Chapter 4: August 11th, 2003
Meanwhile.(this is happening as the X-Men detection screen is coming up and they're finding out about Olivia.)
Olivia surveyed the clearing in a blaze of moonlight: there were enough trees to most of the circle's edges to keep any curious people out of her new territory, except for the way she came in, of course, but she could fill that in later. A small river trickled down what was once a mountain of boulders but was now a small pile of pebbles. She did a quick chuckle to herself as she gazed at the clear flowing waters, and heard its untroubled melody dancing through the night.
"Hm. It's amazing," she began pensively, "how something full of the same life as I does not have to worry about such trivial matters as humans do. I wish it were that easy. All the waters do are flow and cycle, run along to the bigger ocean, their bigger picture. I wish our lives were that simple." She sighed and turned away from the river to begin to shape the grove to her specifications.
"Let's see.I'll need a bed, definitely." She moved her hands uncertainly at first, then brought them higher: thick vines rose form the bases of two trees, twisting and turning and forming a makeshift but very useful hammock bed. A bit amazed at how good she could already control her powers, she turned now to the small spot of earth by the river, a little bit fuller on her confidence. "I'll need something to eat.this ought to be fun." she pulled her hands forward towards the space of earth. In seconds a huge victory garden appeared as if it had been there for a decade: three huge pumpkins that could house a small child when hollowed out, six stalks of corn with gilded ears upon them, twelve cucumber plants with three foot long products and one seven foot tall apple tree with fruits the sizes of grapefruits. There were many other samples of edible goodies, but Olivia's mind turned into a new direction now as she gazed at all of her resources: What if.there was a way to grow hybrids that were never seen before? Things that normally wouldn't be possible if she weren't a mutant? Well, what was the worst that could happen?
So, full of a newer confidence she had never really known before, because she had never been the first at doing new things except in advanced gardening at school, Olivia focused all of her thoughts into the creation of a hybrid that no one had ever known before.but what would it's purpose be? To feed? To be beautiful? To heal? YES! That was it! A healing plant! She never knew what could possibly happen to her out there.alone at the very place where the Jersey Devil had supposedly been sighted several times.wait: she didn't believe in those rumors, but still.she never knew when she'd need it. So focusing all of her energy and thoughts, she lifted a hand and closed her eyes. I need a plant, she said softly to herself, which combines all the healing elements of every plant.as she thought these things, there was a slight rumble in the patch of earth that was left in the victory garden, and soon a shoot popped out of the ground. It looked like a mix between a rosebush and an aloe vera plant, but mostly aloe vera.
Olivia felt something complete in her, and she slowly cracked an eye open. What faced her was a plant with small white buds and tentacle like appendages coming out from the base of which looked like a rosebush.
"I did it." she said triumphantly out loud, "I actually did it!" beaming with pride, Olivia walked over to her plant, and stroked its soft, white petals. They were smooth as glass but as soft as silk. But then a cloud of doubt appeared in her mind: what if it doesn't heal though? It may look like a hybrid, but can it perform the tasks of a super healing plant? To prove-or disprove- to herself that this plant was the real thing, she called a vine from the earth. A bit fearfully, she formed it into a sharp point with an almost razor edge, and commanded it to slash across her cheek. In a blaze of slight pain a red scrape appeared on Olivia's face and blood oozed from the wound. Grabbing one of the flowers, almost in a panicking way, she crushed it into her fist and felt it become a sort of liquid goop; she winced in pain at her movements and pushed her fist onto the cut and rubbed in the juices of the plant deeply into her skin. The pain vanished almost the same moment the juices touched her cheek, and she could have sworn that she felt the skin weave itself back together. Wanting to know the exact results of her hybrid, Olivia shuffled over to the stream and cautiously peeked at her reflection; a smudge of blood was strewn across her cheek, so she wiped it away with the back of her hand, and, to her immense relief and surprise, there was nothing left of the gash but a faint red coloration on her skin. Her glory was sort-of short lived tough as she gazed into the eyes of her manifestation in the stream. "My eyes." she stared in half horror and amazement, "what happened to my eyes!!!" The whites of her eyes looked as if a two year old had colored the inside of her eyes like a drawing with an olive green crayon, and shown as a background for the deeper green of her irises. She then saw that her arms had grown these green, leafy-like coverings, thin, but still very visible compared to her once pale arms. Her breath quickened and her face contracted into fear and shame, but then she remembered that no one was going to see her again, if she could help it, so why worry about it? As she relaxed a little bit she noticed too that her fingernails seemed to have grown a permanent layer of morphing green polish. Not even bothering to take it off, she stepped over to her hammock and sank into the vines; it was not a very comfortable fit, so she got up again and called for a moss growth on top of the vines. With a new mattress of moss to comfort her, she sank down again into the vine hammock. After a few moments of tossing and turning, she realized she wasn't at all sleepy; in fact she couldn't even have been more awake. Well, you know you can't stay here forever, said a reasoning voice in her head, what will you do when someone finally stumbles onto your.ingenious hideout? Another voice said, she's right you know. You can't live without human contact forever. You'll go insane! You don't know what you'd do after being alone here for, say, 10 years and then some innocent little kid stumbles upon your secret? What would you do? "I hate these voices of reason.always ruining my ideas" Olivia grumbled. "I hate it when they're right." "Well, you must know they are, since you're hating them that much." Said a voice from the grove entrance. Olivia turned very startled and looked to the voice's owner.
Back at the Institute, Shadowcat began starting the jet while Toad situated himself in a passenger seat. She looked over her shoulder. ".Are you okay?" she asked him; he was getting pale and his hands were clenched to white on the armrests. He quivered a little. "I don't really like flying." he stammered nervously, and he gulped loudly as the engines began to kick on. Kitty chuckled to herself and turned back to the controls. There was a * bamph * next to Toad, causing him to jump out of his almost a foot into the air, and Kurt appeared, rubbing the back of his head. "What happened to you?" Kitty asked him. "Ask her." Kurt answered in a sort of miserable tone as Rogue boarded the jet. She looked annoyed, and gave him a "drop dead" glare in Kurt's direction. He slinked away, avoiding the full blast of her stare, and seated himself into one of the pilot seats. "The Blue Genius over there teleported into my room while I was reading," Rogue started, her voice laced with normal annoyance, "he was hanging by his tail right over my head and when I saw him he nearly gave me a heart attack, so I hit on the back of the head with my book." She crossed her arms, sat down in a chair, and looked out the window. Kitty giggled and Kurt wore a hurt look as he continued to sooth the small lump on hi head. Toad managed a weak smile. "It's not that funny." he said, looking for sympathy, "She was reading War and Pace.hard cover." Kitty and Todd laughed harder as a smug sort of smile crossed Rogue's lips. Finding no comfort, Kurt reached into his backpack, pulled out a bag of chips and began to chow down once more. With Kurt and Kitty at the controls, the jet took off into the night, with Toad holding onto the armrests for dear life, wide eyed and sweating. During the trip, Kurt pulled a few barrel rolls and loop the loops in the night sky, increasing Toad's uncomforting feelings. Finally, Kitty scolded- "Kurt, normally I wouldn't mind, but if he pukes on the floor because of you, you're cleaning it up." Not really wanting to, Nightcrawler ceased in performing the various tricks the jet was capable of. After a while of quiet between all of them, Kurt finally broke the silence. "So.you think she'll be nice? She looked kind of pretty." Everyone turned to look at him, his animal-like feet on the steering apparatus, piloting the jet. With the exception of Toad, who could do no more than keep his eyes towards the floor and cockpit as the jet flew onward; everyone turned to him and smirked. "What?" he asked, removing his feet from the wheel. "Aaaaahh!!! What are you doing?!" Toad asked, practically jumping out of his skin. Kurt rolled his eyes and continued steering, thinking, Well, she was kind of cute. By the time Kurt had finished his second bag of chips and was halfway through his third jumbo cookie, the mutants were preparing to land in an isolated area of forest in Black Towers, near where Olivia had her hiding place. On a small video screen, the Professor suddenly appeared. "Excellent. Good work, kids. Alright, according to the coordinates of the locator, she should be taking rest directly north of here, maybe a few hundred yards. I have received information though," he continued sounding a little grave, "there is another mutant there with her. There appears to be no hostility, but be careful. Inform me when you have them both on board the jet." "Okay Prof." They all answered. The image on the screen zapped out and they walked out of the jet, Toad very grateful for it. Kitty took out a compass, searched for north, and walked through the dark vegetation. The light from their flashlight seemed like a firefly in the vastness of the dark foliage, but soon they saw narrow shafts of light through breaks in the trees ahead. Kurt got a little nervous as they came closer to the clearing where there were two new mutants- wait, the Professor had not mentioned the power of the other mutant! What if it made things explode from the inside out? Or made it so you couldn't ever eat again? AAAAHHHHH!!! Now that was a fate worse than death for Kurt. But in his mind he knew that he'd be ok. Professor X wouldn't have let them go if the mutant was too dangerous for them to handle.would he? "No, Kurt, I wouldn't." Came the Professor's voice inside his head. He jumped a little at hearing this, but came to himself when he realized that he would be separated from the rest of the group. He quickly * bamphed * up to them. "So, what's this chick like anyway?" Toad asked, seemingly not scared of being in the Pine Barrens. "This 'chick,' as you so delicately put it, Toad," Rogue said, "happens to be a very powerful mutant. And I think you should keep your.uh, tongue civil towards her, because we don't want to upset her anymore than she probably is." Kurt scowled in the darkness behind Todd at his choice of words. Chick? He though to himself, does this guy have any manners? Kitty's voice brought him out of his mind scolding of Toad- "Shhh! We're there." Through shafts between the trees, they saw the clearing: the clear stream tumbling over the rocks, an impressive victory garden grown nearby, and two vine hammocks situated next to each other across the glade; there was a shadowy spot that no one seemed to notice where a glowing pair of green and brown eyes stared out of the darkness. "Alright, these trees are too thick to walk through. Kurt, you take Toad, I'll take Rogue, and we'll meet you right on the other side. Try and find a way in without using your powers ok?" "Fine," he said, a little disheartened at not being able to impress the new recruits with his teleporting abilities. "Are you really gonna leave me with this guy?" Toad whined. "Get going, you two!" Rogue growled, "Or I'll drain you and leave you here." Reluctantly the two mutants set off to the left of the circle of trees. Walking along the perimeter, they found no way in, until they met Kitty and Rogue waiting for them almost a full circle around where they started. "Why didn't you tell us?" Kurt asked them, a little annoyed now at having to walk all that way and having nothing to eat. "Because they would have heard us," Kitty told him, looking through the trees, ".if they're even in there. I don't know I can't see a thing. Can you, Rogue?" "Nothing. Let's go, thought. Slowly." Cautiously, the group stepped into the circle of moonlight; they were about to call out to the hiding mutants but were stopped with amazement in seeing the hybrid super healing plant by the river. Letting their guard down, they walked over to it curiously and touched the strange mix of rose buds and aloe vera stems. "What is this thing?" Toad asked, half disgusted half very curious. "I have no idea."Kitty and Rogue said together. ".Wonder if you can eat it." Kurt said to himself. Everyone looked in his direction, but he didn't notice. His attention was now turned to the shadows nearby; he could have sworn that he heard whispers, but. He walked over there guardedly, motioning for the others to follow. As he was about to enter the darkness, two pairs of eyes gleamed to life from their hiding spaces; completely taken aback, Night crawler jumped, then * bamphed * as a huge vine came swinging out of the shade. Unfortunately, Toad was not as quick and was quite surprised to find himself pinned against a tree. Kurt appeared across the glade in a tree branch, but the eyes didn't seem to notice his disappearance and had gone for Rogue as she came closer as well; Kitty went off to help Toad, if she could. Too bad Rogue wasn't that fast either, because she was soon pinned next to Toad, squirming and yelling to be freed. Then, a sonic sort of sound washed from the darkness and a rumble came from the opening of trees; a huge stag charged into the circle, and with the sound of another sonic tone, the stag turned its head to Kitty, and charge at her. She phased through him the first time, but then preceded to the lowest branch she could get to and climbed up in it. Kurt, in the meanwhile, jumped down from the tree and addressed the shadows. "Hey! Olivia! Olivia Bloomwood, we know you're in there." The green set of eyes turned to him, while the brown focused on the stag; Kurt gulped a little. "We're not here to hurt you; we want to help you, both of you! We're mutants, too!" There were muffled whisperings in the dark then, the green eyes turned towards the brown but the brown stayed focused. "What if they speak the truth?" asked the green. "No, they can't possibly be mutants," the brown said "they don't even look like us." "But what if they are?" "There's no way!" "I do look different!" Kurt spoke up, and reached down to turn off his cloak. Seeing this, the green eyes widened and sent another thick vine in Kurt's direction; looking up at the wrong moment, Kurt dodged it, but the plant took a slight hit at his cloaking device. It buzzed and sparked a moment, and when the vine came back for another swing, destined this time to hit him, something happened: Nightcrawler's cloak turned off, and he became the little, blue devilish creature he so looked like. Cringing before the vine, Kurt realized that the vine had stopped right before his face, and slowly began retracting. Both pairs of eyes turned to him in bewilderment, and the stag backed down from the tree where Kitty was stranded, looked to the shadows for another sonic beep, and then turned to gallop off into the woods. Slowly, Kitty phased down from the tree, and the vines holding Toad and Rogue released them and sank back into the earth. As Kitty ran to them, Kurt stood in the clearing, embarrassed at having to be seen like this, but then the eyes began to move forward out of the dark. Olivia stepped out first, her completely green eyes now lightened in the moonlight; followed by a girl a little shorter than her with brown eyes, wavy, long brown hair, glasses and a hat that covered the top of her head. They were still staring amazed at Kurt. Finally, breaking the stares, Olivia spoke: "My name is Olivia Bloomwood," she began, in almost a solemn voice. They knew this but they didn't want to interrupt her as she continued, "And this is one of my best friends, Julia Friden." "We're very sorry that we attacked you," began Julia, in pure earnest, "we just didn't know what to do. We figured that no one could find this place if they weren't looking, at least we hoped that, so we thought you had come looking for Olivia." "Well, we were," Kitty said, "originally, but now we came for both of you; but in a good way!" she answered quickly at their slightly troubled stares. "We're from a Mutant Institute up in New York." Rogue continued, "a man named Charles Xavier runs it; it's like a boarding house for mutant people like us. I'm Rogue, by the way." "Kitty, call me Shadowcat." ".Todd. Call me Toad" "I'm Kurt; Nightcrawler." He looked mainly at Olivia, who in turned stole a quick look at him, and blushed and looked away. "Call me Persephone." Olivia said "I'd tell you to call me Doolittle but that would be too cliché." Julia said, and that seemed to ease the intense atmosphere. "I'm Soniker."
*Author's notes: Soniker is short for sonic speaker, because that's how she talks to the animals!!! Don't worry they'll be another chapter soon as I can make one, but please review in the meantime! Thanks!
Meanwhile.(this is happening as the X-Men detection screen is coming up and they're finding out about Olivia.)
Olivia surveyed the clearing in a blaze of moonlight: there were enough trees to most of the circle's edges to keep any curious people out of her new territory, except for the way she came in, of course, but she could fill that in later. A small river trickled down what was once a mountain of boulders but was now a small pile of pebbles. She did a quick chuckle to herself as she gazed at the clear flowing waters, and heard its untroubled melody dancing through the night.
"Hm. It's amazing," she began pensively, "how something full of the same life as I does not have to worry about such trivial matters as humans do. I wish it were that easy. All the waters do are flow and cycle, run along to the bigger ocean, their bigger picture. I wish our lives were that simple." She sighed and turned away from the river to begin to shape the grove to her specifications.
"Let's see.I'll need a bed, definitely." She moved her hands uncertainly at first, then brought them higher: thick vines rose form the bases of two trees, twisting and turning and forming a makeshift but very useful hammock bed. A bit amazed at how good she could already control her powers, she turned now to the small spot of earth by the river, a little bit fuller on her confidence. "I'll need something to eat.this ought to be fun." she pulled her hands forward towards the space of earth. In seconds a huge victory garden appeared as if it had been there for a decade: three huge pumpkins that could house a small child when hollowed out, six stalks of corn with gilded ears upon them, twelve cucumber plants with three foot long products and one seven foot tall apple tree with fruits the sizes of grapefruits. There were many other samples of edible goodies, but Olivia's mind turned into a new direction now as she gazed at all of her resources: What if.there was a way to grow hybrids that were never seen before? Things that normally wouldn't be possible if she weren't a mutant? Well, what was the worst that could happen?
So, full of a newer confidence she had never really known before, because she had never been the first at doing new things except in advanced gardening at school, Olivia focused all of her thoughts into the creation of a hybrid that no one had ever known before.but what would it's purpose be? To feed? To be beautiful? To heal? YES! That was it! A healing plant! She never knew what could possibly happen to her out there.alone at the very place where the Jersey Devil had supposedly been sighted several times.wait: she didn't believe in those rumors, but still.she never knew when she'd need it. So focusing all of her energy and thoughts, she lifted a hand and closed her eyes. I need a plant, she said softly to herself, which combines all the healing elements of every plant.as she thought these things, there was a slight rumble in the patch of earth that was left in the victory garden, and soon a shoot popped out of the ground. It looked like a mix between a rosebush and an aloe vera plant, but mostly aloe vera.
Olivia felt something complete in her, and she slowly cracked an eye open. What faced her was a plant with small white buds and tentacle like appendages coming out from the base of which looked like a rosebush.
"I did it." she said triumphantly out loud, "I actually did it!" beaming with pride, Olivia walked over to her plant, and stroked its soft, white petals. They were smooth as glass but as soft as silk. But then a cloud of doubt appeared in her mind: what if it doesn't heal though? It may look like a hybrid, but can it perform the tasks of a super healing plant? To prove-or disprove- to herself that this plant was the real thing, she called a vine from the earth. A bit fearfully, she formed it into a sharp point with an almost razor edge, and commanded it to slash across her cheek. In a blaze of slight pain a red scrape appeared on Olivia's face and blood oozed from the wound. Grabbing one of the flowers, almost in a panicking way, she crushed it into her fist and felt it become a sort of liquid goop; she winced in pain at her movements and pushed her fist onto the cut and rubbed in the juices of the plant deeply into her skin. The pain vanished almost the same moment the juices touched her cheek, and she could have sworn that she felt the skin weave itself back together. Wanting to know the exact results of her hybrid, Olivia shuffled over to the stream and cautiously peeked at her reflection; a smudge of blood was strewn across her cheek, so she wiped it away with the back of her hand, and, to her immense relief and surprise, there was nothing left of the gash but a faint red coloration on her skin. Her glory was sort-of short lived tough as she gazed into the eyes of her manifestation in the stream. "My eyes." she stared in half horror and amazement, "what happened to my eyes!!!" The whites of her eyes looked as if a two year old had colored the inside of her eyes like a drawing with an olive green crayon, and shown as a background for the deeper green of her irises. She then saw that her arms had grown these green, leafy-like coverings, thin, but still very visible compared to her once pale arms. Her breath quickened and her face contracted into fear and shame, but then she remembered that no one was going to see her again, if she could help it, so why worry about it? As she relaxed a little bit she noticed too that her fingernails seemed to have grown a permanent layer of morphing green polish. Not even bothering to take it off, she stepped over to her hammock and sank into the vines; it was not a very comfortable fit, so she got up again and called for a moss growth on top of the vines. With a new mattress of moss to comfort her, she sank down again into the vine hammock. After a few moments of tossing and turning, she realized she wasn't at all sleepy; in fact she couldn't even have been more awake. Well, you know you can't stay here forever, said a reasoning voice in her head, what will you do when someone finally stumbles onto your.ingenious hideout? Another voice said, she's right you know. You can't live without human contact forever. You'll go insane! You don't know what you'd do after being alone here for, say, 10 years and then some innocent little kid stumbles upon your secret? What would you do? "I hate these voices of reason.always ruining my ideas" Olivia grumbled. "I hate it when they're right." "Well, you must know they are, since you're hating them that much." Said a voice from the grove entrance. Olivia turned very startled and looked to the voice's owner.
Back at the Institute, Shadowcat began starting the jet while Toad situated himself in a passenger seat. She looked over her shoulder. ".Are you okay?" she asked him; he was getting pale and his hands were clenched to white on the armrests. He quivered a little. "I don't really like flying." he stammered nervously, and he gulped loudly as the engines began to kick on. Kitty chuckled to herself and turned back to the controls. There was a * bamph * next to Toad, causing him to jump out of his almost a foot into the air, and Kurt appeared, rubbing the back of his head. "What happened to you?" Kitty asked him. "Ask her." Kurt answered in a sort of miserable tone as Rogue boarded the jet. She looked annoyed, and gave him a "drop dead" glare in Kurt's direction. He slinked away, avoiding the full blast of her stare, and seated himself into one of the pilot seats. "The Blue Genius over there teleported into my room while I was reading," Rogue started, her voice laced with normal annoyance, "he was hanging by his tail right over my head and when I saw him he nearly gave me a heart attack, so I hit on the back of the head with my book." She crossed her arms, sat down in a chair, and looked out the window. Kitty giggled and Kurt wore a hurt look as he continued to sooth the small lump on hi head. Toad managed a weak smile. "It's not that funny." he said, looking for sympathy, "She was reading War and Pace.hard cover." Kitty and Todd laughed harder as a smug sort of smile crossed Rogue's lips. Finding no comfort, Kurt reached into his backpack, pulled out a bag of chips and began to chow down once more. With Kurt and Kitty at the controls, the jet took off into the night, with Toad holding onto the armrests for dear life, wide eyed and sweating. During the trip, Kurt pulled a few barrel rolls and loop the loops in the night sky, increasing Toad's uncomforting feelings. Finally, Kitty scolded- "Kurt, normally I wouldn't mind, but if he pukes on the floor because of you, you're cleaning it up." Not really wanting to, Nightcrawler ceased in performing the various tricks the jet was capable of. After a while of quiet between all of them, Kurt finally broke the silence. "So.you think she'll be nice? She looked kind of pretty." Everyone turned to look at him, his animal-like feet on the steering apparatus, piloting the jet. With the exception of Toad, who could do no more than keep his eyes towards the floor and cockpit as the jet flew onward; everyone turned to him and smirked. "What?" he asked, removing his feet from the wheel. "Aaaaahh!!! What are you doing?!" Toad asked, practically jumping out of his skin. Kurt rolled his eyes and continued steering, thinking, Well, she was kind of cute. By the time Kurt had finished his second bag of chips and was halfway through his third jumbo cookie, the mutants were preparing to land in an isolated area of forest in Black Towers, near where Olivia had her hiding place. On a small video screen, the Professor suddenly appeared. "Excellent. Good work, kids. Alright, according to the coordinates of the locator, she should be taking rest directly north of here, maybe a few hundred yards. I have received information though," he continued sounding a little grave, "there is another mutant there with her. There appears to be no hostility, but be careful. Inform me when you have them both on board the jet." "Okay Prof." They all answered. The image on the screen zapped out and they walked out of the jet, Toad very grateful for it. Kitty took out a compass, searched for north, and walked through the dark vegetation. The light from their flashlight seemed like a firefly in the vastness of the dark foliage, but soon they saw narrow shafts of light through breaks in the trees ahead. Kurt got a little nervous as they came closer to the clearing where there were two new mutants- wait, the Professor had not mentioned the power of the other mutant! What if it made things explode from the inside out? Or made it so you couldn't ever eat again? AAAAHHHHH!!! Now that was a fate worse than death for Kurt. But in his mind he knew that he'd be ok. Professor X wouldn't have let them go if the mutant was too dangerous for them to handle.would he? "No, Kurt, I wouldn't." Came the Professor's voice inside his head. He jumped a little at hearing this, but came to himself when he realized that he would be separated from the rest of the group. He quickly * bamphed * up to them. "So, what's this chick like anyway?" Toad asked, seemingly not scared of being in the Pine Barrens. "This 'chick,' as you so delicately put it, Toad," Rogue said, "happens to be a very powerful mutant. And I think you should keep your.uh, tongue civil towards her, because we don't want to upset her anymore than she probably is." Kurt scowled in the darkness behind Todd at his choice of words. Chick? He though to himself, does this guy have any manners? Kitty's voice brought him out of his mind scolding of Toad- "Shhh! We're there." Through shafts between the trees, they saw the clearing: the clear stream tumbling over the rocks, an impressive victory garden grown nearby, and two vine hammocks situated next to each other across the glade; there was a shadowy spot that no one seemed to notice where a glowing pair of green and brown eyes stared out of the darkness. "Alright, these trees are too thick to walk through. Kurt, you take Toad, I'll take Rogue, and we'll meet you right on the other side. Try and find a way in without using your powers ok?" "Fine," he said, a little disheartened at not being able to impress the new recruits with his teleporting abilities. "Are you really gonna leave me with this guy?" Toad whined. "Get going, you two!" Rogue growled, "Or I'll drain you and leave you here." Reluctantly the two mutants set off to the left of the circle of trees. Walking along the perimeter, they found no way in, until they met Kitty and Rogue waiting for them almost a full circle around where they started. "Why didn't you tell us?" Kurt asked them, a little annoyed now at having to walk all that way and having nothing to eat. "Because they would have heard us," Kitty told him, looking through the trees, ".if they're even in there. I don't know I can't see a thing. Can you, Rogue?" "Nothing. Let's go, thought. Slowly." Cautiously, the group stepped into the circle of moonlight; they were about to call out to the hiding mutants but were stopped with amazement in seeing the hybrid super healing plant by the river. Letting their guard down, they walked over to it curiously and touched the strange mix of rose buds and aloe vera stems. "What is this thing?" Toad asked, half disgusted half very curious. "I have no idea."Kitty and Rogue said together. ".Wonder if you can eat it." Kurt said to himself. Everyone looked in his direction, but he didn't notice. His attention was now turned to the shadows nearby; he could have sworn that he heard whispers, but. He walked over there guardedly, motioning for the others to follow. As he was about to enter the darkness, two pairs of eyes gleamed to life from their hiding spaces; completely taken aback, Night crawler jumped, then * bamphed * as a huge vine came swinging out of the shade. Unfortunately, Toad was not as quick and was quite surprised to find himself pinned against a tree. Kurt appeared across the glade in a tree branch, but the eyes didn't seem to notice his disappearance and had gone for Rogue as she came closer as well; Kitty went off to help Toad, if she could. Too bad Rogue wasn't that fast either, because she was soon pinned next to Toad, squirming and yelling to be freed. Then, a sonic sort of sound washed from the darkness and a rumble came from the opening of trees; a huge stag charged into the circle, and with the sound of another sonic tone, the stag turned its head to Kitty, and charge at her. She phased through him the first time, but then preceded to the lowest branch she could get to and climbed up in it. Kurt, in the meanwhile, jumped down from the tree and addressed the shadows. "Hey! Olivia! Olivia Bloomwood, we know you're in there." The green set of eyes turned to him, while the brown focused on the stag; Kurt gulped a little. "We're not here to hurt you; we want to help you, both of you! We're mutants, too!" There were muffled whisperings in the dark then, the green eyes turned towards the brown but the brown stayed focused. "What if they speak the truth?" asked the green. "No, they can't possibly be mutants," the brown said "they don't even look like us." "But what if they are?" "There's no way!" "I do look different!" Kurt spoke up, and reached down to turn off his cloak. Seeing this, the green eyes widened and sent another thick vine in Kurt's direction; looking up at the wrong moment, Kurt dodged it, but the plant took a slight hit at his cloaking device. It buzzed and sparked a moment, and when the vine came back for another swing, destined this time to hit him, something happened: Nightcrawler's cloak turned off, and he became the little, blue devilish creature he so looked like. Cringing before the vine, Kurt realized that the vine had stopped right before his face, and slowly began retracting. Both pairs of eyes turned to him in bewilderment, and the stag backed down from the tree where Kitty was stranded, looked to the shadows for another sonic beep, and then turned to gallop off into the woods. Slowly, Kitty phased down from the tree, and the vines holding Toad and Rogue released them and sank back into the earth. As Kitty ran to them, Kurt stood in the clearing, embarrassed at having to be seen like this, but then the eyes began to move forward out of the dark. Olivia stepped out first, her completely green eyes now lightened in the moonlight; followed by a girl a little shorter than her with brown eyes, wavy, long brown hair, glasses and a hat that covered the top of her head. They were still staring amazed at Kurt. Finally, breaking the stares, Olivia spoke: "My name is Olivia Bloomwood," she began, in almost a solemn voice. They knew this but they didn't want to interrupt her as she continued, "And this is one of my best friends, Julia Friden." "We're very sorry that we attacked you," began Julia, in pure earnest, "we just didn't know what to do. We figured that no one could find this place if they weren't looking, at least we hoped that, so we thought you had come looking for Olivia." "Well, we were," Kitty said, "originally, but now we came for both of you; but in a good way!" she answered quickly at their slightly troubled stares. "We're from a Mutant Institute up in New York." Rogue continued, "a man named Charles Xavier runs it; it's like a boarding house for mutant people like us. I'm Rogue, by the way." "Kitty, call me Shadowcat." ".Todd. Call me Toad" "I'm Kurt; Nightcrawler." He looked mainly at Olivia, who in turned stole a quick look at him, and blushed and looked away. "Call me Persephone." Olivia said "I'd tell you to call me Doolittle but that would be too cliché." Julia said, and that seemed to ease the intense atmosphere. "I'm Soniker."
*Author's notes: Soniker is short for sonic speaker, because that's how she talks to the animals!!! Don't worry they'll be another chapter soon as I can make one, but please review in the meantime! Thanks!