Disclaimer: No, I don't own the X-Men. Do own Cassie. Wish I owned Kurt . . .
A/N: Right. We're finally getting into the action here! I thought it would never come, yeesh. And as you're probably guessed by the title of this chapter, Amanda meets the Brotherhood! Now, I want no flames b/c they're OOC. I'm not good at writing the Brotherhood, so bear with me. And Graydon's thought at the end is not meant in offense of any religion whatsoever. So no flames for that either.
A/NII: The next chapter may be a long time coming. I'm going to be far away from my computer for several days, and also far away from school, so much catching up will be needed afterward. Don't expect anything till Saturday or Sunday at the earliest. Sorry; RL intrudes again.
Dedication: to Nightshade Darksome (she's on my favs list) , again, for her two newest pieces, "The Phantom Went Down to Paris" (a Phantom of the Opera songfic of Devil Went Down to Georgia) and "Ways to Tell you're obsessed with the FLY" (which is self-explanatory), both hilarious and for the 'obsessed', completely true.
Onward, ho!
Chapter IX
"Let me get this straight. You've just joined a club called the Friends of Humanity, and they're a charity organization in your high school, and they're having a field trip to downtown New York in two weeks, and you want to go. The club president himself -- a cute senior boy, I might add -- asked you to come. Do I have everything?"
"Graydon is a moron. And I'm dating Kurt. But other than that, yeah, that sounds about right," Amanda replied. Cassie was in a foul mood, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why. So, instead of doing the usual teenage thing and putting up a fuss about it, Amanda did something entirely unexpected. She asked. "Why are you so jumpy about this, Cassie? It's not like I'm going alone downtown."
Cassie sighed. "I've heard some things about that group, about the Friends of Humanity. Some of it sounds to good to be true, and others of it . . . You know about mutants, right? Human-borns who have whacked-out DNA, and it gives them freaky powers when it doesn't kill them?"
"Sure. Although I've never actually heard anything interesting about them," Amanda lied through her teeth.
"Well, I don't know how things went in Germany, but there seems to be an overabundance of mutants in the US -- maybe it's all the cultures and genes from all over the world we have mixed here. I don't know. Even though there are a growing number of them, they're still out numbered by regular humans millions to one. But some people, who've heard every classic bigotry of all time, have decided to squelch this mutant thing in the bud. That's what I've heard about the Friends of Humanity. That their title really means friends only to pure humans."
Amanda shook her head, trying to look as though she was amused. "Cassie, as far as I can tell, they're not anything like that. I'm just going to go help some homeless people, okay?"
Cassie gave her charge a long look before signing the permission slip.
*
"The good news is: Cassie signed the permission slip. The bad news is: Cassie signed the permission slip," Amanda announced to Kurt as she dropped her lunch tray next to his. None of the other X-Men had arrived yet.
"Guten tag, Amanda, but don't you usually eat with your friends?" Kurt asked.
"Candy's not talking to me because I joined the Friends of Humanity, Colleen is staying with an aunt for a week and Lee is out sick. So I'm eating over here."
Kurt started, "Candy's not --"
"Talking to me. No. She knows very well it was FOH who hurt Warren, and now she's ignoring me because she told me and I went and joined them," Amanda sighed. "I wish I could tell her the truth, but . . . She broke a promise to tell me in the first place. Is it really right to -- We're just in a bad situation, Kurt, caught between two worlds. Both of us, Candy and I, aren't anti-human or anti-mutant, and it leaves us without a strong handle on things."
"If I'd known --"
"Yo, look! The blue boy's girlfriend is actually sitting with him, yo!"
Kurt froze as an expression of absolute horror dawned on his face.
Amanda blinked a few times, and turned a questioning look on Kurt.
"'Blue Boy'?"
Kurt buried his face in his hands as they suddenly became the center of the Brotherhood's attention. "Erm -- ja."
"So--what?Shecouldn'tfindajockdumbenoughanddecidedtogowithyouinstead?"Pietro zipped over, rushing back and fourth around the two of them while Amanda got dizzy trying to follow his movement and Kurt buried his face in his hands.
After having to hold onto the table because she was trying to follow Quicksilver, Amanda turned towards Kurt, expression amused. "Lemme guess--"
"You know this'll never work, fuzzy," Tabitha pointed out as she and the rest of the brotherhood caught up to Pietro. "You can't tell her anything."
"Um, 'Manda?" Kurt squeaked, groaning. "Meet the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants."
"Hey, we're not evil!"
"Yeah, Mystique gave us that name!"
"Um, why are you introducing us to the straight-gene?"
Amanda sighed. "Because this 'straight gene' has known about fuzzy here for months."
That stilled even Quicksilver.
"You've -- known about Kurt -- for months?!" Tabitha ended with a shriek, although she was the only one who wasn't speechless. Pietro quickly shook his head, giving Toad, who was looking at him at the time, a headache. "And you didn't run for a straight jacket or a gun?"
"No . . . I decided I liked him," she replied with a smile, looping an arm around Kurt's.
"Anddoessheknowabouteveryoneelse?" Pietro demanded.
Amanda stared a moment, then turned to Kurt. "Um -- translation, please?"
"Yes, she knows about everyone else. Everyone but you, but as you decided to walk up and present yourself, I didn't think it would be a problem," Kurt rolled his eyes, annoyed.
"Wellit'snothtthatit'saproblemforus--"
"Aw, an X-geek wanna-be to tease, yo!" Toad declared.
"Say -- WhatdoeshehavethatIdon'thave?" Pietro actually stood still for a moment, leaning against the table and posing, using every bit of his wit and charm. In other words, just being Pietro.
Kurt felt something twinge.
Amanda studied Pietro critically. He really was probably the cutest guy at Bayville High . . . "Well, on the purely physical level, Kurt has fur. And a tail," Amanda grinned as the mutants simultaneously turned toward her, wide-eyed. "And those lovely pointed ears."
Kurt turned red, which was easier to see on his hologram than on his blue fur.
"Um, besides that she's talking 'bout blue boy, she just said the word 'lovely', yo," Toad stammered. Pietro looked miffed.
"Besides, he hasn't dragged me on any crazy adventures, which from what I hear from Kitty, I should be grateful."
Lance turned red, while Tabitha snickered.
"Man, she's another goody-good. They's multiplyin'!" Toad complained.
Kurt ignored him. "Ja, it's usually you dragging me, miss 'I kinda got a little arrested'!" he teased.
"That only happened once!" Amanda huffed. "And you weren't even there!"
Pietro and Tabitha exchanged a confused look.
"Ja, but too much ice cream makes you hyper, and that I was there for!" Kurt accused as the Brotherhood watched with astonished expressions.
"Hey, I only dragged you around for six hours. You haven't seen me at my worst!"
"You threatened me! I was not going to get into that car with you sugar high!"
The Brotherhood's eyebrows vanished.
"Says the guy who introduced me to Bobby and Jubilee!"
Kurt paused. "Alright, that wins. But you frightened away the Brotherhood."
When Amanda turned to look, all that remained of the fast-retreating Brotherhood was a trail of slime.
"What just happened, Kurt?" Scott asked, giving Amanda a short look because she didn't usually sit with them. "I just saw the Brotherhood hightailing it in the opposite direction. They obviously came from here," Scott looked pointedly at Toad's slime trail.
"I think I scared them," Amanda grinned to rival Nightcrawler.
"You -- what?" Scott repeated.
"Well, I started talking about how I knew he was fuzzy--"
"Then I mentioned a certain little sugar high episode --"
"And we kind of got into a debate --"
"And a normal human arguing about this must have really confused them, because the next thing I knew, they vanished."
"Well, that and I outright told Pietro that I prefer fuzzy and adorable here to him," Amanda finished.
Once Scott managed to sort through all this, what with one picking up where the other left off, he just shook his head and sat down. "You know, sometimes you two are a little much for the rest of us too."
Kurt grinned as he started in on his second burger (he wouldn't be eating the cafeteria food at all if it weren't for his hyper metabolism), and Evan just shook his head as he sat down. "I'm not even going to ask why the Toad was actually catching up to Pietro when they left here."
Kurt nearly spit out a piece of burger. "He was catching up?! 'Manda, I think you've become our new secret weapon!"
"Do Ah dare ask what y'all are talkin' about?" interrupted Rogue's southern twang.
"Apparently, my attitude towards mutants had an adverse effect on the Brotherhood," Amanda replied, shooting Rogue a look. The southern girl slapped her hand over her mouth to restrain laughter, something Evan at least had never seen before. Amanda shot her a superior look before joining her. The three guys exchanged a look that clearly said 'it must be a girl thing' before returning to their lunches.
While Kurt and Amanda worked to bring out a side of Rogue few saw, Jean watched while assuming a Loganlike pose against the doors that lead from the cafeteria into the spring air. Every one of her telepathic hackles was up and working overtime. She could swear she sensed something about that girl, teasing her telepathy until it drove her nearly mad. Like a mild itch at that place between and under your shoulder blades that you can never quite reach. She was so concentrated on Amanda that she didn't notice the other thing her telepathic scans were picking up: another person watching the X-Men and Amanda with an almost identical hostile, hawk like glare. Graydon Creed -- that's how he thought of himself, really. He had never gotten used to the last name Brent. After leaping around foster care since his mother left him, he'd been surprised when adoption changed his last name.
He would change it back, eventually, as a sign of defiance. His father would notice, and would know why. At least his father, the one person whom he would truly relish destroying, understood him.
Graydon, he reminded himself. You have other work to do. The girl's coming on the field trip, be content to wait until then -- you have another prey in your midst.
Candy Southern sat alone and glowering at the lunch table she usually shared with Colleen, Lee and Amanda. He could hardly believe it had taken him this long to realize why the girl hated FOH so much. She had been there the night they had attacked the devil in the guise of an angel. She must not have told Amanda, or the girl wouldn't have come near us. She knows very well those Institute kids are mutants, and their teachers along with them. It's really too bad no one wants to get close enough to the mutants to get in the way she did, the teenager mused as he watched the curly-haired Junior. She really is very pretty. But then again, so is Jean Gray. And she's a mutant, which just goes to show you that no matter what you look like on the outside, you could easily be a devil within.
Graydon smiled slowly, a smile lit with unholy light.
And the devils within must fall as their master fell.
