Hello, thank you for reading the story, I really hope you enjoy it! Let me know your opinion in the reviews! Annika x
Chapter 2: How not to make friends
I picked up the issue of Oliver Twist that was laying on the floor next to my dirty boots.
A little absent I pulled the itchy nightgown that the professor had given me over my head and walked over to the bathroom.
The colorful tiles on the wall formed a mosaic with fighting scenes between different mutants, which I found somehow nice but also sad. Did the architect of this bathroom divine that there would be a mutant war starting shortly? Or had it only been an interesting thought for him? I guessed that the house was built before Xavier and Magneto started fighting. I looked at the insect-like antennae and kraken-tentacles of two fighting mutants while taking off my underwear. It was hard to force myself to stop studying the pictures and take a step into the shower, but when the warm water started to run all over my body, I felt a sudden happiness. My first shower in over a week. I almost used all of the soap and the bottle of shampoo that one had given to me. I watched how the water to my feet changed color, from black and red to clear again, then I realized that the whole shower smelled like lemon and I felt clean again.
A towel tied up around my body, I let water into the sink, threw in my clothes and filled it up with the rest of the liquid soap. My jeans had gotten hard from all the dirt and I was still able to smell my stinking t-shirt when I held my breath.
I put on my last clean piece of clothing – a pair of pink socks, that I already hated just for their color – and stepped outside in the hallway, pressing the towel to my chest.
So. Where was I going to get clothes from?
Gal, whatever you're doing right now, it's completely stupid!, a voice in my head informed me, and one, that sounded more like me, replied: You're probably dead real soon anyways.
True, actually. I was really wondering about them giving me shelter instead of locking me up. After all I had been one of Magneto's best allies over all these years (which I wasn't proud of, now that I knew what he had planned for me!).
A walked down the hallway a few meters and knocked on a door, that didn't have a door knob on the outside, but probably one on the inside because I could see the end of a screw. I guessed that it was the room of the girl who could go through walls.
„What?" Her answer sounded pretty much as annoyed as I felt. „Bobby, if that's you, it's not funny to knock on other people's doors that early in the morning!"
„This isn't Bobby.", I sighed. Nailed it. Somehow my idea of lending clothes from someone else looked pretty damn stupid to me now.
„Who is it then? Rogue?"
„Shadow."
It got quiet and a moment later she stepped through the door. What was her name again? Kathy? No, Kitty was what the professor had called her.
Her facial expression changed fast, lucky me, from angry to amused, as she saw me in my towel.
„What are you doing here?"
„I need something to wear.", I admitted. „My clothes haven't been washed in a week and it -"
„Yeah, got it." She said bored. „Wait here."
She came back a little while later with a pile of dark clothes. „Wear this." She handed me the pile, but when I thanked her as polite as possible, she only waved in the direction of my door and walked back into her room backwards.
Nice view of hospitality, I guess.
Other than I expected, the tight suit fit me perfectly. It was close-fitting, even on my skinny arms and legs, and had a red and black X-sign sewed to the chest. X-Men. Was I even allowed to wear this? A bit insecure I put on my leather jacket on top and also my combat boots, picked up my book and left my room again, to explore the school.
The corridors seemed endless, long, to me, with a vast number of doors, and for a while everything looked the same. It reminded me of the old mansion somewhere in Europe that I had spent most of my childhood in, the walls dark brown with a lamp or a painting occasionally. I would have bet all of my little lethal injections that I hid inside my shoes that there were secret passages behind these paintings somewhere.
But after turning left a couple of times I stood in front of a big and really strong-looking metal door, that opened all by itself like the glass doors in shopping malls, as I stepped closer towards them. It led me into a small chamber with a few buttons, but before I was able to read the tiny writing on them, the elevator already started taking me downstairs.
When I left it, I found myself in a long corridor again, but this one was underground and seemed to be built from pure metal. To my right and to my left there were little corners in the walls, the whole hallway had the shape of a hexagon.
I took a few steps and held my breath when I heard, that my steps set free clear sounds, and that even though I wasn't even wearing heels.
I heard slow, departing steps.
I put up my camouflage like a shield, changed all my cells into adaption of my surrounding. Only milliseconds later every small part of my body had the color and structure of the metal wall to my left. Even the book that I had taken with me to read somewhere, looked like a little chameleon.
„Chameleon!"
„I am coming, mother!" I jumped from the swing and landed ungentle in the hot sand. On my way inside I grabbed my shoes.
The door of the old wooden villa creaked a bit when I turned the door knob and opened it. On the other side of the hallway where there was the door to the kitchen, I could see my mom's dress swinging around, like always when she had passionate arguments with someone. As quiet as possible I closed the door behind me and took a few steps closer to the kitchen to listen.
„If you continue calling her by her mutant name, soon everyone is going to know, what we are, Kayla!" The male voice sounded raspy.
„So?" My mom. „Chameleon on her own would be stronger than the whole neighborhood combined!"
„We have to be careful! People don't like things like this!"
„Mutants are better than them, and you know that, Erik!"
„But I need my mutants alive!" Erik Lensherr almost yelled that last part. „And you are strong!"
As fast as the memory had come, as fast it was gone again. I had been si years old when I me Magneto for the first time. Kayla Stone, a telepath with the speciality to change someone's mood, had introduced him to me. At that point I had been completely sure of her being my mother. I didn't waste a thought to the fact, that about half an hour after this conversation half of the street had blown up and Kayla and I had been forced to move from Tallahassee to Cardiff. After all it had been my decision to come back to the States ten years later and join the Brotherhood, Magneto's mutant army. And I was a survivor of the little street fight, so what more would I want?
I just continued walking down the metal corridor, as close to the wall as possible because that made my mutation stronger. After about a hundred meters another door appeared on the other side of the hallway, which opened as if it had felt my presence. But I was wrong, a woman with short red hair that I had never seen before walked out, followed by Charles Xavier. They walked next to each other silent, but from a past conversation with Magneto I knew that the exerted look on the professor's face meant that he was talking to someone through the use of telepathy – and that he was able to hear all the thoughts of present people in that state, without being able to shut it down.
Fuck.
I covered my mouth with my hand to stop me from mumuring, simultaneous with the red-haired woman turning around and lookd exactly in my direction.
I forced myself to stay calm and put up the level of my camouflage, because I knew by experience that after a while of staring at me I was able to see, especially by telepath-mutants.
„Is it her?" The professor looked at the woman.
„She's standing around her somewhere, thinking we couldn't find her.", was the growling answer. I guessed that they weren't saying these sentences in their thoughts so Iwas able to hear them, probably so I would become scared.
„Right." The blood in my veins froze as the woman answered my indirekt, though question. „Come on, show yourself."
„Jean, we don't want to read other people's minds." Professor Xavier put his tie into place. „Leave her. She can't get into the laboratories, that's for sure."
„True." Like in timelapse Jean turned back around to the professor. She was noticeable disappointed.
„Let's go. She'll find her way out alone." I felt a clicking in my head and the picture of the professor giving me a wink appeared in front of my inner eye. I shivered. So that was what telepathic communication looked like?
I only changed back into my normal, visible form when I got off the elevater on the first floor, wanting to leave the lab corridor as fast as I was able to.