Well I'm glad you all liked the last chapter enough to prompt me to continue this story. Hope you keep enjoying and I'll leave you with chapter two. A lot of questions asked will be answered either now or in later chapters, but I'm not much for giving away things myself. So again, enjoy.
~Telaka~
Any perfectly sane person would more than likely, most probably in fact, have chosen with their entire God given free will not to be in such a damned place. As it was though (as sane as Logan and Ororo both claimed to be) they had no choice in the matter.
The classroom was hot, cramped, stuffy, dull and above all else holder of thirty listless students none of which who had any intentions what so ever of finding out about one hundred years of proud American history. But still if the government insisted in this regime of torture for those so young then who were they to argue with the law?
Even so, very little could stop Logan from finding some other sort of entertainment except for the actual lesson at hand to relieve the numbing humidity that had settled itself in his mind. The entertainment came namely in Ororo. Below his nose rested his unopened, dog-eared notes jotter and with it an opportunity to torment.
For all her stubborn nature not to want to like this subject or to learn anything at all in school, Ororo couldn't help but find some interest at the highlighted President for this class, Abraham Lincoln. The teacher forever droned on in a flat, lifeless, toneless voice but Ororo cared enough to take down some notes from time to time in her elegant, artistic scroll across her considerably neat jotter.
"Okay class, now it's on to page forty-eight of your textbooks…Mr Logan. Might I ask?"
Ororo turned full circle from her spot at the front of the class to where Logan sat at the back in the corner busily tearing at the very tips of the corners of his jotter.
It had taken all but one class at the beginning of term to have the two separated as far apart as was possible and it was the same sad case in most of their classes together. It did little to stop them from interacting with each other though for the hour or so that a class lasted.
When he dared to look up Logan's eyes were dark and deep in concentration. Ororo knew the look.
"Yes miss?"
With a heavy sigh the teacher leant on her desk and placed on her face an arched eyebrow. "Would you please refrain from destroying that jotter of yours and maybe, just maybe, could you start writing in it?"
A light snigger swept across the classroom and it took most of Logan's self-restraint to stop from growling, loudly.
"Yes miss."
"Thank you."
As quickly as she had throw on the slight edge of sarcasm in her tone the teacher managed to slipped back into her drone and Logan went back to his business, albeit a little more subtly. He had now managed to collect enough from his jotter to go about his job of destruction with a smirk.
She didn't feel the first couple of paper spit balls; they comically bounced off her tight, head high ponytail that trapped her impossibly long gleaming hair and landed on the floor at her crossed feet.
Steadying his aim and taking more care he eyed up his opponent and fingered his weapon until he found the exact line-up. This time he struck true and hit her shoulder square where she tensed when she felt impact.
Without turning (although Logan could practically feel her grin) she swept her hand under the desk, across the floor and found the three discharged pieces of soggy paper. She teetered with them for a second, rolling them about the desk with her long purple nailed fingers and pondering over what to do with them. Then picking up one with her thumb and forefinger she again smirked and turned, catching Logan's eye before she threw. Propelled by less than gentle winds she managed to get him on the cheek and cause him to scowl.
Now she had laid down a challenge.
How the teacher didn't notice what was going on for the better part of ten minutes Remy would never know; he cared little to do so. As he sat at the back of the class, near enough beside Logan to watch what he was doing, he found what little respect he had for the guy slipping away fast. And although it would more than likely be regained through whatever means Remy would probably never grow to like Logan, in fact to be brutally honest he was quite spiteful towards the much bolder than him seventeen year old. He wasn't quite sure why, he had just never liked him. He also had no intent on getting to know him any more than he did so.
Logan's insufferable behaviour in class with Ororo did only carry on for the better part of ten minutes though before the dim teacher finally did take note. With a sharp crack her book was thrown down hard on her orderly desk and all but Remy jumped and paled in fright.
"Mr Logan, Miss Munroe, outside now!"
As a wave of chatty, now more colourful students filed out of the classroom prison Logan and Ororo were called back in. They passed Remy on the way out and could almost swear to it that he grinned, albeit very slightly.
Logan growled threateningly but Ororo checked him with a frown.
They continued to walk against the wave of students until they grudgingly made it back into the sweltering classroom where they dared to go no further than just inside the door.
There stood the teacher beside Ororo's desk, her feet placed in amongst the small pile of paper that had collected in their battle and her arms crossed angrily. Her face was set in grim determination to see they would get what would be, in her eyes, a worthy punishment.
"Get in."
They reluctantly obeyed and came within a meter of the teacher's livid face, her narrow grey eyes scarred with none too subtly hatred towards the two.
"I have had enough!"
Her voice echoed clear through the near empty classroom and both cringed slightly as it rung hard in their ears.
"You both hold little stability in this school as it is, you're places are far from secure here. I have, for so long now, argued against allowing mutants," she spat the word with poisoned malice, "in this fine school. I even have countless parents backing me on this case, but will the Principle, listen? No. However that does not mean I will not be able to find some excuses to rid you of this place. Is that clear?"
With glaring eyes they nodded slowly. They sometimes wondered why they bothered going along with this.
"Now clean up the mess then leave."
She swept past them without waiting for a response and left behind her a cold chill in the atmosphere. Her stiletto heals echoed loud and clear down the corridor and they waited silently until they faded away. As she stood fuming, Ororo held a look deep in her eyes that held no hesitation to the idea of killing the snippy woman.
"Bitch! Absolute Super-Bitch! Why does Charlie insist in sending us to this God awful place?"
Logan, despite his usual lack of controlled temper, managed to stay the even headed one between the two with a calm tone of voice to answer his raging friend.
"'Cause of what she just said 'Ro. No one else except this school's Head'll accept us. Mutant's written all over our profiles, literally, so we don't even get a second glance anywhere else except here."
Ororo hoisted herself on top of her desk and swung her lengthy legs above the snowfall of paper.
"Still… Remy doesn't even get it this bad."
Logan grinned, his sharp, elongated canines poking the tops of his pale lips. "Course he don't, you wouldn't even know he was here 'less you tripped up over him."
This brought Ororo to smile, if only a little. "True. Now, shall we?"
She slipped back off the desk and stood amongst their messy pile of trash with a similar pile lying in waste up at the back corner. She never noticed the glint in Logan's eyes as she surveyed the disarray of scattered corner jotter remains.
"We still have unfinished business you know, Windrider."
She had only a second to react before he lunged and grabbed her around the waist, causing her to kick out in squirming fits of screams.
"Get off you maniac Wolverine thingy, get off!"
She managed to kick herself free and he instantly gave chase, sending her skidding across tables and chairs as she tried to get away from him with all the speed she could muster amongst the fit of laughter she erupted into. Furniture toppled and posters tore as they charged through the room in full vengeance mode now.
As Ororo made one particularly dramatic leap across the teacher's desk, scattering pencils and paper everywhere, the door flew open, almost off its hinges, and in stepped the one Ororo had rightfully dubbed 'Super-Bitch'.
"You two, principles office, now!"
The clock would have told them it had only been half an hour that had passed but it was not the length of time either teen would have guessed.
Their hearts were sinking in shame and guilt as it gnawed relentlessly at their consciences. A few bodies walked by on the odd occasion slowing slightly as they passed the Head's office in wicked curiosity. Every time they did Ororo felt a great urge to lunge, her temper on its last frayed ends, but Logan would place a gentle hand on her knee and she would force herself to settle back down again.
There was one body that passed though that both almost lunged on. A sickly sweet deep Southern accent drifted down from above their hung heads and managed to life both pairs of narrow blue eyes upwards.
"This is just too good! Tell me y'all getting' expelled this time, go on, make ma day."
"Shut up skunk."
Ororo's voice was worryingly low in pitch as she spat at the girl but Logan's was no better in his own response.
"Go, before we both add to that God awful streak of yours."
The Southern grinned wider and her daring green eyes scanned over to where two sets of distant footsteps were slowly approaching.
"An' the Cajun's comin' down with ya. For shame on ya both!"
Rogue could not conceal the glee upon her face now. It was hardly any great secret that bad blood, dirtier than most flowing hatreds, was deep rendered between Ororo and Rogue which in turn led to Logan's own hatred of the belle. One girl would often take the deepest digs she could to mortally wound the other and today Rogue seized all the chances that were running at her.
Both Logan and Ororo turned with her to watch their teacher guiding Remy down the long and dingy corridor directly towards where they sat outside the enclosed office.
"Sit Mr LeBeau. And Miss Darkholme would you please get to your class before I happily make you join them."
Rogue scowled behind her thick fringe of white and brown hair then watched with admiring eyes as Remy came to sit. It was as obvious as Ororo and Rogue's hatred towards each other that Rogue fancied the enigmatic young Cajun with a passion. No one knew what Remy thought of this though.
The teacher left with satisfaction clearly written on her face and Rogue took off in the opposite direction towards the senior girl's toilets.
Ororo's eyes fell back down to her clasped hands but Logan kept his glare on Remy, questioning him with a brunt tone of voice.
"So why'd she send you down here too?"
Ororo looked up at Logan as if he was crazy to expect an answer but to both of their overwhelming surprises he got one.
"'Cause we all come from de same orphanage an' she don' wan' anyone dat comes from der comin' 'ere anymore. Says it's trouble dat can be removed if de head just star' t'ink straight."
Ororo raised an eyebrow firstly because she had never heard Remy speak more than two strung together words at any one time and secondly because she had never noticed the accent.
"Where do you come from originally?"
Again, astonishingly, he answered.
"New Orleans."
Ororo nodded slowly then turned to Logan who gave her a funny look. In turn she shrugged and went back to fiddling with her thumbs.
Still that half hour felt like an eternity. But it did pass, eventually.
There was a soft click signalling the end of the Head's meeting with their mentor and firstly Charles then the principle, a Mr Robinson, spoke up on behalf of both men.
"Mr Logan, Miss Munroe."
Both stood up automatically, straight and rigid, their faces wiped of any smirks of daring impudence.
"Whether it be you luck or not, Mr Xavier here is a very convincing man. Now I myself am a fair man but everyone has a limit to his or her patience in the end. This will be the last time I tolerate any of this boisterous, obnoxious, cheeky nature from either of you. You are suspended for two weeks and after that if you mess up again you will be expelled."
Both nodded sombrely and sat back down on his word.
"And Mr LeBeau."
Remy didn't bother to stand, or raise his eyes, or show any acknowledgment to the fact of whether he was listening or not. Still Mr Robinson carried on.
"I'm not actually sure what you've done if anything, save from having a great lack of co-operation and refusal to show off any social skills that you may posses somewhere under that fringe of brown. For that I can give you no punishment, or warning, but," and he smiled slightly, sadly, "I do encourage you to express yourself a little more, please?"
Naturally there was no response, he might have well asked Storm to cut her hair off for all the co-operation he was looking for. At least with her he would have gotten an outburst.
"Well you three all have the rest of the day off, unless you wish to stay for the remained of the time Mr LeBeau?"
Finally there was an answer, a short shake of the head.
"Very well. Charles, no doubt I will be seeing you again some time soon."
The old man extended his hand with a somewhat forceful smile and stiff nod. "Good day Mr Robinson."
The shake was brief and on that the four mutants left. But if Ororo and Logan were led to believe the lectures and punishments would stop there then they were sadly mistaken.
The late summer rains were relentless in their warm wash of floods. Sheets of street water poured into the sewers by the gallon and created puddles of runny mud wherever possible. People rushed hastily from A to B as quickly as their routes would allow and some people even dared not to venture out at all.
Amongst the bustling crowds of soaked New Yorkers an old tomcat, as insignificant to the people as each individual drop of water was, dodged and skipped past a tide of legs and downpour. Its mud soaked paws carried its thin and ragged body effortlessly through the masses until finally it found peace in a dry, abandoned alleyway, used only at night by the other half of the New York population.
Here was where it sat on top of a rusted garbage can and dried and cleaned itself for a good long while. Its yellow green eyes focused solely on the paws in front of it and the mud that is carefully peeled off with a rough pink tongue.
But despite its docile appearance its ears were perked high and its tail out stiff; it was anxious and waiting.
As the hours passed by the cat grew weary along with the day and curled itself up into a tight ball of grey and black, its tail resting under its chin. Still it seemed restless in some way; its saucer eyes never shut over and its fur rose and fell with ever noise made in the alley.
The numbers on the streets gradually died away with the daylight and soon the clouds passed over a moon instead of a sun. Only the bright eyes of the tomcat were visible past the shadows that hugged it on its resting spot atop the soiled bin.
And still its mind never slept, it never dared to, not even for a second, for as soon as it did…
The air around began to tingle. The sensitive tuft ears of the cat's stood forward and its scruffy body came to stand with its back arched and its claws out. But it didn't hiss or spit, silence reined in its throat.
A ripple passed through the air surrounding it and an impulse of energy moved through ever inch of the alleyway, shaking the ground and unsettling the bins. A nearby streetlight flickered on and off, sparking slightly as it did.
The cat leapt off the bin now and stood at the very edge of a deep puddle, staring down into the rippling reflection of itself.
And above its head materialized a mass of dark, overcast being, a man that seemed just to stand on the very air around him. His arms were crossed and his face shadowed by a helmet; a cape of deep maroon rippled out from behind him, fluttering gentle in an invisible wind.
Seconds later his reflection was joined by that of a woman's, one clad in the purest of white with the darkest of blue, flawless skin. Her yellow catlike eyes shimmered in the moonlight and narrowed in a dangerous smile.
"We really should stop meeting like this Eric."
The man descended from the sky and his feet touched on the ground at the other side of the dirty puddle. His smile remained hidden in his helmet.
"We should. Now down to business."
His arms unfolded and he extended one hand from which a CD floated out and was passed to the shape-shifting woman.
"These are the files you requested. It had everything on it that you will need so there will be no excuses this time. Capture only two of them, whomever you choose from the files, I'm not fussy. Just make sure it's two from off the CD. Understood?"
The woman nodded silently, her eyes fixed on the small reflective CD where her orbs shone back at her and the tiny black pupils that rested in the middle of them diluted to almost nothing.
The man had one last passing comment to make before he gathered himself to leave this disgusting meeting spot.
"Say hello to the children for me, will you Raven?"
He never caught the flow of curses that followed his smirk or the deadly fleeting glance across the eerie woman's face. Instead he lifted himself back off the filthy ground without giving her another glance and she turned back into the sodden streets of New York on four paws, a CD clenched tight in her tiny jaw.