Disclaimer!!! X-Men Evolution belongs to Marvel Comics and the Kids WB. I do not own it in any way shape or form, nor do I intend to make any money off of this thing. It's for everyone's enjoyment (at least I hope ;) and that's all. The characters belong to their respective creators, and are used with permission. Yay! Fun! Enjoy! Okay, let's see... if you are in the fic, please tell me if I'm portraying your character correctly, if there's any plot suggestions (can't guarantee I'll use them, but I'll consider everything), or any complaints or suggestions at all. Okay, that's all, I'm done, have fun. :) Also... if you're in this fic and you're reading, -please review-. I cannot stress this enough. There should be at least fifteen reviews so far, up to chapter two. I need your opinions and thoughts if you want me to continue this! n_n
Joey yawned and flipped over onto his stomach, squinting away from the insistent beam of light that fell across the pillow. It was a Saturday. Normally, he would have just closed his eyes and gone back to sleep, but the window shade was twisted in a weird angle that admitted too much sun. With a sigh he rolled over again, this time dropping right onto the floor.
"Shit!" the fifteen year old exclaimed, rubbing his stomach. He was lucky he hadn't hit his head on the nightstand...
Oh well. Now that he was up he might as well get dressed. There was no way he would be able to fall back to sleep with a lump the size of an egg on his belly. Joey rummaged in his drawers, searching for something comfortable to wear on what looked like a warm day. He came up with an Abercrombie t-shirt and corduroys, and, even though his stomach was growling insistently, took enough time to carefully lace up his Doc Martins.
He yawned uncontrollably while brushing his teeth, almost getting toothpaste on his shirt in the process. His reflexes were quick, as usual, and he froze the droplets of water and Crest in midair. Flicking them back into the sink, Joey grinned to himself. Having mutant powers was pretty cool sometimes. It certainly had its perks.
His shoes always made large amounts of noise on the stairs, and his mother jokingly called him her little elephant. He clumped down the stairway now, hungry and fully intending to eat something the second he got into the kitchen. Unfortunately for Joey Jacobson, that was not what happened that morning.
"Hey, Mom," he started to say, but stopped. His mother and father were in the kitchen, as usual, but there was another man sitting at the table with them, talking.
The intruder looked rather tall, as best Joey could estimate from the sitting position, and had messy orange hair that poked in straggling wings over his ears. His face looked extremely young, and the close fitting black shirt and wider pants emphasized his chalky skin and carrot-orange hair. He was cute, but wasn't Joey's type. "Mom? Dad?" Joey asked uncertainly.
They looked up at him, and his mother smiled, tremblingly, tears shining in her eyes. "Joey, we've wonderful news for you."
"Really," he said, suspicious. The man in black stood up clumsily, scraping the chair against the floor and almost smacking his head against the low-hanging lamp.
"Oops," he said sheepishly.
"Mom? What's he doing here? Who is he?"
"I'm Mark," the man said, smiling and holding out a hand. Joey shook cautiously. "And I've come here to ask your parents if you could attend a very special school."
"I haven't done anything!" Joey told his parents, "You know me, I never get in trouble!"
"This isn't a reform school, Joe," his father grinned, as well. "This man - Mark - he's a mutant, too. You'll learn how to use your abilities at this place."
"And you'll be with other kids, just like you," his mother said.
Mark rubbed his head idly, smoothing down his hair, absent grin in place on his features. It seemed a common expression. "Well, your parents approve. What d' you say, Joey?"
"...Where is this school?" Everything seemed to be happening to fast.
"Well," Mark said, hesitating a bit, "It's in Canada. Champlain, a city in Ontario."
"-Ontario-?!" Joey said, voice emerging in a squeak. "Mom! Dad! You can't do this to me. What about Dustin? What about school? My friends?! You can't make me go!"
"...Joey... Joey, baby, we don't -want- to send you away," Kimberly Jacobson said, "We love you, but we just want to do what's best for you." She got up, and went to hug him, but Joey wrenched away, hugging himself as he stared at them.
"Mom, you're sending me 3,000 miles away! To a different -country-!"
"We're sorry to uproot you like this, Joey," Mark said, "But the kids at the school are quite friendly. I think you'll like most of them."
"I don't want to go! Dad! Talk some sense into her!"
"I'm sorry, son," Koree said, "But we feel we have to do this. You can say goodbye to Dustin this afternoon, and you two can call each other, can't you?"
Joey said nothing, just turned and left.
"Uh... That went well," said Mark, shaking his head.
X
"You're leaving? You're not leaving! You can't be leaving," Dustin stammered, green eyes wide, but when he saw the look on his boyfriend's face, he sighed. "...You're leaving."
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to," Joey said miserably. He hugged Dustin close to him, trying not to cry. Dustin shifted so they could hold each other more comfortably, and looked up.
"How long will you be gone?"
"...I don't know, Dus'," he said. "But it looks like it's going to at least four years."
Dustin exhaled sharply. "Four -years-? Fuck."
"I know."
The green-eyed boy chewed at his lip for a long moment. "This isn't going to last, is it?"
"Don't say that," Joey said, "You don't know that. We'll call each other..."
"Come on, Joe, be realistic," Dustin said, and laughed. It was not a particularly amused sound. "You're going to be 3,000 miles away... There's lots of cute Canadian boys."
"Cute Canadian boys aren't you, Dustin."
"I know," he said, and smiled, just a little. "But how often do long distance relationships work? There'll be other guys. You'll notice them. I'll notice them..."
"There can always be a first time."
"Yeah." He leaned over and kissed Joey on the mouth, gently. "Just don't forget me, okay?"
"I couldn't if I tried."
"'Bye, Joey."
"'Bye."
X
Cameron D'Amore woke up to the sound of a shelf loaded with books falling onto the ground. He sat up abruptly and said, "Oh, fuck." He squirmed out of bed, squinting and stumbling as he did, and went over to survey the damage. Some of his school textbooks now had bent pages, but that was the worst of it. The teen picked up the shelf and hung it from its hooks again, and glanced at the clock.
"Fuck," he repeated, when he saw what time it was: 4:15, far earlier than he'd wanted to wake up. Lucky Rafe; the noise hadn't disturbed the French boy in the least. He was still sleeping peacefully, mouth open, snoring softly but steadily. Cam sighed. He might as well go downstairs and get something to eat, since he obviously wouldn't be able to fall asleep again.
He wriggled his feet into his beat-up sneakers and went out the door, yawning and still a bit dazed. He didn't notice when several flowers in a vase wilted when he walked past them, or when a chair in the hallway suddenly had a leg shorter than the others. Wait - there were noises coming from the kitchen?
"Haha! Take -that-!" a girl's voice yelped.
"Evildoer!" another voice snarled sinisterly, "You will regret your trespasses! Prepare to die!"
"No!" the first voice pleaded, "No, no, not the eggs, not the e-- oh."
Cam paused. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go into the kitchen and find out what was going on - obviously, it was Lee and Jenna, but judging from splattering and more yelling, it was probably going to be very messy. His stomach grumbled. He supposed it was worth braving whatever the two girls had cooked up in order to find some food...
He stepped into a -mess-. Lee Nelson had eggshell in her hair, and egg yolk was dripping slowly down her face. Jenna Sintor was covered in white, apparently Lee had upended the flour on her. There were puddles of milk on the floor, and Lee was holding a carrot like a sword, advancing on Jenna, who was defending herself with a loaf of French bread.
"En guarde!" Lee said dramatically, brandishing the carrot.
"You don't scare me with your paltry weapons!" Jenna retorted, inadvertently breaking the bread in half as a wild wave took it into the counter by accident.
"I see you are disarmed," Lee said, and moved forward.
"You are mistaken!" Jenna said, "A good warrior is -never- unarmed!" She snatched up a box of cereal and showered Lee with it, causing hundreds of pieces of Captain Crunch to stick wherever the egg was beginning to dry.
"Varlet!" Lee cried.
"Jesus!" he said, "What are you -doing-?"
"We're having a food fight!" Lee said brightly.
Jenna glanced at him and gestured with the bread. "Do you want to join in?"
"Uh, no thanks. I'm just here for breakfast." He picked his way carefully across the mess, trying not to step in anything sticky. There were still several untouched boxes of cereal left, and he poured some Lucky Charms into a bowl, eating them dry since there was no milk left. "Can I ask why you're doing this?"
"I dunno," Lee said cheerfully. "It was fun." Some of the cereal sticking to her face dropped onto the floor.
Jenna brushed at her arm, sending a white cloud of flour expanding into the air. "And the adults are all gone, so we figured we could get it cleaned up before they got back..."
"My kitchen!!" someone yelped, voice pained. Rafe stood in the doorway, looking shocked. "How - how could you!"
"Er, sorry, Rafe," Lee said.
"'Sorry'?!" the French boy demanded.
"I -am- sorry," Lee said, unconvincingly.
"You'd better clean all of this up!"
"Don't worry," Jenna said, placating, "We'll clean up -everything-. It's not that big of a deal--"
"C'est la cuisine! C'est nourriture! Il est ruiné! Bandits! Enfants mauvais!*" Cam attempted to smother a laugh - Rafe was so angry that he had lapsed into his native language, which, out of the three others in the room, only Lee understood.
"I am -not- a child, Rafe," she corrected, "And we're sorry. Yelling isn't going to help us."
"Rien ne peut vous aider! Vous êtes fou.**" With that last parting shot, he threw his arms up in the air and stalked out.
"Wow," said Jenna, "I don't think I've ever seen him lose his temper."
"We hurt his beloved kitchen," Lee said, also trying not to laugh, "I think that's enough to rouse even Rafe's rage."
The sound of a door down the hallway made them all jump. Voices filtered into their hearing: Daniele's, saying, "You'll probably both have jet-lag, but you can take a nap after you eat a little something--" Two younger-sounding voices responded.
Lee looked, wide-eyed, at Jenna and Cam. "Daniele's home already? We're -screwed-!"
Cam, sitting at the table and eating his Lucky Charms, smiled pleasantly at her. "No, -you're- screwed. I'm just eating breakfast."
X
Ali wasn't sure what she was expecting, but this quiet gabled house wasn't it. It wasn't impressive, it didn't look like mutants would live there, and it wasn't large, either. Still, she supposed it was better than where she'd been living before. She wriggled the scaly black wings, hidden underneath her large coat. They itched, but Daniele hadn't seen them yet... Nor had Darien.
The taciturn boy was fidgeting nervously next to her. He had no bags to carry, and his crimson eyes were half-lidded and almost sleepy looking, at odds with the rest of his expression as well as his motions. She half-smiled at him - although she was normally suspicious of people, something about the quiet boy was appealing. He certainly wasn't a phony, to be sure.
Her stomach grumbled - more immediate concerns.
"Daniele?"
"Yes?"
"I'm really hungry."
"Don't worry," Daniele said, opening a door, "This is the kiii... Oh, Deus," she said, and as Ali followed her, she saw the reason for the older woman's shock.
Three teenagers were already in the white-tiled, very nicely sized room, and two of them were grinning rather stupidly at the teacher. The other one was eating cereal and pretending that the monstrous mess in the kitchen simply did not exist. "Daniele!" the one with glasses exclaimed without missing a beat, "Welcome home!" She bowed, flourishing a... carrot as she did.
"What a pleasant surprise!" said the other girl, who was holding half of a French bread.
"I wish I could say the same," growled Daniele, "Just -what- do you think you're doing?"
"The food attacked us!" the one with glasses said, just as the other girl put her head down and said, "I'm sorry, we had a food fight..." and just as the boy said, "They were making a cake."
They glared at each other, and the girl with glasses sniffed. "I liked my version better."
Ali snickered. This looked as though it would shape up to an amusing morning.
"Lee," Daniele said, addressing the one with glasses, "I thought I asked you to be responsible?"
"Well..." Lee said, "I -tried-... It just didn't work very well."
"I can -see- that! You're going to clean up everything in this room, and then you can clean up the rec room as well!"
"Aww, but Dan-iele-..."
"No buts. You should've thought about that before you destroyed the kitchen."
"Yeah," said the other girl.
"That punishment is for you, too, Jenna."
The girl's face fell.
"Both of you, go and clean yourselves up. And try not to step on the carpets!"
"Hi," said the boy, to Darien and Ali, "I'm Cam."
"I'm Ali," she said.
Darien said nothing, of course, and Cam continued to look at him expectantly. Then he squinted. "Where'd he go? I didn't see him walk through the door..."
Ali realized what Darien must have been doing. Daniele had told each of them about the other's powers, so she knew he must be faded - she just hoped he wasn't in the intangible portion, because she struck out with her arms, lightly, not enough to really -hurt- anyone - maybe just to jar the person in question back to reality. "Stop it, Darien," she said, "At least tell the poor kid your name." She caught hold of a large elbow-full of ski coat.
"I don't want to. I'm going to go unpack," said a ghostly, disembodied voice. Cam jumped reflexively, and sighed, rubbing his eyes. Ali continued to try to grab hold of the reluctant boy, but he'd either ghosted completely or just walked out of the kitchen.
She shrugged apologetically, although she wasn't really all that sorry. "Too bad. That was Darien, but... I'll talk to you later." Ali grabbed a donut from a plate in a fairly clean bit of the kitchen, and shrugged off her coat... She heard another sound like a small jump from the boy in the kitchen, but she didn't really care who saw the wings now - after all, all the students were mutants, and they'd been just itching to get free.
X
"Oh," said Lee, as she came down the stairs, tying her wet hair up in a short ponytail, "Hello, Rán."
"You could stand to sound a bit more enthusiastic," the woman said dryly.
"Hi, Rán!"
"...I can do without the sarcasm. This is Nikki Luapay," she indicated the tall girl standing behind her. Lee smiled, and waved a greeting, which was returned. "I hope you'll make a better first impression on her than Daniele says you made on Ali and Darien. Show her upstairs?"
"Hi. I'm Lee."
"I'm Nikki. What did you -do-?"
Lee looked at her, unsure whether to affect penitence or just to grin like she really wanted to. She decided on the latter. "Well... it's rather a long story. But needless to say, they do -not- approve of carrots as a substitute for fencing equipment."
"...Right."
"Don't worry about it, but don't use the kitchen for a couple hours, either."
"Will do. So... How many kids are here?"
"Everyone's supposed to be arriving today," Lee explained, "So we'll have eight when all's done."
"That's not very many," Nikki said, surprised, "I'd been expecting something..."
"...More like the Xavier Institute?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Well, we're not them," Lee said, "And we don't want to be."
"Why not? It seems like a nice place."
"Yeah, but would you want to live in a place run by a guy who can control and read your every thought? We can really trust our instructors."
"I dunno," Nikki said, snickering, "That Rán..."
"Oh, don't worry about her. She's the school joke... I don't know what she thinks she'd be better at doing, but it's all sour grapes. And here's your room, you'll be sharing with Ali. She just got here today, too."
The girl examined her room curiously. "It's nice and large," she said, putting her suitcase down on the floor.
"-Large-?" Lee squeaked, "What planet did -you- grow up on?"
Nikki shucked her shoes and jumped onto the bed, bouncing up and down on it cheerfully. "Well," she said, sentence punctuated by bounces, "I lived with my Grandfather in a cabin. It had two rooms, and I slept in the one furthest from the door!"
"Whoa," Lee said, "I... can't even imagine doing that."
"It was great," Nikki said, and then, sadly, "I miss him already."
"We all miss our families, if we've got them," Lee said, "You'll get used to it."
"LEANNA NELSON! JENNA SINTOR!" Rán bellowed from downstairs, "COME DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!!"
"I guess she found the kitchen!" Lee said impishly, and vanished out the door, leaving Nikki to unpack her bags and settle into her room.
X
Rafe stood on a chair, watching as Lee and Jenna scrubbed the floors, muttering curses as they went. "You missed a spot!" he commanded, pointing a delicate toe at what seemed to Jenna to be a shining example of cleanliness.
"You're just trying to get back at us for ruining the kitchen!" she snapped, "It's perfectly clean!"
"Look, girls," Rafe said gently, "Daniele said I could be in charge of the cleanup efforts. So I say it's not clean! Someone scrub it over again."
"It wasn't this clean to -start- with," Lee muttered.
"So this is a great opportunity to get it even cleaner. I want no floor unwaxed! No counter unscrubbed!"
"No loony unmedicated," Lee whispered to Jenna, who sniggered.
"I heard that!" Rafe retorted, "-You- can clean up the bits with the egg."
Lee moaned and flopped onto the floor, pretending to have fainted. "No more! No more! I've had enough cleaning!" The kitchen did look infinitely better than it had when they started, but there were still puddles of sticky things on the counters and the floors, and Lee's ersatz sword was blocking the drainage in the sink.
"I don't think that Daniele knows you're such a petty tyrant, Rafe," Jenna said.
"She doesn't need to. And you don't need to talk while you're cleaning! Shine! I want to see some shine, there, ladies!"
The two girls looked at each other and groaned. "At least it's preferable to a punishment by Rán, right?" Lee asked.
"I don't know..." Jenna said, "He--"
"Silence!!"
X
* It's the kitchen! It's food! It's ruined! Villains! Evil children!
** Nothing can help you! You're crazy!
Joey yawned and flipped over onto his stomach, squinting away from the insistent beam of light that fell across the pillow. It was a Saturday. Normally, he would have just closed his eyes and gone back to sleep, but the window shade was twisted in a weird angle that admitted too much sun. With a sigh he rolled over again, this time dropping right onto the floor.
"Shit!" the fifteen year old exclaimed, rubbing his stomach. He was lucky he hadn't hit his head on the nightstand...
Oh well. Now that he was up he might as well get dressed. There was no way he would be able to fall back to sleep with a lump the size of an egg on his belly. Joey rummaged in his drawers, searching for something comfortable to wear on what looked like a warm day. He came up with an Abercrombie t-shirt and corduroys, and, even though his stomach was growling insistently, took enough time to carefully lace up his Doc Martins.
He yawned uncontrollably while brushing his teeth, almost getting toothpaste on his shirt in the process. His reflexes were quick, as usual, and he froze the droplets of water and Crest in midair. Flicking them back into the sink, Joey grinned to himself. Having mutant powers was pretty cool sometimes. It certainly had its perks.
His shoes always made large amounts of noise on the stairs, and his mother jokingly called him her little elephant. He clumped down the stairway now, hungry and fully intending to eat something the second he got into the kitchen. Unfortunately for Joey Jacobson, that was not what happened that morning.
"Hey, Mom," he started to say, but stopped. His mother and father were in the kitchen, as usual, but there was another man sitting at the table with them, talking.
The intruder looked rather tall, as best Joey could estimate from the sitting position, and had messy orange hair that poked in straggling wings over his ears. His face looked extremely young, and the close fitting black shirt and wider pants emphasized his chalky skin and carrot-orange hair. He was cute, but wasn't Joey's type. "Mom? Dad?" Joey asked uncertainly.
They looked up at him, and his mother smiled, tremblingly, tears shining in her eyes. "Joey, we've wonderful news for you."
"Really," he said, suspicious. The man in black stood up clumsily, scraping the chair against the floor and almost smacking his head against the low-hanging lamp.
"Oops," he said sheepishly.
"Mom? What's he doing here? Who is he?"
"I'm Mark," the man said, smiling and holding out a hand. Joey shook cautiously. "And I've come here to ask your parents if you could attend a very special school."
"I haven't done anything!" Joey told his parents, "You know me, I never get in trouble!"
"This isn't a reform school, Joe," his father grinned, as well. "This man - Mark - he's a mutant, too. You'll learn how to use your abilities at this place."
"And you'll be with other kids, just like you," his mother said.
Mark rubbed his head idly, smoothing down his hair, absent grin in place on his features. It seemed a common expression. "Well, your parents approve. What d' you say, Joey?"
"...Where is this school?" Everything seemed to be happening to fast.
"Well," Mark said, hesitating a bit, "It's in Canada. Champlain, a city in Ontario."
"-Ontario-?!" Joey said, voice emerging in a squeak. "Mom! Dad! You can't do this to me. What about Dustin? What about school? My friends?! You can't make me go!"
"...Joey... Joey, baby, we don't -want- to send you away," Kimberly Jacobson said, "We love you, but we just want to do what's best for you." She got up, and went to hug him, but Joey wrenched away, hugging himself as he stared at them.
"Mom, you're sending me 3,000 miles away! To a different -country-!"
"We're sorry to uproot you like this, Joey," Mark said, "But the kids at the school are quite friendly. I think you'll like most of them."
"I don't want to go! Dad! Talk some sense into her!"
"I'm sorry, son," Koree said, "But we feel we have to do this. You can say goodbye to Dustin this afternoon, and you two can call each other, can't you?"
Joey said nothing, just turned and left.
"Uh... That went well," said Mark, shaking his head.
X
"You're leaving? You're not leaving! You can't be leaving," Dustin stammered, green eyes wide, but when he saw the look on his boyfriend's face, he sighed. "...You're leaving."
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to," Joey said miserably. He hugged Dustin close to him, trying not to cry. Dustin shifted so they could hold each other more comfortably, and looked up.
"How long will you be gone?"
"...I don't know, Dus'," he said. "But it looks like it's going to at least four years."
Dustin exhaled sharply. "Four -years-? Fuck."
"I know."
The green-eyed boy chewed at his lip for a long moment. "This isn't going to last, is it?"
"Don't say that," Joey said, "You don't know that. We'll call each other..."
"Come on, Joe, be realistic," Dustin said, and laughed. It was not a particularly amused sound. "You're going to be 3,000 miles away... There's lots of cute Canadian boys."
"Cute Canadian boys aren't you, Dustin."
"I know," he said, and smiled, just a little. "But how often do long distance relationships work? There'll be other guys. You'll notice them. I'll notice them..."
"There can always be a first time."
"Yeah." He leaned over and kissed Joey on the mouth, gently. "Just don't forget me, okay?"
"I couldn't if I tried."
"'Bye, Joey."
"'Bye."
X
Cameron D'Amore woke up to the sound of a shelf loaded with books falling onto the ground. He sat up abruptly and said, "Oh, fuck." He squirmed out of bed, squinting and stumbling as he did, and went over to survey the damage. Some of his school textbooks now had bent pages, but that was the worst of it. The teen picked up the shelf and hung it from its hooks again, and glanced at the clock.
"Fuck," he repeated, when he saw what time it was: 4:15, far earlier than he'd wanted to wake up. Lucky Rafe; the noise hadn't disturbed the French boy in the least. He was still sleeping peacefully, mouth open, snoring softly but steadily. Cam sighed. He might as well go downstairs and get something to eat, since he obviously wouldn't be able to fall asleep again.
He wriggled his feet into his beat-up sneakers and went out the door, yawning and still a bit dazed. He didn't notice when several flowers in a vase wilted when he walked past them, or when a chair in the hallway suddenly had a leg shorter than the others. Wait - there were noises coming from the kitchen?
"Haha! Take -that-!" a girl's voice yelped.
"Evildoer!" another voice snarled sinisterly, "You will regret your trespasses! Prepare to die!"
"No!" the first voice pleaded, "No, no, not the eggs, not the e-- oh."
Cam paused. He wasn't sure if he wanted to go into the kitchen and find out what was going on - obviously, it was Lee and Jenna, but judging from splattering and more yelling, it was probably going to be very messy. His stomach grumbled. He supposed it was worth braving whatever the two girls had cooked up in order to find some food...
He stepped into a -mess-. Lee Nelson had eggshell in her hair, and egg yolk was dripping slowly down her face. Jenna Sintor was covered in white, apparently Lee had upended the flour on her. There were puddles of milk on the floor, and Lee was holding a carrot like a sword, advancing on Jenna, who was defending herself with a loaf of French bread.
"En guarde!" Lee said dramatically, brandishing the carrot.
"You don't scare me with your paltry weapons!" Jenna retorted, inadvertently breaking the bread in half as a wild wave took it into the counter by accident.
"I see you are disarmed," Lee said, and moved forward.
"You are mistaken!" Jenna said, "A good warrior is -never- unarmed!" She snatched up a box of cereal and showered Lee with it, causing hundreds of pieces of Captain Crunch to stick wherever the egg was beginning to dry.
"Varlet!" Lee cried.
"Jesus!" he said, "What are you -doing-?"
"We're having a food fight!" Lee said brightly.
Jenna glanced at him and gestured with the bread. "Do you want to join in?"
"Uh, no thanks. I'm just here for breakfast." He picked his way carefully across the mess, trying not to step in anything sticky. There were still several untouched boxes of cereal left, and he poured some Lucky Charms into a bowl, eating them dry since there was no milk left. "Can I ask why you're doing this?"
"I dunno," Lee said cheerfully. "It was fun." Some of the cereal sticking to her face dropped onto the floor.
Jenna brushed at her arm, sending a white cloud of flour expanding into the air. "And the adults are all gone, so we figured we could get it cleaned up before they got back..."
"My kitchen!!" someone yelped, voice pained. Rafe stood in the doorway, looking shocked. "How - how could you!"
"Er, sorry, Rafe," Lee said.
"'Sorry'?!" the French boy demanded.
"I -am- sorry," Lee said, unconvincingly.
"You'd better clean all of this up!"
"Don't worry," Jenna said, placating, "We'll clean up -everything-. It's not that big of a deal--"
"C'est la cuisine! C'est nourriture! Il est ruiné! Bandits! Enfants mauvais!*" Cam attempted to smother a laugh - Rafe was so angry that he had lapsed into his native language, which, out of the three others in the room, only Lee understood.
"I am -not- a child, Rafe," she corrected, "And we're sorry. Yelling isn't going to help us."
"Rien ne peut vous aider! Vous êtes fou.**" With that last parting shot, he threw his arms up in the air and stalked out.
"Wow," said Jenna, "I don't think I've ever seen him lose his temper."
"We hurt his beloved kitchen," Lee said, also trying not to laugh, "I think that's enough to rouse even Rafe's rage."
The sound of a door down the hallway made them all jump. Voices filtered into their hearing: Daniele's, saying, "You'll probably both have jet-lag, but you can take a nap after you eat a little something--" Two younger-sounding voices responded.
Lee looked, wide-eyed, at Jenna and Cam. "Daniele's home already? We're -screwed-!"
Cam, sitting at the table and eating his Lucky Charms, smiled pleasantly at her. "No, -you're- screwed. I'm just eating breakfast."
X
Ali wasn't sure what she was expecting, but this quiet gabled house wasn't it. It wasn't impressive, it didn't look like mutants would live there, and it wasn't large, either. Still, she supposed it was better than where she'd been living before. She wriggled the scaly black wings, hidden underneath her large coat. They itched, but Daniele hadn't seen them yet... Nor had Darien.
The taciturn boy was fidgeting nervously next to her. He had no bags to carry, and his crimson eyes were half-lidded and almost sleepy looking, at odds with the rest of his expression as well as his motions. She half-smiled at him - although she was normally suspicious of people, something about the quiet boy was appealing. He certainly wasn't a phony, to be sure.
Her stomach grumbled - more immediate concerns.
"Daniele?"
"Yes?"
"I'm really hungry."
"Don't worry," Daniele said, opening a door, "This is the kiii... Oh, Deus," she said, and as Ali followed her, she saw the reason for the older woman's shock.
Three teenagers were already in the white-tiled, very nicely sized room, and two of them were grinning rather stupidly at the teacher. The other one was eating cereal and pretending that the monstrous mess in the kitchen simply did not exist. "Daniele!" the one with glasses exclaimed without missing a beat, "Welcome home!" She bowed, flourishing a... carrot as she did.
"What a pleasant surprise!" said the other girl, who was holding half of a French bread.
"I wish I could say the same," growled Daniele, "Just -what- do you think you're doing?"
"The food attacked us!" the one with glasses said, just as the other girl put her head down and said, "I'm sorry, we had a food fight..." and just as the boy said, "They were making a cake."
They glared at each other, and the girl with glasses sniffed. "I liked my version better."
Ali snickered. This looked as though it would shape up to an amusing morning.
"Lee," Daniele said, addressing the one with glasses, "I thought I asked you to be responsible?"
"Well..." Lee said, "I -tried-... It just didn't work very well."
"I can -see- that! You're going to clean up everything in this room, and then you can clean up the rec room as well!"
"Aww, but Dan-iele-..."
"No buts. You should've thought about that before you destroyed the kitchen."
"Yeah," said the other girl.
"That punishment is for you, too, Jenna."
The girl's face fell.
"Both of you, go and clean yourselves up. And try not to step on the carpets!"
"Hi," said the boy, to Darien and Ali, "I'm Cam."
"I'm Ali," she said.
Darien said nothing, of course, and Cam continued to look at him expectantly. Then he squinted. "Where'd he go? I didn't see him walk through the door..."
Ali realized what Darien must have been doing. Daniele had told each of them about the other's powers, so she knew he must be faded - she just hoped he wasn't in the intangible portion, because she struck out with her arms, lightly, not enough to really -hurt- anyone - maybe just to jar the person in question back to reality. "Stop it, Darien," she said, "At least tell the poor kid your name." She caught hold of a large elbow-full of ski coat.
"I don't want to. I'm going to go unpack," said a ghostly, disembodied voice. Cam jumped reflexively, and sighed, rubbing his eyes. Ali continued to try to grab hold of the reluctant boy, but he'd either ghosted completely or just walked out of the kitchen.
She shrugged apologetically, although she wasn't really all that sorry. "Too bad. That was Darien, but... I'll talk to you later." Ali grabbed a donut from a plate in a fairly clean bit of the kitchen, and shrugged off her coat... She heard another sound like a small jump from the boy in the kitchen, but she didn't really care who saw the wings now - after all, all the students were mutants, and they'd been just itching to get free.
X
"Oh," said Lee, as she came down the stairs, tying her wet hair up in a short ponytail, "Hello, Rán."
"You could stand to sound a bit more enthusiastic," the woman said dryly.
"Hi, Rán!"
"...I can do without the sarcasm. This is Nikki Luapay," she indicated the tall girl standing behind her. Lee smiled, and waved a greeting, which was returned. "I hope you'll make a better first impression on her than Daniele says you made on Ali and Darien. Show her upstairs?"
"Hi. I'm Lee."
"I'm Nikki. What did you -do-?"
Lee looked at her, unsure whether to affect penitence or just to grin like she really wanted to. She decided on the latter. "Well... it's rather a long story. But needless to say, they do -not- approve of carrots as a substitute for fencing equipment."
"...Right."
"Don't worry about it, but don't use the kitchen for a couple hours, either."
"Will do. So... How many kids are here?"
"Everyone's supposed to be arriving today," Lee explained, "So we'll have eight when all's done."
"That's not very many," Nikki said, surprised, "I'd been expecting something..."
"...More like the Xavier Institute?"
"Yeah, I guess so."
"Well, we're not them," Lee said, "And we don't want to be."
"Why not? It seems like a nice place."
"Yeah, but would you want to live in a place run by a guy who can control and read your every thought? We can really trust our instructors."
"I dunno," Nikki said, snickering, "That Rán..."
"Oh, don't worry about her. She's the school joke... I don't know what she thinks she'd be better at doing, but it's all sour grapes. And here's your room, you'll be sharing with Ali. She just got here today, too."
The girl examined her room curiously. "It's nice and large," she said, putting her suitcase down on the floor.
"-Large-?" Lee squeaked, "What planet did -you- grow up on?"
Nikki shucked her shoes and jumped onto the bed, bouncing up and down on it cheerfully. "Well," she said, sentence punctuated by bounces, "I lived with my Grandfather in a cabin. It had two rooms, and I slept in the one furthest from the door!"
"Whoa," Lee said, "I... can't even imagine doing that."
"It was great," Nikki said, and then, sadly, "I miss him already."
"We all miss our families, if we've got them," Lee said, "You'll get used to it."
"LEANNA NELSON! JENNA SINTOR!" Rán bellowed from downstairs, "COME DOWN HERE RIGHT NOW!!"
"I guess she found the kitchen!" Lee said impishly, and vanished out the door, leaving Nikki to unpack her bags and settle into her room.
X
Rafe stood on a chair, watching as Lee and Jenna scrubbed the floors, muttering curses as they went. "You missed a spot!" he commanded, pointing a delicate toe at what seemed to Jenna to be a shining example of cleanliness.
"You're just trying to get back at us for ruining the kitchen!" she snapped, "It's perfectly clean!"
"Look, girls," Rafe said gently, "Daniele said I could be in charge of the cleanup efforts. So I say it's not clean! Someone scrub it over again."
"It wasn't this clean to -start- with," Lee muttered.
"So this is a great opportunity to get it even cleaner. I want no floor unwaxed! No counter unscrubbed!"
"No loony unmedicated," Lee whispered to Jenna, who sniggered.
"I heard that!" Rafe retorted, "-You- can clean up the bits with the egg."
Lee moaned and flopped onto the floor, pretending to have fainted. "No more! No more! I've had enough cleaning!" The kitchen did look infinitely better than it had when they started, but there were still puddles of sticky things on the counters and the floors, and Lee's ersatz sword was blocking the drainage in the sink.
"I don't think that Daniele knows you're such a petty tyrant, Rafe," Jenna said.
"She doesn't need to. And you don't need to talk while you're cleaning! Shine! I want to see some shine, there, ladies!"
The two girls looked at each other and groaned. "At least it's preferable to a punishment by Rán, right?" Lee asked.
"I don't know..." Jenna said, "He--"
"Silence!!"
X
* It's the kitchen! It's food! It's ruined! Villains! Evil children!
** Nothing can help you! You're crazy!
