Chapter Three

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YIN: This chap catches up with Meddie a bit, has Kevin arriving at the BH house and then I give Yang a turn to write…

YANG: This chapter has buses, B'hood and bad dreams. Also squicky bloodness, so if you don't like mention of blood (although it's only small) be careful.

YIN: Also, the changes that have been made to the first chap are regarding Meddie's appearance, she is meant to have gold eyes and tan skin. That's all.

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Meddie sat in the corner of a large room in a cargo plane. It was one of the three that was being used to transport the mutants caught at the Meeting, as well as a few others, to America where there was a permanent holding. In her arms lay a small child, who had told Meddie that she was five years old and that her name was Minerva. You could tell she was a Mutant by looking at her, with blue hair and green skin it was hard to miss. However she had yet to develop any powers. She had been separated from her parents in the chaos of the attack, and when Medusa had seen her she had left Kevin to help her. Unfortunately they had both been caught, and her only consolation was that as far as she knew Kevin was still free.

***

Kevin sat on the bus, a fair sized backpack next to him and a large duffle bag at his feet. He knew it would only be a couple more minutes and he would reach his final stop. Then it was just a question of finding the house. The bus pulled in to a stop and the driver shouted at him that this was the one he wanted. Hoisting up his bags and struggled off the bus, he thanked the driver. Once off the bus he rearranged his bags into a more comfortable position and after checking the address he had been given, started staggering down the road in search of his new home.

He stopped outside one of the worst looking houses in the street. The whitewash was peeling on the outside walls, the left upstairs bedroom window was broken with a piece of cardboard over it and there was a hole in the roof which someone had secured a piece of green waterproof plastic from the inside to prevent it leaking. The garden wasn't much better; it was weedy with only an old rotting tree and a fridge decorating it. He paused for a second to take it in, he'd never seen a place like this before. It looked more like a dump than a house. Though Kevin wasn't particularly surprised, after all the only people that lived there were teenage boys.

Kevin started down toward the house, but the front door opened before he even got there and a tall, broad, brunette male with hair down to his shoulders blocked his way to the house. Kevin looked up to seem him glaring stonily down at him, silently inquiring what he was doing there.

"Umm… hi, I'm Kevin." He introduced himself, dropping his stuff and offering his hand.

"Hi" A voice came out of nowhere, but was quickly followed by a head. The head belonged to a boy about the same height as Kevin with smooth white hair gelled back with the exception of two spikes which stuck out to the side. He had blue eyes and wore jeans and a skin-tight top. "I'm Pietro." he introduced himself, taking Kevin's offered hand and shaking it. The brunette did not seem impressed by Pietro's behaviour.

"So what brings you here?" Pietro asked in a slightly overly friendly manner. Kevin didn't have any problems with Pietro's manners; in fact it was the brunette's conduct that was unnerving him.

"Well…" Kevin licked his lips. That guy was really making him feel uncomfortable; he tried to focus on Pietro, who still hadn't let go of his hand. "You may have heard about the mutants who were brought here by the FOH about a week ago," this seemed to get their attention, "well my sister was among them. I met this crazy blue lady…"

"…Mystique…" Pietro and the tall guy offered.

"Yeah, and she sorta told about the place and…"

"So the boss-lady is still recruiting?" The tall brunette asked moving aside, seeming to accept that he had to let Kevin in.

"Welcome to the Brotherhood" Pietro said smiling, throwing his arm round Kevin's shoulder and leading him into the house, while the other bigger guy carried his stuff in.

***

Scott laughed as he watched Kurt and Evan tormenting Kitty with long peacock feathers. Evan would swoop in on his skateboard and tickle her nose with it, and when she turned Kurt would teleport behind her and move it across her ear. Kitty turned and turned, trying to make each one stay still so that she could take the feather away them but it wasn't working. It finally ended when Kitty went insubstantial and Evan fell through her into Kurt. Crowing, Kitty grabbed both feathers and put them under Evan's shirt, then turned to Kurt and tickled him unmercifully.

Scott was interrupted by Xavier's voice in his head.

*Scott, someone is at the door. They seem to be in need of some help. Can you go let them in please? *

Scott thought back *Sure Professor. * Then walked to open the front door. Rapid knocking was coming from it, so Scott opened it as fast as he could. He stumbled in surprise when a short body fell into him. As he held his arms out to prevent them both from falling to the floor, the other person leapt back, falling onto their behind.

Scott studied the other visitor to see if he knew them. The long black hair wasn't familiar, and judging by the filthy clothes and the small rucksack, the person had been travelling for a while. A new mutant then?

Scott decided to break the uncomfortable silence that had fallen.

"Hey. Sorry about that, shouldn't have opened the door so fast. Why are you here?"

The person lifted their head warily, keeping his head down while he looked sidelong at Scott. Scott noticed that the boy? girl's? eyes were an unusual colour, even through his red glasses, but he didn't say anything. He did live with a blue furred-demon after all. A pair of weird eyes didn't bother him that much. The voice, when it spoke, was melodic and accented with English, while also being detectably masculine. It had been difficult to tell what their somewhat tattered looking visitor was otherwise.

"Yeah, ummm, is this, uh, Xavier's Institute for mutants? Sumfing like that?"

"Yeah kid. You've decided to join us?"

The boy nodded and then pulled himself up from the ground. He stood there, eyes down, shifting his weight from leg to leg.

"Um, yeah, so you wanna come in? I can take you to meet the Professor."

The boy nodded again and Scott moved aside to let him in. As Scott led him through the corridors, he tried to talk to him some more.

"So, my name's Scott Summers, what's yours?"

"Diego Vatusia."

"Cool. So, you been in America long?"

"Nah, not really. Few weeks' per'aps. I heard 'bout this place at a meetin' in England and hitchhiked 'ere from the airport."

Scott looked mildly surprised but let it go, assuming he'd tell them more later on.

"Oh right. You're from England, then."

The kid nodded. "London."

The conversation stopped as they approached a large door. Scott pushed it open and motioned the kid to go through, which he did.

A warm and quite formal voice greeted Diego as he entered. He saw a bald man in a wheelchair sitting facing the door, hands steepled in front of him.

"Ah, Scott. You've brought our young guest up. What's your name child?"

"Diego Vatusia." He replied, slightly awed by the feeling of power that the man in front of him exuded.

"Well Diego. I am Professor Charles Xavier and this is my home for young gifted people such as yourself. We're here to help you learn and train your powers. Do you know what your powers are?"

"How did you know I was… one of you?" Diego asked.

"We have a machine known as 'Cerebro'. It detects the presence of new mutants such as yourself so that we can find and help them, as we are doing with you. We detected you making your way here a few days ago."

Scott broke in, seeing that the boy looked slightly nervous about hearing that.

"The Professor is a telepath. He can talk to people using his mind and can also read thoughts and move objects."

Diego started and looked directly at Xavier for the first time, fear and awe starkly visible in his eyes.

"Don't worry, I won't look without your permission." The Professor reassured him.

The boy relaxed a bit.

"I have to wear these special glasses because my power causes me to shoot laser beams from my eyes. I can't control it yet, and these specs stop me from harming anyone."

Diego looked cautiously at the smiling team-leader.

"I don't rightly know what my powers are." He confessed. "I c'n change other people's body temperatures, make 'em hot or cold like, but apart from that…."

Xavier spoke up.

"That's okay, not many mutants are totally aware of their powers. The institute is here for you to learn more about yourself so that you aren't frightened and so that you don't accidentally hurt anyone if your power is like Scott's. We'll teach you how to use your gifts to their fullest. But as for now, I think we should put you in a room. You look tired and I'm sure we can talk later. We can put your room next to Scott's if you want."

Diego nodded and thanked them then was led to his new room.

He was overwhelmed by the luxury of his new surroundings, but had to heed the call of the shower first. He felt filthy. He had travelled for days after the events of the equal rights rally thing and had also had to walk and hitchhike to the institute. He felt dirty down to his bones and he spent a good half hour or more in the shower, scrubbing under the glorious hot water until his skin turned red.

Once out, he crashed into bed in a pair of large faded sweatpants that had been borrowed from somewhere else as the clothes that he had had in his bag were now torn beyond all wearing after an incident with a dog. He would have stopped to mull the events of the day over in his head, but was more exhausted than he had thought and he dropped off minutes after lying down.

//He was in that place again, that strange, familiar white place with no windows and one door. He hugged his knees to him as he watched the shadow people move around him, poking and prodding to try and get a reaction. He shivered. There had been no noise except for the faint muttering of the shadow people, but now there was a creaking noise, a steady, slow and eerie, 'rreeeeeeeeeeeek, rreeeeeeeeeeeek, rreeeeeeeeeeeek'. He saw the shadow of the noose stretch across the ground, empty yet hanging and creaking all the time. When he looked up, the body that he knew would be there was, in all its macabre colour. He stared at it, stared at its (familiar?) black boots. He heard another voice echo across the mumbling of the shadow people and the creaking of the rope. A young male voice, but he couldn't make out the words. He jerked as if he had been pushed suddenly, and more words in an unknown voice yelled loudly into his ear. 'You stupid boy. How many times have I told you, you can't drink it through a straw? Blood clots.' He looked down at his hands and saw a cup with dark red liquid inside. He brought it to his mouth and drank out of it, then dropped it listlessly. The blood was thick. It crawled out of the glass, spreading in an enlargening puddle across the floor. It crept up a podium and ran into the neck of the man he had seen shot during the mutant meeting. He lifted his head with it's grey face and fishy unseeing eyes and said gently 'Equal blood for equal freaks. You are a freak. Just don't use a straw okay?' And then he turned into another glass of blood. //

And it was the blood comment that made Diego sit up in bed and gasp, clutching at the sheets as if he would slip back into that world of dreams without them.

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YIN: I have to say now, I am fully in love with Diego. Along with -is muffled by Yang so all you hear is 'mafma'- but that's for later.

YANG: Awww, bless. Anyway, next chapter has Evan and Diego chatting, Wolverine makes an appearance, as does a brand spanking new baby. Mwahahahahaha! Character torture… but in a good way.

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