Path of a Fallen Angel
Disclaimer: I own Dahlia and that's about it. I don't even own the nifty translation thingie that I use for this story. And I certainly don't own Dan. He belongs to Sharpsnout!
Oh! Speaking of translations! This may get confusing but here we go. When Dahlia is talking to Dan, they're actually talking in French but you'll be able to understand her because Dan can. If Dahlia's talking to someone and Dan's not there to translate then you won't be able to understand her because the people she's talking too can't understand her.
Dahlia stepped off the train and pulled on her beret slightly. Trying to make her way through this throng of people without losing her stuff, or dignity for that matter, was going to be well-neigh impossible. Most likely she would have a klutz attack and take a header, probably taking a couple of people along for the ride.
"Hello, are you Dahlia Nickels?" Dahlia looked around for the voice that interrupted her thoughts and her eyes were drawn to the bald man sitting in a wheelchair just to her left side. She wasn't sure why she looked in that direction, it was like some voice in her mind had whispered it to her. The man smiled up at her, "Dahlia?"
"Oui, êtes vous professeur Xavier?" the bald man was taken aback. He had not expected her to understand him, luckily the French he had been expecting and was glad that he himself spoke it.
"I am. Frankly I'm surprised that you understood what I asked you. I was informed that you spoke no English."
"Dans la vérité je pas," she admitted, "Je peux comprendre ce qui est dit à moi et je peux le lire et écrire mais je ne peux pas le parler. Je ne le comprends pas moi-même parfois et si tout va bien j'apprendrai à parler anglais ."
"I'm sure you'll pick it up quickly," Xavier replied, "In the meantime why don't we see to your bags and get you home," Dahlia fell into step next to his wheelchair, "You know Dahlia we have another foreign student at the Institute."
"Oui? De là où ?"
"Oh he's from Germany."
"Comment excitant!"
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"New student?"
"Yeah I heard she's, like, from France or something."
"I heard the Professor talkin' to Scott and Jean earlier," Evan lowered his voice, "Apparently she doesn't speak a word of English, man."
"Really??" Kitty was excited, "That's, like, so cool!"
"I got more info too," Evan continued a little smugly, "She's got this dangerous mutant power, man. No one knows what it is. Not even the Professor."
"Vhy not?" Evan shrugged.
"She won't tell anyone what it is. The Professor tried to talk her around but that apparently was the only subject that she refused to spill on, man."
"Yeah an' y'all know he won' dig aroun' where he isn't wanted."
"Yeah, Professor Xavier isn't nosy like you four," the group of teens looked guiltily up at Jean who grinned at them in return.
"We can't help it. It's just, like, so exciting," Kitty said.
"Yes, I suppose that's true," Jean conceded, then shrugged, "Have any of you seen Dan? The Professor has a job for him."
"He's in the kitchen," Evan said.
"The first vords out of his mouth vere, and I quote, 'Food!!! T.V!!!' I think it vas hungry," Kurt added with a grin.
"Thanks Kurt."
"Nein problemo."
Kurt and Evan were correct, Dan was in the kitchen, and judging by the multitude of wrappers around, was very hungry.
"Dan?" the answer was spoken around a mouthful of food and therefore practically unintelligible.
"Say again?" the sound of swallowing, then,
"I'm here."
"Professor Xavier needs to see you."
"I didn't do it! It was—Jamie started it!"
"What?"
"Nothing!" he replied quickly, "So what does the Professor want with me?"
"You'll just have to wait and see," Jean said so mysteriously that Dan gave up his food and followed her towards the common room.
"And this is where most of the students spend free time if they don't want to hang around their rooms," Xavier was telling someone, the other person, a girl by the time of her voice, replied in French and suddenly Dan understood why they needed him.
"No," he said suddenly, stopping in his tracks, Jean turned around.
"No what?"
"There's no way I'm gonna follow some French chick translating everything for her."
"It's only until she learns English."
"Forget it."
"Why don't you just meet her before making such a rash decision?" Dan gave a derisive snort but followed Jean anyway.
"Ah good. Dahlia, this is Dan. He's the one I discussed with you," the tall blonde girl next to Xavier turned around to reveal quite possibly the most beautiful girl Dan had ever met and, in his opinion, he'd met quite a few knockouts. Her hair was the lightest blonde, her eyes the lightest blue. Her pale pink lips matched the eye shadow she'd expertly applied. Her clothes were fresh off the runway, on anyone else they would've been weird, on her they were perfect.
"Bonjour!" she said brightly.
"Er… hello."
"Dan, this is Dahlia," Xavier said, "I was wondering if you could—"
"Sure!" Xavier was taken aback by the boy's exuberant answer to his unfinished question.
"C'est très aimable à vous. Merci."
"I'm sure it's no problem for him," Jean said.
" 'I myself received that impression,' " Dan translated then stopped, "Wait. You can understand English?"
"Ouais. Je juste ne le parle pas," Dahlia replied as Dan translated.
"Oh…well that makes thing a little easier… do you want to meet everyone else?"
"Sûr," Dan gave a quick nod then drew himself up importantly and led the way. Dahlia giggled.
"How old are you anyway?"
"12," Dan replied, "Why?"
"No reason."
"I could find out," he tapped his head and Dahlia stopped short, "What?"
"Is everyone here telepathic?" Dahlia looked panicked.
"No just me Jean and the professor. Why?" she looked away.
"I have things…things I'd rather not have anyone pry into."
"Oh don't worry 'bout that. None of us are gonna poke around where we're not wanted."
"That's good. What's this room?"
"The danger room. I think the older students are running the younger ones through an exercise right now. You'll have sessions in here to once they figure out the best way for you to train your powers. What are they by the way?"
"Shadow Travel and control."
"Cool…anything else?"
"No," Dan got the sense that Dahlia was hiding something but shrugged it off as one of those things that she didn't want anyone prying into.
"Ok. This room here is the…well I call it the waiting room. It's the room where you wait to go into the danger room. Or wait for someone to come out. See that light? If it's on then that means there's a session going on and it'd be a bad idea to interrupt. 'Specially if you're new and it's someone like Logan in there," suddenly the bulb went dark, "Oh…guess they're done…" the doors opened suddenly and a flood of students rushed out. The air was filled with excited talk. "Who's she?" "She's hot." "Very hot, and I should know." "She's so pretty! *Sigh* I wish I had hair like that." "Does she have a name?" "Is she available?" "She's hot." "You said that already." "So? It's true"
"Her name is Dahlia Nickels and she's the new student," the new voice was clam, commanding, someone who was used to taking charge. Someone who, Dahlia suspected had little or no sense of humor, "Now that you've all seen her I assume that you can go do something useful? Like homework, which I'm sure you all have," the group let out a collective "Awww man…" and trudged away, one boy giving Dan a furtive kick. The owner of that commanding voice and a handful of teens Dahlia's age were the only ones that remained.
"Is it true that she doesn't understand English?"
"Well—"
"So, like, we could tell you to tell her things like it's cool to wear underwear on her head and she, like, wouldn't have a clue?"
"Oh yeah Kitty, real nice," the one who apparently was named Kitty had the voice of the stereotypical valley girl, the one who had replied to her spoke with a southern accent.
"Nice no, funny yeah," someone else, a boy, said thoughtfully through a New Yorker accent. Dahlia was struck with sudden inspiration. She turned to Kitty and said something to her, then turned to the boy and said something else, then addressed the group as a whole. No one except Dan had understood a word of it, but Dahlia had said it so nicely and with such a charming smile that they all figured that she was complementing them or something. They smiled back and then Dan began laughing.
"What man?" Evan wanted to know, "What's so funny?"
"She said," Dan tried to get the words out around his laughter, "She wonders if your," he meant Kitty, "Natural hair color is blonde, because you talk like the stereotypical dumb blonde. And she could tell you," meaning Evan, "Where to put the skateboard that you hold, except that she doesn't want to corrupt my young ears. Then she said that language barriers can cut both ways," the southern girl snickered and even the commanding boy grinned. The other two didn't look quite as happy and left.
"Only a French person can say an insult so lovingly," the boy said, "Don't worry about them. When they think about it they'll think it was funny. By the way, I'm Scott."
"She wants to know why your glasses are like mine," Dan translated.
"The lenses are made from ruby quartz. They keep the optic blasts under control. Without them Dan or I wouldn't have any control over the high powered laser beams we pack behind each eye."
" 'Cool.' "
"Ah'm Rouge," the southern girl extended a gloved hand, "Y'all don' wanna know what ah can do," Dahlia took her hand and titled her head.
" 'You cannot have any skin to skin contact because of your powers right?' " Dan translated, " 'That's why you wear gloves even in this warm room and why your entire body is covered, save your face, yes?' "
"Good guess. Yeah, ah take the powers of other mutants and the energy from humans."
" 'That must be hard. You must be a strong person to deal with that. What about they two that just left?' "
"Kitty can walk through walls," Scott told her, "And Evan can produce sharp spikes."
"Yeah," Dan said, "He sneezes and suddenly it's like an explosion at the pincushion factory," Dahlia grinned, "Hey where's Kurt? Doesn't he want to meet her?"
"I have been hanging back," a voice, thick with German accent, issued forth from the shadows, "Somebody, Bobby I think, vas playing hide and seek vith my image inducer. I didn't vish to frighten her," the owner of the voice stepped forth from the shadows and Dahlia gasped, "It is broken?" he asked looking down at himself, "No, the machine vorks. Vhat is vrong then?" Dahlia stepped forwards and began circling Kurt, eyes scrutinizing him very carefully, "Is this normal for French people?" Dahlia stopped in front of him and gently caressed his face, then slid her hand down his arm and held his image inducer at eye level and pressed the switch. Kurt's holographic human visage gave way to his blue and furry self. He flinched, sure of what was coming, but Dahlia just smiled her mysterious smile and uttered the only English she knew.
"Found you."