Destiny

Destiny

Chapter two

Hello, it's me, Everett Thomas. The others have asked me to tell this part of the story. I hope I do as good a job as Bobby. Well, here goes…

The next day at school, we had an assembly. I like assemblies. They mean we get to miss a bit of school, in this case, most of the afternoon. The only problem was, no one knew what this assembly was about. None of the teachers had told us. Which was odd, because they usually did. Of course, there were rumors about what it was about. I for one thought it was about the broken window in the Music Room, but no one had mentioned that either. Which was also odd.

But, anyway, we had an assembly that afternoon. Bobby, who now calls himself Iceman, my main man Angelo, who was now known as Skin, and yours truly, Synch, were wandering as slowly as we could get away with to the Large Gym, the only room in the school big enough to put the whole student body in. Bobby was hopelessly trying to talk us into going with him to the local 7-11 so we wouldn't have to go to the assembly. I think now, maybe we should have gone with him.

Bobby's plans were shattered when Principal Xavier personally found us and herded us into the Gym. I was sort of semi seriously thinking about synching with his chair and making it go haywire so we could get away. But I never got a chance. Once we got to the Gym, we had no chance of escape, because about half of the teachers were there, to make sure people didn't try to escape.

"Busted." Bobby said, as he looked around at all the teachers, driving students up into the bleachers.

I spotted the other X-Men, the others who Raiden had talked to last night, up in the bleachers, and I headed towards them, dragging Iceman and Skin behind me. There was an empty spot around the others, I suspected, because Phoenix or Psylocke, Jean and Betsy respectively, were trying to keep us all together, and keep others away from us. I sat down beside Jubilee, and Angelo sat down beside me. Bobby went up a row to be near Paige. I heard Remy, who was seated behind Bobby, say,

"Well, look who go' roped into de assembly."

Iceman just looked back at Remy with that perpetual grin, and said,

"Nice to see you too, Gambit." Gambit was Remy's codename.

I turned back to the front. There was a roll of cloth hanging from the wall behind a microphone stand set up in front of the audience.

"Hey, does anyone know what that is?" I asked, pointing. Hank, aka The Beast, who was just arriving, said,

"It would appear to be a banner, but for what purpose, I don't know."

Phoenix, aka Jean, half closed her eyes, and said,

"Either the teachers have thick mental walls, or they don't know what it is. I also sense another presence, which seems to know what it is, but I can't get into his mind. What about you, Psylocke?"

Betsy mimicked her facial expression, slitting her eyes as well.

"I sense another presence too, but that's to be expected, it is an assembly. I can't get into his mind either."

I took this as my cue to show my new friends my power. I reached back and tapped first Betsy, then Jean on their knees.

"What?" Asked Betsy.

"Nothing." I said. "I'm just synching with your powers." I reached out with my newly acquired telepathic powers and found the unfamiliar presence. Using the combined strength of Psylocke and Phoenix's powers, I tried to break into the mind, but somehow I was stopped.

"Weird." I said. "I can't get in either."

"I wonder why we can't read his mind?" Phoenix asked.

"I don't know." Betsy said as I shrugged.

"Show offs." Wolverine, previously known as Logan, said from behind me. Just then the lights went out, and a spotlight was directed at the stage. Silence flooded the room as everyone waited to see who would approach to talk to us. Suddenly, a beam of light came from the side of the room as the doors opened and let light from the hall in, along with a man. We all clapped, even though, I'm sure no one in the room knew who he was. He went to the mic and said,

"Oh, you're too kind." The applause filtered away.

"Okay, Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm sure you're all wondering who I am and why I am here. Let me first say it is an honor to be here today. This is my first visit to this school. Any school, in fact, and I do hope I do a good job. Now, I know your Principal Xavier hasn't told you anything about why I'm here. I asked him not to…"

Get to the point. I thought into his mind.

"So, I suppose it's time to tell you who I am and why I'm here. My name is Patrick Harrowhouse. And I'm here to talk to you about those disgusting freaks of nature, mutants."

The 14 of us just sat there, staring in disbelief.

"This can't be happening." Paige, now Husk, said from behind me.

"Why would Principal Xavier let such a scumbag into our school?" Jubilee asked.

"What is a mutant, you ask?" The man up front continued. He took the mic off the stand and wandered around the stage with it while he talked. "Some would say that they are human beings, people with as many rights as you do. Some people say that they are a superior race of humans who will some day claim this planet as theirs." He paused for a moment. "But some people are fools." He pointed at the crowd of kids in front of him. "How many of you have ever seen a mutant?" He asked. A few hands went up. "What did you do to those mutants you saw?"

Some big-shot senior classman stood up and shouted, "I gave 'em what was comin' to 'em!" punctuating this by slapping his hands together with a resounding crack. That was followed by a double "SNIKT" a little closer to me, which was Wolverine extending and retracting his claws.

"Thank you, sir." Harrowhouse shouted to him. "Tell me, what is your name?"

"I'm Greg." The boy said, standing up again.

"Greg." Harrowhouse said, trying it out. "Come on down here, Greg!"

Most of the student body started cheering and clapping as Greg made his way down to the stage. When he stopped beside Harrowhouse, he put an arm around Greg's shoulders.

"Tell me, Greg, what was this mutant that you, as you so elegantly put it, 'gave what they had comin' to 'em'?"

"What'dya mean, man?"

"Was it a girl, a boy, an old lady?"

"Was a chick, man."

"Good. What did she look like? Where'd you meet her?"

"She was, I dunno, 'bout this tall." He put his hand level to his shoulder. "She was black, and she could melt stuff just by lookin' at it. She was working at McDonalds."

"What did you do when you found out she was a freak?"

"I slapped 'er hard. She hit the pop machine behind her. Then I climbed over the counter and hit 'er again and again."

"Okay, Greg. Very good. You can go back up to your seat."

Greg grinned and went back, followed by even more cheering and clapping happening. When the room was silent again, Harrowhouse said,

"See, this is what I'm talking about. What kind of world is this when dirty freaks of nature can contaminate the food that we eat and the air that we breathe? This is why I am here today." He walked to a cord hanging off the rolled up banner and reached up to pull it. He did, and the banner rolled down, revealing the international logo of the Friends of Humanity. "And this is why the Friends of Humanity exists. To rid the world of those freaks, those mutants, who would try to blend in. But we can't let them. Humans, Homo sapiens are the rightful owners of this planet, and the mutants, who call themselves Homo sapiens superior, would try to take it from us! We can't let them! Who's with me?"

I have to say, we were lost at the banner. We suddenly realized that if we stayed in this school, our lives would not be worth spit. We had to get out of this school. But first we had to get out of this assembly. Telepathically I asked Phoenix and Psylocke,

Can we cloud all these people's minds so we can get out of here?

Phoenix looked at me and answered,

Even if we can't, we have to try.

I for one do not want to stay here. Psylocke added. I nodded. So I relayed the plan to the others. Psylocke would create psychic illusions of us, sitting where we were, and Phoenix and I would shield us from the other people's eyes while we left, quietly and in single file. The others agreed, and we all, after Psylocke said she had the illusion set up, stood, and Phoenix and I set up the clouds over the other people's minds as we walked out. Once we were all out in the hallway outside the Gym, we sighed a collective sigh of relief.

"Man, this is going too bloody far." Jono, aka Chamber, said as we left the school grounds and were headed towards Kurt's warehouse.

"Yeah. FoH coming to schools, I'll agree with that." Scott said.

"I'm not going to school anymore." Husk said. "What happens if I suddenly husk in school? Who knows what would happen to me?"

"And what if someone notices that Angelo's skin color ain't exactly normal?" Iceman added.

"Hey, no one has yet, ice-boy." Skin countered.

"That's Iceman to you, Fleshy."

Suddenly, Scott collapsed onto his knees in the middle of the sidewalk. He cried out in pain and surprise. The rest of us gathered around him.

"Scott, you okay?" Remy asked.

"I don't know." He said. He looked up at us, "My eyes!"

"Whoa!" Jubilee said, "Your eyes, they're the same color as Gambit's!"

They were indeed. Well sort of. Where Gambit's eyes had black pupils and scleras, Scott's were now all red. It was really odd looking.

He looked back down, and suddenly a beam of red energy shot out of his eyes and destroyed the sidewalk in front of us. We jumped back in fear for our feet.

"This is what Raiden was talking about." Monet said calmly.

"I need those glasses!" Scott cried as he closed his eyes to stop the energy.

"I'll go get them." Monet said. "They are at your house?"

Scott nodded. Monet took off and streaked away. Jean knelt down beside Scott, and put her arms around him. He didn't open his eyes.

"Jeez," Angelo commented. "Talk about your bad mutations."

"No kidding." Jubilee said.

In a moment Monet returned, with the pair of ruby shades in hand. She handed them to Scott, who put them on, and stood up.

"Well, looks like my world will be red now." He said, looking around.

"Maybe Raiden will help you be able to control your power." Betsy said.

"Maybe he could, but I don't think he would bother." Ororo, who now called herself Storm, spoke up for the first time.

"We gotta get off this street, people." Wolverine said impatiently. We agreed, and continued walking towards the warehouse.

"How are we going to get away with not going to school anymore?" Scott asked a bit later. "I mean, the teachers won't know why we are leaving, and after a few days they are going to call our parents."

"My folks won't care." Logan said.

"I'm sure you don't mean that." Storm said.

"Sure I do, Stormy." He replied. "My folks haven't cared what I do fer about a year now. They won't care if I don't go to school."

"At least you have parents." Scott said. "My parents died when I was little."

We were silent for a moment. We didn't know that Scott was an orphan.

"Join the club." Jubilee said. "I'm an orphan too."

Scott put an arm around Jubilee's shoulders. "I'm sorry." He said.

You see that's why he's such a great guy, and why he was eventually named the leader of our little group. Because even when he's in his weaker moments, he still has enough strength to spare.

Well, I guess that's it for my chapter. I now turn you over to Storm. I'll see you later! Synch out.

Author's Note: So, how is it so far? Please review. As always, reviews are looked forward to. Up next, Chapter 3, Storm's take on things.

Flashgriffin