Im Nova part 1: The Dawson Mutant

by Cougarcreed

One more Canadian is joining the team and she powers couls change the world

3. Im Nova part 3: Hello Grover

Im Nova Part 3

For disclaimer please see part one of Im Nova. For this to make sense you should have read parts one and two. Nova is mine, all mine, because she is 'ME". So if you want to use 'ME' please ask nicely, submit a blood sample and write a 1,000,000 word explanation on what you want to do with 'ME' and then I might let you borrow 'ME'. Bobby as Frostbite is also my twisted idea, please don't use him with out asking me first, thank you. Have you found the plot mistake in part one? Write to me and tell me about it.

Im Nova part 3: Hello Grover

By: DelCreed

(griffincreed@hotmail.com)

The Blackbird has landed:

"Well here we are Kim, I'll go up with you to put your things in your room, then you can freshen up, then you can come meet the other students." Jean said enthusiastically, 'When was the last time she was the new guy anywhere is she acts that way about it.' I think nervously as I force a grin, as Logan snorts like he knows how I feel.

"If they try to bite you I'll kick 'em in the butt for you kid, us Canadians need to stick together." Well that's an icebreaker if ever I've heard one. Now smiling I follow him off the plane and see two people, a man and a woman, waiting there on the landing platform, and wow… the man looks like a linebacker, he's really tall, muscular, has what looks like an M tattooed over one of his eyes, and he is holding the biggest gun I've ever seen in my life, even the ones in M.I.B might look puny next to his, oh and he's black. Standing beside him is a tall strikingly beautiful woman with auburn hair that is divided down the centre by a stark, white streak, and she is wearing '…spandex?' I look at her then down at myself and shutter, 'Oh God say it isn't so,' I know Jean and Ororo had spandex as uniforms on earlier when they were putting my sister in her place, but why was this one dressed from neck to toe in it, even her hands are covered in the stuff. 'I'm not going to have to wear SPANDEX all the time too, am I?'  They stepped over to Logan and I can swear they're both trying really hard not to smile.

"Kim this is Bishop," Scott nodded to the man then turned to the woman "and Rogue. Rogue, Bishop this is Kim Novak, she's the mutant who saved those kids in that burning school this morning." 'Wow was that only this morning, I feel like it's been a life time since then.' They both said hello but were still looking intently at Logan.

"Um, it's nice ta meet ya Kim but we really need to speak to Logan, ya need to come with us, we need to tell ya somethin' important Sugar." The woman drawled in a smooth Southern voice. She seamed nice enough but kind of stiff, like she has a lot on her mind. "Its very important." She added, I wanted to yell 'Hey you can't take him. He promised to kick people's butts for me.' But I guess if they needed him I could handle meeting everyone else on my own. Logan turned to look at me and I nodded that I would be fine.

"I knew ya had guts kid-" He smiled back at me, 'Yes lets just hope they stay on the inside of me.' I smiled back. "You're a Canadian after all." I wonder if I should tell him that I was born in Toledo Ohio, and was only half Canadian… naaa. Then he paused and sniffed the air and … growled? "Where is he?" his voice seamed choked and his hair seamed to bristle up all over him like a mad dog or a ticked off cat's would.

"That is what we need to tell you, he is um… contained at the moment, but there is a, a strange twist to the story that you need to be made aware of." Bishop informed him. "You need to know all the facts before you go and do something that you will regret."

"There isn't much that I could do to him that I'd regret Bish." Logan sneered as he stomped off following them out of the hanger. Once they'd gone I became aware of a third person that was walking towards us.

"Scott, Jean, Ororo won't one of you be so kind as to introduce me to your friend." He was a tall man, also tall and muscular but he was more massively built then Bishop, he had short brown hair, a kind face and was wearing a lab coat and glasses.

"Hank?" Scott asked and the man nodded "Kim this is Doctor Henry McCoy, Hank this is Miss. Kim Novak." Scott was giving the man, Hank a curious look.

"Kim Novak… I truly enjoyed your movie 'Vertigo'" he smiled as I groaned, if I'd heard that line once I'd heard it a million times. I looked at him for a moment.

"What did you do to yourself sir?" He looked startled so I explained. "I mean Ororo told me about you and whenever I've seen you on T.V. you… you were always blue and, and well fuzzy." (All right I know they are the X-Men by now because of Ororo's description of Dr. McCoy, and I feel really foolish because I was telling them about themselves earlier on the trip) Jean sniggered and I remembered her saying 'no one is allergic to Hank.' When I was planning on bringing my dog with me. I'd have to tell him about that one-day. He held out his hand and tapped his wrist; suddenly the brown haired man was gone and there in his place stood the blue, fur covered man I had been expecting to see. "Why the getup?" He smiled bashfully at me.

"My appearance is something of a shock for the… unprepared, I thought it would be better if you could get to know me before I sprung fully furred before you." I shook my head sadly.

"I've hidden who I am for a long time, I don't ever want to be the reason that someone else has to hide who they really are… the way I did." He smiled happily at me. Then Jean stepped forward and spoke.

"I'll just be taking Kim and her things up to her room, then she'll be meting everyone at dinner, anytime from tomorrow on will be fine whenever you want to start doing her physical." Hank looked disappointed. "I know your eager to get to work with her but give her a chance to settle in." Jean admonished. A physical? I raised my eyebrow at him.

"Don't those mean lots of needles and, and stuff?" he smiled at me my heart sank and missed a beat.

"I just need to get your medical quirks and history into my files, allergies and the like. You have nothing to worry about, and unlike other doctors I do not have cold hands." Was that supposed to make me feel better? He turned to Scott "Oh fearless, we need to talk, Ororo you should hear this too." He sounded very serious suddenly and Jean tapped me on the shoulder as she shot a look at Scott and he nodded back before she turned away, I followed her out of the room.

***********

In the War Room:

"He's in who's body and who's in his?" Logan was thunder struck as he stood holding onto the back of one of the many chairs in the room, his knuckles going white, Bishop quickly moved out from in front of him so that the security camera could get a good shot of his face for Bobby to watch later with them. "You mean Creed is- in, in- and he has no powers." Bishop and Rogue nodded together. "And S.H.I.E.L.D. will be coming to take him away… for good?" Logan's face crumpled up in deep thought for a long time and he didn't speak, then just as Rogue was about to touch him, he took a deep breath and started to laugh out loud, his whole body seamed to relax and before their eyes he suddenly looked twenty years younger, because many of his craggy wrinkles had smoothed out. Finally he took another deep breath and sighed. "Can I see him, them." He caught Bishop's hesitant look. "I swear I won't do anything to him, keep the force field up if it makes ya feel better Bish, I just really need to see him like that for myself, powerless and trapped." He shrugged "Is Bobby doing okay? How is he takin' it, being stuck in Creed's body an' all?" Rogue told him about how Hank had helped Bobby work out some of his major concerns for now, and how Bobby's usual since of hummer seamed to be coming back to help him deal with 'It', she knew everyone would be there for him if he need more help accepting himself later. She then went on telling him that even Marrow had spent time with Bobby, trying to help him think up a new codename. "Just perfect the Marauders will run for the lives when the 'Snarling Snowflake' shows up." Logan laughed at his own joke.

"Frostbite." Rogue said smiling.

"Hu?"

"They where trying for hours to find a name and when Gambit walked into the kitchen and called him 'Frostbite' they both liked it." Bishop explained. Logan face-palmed and started laughing again, then quickly excused himself because of a sudden need to use the bathroom. "I'll wait in the hall then take you in to see Creed, well his brain anyway." As they walked off Rogue thought she heard Logan say that if that were the case there wouldn't be very much for them to see.

***********

My Room:

Jean brought me to an elevator that looked a lot like the ones in Star Trek T.N.G. she stacked my things into it behind us and we headed up three floors, where the doors opened up on the landing facing a set of wide, carpeted, stairs that came up from the entrance hall and divided the men's wing of bedrooms (on the right if you came up the stairs) from the women's wing of bedrooms (on your left when you came up the stairs). To my surprise she led me to the door nearest the stairs in the women's wing, I'd always thought that the rooms near stairs were always reserved for guest, because they're more convenient. Jean looked over at me and when she smiled and answered my thoughts I realised I must have been 'Projecting' as she'd called it in the Blackbird.

"You're right about this room, but many of the regular rooms are in use and most of the people who come to visit us lived here at one time or another, so they have rooms that they feel more at home in then this one."

"Will I be moved later?" I asked as she opened the door and floated my things inside, ahead of us. I needed to know, because once I settle in someplace my things kinda take over, and I don't want to have to repack my 'Sprawl'.

"No, this will be your room for as long as you are here, unless you want to change it for another one later." I stepped in and gasped, the room was for lack of a better word perfect. Its GREEN… jade green and blue. In font of me there's a bow window with a thickly padded bench where I can see myself curling up to read, and to make it even deeper the window-seat was surrounded by bookshelves (empty for now, but I know I can soon fix that) there is a small table in front of the window-seat with two deep wingback chairs upholstered in forest green so that it made up a kind of sitting area. When I ask why aren't there any blinds or curtains in the window Jean tells me that all the mansion's windows are one-way glass that can be darkened to keep the light out by pressing a switch on the window frames. The bed is a tall, dark, redwood four-poster covered in a spread that looked like a swirling ocean of blue, green and gold with crisp white sheets, there's even a set of padded steps beside it to help you climb in because the top of the mattress is at least thee feet high. On the same wall as the door is a large wardrobe and off in the corner, slightly out of place a blue office chair. Jean, who seams distracted for a moment, sees me looking at the intruder and waved me over to the wardrobe, as I stand before it the doors open on their own and reveal a fold-down desk with a strange, but intriguing, computer set up inside waiting to be used. "This is your terminal, once Hank keys you into the school's computer you'll have all your lesson notes on it and even your teacher's notes, you'll do some classes from right here (I learnt later that some of the teachers where in Scotland and in Massachusetts), if you ever need any help with something you can 'Ping' someone or leave them a message if they aren't on line, it also has instant Internet access and is the fastest thing you'll ever find on earth." 'Hm she said that like traveling through space is a common everyday thing.' Off to my right were two doors that I later found led into a small, white and blue, bathroom, that had a sink, toilet and a small three foot in diameter round tub, the other door leads into a walk in closet, with a wall of shelves and drawers, and the other wall is sectioned into hanging space. "I'll let you freshen up, come downstairs when you are ready to meet the rest of the gang. Its six o'clock, and dinner's at seven." She left with a slight look of concern on her face. "I need to go check on Bobby, you'll meet him later too, but… well from what Scott is telling me he has… changed a lot today." I callout after her.

"Jean?" she stops and looks at me. "Do you dress for supper?" She smiles.

"Well we don't go naked, kidding Bobby would have said that, most of the time it is casual, we mostly dress up if we're having guest." Again she waved and I was alone. I walk to the window and look out to see the woods, part of a lake and the small house next to it. As I look a movement catches my eye near the woods and I see an old, white haired, man pointing at what looks like a rusted car door? Suddenly it flies up into the air and crumples in on it's self, the rust flaking off along with what must have been the paint, because there is now a ball of blueish steel floating before him. As I watch he starts to shape it into smaller pieces as he stands there studying it critically. As I watch him I feel less nervous and decide to get a move on 'Freshening up', after all today I had been in a burning building (have I told you that my school burnt down this morning?), under a dumpster, running around Montreal and worrying (look up sweating bullets in the dictionary and you'd have a found my picture there) that I was going to be arrested and locked away for the good of the people. I open my suitcase and pull out clean cloths and head for the bathroom for a quick dip in that funny little tub, I fill it with my own water, as I add a insane amount of bubble-bath to it.

*********

6:50 Pm The Front Hall

          Wearing clean black jeans (Thank God mom did my laundry for me) and my Harry Potter shirt with the colour changing letters (my parents brought it home for me from Florida), my shoulder length blond hair up in two high tails on top of my head (As I write this I run my hand through my now very short hair, it was all cut off as my mom's Christmas gift, she likes it short), I step out of my room and take a deep breath before heading down the stairs. At the bottom I find a still blue, smiling, Hank McCoy waiting for me.

          "Harry Potter, amazing have you read the books?" he asks enthusiastically. "Bobby did and insisted that I peruse them too, Rowling is an eloquent writer." I smiled.

          "Yes, I read all four of the books, and have them in audio form too, I can't wait for the film to come out." If he and this Bobby guy like Harry they can't be all bad. Hank led me into the living room where several other people were sitting. I knew Scott, Jean, Ororo, Bishop, Logan and Rogue but there were still many people I hadn't met, even the white haired man was there at the back of the room standing behind Rogue.

          "Everyone," The room stilled "This is Kim Novak." There was a snigger from a tall man with dark red hair and startling red eyes, he called out.

"Hank, dat a good joke, she even look like de actress, but what de woman's real name so dat Gambit can talk to her seriously." Jean looked at him and he looked stunned for a moment. "You not kiddin'?"

"Kim Novak is her real name Remy, Jean and I aren't kidding, well since he is the first to speak I believe Kim I'll start off by presenting you to our resident Cajun Remy LeBeau, or Gambit as we and he refers to himself, beside him is Sara, called Marrow," Hank nodded to a pink haired girl cover in sculpted cream coloured armour? But they were stuck to her like they grew from her…

"Bones… those are your bones, wow they look like fancy armour. That's amazing." She looked stunned then smiled smugly at Storm.

"The upworlder has taste." Jean spoke in my mind and told me that Sara had only recently been able to control her bones into forming as she wanted them to, that she needed to build her self image and I'd just helped to give her a real boost in that department. Hank continued his introductions.

"You know, Bishop, Rogue and Ororo who is often referred to as Storm here at home, Scott Logan and Jean. This is Joseph," He waved the white haired man forward and to my shock he wasn't old as I'd thought he was when I'd seen him in the window, honestly he looked twenty or so. Joseph stepped forward and casting a look at my shirt he smiled.

"I read those books too," Joseph pointed to my shirt "Bobby was after everyone in the mansion to read them, even the Professor… well after he was finished reading them all first. I know how it feels to be 'New' somewhere and I wanted you to have this, strangely enough I found its description in the books. Welcome to Xavier's the mutant's version of Hogwarts." With that he presented me with, an object that was flashing in the light and had many spinning parts, it was a model of the solar system and I saw that the planets where floating and even Saturn's rings where revolving. At my amazed and questioning look he smiled. "The base-plate is magnetically charged and keeps the whole thing together." I think my face is going to split in two I'm smiling so much. I thank Joseph and everyone oow's and awes over the way you can see the continents on the sphere representing earth and various other details on the other planets. Hank poked the moon and even muttered a Spockish 'Fascinating.' "I think I'll make one for Bobby next." He said, that is when I look around the room and there wasn't anyone else I hadn't met. Where was this Bobby guy every one was so worried about earlier?

"Bobby sends his apologies, but he is feeling unwell, and promises to meet you later, Angel and Psylocke are out for the evening," Hank said shrugging and smiling at me. "I've called and told them about Bobby's condition." Hank said to Scott, who nodded. Logan snorted something about a 'healing factor' and took my arm pulling me away from Hank and leading me into the dinning room where there where about fifteen boxes of pizza stacked on the table.

"Had some excitement here and they forgot to make dinner, so we get Pizza, that okay with you." He looked happy as he popped the top off a bottle of 'Canadian' beer (Note: there is a beer called Canadian, it is the best beer there is, if you have no choice and have to drink the wretched stuff), the perfect ending to the perfect day.

"Logan I love pizza, is there a Hawaiian one?" I ask as everyone digs in. Storm stopped short and smiled.

"That is Bobby's favourite too." 'Man I'm really going to have to meet this guy.' As we ate people asked me questions and I asked some of my own. Raising the spandex issue with them.

"Do you wear it all the time?" I asked Rogue who smiled happily.

"Naw, not really, but it is comfortable, an' it ain't spandex, this is made of unstable molecules." She said fingering her sleeve, then she went on to explain why she had on gloves, her eyes dim with sadness and I saw Joseph taking her hand in his as out of the corner Of my eye I caught that Cajun guy, Remy, looking away from them. "I'd be happy to help ya design an outfit for you're first trainin' session." She offered, living dangerously I accepted and was happy to see that she cheered up as the meal progressed.

"Okay, when do we go shopping?" I asked, the women in the room laughed, and said I'd see tomorrow, the men at the table just rolled their eyes like they'd all gone through a war together and someone mentioned a girl called Kitty who couldn't figure out what kind of uniform she'd wanted for the longest time and had kept popping up in new ones every day. Then a fight broke out over the last slice of 'meat lovers' pizza between Logan and Gambit, ["I took Jubilee back to de school for you, Gambit spent two hours in de mini jet with her, an' he not once tell her she talk too much 'Wolvie dis an' Wolvie dat'."] ("My worst enemy is powerless in a prison he can never escape from and I'm celebrating bub, so let go or I'll give you six good reasons why ya should Gumbo.") As they argued over who should have it I reached out and touched it with my finger a 'la E.T.' style and used my sizing power to make it big enough for both of them, it was only when Storm gasped that the two of them stopped fighting to see what I'd done, they were both stunned too.

"I think you'll be grocery shopping with me from now on, instead of ten bags of bread I'll get one loaf and you can enlarge it till we can cut it up into enough for twenty sandwiches." Jean beamed at me.

"Sure, why not. When the meal is ready just shout and I'll just enlarge it till there is enough food for everyone." I offered.

"I'll keep it in mind, but don't worry I won't bother you too often, I like to cook, maybe I'll take you up on your offer the next time Gen-X and any of the other X groups comes for a visit." Jean laughed. "But be warned the next time we have pizza I'm only calling for five different kinds and you can do your thing."

"Sizing, I call this power, sizing." I went onto tell them how I'd used it to hide under a dumpster to get away from the police, and change my cloths to be able to slip away and catch the bus home unnoticed.

"So that was the smell that was following you around." Logan muttered and I blushed.

*****************

Later that evening after dinner:

          I was sitting in the living room talking with Joseph as Rogue sat nearby listening to us, telling him that his solar system was really amazing and that he should think of marketing them to Warner Brothers™ as a Harry Potter collector's item for when the film came out, he could make a mint selling them, he smiled and said he'd look into it just as the front door slammed open, someone hurried in and shouted, Jean and Scott quickly excused themselves.

          "That's got to be Warren, he and Betsy, dey must have flown from de airport to get here dis fast." Gambit said to the room in general as he stood up and walked out too, looking amused.

"I have a big brother named Warren." I guess since everything was going so well I might as well get all these introductions over with, so I got up and walked into the hall and stood behind Jean, only to find not two but three people in the hall that I didn't know. One was a tall woman, bundled up in a fur coat (anyone got paint?), she had purple hair and a red mark on her eye, next to her stood a tall, lanky, man with curly blond hair… blue skin! and silver wings, (silver wing, oooh scary. – Quest for Camalot) 'Boy when Gambit had said they must have flown from the airport I thought he'd meant in a fast car.' and there was another man with blond hair too but it was much longer and he was so tall that he dwarfed everyone in the hall including Hank who had just joined the crowd pouring out of the living room. I tapped Jean on the shoulder and she looked back at me.

          "Jean, who's that gorgeous blond guy?" I whispered. Jean smiled.

          "That's Warren, we call him Angel, but he and Psylocke are dating so don-" I cut her off shaking my head.

          "Sorry, I meant who is the other gorgeous looking blond guy." I looked back at the tall one and saw him looking at me as Jean's mouth fell open in surprise, then he was smiling brighter then a search light for some reason and I saw that his canine teeth where very long and sharp, could he be a… a Vampire?

          "Well that's Sab-… Bobby… his name is Bobby." As she said this, the tall man was walking our way and my heart fluttered, when he reached us he held out his hand to me and smiled.

          "Hi, I couldn't help over hearing you talking to Jean, heightened senses and all, so you think I'm gorgeous?" He asked me happily, my face went blank. I've never been more embarrassed in my whole life, I'd never really been interested in anyone before (except Dolph Lundgren) and now the object of my interest was speaking to me, I'm stunned and have no idea how to react, I know so little about this side of life, Patric and my Sci-Fi friends haven't covered anything like this, so I revert to the old Kim style of handling things, I shoot a quick glance at everyone standing around and run. Thanks to having two older brothers who'd delighted in showing me how to race the stairs, I'm off and moving before anyone realizes what my intentions are. Then in a split second I decide the stairs aren't going to be a fast enough means of escape, so I shoot myself into the air on a controlled water spurt and hop off in front of my bedroom door and lock myself inside as I send all the water away before it can wet the floors, well all of it except for the water I've sent out to be dumped on Bobby's head. In the front hall, soaking wet, Bobby tilts his head back and spits out the water in his mouth like a small fountain onto the otherwise dry floor. "Let me guess, she controls water. What did I say?" Jean just looks up at Nova's door sadly.

"She has led a very closed off life, till two years ago she didn't even have friends, she doesn't know how to deal with being attracted to someone or having them respond to her." The room is silent, and then Marrow walked past Bobby shaking her head and went up the stairs straight to Kim's door.

"Kim, its Marrow can I come in I want to tell you about 'Wonder Blunder Boy' back there, he's never had a girl who's really been interested in him before, he was desperate to get to know you before you went and changed your mind… his last girlfriend had these really huge pants!" She called through the door, at once the door opened quickly; a hand darted out and yanked her in by her shirtfront then the door slammed shut behind her again.

********

Early the next morning:

          For some reason I had a hard time falling asleep after Sara left last night, sure she'd made me feel better, and had listened to me telling her how I'd shut myself away for years, and the friends at school who'd broken into my life to set me free, but I was still very keyed up, so I'd gotten up and started putting my stuff away, I had to do this before a lingering temptation grabbed me and made me called my 'Daddy' to come and take me home. There was room for my stereo system in the wardrobe with the computer and through a hole in the back (that was already there) I was able to pass out the plug and speaker wires, then I ran the wires under the green rug (that I was able to pull up) to the bookcases and attached the speakers, putting one speaker on ether side of the window-seat. I have this amazing CD player that plays up to 100 CD's, and now with it all fixed I'd popped on my headphones and clipped an extension cable to them and went to work unpacking my cloths in the walk-in closet. It was about 3:00Am and happy with my set up I'd taken out my Sims CD to install it on this strange new computer, I'd tried logging on but when it asked for a password I shut it down, you never know alarms might go off if you don't type in the right password the first time. It was only after having snuck back into the living room for Joseph's gift, which I set on my coffee-table, that I was ready to laterally climb up into my new bed to get some sleep, just before dropping off I swallowed a mouthful of water so I wouldn't be thirsty later on and have to wake up for a drink.

*********

          I was up at seven, the sun having woken me up (I'd forgotten to dial the windows dark before going to bed, as Jean had showed me). At breakfast I was happy to see that only the woman named Psylocke, Logan and Storm were sitting at the table, I slid into the room and just stood there for a moment.

          "Grab anything you want kid, breakfast is a fend for yourself meal here." Logan informed me. I smiled as I pulled out a recipe card from my pocket.

          "I was hoping you'd say that." And I rummaged around the kitchen gathering what I needed to make German pancakes. As I blended my ingredients I introduced myself to Psylocke and found out that she's British, even if she looked Asian. Soon people were following their noses and wandering into the kitchen, where they watched the odd bubbling dough in the oven.

*************

DelCreed's German Pancakes

· 4 Eggs

· 1 tbsp. Sugar

· 1/2 tsp. Salt

· 2/3 Cup sifted Flour

· 2/3 cup Milk

· 2 tbsp. Soft butter

Heat oven to 400F. Butter well two 9-inch cake pans. Put eggs into blender, cover and bled on Lo(Stir) until light yellow in colour. Turn control to Hi(Mix), remove cover and add remaining ingredients; process until smooth. Pour into prepared pans (sprayed with cooking spray) and bake 20 min. reduce heat to 350F and bake 10 more min. Slide onto hot plate (Put a plate into hot water to heat up, then dry it before serving) Serve with lemon slices, powdered sugar and butter, syrup, jelly, honey, of flavoured butters.

**************

Smiling I had an idea, so I went to get a clean tablecloth out and covered the table, handed everyone a plate and lined up the jam, powdered sugar, and syrup on the counter with silverware and napkins, once the they were done baking I took the eggy pancakes out and cast a look at everyone, they were watching me, I took them out of the pans and put them on the table then sized till they took up most of the surface and told them all to 'dig in'. As they served themselves I took two plates full and covered them with syrup, sugar and cinnamon, and bent to ask Hank a question.

          "In the men's wing, third door on the left." He answered happily lifting a fork full of food up to look at it. I grabbed up a tray that held the plates, cutlery, napkins and two glasses of orange juice, and then I left the room full of happily munching people. Getting my load up the stairs was easy but once I was in front of Bobby's door I was starting to question my sanity, but I knew I needed to apologise for the waterball I'd dropped on him last night. I looked at the tray filling my hands, I looked at the door, how was I suppose to knock (I could have shrunk the tray but why waste time), with a shrug I drew back my foot and started kicking at his door.

**********

In Bobby's room:

          'Someone was knocking at his door… Someone had woken him up… Someone was going to die…'

- Bobby's thoughts

Bobby hated mornings, mornings would be fine if only they would happen a little later in the day. Sighing he rolled over and snarled, then his eyes shot open, he snarled again… never before in his life had one of his morning snarls sounded that menacing, then he remembered what had happened to him, he didn't need the bed that was too short and too short pyjama bottoms he was wearing to remind him that he'd changed a lot since yesterday morning's snarl. The corpse was still knocking at his door so he stalked over to answer it, wrenching it open he nearly swallowed his tongue, it was the new girl and whatever she was carrying on that tray she was holding must have come straight from Heaven, because his stomach told him so with a gurgle.

          "Um, hi…" His voice was gravely and still sleepy. "Can I help you?" Kim was staring at his wide golden chest and quickly looked up into his sleepy, yellow, catlike eyes and took a deep breath.

          "I wanted to say I'm sorry for how I acted yesterday, and to invite you to have breakfast with me." Bobby looked at my peace offering and me for a moment, then he smiled and nodded waving me over to his messy desk. As I set the tray down on a stack of papers he unearthed a chair from under a pile of cloths, and found another one under a four-foot tall stuffed doll of Chewbacca. I looked around his room at all the Starwars stuff hanging on the walls, the snowstorm screensaver on his computer, the ordered messy piles and decided my friends back home would like him… he was a Sci-fi geek like us. I told him about my friends and he told me about Hank and some of their funnier adventures and what had happened to him yesterday as we ate. When we were finished eating (I'd had to size his food twice so he could have his fill) he asked if I would like to see the school. "Sure, sounds like fun."

          "Great, I need to go out later and buy some new cloths, wana' come with? Even my underwear doesn't fit me anymore, and here I was at the point where I liked my cloths, they've gotten to that just right comfortable stage an' now I'll be back to breaking in a whole new wardrobe." He sighed. I quirked an eyebrow at him and cleared my through. "What?" I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers at him, reminding him he'd seen me size his food. "Can you?"

          "If I can turn a pug into a mastiff I think I can handle super sizing your cloths for you Bobby, the pants might be a problem to make them long enough I'll be make them bigger all over." He smiled and shrugged saying he'd just have a tailor take them in or be stylin' in baggy pants.

          "We have to go to the movies together, all we'd need to buy is one drink with two straws, and a small popcorn." Was he asking me out? 'Silly he just meant it as friends.' I tell myself.

          "Yup that's me, cheep date, I usually just brought a baggy of popcorn and I had the water."

          "Ya, well if you went out with me we'd go first class all the way doll, I'd even spring for a small bag of sour skittles." He said waving his hand in the air to emphasize his point.

          "You like those too? Have you ever poured the leftover powder that's at the bottom of the bag into your mouth?" We both shuttered. "That's the good stuff." We spent two hours fixing his cloths, socks and underwear where the easy part, I just sized one pair to the right size and held the other up against it, Bobby had some really funny underwear, but kept swearing to me that other people kept giving it to him as a joke, that is till I held up a tiger print thong and he just smiled and blushed. His T-shirts, sweaters, Bermuda shorts and pants all needed to be tried on and after sizing his suits we decided that he'd have to see a tailor with them too to get them pinned because when I made the coats big enough for his shoulders they looked too boxy on him. Just as we finished the last of his Starwars T-Shirts Jean came by to see what we where up to, and she was happy to see we were getting along now.

          "Kim, Hank sent me to bring you down to the lab for your Physical." She said and I shuttered it sounded so sinister said that way 'down to the lab', I'd forgotten about having to do all that. Bobby saw me, looked at Jean and said he'd be happy to take me down to the med-lab. Bobby picked up our tray and handed it to Jean, who'd offered to bring it back to the kitchen for us, and just before I left his room I reached out, sagged the Chewbacca doll and started sizing it as I lay it on his messy bed, when I joined him in the hall it was eight feet tall.

'Boy wasn't he going to be surprised when he comes back to his room later.' I smirked to myself. 'I'd be happy to take Kim to the med-lab for you to have your way with her.' Some friend. I grunted to myself. 'Happy to lead me straight to a room full of needles and a bloodthirsty blue guy.' We took the elevator at the top of the stairs down four floors and walked across the hall to the med-lab where Hank was literally rubbing his hands in anticipation.

          "See already warming them up for you, please if you will just go behind the curtain, take off your cloths and put on the gown I've laid out for you." He asked as Bobby leaned casually in the doorway watching with a smile, I walked behind the curtain and picked up the scrap of blue fabric I found on a stool.

          "Um, Hank where is the rest of it, I found the front but where's the back?" I called out. "There has to be more then just this…" I mutter as I change. Once in the 'don't stand in a draft' gown I skirt back into the main part of the room, holding the stupid thing closed over my @$$, keeping my back turned away from the two men and checking for reflective surfaces behind me. Bobby was smiling at me. "Why don't you get into one of these and see if you like it enough to keep that smile catman."

          "I was in one of those a good part of yesterday, after this happened to me," he waved a hand at his body. "I like the way it looks on you better." I blush so hotly I almost steam up my glasses. "If you're a good girl for Dr. Hank I'll take you to see my body after." He promised me. I looked at Hank, who was watching us talk to each other with a big, happy grin; I nodded okay to Bobby then winced when Hank pulled out a needle… a really big one.

          "Your body better be worth this." I snarled. Bobby said it was, because not only would I get to see his original form, but I'd also meet the former mutant psychopath who'd once owned the body I liked him in now. Hank stepped over to me and patted the examining table.

          "Just hop up here Kim and we'll get started." I pointed out to Hank that there was no way I'd hop anywhere in my currant outfit and I used a stepping stool to get onto the table. "I'll be doing a throw physical, and later you can ask Jean about scheduling you in for a pelvic exam with her gynaecologist Dr. Radcliff, she is highly recommended by the ladies of the mansion." He said matter of factly. I grabbed the back of my gown and was ready 'then and there' to jump off the table and say 'Stuff seeing your body to Bobby', till I looked over and saw that Bobby was blushing harder then I was at the moment, so talking about that kind of thing made him squeamish did it?

"Really Hank dose she use the disposable plastic tools or the old fashion freezing steel spreaders during the exam?" I asked innocently twisting the screws as Bobby started to sway slightly and slide down the wall to sit on the floor.

"The disposable plastic, and she even heats them up slightly before the examination." Hank assured me, unaware of his pal's reaction.

"Eeeep." Bobby's eyes rolled up into his head and he fell forward on the floor with a soft thud.

"Bobby!" Hank rushed to his friend's side and all was again right in my world.

*************

Holding cell 3A:

          "Board, board, board… I ain't even dangerous enough to bolt down in a chair or chain to the wall in this puny body, every few minutes someone else comes by to look at me and snigger, that Runt's laughin' his fool head off every time he sees me." Creed huffed and poked himself in the shoulder then with a wicked smile, that didn't look right on his new face, he had an Idea. "Humm… its kinda hot in here suddenly…" Then he got busy. Just as he finished there was a sound at his door, and voices that he could almost hear. The little window in the door opened and the voices were audible now.

          "Well go ahead and look, this was me till yesterday, when I was the cute, harmless boy next door type of guy." The face of a nice enough looking young woman appeared in the opening and she looked at him, blinked and then bit her lip.

          "Um Bobby, so that's you… ALL of you. Did you ever think about being an artists model?" She giggled.

          "What do you mean?" The woman was quickly shifted to the side and his old face was looking in at him. "Creed! Get my cloths back on! Kim stop laughing this isn't funny."

"…" The woman said something to his body's snatcher that Creed couldn't hear.

"No you can't have another look at me!" Bobby shouted at her. Straining to hear the frail he was able to hear what she said next.

          "But Bobby you did say your old body was worth seeing, and you were right. You had a really cute butt, among other… things." She was giggling again.

          "Hey kid did you show her that you still have a really cute butt? Did he tell you that he's half Jewish Frail? From where I'm standing I can tell ya it was his bottom half that was Jewish 'cause they cut off his-" *Slam* The little window was quickly closed with Bobby giving one last killing look at Creed, who fell down laughing.

          "Hank get S.H.I.E.L.D. on the horn and tell Fury to come pick up Creed… RIGHT NOW!" Bobby yelled into the intercom system next to the door.

(Thren, I wanted to write: "Well Bobby I just don't think Fury leans that way, but now that Creed is in your body maybe he would consider it." but I went with…)

"Bobby, calm down. What is the matter?" Hanks voice came back over the link. Bobby, still fuming, told him what had happened. There was no answer; we waited longer, still no answer.

          "Hank? Hank are you there?" Bobby pushed the button that let him hear what was happening on the other end of the link.

          "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Gasp HAHAHAHAHAHA Snort HAHAHAHAHA Deep Breath HAHAHAHAHA..." Was all that reached us over the speaker.

          "Hank STOP LAUGHING! Kim don't you start again." Bobby yelled as I started to crumble next to him, and he caught me before I hit the floor and carried me away slung over his shoulder with his arm holding me in place, and from my vantage point I saw something.

          "Hay Bobby."

"Ya what?" He snarled.

"You still have a very cute butt." And I don't know what possessed me just then because I reached down and patted it. Bobby's arm hugged me tighter and I'm sure I felt him snigger.

**********

S.H.I.E.L.D arrived a half hour later to march a blanket wrapped body into their transport ship as Scott spoke for some time with a rugged looking man with an eye patch then they walked over to where Bobby and I were standing.

"Nick this is Kim Novak, Kim this is Nick Fury he'll be keeping an eye on Creed from now on." Scott turned to Bobby and nodded him over to the side. "Fury wants to talk to you a moment. Kim, Hank is ready to do the second part of your check up."

"Second part?" I sputtered… how could there be more to do, I had nothing left to hide. I took a deep breath and bowing my head stomped off to my fate as Bobby stopped and waved to me encouragingly before continuing on his walk beside Fury.

*********

Back in the lab:

          "Well now Kim I have the results of the test I ran on you, you still have some irritation in your sinuses from the fire, but that should clear up in a day or so, I recommend a daily multivitamin and you will be getting more exercise with us but you are in good shape (Thank you mom for putting me on a low carb. diet before all this happened to me). Now I only have a few questions to ask you and then we'll log you into the computer." What followed was typical doctor stuff. "Are you allergic to anything?"

          "Yes, antihistamines, cigarette smoke, cucumbers and too much pepper, but its the pink pepper that really effects me."

          "I'll put up a note up in the kitchen about the allergy to pepper and tell Remy to go easy on you, his cooking is rather spicy, and I'll worn him and Logan about the smoke."

          "I don't have a problem with cyan pepper, just the black, pink and green peppercorns."

          "Strange, but most of us have some food intolerances Cable, Scott's son, can't eat strawberries or he breaks out in hives, found that out when he was a baby because Bobby went into a faze where he insisted on making all of Cable's food from scratch. Anything else food wise."

          "Well… milk, I'm not allergic to it but it um it… it makes me hyper." Hank raised an eyebrow at me. "A Doctor ordered me off milk for a time and my mom made me go cold turkey. I went from three glasses or more a day to zip for over a year. It was hell Hank, having her read every label looking for milk and having to drink that soy stuff, no Ice-cream, no cookies, mashed potatoes made with water, no butter on my bread… heck no bread sometimes. The irony was she was the one allergic to milk; she'd been having migraines for 21 years and turns out it was the milk that was doing it to her. One day I said enough and went back to drinking milk and never regretted it." He nodded but noted of this on a paper. He asked me about my family, I told him about my two older brothers, older sister and mother, Stepdad and a biological father who never calls me but keeps hinting that I should be calling him more. Then he took me to a corner of the room and sat me down on a low stool.

          "How attached are you to those glasses?" He asked. I shrugged.

          "I can't see more then three feet in-front of me without them, so I guess I'm stuck, the optometrist said when my eyes stabilized, I'd be a good candidate for laser surgery but my folks said no, too many horror stories."

          "Have they stabilized yet?"

          "Yes, for almost two years now." He pulled a plain smooth box out of a filing cabinet drawer and held it up.

          "This is a Shi're opttiton, it fixes eyes without using a laser or any kind of incision whatsoever. If you want you can leave those glasses behind for good." I looked at the box.

          "Who else has used it?" I asked looking at him and the small round glasses he was wearing. He looked embarrassed.

"They are plain glass, I kept them… because they help me feel more human, how many animals wear glasses, with them on it is as if I am still connected to my past before I did this to myself." He was looking at his big, furry, blue hand. "There are many who also had their eyes fixed, Professor Xavier was using reading glasses, and Warren was wearing contact lenses when he was nine, Bishop was having headaches because he needed his eyes fixed but didn't know it. They all had their eyes done as did I and I must say yours are very interesting I've never seen so many colours in one set of eyes." I couldn't help feeling for him; I'd felt I was less then human for a long time myself.

          "Okay Hank, lets tie that puppy on and put these glasses into retirement, then again could you put plain glass in mine too, so my parents won't know?" He smiled and started setting dials on the inside of a small outer flap.

"How Clark Kentish of you." He had me lean forward and set the box over my worried grey eyes. "Now just look forward, breath easily, it will be only take a moment to measure the curve of your eye and then I will program it to fix your sight." I felt cool air on my eyes and then Hank pulled the device off… I looked at him and was shocked.

          "Hank I can see you clear as day, you said you were just measuring the curve of my eye." He smiled smugly. "You tricked me."

          "And you were relaxed and unafraid." He pointed out. "I hope you aren't disappointed." I smiled as my eyes changed back to green. I felt so happy and free being liberated from my glasses that I threw my arms around him and hugged him hard. "If you react like this because I took your glasses away I'd be happy to remove your appendix for you too." He offered smiling brightly.

          "Sorry Doc. they already took that from me when I was seventeen. I woke up one Sunday morning hallucinating that I was buried under a mountain of fried chicken and that my dog was digging me out." Hank asked me more about the operation and added more notes onto his paper.

"Well we are almost finished here, leave your glasses and I'll send them off to be fixed for you." He took me over to one of the computers and started typing. "Now we need to make up a code name for you and you'll need to set a pass word, but before that I want you to remember what I'm going to tell you. If anything ever happens to you and you are asked for our access codes to our computer, you will tell them your code name and that your password is Grover, this will trigger a search program that Kitty, one of our former members wrote for us, it will let us find you anywhere in the world as it lets the hacker think that they have gained access to our systems." Well don't I feel really safe suddenly.

"Grover?" He smiled.

"When I first did this to myself Bobby started calling me Grover, Scott was livid and Jean told me to ignore Bobby's immaturity, one day I found a poster of Grover in a towel taped to the wall in my bedroom with the word "Before" written in black marker on it, it helped me to laugh about it and that started my healing process, I still have some depression about how I look but it doesn't last long with Bobby around watching over me." He shook his head and smiled "Many of the others don't realise it but if Bobby wasn't here pulling pranks and keeping an eye on everyone's moods we wouldn't be as close as we are today. Now back to business, do you have a codename picked out yet?"

"I was talking to Ororo on the way here about that and I want to call myself Nova, its still me but different." I explained about the 'K' thing (See: Im Nova part 1 for story) and he nodded and keyed it into the system, then turned away as I typed in my password ***** (Won't tell youJ). He typed some more and called up my medical file from home and somehow managed to get my school records (Eeeep! Where did those come from, and why weren't they in ashes?). Hank said he was finished with me but still had some work to do in his lab so I thanked him and ran off to find some lunch and to see if Bobby would notice that I didn't need my glasses anymore. I'd just stepped off the elevator on the main floor when a bloodcurdling scream tore the silence of the mansion and people came running into the hall as the screaming stopped and the yelling started.

"Kim! That wasn't funny, when I walked in and found him in my bed, I almost ripped its head off, I'm not use to having these things." Bobby appeared at the top of the stairs carrying the oversized Chewbacca doll then flexed his claws at me and glared down where I stood. Scott looked at Bobby with his hair still standing on end and the miffed look on his face, Scott smirked, then he started to chuckle and everyone stared at him like he was loosing his marbles.

"Looks like the king of pranks has had a little taste of his own medicine." Then he took Jeans hand and they walked off together. "About time."

"Well Bobby, the next time someone wants me to go where I'll get stuck with needles I hope you will remember this little incident and show me where to hide instead of offering to take me there yourself." He looked at me and nodded.

"I just got some laundry back, could you come fix it." He asked me "My favourite T-shirt doesn't fit me." Bobby made a sad face, but it brightened up as he said "Hey you're glasses are gone, but I kinda liked you with then."

"Your favourite T-shirt hu? Sure." And I ran up the stairs to join him "Hank keyed me into the computer, have you ever play 'The Sims'?" I asked as we walked back to his room with Chewbacca in tow.

"That has to be the shortest fight we've ever had here." Rogue said dazed. "I've only seen little kids make up that fast after a fight." Logan shook his head.

"Something tells me Kim can act any age she wants ta be, looks like she's decided that Bobby's right, being ten around here right now is easer and more fun." Then he went pail for a moment. "Wait till Jubilee joins them, we'll have three kids running around the place makin' all kinds of trouble." Bishop shuddered and went pail too, the phone rang. "Hello Xavier's madhouse… hey mornin' Chuck… you are, you finish early? I'll tell 'em, sure… oh same old, we picked up a new student and Bobby had a wild run in with Sabretooth and his brain is… calm down Chuck kid's fine, he's just going to live in… no I swear the kid is fine, but maybe we should look into getting him a scratching-post or something… try taking a deep breath Chuck… The new student's a girl, Kim Novak… yes that was a good film, she's calling herself Nova… she and Bobby are getting along like a house on fire, she's just scared the shi-… what? Ya see you then bye." Logan hung up and looked at the group still waiting in the hall. "Professor is goin' to be home in time for tea, Bish tell Cy the professor wants him to get his butt down to the airport to pick him up will ya?" Then he walked casually out the front door, humming, as he pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket along with the silver Harley Davidson™ lighter Jubilee had given him for Christmas last year. 'Jean's goin' to have to try and find me before she can make me scrub any toilets.' He smiled as he slunk off into the woods.

**********

20 Minutes to teatime:

          The joint was jumping, when Bobby and I finally tore ourselves away from the computer  (where we'd been building a replica of his house and family into my Sim's hood) and Jean would have taken my head off with a flying vacuum-cleaner if Gambit hadn't stopped mopping the tiled floor of the entrance to pull me out of it's way. Ororo was whipping a dusty wind out a window in what looked like a study and Bishop was fluffing the sofa pillows in the front sitting room as Joseph created a static charged cloud to trap the dust that was lurking under the dinning room table. We asked Warren, who was sitting in the kitchen reading the morning paper, what was going on and we were told that Charles Xavier, the man who founded the X-Men and ran the school, was on his way home from the airport. One quick look at each other and Bobby and I were off looking for Jean to see if we could help her, because Bobby had said that Jean went easer on volunteers then she did on people she found hiding, just then we heard Logan's shout from the back patio and a really strange sucking noise, a moment later Logan walked passed with a toilet plunger stuck to the top of his head.

"Jean wants me to go clean up the blue powder-room and fix the toilet in the lab." We just nodded and wisely kept silent. When we soon found a frustrated Jean and Bobby was asked to sweep the front porch and to take it easy because of what he'd been through yesterday and I was told 'You don't have to but, could you pick up the kitchen?' I went in and found Warren still sitting there reading. I started with the counter and sink area and was soon engrossed in my job, quickly putting stray dishes into the dishwasher and piling others aside for hand washing, that's when I had an idea, if I could use my power to wash myself why not... use them on the kitchen? So standing in the centre of the room I created a gentle mist over everything, I pushed it around gently to trap all the dirt and dust in the room, then I called the dirty water back forming a ball over the sink, for some reason it was very black, then I let it go down the drain, around me the tiles and sink were shining, even the basket of fruit was clean and ready to eat. Someone cleared their through behind me, startled I turned and was greeted with the sight of a slightly damp Angel, his hair wasn't laying in soft waves anymore, it was wildly curling around his head, his cloths didn't have that crisp and freshly pressed look anymore either, they were wrinkled and hanging limply on him and his newspaper was just a big smear of coloured inks where my mists had touched it.

          "Oops, Mr. Worthington, I'm so sorry… I had an idea and wanted to try it out, I was concentrating and I… I forgot you were in here." His lips quirked.

          "Nice trick, first time?" I nodded and he shrugged "I'll live, don't worry about it, actually the scrubbing part felt nice." He said as he stood up. "I'll just go and change before the professor arrives and the name is Warren." He left the room, CRASH, I ran out of the kitchen to see what had happened, Jean's flying vacuum had finally clamed a victim. Warren lay sprawled over the twitching appliance and Jean was staring wide-eyed as he got up brushing himself off "That's it, no more cleaning for any of you I'm calling in a service to clean this place from now on, before I'm maimed for life, heck I even own a cleaning service." With that he stomped out of the room.

          "Finally." Jean whispered before closing her eyes, then I heard people cheering all over the mansion. "I just let them all know what Warren said, and that Scott and the professor have just arrived at the front gates." I took five minutes to throw together a pan of Royal Cake (Sorry this is my privet goodie I'm not sharing it) and put it into the oven to bake before joining everyone in the front hall.

**************

Front entrance hall:

          From all that I'd been told about professor Charles Xavier, founder of this school and the X-Men, he wasn't how I'd pictured him in my mind. He was in a wheelchair for one thing, he had a slim but healthy looking body and he had the kind of face you would picture on a leader… for some reason I could easily see him replacing Patrick Stewart on star trek as the captain of the enterprise. I guess it was his baldness that I wasn't ready for, because I'd never really met a bald person, I'm from Canada where people need all their hair for protection from the cold.

          "Hello, I'm Professor Charles Xavier," He said cheerfully "but feel free to call me Charles, most of my students do." He looked over at Logan and raised his eyebrow.

          "Missed ya too Chuck." Logan smirked back at him. Xavier shook his head and sighed.

          "A pleasure to meet you Sir." I said holding out my hand and he shook it (Yes I do talk like that). "Thank you for letting me attend your school... um… mine kinda burnt down recently." Everyone was starting to move off into the living room to have tea, when the professor froze looking behind me.

          "Sabretooth, everyone look out!" Xavier yelled, I was suddenly yanked forward off my feet and found myself lying over the Professor's legs as he wheeled himself backwards away from-

"Bobby!" I called out, this wasn't how I was use to meeting people.

          "Professor? It's me… the Bobster, your walking ice cube. Didn't anyone tell you what happened to me yesterday?" Xavier looked at the tall blond man who was towering over him with a frighteningly innocent smile on his face. The professor's mouth fell open but no sound came out. "Kim where are you going?" Bobby reached out and picked me up off the professor's lap and tucked me under his left arm. "Honestly professor you just met her and I had her first." Bobby joked smiling at Xavier. "Oh come on, its me, remember how I coloured Jean green my first Halloween here, or how about when I put an 'Oh Henry' bar in your shower and you thought it was a..." Scott stepped forward, cleared his thought and settled everything by saying.

          "Lets all go sit in the living room and then you can hear the whole story professor. Bobby put Kim down." Bobby looked sadly at Xavier for a moment then sighed and put me down, as for Xavier he did a quick mind scan that showed him typical Bobbyish thoughts of Scott's boxer shorts flying from the school flag pole and it also revealed that he had been the one who'd painted Bishop's biggest gun Barbie pink last week.

          "Okay Fearless, but no more trying to wheel off with her Professor." Charles smiled and then started to rub his head because it was starting to hurt. I went with everyone into the living room and listened again to the story of how Bobby had gotten someone else's body yesterday and answered some of Xavier's questions before excusing myself to go back to the kitchen to check on the cake, it was ready. I turned off the oven and put the pail yellow cake out on a plate and sized it till it was about two feet in diameter, before leaving the kitchen I set out a tray of things we'd need and I headed back to the living room with the cake and jars of strawberry and raspberry jam.

**************

Living room:

Bobby was sitting next to Hank talking to Xavier, who wanted to know how he was adjusting to his new body.

"…He was walking around the cell naked and Kim saw him, then S.H.I.L.D. came and took my bod… Creed away, but Fury said he'd get the word out that I wasn't to be hunted down and he is even seeing that all my papers are changed, and he's having my accountant's licence revamped, Hank thinks that I should work for the I.R.S." Warren laughed and Psylocke shushed him. "Then I met Kim and she didn't know I wasn't in my right body but she liked me anyway." Then a funny look crossed his face "Hank, what if I want kids? They'd be Creed's… my kids are locked up in a cell on S.H.I.L.D.'s flagship… my kids are never going to be born." He wailed and Hank put his arm around Bobby's shoulder.

"Bobby, do you think it matters, any children you father will be yours, but I did have the forethought to see that an amount of your sperm was frozen before Fury took Creed away, add that to the other samples from your physicals over the years and you could have a basketball team as soon as you feel like hearing yourself called Daddy."

"Um… thanks Hank, but maybe," Bobby cased a glance at everyone around the room "We should talk about my kids later." then his head went up and he sniffed, then he heard Logan sniffing too, he looked at the stocky Canadian and then they were both suddenly up and running to the door, Logan got ahead of Bobby, but Bobby simply picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder, onto an empty couch, and kept running to get to the door first just as Kim arrived caring a large plate of cake and holding jars of jam in the crooks of her arms.

"Here let me help you carry that." Bobby smiled at her, Kim just looked at him a moment then shook her head.

"Thanks, but if you could go get the tray I left in the kitchen I'd appreciate it. These jars are cold." She said as she set the cake down on the coffee table. Bobby shot Logan, who was laughing on the couch, a dirty look as he went after the things Kim wanted. "There is no way I was going to let him have all this," Kim said to Hank. "he'd have run off with it and made himself sick." Logan shook his head.

"Kid's got a healin' factor now, can't get sick from eating too much, just get too full." He popped a claw and was about to cut himself a piece of cake when Jean swatted his hand away.

"Logan don't you dare touch that cake with that thing." Once Bobby was back with the tray of from the kitchen everyone served them selves some cake and started eating happily (Royal Cake is very much like a Twinkie's cake with out the filling, and I should worn anyone planning on visiting Montreal that we don't have any Twinkies in Quebec L ), till Kim pulled something from her pocket.

"I found this in the fridge, anyone want some on their cake?" As she spoke she sized up the tiny jar till it was the size of a peanut butter jar and the label read "Mint Jelly". Everyone looked at someone else.

"I do believe I would like to try that rather exotic combination on a small bite." Hank volunteered slowly and everyone waited to see his reaction. Munch, Munch "My goodness that, that is rather refreshing, such a delicate blending of flavours, I've only ever eaten this with lamb." Others tried it, and some liked it too, others didn't and went back to regular jam.

"You should try mint jelly or real mint leaves with chocolate in a sandwich." I told Hank and soon we were all talking about the strangest things we'd eaten. "I've had Snails, Squid, Conch fritters, smoked Canadian Goose and Crocodile on a stick." But Logan won hands down with having eaten a Bear once… raw.

"We could always go back to talking about Bobby's frozen kids." Warren sniggered. I looked at Bobby.

"You have kids? And they're frozen!" someone muttered something that sounded like 'How do you feel about basketball.' Then Bobby cleared his through.

"I don't have kids, this body has one that we know of, a man named Graydon Creed, and he is a politician." Bobby shuttered. "And the leader of a hate group against mutants called 'F.O.H.' the Friends of Humanity. He had my father beaten half to death some months ago, because my dad spoke out for mutant rights."

"How old are you?" I asked.

"I was thirty before, now I guess I'm about… fifty?" Logan snorted. "What?"

"Creed and I where doin' jobs together long before that, look at about seventy and up, the healing factor keeps ya young." Bobby swallowed and looked over at me.

"Could you like an older man?" He asked then frowned at Xavier. "Don't even think about it you're too young for her." Everyone laughed and ate more cake. Once we'd all eaten and talked our selves out the professor, Scott and Hank went off to his study to talk about the Mure Island trip, it was the Scottish version of Xavier's mutant school, but they took on the really hard cases. Jean insisted on floating the dishes away to the kitchen, once I'd sized the serving plate back to normal, I was about to go to my room, I needed to use the bathroom, when I turned and found Rogue standing in the door way smiling at me.

"What?" Storm and Sara (Marrow) came to stand next to her.

"Ya ready to get your training costume?" Rogue asked, I nodded. "Good, your lucky there was a time when everyone who joined had to wear the same outfit, all in black and yellow with lots of X's everywhere, now you just go change into a swimsuit and I'll-" She looked at the other two women "We'll wait for you here." I ran up the stairs and into my room, grabbed a swimsuit and a robe from the walk-in closet and rushed into the bathroom I looked at myself and sighed, I hadn't been swimming since last year and I'd been wearing pants all summer… my legs where frightening and they were waiting for me down stairs. Could I try zap it off with water, size the razor bigger, size my self smaller? I was wasting time. I did a little of everything, using my sizing power I shrunk down to pocketsize and only shrunk the razor till I could hold it easily as I kept water running under the razor to lift the hairs into a good cutting position. I was definitely going to buy myself a waxer as soon as I could. What took fifteen minutes seamed like fifty and soon I was rushing back down the stairs in a long bathrobe. Bobby was standing there arguing with the X-Women.

"Kim would look fine in a red version of Psylocke's costume, maybe in green."

"Bobby if ya don't get your butt out of our way I'll hang you from the roof by your… belt" Rogue threatened him. I walked up holding my robe tightly to me. "There you are… Kim your leg is bleeding." Bobby stopped arguing with Storm and turned to me.

"Kim, what happened?" I suddenly found myself laying on the floor of the entrance and his hand running up my leg under the robe.

"Bobby!" I squeaked, "I'm fine, I was in a rush and cut myself shaving my legs." He ignored me and flipped my robe out of the way. Blood was running down from a deep cut on my left knee that I'd tried to stop with a piece of toilet paper, I'd always hated shaving because I somehow always ended up looking more like a self sacrifice then an example of a swimsuit model. Bobby looked at the blood wrinkled his nose then threw back his head and roared like a lion.

"HANK, HANK GET YOUR FLUFFY, BLUE BUTT OUT HERE!" Next thing I knew I was sitting on Bobby's lap and he was hugging and rocking me gently (My story my call) saying I was going to be all right. Hank came bounding out of Xavier's study and ran over to us as Scott followed.

"What has happened here?" He saw the blood on my knee and knelt next to us "Well that looks… nasty." Then he reached under the entrance table that held a vase of fresh flowers, and unhooked of all things a first aid kit. "I put that there for when Jubilee lived here, she Rollerblades and hardly ever falls down but I wanted to be prepared if she ever did." He kept talking as he opened a small package that smelled bad, Bobby sneezed, "Do you know what happened the first time she fell and skinned her knee and elbow?" I shook my head and gasped as he put the iodine patch over my cut. "It was Scott who saw her fall, he pushed Logan out of the way, scooped her up and ran with her all the way down to the med-lad. Jubilee was stunned at his reaction and after that she brought him coffee every morning to the training sessions for a week as a thank you." As he talked Hank finished cleaning the cut and put an H Band-Aid over it. "There good as new, as for you Bobby you nearly gave the Professor a heart attack yelling like that." Bobby shrugged and hugged me tighter, I could really get to like this. Scott shook his head and went back into the study.

"Who is Jubilee?" I asked. Bobby smiled, picked me up and started telling me all about his partner in crime and how she was at the junior school in Snow Valley Massachusetts now, as he carried me behind Rogue, Sara and Storm into the elevator. They took me into a very modern room, that had a long green leather couch with a high drawing table in one corner and a wide tube-like thing in another corner, on a coffee table in front of the couch were all kinds of drawings and photos of cloths.

"You can choose one of these change the colour, or anything else you don't like about the outfit or even design your own from scratch, then we feed the information into the replicator," Rogue pointed to the tube in the corner "and in you go and then ya pop out like toast with new cloths." Bobby had just set me down on the couch and was about to sit next to me when Rogue picked him up and carried him out the door. "Y'all is stayin' out of this Mister Drake." And she slammed the door in his face.

"Fine, but I just wanted to watch, I promise, I'll be good." We heard him pleading and I nodded. Rogue opened the door and waved him over to the couch just as a voice came over the intercom system.

"Bobby please report to the Danger room." It was Scott. Bobby rolled his eyes and huffed back to the door muttering to himself about Scott's timing. I looked over the designs and sighed they just weren't me, many of then where too open or too tight looking, so I turned to Rogue and said.

"When I finished high school I wanted to be a fashion designer, everyone said I had a good eye for styles, and I went for it till I found out that 5000 people apply for the school and only 1000 finish the two year course, only one or two ever get their names on anything they've designed, so I let my doubts talk me out of something I loved doing. I still draw cloths and I think I'd like to design my own costume if you could explain about the fabric this process uses, I think I can make up a design that will 'suite' me." They gowned at my pun and told me about unstable molecules, how the fabric absorbed physical impacts and defused them to a point. They even said that it would be able to size with me if I programmed that requirement into the computer, so I set to work, but I explained I could do that myself.

I chose a water theme and ran with it, I showed them the colours I liked, and I decided to keep my style simple. I sketched and they watched, then Sara got hungry and slipped out, Rogue had a training session in the woods with Logan but promised to come back as soon as she was finished. My outfit would be snug but not tight, and the whole thing would look like a one piece wetsuit with the boots built into the legs. I talked to Storm about options before she went to get tea, I decided to make it insulated against the cold (Which I hate) and add a pocket on my thigh to hold things I could size down, like a first aide kit, emergency food, and some camping gear, oh and the pocket would be waterproof. I noted to myself that I'd have to create concealed flaps on the back that would let me hide my gills (the ones I still hadn't told anyone else about) but still let me use them if I ever needed to. Storm came back and showed me how to program the "Tube" then she excused herself as I started designing my mask, I looked at a photo on the coffee table of Gambit in full battle armour, with his head hugging hood that let his hair out, it intrigued me, I drew it down on my paper but added ear covers with communications built into them with a microphone arm and I added a mirrored visor, because it was cool looking and I didn't want anyone to recognize my eyes. By the time Rogue, Sara and Storm where all back I was finished and watched as Rogue programmed the outfit into the "Tube" I was ready to go in. I took off my robe and was about to step in when the door opened and in rushed Bobby.

"Am I too late." He panted and then he saw me standing there. "Nice." I looked down at my one-piece orange swimsuit that covered me from neck to low on my hips. "I like it." I sighed.

"Bobby, this is my swimsuit, I was just going to step in here and be suited up for the first time. Oh I just remembered something." I rushed over to the programming panel typed to add in the gill flaps and added one more thing to my outfit then stepped back into the "Tube". The Door closed and I was surrounded by lights of every colour that soon became lights of various shades of blue. I heard Sara call out that it was almost over and to hold still. I felt myself being encased in what felt like a body hug. My legs and arms where now covered and I felt the hood forming on my head, and then the lightly blue tinted interior of the mirrored visor was covering my eyes. The door of the "Tube whooshed open and I slowly stepped out to see the reactions of everyone who was waiting to see me. "Well what do you think?" They were smiling, and Sara gave me a thumbs up.

"Hey I like that diver's knife strapped to your leg, nice touch." She said.

"You're all covered up," Bobby sounded disappointed "But I like the shades. It's a cool costume." Then he startled me by trying to kick me in the ribs, I raised my knee and blocked him then kicked out and knocked him back (Boy the things you remember after years away from karate class, I was a green belt once). "Good it isn't restricting your body's movements. Come on lets show everyone." He took my arm, I waved and thanked Rogue, Storm and Sara. (If you want to see my Nova Costume Go to www.angelfire.com/me3/DelCreed it will be somewhere in those pages) Everyone liked the costume and the last person we showed it to, Scott, said I'd get to use it tomorrow because that would be when I'd have my first training session in the 'Danger room' I really hope that place doesn't live up to its name or I'm a goner.

**************

Somewhere in the bowels of the school:

          "This is the hall that leads to the hanger, that you saw yesterday when you landed and I guess that's it for the tour." Bobby shrugged as I stood silently beside him, still trying to absorb everything I'd seen. "About tomorrow, don't worry, they never put anything deadly in till they know your skill level." I scowled at him as he laughed.

          "Thanks, that is just what I needed to hear, how was your session in there, that 'Danger room' today?" He explained about how he wasn't up to full power yet, because his brain hadn't pumped enough 'icing' chemicals through his new body yet to do anything big like an iceslide or for him to ice up.

          "By the end of the week I'll have it all back, and with you around feeding Storm and me unlimited water we'll really be able to whip up a good brouhaha." It was time for dinner and we hustled up to the dinning room where the smells where incredible. Bobby sneezed and looked at Logan, who was already sitting at the table. "How do you handle the pepper?" then sneezed again.

          "Don't breath too deep through your nose, kid." Logan said as he dished up a plate of food for him self. "Kim I hope you can eat 'Hot' food because it was Gumbo's turn to cook to night, and as you can see Scott decided to eat in the boathouse with Jean, but she'll sneak up later to steal some of the leftovers if I leave any, Storm hates missing dinner to night but she had tickets to hear a botanist lecture." He laughed as Remy came out of the kitchen with another pot.

          "Bon soir, now you in for some good eatin'. Hank tol' me about the pepper thin', I only use cyan pepper anyway, dat pink and green stuff just unripe black pepper." He smiled wiping his hands on the dishtowel he'd tucked into the waistband of his pants. "I made us some Riz aux haricots rouges an' Gumbo de jombon et de veau and for desert gateau a la melasse de la Louisiane in English dat is…"

          "Red beans with rice, ham and veal gumbo." I said before he finished. "And Louisiana style molasses cake." Everyone looked at me. "What? Didn't Scott tell you I speak French, have since I was three, being from Quebec… I think I'd be shot if I didn't speak it the way things are going back home." Gambit smiled and said we'd talk later, because he missed hearing people speak French. "Okay but I don't speak Paris French, I can but I prefer a mix of high French and common Quebecker's French." I warned him.

          "You ain't heard a person form N'arlens speakin' it yet Chere, you and Remy goin' to have a fun time trying to understand each other." The food was amazing. Remy sat next to Bobby and across the table from me, he asked me things about Montreal, I answered best I could explaining that I didn't get out much what with school and hiding myself away from people afraid they'd look at me and know what I was. Then I noticed Bobby shifting in his seat and suddenly Remy's chair was being pushed sideways. Then Remy would shift and Bobby's chair would move over.

          "Is there a problem guys?" I asked, both stopped, smiled innocently at me and said 'no/non' then the shifting started again. "If there isn't enough room at the table I can eat in the kitchen from now on." The shifting stopped and Bobby even pulled Remy's chair back to where it had been in the first place.

          "Wow, she's good." Joseph whispered to himself, Rogue nodded wide-eyed and the professor chuckled.

          #How did you do that?# he asked, I was startled for a second then thought back to him.

          #I have two nieces, a nephew, and I was planning to go work on a cruise ship, when I finished school, to take care of the children.# I sighed. #The ocean, sand, warm weather and no snow.# The rest of the evening went fine, because Sara made a point of sitting on the couch were I was, before Remy could. I was watching Bobby, who sat on the floor at my feet J, blasting away at speeding cars and drunk drivers from his cosy, air-conditioned, police cruiser, in a video game called "Road warrior megadeath" (Don't look for it I made it up) and he was doing great at the game till he hit an old lady and the boy scout that was leading her across a crosswalk. I still wasn't use to all these people being around me and I needed to have some 'me' time, so I said good night to everyone and then stopped to pat Bobby on the head, he paused the game, looking like a man coming out of a daze as he asked.

          "Wa…?" I told him I was going to bed and he took one of his hands off the control-pad and hugged me around the knees. "Sleep tight Squirt."

          "Don't call me that." I said as I left the room.

          "Perfect, like that gag wasn't getting old between Storm and Gambit." Warren huffed.

          "Oh Feathers don't get ruffled." Psylocke soothed.

          "Don't call me that." Warren smiled as he got up quickly and ran from the room, Betsy hot on his heals. Bishop sighed, Warren's room was next door to his and he would have gone to the med-lab to ask Hank for some cotton to put in his ears but he was too afraid to miss hearing any danger that might try to sneak up on him.

*********

Kitchen 1:00Am:

          Insomnia is the bane of my life, not sleeping till three in the morning, and sometimes later is a real killer, when I had to get up for school at five o'clock I was like a zombie all day, then night would come and I'd perk right up and it would start all over again. My mother had even let me sleep till eleven or noon during the summer hoping I'd catch up on my sleep or straighten out my sleep patern, but no I was and still am a night owl. I went into the moonlight kitchen hoping a cookie and a cup of decaf tea would relax me into sleeping sooner, but when I tried to open the stubborn tin cookie box I ended up dropping it on the floor then all hell broke loose and it fell on me.

          "Freeze or you'll be goo on the floor." A loud, angry voice said menacingly as I saw a gun's huge barrel come to hold right on me. Freeze? forget freezing I screamed my, soon to be goo, head off. Have you ever try to get out one of those good bloodcurdling screams like women do in the movies, you know the ones I mean, like the way that woman shrieked when she first sew King Kong, but you just can't get it to come out as loud or as high pitched, well I found out that what you need is the proper incentive to scream like that and boy did I suddenly have incentive. I think I shattered every glass in the kitchen as I screamed and fell over backwards. I lashed out with a pinpoint jet of water, because I'd heard that if a stream of water is thin enough and the pressure high enough behind it, that it can cut through things like wood and even mettle, and from the looks of the nasty cut I just put in Bishop's upper arm I guess I'd heard right. The lights came on in a blinding blaze and Logan was standing wearing what looked like karate pants, then there was Rogue who might wear a ton of cloths during the day but it seams slept in the shortest, frilliest, baby doll PJ's I've ever seen. They where both standing in the doorway looking at the image that Bishop and I made, he in his black boxer/briefs, arm bleeding, cradling a huge gun, and me in my dark grey men's pyjamas curled up on the floor in the fetal position, sounded by all kinds of cookies, the darn tin having finally opened. Logan propped himself against the doorjamb as Rogue came to stand near me and asked if I was okay, then came Beast wearing a nightshirt that reached down to his knees, his glasses sitting crookedly on his nose.

          "Oh my stars and garters…" he saw Bishop's arm and quickly wrapped a clean dish towel around it "I'll have to stitch this clos-" He never finished what he was saying, because at that moment he, Bishop and Logan all went skidding across the floor to end up in a strange, multicoloured pile of limbs as a yellow blur appeared in the room eyes flashing, teeth and claws bared and completely nude. Rogue's mouth fell open and her eyes went everywhere on that big golden body.

          "Kim I heard you scream, are you hurt!" He could smell the blood in the room. I was then lifted off the floor and for the second time today I found myself cradled gently in Bobby's arms. "What happened?" I couldn't speak, I waved my hand at the cooling cup of tea on the counter and managed to mutter 'Dropped cookies' into his shoulder, when all the stress of the past days caught up with me and I was now crying for all I was worth, and it was not one of those pretty little ladylike cries, no this was a full fledge deluge of tears, wailing and a very runny nose that caused me to sniff pitifully as I kept my face hidden. You have to give him credit, Bobby didn't drop me and say "Yuck gross!" no he wrapped one arm around me as he balanced on one leg and used his free hand to reach out and grab the box of Kleenex from the counter beside the fridge, then he carried me to the table and used his foot to kick a chair back so he could sit down as he wiped at my eyes and nose before curling around me like a shield that would keep me safe. "Either it's the stress catching up with you or you've realized you have to see Scott every day." he joked and I couldn't help it I laughed, it wasn't even funny but I was laughing and for the first time in my life I was being held and comforted by someone I wasn't related to. Bobby looked me straight in the eye then, "I have to do this now, you understand don't you?" I nodded without the slightest idea of what he meant to do. He kissed me, there in the kitchen, sitting on his lap, in front of his friends and without a scrap of clothing on he was kissing ME. I was amazed, I'd read romance novels and shaken my head at how those writers waxed poetic on how it felt to have someone's mouth against yours, doing things that sounded kinda gross, but it was like fireworks going off in my head. We looked at each other, smiled and I held him closer. The sound of some one clearing their through broke us apart. It was Logan, he stood there smirking at us and holding up an apron.

          "How about you makein' yourself decent , I really don't need to be lookin' a 'tooth's butt this early in the mornin' kid." I quickly hopped off Bobby and glared at Rogue till she shrugged and turned her back on him too. "Ain't that nice your blushin' matches the little flowers on this thing." Logan sniggered as he tossed the scrap of fabric Bobby's way. Hank told everyone that he was taking Bishop down to get some stitches and as they left the room I called out.

          "I'm sorry, I didn't know I could do that, you scared me." I tried to get out an explanation.

          "I over reacted, I apologize also… you know you did very well, didn't freeze up under pressure." Bishop said then he followed Hank to the med-lab.

          "Just give me that." Bobby snarled as he wrapped the apron around himself, and then his arm was around my shoulders. "That was a real compliment Bishop gave you, skill is something he respects in people."

          "You never said the kitchen was booby trapped, is having a midnight snack against the rules?" I asked. I really felt better after my crying jag. I looked at my tea, it was cold so I zapped it in the microwave and started to pick up the cookies, soon Bobby, Rogue and Logan were helping me. "I'll never sleep now and then Mr. Summers is going to cream me in the 'Lethal room'." Rogue snorted.

          "Danger room, it's called the Danger room, are you always up this late?" I nodded and reluctantly explained how my sleep cycle worked. "I guess monitor duty is going to be a snap for you isn't it?" We all laughed and went back to our rooms and I guess the crying did it because as soon as I was in bed I snuggled down and fell asleep completely drained, remembering the warmth of Bobby's body and our first kiss.

************

The next morning:

          I was up and ready by 7:00 am, and about to leave my room when I heard someone outside my door, I dropped to the floor and looked under the crack… I saw feet. Maybe the test stare as soon as you get up, so I stood up and walked to my window, opened it and created a water column that reached up to the edge of my window and stepped out onto it then rode it down to the ground, then I jogged to the front door, went inside and water vaulted up to the second floor surprising the person who stood there… Sara. The bone shard came flying at me and acting on instinct I shrunk down to avoid it as I created a flat, swirling disk of water to slow it down. The bone was caught in the spinning water and flung off course to end up stuck in the wall off to my right.

          "Good morning Sara." I said hesitantly. She frowned and kept looking at the bone poking obscenely out of the wall.

          "Don't ever sneak up on me, I could have really hurt you." She snarled. I decided not to point out she'd snuck first as I returned to normal size. It turned out that she wanted to give me some pointers about training, and as we went down to breakfast I listened eagerly. There was a lot of people up for so early in the morning and Sara muttered that some wanted to watch me 'do my thing' in the Danger room, it was a tradition to watch the newbies, and that others would be in the room with me as my opponents. Scott came in with Jean and everyone was either eating or finishing up their meal. I didn't want to be too full so I ate a can of pineapple chunks (I can see my mom frowning at me, ready to open her mouth to tell me how many carbohydrates I've just eaten) and I rinsed my bowl and put it into the dishwasher. When Bishop walked passed him Scott saw the white bandage, after some pointed questions he asked.

          "Joseph, can you make a 1/4 inch thick mettle disk and stand to hold it and a piece of 2X4?" Jo nodded and went to work and came back five minutes later and said it was ready. Scott asked me to join him outside, everyone stopped eating and followed us. There in the middle of the lawn was a metal stand that looked like Neptune's trident, it's handle, wide and flat to keep it from turning, it was driven deep into the ground and in the two spaces between it's three prongs where a piece of 2X4 wood and the mettle disk. "I want you to cut through them with water, like you did Bishops arm." I frowned and looked a t the wood, I raised my hand to guide myself and hit the wood with a jet of water. I couldn't feel anything happening, so I concentrated harder on narrowing the jet upping the pressure, ha that did it I could feel the water sinking through the wood now, within moments the wood fell to the ground in two pieces. People where clapping, but not Scott. "Now try the mettle." I wasn't sure it would work, I called up the picture of my friends trapped in the school and used the emotions to push harder. After five minutes of trying Jean tossed a look at Scott, who told me to stop. We walked over to the stand and I saw that I hadn't cut through the mettle but that it was bent and had slightly thinner were I'd been focusing my water. "Not bad."

          "Awe come on Fearless, you don't need her cuttin' things up that's my job." Logan called out. Bobby tapped him on the shoulder.

          "I'll help you, I don't have these just to pick my teeth." Bobby flexed his hands and his claws became longer. "Can you help me, you know learn how to work with them and these scenes too?" Logan looked thoughtful, shook his head and grunted.

          "Never thought I'd see the day I'd be doing this with you." Taking a deep breath he sighed and kicked Bobby's legs out from under him. "Tag you're it!" He yelled running into the woods, Bobby sat up and frowned.

          "Hey no fair." Then he was up and running after Logan into the woods, but he stopped on the edge of them and was running back to us. "I'm not missing you're first training session." Scott pointed out that Logan was going to be running around in the woods waiting for him. "Ya but in all the animal shows I saw on T.V. the hunter has to be patient and take his time stocking his prey on his terms. He'll be in there at least an hour before he realises I'm not coming after him." Gambit laughed and said,

"When he figures dat out you goin' to be de hunted Garson (Boy)." Bobby just shrugged happily. Scott said it was time to get the show on the road, everyone file back into the mansion and just as I was about to go back in to the kitchen I saw something out of the corner of my eye.

"Well, well, well who is this?" His voice was low and had a tinny echo to it that sent chills down my spine. "A new member, a new student. Honestly Charles should start tell me these things, really he should, it would save me so much time." He looked like he was going to a Halloween party; his face was white except foe the black diamond on his forehead, and his eyes. They where a hot blazing red.

"Excuse me, but are you related to Gambit?" I asked. Before he could answer Bobby stuck his head out the door.

"Are you coming, Scott is waiting and-" He saw the man who stood near me. "Nova, careful that's Mr. Sinister he's a mad geneticist." I looked at the man and hopped back.

"Mr. Sinister, couldn't earn the title of Doctor hu?" I asked as I ran to Bobby. Sinister glared.

"Sabretooth what is your game, take her and bring her to me." He ordered Bobby. "It must be her signal I detected." Then the alarms were going off as the mansion scanners having just finished their sweep noted that there was now an extra person on the grounds. "Quickly!" Sinister shouted. I saw the others come running from the house and the man fired a red blast of energy at them as he knocked Bobby aside. "Useless, creature." I was being held in front of him like a shield. Slowly I turned my head and asked him a question.

"I have just one question to ask you. Do you need to breath air Mr.?" I called up a wide column of water came up around us just as I finished saying, "Because I don't." We were both floating around in the water, and he grinned at me. I gulped.

"You could be very useful." He could speak even in the water; I was not having a good morning. Suddenly a red blast hit the water and Sinister, he groaned lowly and loosened his hold on me just as Rogue came rocketing through the water and flew me away from him.

"Ice him Frostbite!" Gambit called and suddenly my water was turned in to solid ice and Mr. Sinister was trapped at its centre.

"The old fly in the ice cube gag, it's a classic." Bobby smirked "All yours Fearless." Scott's red eyebeams shot out, the Ice and it's trapped victim shattered in to a million pieces that all flashed out of existence. In the moments that followed I admit I was shocked to the very bones.

"He's dead." I gasped. "I helped to kill him." Rogue pulled me around to face her; she was still dripping from rescuing me and with her hair wet looked like a miffed skunk.

"No, he ain't dead." She shrugged "He's just gone off somewhere to pull himself together for a wile. X-Men 'try' never to kill." She assured me.

"Yes, dat why de bag guys are always comin' back to get us." Gambit joked. "Den we get to stop them again, en' again, en' again…" he was repeating himself till Jean whacked him in the back of the head. "Hey!" Scott cleared his through.

"When you told Sinister that you didn't need to breath, what did you mean?" I looked at my feet.

"I said that I didn't need to breath air…I… I have-" How do I tell them, I hadn't even told my mother this part, it was what I saw as the most alien thing about my powers, because this was the thing that made me physical different, made me physically recognizable as a mutant. I swallowed and finally whispered. "I have gills." Hank sputtered. "They make me so different from everyone, please don't be mad at me… I… I haven't even told my mom about them either." I pleaded.

"I saw no evidence of gills during your physical, and I was quite throw." He pointed out to me. I nodded.

"Yes, you were but my gills seal themselves when not in use." I turned my back to them and tried to lift the fold in my suit. Storm came and helped me by holding the fabric spread as I created a bubble of water on my back and the gills, which lay as three slightly vertical slashes just under each of my shoulder blades, unsealed and the water rushed in and out of my lungs easily. Scott told me he understood my reluctance to tell us, but that I needed to be honest with them from now on.

 "Your session is over, I think facing Sinister is enough in one day for anyone." I looked at him, I didn't have to do the danger thing, I smiled turned to look at Bobby and knocked him over.

"Tag you're it." And I was off, waterslipping, into the woods and laughing.

End for Now