AN: Got inspired one day. Can't remember what inspired me. Possibly was Altoids. Eva is Fang, just in case you were wondering. The beginning's kinda choppy, but it'll get better in the later chapters, promise.
Feedback: I'll comment on all reviews. And I'll do one chapter per ten reviews, or something like that. So praise and flames are all welcome!
Disclaimer: I do not own X-men. If I did, I would be deliriously happy and rich and wouldn't be sitting around here writing fanfics. Wolverine…::sigh::
The envelope was on her computer desk. The letter itself was held in her trembling hand. The hand clenched around the paper and tore it into halves, quarters, eighths. The pieces went flying as she threw them up and started to sob.
Danny was dead.
Eva had never known such pain, such devastation, such hatred against something living. She had never known such loneliness in her life. Danny…Danny had been so perfect, so wonderful. Had been. Was. Is dead. The words echoed in her mind. She had loved Danny so much. And then Danny went to fight the war against mutants. Mutants. The word was bitter on her tongue. Freaks of nature, they didn't belong here on Earth, they didn't belong with humankind, they should be somewhere else, preferably dead. Mutants had killed Danny. Eva was so sure. The letter had only said sorry, Danny died in the service. But Eva wasn't stupid, she could read between the lines. Mutants had taken Danny away from her.
Empty, so empty. How had she ever been able to live before she met Danny? Such a beautiful smile, kind eyes, quirky sense of humor. He was a dream come true. A dream now gone from her forever. Tears splattered onto the pieces of paper on her lap, wetting the ink. So lonely. She was all by herself now. Danny was gone. Eva collapsed on the bed, burying her face in her hands, her dark hair falling around her like a curtain, hiding her from the world as she mourned. Alone.
Eva suddenly felt a change come over her. She didn't quite feel like herself. She realized that her hands didn't have fingers. Her hands weren't even hands. And her face felt different. Alarmed, Eva pulled her hands, or what used to be her hands back from her face. She saw two white paws. Her paws. She shrieked and fell off the bed, getting tangled in her now too-big clothes. The shriek came out as a yip, and in the startled silence that followed, Eva's mother called, "Eva? Is everything alright?"
Needless to say, everything was not alright. Footsteps sounded on the staircase. Eva struggled to get free from the sheets on her bed, her studded headband falling momentarily over her eyes, only to be shaken off. Finally pulling free, Eva dashed into the shelter of her walk-in closet, between the piles of shoeboxes and under the hung shirts and dresses. Almost immediately after she had, her mother softly knocked and entered the room. "Eva?" Her mother looked around, shrugged, and went back out, closing the door behind her.
Eva breathed a sigh of relief, then tentatively padded to her mirror, accepting the fact that she was now walking on four legs instead of two in a relatively numb manner. When she got to the full-length mirror, Eva gasped softly. Looking back at her was a snow-white wolf. Pristine, beautiful fur covered her entire body, and nothing was recognizable as her human self. But her Irish green eyes still peered back at her. Her head leaned forward to get a closer look, and in doing so, her nose tapped against the glass, misting the surface. Eva sat back on her haunches, noticing now her new tail swishing cautiously back and forth. What is going on? She thought. One word came to mind: Mutant. Probably a mutant had transformed her into a wolf because of its own miserable, spiteful reasons. Hadn't they done enough to torment her? Eva lay down back in the closet and slept in the shadows of safety, tears still running down her cheeks.
In the morning, Eva woke up cold and cramped. The first thing that hit her was that Danny was dead. Following close behind was the realization that she was no longer a wolf. Eva flexed her fingers gratefully before hugging herself against the chill.
Mrs. Kerry, Eva's mom, called her down for breakfast. Eva breathed a sigh of relief that no questions had been asked and went downstairs. Well, whatever freakish mutant spell had been put on her yesterday was gone now. But Danny…Danny was still… Eva bit her lip and crossed her arms as she looked out the window forlornly.
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Professor Charles Xavier was a very busy man. He sorely missed the old days when he could just lie back in his nice, comfy chair in his office and listen to Bach or Beethoven. Ever since the war had been initiated by the government, not a peaceful moment had existed. Professor X sighed and slipped on the helmet connected to the Cerebral unit (sp?). The war had put young mutants in more danger than ever. He had taken it upon his own shoulders to try and find them all before the angry mobs did. So far, he had had relative success. He could only hope that it would stay that way.
Closing his eyes, the Professor concentrated on the mutants. A pyro-kinetic; safe with a family that supported mutant freedom. A telepathic; able to control her powers relatively well, and already finding her way over to the school. A mental nudge here and she was put on the right path. Professor X suddenly frowned. A mutant with the ability to change their own composition was going out of control. The Professor reached up to take his helmet off, but then stopped as another presence caught his attention. An animal shape-shifter, in distress. He quickly lifted the helmet off his head and called for his X-men.
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Eva had only just started to forget. Then all Hell broke loose.
She had been sitting at her piano, playing Für Elise, when an infernal noise broke her concentration and brought her mother running. Opening the door, they saw a giant jet landing in their front yard…and more than half of the street. Her mother turned white and shoved Eva into her room. "Stay here, and don't come out," Eva's mother ordered. Then Mrs. Kerry (Eva's mom) went and dialed 911. "Operator? Operator, I have an emergency. There's a jet that just landed in my front yard and…my God, I think that there are mutants on board! Help!" After she had given the operator her address and all other necessary information, Mrs. Kerry hung up and took down her husband's hunting rifle from the top of the closet by the front door. She inserted bullets and, as calmly as possible, waited by the front door.
A teenager, only a little older than Eva, descended from the jet and calmly walked towards the door. She knocked politely and stood back and waited. Mrs. Kerry flung open the door and the girl suddenly found herself staring down the barrel of the rifle. "Please, ma'am, calm yourself," she said, not at all intimidated by the gun, which frightened Mrs. Kerry more than anything had so far in her life. "We are simply here to collect Eva in order to ensure her safety. I trust that I find you both well?"
"Well?!?" screeched Mrs. Kerry, her grip on the rifle once again firm, "I've lost my husband, brother, and my daughter has lost her boyfriend to your infernal kind, and now you mean to take my Eva away as well?" Without a second thought, Mrs. Kerry pulled the trigger, then again, and again. After the sound of the last shot had died away, she opened her eyes, not knowing why she had closed them in the first place. She choked when she saw that the girl still stood there, looking unscathed and rather ticked off.
"I hope that we will not repeat that experience anytime in the near future," said Shadowcat, the teenaged girl. "Eva is not safe here. Her mutant powers will make her a target for anti-mutant organizations, of which there are many, and the government. I will escort her, and other mutants, to a place where she will be sheltered and kept safe until this war is over."
"Mutant…powers?" said Mrs. Kerry, her voice dying in her throat. Her daughter? A mutant? One of those freaks who were responsible for so many lives taken from the human race? "Impossible!" she shrieked and, wielding the rifle like a club, swung at the girl's head. Shadowcat concentrated and the gun went right through her without harming her at all. The momentum, however, carried the gun in an arc until it collided with the door frame, denting it beyond repair. Mrs. Kerry's hand was also slammed up against the door frame by her own force, and when the pain had momentarily passed and she could see straight again, she did not like what she saw.
For one, her hand looked crushed and was bleeding. For another, more mutants had joined the teenager. There was a wild-looking man with hair swept up to the sides to resemble ears or owl feathers, another man with a red and gold visor covering his eyes, and a girl with predominant white streaks in her hair. "Now, please," said Shadowcat, "Let us take your daughter to safety before any further mishaps happen."
Mrs. Kerry opened her mouth to protest again when slender hands drew her aside. Eva stood at the door now. "Who are you people?" she demanded, "What do you want?"
"We are the X-Men," offered Cyclops, the guy with the visor, "We are here to take you to safety. Possessing the mutant gene at this time is not exactly favorable with the public at this point."
"You're mutants," said Eva dumbly, "And you're telling me…that I'm one?" She bristled. "Are you telling me that I belong to the same group as those monsters that killed Danny? Are you calling me a freak?" Her last words dissolved into an angry roar and she found herself again in the body of an animal. Judging from her striped orange paws, she assumed that she was a tiger. This time, she was glad of the transformation as she leapt towards the X-Men, hoping to scatter them, chase them away from her home, where she was truly safe.
Eva went through Shadowcat, lunged towards the guy with the freaky hair. Wolverine unsheathed his adamantium claws, but then let them slide back into his hands when Cyclops yelled not to hurt her. Instead, Wolverine ducked and let her collide into the fence surrounding the backyard. At long last, Eva was tired out, and found herself back in her human form. She turned to smile ruefully at her mother, but found herself face to face with a white-faced woman who was pointing a shaking finger at her.
"You…you…" gasped Mrs. Kerry, "You're one of them!" She threw the remains of the rifle at Eva, the wild throw missing her daughter and crashing into the open closet. "Get out! Get out, you monster!" More things were hurled at Eva, and the girl was finally forced to flee the house, sobbing. Numb with shock, she was too weak to even resist when Wolverine and Rogue dragged her onto the jet and took off.
Sometime around 8:00 at night, Eva woke up. At first she panicked, not knowing where she was. Then she vaguely remembered Rogue and Wolverine leading her onto the jet. The panicked feeling was subdued, but not put aside. Eva got off of the cot that she was on and tried to feel her way out of whatever room she was in. She groped around in the darkness and finally sat down on the floor in resignation. She wished that she could have better night vision…like a cat, maybe. A cat. She recalled rather calmly that she had been informed that she was a mutant. "Might as well as put this little gift, curse, what-have-you to work," she mumbled. Now…how did this transformation thing work? The previous two times had happened all on accident. Maybe something about emotions. She had turned into a wolf when she had felt extremely lonely, and into a tiger when she had become really steamed with the X-men. A cat. How could she put herself into the mentality of a cat?
Fish. Maybe thinking about fish would do the trick. She pictured fish in her head. She tried thinking positive thoughts about the fish. She waited. Nothing happened. Frustrated, Eva thought about yarn instead. What did felines think about, anyway? Finally at the end of her wits, Eva picked herself up and banged her head on the wall several times. "Stupid power," she growled. "Stupid, stupid abilities. Stupid not-going-to-work-when-it's-supposed-to. Stupid turning-me-into-inconvenient-animals. Stupid getting-me-into-some-random-place. Stupid, stupid, stupid…"
Eva's ranting session was cut short when someone cracked open the door on the opposite side of the room. The bright light coming from outside momentarily blinded her and she shrieked and covered her eyes with her hands. "You all right, kid?" growled Wolverine. Watching Eva curl up into a fetal position and whimpering about "not the light, not the light," Wolverine sighed and walked away. "She's awake," he informed the rest of the crew on the Blackbird. "Someone go talk to her, I don't think she likes me." He smiled ruefully at Rogue.
Rogue caught herself blushing and checked herself. With Kitty in tow, she entered the room that held their new recruit.
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AN: Like? Hate? Anybody actually read this? Ten reviews and I write the next chapter!
