Hello all!

This is my first X-Men: Evolution story and it will have around 5-7 chapters. The inspiration for it came from my obsession with Evo's take on the Brotherhood. It's the first adaptation of X-Men I've watched/read where characters like Avalanche and Toad had depth behind them instead of being mindless thugs. I also like how Evo's Brotherhood is not made up of supervillains so much as confused, mislead teenagers. This fic will explore their motivations, desires, and growth throughout the series, through the eyes of Lance. (I may write another fic later, a series of one-shots, which will place more emphasis on the other members of the Brotherhood.) There will be Lancitty. This is the prologue and the bulk takes place at the end of Season 1, Episode 2 – The X-Impulse – after Lance has destroyed part of the school and Kitty has left with the X-Men. The little blurb at the beginning is Lance looking back at this from an unspecified point in the series, probably sometime in season 4. I hope you enjoy it!

Oh, and I don't own X-Men: Evolution. It belongs to Marvel Entertainment, Inc.

~~o~~

Are we the bad guys?

Back when it all started, everything was clear. They were the 'bad guys'. They were the ones who made everything difficult. They were the ones who made it hard for people like me to live our lives. Me? I was in it for myself. Me against the world, a reckless bad boy in a grudge match with the authorities, or something like that. It fit so well I'd never thought to question why.

What was so different now? Was it all because of her? It had to be ... because it certainly couldn't have been me, Lance Alvers, school bully and rebel, that had changed.

~~o~~

Backing away from my mistakes was easy. It happened so often that I pretty much lived it. The pattern had been pounded into my head for as long as I could remember: stay in a foster home, put up with their stupid rules, trick myself into believing they actually cared, all for a few months until I inevitably blew it and the whole illusion of acceptance came crashing down. As a kid I used to ignore the looks on their faces every time my powers got out of hand, pretending that just because couldn't see the fear and mistrust, they didn't exist. After all, what did a collapsed ceiling or a caved-in wall mean when we were supposed to be a family? Once I turned ten, though, I couldn't fool myself anymore. I found it was a lot easier just to move on without looking back. No more having to deal with the whispering and rumours, the punishments and scolding. The pain. I'd just wipe the dust off my pants and be out of there by the next morning.

So it should have been second nature to disappear that evening when I reduced the whole west wing of my high school to rubble. If I'd had any sense at all I would have melted back into the bushes and snuck off to the next town. As it was, I stood there on the hilltop gawking, not believing what my own two hands had done.

I didn't understand it then, but it wasn't leaving that was hard – after all, I'd done it before without a second thought. It was leaving with the knowledge of what I was leaving behind – something I'd never had before and, at the rate this was going, would never have again.

When it finally struck me that the old man and that red-headed chick would probably have every cop in the city looking for me at this point, I decided to scram. There was no use staying, I concluded bitterly. Now that Kitty had been dragged along with those X-Saints she'd never even think to look back at me again; they'd made sure of that. As I stepped backwards towards the cover of the bushes, a snide, mocking voice echoed my thoughts.

"I'd say you've blown your chances at this school, haven't you?"

Oh great, just what I need. A lecture.

I whipped around to see a woman's erect figure silhouetted against the sunset. Everything from the crispness of her businesslike outfit to the steely glare of those rectangular glasses told me this was someone I definitely wanted to avoid at the moment.

"And you are...?" I snapped.

"Your new advisor," the woman replied, her sneering voice undaunted. "I've made an opening for you at Bayville High. I have much to teach you, my young Avalanche."

I'd been on the verge of pushing past her and storming off with a slight tremor. But if the fact that this woman seemed prepared to accept me at a school I'd never heard of and somehow knew about my powers wasn't startling enough, then the way she caused some sort of ripple to glide down her body, replacing the dowdy headmistress with a fiery-haired, turquoise-skinned and considerably more attractive lady, definitely was. Taken aback, I stopped dead in my tracks.

"All right, you've got my attention," I admitted. "So what do you want from me?"

The woman's blue lips twisted into an almost pitying smirk. "I think the question you should be asking, my dear boy, is what do you want from me?"

This lady's out of her mind. "Look, you don't have a clue what I want," I retorted, curiosity boiling into irritation. "I've got enough to deal with right now. Just get lost."

To my surprise and annoyance, she simply slipped out of the way and let me pass, the same infuriating smugness illuminating her face. Her cunningly sweet voice floated back to me as I tramped away.

"Of course. Go. Leave. Run off to the next town of ignorant fools and see if you'll find acceptance there. Hope that the next time you bring down a building they'll be just as ... forgiving as they are now. Perhaps you'll even find another young woman who knows what you're going through, and perhaps this time she'll choose you over a self-righteous old fool who has no idea what you suffer through... " She let that tantalizing thought hang in the air, savouring the obvious torment on my face, before snatching it back: "...but I rather doubt it."

Against all my better judgement I turned back. Something that usually lay, barely dormant, inside of me – the same mounting intensity that had spewed forth into my last earthquake – was now begging for her to continue.

"You and I are differentfrom normal people, Avalanche. You've always known this – I believe your phrasing of it was 'fate dealt us winning cards'? – but never acted upon it. Vandalizing lockers, stealing exam answers ... do you really think this is the most you can get out of your powers? I can teach you to do far more ... and for far greater reasons." She paused briefly, then: "The world isn't going to give you any more chances, Lance Alvers. Charles Xavier certainly didn't. So why not take mine?"

I considered her offer. It was true that I was fighting a losing battle. At seventeen years old, with shaggy brown hair dangling to my shoulders and hygiene the least of my concerns, I'd lost the 'cuteness' factor that helped keep me with foster parents a kid. Another year and orphanages would close their doors, too – not like I cared much for them anyways, but they were preferable to the streets. Add to that the fact that I'd run away from nearly every foster home I'd had – and escaped what could have amounted to jail time in the same way – and my record was pretty grim.

But tempting as those offers were, they paled in comparison to what was really keeping me there. The real reason I'd let myself be caught up in her silky words. She was opening up a door that the Xavier freaks had slammed in my face – the opportunity to find others like me. After all, the anticipation of test answers hadn't been responsible for the rush of thrill and excitement I'd felt as Kitty flowed through the office door. It was the fact that, for a few glowing moments, I'd shared something with the only other person in the world who understood what I was going through. We'd been united in an act of defiance against the system that thought they could put us down. And if going with this woman meant there would be a chance I'd be able to experience that again ... that there'd be the smallest of chances I'd see Kitty...

"I'm in."