Chapter 3 (August 8th, 2003)
Earlier that day, Kurt Wagner sleepily turned over in his dorm bed at the Xavier Institute. Sun beams shot through the half closed blinds right into his eyes, and he squeezed them shut. Ugh, he said to himself, sunlight means waking up.he groaned; but that means eating! His comprehension quickly destroyed any unhappiness that might have plagued him about waking up, and he quickly got out of bed; he got cleaned up and headed down the staircase of the school towards the dining hall, the hallways littered with clusters of chatty and giggling students filing passed him and slowing him down. "I'm really hungry." he said aloud, "I think I'll take a short cut." and with the smell of sulfur and a small*bamph*, Kurt was inside the kitchen, one of the first people by the fridge for breakfast. As he poked his head inside the doors, he grabbed everything he could get his hands on, to the dismay of the people behind him on line.
He sat down at a table with a few of his friends: Cyclops (Scott), Wolverine (Logan), Jean Grey, and Shadowcat (Kitty). "Ah, always the early bird..." said Jean playfully, "It's 10:45, Kurt." "I know." Kurt just smiled and dug into his bowl of cereal, fruit, toast, eggs, etc. The rest of the group talked on about nothing in particular, when Jean said suddenly, "The Professor wants us; now." Wolverine and Scott looked at her in slight confusion, but Kitty just looked at Kurt in slight disgust at his eating habits, which were none too charming at the moment. "C'mon, guys, I hear him." Jean urged, getting up and heading towards the door. Through a mouthful of food, Kurt asked, "Hey, Jean, are you gonna finish that?" and indicated the half eaten egg omelet on her plate. Kitty rolled her eyes and said, "C'mon, Nightcrawler, let's go." Reluctantly, Kurt left his empty plate on the table and followed the group down the hall to Professor X's office.
Kurt's stomach rumbled a little as they entered the office, and he half thought of *bamphing* back to the kitchen, but thought it best not too ignore the Prof.'s call. So, while everyone greeted the Prof. with a friendly good morning and took their seats in various chairs around the office, Kurt teleported to the top of a tall lamp, his devilish blue tail wrapped around the pole of it.
"I've called you here to tell you," he began what was going to be the classic "you have new mission" speech as Kurt liked to call them. With a sideways glance from the Prof., Kurt blushed a little at being caught thinking this and curled a little tighter around the lamp. "We're going to be having a new member coming to our school quite soon." He spoke coolly, and everyone knew this was going to be a touchy subject, so they listened very closely, "we all know that he hasn't been the best.behaved mutant or a model student, but I've been tuning into his thoughts lately and it seems he's had enough with the group he's currently in." he paused and looked around; everyone was practically on the edges of their seats, even Kurt, who technically wasn't on a seat, was leaning as far forward as he could without falling off the lamp. "It' Todd from the Brotherhood."
Everyone, with the exception of Jean, who had known this since she entered the room, dropped their jaws. Kurt finally fell off the lamp, unfortunately taking it down with him, sending it crashing to the floor. But the shattering of the lamp didn't break the shock that filled the room. Logan was the first to recover and break the silence.
"You mean Toad? That Stinkboy from the Brotherhood who's always causing us problems?" Logan said almost in full disbelief. Jean turned and gave him that, "You shouldn't be talking" look and turned back to the Prof.
"Will he be coming to us, or do we have to go and get him?" Jean was seemingly unaware of how odd the Professor's statement had sounded to everyone else. Scott looked at her surprised as well, but then remembered that she was telepathic and would have known.
"He should arrive at around 8:15 tonight, but you'll need to be ready to help him should some of the Brotherhood think his departure a detriment to their order." Kurt had gotten up, a little dizzy at first, and just listened to the scenario unfold, trying not only to comprehend what was going on, but to also ignore the groan of his stomach as well.
"But why does he want to come here?" Kitty asked, still thoroughly confused.
"Because," answered the Prof., "he's simply had enough with the way the Brotherhood is run. He wants to be accepted, but no one has given him a single ounce of compassion."
"Can't imagine why."Logan murmured. Scott silenced him from any further comments with a look. Then he said, "We'll be ready by 8, Professor." The Prof. smiled and adjourned the X-.Men. as they were leaving the office, a wave of anticipation swept over them; Toad, the Toad from the Brotherhood of Mutants, who had been one of their long time enemies, was going there, to the Institute! Reasons for this swam through their minds, but were disturbed by the very loud grumbling sound of a certain someone's stomach.
"Hey, is it lunch time yet?" Kurt asked them. Everyone gawked at him with an, "I can't believe you, you just ate!" look, while Kitty just rolled her eyes and kept walking, muttering something that sounded vaguely like, "The Bottomless Pit" as she headed for her dorm room.
At 8:00, the "Rescue Group" stationed themselves around the front gate of the grounds, as the persistent light of the sun blazed in a burst of rubies and yellow diamonds juts before it would disappear behind a far off hill. Kurt *bamphed* into a tree, crunching on a cookie he swiped form the kitchen on his way there, and sat ready to signal when he saw Toad coming; the rest of the group hid in the darkening brush, their sense all alert to any sudden movements or footsteps not coming form the direction of the Institute.
At 8:16, Nightcrawler's gleaming yellow eyes shown down on the awaiting group from inside the covering of the wind-blown leaves. "He's coming," he whispered down to them; when he looked to the road again, his face flashed with a bit of nervousness. "And Quicksilver and Avalanche are right behind him!." There was a pause. "They're just teasing him," Kurt continued, sounding a bit disgusted, "otherwise they would've caught him already."
The X-Men peered out from their hiding places and saw the hopping form they knew as Toad coming as quickly as could down the lane, followed closely by a crack in the ground and a streak of silver.
"Kurt!" Cyclops called to Nightcrawler from behind a tree, "Go teleport to him, bring him back inside the gates. We'll take care of those two creeps." once again, with a *bamph* and a sulfuric scent, Kurt was at one moment in the tree, then a few feet in front of Toad. Toad stopped hopping for a moment, quite surprised, then Kurt grabbed his arm and teleported him back onto the Institute's grounds. However, before Toad could say s a single word, which would undoubtedly annoy Kurt to no end, he flicked his tail to a sensitive spot on the back of his neck; Toad fell to the ground just as if he were over-tired and Kurt kept on eye on him and the fighting, making sure no one tried to sneak passed him.
Cyclops and Shadowcat kept Avalanche at bay, with her phasing through him, avoiding his attacks, and Cyclops shooting optic blasts at him.. Wolverine and Jean were having fun picking up Quicksilver, who'd been stopped by Jean's power in mid-air, and tossing him against a tree nearby. In a few minutes, with the rumble of a small tremor and a shot of silver, the two chasers headed back to their headquarters, defeated once again.
Smiling with smug satisfaction, the X-Men turned and carried Toad into the infirmary of the Institute. Only a few minutes later did he awaken, with Professor X waiting to greet him cordially. Kurt had meanwhile *bamphed* into the kitchen for some popcorn, then back again, to see what the heck was going on.
"Good evening, Todd," the Professor said kindly, "I trust that you have safely been brought to our facilities?"
Toad was still a little white, but managed an answer: "Yeah, man, just a little shaken up, and I've got a pain in my neck." he looked accusingly sideways at Nightcrawler who stopped crunching for a second, in the middle of a mouthful to look innocently at the reprimanding eyes now upon him. He smiled weakly and dove right back into his popcorn.
"Well, Todd," the Prof. continued, "since you seem to be alright, as Beast has already assured that you have no new physical injuries, what about you telling us about the circumstances surrounding your sudden departure from your previous affiliation?"
Todd looked embarrassed a moment, sighed, then said, "It'd like this, man: the last few weeks I've been getting treated really badly, and I mean more than normal. So then, I found out this morning that Wanda had left, permanently. So I figured, what's the point in staying?" He looked around at all of them, Logan wearing no emotion but Toad could tell he still thought that he was a slime ball. "Look I'm really serious. I wanna turn over a new leaf, be one of you guys." He paused. "Plus I really dig the costumes."
Jean snorted, Logan and Kitty rolled their eyes, and Scott shook his head and smiled, while Kurt just kept on munching the last bit of his popcorn.
"Alright then, Todd," the Prof. finally said, appearing satisfied with his answer, "welcome to the Xavier Institute.and the X-Men." Todd smiled appreciatively at the Prof. With a sudden change of tone, however, the Prof. said, "All of you, please join me in my study right now." And he exited the room heading to his study down the hall, leaving everyone except Jean looking questioningly back at him, and Kurt getting ready to *bamph* back to the kitchen for some more popcorn.
The group, now including Toad, entered the study, Kurt complete with a new bowl of popcorn and situated on top of a small desk, once again munching away and gazing at the mutant detection screen, shoving handful after handful of popcorn in his mouth. The X-men looked at the screen and saw the life-sized, round about picture of a girl with curly brown hair, 15, with bright, green eyes. The Prof. took off the helmet attached to the machine as they came into the smaller room behind the bookcase.
"Her name is Olivia Bloomwood," he told them, "age 15, very smart; her powers surfaced in a club full of people in Black Towers, near the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. She's currently taking shelter in a small grove in the midst of a forest there. Her power is control over plants and their growth, but be careful because we're still not sure what kind of state she's in." He turned then and faced the younger mutants. "Kitty, Kurt, I want you to go and get Rogue and go and pick Olivia up. Take the jet and go get her before the Brotherhood does. She's very strong but very volatile now."
Toad interjected, "Hey, Professor let me go, too." Professor X turned to him, slightly confused, "I wanna make up for the way I was.I know what it's like to feel like her in that situation."
"Very well, Todd," answered the Prof., "you can go, but be careful. We don't know how she'll react to seeing more mutants. And Kurt-"Kurt looked up from his now empty second bowl of popcorn, "I suggest you go in cloak so as not to alarm her." Kurt nodded in reply and clicked the button on his cloaking device to his normal street wear.
"I'll go start the jet, Nightcrawler, you go get Rogue." Kitty told him, and with a *bamph* he was gone. "Todd, you come with me. I'll show you the jet." And they walked out of the room.
"Jean, Scott, Logan; I'm not sending you with them," the Professor started, "because I have a rumor I want you to all follow up."
Earlier that day, Kurt Wagner sleepily turned over in his dorm bed at the Xavier Institute. Sun beams shot through the half closed blinds right into his eyes, and he squeezed them shut. Ugh, he said to himself, sunlight means waking up.he groaned; but that means eating! His comprehension quickly destroyed any unhappiness that might have plagued him about waking up, and he quickly got out of bed; he got cleaned up and headed down the staircase of the school towards the dining hall, the hallways littered with clusters of chatty and giggling students filing passed him and slowing him down. "I'm really hungry." he said aloud, "I think I'll take a short cut." and with the smell of sulfur and a small*bamph*, Kurt was inside the kitchen, one of the first people by the fridge for breakfast. As he poked his head inside the doors, he grabbed everything he could get his hands on, to the dismay of the people behind him on line.
He sat down at a table with a few of his friends: Cyclops (Scott), Wolverine (Logan), Jean Grey, and Shadowcat (Kitty). "Ah, always the early bird..." said Jean playfully, "It's 10:45, Kurt." "I know." Kurt just smiled and dug into his bowl of cereal, fruit, toast, eggs, etc. The rest of the group talked on about nothing in particular, when Jean said suddenly, "The Professor wants us; now." Wolverine and Scott looked at her in slight confusion, but Kitty just looked at Kurt in slight disgust at his eating habits, which were none too charming at the moment. "C'mon, guys, I hear him." Jean urged, getting up and heading towards the door. Through a mouthful of food, Kurt asked, "Hey, Jean, are you gonna finish that?" and indicated the half eaten egg omelet on her plate. Kitty rolled her eyes and said, "C'mon, Nightcrawler, let's go." Reluctantly, Kurt left his empty plate on the table and followed the group down the hall to Professor X's office.
Kurt's stomach rumbled a little as they entered the office, and he half thought of *bamphing* back to the kitchen, but thought it best not too ignore the Prof.'s call. So, while everyone greeted the Prof. with a friendly good morning and took their seats in various chairs around the office, Kurt teleported to the top of a tall lamp, his devilish blue tail wrapped around the pole of it.
"I've called you here to tell you," he began what was going to be the classic "you have new mission" speech as Kurt liked to call them. With a sideways glance from the Prof., Kurt blushed a little at being caught thinking this and curled a little tighter around the lamp. "We're going to be having a new member coming to our school quite soon." He spoke coolly, and everyone knew this was going to be a touchy subject, so they listened very closely, "we all know that he hasn't been the best.behaved mutant or a model student, but I've been tuning into his thoughts lately and it seems he's had enough with the group he's currently in." he paused and looked around; everyone was practically on the edges of their seats, even Kurt, who technically wasn't on a seat, was leaning as far forward as he could without falling off the lamp. "It' Todd from the Brotherhood."
Everyone, with the exception of Jean, who had known this since she entered the room, dropped their jaws. Kurt finally fell off the lamp, unfortunately taking it down with him, sending it crashing to the floor. But the shattering of the lamp didn't break the shock that filled the room. Logan was the first to recover and break the silence.
"You mean Toad? That Stinkboy from the Brotherhood who's always causing us problems?" Logan said almost in full disbelief. Jean turned and gave him that, "You shouldn't be talking" look and turned back to the Prof.
"Will he be coming to us, or do we have to go and get him?" Jean was seemingly unaware of how odd the Professor's statement had sounded to everyone else. Scott looked at her surprised as well, but then remembered that she was telepathic and would have known.
"He should arrive at around 8:15 tonight, but you'll need to be ready to help him should some of the Brotherhood think his departure a detriment to their order." Kurt had gotten up, a little dizzy at first, and just listened to the scenario unfold, trying not only to comprehend what was going on, but to also ignore the groan of his stomach as well.
"But why does he want to come here?" Kitty asked, still thoroughly confused.
"Because," answered the Prof., "he's simply had enough with the way the Brotherhood is run. He wants to be accepted, but no one has given him a single ounce of compassion."
"Can't imagine why."Logan murmured. Scott silenced him from any further comments with a look. Then he said, "We'll be ready by 8, Professor." The Prof. smiled and adjourned the X-.Men. as they were leaving the office, a wave of anticipation swept over them; Toad, the Toad from the Brotherhood of Mutants, who had been one of their long time enemies, was going there, to the Institute! Reasons for this swam through their minds, but were disturbed by the very loud grumbling sound of a certain someone's stomach.
"Hey, is it lunch time yet?" Kurt asked them. Everyone gawked at him with an, "I can't believe you, you just ate!" look, while Kitty just rolled her eyes and kept walking, muttering something that sounded vaguely like, "The Bottomless Pit" as she headed for her dorm room.
At 8:00, the "Rescue Group" stationed themselves around the front gate of the grounds, as the persistent light of the sun blazed in a burst of rubies and yellow diamonds juts before it would disappear behind a far off hill. Kurt *bamphed* into a tree, crunching on a cookie he swiped form the kitchen on his way there, and sat ready to signal when he saw Toad coming; the rest of the group hid in the darkening brush, their sense all alert to any sudden movements or footsteps not coming form the direction of the Institute.
At 8:16, Nightcrawler's gleaming yellow eyes shown down on the awaiting group from inside the covering of the wind-blown leaves. "He's coming," he whispered down to them; when he looked to the road again, his face flashed with a bit of nervousness. "And Quicksilver and Avalanche are right behind him!." There was a pause. "They're just teasing him," Kurt continued, sounding a bit disgusted, "otherwise they would've caught him already."
The X-Men peered out from their hiding places and saw the hopping form they knew as Toad coming as quickly as could down the lane, followed closely by a crack in the ground and a streak of silver.
"Kurt!" Cyclops called to Nightcrawler from behind a tree, "Go teleport to him, bring him back inside the gates. We'll take care of those two creeps." once again, with a *bamph* and a sulfuric scent, Kurt was at one moment in the tree, then a few feet in front of Toad. Toad stopped hopping for a moment, quite surprised, then Kurt grabbed his arm and teleported him back onto the Institute's grounds. However, before Toad could say s a single word, which would undoubtedly annoy Kurt to no end, he flicked his tail to a sensitive spot on the back of his neck; Toad fell to the ground just as if he were over-tired and Kurt kept on eye on him and the fighting, making sure no one tried to sneak passed him.
Cyclops and Shadowcat kept Avalanche at bay, with her phasing through him, avoiding his attacks, and Cyclops shooting optic blasts at him.. Wolverine and Jean were having fun picking up Quicksilver, who'd been stopped by Jean's power in mid-air, and tossing him against a tree nearby. In a few minutes, with the rumble of a small tremor and a shot of silver, the two chasers headed back to their headquarters, defeated once again.
Smiling with smug satisfaction, the X-Men turned and carried Toad into the infirmary of the Institute. Only a few minutes later did he awaken, with Professor X waiting to greet him cordially. Kurt had meanwhile *bamphed* into the kitchen for some popcorn, then back again, to see what the heck was going on.
"Good evening, Todd," the Professor said kindly, "I trust that you have safely been brought to our facilities?"
Toad was still a little white, but managed an answer: "Yeah, man, just a little shaken up, and I've got a pain in my neck." he looked accusingly sideways at Nightcrawler who stopped crunching for a second, in the middle of a mouthful to look innocently at the reprimanding eyes now upon him. He smiled weakly and dove right back into his popcorn.
"Well, Todd," the Prof. continued, "since you seem to be alright, as Beast has already assured that you have no new physical injuries, what about you telling us about the circumstances surrounding your sudden departure from your previous affiliation?"
Todd looked embarrassed a moment, sighed, then said, "It'd like this, man: the last few weeks I've been getting treated really badly, and I mean more than normal. So then, I found out this morning that Wanda had left, permanently. So I figured, what's the point in staying?" He looked around at all of them, Logan wearing no emotion but Toad could tell he still thought that he was a slime ball. "Look I'm really serious. I wanna turn over a new leaf, be one of you guys." He paused. "Plus I really dig the costumes."
Jean snorted, Logan and Kitty rolled their eyes, and Scott shook his head and smiled, while Kurt just kept on munching the last bit of his popcorn.
"Alright then, Todd," the Prof. finally said, appearing satisfied with his answer, "welcome to the Xavier Institute.and the X-Men." Todd smiled appreciatively at the Prof. With a sudden change of tone, however, the Prof. said, "All of you, please join me in my study right now." And he exited the room heading to his study down the hall, leaving everyone except Jean looking questioningly back at him, and Kurt getting ready to *bamph* back to the kitchen for some more popcorn.
The group, now including Toad, entered the study, Kurt complete with a new bowl of popcorn and situated on top of a small desk, once again munching away and gazing at the mutant detection screen, shoving handful after handful of popcorn in his mouth. The X-men looked at the screen and saw the life-sized, round about picture of a girl with curly brown hair, 15, with bright, green eyes. The Prof. took off the helmet attached to the machine as they came into the smaller room behind the bookcase.
"Her name is Olivia Bloomwood," he told them, "age 15, very smart; her powers surfaced in a club full of people in Black Towers, near the Pine Barrens in New Jersey. She's currently taking shelter in a small grove in the midst of a forest there. Her power is control over plants and their growth, but be careful because we're still not sure what kind of state she's in." He turned then and faced the younger mutants. "Kitty, Kurt, I want you to go and get Rogue and go and pick Olivia up. Take the jet and go get her before the Brotherhood does. She's very strong but very volatile now."
Toad interjected, "Hey, Professor let me go, too." Professor X turned to him, slightly confused, "I wanna make up for the way I was.I know what it's like to feel like her in that situation."
"Very well, Todd," answered the Prof., "you can go, but be careful. We don't know how she'll react to seeing more mutants. And Kurt-"Kurt looked up from his now empty second bowl of popcorn, "I suggest you go in cloak so as not to alarm her." Kurt nodded in reply and clicked the button on his cloaking device to his normal street wear.
"I'll go start the jet, Nightcrawler, you go get Rogue." Kitty told him, and with a *bamph* he was gone. "Todd, you come with me. I'll show you the jet." And they walked out of the room.
"Jean, Scott, Logan; I'm not sending you with them," the Professor started, "because I have a rumor I want you to all follow up."