Disclaimer: No, I don't own X-men Evolution. That would
be pretty cool, though.
This is a little late, due to technical errors. Sorry
about that.
Enjoy the fic.
The Danger Room was a long walk away from the upstairs bedroom. It took maybe ten minutes to reach it, which is way to big a walk for a private house. So, Rouge explained what was going on.
"Ya have to show the Professor how well ya can fight. We have run-ins with this group of mutants who want ta destroy mankind. The Brotherhood of Mutants."
I shuddered. "They don't happen to have a Mystique working for them, do they?"
She winced. "Yeah, why?"
"I… had a run-in."
"Ah see. Here we are."
Rouge opened the thick door in front of us, which lead into what looked like a control room. Logan was there, as well as an older man in a wheelchair. Probably the professor. I stepped forward.
"Well. You must be Leo," the man said.
"That's right."
"My name is Professor Xavier. I run this institute."
I nodded. "Jean and Scott told me about you."
"I see. Do you have any fighting abilities?"
I actually chuckled.
"Professor, I was raised on the streets. Trust me, I can fight."
The professor smiled. "Care to give us a demonstration?"
"No problem." He tossed me a bundle of odd, black clothing. "What's this?"
"Your outfit," Rouge informed me. "We all wear 'em. You can change in there." She pointed toward an inconspicuous door to the side.
"O-okay." So I did. I came back in a much worse mood than I had been in earlier.
"Sumptin' wrong?" Logan asked.
"Yeah. Do you have any idea how hard it is to put this on when you have fur?"
Logan snorted. The professor smiled, though kindly. Rouge struggled not to laugh.
"Let's do this." I said, briefly, and walked into the actual Danger Room. The heavy door closed behind me.
The professor's voice came over the intercom. "Ready, Leo?"
I nodded.
A split second later, a silver blur shot toward me. I dodged nimbly aside.
"What the hell?"
Intercom again. "That would be a sentinel."
"Oh."
The sentinel shot toward me again. I dodged and swung hard.
Bang!
I smirked at the intercom. "What's next?"
I got my answer as three more sentinels attacked me. This time, I was too busy dodging to get in any hits.
Hmm, I thought, this is gonna be a challenge.
Then I realized they had to be tracking me, somehow. I jumped and landed between two of them.
They shot toward me, and thus toward one another. I dodged at the last second.
CRASH!
The last one grabbed my arms and lifted me while I was distracted. Having no other choice, I head butted it.
The neck, it seemed, was it's weak point. Its head flew backward and it dropped me.
I shook my head to clear it as the next wave of sentinels came after me, but I knew it would take me a second to be ready, so I just shot a wave of fire at them.
That worked well.
After about an hour of fighting sentinels (and what a long, looong hour it was), the professor came over the intercom again.
"Care to try a live opponent?"
"Sure." The sentinels were starting to get old.
The entrance opened again, and Logan strode in. A part of me knew that this was going to be a good fight.
Logan shot toward me, fists clenched. I dodged his first punch and blocked his second. We were going full out in a matter of seconds.
I noticed three things as we fought.
One, I noticed that he wasn't holding back, despite the fact that I was a beginner. He seemed to realize how long I had been fighting, and I had to respect that. Two, his style of fighting was almost exactly like mine. I kept feeling odd when I'd notice his stance was just like mine.
Three, we were able to read one another flawlessly.
When someone threw a punch, the other knew what it was going to be, how to avoid it, what it was going to open up, and where to throw their next punch. Even our similarity in style didn't explain it.
In fact, the fight probably would've gone on for quite a while, rather than fifteen minutes, if Logan hadn't happened to throw a punch into my shoulder, spinning me around and giving me the momentum to get a good kick off into his jaw.
This lead to Logan lying on the floor looking dazed, and me hopping around on one foot, saying "OW! Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow."
Once we were back in the control room, Professor Xavier had closed his mouth so firmly in order to keep from laughing, I was afraid he'd never be able to open it again.
Rouge was just flat out laughing. She commented several times, then and after, that she had been unable to breath or stand up straight, and that she couldn't stop crying.
"Hardy har har." I said pointedly. Then I turned to Logan.
"What the hell was that?"
Logan quickly described the whole admantium situation.
"Ah. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a shower and change." The professor nodded, and I grabbed my clothing from the other room, and went to change.
Of course, when you are sweaty and tired, mathematics has proven that you will run into someone you don't want to see you at the moment.
So, anyway, I was running up the bedroom stairs, trying to get the last traces of adrenaline out of my system, when I saw her.
She was definitely cute.
"H-hi," I said.
She gave me a surprised look. "Oh. Hi. You, like, new to the Institute?"
"Ye-yeah, that's right. Um… oh, right! My name's Leo."
"Hi. I'm Kitty."
"Hi."
Kitty smiled at me. I almost passed out. "So, like, what are your powers anyway?"
"Er… fire. I can control it I mean."
"Oh. That's gotta be like totally useful." She sniffed the air. "You just, like, get out of the Danger Room?"
Damn it! "Yeah. I was just going to go take a shower."
"Okay." And she left.
After cursing the Danger Room and the gods of fate, I finally managed to get in the shower. After a half-hour in the shower, and another hour with a hairdryer (oh, the many curses of fur!), I strode downstairs, not really sure what to do. My patterns of life had been thrown completely off.
Luckily, I ran into Rouge.
"Hey, Leo," she said, "Ah've been lookin' all over for ya."
"Hey Rouge." I wasn't upset about the Danger Room incident anymore, and had simply filed it away for future reference. "What's up?"
"Ah still have to introduce ya to the rest of the household. Ya met Jean, Scott, Logan, and the Professor…"
"And Kitty."
"And Kitty. Okay. Ororo should be fixin' dinner right now, so ya can meet her next. Then we'll find Evan and Kurt, my brother."
We walked calmly to the kitchen, where there was a tall African-American woman with white hair, stirring something cooking over the stove.
"Hey, Ororo," Rouge said. "I'm takin' around the new guy. This is Leo."
Ororo turned and gave me a warm smile. "Hello, Leo."
"Hi," I said.
"You wouldn't happen to know where Evan and Kurt are, would you?"
"I believe Kurt is in his room, listening to music. Evan is setting the table for dinner."
"Thanks." And we headed toward the dining room.
"By the way," I said, "when is dinner and so on, anyway?"
"Dinner is at six." I glanced at my watch. 5:45. "Breakfast is at seven, and lunch is at noon. We eat all of our meals in the dining room. Speaking of which…" she walked into said dining room.
Evan was a blonde African-American, setting an armful of glasses at the table. He happened to drop a glass at that exact moment. I caught it quickly.
"Thanks, man. Auntie O. would've killed me if I'd broken anything," Evan said. He glanced at me and said, "You must be Leo."
"How'd you know?"
"Oh, Kitty mentioned you earlier."
"Really." YES! YES! HAHAHAHA! "What'd she say?"
"Err," Even blushed. "She said you needed a shower."
"Oh." Life is emptiness.
Rouge laughed quietly. "C'mon, let's go meet Kurt."
I headed upstairs, to meet the last member of the X-men.