Tabitha smiled, stretching out her limbs as she wrapped a towel around herself. Hot water, especially a good shower, never failed to get her in a good mood. She brushed her hair, the towel wrapped around her body under her armpits as she prepared herself. The soccer game had been loads of fun, even without powers. DeCosta had won, big surprise there. The Brazilian had soccer in his blood, or so he kept saying. Tabitha smirked to herself as she tied her hair up into the two ponytail/puffs on either side of her head she'd adopted recently, after they had thought it looked better on her.
Tabitha sighed blissfully. If someone had told her, two years ago, even one year ago, she was going to fall in love, she'd have laughed in the persons face. Love wasn't real. Her parents certainly hadn't been in love. They hadn't loved her either. Well, at least her dad didn't. Her mom... Tabitha wasn't too sure about. But why waste your time worrying about love? Look at what it'd done to poor saps like Scott, or Rogue, or Jean. They were miserable because of love. Kurt was doing rather well... and for that Tabitha was secretly thankful. He deserved someone better than her.
So it'd come to her as quite a shock when, one day, she'd fallen in love herself.
With Amara.
She doubted Amara knew. The girl was too sweet and innocent. And back on the pleasure cruise, the one time they'd been closest, they'd spent more time rescuing islanders and fighting the volcano. She'd felt the affection back when they'd first teamed up as the Bayville Syrens with Jean, Kitty and Rogue. But it was when Amara had flown up out of the volcano, her body magma, her hair flame, her eyes the most sparkling emerald she'd ever seen... Tabitha had known then it was love. She was everything Tabitha pretended to be. Kind, fun-loving, innocent to the darkness of the world and the sort of pain it could bring. But whereas Tabitha's was a mask, Amara's welled up from her soul.
Tabitha smiled, dancing to a beat in her head as she exited the women's bathroom and danced down the hallway to her room to get dressed. Fortunately (or unfortunately) no one saw her clad in only a towel. Her room was as she'd left it. It'd been briefly given to Jubilee after she'd left, but after the 'mutants coming out' event, Jubilee had left, and she'd taken it up again. She lived at the Institute, since her mother could barely support herself and her dad was in jail. But she was no longer part of the X-Man team. Maybe someday she would be again, but for now it still wasn't a good fit.
She quickly dressed, picking her shorts and slacks because of the early summer heat, and headed downstairs to join the others in the living room.
With Amara.
"Hey girl," she said with a smile, plopping down on the seat next to Amara. The dark haired islander smiled up at her, and inwardly, Tabitha felt herself melt. She was so pretty. But outwardly she seemed unaffected, as the two of them sat back together with the others for a post-game movie. Unfortunately it had been Ray's turn to make a selection, and he'd settled on yet another screening of violence, gore and explosives. Without poor Jamie present, of course. He was way to young.
So Tabitha snuggled up a little closer to Amara as they watched the movie, who didn't seem to mind at all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wanda had just finished scrounging through the fridge to find some decent salad (Kitty's, in all likelihood) and handed it and a fork to Stall, who sat down and started to shovel the food into her tiny mouth like she was starved. Wanda smiled at that, grabbing a coke from the fridge and popping it open, taking a long, deep chug to ease her thirst. The weather outside was getting abysmal, she thought. But then again she'd always preferred it cool.
A sudden screech caught her attention, and she and Stall both turned to see a small, brown-haired boy by the entrance, gawking at them both. One of the new recruits, she recognized, though she was at a loss to identify him.
"Y... y... you..." he stuttered, backing up fearfully from Wanda.
"Relax kid I was invited... I'm not here to hurt anyone," she said, sipping her coke again.
"But you're the Scarlet Witch, aren't you?" he asked again.
"I am. But I am as powerless as you are right now, I imagine," she said, dropping her empty can on the counter and making her way over towards him in a non-threatening manner. "Name's Wanda... Wanda Maximoff. What's yours?"
"Jamie," he replied quietly.
"Nice to meet you Jamie. This is Stall..." she said, waving her hand back at the other girl, who had just finished her salad. She waved, smiling, and Jamie slowly waved back.
"If... if you're not here to attack us, why are you here?" he asked, staring up at her curiously.
"Me? I got stuck with babysitting Stall," said Wanda as she sat down at the head of the small kitchen table next to her charge. Jamie sat down across from her. "The others should be back soon."
"The Brotherhood is coming here?" he asked, his eyes widening in shock.
"Well we all don't have our powers," she stated. "I don't think its too much for us to stay in a nice, defended mansion instead of that hell hole that Mystique abandoned us in."
Jamie had no reply to that. Wanda sighed.
"Look I'm sorry for snapping at you... losing my powers has put me on edge."
"I'm rather enjoying it," he said with a smile. Wanda raised an eyebrow.
"Why's that?"
"Oh I can't control my powers yet..."
"And what is it you do, Jamie?" she asked. She dimly recalled some of the other mutants powers from her brief encounters, but she'd never seen the kid do anything unusual other than run.
"I can... uh... create clones of myself," he said with a smile. "Happens whenever I get hit... or something hits me."
"So if you fall down the stairs...?"
"There's usually about six of me by the time we hit the bottom," he replied with a little chuckle. Wanda laughed too, amused at the mental imagery.
"What about you?" he asked suddenly, catching her by surprise. "All the older students say you're dangerous, but they can't explain why."
"According to my mentor," stated Wanda. "My power allows me to manipulate probability. Like that can," she said, pointing to her discarded coke can, still sitting on the counter. "See what its doing?"
"Just sitting there," replied Jamie, glancing at the can then back at Wanda.
"Right now it is. But if I were to hex it," she said with a waggled finger to demonstrate. "And my powers still worked, it would change. There is a small probability, right now, that a gust of wind will push it over. Or it'll explode, or catch fire. Any number of things. It even works on mutant powers, normally. And if I concentrate long enough, I can even control what happens."
"So... you can make things have bad luck?" asked Jamie, his eyes widening in curiosity.
"Something like that," she replied with a chuckle.
Suddenly a soft whoosh sound was heard and Jamie jumped up, running to the window to look at the sky, where he spotted the Blackbird flying overhead on a curved ark, angling around to head in the waterfall entrance underground.
"They're back... I gotta go," he said, running off. "Nice talking to you Wanda!"
"Nice talking to you too Jamie," she said with a smile.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Let me guess. Batman designed this place?"
Scott grumbled as he moved past Gambit and started with Jean to roll their unconscious guest to the elevator. Gambit was seriously starting to wear on his nerves. But as the elevator reached the bottom floor, Jamie burst out, immediately running over towards the Professor. He barely paid any attention to the Acolytes, he seemed to have something big to say, so Scott and Jean lingered.
"Professor! Professor!"
"Yes, Jamie... please calm down. What is it?" asked Xavier quietly.
"That Scarlet Witch lady is here... she upstairs in the kitchen!" he stated breathlessly, taking a few quick gulps after his long run down.
"Oh?" asked Xavier, his expression one of genuine surprise. He and Eric exchanged a glance.
"I will see to her Charles..." he stated, brooking no room for argument.
"They're as welcome here as you are, Eric," replied Professor X as he wheeled his chair forward alongside his friend. Scott and Jean took the cue, using the elevator first to escort Jason to the medical bay with Hank and Ororo, where he'd be in good hands. The others, including Jamie, remained for the second ride.
"So who are you, little man?" asked Gambit with a smile, leaning on his staff.
"Jamie sir," he replied, immediately trusting the strange man. If the Professor had brought them here they must be friends.
"Remy LeBeau, at your service," the stranger replied. "The big, quiet guy here is Piotr, that fellow's Victor, and the little nut in the back playing with his lighter is John."
"Nice to meet all of you," said Jamie, though he did not think it so nice to meet the fellow called Victor. He looked vicious... and vaguely familiar.
The elevator arrived on the ground floor of the mansion quickly enough, and the others piled out.
"Go amuse yourselves," stated the white-haired man in the black coat with a wave of his hand. "You will be summoned if needed."
"Alroight! Party time!" shouted the redhead a laugh as he took off down the hallway with all the glee of a kid in a candy shop. The others shook their heads and rolled their eyes, as if this sort of thing happened every day, and split up to find their own particular methods of amusement.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rogue, Kitty, Evan and the Brotherhood made for a tight fit, even in X-Van, and most of the blame was placed squarely on the hefty shoulders of the Blob, who was sitting in the back and crushing Todd and Lance, to either side of him. Despite Pietro's protests to ride in front with Rogue (receiving a second smack to the opposite side of his face) he found himself in the middle with Kitty. Evan rode shotgun.
"This woulda gonna quicker if ya'll hadn't wasted so much time getting' your stuff. Its not like you're not comin' back," stated Rogue as she started up the car and headed out of the meager driveway of the Brotherhood Boarding House.
"Hey, Wanda needs those things," said Todd defensively.
"Yeah, like the negligee," grumbled Lance under his breath.
Rogue rolled her eyes. It'd been over a year, and the Brotherhood hadn't changed at all. They were still the same immature, stupid clods they always had been. She was very glad she'd finally gotten away from them before she ended up as dumb as they were.
Rogue took the short route back to the Institute, her eyes alert for danger. Though no one had attacked the Brotherhood, she'd heard about the attack on Kurt and Scott. It had happened without warning, so she wanted to be ready in case it happened again. Thankfully, there proved to be no need, and the X-Van rolled up to the Institute without so much as a traffic jam or car accident, despite it already getting late. The sun was starting to set, coating the sky in brilliant purples, reds and oranges. Rogue smiled.
Nature had been her refuge the past many months. Though her touch drained the life from any living human, she had no such affect on any other animal or organism. She wasn't quite sure about non-human humanoids, or even unnatural monsters like the dinosaurs from that weird dimension, but in a way she was grateful she never got the chance to test herself.
Thus, nature was her home and her haven, where she could go and be herself.
She parked the car and the others made their way inside the mansion, but she lingered outside, making her way down one of the gravel paths to sit on the stone bench and just gaze out at the beautiful sunset.
"Bonsoir, chere," came a voice, almost making her jump, as she glanced around. Try as she could, she couldn't locate the owner of the strange voice.
"Who's there?" she said angrily, her left hand instinctively dropping down to her right wrist, only to remind her she wasn't wearing her glove. No power. Well doesn't matter. Logan taught me martial arts so if whoever it is tries to attack me they'll get what they deserve.
To her surprise, her attacker stepped out of the shadows of a nearby tree and revealed himself. Tall, lithe and statuesque, dressed in the brown trench coat she recognized immediately, the uniform underneath replaced with black and gray street clothes. Only his eyes had really changed, from the mysterious red on black to a somber brown on white.
"Nice night, isn't?" he asked with a smirk, leaning against the tree.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric dreaded this, but he supposed now was as good a time as any to find out just how good of a job Mastermind had done on his daughter. After the incident with Mesmero, Eric did not trust his on-again, off-again Acolyte to be any use. Now, safe as he was without either of them being able to tap their powers, would be as good a time as any to see if she still felt nothing but hatred towards him.
Wanda looked up as he entered. Another was with her, a girl Eric did not recall existing on his records of the X-Men, though perhaps Charles had been doing some recent recruiting. He would need to see to that himself, in the near future.
"Father," she said simply.
"Wanda, how are you?" he asked, cautiously making his way to the center of the kitchen, as the little girl and his only daughter continued to watch him.
"I am... well enough... what brings you here?" she asked.
"The same thing that brings you, I imagine. Where are the others?" he replied, relaxing marginally. His old daughter, the weapon of Mystique, would have torn off his head by now. She seemed almost, calm now. No hints of anger. Perhaps soon he would be able to bring her in with the Acolytes along with her brother.
"No idea... Toad went with the others to rescue the Brotherhood. They seem to think they're going to be attacked."
"Attacked?" asked Eric, seizing upon this new bit of information that Charles had failed to mention to him.
"Apparently two of the X-Men were ambushed by troopers earlier, these swat guys. I didn't get many details..."
"Interesting," muttered Eric, rubbing his chin in contemplation. "I doubt it is coincidence then, that our powers have suddenly failed us, and these men, whoever they are, have shown up."
"Wanda! We're here!" shouted the over-exuberant Toad as he made his way into the kitchen with the other members of the Brotherhood in tow. They all skidded to a stop when they saw the dark clad figure standing beside the Scarlet Witch.
"Dad, what are you doing here?" asked Pietro. "IknewIshouldhavecalledyou,butthisstupidcellphonediedonmeand..."
"Enough," said Magneto, rubbing his temples at his son's rather overly enthusiastic excuses. "Regardless, we are all here now. You are all aware of the situation as I am, I trust," he added darkly, glancing at the less intelligent members of his organization. Todd and Fred nodded enthusiastically. "Good. Then for the moment we will take advantage of Charles hospitality, and use this mansion as our base until further notice. Is that clear?"
"Yes sir," replied Pietro enthusiastically, giving a salute. The others gave more or less enthusiastic answers of the affirmative.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Prototypes aren't operating at optimal efficiency."
"Who's fault is that?."
"Are you implying my technology is faulty? You were the one who suggested these kind of modifications."
"Sir?"
"What?"
"What?"
"The ah, captive has recovered from the first test... should I bring them out for a repeat?"
"No. Get the other one. It'll make for a more interesting test anyway."
Authors Notes:
How's -that- for all you Romy fans? Not much I know, but more to come. But we've already had one family reunion, and another is on its merry way. Oh I forgot to mention. I will be following the original timeline of the XME episodes. Which means that Cruise Control happened before X23. Tabitha/Amara, sweet. Must be the guy in me that enjoys writing that particular segment much. I realize I'm going out on a bit of a limb here with that, so some feedback would be nice. On a side note, did anyone here see "No Good Deed"? I knew Lance was a good guy deep in his heart.
Snitter in Rivendell: That was an exaggeration, since it was mostly from Scott's point of view. Besides, Kurt and Amanda were both shy to start out, but I think they've relaxed into their relationship by now. They're at the kiss and hug stage, nothing more.
Rogue14: 'course he did, and worse. But you all know he would've done it.
Todd Fan: Maaaaaayyyybbe. Maaaaaayyyybbe not.
Unknown Source: Oh many more updates to come, since I've got some time to write now. I really want to see the Acolytes in civilian garb, is that too much to ask? Pyro, Colossus. Gambit sorta does with the trenchcoat, even Magneto had that one seen in 'On Angel's Wings' with the black coat and hat. For the comic advice, this may shock many, but I've never read a single X-Men comic in my entire life. My knowledge comes from the shows, movies, and on-line.
Elisabeth Braddock-Grey: Well danke! Now I have enough food and drink to keep writing all day and night long! And yeah, Remy seems like a joker. His best line from the old series: The X-Men had to go rescue psychics from Apocalypse, and he goes 'If they're psychic, don't they already know?' Hehehe. Classic.
Optic Red: It is Marvel, I know, and I'll admit there's a very slim chance both of them survived (more so for Magneto) but we'll just have to wait and see. Yeah, fourth season is gonna rock!
Cal: Awww, and they're my favorite Evo couple. Well, I invoke the dreaded 'fanfiction creative license' (tm!) Beware! I shall keep up my good work, and no one can stop me! Muwahahahahahahaha!
Impulsive Thoughts: Probably, but can you explain how Spyke's uniform never shows a tear or hole, even after he shoots a spike out of it? And just Scott vs. Remy? Why not Kurt vs. Remy? Or Logan vs. Remy? They care about Rogue too ya know.
Goofn1: Oh, more of the Brotherhood to come. More of all our favorite Evo characters, even if only briefly.
Glaivster: Oh no, not at all, I appreciate criticsm of the helpful sort you gave me. To answer your many questions: Yes, Mystique will show up. Yes, the device affects non-mutants who's DNA has been altered in any way, shape, or form, but we'll see not be seeing any Non-Evo Marvel characters (Daredevil, Spider-Man, Hulk, etc.) except maybe in brief cameos. As for Magneto, I actually had no considered that. Its brilliant though.
*B: Funny you should mention his drawing… just wait a few chapters while I get the chance.
Faith Darkholme: Creed and the FoH, a first time guess, very good. Bastion, I've no idea who that is, actually. Oh and more Jason (and more everyone) to come.