Author's Notes (A/N): Well, my first sequel is now being posted! This chapter is mostly filler and me introducing three mutants into the series. OK, one of them was mentioned in the first story, but still... I don't know how much they'll be featured in the future, much like Rogue from the first story, but I wanted to show that the Institute is not just the six or seven mutants that I have in almost every story.
As for the title of this story, yes, the Brotherhood is going to be a major part of what happens, though, I don't think I'll be actually introducing them until chapter 3. This story MAY be longer than the first one, at least as far as chapters go, but I'm not 100% sure about that, since I've only story lined through chapter 3.
As always, I'd like to send special thanks to Ian, Terri, and Hyde for their help with making this story, and all the others I write. I'd also like to mention that I'm going to be alternating between this story and my Final Fantasy one, putting a chapter of one of the stories up every week, time permitting. In other words, I'll have a new chapter every two weeks, and the weeks in between will be FF weeks.
Disclaimer (AGAIN?): I don't own anything except the storyline and John (and any other O/Cs I put in).
Chapter 1- Healing
A pair of young teens walked down the metallic silver halls that made up the basement levels of the mansion. They were discussing what they had just learned from Professor Xavier. "I don't know what his powers are, or even if he has any, luv. I just know that if the Professor said he's all right, then he's all right." The female had a definite Scottish accent to her voice. She was wearing a white t-shirt with blue pants. Her brown hair went halfway down her back as she turned to look at her companion.
"Yeah, but with everything going on, you think it's a good idea to be taking on more runaways?" The boy was definitely American. He had short brown hair, and a green and black shirt on, as well as dark blue denim jeans.
"He's not like us, you know."
"He's a mutant who's a runaway. The professor said so himself!" The boy was starting to get upset at his companion insinuating, in his opinion, that he was lying.
"Yes, but he's not a student, he's older than that."
The boy sighed as he realized that she was right. "I'm still not sure it's a good idea to be inviting random people in here, Rahne."
"The Professor would know if this guy's up to something, Jamie. He's not the greatest telepath in the world for nothing, you know." The girl smiled and laughed lightly at her comment.
"Careful what you say, you know he doesn't like you calling him that."
By now they'd reached the control room for the Danger Room, and Jamie opened the door and held it for Rahne to pass through. Inside the room was another teen, this one African American, and he turned to acknowledge the two. "You two got back from Moira's just in time."
"Hey Evan, new guy's in there? What's he running?" Jamie was curious and looked over the console into the room below. Inside the room, John was standing inside what appeared to be some sort of a dojo facing off against a group of five men. The mutant was wearing the same sweatshirt and pants that he'd worn in the fight with Logan a week earlier. In John's hands was a four foot long staff which he was using to attack and defend against the virtual enemies. As soon as he knocked one down and out, the enemy would disappear and be replaced after a few seconds by another one. "Logan's Endless Stream Program?"
"Yes, though he's not running it as hard as Logan does." Evan looked at the readout from the computer as he spoke. "He's only running it at about 70%."
"How long?" Rahne was as curious as Jamie, but she wasn't nearly as obvious about it.
"He set it for an hour, of which there's about two minutes left." Evan looked at John moving in the virtual room. "And before you ask, no, he's not going all out. Dr. McCoy won't let him, and he's asked me to make sure he obeys the Doctor's orders."
Jamie looked at Evan curiously. "Why not? What happened?"
Evan looked at the two younger mutants for a few seconds, considering how to respond to that. "What did Professor Xavier tell you about him?"
"Just that he arrived last Sunday night and he was going to be on staff for the foreseeable future." Jamie was more than happy to supply the information that Evan wanted.
"Well, the night after he arrived, he got into a fight with Mystique. Apparently she stabbed him and he injured her, but she managed somehow to get away, even with Logan after her."
"She stabbed him? Where?" Evan was used to Jamie's seemingly innocent curiosity, and instead of replying verbally, he simply pointed to Jamie's stomach.
"Wow, and he's STILL able to go at 70% in one of Logan's programs?" Now Rahne was looking out the window in amazement. "And he's not even using any powers?"
"Not actively, no." As Rahne and Jamie both looked at Evan like they didn't understand his comment, he elaborated. "Just because you aren't actively using your senses of smell and hearing doesn't mean they aren't still active, does it?"
"So, he has a power that's always on?"
Evan laughed and shook his head at Jamie's question. "It's a side effect of his mutation that's always active, even if he's not using it. I'm afraid that it's not my place to explain it any further than that. Perhaps when he's done, you can ask him. It shouldn't be much longer, anyway."
Down in the virtual room, John found himself surrounded by three soldiers, after having just disposed of a fourth. One of the three managed to get a punch past John's defenses, which sent him staggering off to the side a few steps. He quickly regained his balance and swung the staff around in a wide arc, catching two of the three goons square in the face with the end of it, knocking them out and causing them to dissolve.
The third goon rushed at John, attempting to strike him again, but the mutant was too fast. Gripping the staff with both hands, he jabbed the end of it in the gut of the attacker, before swinging sideways, catching the jaw of the now doubled-over man, and at the same time blocking a punch from another goon coming from the opposite direction. John quickly turned his attention to this new threat, spinning the staff around, knocking the man's feet out from under him, then bringing the weapon down on the man's chest, sending him away as well.
Another soldier was approaching from John's right. Taking a few steps, John jammed his staff into the ground, using it to pole vault into the man. However, in the middle of his jump, a metallic female voice came over the room's intercom. "Time up, ending simulation."
John was left hanging in mid-air as the staff disappeared from his hands, while he was still leaning on it. As a result, he ended up falling to the ground with a thud, having twisted so that he landed directly on the wound.
As John didn't get up right away, Evan assumed that he'd been injured. After a few seconds, though, John rolled onto his back and groaned, before pulling himself back to his feet. "Dammit, that was stupid. I should have been more aware of the time." He paused for a second, then looked at the window. He couldn't see anyone inside it, the window was tinted to be reflective like the rest of the room, thus invisible from within it. All the same, he knew that Evan was there. "What was the count?"
The two younger mutants looked at Evan who pointed a finger to his mouth, telling the two to be quiet, before he pressed a button to open up communication with the main room. "One hundred thirty-two."
"That's quite a bit off from Logan's score, isn't it?" The reply was almost immediate, John had apparently been aware of what the Canadian who designed the program was capable of doing at his current settings.
"Yes, but then again, he uses his abilities, you didn't."
"No, I didn't." He began to leave the room, but paused in the doorway. "If you want to introduce your two friends, you can bring them down to the locker room." With that, he left the room, and the door closed behind him.
Evan smirked and turned to his companions. Both of them were shocked that John had known they were in the room, since they had been perfectly still and silent. Evan tried, but failed to hold back a small amount of laughter. "He knew you two were here the moment you got to the mansion." The slightly older mutant pointed to his head.
"The professor told him?" Jamie was close, but not quite on target with his assumption.
"No, genius, he's psychic as well. Though, what did he mean when he said he didn't use his powers during the fight?"
Evan laughed again and stood up from his seat, heading out the door. "You can ask him that yourselves, if you want to come down and meet him." The two kids nodded and eagerly followed Evan out of the control room.
Inside the locker room, the three found John sitting on a bench, his head in his hands. He'd removed the gloves he had been wearing. At first they thought he may have fallen asleep, but he spoke to them without moving. "You two got back earlier than expected." He lowered his hands and turned his head to look at them after speaking, a slight smile on his face.
"We got an earlier flight. Something about a ticket mix up." Jamie shrugged his shoulders and held his hand out to the older mutant. "I'm Jamie Madrox."
John shook the boy's hand. "John Kerogi. Good to meet you." He then turned to Rahne. "You must be the one that was adopted by Dr. MacTaggart?"
"Aye, name's Rahne Sinclair." She took the offered hand. "So, you're psychic, obviously. What about offensive powers?"
John smirked at the three mutants, and held out his hand, palm up. In his palm, a small ball of flame appeared, causing Rahne and Jamie to gasp at it. As they watched, the ball left John's hand and began slowly floating around the room. The three others notice that as the fireball moved, John's eyes began to glow faintly. Evan was used to this, having seen it before, but the other two gasped at this development. John simply looked at them. "It's an uncontrollable side effect of my mutation. I usually wear sunglasses to cover it up." He looked back at the ball as it floated around the three mutants. "I suppose you could say I have a few unusual talents." John smiled as he glanced at the two youngest in the room. "What about you two? What are your abilities?"
The two looked at each other, nervous as to what to say. It was Rahne who spoke up first. "Well, I'm... I can transform into a wolf, or a wolf-human hybrid." She was obviously not exactly comfortable with telling this person she'd just met about her uniqueness.
John simply smiled at her, as the ball of flame began to hover over her head. "Well, that's not something I've heard of before. I suppose you also have the canine's enhanced senses, too?"
"Yes, it's more active when I'm in my partial or full wolf forms, but I do have a little bit of enhanced senses even now." John nodded and turned his attention to Jamie.
"And what about you?" As he spoke, the small ball began to hover over the mutant he was speaking to.
"I... well... I..." Jamie wasn't sure what to say his ability was, he didn't know how to properly describe it. John smirked at the boy, but after a few seconds of him struggling, John's eyes flashed slightly and he looked away from the group. As he did so, the fireball quickly fell, landing at Jamie's feet, causing him to jump backward in surprise. When he fell, two more Jamies appeared. The two new bodies looked at each other, then got up and ran out the door, leaving the four mutants still in the room staring after them.
"Sorry about that. I got distracted for a second." John's apology was halfhearted, but it did what he wanted to do. Jamie looked back at him embarrassed. "I assume those clones aren't permanent?"
"No, they'll disappear in a couple hours or so and when they do I'll receive all the memories and feelings they had while they existed. Unfortunately, each one of them is its own entity, I don't control them, and sometimes they take on specific aspects of my personality."
"It's a bit of a crap shoot what those two clones will do then?" Jamie nodded at John's musing. "Well, I don't think they'll get into too much trouble, considering everyone around here is probably used to them." John sighed and stood up from the bench he'd been sitting on.
John had been thinking about something since the kids came in to meet him. Something had been bothering him, but he wasn't going to tell them what it was. He came to the conclusion that he needed to get the three teens out of the room without being rude. "By the way, the Professor is looking for you three. Something about needing to go to bed. Besides, I don't think you guys need to be seeing my battle scars."
"All right guys, let's go find him, huh?" The two kids looked at Evan and nodded, then turned back to John and waved as the three left the room.
John waved back as they walked out. As soon as he was sure they were gone, he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. "If you're going to be following me all night, you might as well tell me why."
Logan silently stepped out from behind the row of lockers he'd been hiding behind. "Wondered how soon you were going to acknowledge my presence."
John smirked at Logan. "Well, it didn't seem like something the others needed to know." He turned around fully to face the mutant. "I assume that Dr. McCoy had you keeping an eye on me as well?"
Logan scoffed at John's assumption, but nodded. "Yeah, he wants to make sure you don't injure yourself again." John shook his head and turned his attention back to his locker.
"I told him that I knew my limits, that I'd heal in time. It's not like I really needed the doctors at the Organization to tell me when to take it easy for the last four years anyway. That said, I did reopen the damn cut again when I fell." As he said this, he removed the sweatshirt he'd been wearing, revealing a small white strip of skin across his stomach. One end of the gash ended underneath a patch of gauze, which was taped to the right side of John. The gauze had a red strip across the middle of it, and John removed the gauze quickly.
"Yeah, well, that's why he wanted you to take it easy, so you didn't do that." Logan nodded to the open wound, which was still bleeding slightly. John had reached into the locker and was using some cotton pieces to keep the blood from getting elsewhere. It wasn't a bad cut, but it was still bleeding a little bit.
"Yeah, well, even with this thing reopening, it'll be fully healed in about four more days, if I can get it to stay sealed. The skin from the rest of the wound has already recovered to the point where there won't be a scar, the doctor said so himself. And this thing will as well." He continued to clean the wound as Logan spoke to him.
"That may be true, but the doctor still wants you to take it easy." Logan decided to change the subject to something that he'd noticed earlier. "You didn't get distracted because I was here, you knew that already. And I know you were lying about the professor wanting to see them. So what's going on?"
John stopped in his self repairs and looked at Logan. The look was one of concern and confusion. "Honestly, Wolverine, I don't know. I thought I sensed another presence, a powerful one, but as soon as I did, it disappeared." His explanation made Logan a little worried. He suddenly wondered if the Professor had sensed this presence as well. Shaking his head, he decided that it wasn't something to discuss now, and John, coming to the same conclusion, went back to changing his clothes.
The younger mutant pulled out the shirt and pants that he'd borrowed from Scott's wardrobe. Looking at it, he sighed, hanging it from the top of the locker. "I really need to get my own clothes, Scott's taste in wardrobe is definitely not mine."
"So why don't you go buy some?" Logan was genuinely curious about this. He knew, as did everyone else, that John had only come to the mansion with the clothes he was wearing. Storm had given him a box of clothes that belonged to Scott Summers, another mutant who was currently studying in Europe.
"With what? Everything I have to my name I brought with me when I arrived here." He paused for a second, before adding. "Well, everything I have access to, that is."
"Everything you have access to?"
John nodded and turned his attention back to Logan as he explained. "The Organization is smart. Every mission we are sent on is budgeted. They always told us that whatever money is left over from the missions, we can put in the bank and keep it as a retirement incentive. The one request they make is that when we die, any of the money that's left over reverts back to them."
"That's an interesting idea, though it doesn't make much sense, if they never plan on letting anyone leave alive."
"No, but we didn't know that. It gave us something to look to forward to. Gave us a reason to do as they asked, and not buck the system." He paused for a second, obviously thinking about something. "When I left, I became the first one who could actually access the money that had been hidden away. It was then that they realized the error they'd made, without a body or a death certificate, they can't reacquire any of the money. They knew where it was, but they couldn't get their hands on it without my permission, or my death."
"So what then?"
"They've been watching the banks that the money is in, waiting for me to show up. If I ever did, they'd either capture me or kill me, either way, they'd get back the money they'd lost due to my rebellion. As long as the Organization exists, I can't get to that money. Its another one of the many reasons I want to see them destroyed."
As Logan processed this information, another thought occurred to him. "So, if you had no money, how did you buy a train ticket?"
"The same way anyone who's broke buys anything." As the realization dawned on Logan, John turned his attention back to his wound, placing fresh gauze on it and taping it on his gut. "I'm not proud of being a thief. Fact is, I don't do it unless I have to. That's why I haven't gone and gotten any more clothes. I can suffer through Scott's horrible style long enough to find a way to get some."
"You know, you should ask Storm about getting some money. She handles the Institute's finances, and I'm pretty sure there's some extra money in the bank." John looked at him curiously, so he continued. "You'll probably have to pay it back eventually, and she's going to want to know what you want the money for before she gives it to you, but if you tell her the truth, I don't think she'll have a problem with it."
"Thanks, Logan. I'll talk to her when she gets back." John had by now finished replacing the gauze patch and was putting on the sky blue button down shirt that he'd been wearing all day long. He paused as he realized that his audience hadn't moved to leave. "Uh, no offense, but I'd kinda like some privacy while I'm getting changed, if you don't mind. We can finish this conversation in a minute, once I'm done."
"Sure, bub, no problem." With that, Logan excused himself and left John alone in the room to finish changing. John sent a mental note to the Professor, explaining quickly that the three students were looking for him, and why, then he finished changing his clothes and left the locker room himself. He knew it wasn't going to be long before he went to bed, but he still had a couple of unimportant things to do.
A/N: Well, it's not the best thing I've ever written, but it's probably not the worst either. Next chapter will be... well, it's hard to say what's going to happen next chapter without spoiling it, so I'll just say that John and the Professor are given something to think about.
As always, please leave me a review or comment. I enjoy hearing what others think about my writing.