Warning: Third Person
When Will came home from the paper lantern that day, out of all the scenarios that could've filled his head, one including a revived Royal Pain bent on dismembering him slowly with her various death machines, he never would have thought it possible that Emily Perkins would be sitting on his couch drinking tea and laughing. With his parents.
Somehow, it just seemed to disturb him.
"Emily!?" He asked, his eyes wide, frozen in the doorway to the living room.
"Oh, Will!" His mother gushed, walking over to him and ushering him over to the sofa, "You didn't tell me you were friends with such an interesting girl!"
"I didn't even know she knew where I lived." He muttered to himself.
"Silly Stronghold," Emily waved away his discomfort, or attempted to because the fact that she was in his house, decked out in checkers and chains, made him feel very disturbed. "Anyone who has common sense and access to your friends can find out where you live."
Will paled, scenarios of Emily torturing either Zach or Ethan or both clear in his mind. Emily scoffed, practically reading his mind, and rolled her eyes.
"I called Magenta." She refused to elaborate further on her thoughts, mostly swear words directed towards his being, only because of the two nice, if not corny, parents sitting on either side of her, "Is it okay if I talk to your son in private?"
She smiled sweetly, looking up at Stronghold Sr. cutely and blinking innocently.
"Sure thing! Will, we're going to start dinner, okay?" Will's mom grinned, dragging his father into the kitchen.
Once they were out of hearing distance, and Will was whiter than WonderBread, or something else abnormally white and pasty, Emily's friendly smile dropped and an intimidating glare replaced her features. She almost looked like Warren when she glared like that, and Will swallowed uneasily and looked away, slowly inching away from her on the couch.
"What are you hiding from me?" She accused, not even bothering to be specific. She knew he knew what she was talking about. And he knew that she knew it.
"Nothing, nothing!" Best friend's trust or the right thing.... Will was so conflicted inside!
"Bull!" She bit out, quick and sharp, her eyes narrowing dangerously. "If it's something that concerns me, then I have a right to know."
"It's Warren' secret." Will breathed, eventually taking the cowardly road, "He should be the one to tell you about it."
"Warren is as pissy as a pregnant woman. In labor." Will snorted, then grimaced at the mental image, before quickly wiping free all facial expressions at Emily's glare. She really was like Warren, in a way, "I don't like secrets."
Like how she's secretly Iceman and Shadowcat's orphaned daughter. And she hasn't told anyone.
"And I don't like it when they're secrets about me."
Like how Baron Battle made her an orphan. And no one bothered to tell her.
"It's not my secret to tell." Even though it killed him, seeing the hurt flash briefly behind her eyes, almost hidden but not quite by her annoyed scowl. He knew it was wrong, whatever was going through Warren's mind, and if it were anyone but Warren he would have either convinced him to tell already or told himself.
But it was Warren, and Warren was so completely foreign to him, despite being so close, and Will had no right to mess with whatever reasoning the enigma that was Warren Peace came up with.
Plus, Will also feared for what Warren would do to him more than Emily.
Only a little bit more, though.
"You... You're too damn loyal!" Emily growled frustratedly before angrily stalking out of the house.
Will's parents came in from the kitchen, hearing Emily's loud exit, and his father chose to act out his roll of the somewhat dimwitted comical parent and say something obvious that would have the audience giggling.
"Is she not staying for dinner then?"
Josie Stronghold slapped her husband's arm.
~Briefly in 1st person~
That stupid little loyal-to-his-friends overly patriotic do-gooder! Damn him and all his supposedly good traits!
Better yet, damn Warren! Stupid Warren, ignoring me all day except to snap at me whenever he felt like it. And keeping secrets about me! I don't know what the hell he would keep from me, since I'm pretty sure I've found out all the secrets there could possibly be about my life, but I want to know, dammit!
I slammed the door to my house, feeling a little better with the force I put behind it.
But tomorrow was Thursday, which meant that it was closer to being Friday, which meant that soon the week would be over and I'd be allowed a little breathing time before the torture that is high school started up again.
And maybe tomorrow I'd get to relieve some anger on an unsuspecting opponent of mine.
~end 1st person~
Rachel frowned at the Super Sub at her isolated lunch table in the cafeteria. You hypnotize two people to think they're dating in the hopes of getting some mental quiet from the weird blue-haired chatterbox who's inner dilemmas were causing her thoughts to scream out at every telepath within megaphone distance, and everyone's ignoring you all of a sudden. Sure, Rachel didn't have many friends before, but at least she got along with some kids well enough to sit with them and talk about nothing.
Now they were all the way across the cafeteria and everyone was avoiding eye contact and regarding her with fear as if she was her dead mother about to pounce on them.
Not to mention whatever the hell they were doing in gym all day only accentuated how isolated she really was. She didn't even have a team, which mean she would probably fail gym miserably.
She gave the cafeteria a glare and took a vicious bite out of her sub. Fine. If they were all going to take Perkins' side, she didn't need them. She didn't need anyone.
The seat in front of her creaked and she looked up with well-masked hope. In front of her was a calm girl with mousy brown hair and thick rimmed glasses, looking as polite as she possibly could when sitting in front of a moody telepath. Uninvited.
Rachel quickly tried to do a mental scan to find out her intentions before she ran into a mental wall as thick and impenetrable as the door to the Cerebro room.
"It's rude to read minds without permission." The girl remarked, smiling sweetly at the girl.
"Who are you?"
"Betsy Guthrie. Our dads are friends."
"Because they were both X-Men." Rachel replied, noting that she did look somewhat familiar. The following, 'along with our dead mothers' was present in both of their minds yet remained unspoken.
"And because you were raised by an X-Man, you must have some shadow of morals present in your mind." She spoke coolly and detached, her posture still composed and stiff, not leaning forward an inch as the conversation progressed. Wisps of brown hair escaped from her ponytail and tickled the sides of her face, but she paid them no heed, although Rachel was twitching to fix it.
"Don't bother, my father already drilled every reason why what I've done was completely unacceptable and how my mother never would've even thought to use her powers like that unless it was a matter of life or death. Which it wasn't."
"I haven't come to lecture you. If you haven't figured out that what you've done is wrong, than I have no problem giving up on you." If Rachel hadn't trained herself to remain outwardly apathetic to every little thing in her life, she would have winced at the cold tone and equally cold words.
"Then why're you here?" Rachel drawled, easily slipping into a sarcastic voice, "To talk about how we both would've easily gotten into the Xavier Institute but ended up in this shithole of a school? You don't look like someone who would avoid the school just because your father's an instructor there. He's the Metals teacher there, right?"
Betsy nodded curtly, not bothering to answer any of her other questions, "I haven't come here for meaningless conversation. I've come here to warn you that Emily is my friend. Try something like that again and I'll fill your mind with so many nightmares that you'll be nothing more than a bundled mess of screaming paranoia when I'm through with you."
A chill ran down Rachel's back, but she couldn't tell whether it was out of excitement or fear.
"So you got your mother's powers. We have a lot in common, don't we?" No wonder she couldn't read her mind. Rachel set her sub down and leaned back, crossing her arms behind her head to disguise her increasing interest and caution of this girl, "Impressive. But you don't need to worry about driving me insane with my deepest fears. Professor Xavier already helped me fortify my mental shield during my suspension. No voices are coming in here unless I want them too." She grinned quickly and picked up the last bit of her sub, tossing it into her mouth. "Besides, I don't know why they're not together already, anyway. It's only pride and self-doubt that's stopping them from getting together."
"Whatever reasons there are to prevent Warren and Emily from dating, you still don't have any right to mess with their heads."
"Haven't I told you that I'm over that already? Jeez, relax." Rachel rolled her eyes and took a sip from her water bottle. She had to admire the girl, though. She looked quiet and innocent, but she wasn't afraid to speak her mind and/or intimidate others when she needed to. But, then again, when it came to mutants, looks were very deceiving. "So, are we friends?"
"I came here to threaten you, not make friends."
Rachel couldn't help but follow Betsy with her eyes as she quickly maneuvered around the tables and walked out the cafeteria.
Interesting.
Author's Note: You didn't expect Rachel to just disappear with her brief suspension, did you?