And the whole world trembled
Main Characters:
Eowyn "Possessor" Tillman
"Matt Damon" (An alias, authentic initials are G. L)
Douglas "Cypher" Ramsey
Marie "Rogue"
Jubilation Lee
Robert "Iceman" Drake
St. John "Pyro" Allerdyce
Samuel "Cannonball" Guthrie
Danielle "Mirage" Moonstar
+ Many more, but these are the major ones.
Rating: T
Genre: Adventure, Romance, Drama, Mystery, and Crime
Cypher belongs to the comic-verse, but I borrowed him into this story. His looks are based on the comics, but I have taken artistic liberty in interpreting his character.
Cannonball belongs to the comic-verse. His looks and personality are somewhat based on the comics, but I have taken some artistic liberty in interpreting him.
Mirage belongs to the comic-verse. I took her second codename from the comics and brought her into this story. Her personality is not based on the comics.
All of these three possess their canon abilities and powers, no changes there. Look them up if you are confused.
Chapter 1
"Hey"
Someone poked Eowyn's shoulder. The girl's brows furrowed in annoyance of the interruption. She sighed tiredly. The dark shades under her eyes told of some sleepless nights. Eowyn recognized the voice belonging to the one poking her, and sincerely wondered what could be so important.
"Hey Evy,"
Jubilee poker her shoulder one more time. Hard. Eowyn finally surrendered and looked up.
"What is it, Lee?"
Jubilee held a finger in front of her lips, and simply pointed to the front of the classroom. Eowyn shot her friend a tired glare before her eyes trailed to their teacher, dr. Jean Grey, and the person standing beside her. She felt her eyes widen slightly. She quickly shot her friends a glance.
To her right, Rogue and Bobby were also standing at the new person, both with a look of sceptic interest.
To her left, Samuel was neatly seated. His material was lying in front of him, ready to be used during the class. He held a (probably forgotten) pen in his left hand. The tip of the pen had left an ugly, crooked little grey line on his otherwise white paper. It bothered her. She wanted to do something about it, but trying to erase it with a rubber would only make a much bigger mess. She decided to let it pass, but it still bothered her. And his papers were a messy pile…
She turned away from him. A discrete mess was much worse than a total mess.
Speaking of total messes, Eowyn turned to Doug and Danielle, who were eyeing the newcomer with slight suspicion. It was above Eowyn's understanding how someone so genius with computers as Doug, could be so… untidy in person. At least Danielle's total mess of a room had not come as a surprise for her. Dani's excuse was that she was not all too smart. Her brain capacity needed to be reserved for more important things. But Eowyn would, none the less, lose her mind if she ever had to live in the chaos Dani called her room.
Jean cleared her throat.
"Erm," she glanced at the list of students she was holding. A new name was scribbled below the rest of the class. "So, Mr… Matt Damon?"
The sentence was supposed to be a statement, but when Jean read the students name out loud, it came out much more as a question. Matt Damon, what an odd name.
"Yes," the boy simply replied.
His posture was awful, that was Eowyn's first genuine thought. His shoulders were sloping, and the black, untruly hair fell over his forehead and hung in stripes in front of his eyes. He was very pale, Eowyn noticed, almost as if he hadn't been exposed to sunlight in years. And he was very thin, almost birdlike.
"Eh, I hope you will feel welcome here, Mr Damon. Please take a seat behind Mr Rasputin," she pointed to the empty seat behind Piotr Rasputin, here also known as Colossus.
The boy raised his chin to look at the seat Jean was pointing at. He had very strange eyes, large and oddly shaped. From where Eowyn was sitting, they looked black, but they must be very dark blue, she concluded. He had an intimidating, empty stare. The dark shades under his eyes only added to the strangeness about him.
"Thank you, dr. Grey." He had a very soft, strangely forceful voice that didn't quite suit him.
Eowyn frowned. His name, the accent… fishy.
The group of friends left the classroom as the period ended, and went down to the bottom floor where the cafeteria was located. Rogue and Bobby held hands. While Rogue was slightly timid about their relationship, Bobby had always been pretty straight on about it. But Eowyn knew Marie was concerned about how much attention Kitty Pryde had been getting from Bobby, and that motivated her to be more dominant and open with the two of them.
Jubilee and Danielle were making plans. Today was Wednesday, two days before Friday. Jubilee always stated that there was something special about Fridays, though Eowyn had never been able to understand what was so special about them. Anyways, Danielle and Jubilee always came up with some idea of what to do when class ended on Fridays.
Samuel has stayed behind to discuss something with dr. Grey, and would probably join up with them later. He was actually pretty ambitious, despite his lack for interest in details.
Eowyn purposely stayed a bit behind the rest of the group. She had just borrowed a book about Native American history. It was interesting.
She noticed that Doug purposely slowed his pace, and silently joined her.
"What is it, Cypher?" she asked. Doug threw guilty glances around him to assure himself that no one was listening to what he was about to say. He loved to be of use, but hated breaking the law.
"Those files you were interested in," he whispered to her. Eowyn had to restrain herself, and suppressed the snort she felt rising within. If he wanted to be discrete, talking openly would draw less attention. Sneaking around whispering on the other hand, that was very suspicious. Of course she couldn't tell him that.
"Give them to me," she calmly replied, loud and clear. "And try not to look like a deer caught in headlights," she silently added.
Her comment had no visible impact on Doug however. His eyes were wide, and there was a look of guilt plastered across his face as he handed her the files. Desperately he tried to cover the NYPD-logo on the front page, but only managed to get some questioning looks from students passing by. They parted, and Eowyn openly put the files into her bag.
"What do you want with those files anyway, Evy." Doug's eyes wore a deep expression of unease as he watched her face. Her thick glasses glimmered in the light from the chandelier hanging above them.
"They were awful, I looked at the files Evy, and it is awful. This man is a monster, and I can't understand why you would be interested in the case," he almost pleaded.
She agreed with him, they were awful, and she was scared. But it intrigued her at the same time, fascinated and frightened her.
"Mind your own business, Cypher."
They reached the cafeteria, and lined up to get their food. Doug felt hurt, and threw Eowyn hurt glances, waiting for her to apologise. But she didn't. She never did. Samuel joined up behind them, seemingly pleased with himself. Jean had awarded his essay on quantum physics with an A, and had asked him that he would be sharing his knowledge with the rest of the class during the next lesson. Jean had kept from him that she had also asked Eowyn to lecture, since her theories were in some ways counterparts to Samuel's, but the girl had refused, as usual.
Jubilee, Rogue and Danielle were planning an entire night of movies in the girl's bedroom. They were really excited, and were planning to go into town to rent some movies tomorrow.
Eowyn pretended she couldn't hear them.
The group sat down in silence, and began to eat their lunch. Danielle was savouring the rich flavour of the Italian risotto, but froze and stared at Eowyn with a mixed expression of disgust and concern.
"You know Evy, the food is already dead. There is no need for you to dissect it." Dani frowned, but Eowyn just ignored her remark. Armed with her knife and fork, she was carefully dissecting her food, putting everything in separate piles. It would take her an hour or so to eat her lunch, and she would still leave most of it behind. Most of her friends had learned to put up with her little quirks, but Dani never gave up.
Hurt by the lack of attention, Dani turned her head away from Eowyn's plate, and found the new student sitting alone at a table in the corner of the room.
"Not very friendly is he? He's really strange, don't you think?" she commented distantly. Bobby frowned.
"Who?"
Jubilee, who had caught on to Dani's chain of reasoning nodded to the strange boy.
"New guy, "Matt Damon"." She snorted. Rogue let out a nervous giggle.
"Really, what kind of name is that?" she turned to Eowyn who stared down at the table. "Can you really be named Matt Damon if you're not the Matt Damon?"
Eowyn looked up at their flushed expressions. They were like vultures. Her mind started to work.
"Well, in the US, Damon isn't really that rare, but it is not common either. Matt on the other hand is fairly common. I would say here, the chance of him being named Matt Damon is 50, and thereby fairly credible."
Jubilee nodded thoughtfully. Rogue seemed to be almost relieved by the news, and she picked up her pork and began to eat again. Bobby however had the feeling that it didn't end there.
He was right.
"Regrettably, the name Damon is on the other hand very rare in Britain, and the percentage chance of a Brit actually being name Matt Damon is extremely low. I would say it's less than 2."
"What do you mean?" Dani was intrigued; she loved mysteries, though she never really managed to understand what was going on.
Eowyn gave them all a deep, tired look of scepticism.
"Did any of you listen to him?" she softly inquired. Sometimes it would just be so much easier to not have friends at all.
"His accent," she sighed wearily. "He has a British accent, common within the high society in London."
"So it's a fake name?" Doug asked unhappily. He on the other hand did not like mysteries.
"What if the accent is fake?" Bobby shot in quietly. He had noticed the new guys sitting not so far away from them.
"I don't think so…" Eowyn replied reluctantly. "He looks like a Brit, very European features."
Danielle threw her a shocked gaze.
"I met a European once, and he looked completely normal. There is nothing normal with him," she motioned to the new student behind her.
Eowyn closed her eyes, and slowly counted to ten. Dani's ignorance was truly astonishing.
"You met an Italian guy, a southern European guy from a country known to raise the most beautiful men in the world, Dani." Samuel commented dryly.
"Yeah, whatever. He is really weird, that's the point. And why would someone fake their name, I mean come on, it screams Drama-queen."
Eowyn thought about it for a moment. There were several reasons for someone to fake their name, and being a mutant was one. But then why fake a name in a school for mutants?
"The reason for someone in our position to take on a false name…" she began slowly, calculating many possibilities and determining which was the right one. "… Would be if your very existence would be threatened by the exposing of your true name. It's a disguise."
"Then why not pick a name that is actually credible? And why would someone our age need a false name?" Bobby frowned deeply. The whole business began to sound suspicious to him, and there had been merely months since their last little "adventure".
"The reason why you would pick a ridiculous name is if you don't care, or even want people to know that your name is fake," Eowyn firmly stated. She also had a pretty good idea why someone their age would need an alias, but chose not to share that bit of information. They had had enough already.
Jubilee bit her lip. The mentioning of aliases had brought an old thought to her mind.
"Come to think of it Evy, your name is pretty strange too…"
Eowyn snorted.
"I assure you that Eowyn Tillman is my birth name. My mother loved to read J.R.R Tolkien's books. In fact I have a sister and a brother named after his books too," she replied. "And besides, I have other ways of concealing myself."
"Really?" Danielle's eyes glimmered with curiosity. "What is it, you can tell us."
"No I cannot, because if I did, it would not be a secret anymore."
Dani looked deeply disappointed. The others looked slightly curious, but knew Eowyn well enough to know she would never reveal anything to them. She shut people out, hid behind a mask of intelligence and compulsions, and treated them with all with slight coldness.
There was a tense moment of silence.
"Well at least I know what St. John Allerdyce would have thought of him. He would have said this new guy looks like the biggest d-" Jubilee never finished the sentence. She had finally noticed the glare she received from Bobby. Allerdyce had been his friend. Bobby didn't like them talking about John anymore. He didn't want to think about his best friends betraying them. It was so much easier to think of him as dead.
"Oh come on Bobby, when will we be able to say his name without you going Ricky Ricardo on us?" Dani sighed. She had not been close with Allerdyce; his betrayal meant nothing to her.
"Bobby," Eowyn suddenly spoke. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft, but she did not look up from her book. Her food was still lying on her plate, cold and forgotten. "Has it ever occurred to you that maybe John made the choice that was right for him?"
No, Robert Drake had never thought about that. He didn't want to either. St. John Allerdyce was dead, no matter what the others thought. But Eowyn's reply bothered him. She knew what he was thinking… knew what they were all thinking.
She had told them about her ability to not just read peoples minds upon skin touch, but actually enter their minds… infiltrate their thoughts. Every time their skin had accidentally brushed against each other's, he had wondered if she had been there inside his head, poking into business that was none of her concern.
Bobby wondered if that was why they all sometimes got the feeling that she really didn't like any of them. Because she had seen their thoughts, all their little secrets.
After lunch the group headed back upstairs to have one more class before the schoolday ended. The girls were chatting happily about their movie night they were planning. Bobby and Doug were talking about computer hardware, or to be more precise, Doug was trying to prove to Bobby why Mac was so much better than Pc by giving him tons of technical terms of which Bobby understood very little.
Behind them Eowyn had put her book away, and was currently engaged in a very heated discussion with Samuel about death and the existence. Samuel firmly refused to believe that there would ever be an end of existence, and stated that the soul had to go somewhere. Angrily, Eowyn tried to argue by explaining that the "soul" was located in his brain, and that when the brain dies, the Ego, the "I" actually faces the end of existence.
"Rogue, Jubilee, Mirage, Cannonball, Cypher, Iceman and Possessor, I need all of you to come down to the base as soon as class ends," Storm suddenly appeared on the path before them. She had a stern look on her face, her 'serious face'. "We have found something you need to see. And tell Colossus and Shadowcat when you meet them; it's important they are there too.
Everyone in the group tensed up. Something was going on.
Eowyn groaned. She hated being called possessor, like she was a character in a comic book or something. And she truly hated the sound of this. It was times like these she really didn't like being an X-man. You were expected to fight, to be brave and to die screaming "Freedom" from the top of your lungs.
Eowyn didn't care about freedom, she wanted to live.
"I think I know what this is about." Samuel said.
"What?" Doug asked darkly, making it clear to everyone he didn't really want to know. In opposite to Evy, Doug had nothing against being an X-man, except that he felt worthless most of the time because he did not have a mutation suited for combat… or infiltration.
"I think it is-" Samuel began