So the next two chapters were once, one long beast of a chapter. So to save your eyes from bleeding (see Chapter 2,) I broke Chapter 4 into two chapters and thus, Chapter 5 was born too. So think of this chapter, and the next, as "Chapters 4.1 and 4.2." Ugh, I just used decimals.
Also, I'm having trouble finding a Beta-Reader :'( If anyone's interested, I'd love to hear from you, so pop a message my way! All are weeeelcome. *Waving arm motion*
Chapter 5 (4.2, lol sorry,) will be up in a bit! Thank you all again!
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"It seems we're in the same class," Jay replied, as Josh scanned over his class-list which had recently been delivered to the door.
"Mr. Worthington is the best English teacher in the school. He's a pragmatist, and usually gets you the grade you want," explained the auburn haired student, as Josh's eyes continued to scan over the list.
"Who's Ms. Aquilla?" Josh asked, his eyes flicking up to make sure that Jay was at a distance.
"She's one of the science teachers, although I'm not certain which science specifically."
The golden mutant hummed and brought his attention back to the list.
"And Mrs. Munroe?"
"Technically, it's Mrs. Munroe," Jay stated, "but everybody calls her Ororo or Storm."
"Storm?"
"It's just a nickname, similar to Beast, as it refers to her powers. Think of it as a definition, if you wish."
Josh scratched his head and looked towards his roommate, who had not moved from his cross-legged position on his bed.
"What can she do? It doesn't sound safe to me," Josh remarked, throwing his hand up in the air before settling it down. "Does this school have any normal people?"
"You can find anything if you look hard enough for it," Jay replied calmly, shifting his weight on the bed. "I wouldn't repudiate the idea that life here is more mundane than you'd believe."
The mellifluous tone to Jay's voice, along with the flowing certainty in his words, soothed a subconscious knot in Josh's stomach.
"So what exactly can this Ororo do?"
"Edit the weather as she pleases."
Josh's eyes popped out a little, and the teenager's pupils drew over his roommate's mouth, as if he could see the words form themselves on his lips.
"How could life here be mundane, when there are people that can change the weather at will? None of that is normal." He slapped a hand to his forehead and took a deep breath and sighed away his frustration. But he then remembered that he had to live with Jay, and so getting on his bad side was probably not a good idea. The golden mutant quickly thought of a method to meliorate his last comment by adding a light hearted one to impersonalize it. "If someone told me I was living in a comic book, I'd probably believe them."
"As would I," Jay remarked, the corners of his mouth rising, showing no awareness of Josh's speedy amelioration. "At least you have survived your first two days sans being ignited into flames or dropped from the sky."
Despite the element of truth to his words, Josh shrugged it off and turned his eyes back to the list before speaking. "Well it's only the beginning of day three. I'm not going to hold my breath."
Jay hummed with a closed mouth before Josh continued, his eyes flicking through the names on the list. "And who's Mr. Summers?"
Jay seemed a little over-whelmed by the question, and sighed before leaning back into the wall that his bed was pushed against.
"Mr. Summers is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most officious figure of authority in the school,"
"Offici- what?"
"My apologies. He is the one teacher who exerts his authority the most intensively," Jay answered, with a slight rise in his glance. "It is popular belief that Mr. Summers has always eyed Mrs. Frost's position."
"You mean he wants to be principal?"
"In popular belief, yes."
"Who would possibly want to run this place? It's hell enough just staying here for a year, never mind living and working in it," Josh huffed. "But besides, what does Mr. Summer's power trip have to do with eyeing the spot as principal?"
"Many students feel that the reason he acts in such a bitter manner, is because he is indignant that he is not the leader of the institution. I've heard that some seniors have asked Mrs. Frost of her opinion of him," Jay explained, "of course, she will not comment, but the expression upon her countenance alone, is an insight into her fondness – or lack of."
"Lack of, definitely," Josh interjected.
Jay sighed and slightly slouched his shoulders. "But it's wrong of me to influence your opinion before you've met him. Perhaps you will enjoy him as a teacher."
"Enjoy is a bit far." Josh ruffled his hair and glanced at the list again before allowing his gaze to wander off. "I don't enjoy anything here," he stopped again, and fell to the urge that prodded him to say what he thought. "Everyone outside this room is a terrorist to me. It's like everybody is a time-bomb, or something, and that this whole fake world that this school has made, is bound to fall at some stage."
The auburn haired student, wisps of surprise swirling in his stomach, pondered Josh's words before lifting a brow, of which made Josh hesitate.
"You said, everybody outside this room," Jay quoted, his eyes gently placing themselves upon the awkward Josh. He stood to his feet and picked up his bag from the floor below him, and headed towards the door before opening it. As Josh's face sketched a puzzled expression, the auburn headed student turned around and faced his roommate.
"But I remind you, Josh, that I am in this room." Jay smiled and turned for the hallway and departed his dorm, leaving Josh to the confines of his thoughts.
The golden mutant sighed and grunted, before his consciousness quelled the embers of Blair's warnings in his diaphragm. Jay's words encircled him and wrapped around his body like a lasso.
For some reason, Jay didn't feel like a mutant to Josh. Perhaps it was because he was the first person who didn't pry into Josh's life, or try to relate to him through the usage of a brittle cliché or a vacuous proverb. But it helped that Jay showed no physical signs of a mutation too, and Josh could almost let himself forget that Jay was a mutant entirely. Unlike Ben and Laurie, his roommate didn't seem to define himself by his powers, and this was an art of which Josh hoped to master some day.
But, like every other student, he was still a mutant. He wouldn't be at the school if he wasn't. And similarly to his experience the night before, his ease shattered and Blair's teachings came bleeding into his thoughts.
Never trust a mutant.
A guilty mutant will never look at you in the eye.
Mutants are the greatest threat to humanity as we know it.
Mutants must be isolated from society.
.. Mutants are evil.
Surprisingly, Josh found himself associating Blair with a hint of normality. Because Blair gave him foundations, and meaning, Josh thought of him as an establisher of order. His teachings, in an obscure way, actually comforted Josh and told him that everything would be okay, that Blair would fix it all soon. It was for this reason that Josh felt obliged to live by the man's words. Blair had given him a mantra of security and reason, and gifted him the ability to work towards something and ultimately towards a sensation of satisfaction.
Blair had succeeded where Laurie had failed: he gave Josh a reason - a reason to wake up every morning.
Money and politics had sapped every fiber of meaning from Josh's life; what was the point of working, when you have everything you'd ever want within arms reach? Josh felt void of purpose and longed to achieve something that wasn't served to him on a silver platter.
But now, Josh felt deprived of meaning and purpose again. Since his powers manifested, life was bleak to him and any hopes or dreams, which he once retained, were enshrouded in a mist of darkness and depression. The sad truth that his life had changed forever, knocked on the back of his head and delivered a package of grief to his gut.
The alarm chirped, and Josh realized that he was running late for English class. He ripped himself from his thoughts and slung his bag over his left shoulder, before he scurried out of the room, in the same direction Jay had headed for moments before him.
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"Welcome back to the start of a new school year," said Mr. Worthington, with excess avidity. "I hope all of you had a relaxing summer. God knows we needed it!" He chuckled to himself before alleviating his enthusiasm at the sight of the depleted expressions of the students before him.
"Looks like you guys aren't too pumped about starting a new school year! But if you just keep your heads down, it'll fly by, I promise!" He declared with alacrity, clapping his hands together to jolt the zombiesque students.
A drained moan followed his words of pep and the gurgling sound of the war between the floor and the chairs imbued the silence in the classroom.
"So first thing's first! I've made up a new seating arrangement for this year. If you could all stand up and –"
"Ughhh," groaned the crowd of summer-infected student, sapping the words away from Warren's lips.
"As I was saying.. If you could all stand up and move to the left of the room, I'll direct you all to your new seats one-by-one. How does that sound?" He waved around a piece of paper with a sketched seating plan, but again, his drive was not met by the students, who glared at him with exhausted discontent.
"Okaay," he drawled. "Brian Cruz, you along with Hope Abbott will be sitting over there, by the window." He pointed to the main fenêtre in the room and the two approached it and sat themselves down.
"Jessica Vale, you're with Callie Betto, at the back table." The girls smiled and acted accordingly. "Who's next?" He murmured to himself, looking at the crowd in front of him, before cross-referencing to his sketch. "Ah, Jay Guthrie?"
Jay stepped forward with a nod.
"You'll be sitting beside Paras Gavaskar."
The students behind Josh divided, and a lithe, slender teenager stepped forward. As Josh turned to glance at him, he was met with an exotic glow of rich violet. The teenager's skin was painted with a crispy purple tint, while parts of his face and arms were scarred with thick, long and angular sticks of pink filigree. The brighter slicks of pink whipped up each cheek in a parallel fashion and died at the hairline around his temples. Two other lines of pink dashed over his purple skin, in the shape of lightning bolts, originating from his scalp and ending at his eyebrows. Finally, in the center of his forehead, was a diamond shaped growth that pressed out from the violet ocean around it.
Josh felt as if he was looking at the purple version of himself.
Save the pink whips on Paras's body, and the hard exterior of Josh's skin, the golden mutant saw a resemblance in their conditions. Both of them were unnaturally colored and contained one color tainted upon the other. Josh's skin was gold but he retained gentle reflective wisps of white that shone depending on the angle of the light. The golden teenager concluded that if this Paras had been a lighter color, his skin might have had a similar quality as well.
Warren informed them of their seats, and both boys seated themselves.
"Mark Sheppard and Dallas Gibson, you guys are in the table in front of me. After last year, I can't risk you two sniggering at the back for hours upon end," Warren chided with a frown.
As each student around him was slowly assigned a place to sit, soon enough, Josh was left alone, against the wall where the crowd had once existed.
"New kid is the last one!" Laughed Mark Sheppard, the student Josh remembered snapping at in the cafeteria.
"Shut your trap you filthy mutant or I'll make your life hell!" Josh hissed back, with a boorish spit in his voice.
"I'm the filthy mutant? Last time I looked, your skin was gold. What color is mine again? Oh yes, normal! Oh, and look, it's untainted too!"
Josh lunged from his side of the class, with his arms throwing themselves in front of him. With gritted teeth and jagged fingers, Josh resembled a tiger pouncing upon its prey, and his body ripped past the tables and chairs, as he honed in on his target.
But when an arm sprayed itself in front of Josh, his efforts were thwarted and he was pushed back. "Get a hold of yourself!" Yelled the teacher, clutching Josh with one arm, expelling the clouds of anger in his mind. The golden teen jerked and allowed his arms to swipe towards Mark before the haze of rage in his mind dissipated to a point of minor clarity.
"Mark, out now! Go to the receptionist's office!" The teacher growled, signaling towards the door with his free arm.
When he realized that he was being held by a mutant, Josh aggressively squirmed out from his teacher's grasp and rested his hands on his knee-caps as he panted the remnants of his fury away.
"Josh, I want you to go outside, take a walk, and then come back in here when you're ready, okay?" With his thoughts beyond him, the student latched to Warren's advice and scurried out the door with a pant.
"You were all new once," Warren sighed to the class. "So you should understand that coming here isn't easy. The last thing he needs is to be provoked." Warren's gaze dropped to Mark's now-empty chair, before he looked towards a white-faced student adjacent to him.
"Sarah, would you escort Mark to Mrs. Frost's office? He should be with the receptionist. Allow him to explain to Emma what he did."
With a nod, the girl stood up and left the classroom.
"Now that I've lost three students in the time it took me to read out a seating plan, I'm getting a really optimistic feeling about this year," the teacher whispered, partially to himself and partially to the class.
As thirty minutes rolled by, Josh returned – with a tail between his legs - and Warren sewed a smile to his face and cushioned his earlier exasperation, before signaling to an empty chair beside him. "Josh, this is your seat. You'll be sitting next to Jubilation Lee."
As Josh walked up to his seat, the recognitive part of his brain began to tingle as he scanned the person in the seat beside his own.
It was, if his memory served correctly, the girl with the strange eyes in the cafeteria with Ben, Mark and Megan, two days ago.
She looked up and her clouded eyes danced around his figure, but again, missed the golden teen by a subtle – yet recognizable- margin. A frisson trickled up Josh's spine, as her scrutiny evoked a goosebump-like sensation on his hardened skin.
A guilty mutant will never look at you in the eye..
Josh sat at the edge of his seat and brought his arm to lean across his head and block the girl from his sight.
Why is she staring? Does she know how obvious this is?
"Over summer, I asked you all to go over your notes on debating," Mr. Worthington reminded, sitting on the corner of his desk. "I want to see who did their work, so I've come up with some arguments and I'll randomly select some of you to debate them. You guys with me?"
An unenergetic moan from the students caused Warren to roll his eyes before glancing down at some notes scribbled on the back of his hand.
"The usage of codenames within the mutant community – who's for it, and who's against it?" He craned his neck to view the students who voted in favor of the statement, and again at those who voted against.
Josh and 'Jubilation' had abstained – a luxury they both granted to themselves.
"Okay, one from each side. Paras, you voted against, and Brian, you voted for. I want a clean debate. No jabs, and no statements without examples and backup. Go!"
"The reason I'm against codenames within mutant society," declared Paras, his accent retaining qualities that mocked Josh's attempt to geographically locate the origins of the boy, "is because I feel it distances us further from what is viewed as normal. If we wish to co-exist with humans, then how can we expect to be called 'Batman,' or 'Joker,' and be taken seriously? If we want to be treated as equals to humans, then we shouldn't alienate ourselves further from what is the norm in their society. In my belief, God allows us to choose our parents. I chose mine, and they named me Paras. I do not see it necessary to go back on my parents wishes, or God's wishes, and boost myself above them both with some ridiculous codename."
"Interesting stance," Warren commended, clasping his hands together. "Someone's been doing his homework! Nice way of mixing your opinion with experience and religion. Good job." With a shy smile, Paras sat down and Brian Cruz took his place in front of the class. The student cleared his throat and wiped his palms on his pants.
"The, ugh, reason, I – ugh," he cleared his throat again and wiped a beat of sweat forming on his forehead. "I think, ugh, codenames are cool. Erm, I mean, ugh, who doesn't want a cool name like Batman?" Blank faces met his brief inflection of enthusiasm and he sunk back into his nerves.
"I think they're cool for, you know, having. You know, because they're, erm, cool."
With a snort - that Warren forced into a sigh - the teacher interrupted and spared the student from further embarrassment. "And what do we learn from this, everyone? When Mr. Worthington says do your homework, it's a good idea to actually do it." Brian cringed and sat in his seat, sighing with relief as he did so.
"I think a more valid argument would be that codenames protect your true identity and that due to the fact that we live in a hierarchal society, it's a good idea to keep codenames to prevent extreme members of society from finding our families, friends or whereabouts."
Brian shrugged. "That's what I was going to say."
Warren smiled and threw a crumbled piece of paper at the teenager. "I'm sure Mr. Cruz, I'm sure."
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Josh's boredom was banished upon the ring of the bell, and the students began flooding out of the classroom. As he stood up to leave, Warren stepped in front of him and asked him to stay behind until the room had emptied.
With a shut of the door, Mr. Worthington beckoned Josh to his desk and allowed him to sit on the corner of it. Josh was uncomfortable with the informalities that Warren practised so comfortably, and the fact the teacher was a mutant didn't help either.
"Josh, I'd like to apologize on Mark's behalf for his provoking attitude. He's been known for making smart remarks – some funny, some not so much," said Warren, who seemed to reminisce over the 'funny,' things Mark had said in the past.
With an unexpected sigh, and a dip in his smile, the teacher's complexion became a little less perky.
"But that doesn't excuse your reaction, either. You're eighteen.."
"Seventeen," Josh interjected with a tone of disapproval.
".. seventeen, and you're old enough to handle yourself better than that. I'll be succinct with you, Josh. If you're going to react like that every-time someone throws a comment your way, then I don't think you'll settle well into this school. It is a school after all, so it's understandably impossible for everyone to get on at all times."
Josh was momentarily surprised. It was the first time anyone had told him that Xaviers was, perhaps, not the place for him. And ironically, it had come from a founding member of the staff
"He started it," Josh defended, clenching his fists. "This is the second time that bast- erm, guy has said something offensive to me. He just enjoys getting under my skin."
"Or maybe you enjoy having someone to lash out at."
"Yeah, so? I'm entitled to that if I want!" Josh remarked, his voice rising. Warren remained undeterred and leaned back further into his armchair.
"And why do you feel you are entitled to such a privilege? When I'm angry and annoyed – which I am, many times a day – I don't have the luxury of a living punching bag."
"I never said I had a living punching bag!" Josh defended, agitation creeping further into the trenches of his tone.
"Well judging by how you lunged at Mark, it seems you appointed yourself one in that moment. Why do you feel the need to inflict pain on people who cross you?" Warren asked, as he analyzed the depth of Josh's anger. "Did someone inflict pain on you before? Is that why you have this impulse to do it to others?"
"What? No!" He yelled, clenching his fists together and allowing a bitter shiver to crawl through his tensed shoulders. "He brought it on himself! He deserved to get a punch for humiliating me in front of the class!"
"He deserved it? Is that how you roll? You decide who deserves something? They don't get a say in it?"
"That's not what I meant!" Josh growled, his brow whipping lower towards his eyes.
"Is this to do with your parents? I know how they passed over guardianship to Emma, and I know that that must have a scarring effect on you," Warren said calmly, without even a blink.
The blood in Josh's face curdled and his nails began to crack upon the surface of his palms.
"Who the hell do you think you are? How would you know any of that?" He roared, slamming both hands on the teacher's desk. "What kind of fucking school is this?"
"I know because I'm also in-charge of admissions," said Warren matter-of-factly, "I'm the one who received a call from your mother the morning of August 28th. She said she had a mutant she needed to be rid of… or did she say disposed of? I'm afraid my memory is cloudy. But It's clear to me that they dumped you. It doesn't take a genius to see that." He took a deep breath and maintained a neutral expression, contrary to Josh, who was bubbling over with fury and anguish.
"So I'll repeat what I said: the whole experience must have had a scaring effect on you. Is it because of how they treated you that you're angry at the world? Is this why you felt the need to hit someone who passed a silly remark at you? Is this why, Joshua?"
"This is bullshit!" Josh yelled, slamming a fist into the table, before stomping towards the exit. And after a slam of the door, Warren was left on his own. With a pensive expression, he brought his hand to caress his jaw-line, as he deliberated over the imbroglio before him. The slam of the door still rang in his ear, and the slight dent in his desk became the focus of his eyes, as his mind briefly left the physical dimension and he examined the reaction he had evoked from Josh.
"Just as I thought," he muttered to himself.
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"I hate this school!" Josh bellowed, as he slammed the door of his dorm. A rattle echoed down the halls and a group of students who had gathered by the stairwell, directed their gazes towards the source of the vibration.
"This place is a fucking joke! Who the hell does he think he is?" Josh yammered to nobody in particular. "If this was anywhere else, I'd sue his ass for everything he owns!"
As the snapped fuse of anger exploded inside of him, Josh's fist met the wall with a hollow wallop and his knuckle cracked the flecked wallpaper.
With a gritty gasp, Josh leaned his head against the wall and exhaled all his emotions at once. Fury, confusion, pain, sadness .. they all emitted from his body with one breath, and almost simultaneous to a trickle of blood that beaded from his knuckle, did a tear stumble from a warm honey eye, and down a reflective golden cheek.
The image of his mother's blue eyes, and the sound of his father's gurgling sobs formed in his mind, and Josh found himself banging his head against the wall with hopes of omitting them from his heed.
Mr. Worthington's words etched into his mind, and Josh suddenly found himself coming to face a harsh reality: his parents never really loved him.
His legs buckled underneath, and Josh fell to the floor with an exasperated gasp, resigning himself to the axioms of his realizations. More tears had found the confidence to follow their predecessor and before Josh knew it, he was sobbing similarly to the morning he woke up with golden skin.
His stomach tensed and his head inclined and Josh's eyes gently spilled their contents onto the floor, as he panted through conniption and affliction.
"They never loved me," he cried, as the globes of tears threatened to throw themselves from the corners of his eyes.
"They never really loved me."
He brought his hands to his eyes and drew his legs to his chest, as his body trembled with icy reality.
It was in this moment, did Josh feel as Emma Frost predicted he would: as if he was subject to an expiration date. The teenager bawled with faint moans and his burning eyes continued to radiate salty droplets which shined his skin and intensified the whitened reflective wisps upon the golden hue.
Even Blair failed to besiege his thoughts and the loneliness that enveloped him, zapped the air from his lungs as the teenager began to hyperventilate. With every breath he took, his body began to go numb and the skin on his neck reverted to a familiar tingle.
And suddenly, he felt a cold syrupy blob drip from his scalp and onto the hairs of his eyelash. He hadn't noticed a fresh wound, bashed open by his head's introduction to the wall. Feeling delirious, he wiped it away and attempted to stand to his feet, before his eyes suddenly became level with the floor, and he hit the ground with a crash.
The lights dimmed; his thoughts bled, and soon enough Josh fell unconscious, as his awareness of his surroundings was drained of its life.