Hello everyone! I know that my summary was not very gratifying, but thank you for checking my story out anyway! Please enjoy it and review all you like; preferably keeping flames to a minimum. I have all the way to Chapter Nine written so I'll update as soon as ya'll review. Have fun!
Chapter 1-"Enter: Mutant W"
One day Professor Charles Xavier was using his supercomputer Cerebro, trying to see if that by some incredibly lucky twist of fate he could find the current whereabouts of Magneto, who hadn't been seen in months. While he was using the complicated piece of modern machinery the detection of a new mutant caught his eye.
It was very curious; the mutant was using their powers methodically, almost on cue or something. Another thing that was strange about this mystery mutant was that their power would change; though the professor could not directly know what the power was, he new that they were different because every time this person changed their power it would show up as another new mutant in the same place. He could tell, however, that what ever ability this mutant had, it was exceptionally powerful.
Professor X was most intrigued by this mutant and decided to just keep an eye on them for awhile before looking more deeply into the case. He decided to give up on looking for Magneto for now and left Cerebro.
The professor watched this mutant on Cerebro as life went on very much as usual at the Xavier Institute and Bayville High. The day after he first saw him (or her) something quite peculiar happened. The routine usage of powers was the same except that now only one was used. Now, either they had just decided to use one ability or some other force had intervened somehow.
A few days after the mutant had begun to use only one power, another very puzzling thing happened. The regular usage of their powers stopped. He sensed one great blast of whatever energy this mutant could control, and then no more. The mutant ceased using their powers completely, and Professor X couldn't find them anymore. For almost two months he had not sensed a single use of the mutant's powers. Then, one night, it happened; the mutant finally used their ability. It started suddenly and kept up a steady strength. Now he took action instantly and looked deeper into this mystery mutant. He was able to find a small bio, similar to the one for Kitty Pryde he had acquired not so very long ago.
However, this biography was hardly satisfying. The only information it gave was the name "Mutant W" and a number, like the one they give you in prison… or a laboratory. As soon as he found this Professor X decided they must take immediate action. He had waited too long watching this mutant, and hadn't even told the others, having not been quite sure of the situation himself. He still wasn't entirely clear but he knew that this would be the only way to get information.
He used his telepathy to summon a few of the X-Men to Cerebro. Swiftly, they made their appearances: Kurt teleporting instantly, followed by Kitty who ran through the door with Ororo, Scott and Logan on her heels.
"What is it Professor?" Kitty asked excitedly.
"Yeah, Charles, you sounded pretty anxious. What's up?" Logan asked.
"We have little time, so I will get right to the point," he stated quickly, "I have discovered a new mutant." He went on to briefly tell them of all the odd things about this mutant, how he hadn't sensed the person in two months till now, and the meager bit of information on their bio, as the X-Men listened intently.
"I regret not telling you sooner, but it cannot be changed now. So, I have chosen you to go and find this "Mutant W"," the Professor concluded. Kurt was the most enthusiastic of the group.
"Woo-hoo!" he cried, "I finally get to go on a mission!" Logan just shook his head slightly at Kurt's excitement. Immediately Ororo took charge of the group.
"Okay, when we get in the jet we'll split up into two groups… " she started.
So the five mutants suited up and piled into the X-Jet, Storm driving and Wolverine on the passenger's side. They had just gotten to a level altitude when they got the coordinates of Professor X. They indicated a place in the Big Apple; New York City.
As they arrived at their destination; they saw they were certainly not on the upper east side. Storm, who knew very little of the city, but still more than the others, concluded they were in the Bronx, the west side.
"Figures," Logan said with a snort.
The coordinates had turned out to be on a street at the edge of some neighborhood. Each house looked pretty much the same, varying only in color: all were narrow with two stories, and each had a stoop up to the front door directly from the sidewalk, and all of them looking sad and weatherworn. None of them had yards, although there was a tall, skinny tree in a small circle of dirt enclosed by fence in front of every house on the opposite side of the sidewalk. All the houses seemed very ominous and unfriendly, and many windows were either boarded up or had bars over them. A cat hissed as the garbage can it had been pillaging tipped over. There was garbage and other unidentifiable sludge in the gutters and the place was entirely silent and dark. The skyline of the city could be seen all around them, giving it an unusual atmosphere. The air was tense with what felt like an almost electrical current.
The teams walked on in opposite directions, since there was no sight of a mutant, or human for that matter, at the point indicated by Professor X's coordinates. Wolverine, Shadowcat, and Nightcrawler walked aloof down the wide sidewalk, keeping their eyes peeled. Their surroundings gradually changed, though they had not gone far. The street widened and was less of a neighborhood road. The buildings began to look more industrial, and more menacing. There was a lot more graffiti on the walls and fences, and any bit of grass there might have been was choked with weeds. The sidewalk was near to nonexistent now so the trio walked on the road.
Shadowcat shuddered and said, "This place really makes me nervous, you know?"
Nightcrawler nodded emphatically and replied, "Oh yeah! Very freaky!"
The stars were clouded over and a faraway rumble of thunder was heard, making the place drearier and creepier than ever.
As another faint rumble was heard, Cyclops, who was searching with Storm, pointed at the sky and asked, "You?" indicating the weather.
Storm shook her head and said, "No. This is nature's own work." Their scenery hadn't changed much since they started walking.
Suddenly Wolverine held his head up towards the churning black clouds and sniffed deeply. He thought he had heard something. As he sniffed the air, he was sure he could smell something; a mutant. He listened carefully now, and heard faintly something that must be from where the scent was coming from; and it did not sound good. Shadowcat noticed Wolverine's behavior and asked, "What do you hear?"
"I don't know," Wolverine replied, finally thinking he had pinpointed the location of the sounds, "but it sure ain't no carnival. Stay here!" he ordered gruffly as he took off running. The sound was in an alley not very far away. Shadowcat and Nightcrawler just stared after him indignantly.
"I hate it when he does that, "Nightcrawler sighed.
Shadowcat nodded. "We should probably contact Storm and Cyclops; I bet he found something," she said.
"Gee, ya think?"
Shadowcat glared at Nightcrawler reprehensibly for a brief second before whipping out her communicator. "Hey, Storm, this is Shadowcat," she said into it.
"Yes, I'm here Shadowcat, what is it?"
"I think Wolverine's found something. You better come over here."
Shadowcat told Storm their location as well as she could, and then turned off her communicator. As she was putting it away it started to rain. Gently at first, then it slowly became a drenching downpour.
"Ugh! Gross!" Shadowcat cried.
"Let's see if we can find a doorway or something to sit in while we wait for Storm! This can't be good for my fur!!" Nightcrawler suggested over a great boom of thunder. They found a building that looked like it was once a store. Now however, the large, square front window was broken and there was yellow "CAUTION" tape across the front of the door.
The building did have a rather ragged awning though, so the two mutants sat down underneath it. They both then noticed how they had heard the thunder getting steadily louder, and the sky getting significantly darker, as if the storm were getting very close; almost upon them. The strange thing was that although the air had that weird electrical charge like in most giant storms, the pair had yet to see a single bolt of lightning.
Wolverine ran down an alley about five or so blocks away. He could smell the mutant for sure now, and hear the sounds of a fight. The alley he was in went into a T further down, one alley going left and the other going right, perpendicular to the alley he was in. The alley was cluttered with garbage and stank something foul. Tall cardboard boxes were stacked randomly throughout the alleys, along with several dumpsters. Remarkably, compared to the natural, if strong, electrical feeling of the storm, in the alley the air felt three times as charged; it made his hair stand on end as if static in the air was causing it. When Wolverine reached the T he crouched behind one of these dumpsters and peered into the alley going to the right.
His eyes narrowed and he sniffed deeply, trying to discern the mutant from the rest of the punks in the brawl. There seemed to be a large group of guys all dressed in loose articles of clothing of a nondescript color. Every one of them was drenched in the downpour still hammering down. A roll of thunder set the dumpster lid to rattling and seemed to shake more rain loose. It came down in bigger drops, and harder; the drops bounced back up off the pavement and giant puddles.
Wolverine couldn't make any sense out of the fight until suddenly a thin figure burst from a small break in the mass of bodies. However, they didn't get far. They stumbled and fell, obviously injured. The ragged skeleton of a human being struggled to get up but the gang stuck with them, pummeling them with kicks and punches. Taking one last sniff to be sure, Wolverine knew that this pitiful creature was their Mutant W. Before he could act, one of the thugs grabbed a beer bottle from the expanse of litter on the ground and broke it right over the mutant's head! The figure went limp, but then miraculously stirred. It was obvious the punks wanted this person dead, and were disappointed this effort hadn't worked. They went back to beating on the paltry mutant even more violently. One of the guys grabbed the figure's arm and pulled and twisted in such a way that Wolverine was sure it was broken. The piteous creature let out a strangled cry. Wolverine stepped out from behind the dumpster, releasing his claws with a shing!
"Why don't you pick on someone your own size, bub?"
Cyclops came running up to Nightcrawler and Shadowcat with Storm flying above him, using her powers to prevent them from getting wet.
"Which way did Wolverine go?" Storm asked.
"This way! We'll show you!" Shadowcat cried over another ear-splitting roll of thunder. With that, she and Nightcrawler took off in the direction Wolverine went, with Storm and Cyclops right behind them.
When they got there they jumped right into the fight. Wolverine had his hands full, as more and more punks kept coming right out of nowhere. Cyclops began shooting off his optic blast as Nightcrawler and Shadowcat fought with their powers. Wolverine was fighting with the rage that only he can fight with. Storm levitated even higher. The wind increased and though it was hard to believe, the rain came down even harder, stinging their flesh, and thunder clashed and rolled one after the other. However, Storm looked troubled.
"I can't make any lightning!" she called down to the other X-Men in dismay and perplexity.
"What?!" Cyclops cried from the ground.
"Can't you just make a tornado or something?" Nightcrawler suggested over the roar of thunder, "Blow these guys away!"
"The buildings are too close; I'd destroy too much!" Storm called back.
The fight was still raging; even with the X-Men's powers they were beaten by sheer numbers. Gangsters seemed to be coming out of the wood work. Now, during all of this Mutant W had not been forgotten. However, the gangsters were freaked of these strange new people and their powers, so they wanted to get their job over with quick and run. One of the guys grabbed the mutant hard and held a switchblade to their throat. Mutant W was near unconscious and beaten half-way to death; they couldn't have fought back if they tried.
Storm saw however and called out urgently, "Cyclops!" Cyclops looked up and then over to where Storm was pointing. He opened his ruby quartz lens and the guy dropped the knife and ran. However, most of the gangsters were not so easily gotten rid of. The mutant however, dropped hard into a mammoth puddle, hardly able to move.
Storm cried over the pounding rain, "Wolverine! Get Mutant W and we'll just go!"
Wolverine hated to give up a fight but he looked over at Mutant W and knew this was life or death. He finished off his last assailant with one swipe and ran over to the wretched being. As he neared the mutant he saw for the first time that it was a girl. She was still (barely) conscious, and as soon as she saw him coming over her eyes widened. Wolverine stopped short as he saw the sheer terror in her slightly clouded eyes. She tried her best to push herself backwards but collided with a pile of boxes as Wolverine slowly walked towards her. The rest of the X-Men had to take care of the gangsters as he tried to get close enough to this girl.
"Look, kid, I'm here to help you!" he tried. He pulled his claws in and tried again but the girl just seemed to panic even more the closer he got. Then, she slipped suddenly from consciousness and just went limp.
At about that moment huge bolts of lightning forked across the sky, illuminating the ground below as if the sun was speeding towards the earth. Several hit the ground were the fight was, which Storm quickly stopped, but all across the sky lightning continued to flash, as if something that had been holding it back had finally been broken through. In all the houses that the heart of the storm was over there was a huge power surge and then the biggest black-out seen in the Bronx in history. Several bolts hit buildings and houses, starting blazing fires. Luckily the rain was coming down in such a frenzy that the NY fire departments were not too over-whelmed.
A bolt of lightning had hit a pile of cardboard boxes before Storm could control it, and as wet as the boxes were the lightning was hot enough to instantly ignite them. The gangsters finally fled from the fire and ran off. Wolverine at last picked up the comatose Mutant W and ran to Cyclops and the others.
"Nightcrawler! Teleport us all back to the X-Jet, starting with Wolverine and Mutant W," Storm ordered.
"Yes ma'am," Nightcrawler replied willingly, and started on his job; first teleporting Wolverine and Mutant W, then Shadowcat and Cyclops, and Storm last, upon her order.
The lightning was still lashing like white fire with wild abandon across the sky.
"How are we going to get the jet up with all this lightning?" Cyclops asked worriedly. "Do you think you could control it Storm? Stop it from striking?"
"No, there's too much of it. I'll try to simply repel them from the jet until we clear the storm, "she replied.
"Uh, what should I do with Mutant W here?" Wolverine asked uncomfortably, standing with the unconscious mutant still in his arms.
"Just hold her Wolverine!" Storm said impatiently. "Now, Cyclops pilot; I'm going to need all the concentration I can get. And you'd better sit down and buckle up," she directed to the rest of the team in the back. "It's going to be a bumpy ride," she said as her eyes clouded over, turning completely white.
With a jerk the jet rose into the air. Cyclops piloted as best he could, having often to dodge lightning bolts and fight over enormous currents of wind for the control of the steering mechanism. It was a bumpy ride indeed, not to mention the psychotic fury of sizzling electricity just barely being directed away from the jet.
When Wolverine was not battling to stay in his seat and make sure he did not drop the cataleptic mutant to the floor as they flew with as much speed as the lightning allowed to the end of the storm, he looked at the mutant lying in his arms.
She was fairly tall and absurdly thin, light as a feather in Logan's grip. Under the layer of dirt and grime she seemed sickly pale, and her hair and parts of her clothes were matted with blood. She had some bruises and welts already beginning to show and a trickle of blood running down her face from just in front of her hairline. Her lip was swollen and a tiny line of blood was seeping out of the corner of her mouth. One of her eyes was blackened and more blood had leaked out of her nose and dried. She wore a pair of soiled baggy pants ripped in several places, and an old black hooded sweatshirt that looked more like it belonged in a dumpster. Wolverine suddenly realized with a flinch, that's probably where she got it. Her hair looked to be a darkish brown; it was dirty and sopping wet like the rest of her and she seemed very cold.
"Storm, we gotta get her to Xavier," Wolverine said with suppressed urgency.
Storm, panting and sweating from her exertions, looked back, not having to use her powers since they left the storm, and a concerned expression came onto her face. This was pretty much the first time that Kurt and Kitty took a good look at Mutant W too. They both cringed and Ororo urged Scott to go faster.
Luckily they neared the school within ten minutes. As they were almost there Storm used the radio to call in and let Professor X know they back. Of course he already knew.
Scott landed the jet and all five of them went to Cerebro with Mutant W. As they walked in the Professor took one look and began giving orders, very calmly although he himself was quite concerned.
"Kurt, Scott, and Kitty go on up to your rooms after you change your suits. Ororo, you can go to bed as well," the Professor said, seeing how tired Storm looked, though she tried to hide it. The energy put forth by her on the jet ride home was enough to exhaust just about anyone, and by now it was sometime in the wee hours of the morning.
"Wolverine stay with me," he finished. Then, as the others were walking out the door, he added, "Oh, and don't tell anyone about Mutant W. I'd like to do that myself when the time is right."
Scott, Kitty, and Kurt all nodded sleepily as they shuffled out. As curious as they were about Mutant W, their curiosity was subdued by sheer exhaustion. They had been on the mission all night, the fight was quite arduous, they were freezing and soaked to the bone, and they still had school tomorrow.
As soon as the doors to Cerebro were closed Professor X said urgently, "We have to get her to the infirmary." And that is where they went. Mutant W was taken directly into Intensive Care. Neither Logan nor the Professor was allowed to see her until they were sure she was in a stable condition. Logan relayed all the details of the mission to Professor Xavier, the bad neighborhood, the fight, the lightning.
As they walked out the Professor sensed that Logan had something else to say, something he was holding back. He didn't need telepathy to tell that. But all Logan would say was, "Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help, Charles?"
"No, no Logan. Now we just have to wait. Go get some rest," the Professor replied kindly.
Logan nodded but still seemed unsatisfied as he walked away, deep in thought. The Professor was absorbed in his own notions also, for he had many thoughts about this mysterious Mutant W.