No copyright infringement intended.
Italics are telepathic conversations, dreams, or thoughts
Chapter 2:
Rally sat down nervously in the Professor's office. It reminded her of going to the Principal's office and gave off the same vibe.
"There is no need to be worried, Rally. I just would like to discuss some things with you. Are you thirsty?" The Professor asked, trying to calm her down.
"No, thank you." She replied.
The Professor nodded and delayed the inevitable conversation where he would have to tell Rally that she was quarantined from seeing the other students by organizing some papers on his desk. Realizing the child was only growing more nervous with the silence and stalling, he began speaking. "Rally, here we are all about the students' safety. We do not want any of them to get hurt or be put in a dangerous situation if they cannot protect themselves. You are our first student here who has come to us with her powers still undiscovered which puts everyone's, especially the student's, safety in jeopardy. If your mutation was to suddenly come to life and you could not control it, you could harm someone else, especially those students whose powers are still weak and could not protect themselves."
The young girl pondered over the words he had said. "So you want me to leave?" She asked, trying to hide the tears that began pushing out from her eyes.
"No, Rally." Charles told her. "We want you here but we think it would be best if you would stay away from the other students for awhile, until we know the extent of your powers and can keep them under control."
"Oh." She said, looking away and wiping her eye to hide her tears. "I understand."
The Professor smiled trying to cheer her up, "I knew you would, Rally. We will do the best we can to hurry up the activation process of your powers."
"Is that all?" Rally asked, with pain in her voice. She agreed with the Professor's decision, but it still hurt to know that she had to be alone and couldn't interact with other people like her, other mutants.
The Professor read her mind. "Rally, we won't make you be alone for all this time. You may still be around the older and more experienced mutants, like me, Hank, Storm, Jean, Emma, Logan, and Kurt. We can protect ourselves and could help you in your time of need."
A faint smile spread across Rally's face and the pain subsided. "Thank you." She said.
"Don't thank me for doing this to you, my dear. I should be apologizing for excluding you from the other students."
"It's alright. I'm just happy I can be around someone. I…I don't really like being alone these days." She said and thought about her father's death.
The Professor wheeled out from behind his desk and came right up to where Rally was seated. "I am always here for you and so are the other X-men."
She nodded in acknowledgment.
"Well, it's about time I show you around the mansion and get you acquainted with all of the X-men." The Professor stated and began leading the way through the mansion, showing her where the Kitchen, dining room, living room, and the classrooms were. He continued leading her until they reached the lower levels of the mansion.
"This is the Danger room." He said, leading her into the plain room. "It is where we have all our training sessions."
"But it's just an empty room." She said with confusion.
"Right now it is. During our training sessions, we run simulations and the room transforms into whatever we would like for that day." He watched as the expression on her face changed to amazement.
"Wow. Will I be training in here once I get my powers?" She asked, sounding like she wanted to.
"We can start you even earlier than that to learn the basics. Of course, we cannot have you with the other students right now, but we will arrange something." The Professor told her.
She smiled, "You would do that for me?"
"Of course." He stated and returned the smile.
The two then exited the danger room and headed towards Cerebro.
"Now, I am going to show you something that few students ever get to see. It's called Cerebro. For telepaths, it acts as a location finder for anybody in the world, humans and mutants alike." The professor told her.
"How does it work?" She asked with interest.
"I will show you." He said as they stopped in front of the Cerebro doors. The professor stared at the center of the door and a beam of blue light scanned his eye. "Welcome Professor." A woman's voice said as the doors curled open.
"This procedure is for security purposes. In the wrong hands, Cerebro could be deadly." The Professor told her.
Rally nervously looked down over the edge of the suspended narrow path as they walked towards the center of the dome shaped room.
The Professor placed the headpiece on his head when they reached the center and said, "Just don't make any sudden movements."
"Alright." Rally stated as everything in the room began to shift in color and shape and a map of the entire globe appeared with dots all over it.
"All of the white dots are the humans." He said. Then, the dots changed positions and turned to red. "These are the mutants. If I concentrate, I can locate any one of them." He began to zoom through different mutants that appeared to be walking around in the room and a million different voices were heard as he did this.
Rally watched in awe. "This is how you found me?" She asked as the room came back to normal and the Professor removed his headpiece.
"No. I cannot locate mutants whose powers are dead. I found you by locating the mutant who attacked your home." He said.
"Who was it?" Rally asked, with anger in her voice, remembering watching her father getting attacked and the one coming after her earlier that day.
The Professor sighed. "Sabretooth. He is a very dangerous mutant who is out to kill all who cross his path. You are very lucky you got away when you did."
"What did he want from me and my father?"
"I don't know, Rally, but it cannot be anything good." Charles said.
The girl turned away from the professor as she thought about her father. She missed him so much. Why did he have to die? She thought and then began sniffling.
"Let's head back up to the dining hall. It's just about time for dinner." He said with a reassuring smile, trying to take her mind off of her dead father.
"Okay." She said and tried to smile back as they made their way back upstairs.
"Do you remember the way to the dining room, Rally?" The Professor asked, testing her memory.
She bit her lip. "Is it down this way past the kitchen?"
"Not quite." He responded.
"Before the kitchen?"
He shook his head.
The young girl sighed. "It might take me awhile to get to know my way around here."
The Professor laughed. "Well you have plenty of time. The Dining room is through the Kitchen." He told her.
"That was my next guess." She joked.
He chuckled. "I'm glad to see your spirits are better, Rally. I must be off, though. I have other duties to attend to. If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask myself or one of the x-men."
"Alright." Rally answered and watched the Professor roll the opposite way in his wheel chair then began walking towards the kitchen. She really wasn't sure what to expect when she got there. Was she supposed to make her own dinner? Did they have a designated cook for the whole mansion or was it like a regular school cafeteria?
"Well hello there." Someone said and interrupted her thoughts.
"Warren, hi." She said, a little startled by his sudden entrance, but a smile spread across her face.
"Where are you going?" He asked.
"Dinner."
"I was headed there, too. We can go together." He smiled.
"Well actually," She began, remembering what the Professor had told her about keeping distance between her and the other students, "I can't."
"Oh," Warren looked away as if he had just been rejected, "Later then."
Rally felt a pain of sadness. She wanted to go with him, but she wouldn't risk his safety for her own pleasures. Besides, she didn't know what would happen if she was caught with him. Would they throw her out or quarantine her? She really didn't want to find out.
When she reached the dining room, Rally saw a bunch of students eating at the table, island, and mock bar. Some were even out on the patio, but she saw no x-men. Maybe she would be spending a lot of her time alone. Quietly, she snuck back into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the refrigerator since she wasn't really that hungry anyway and then crept outside. There were too many students in the dining room to stay there.
Rally looked around the property trying to spot a nice area where she could sit down and not put anyone in danger. She noticed a giant tree situated close to the cliff that dropped off into the ocean and figured that would be an ideal place to drink her water.
She sat down in between some big roots and looked out towards the horizon where the sun was getting ready to set. She couldn't believe all that happened today. It felt like a dream remembering back on it all. Early that morning, she had awoken to her father's comforting face telling her 'Good morning, sunshine'. Then they had went to the beach and watched the very same sun she was watching now, rise up over the horizon, creating beautiful shades of pink, purple, orange, and yellow, just like it was now. Everything came rushing at her all at once, all of her emotions: rage, sorrow, and loneliness. The tears came out instantaneously. The young girl felt like a crushing weight was on her lungs making it hard for her to breathe and with that, she laid her head down on the root of the tree and just sobbed. Thoughts went rushing through her head; especially thoughts of revenge on the mutant the professor had called Sabretooth. She wanted him to pay for what he had done to her father, the only person she had ever loved. Rally then thought of her mother who she had never met or knew nothing about. She once asked her Dad about her Mom but he told her nothing and she never asked again.
Her thoughts transitioned to the events of that day. Sabretooth and his men had come just after Rally and her Dad finished lunch. They knocked and her Dad answered. When he opened the door, they barged in and grabbed him. Sabretooth came through last, with the same sickening smile he always had. He came straight for her and then everything began happening so fast. Her Dad yelled, "Run!" And so she began running down the hall but Sabretooth was faster. He grabbed her with one arm, digging his fingernail-like claws into her upper left arm. Then the mutant had let her fall back to the floor thinking she was in too much pain to go anywhere and went back to the living room where her father was held captive. He had underestimated her, though. She quietly crawled in agony farther down the hall and into her Dad's office where the gun was kept, but before she could reach it, there was an explosion, then growling and yelling, then after a few minutes, silence. "Dad?" She had called frantically hoping he was alright and the mutants were gone. She heard movement so she called out again, this time crawling into the corner, in case it wasn't her father. Then, Logan had appeared and she was frightened he was with Sabretooth, the mutant who had hurt her and her father, but he had reassured her he was not going to hurt her.
Rally's sobs came to a sudden halt when she realized someone was standing in the shadows beside her. She sat up and wiped her tear-stained cheeks in embarrassment. "Please go away." She asked, sniffling, not knowing who the intruder was in the now moon-lit sky, but wanted privacy just the same.
.