Hidden Nature
Chapter 1
"Touchdown! Touchdown! Touchdown!"
I sighed and looked from the cheerleaders to Scott. He was the only reason I was here tonight at the Bayville football game. Too bad he was only here because Jean was taking photos and he has a huge crush on her. It's a shame she's blinded by Duncan Matthew's crush on her.
"Oh, man. My cash." Scott complained as he dropped his quarter. I glanced down and saw a pale hand pickpocket some guy sitting in front of us.
"Did you just see what I just saw?" I nudged his shoulder and asked
"Yeah. It looks like someone's taking up a collection. Let's go check it out." I followed him under the bleachers where Duncan and his friends were about to beat up Todd Tolansky.
Surprisingly I was friends with him and found out he was an okay person when he wasn't flirting with me or eating flies.
"Hey leave him alone" I said as I stepped into the light under the bleachers.
"What are you going to do about it, Thorny?" Duncan teased. I glared at him. My name is Annabelle Thorn not Thorny.
"How about you leave her alone and have him give back the cash? No harm done." Scott suggested revealing himself.
"What do you care about this scuzzo, Summers?" Duncan asked, not willing to give up so easily.
"Hey guys, how about we settle this peacefully?" I asked with a hopeful smile
"I think me and my guys are going to crush this slimeball." Duncan said with a smirk, "So you and Mr. "sunglasses at night" can just bail."
I frowned at his attitude while Scott looked just plain annoyed with his fist clenched and his eyes furrowed. I nudged him a little as a sign to calm down, but then Duncan was about to stomp Todd's face in.
"I said knock it off!" Scott yelled while tackling Duncan to the ground and throwing him towards his friends. I helped Todd off the ground while the football jerks were getting up. We ran out from under the bleachers.
"Thanks doll!" He said and then frantically hopped away from the scene. I quickly hurried to where Jean was.
"Jean!" I shouted capturing her attention. She looked over at me with a curious expression. "Scott and Duncan are fighting under the bleachers!" I exclaimed. She quickly grabbed my wrist and dragged me with her towards the fight.
"Scott, no!" She exclaimed distracting Scott. Duncan took the chance to punch Scott into the metal fence which caused Scott to lose his "sunglasses" and blow up a propane tank.
You see Scott, Jean, and I are mutants. We have the X-Gene which gives us special powers, to control these powers, we stay at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. Scott in a nut shell has laser eyes whenever he opens his eyes, so he was to wear ruby quartz glasses. I heard the sirens of the police cars and fire trucks coming to put out the fire.
"It's too hot to touch, at least with my hands" Jean floated the piece of wood that was covering Scott's shades with her telekinesis. We saw Scott sitting down covering his eyes with his hands.
"You okay?" Jean asked putting Scott's shades back onto his face.
"Jean." He responded. I mentally rolled my eyes. His crush on Jean was so obvious to anyone but her.
"Oh wow I…" He trailed off seeing the damage done to the place.
"I know. Look, you'd better split." She advised, but her eyes were checking over at the paramedics looking at Duncan's injuries, then walking over. Todd hopped over to Scott and I.
"Thanks. Really, you know?" Todd said to Scott and I.
"Yeah." Scott said and walked away. I shook my head at him and then looked at Todd.
"Just ignore him Todd. Scott is just having a really bad day." I said.
"I get it doll." He nodded and then captured a fly with his tongue. I cringed a little bit at the sight of that.
"Okay then, bye Todd. Hey Scott! Wait up!" I waved goodbye to Todd and ran after Scott hoping he didn't leave without me.
The next morning, I was awoken by the repetitive sound of the alarm clock. I slowly opened my eyes and stretched my arms and legs. I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom on my side of the hallway. Luckily Jean and I don't have to share a bathroom, because she takes forever to get ready.
I locked the door and hopped into the shower letting the warm water wake me up for school. After I finished showering I brushed my teeth and my hair. Then I walked into my room and picked out my everyday outfit.
My outfit consisted of a casual lavender dress with spaghetti straps, crisscross back, and skater skirt that fit my small 14 year old body. Along with it I picked out some light brown combat boots and a silver necklace with a crescent moon on it. I looked into the mirror and saw my electric blue eyes staring back at me along with my pale skin and long wavy black hair that stopped at my waist. I pinned back half of my hair and left the rest natural. I was way too lazy to put on makeup so I just grabbed my black floral backpack and left my room to go meet Jean and Scott at his car.
"Annabelle, please come here a moment." Professor Xavier called me down to the library where Jean and Scott were waiting with a hooded figure.
"I'd like you three to meet someone. This is Kurt Wagner." He pointed to the mysterious figure. "He arrived late last night."
"Hi Kurt. I'm Annabelle, but you can call me Anna or Belle. This is Jean and Scott." I smiled at him while the latter two just waved and smiled at him.
"How are you doing?" Scott said and stuck out his hand for him to shake. Kurt backed away slowly with his hands in his pockets.
"Kurt, you're among friends here." Professor Xavier reassured Kurt. He slowly took out a blue hand with three fingers on it.
"Hello." Kurt said in a German accent. He took Scott's hand and shook it while Scott's face had a shocked expression. When Kurt saw his face, he immediately took his hand out of Scott's.
Professor Xavier cleared his throat. "I was just telling Kurt how I set up this institute for gifted youngsters. Youngsters whose gifts are not always an asset. Right Scott?" Scott just made an uh-oh face.
"So you heard about last night?" Scott asked
"Difficult not to. It was on all the news channels."
"It was a bad situation, and there was an accident. I'm sorry." Scott apologized
"I know. Fortunately, no one was badly hurt and the true cause was not discovered. But you must be more careful, Scott." Professor Xavier sternly warned.
"Come on Professor! I'm packing a bazooka behind each eyeball!- What do you want from me?" Scott angrily replied.
"Control Scott." Professor Xavier looked at him and then towards us, "That's why you're all here to learn. That's why you're all here."
"Scott's eyes emit a destructive optic blast beam." Professor Xavier explained to Kurt.
"Cool." He said in awe and took off his hood revealing blue skin and darker blue hair that reached down to his shoulders.
"So Kurt? Do you have a special gift that brought you here?" I asked. A gaseous cloud suddenly appeared where Kurt disappeared and then reappeared at the other side of the room along with Kurt.
"Maybe." Kurt replied to me while I was smiling.
"Woah." Jean, Scott, and I replied in awe. He was a teleporter! That's such an amazing gift to have. Maybe he could teach me a few things.
It was late in the evening when Jean, Scott, and I were waiting to train in the danger room. It's a safety rule that you can't go in the Danger Room alone without permission. We were in our costumes ready to go.
My costume consisted of a dark navy leotard with long sleeves. It had a grey section where it went down the middle of my body. Along with the leotard I also had a matching grey cape that had a clasp with the X-Men symbol on it. My shoes were thigh high navy blue boots with a ring of grey around the top. To protect my hands I wore grey gloves and then for accessories I had on a gold belt with the X-Logo on it.
Suddenly we heard the Professor's voice in my head. "Scott! Jean! Annabelle! Nightcrawler and Toad have teleported into the Danger Room." We all looked at each other in panic.
"Oh, man! The Danger Room has automated defenses!" Scott exclaimed
"It'll attack them with everything it's got." Jean added
"Well don't just stand there! We have to go now!" I exclaimed. Jean and I started running while Scott struggled to put on his boot. We ran in there as fast as we could. When we ran in we saw total chaos.
"I've got the cannons. Keep them clear of the tentacles. Jean you got Toad and Midnight you got Nightcrawler." Cyclops instructed us by our codenames.
"Got it!" I responded as I flew off towards Nightcrawler. He was about to get attacked by a tentacle so I quickly destroyed the tentacle with a beam of darkness.
He looked up towards me in awe of my floating. "You're an angel."
"Quite the opposite" I responded with a laugh when I was interrupted by the Professor's voice, "Voice print: Charles Xavier."
"Confirmed. Shut down in five seconds." The computer responded while I sighed in relief.
"Now I get it. It's a training area. Watch." Nightcrawler teleported to a cannon. "I just pull the plug."
"Wait Nightcrawler don't!" I exclaimed, but it was too late. The machine bucked him off and started shooting off random lasers in every direction. I managed to dodge a laser when I finally got annoyed and encased the machine in a shield of darkness making the lasers bounce back at the machine destroying it and all the others.
"Forget this, man. I've seen enough. I am out of here." Toad freaked out and hopped out of the Danger Room.
"Tolansky!" Scott called and rubbed his neck in pain from being sent into the wall. "Sorry, Professor. I couldn't stop him."
"It's all right, Cyclops. He wasn't ready to be one of us." Professor responded
"I blew it too, professor. I'm sorry. You've been wonderful. But I guess I don't belong here." Nightcrawler apologized and teleported out.
"Nightcrawler wait!" Professor started.
"I got it Professor!" I yelled to him and flew out to go find him. I first checked the hangar where I luckily found him on my first try. He was looking at the Blackbird in awe.
I stepped out from the shadows, "The SR-77 Blackbird. Twice as fast as the SR-71 and with three times the range and firepower."
He jumped a little but then relaxed when he saw it was me, "Is it yours? Please tell me you get to fly it."
"It's ours, but if you stick around you may get some lessons on how to piolet this monster. So are you apart of the team?" I asked tilting my head to the side.
"Me? I almost got you killed minutes ago." Kurt said shocked.
I scoffed. "Well we all make mistakes and we all watch each other's backs, so we'd kind of like to have a new member. What do you say?"
He thought about it for a second and then said, "Deal".
I smiled, "Come on! Race you to the foyer!" I phased through the shadows on the wall.
"No fair you're cheating!" He said as I laughed.