterious fighter was talking about. That strange fighter was a mutant, and his mutant power was the power to absorb skills... maybe even from everyone around him. Logan had to pray he had no other mutant powers, because that alone would probably take everything he had to bring down.
Immediately, Logan clenched both fists tightly, and a "shuck" sound was heard as three long, metal claws extended from the back of each of his fists. He could tell that the figure in the black had noticed the claws already, and recognized the danger.
In a moment, Logan leapt upward, then dove to the ground from mid-air with incredible speed, both sets of claws outstretched toward the figure's legs, but the burglar leapt into the air, bracing its legs against Logan's wrists to knock his claws aside, then delivering one simple kick in mid-air to Logan's face, and at first, Logan thought that that would leave him vulnerable to attack, but then, the man vanished.
There was no flash of light, puff of smoke or anything. One moment he was there, and the next, he was gone.
"Another mutant power." Thought Logan worriedly as he scrambled to his feet, and felt a fist drive into his back.
Logan coughed, but leapt forward to find the mysterious stranger standing in front of him, however he reacted quickly, striking out in two sideways blows with his hands, followed by another with his knee, but the figure merely ducked to avoid the first two blows, then swerved off to one side to avoid the knee. At that point, Logan turned the knee blow into a sideways kick, and the figure responded with a blocking maneuver with both of its arms that incorporated a technique of one arm punching the other from the side opposite the attack, so as to limit the shock of the kick's impact. Logan had never seen anything like it.
Just then, however, the figure rose up again, and Logan attacked with both hands, but this time, the figure merely leaned back, out of range of the claws and swept Logan's arms aside with its own, grabbing him by the shirt, and fell to the ground, vaulting Logan over his head.
Logan's landing was anything but soft, and worse yet, he knew that person had been telling the truth about the skills he'd stolen. That last throwing technique had definitely been gleaned from Captain America.
Swiftly, the figure advanced on Logan as he lay on the floor, knocking his claws to one side with its foot, and snapped its fingers, causing a burst of heat to appear around them. Logan couldn't see the intense heat, but he could tell it was there. Another mutant power, perhaps. Logan had to wonder how many mutants in the world were like that one; gifted in so many different ways.
"I could burn you to the bone right now," the man said, "but I don't want to run the risk of damaging the disc."
"You stay away from him!" came a voice from behind the two fighters, which made the black-clad figure turn to look for the source of the voice, but he registered no real surprise when he saw that the figure who'd addressed him was a boy covered in densely-packed snow...
The doors to the hallway leading to the Professor's room swung open with a scent of ozone, as the mysterious girl advanced through them, to find Professor Charles Xavier himself riding swiftly towards her position in his wheelchair, looking at her with anger in his eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Oh, you'll know soon enough." the girl replied, stepping forward to bend over the Professor purposefully, "Just gimme a kiss, sugah..."
"You will stop this immediately!" the Professor exclaimed, wheeling his chair back further away from her. However, when she didn't seem to be listening, he place both hands to his temples, and the girl could tell that a mutant power was swarming towards her, but it was falling into chaos, and failing to accomplish its mission as soon as it got close enough to her brain.
The Professor was dumbfounded as his hands lowered from his temples, unsure of how that person could have so completely withstood his mental probes, but in response, the girl brushed aside the hair over her right ear with a casual flick, showing the Professor a glint of metal nestled between her head and the top of her ear.
"So that's the answer." the professor thought, "Whoever this person is, she has a psychic scrambler. I didn't even know they were made that small."
"It's not gonna work, sugah." the girl said, "Why not make it easy on yahself? Let's make these last moments... a little fun..."
The professor continued to back down the hallway, as the girl advanced on him, still smiling, still ready, at any moment, to pucker up. At last, Professor Xavier found himself backing into a window at the end of the hall, and could go no further. The girl was on him almost at once.
"Now, lets have that kiss." the girl said, puckering up...
…To find a blast of crimson energy shattering the window behind her, clipping her shoulder as it passed by. In response, she turned around to face a boy wearing red sunglasses; Scott.
"No way, lady!" Scott said, still holding onto his glasses with his left hand, as if to seem threatening, "I'm not letting you touch him!"
The man in the black costume chuckled slightly when he saw the snowy person in front of him, then said "Kid, don't embarrass yourself."
Bobby, however, was serious, the snow around him hardening slightly as he willed it to begin forming into impact-resistant ice crystals.
"I mean it." Bobby said, "I'm Frost Guy, and if you want to hurt anybody around here, you'd better start with me, because I'm the world's greatest mutant super hero!"
"Frost... Guy?" the figure replied with a clear aire of scorn, "Well, I didn't want you to make yourself look like an idiot, kid, but now I suppose it's too late. We may as well get this over with..."
Keeping one boot braced carefully against Logan's claws, the figure raised its hands, both open and ready as Bobby sprouted a long, sharp sword made of ice from one hand, and charged to the attack, rushing forward at the dark figure, who merely ducked to one side and kneed Bobby in the chest with his free leg, then Bobby was on the floor.
"Kid, I've fought with humans you couldn't beat." the dark figure said, "You're an embarrassment to mutant kind."
However, just then, the dark figure had noticed something he hadn't before. Bobby was lying perfectly still on the floor, and there was a new shadow behind him.
"No!" the dark figure exclaimed, swiping out behind himself with one hand, to shatter the snowman that had grown there moments before, only to realize his mistake.
"GOTCHA!" Bobby roared, having leapt up the moment the dark figure's attention was diverted, and swung in a wide arc with his blade, forcing the figure to leap to one side, to avoid the attack, but just as he was about to retaliate, Logan was on his feet, leaping past Bobby towards the figure, both sets of claws outstretched in the direction of his neck, and the figure was too much off-balance to do any more dodging. In moments, Logan brought his claws down with unhesitating swiftness and force, splintering the wood of Xavier's desk, and cursing as he did so. The mutant had taken the only escape route left open to him; teleporting away at the last second, before Logan's claws could have torn apart his larynx.
"That was wicked!" Bobby exclaimed, the snow and ice crystals already starting to melt off him.
"You're not bad yourself, kid." Logan replied, then leaned on the desk for a moment, feeling his own autonomicly-activated X-Force repairing his cuts and bruises, and in only a moment more, looked at the computer screen to see a message display reading "Upload Complete."
"Oh, come on now, honey..." the mysterious girl said as she turned away from the professor and began advancing on Scott, "That big bruisah with the metal couldn't touch me. That lady with the wind fell down lahk a potato sack. What've you got?"
"Something they didn't have." Scott replied angrily, "I never get tired. Keep coming closer, and I swear I'll show you firsthand."
"Come on..." the girl said, her expression hardening, "What's the real story? Spill the beans..."
"Only if you tell me what you were going to do to the Professor." Scott replied, keeping one hand on his glasses.
"Scott, no!" Professor Xavier exclaimed, "Get out of here! Let..."
"Zip it, gramps!" the girl said angrily, forcing one hand out in the Professor's direction, so that a massive gust of wind knocked him off his wheelchair and onto the floor forcefully.
"Sure." the girl said, "Ah'll tell. Ah was gonna give him a great big kiss, and then, after a while, he'd stop struggling, then he'd stop moving, then he'd sorta stop living, except..." at that she made a gesture to indicate her own body "in heah."
"You steal other people's powers." Scott realized aloud, "Well, I'm putting an end to that now!"
With that, Scott Summers removed his glasses.
It had been many months since Scott had taken off his glasses. He even wore them in the shower, and when he slept, and the reason was that it was only when he wore them that the autonomic energy flows that activated his mutant power were disrupted. In other words, only the substance that the glasses were made of; ruby-quartz, could turn his power off, and only when they were within three inches of his optic nerves.
That power was a beam of pure, intense, disruptive kinetic energy that shone crimson when it shone at all, which was all the time his glasses were off. There, for the first time in that mansion, Scott's mutant territory formed itself just over the first layer of his eyes, and all his boundless X-Force flooded into it, firing out as a sustained, concentrated beam of force, powerful enough to level buildings. The girl was hit in the face with it full force.
What Professor Mccoy had said earlier about mutant powers was true. The more they were used, the faster the mutant's body could produce X-Force, and since Scott's mutant power expended such a huge amount of X-Force so constantly, he had regularly found himself exhausted at many points over the last six months. When his mutant power had first manifested, it had only been activated for a few seconds, before its massive power drain had worn him out, and he collapsed, exhausted, but as time had gone on, it had taken longer and longer for his mutant powers to tire him. Before the Professor had developed the ruby-quartz glasses for him, Scott had been helplessly expending power into beams, which he'd needed to aim almost directly up for six hours straight, in order for them to wear themselves out, and stop firing for a while, and that meant that his body had been adapting... Changing... Growing to make itself capable of generating more X-Force in a shorter time, until recently, when he'd found that although the glasses prevented the beams from actually appearing most of the time, his body had continued to adapt and grow stronger with his mutant energy. As powerful as his optic blasts were, it had gotten to the point where he could fire them twenty-four seven, and not be weakened in the least by it, and the rest of the time, his bodily energy levels were fantastic, though he still had an easy time getting to sleep. In fact, Scott Summers generated more X-Force than any mutant Professor Xavier had ever seen.
However, although the leftover force from Scott's blast was putting cracks in the surrounding hallway and furniture, and had already torn several pieces out of the girl's outfit, it clearly wasn't doing any damage to her. In fact, aside from being upset that her outfit was getting shredded, she didn't seem to really be feeling it at all.
In only a moment, the girl was on top of Scott, covering his eyes with her left hand, leaving those beams to tear her left glove apart, as she chuckled at the sensation of all that force, sort of making her hand itch, then she grabbed Scott Summers and kissed him right on the lips.
For three seconds they kissed, then five, then seven, then the girl let him drop to the floor. His mutant power had stopped working, and she was smiling.
"Well, that's that." the girl said, turning back away from the unconscious Scott, to face the Professor again, when suddenly, her broad grin faded, and the Professor rolled himself into an adjoining doorway in a hurry, as an optic blast was fired out of the girl's eyes, blasting his wheelchair into spare parts, and shattering the window nearby with its leftover concussive force. The girl seemed to realize that something was wrong as she started to get dizzy, and another optic blast dug a trench through the ceiling of that hallway, as she tried to control it, but found that she couldn't shape that mutant territory at all, and it was eating up her X-Force like mad!
"At this rate, ah'll be down in seconds!" Anna Marie Darkholme thought to herself "Ah'll be totally drained! Down and out! Ah've got ta get out of here!"
Keeping her eyes carefully covered, though she could feel the optic blasts impacting with her fingers as she did so, Anna Marie dove through the shattered window, falling two stories, to crack the concrete of one of the Xavier Institute's walkways just before the drain on her X-Force proved to be too much, and she blacked out.
When Anna Marie came to, she carefully avoided opening her eyes. She could feel that her whole body was covered in a large, warm blanket, which was restrictive to her movements, and very stuffy, considering what a warm night it was, but she knew how much of her outfit had been torn up, as well as whose large, strong and soft arms were carrying her through the night in her escape from the Xavier Institute, and so she knew she was being rescued; not kidnapped.
"Ahm up, Freddy." she said, "We can talk."
"Call me Fred now." she heard him say in that gruff, but still young-sounding voice of his, "I'm not a kid anymore Anna."
"How long was ah out?" Anna Marie asked.
"'Bout ten minutes. We're almost back."
"Did Alex get what he needed?"
"Uh-huh. You?"
"...No." Anna Marie replied hesitatingly, "Not really, ah... no."
"Man..." Fred replied, "Raven's gonna be pissed."
"Maybe." Anna Marie said, "Theah was this kid who really took me bah surprise. Ahm going to have ta tell mothah her information about the new students wasn't good enough."
Fred wasn't sure what to say to that, so as usual in that kind of situation, he just kept his big mouth shut, which was probably for the best. Anna Marie was running simple math calculations in her mind. She'd touched the kid for about seven and a half seconds, which meant that the power drain wouldn't even be close to permanent. In fact, he'd probably have all his weird, uncontrollable powers back within twenty minutes or so, which still meant that she was going to have to keep her own eyes closed that whole time.
It was one of the first times she'd ever needed to look to Fred for backup, and for some reason, she didn't really think that was so bad. Not having to tackle all the responsibility at once was definitely a nice break, and what is great power, after all, if not a heavy responsibility?
Scott opened his eyes carefully and hesitantly as he slowly regained consciousness. He was relieved to find that someone had put his glasses back on him while he was asleep, but wasn't sure where he was; just that he was looking upwards at a metal ceiling.
"You gave us quite a scare for that first half hour." came the voice of Professor Xavier from nearby, "But after that, it was obvious that all you needed was some rest. I don't think any of us really wanted to move you."
"Can I get up?" Scott asked.
"I suspect so." the Professor replied in reasonably good humor.
Slowly, Scott slid off the padded medical table he'd been laid out on and let his shoes come to rest on the metal of the room's floor.
"What is this place?" Scott asked, "I wasn't shown this room on the tour."
"I'd hoped none of you would ever have to see it." the Professor replied grimly. "This is the infirmary."
"How are Ororo and Piotr?" Scott asked, suddenly remembering his fallen friends.
"Ororo suffered a bump to the head, but nothing series." Xavier explained, "As for Piotr..."
Xavier hesitated for several moments before he dared to speak again, however.
"He may wish that I not tell you the extent of what his injuries were, but I can tell you that he's going to pull through. He's in the best of hands, so to speak."
"Alright." Mccoy said with a smile, "Now, how does this feel?"
"Just fine." Piotr droned in a bored tone of voice.
"And this?"
"Fine."
"And this?"
"Da. Da. DA! It is all fine! May I leave now?"
"Well..." Mccoy scratched his chin as he considered poking the boy in one more rib, but eventually decided against it, "I am happy to report that aside from being short about three pints of good humor, there is no longer anything wrong with you that time and bed rest won't fix." Mccoy said with a smile on his face, "I must say, though; you were a challenging case."
"Da." Piotr replied, "Opening my armor must have been difficult."
"Oh, it was. No mistake about that." Mccoy replied as he began putting away surgical equipment, "But the real hard part was repairing the damage to your small intestine. There was impact trauma, of course, but the way it was all twisted up like a pretzel? Brrr... Most unsightly."
"I do not care." Piotr replied, though the descriptions made him shiver slightly as well.
"As long as you don't intend to take another blow like that, neither do I, anymore." Mccoy said, but Piotr frowned deeper than ever when he heard that.
"I... I wasn't strong enough." Piotr muttered, "I came here to learn to survive as a mutant, and I wasn't strong enough."
"Well, no one is invincible," Mccoy responded, his smile starting to fade just a little, as he tried to reassure the young mutant, "and sometimes, even people who are, or think they are immune to harm, find themselves sulking and unhappy over some loss, like Achilles in his tent. You just have to cope with it as best you can."
Then Mccoy said no more, and neither did Piotr. There was little more that mere words could heal.
Xavior's study was a wreck. Books lay on the floor, walls were cracked, and there were soaked spots at several points on the rug, not to mention six deep gashes in his desk, made by razor-sharp adamantium claws.
Nonetheless, Xavier sat in his new wheelchair among the debris, looking out a window at the cracked cobblestones of his school, which had once seemed so much more like a work of art than a place of learning; at least when they were looked at from some angles.
Xavier didn't turn even slightly from the view as the door to his study opened, and Logan stepped in. Logan, of course, knew what was about to be said, and had decided that it would be unwise to speak first.
"My friend, I owe an apology to many people for what I allowed to happen yesterday." Xavier said, looking very sad as he continued to stare out the window, "I should apologize to you, foremost, because you warned me against this very thing as sternly as a friend can, and I wouldn't listen. My students also deserve apologies, and more, but I think that for the first time in my life, I am truly beginning to understand why bad things happen to good people. I needed to see this, to convince me of what needs to be done."
Finishing his sentence, Xavier turned his wheelchair away from the window, and drove right over several books towards the other side of the desk, to face Logan directly.
"As of this very moment, you are now an instructor at my school. Any student may choose to opt out of your class, of course, but I am making you available to them, and I authorize you to use any means at your disposal, short of seriously injuring them, to teach those students willing to accept it the art of self defense. Logan, I'm sorry. I was wrong."
For a moment, Logan wasn't sure what to say. Some part of him wanted to just accept the honor, but it wasn't that simple. Memories of the night before still haunted him; memories of Bobby Drake's near-victory over the strange man, and how little actual strategy, discipline, or self-control had been involved in it, and when Logan finally opened his mouth, the words that came out surprised even him.
"I was wrong too, Charlie." he said, "I was lookin' at these kids like ordinary recruits. They ain't that at all."
As he said that, Logan looked out the window, which Charles Xavier had been using to remind himself of his vulnerability only moments before, and saw a very different sight. He saw Piotr returning to his friends. Bobby stood off to one side, but Scott and Kurt were patting him on the back, and speaking kind words to him with smiles on their faces, to the point where a small grin seemed almost to be creeping over Piotr's face as well. The girls were talking to one another nearby, smiling and sharing the personal experiences of the night before, as they dared an occasional glance at the boys, the sight of which seemed to cheer them up.
"These kids have got hard life lessons to learn. There's no point trying to say they don't." Logan said, a grin creeping over his face, "But from the looks of things, they might not have to learn 'em the hard way, like I did. In fact, these kids of yours might just turn out alright..."
Despite the guilt with which he'd been tormenting himself, Professor Xavier couldn't help but smile when he heard that. It was the first sign of optimism that Logan had shown in as long as Charles Xavier had known him. For the moment, Xavier decided to not even mention that he'd discovered what, precisely, had been taken from his computer...
Raven Darkholme rang a small bell as she entered the dining room, drawing the attention of all those present; Alex, Fred and Anna Marie.
"Well, after the total success of last week, I expected last night's mission to go better," Raven began, removing her mutant territory, which caused her skin to regain its natural, blue color, and her eyes to gleam gold as she spoke, "but I guess one can't succeed at everything they do. At the very least, we'll have other opportunities, thanks to Alex's success."
Quickly, Raven held up a disc, still in its case, and said, "This disc is only a copy. I'm giving the original to a contact of mine, who's trying to make it usable for non-psychics, but the long and short of it is that this disc contains the blueprints of a device designed to track down the precise locations of mutants..."
End