Chapter Three: Arrivals and Terribly Ironic Existences
*****
You know that pain you get in your ears when a plane is descending and you haven't been yawning or chewing gum? That "my brain is leaking out my ears" type of ache? Everyone aboard the X-Jet (save the canon characters, who had become immune to its affects by now) felt that same pain. Erin, who had been unconscious for the majority of the return trip, was spared from this brain-leaking pain... That is, until she woke up.
It didn't help she had hit the floor upon awakening.
"Ow, bloody ow, ow and OW!" Erin's sentiments were reflected throughout the plane by the other passengers. Not even covering her head with a pillow from the medical bay was ebbing the throbbing agony.
"Gum?" Erin lifted the pillow off of her head to see someone standing over her holding out a stick of Wrigley's Extra (cinnamon, if you must know).
"Uh... sure." She gladly took the stick of gum, unwrapped it, and popped it in her mouth. Several moments later, the pressure slowly but surely alleviated. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," the girl replied, taking a seat on the floor next to Erin. "I'm Adrian."
"Erin." Erin's eyes led her around the room, taking in all the sights to be had. And, quite frankly, they were really weird. "Okay, you seem like you've been more conscious than me. What's going on?"
Adrian, who bore a striking resemblance to Kitty (if the mutant were a few years older and few inches taller), laughed. "You remember that e-mail you got from Professor Xavier?" Erin nodded. "So do I. You and I and everybody on the plane headed towards the same place: the Xavier mansion. Apparently Xavier himself turned the school from a mutant training grounds to an OFU."
"OFU?"
"Official Fanfiction University. What?" Adrian asked, playing off the muddled look on Erin's face. "You've never heard of an OFU?"
Obviously not.
"It's a school where characters from a certain fandom, in our case the X-Men and the Brotherhood and such, teach fanfiction writers such as you and myself to write their fandom properly, usually with lots of pain." Erin gulped, not liking that last bit. "An OFU tends to emerge when a fandom has become so plagued with crimes to fanfiction that no other choice is to be had. Looks like the movieverse has been hit pretty hard for something like this to happen."
"How do you know so much about... stuff?"
Adrian held up a piece of paper, which looked like a certificate or license of some kind. "I survive-... I mean, I went to HFA."
"HFA?"
"Boy, you sure do ask a lot of questions. HFA: Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy. An OFU of the Harry Potter genre. Turns out that the Course Coordinator of this place went there too. Had a bit of a Remus Lupin obsession to get over from what I gather."
"That explains that, I guess." Erin gestured to the other people, fanwriters she guessed, on the plane. "What about them? Why do they look so...?"
"Different?" Adrian interposed. "That's because they're mutants."
"But I thought this was a school for fanfiction writers," said Erin. "They're allowing mutants in, too?"
"Remember on your application when they asked you 'species?'" Erin did. Being extremely tired and not all that creative at the moment, she had put Human. "Funny thing about OFUs. When they ask you species, you really do become what you say you are. Majority of the writers put mutant and got the power they claimed they had. wOLF over there put Vulcan on hers and, voila, she got pointy ears, a strange haircut and a huge brain."
"How would Xavier know what a Vulcan-?" Star Trek trivia penetrated her brain. "Never mind."
Darkness enveloped the cabin, signaling the end of their flight and their entrance into the docking bay.
*****
"Mini-whats?"
"Mini-Sentinels, Hank." Michelle was kneeling in front of what appeared to be a three-foot tall robot. She patted it on its chrome-plated head. "They're really kind of cute once you get past the irony."
Dr. Henry McCoy (Beast to a few, Hank to some and a guy who had the same name as a Star Trek character to the rest) lifted the miniaturized robot from the ground and placed it on an examination table. "And might I perchance inquire as to why their existence is so ironic?"
Michelle rose from the ground and turned to look at the mutant scientist. Hank was in his original human state because that was what complied with on-screen Canon (as established by Bryan Singer, Vice Headmaster of XFI). Michelle understood that not many people would recognize him in this form. Many of the students, she knew, would only be able to identify Beast in his more familiar guise of body-encasing blue fur. Which, she came to realize, might not be a bad thing after all.
"In all the other 'verses, Sentinels are mutant-hunting robots built by a human supremacist nut called Trask."
"Mutant-hunting robots spawned from the misspellings of the names of mutants?" Hank's eyebrows knit in brief thought. "Ironic, indeed. What do they call this one?"
"Rouge: the most common misspelling of them all," Michelle announced, shining a spot on the mini's crimson-colored head with her shirt sleeve.
Hank spent the next few moments investigating the machinery. "Are they still programmed to hunt mutants?"
"Oh God, no," the course coordinator said, aghast. "That part of their programming has been completely wiped from their memory. It's been replaced by an even more appropriate and, I think, hilarious function."
"That being?"
"Hunting fangirls." This made Hank break into a fit of laughter. "Their secondary function is to protect their namesakes."
The Beast wiped a tear that had formed in his left eye. "And where, pray tell, is Rouge's?"
And not a moment too soon, Rouge's namesake entered the room, breathless. "Storm just landed the X-Jet." Hearing it called "X-Jet" instead of its more commonplace comic book name made Michelle briefly wince. "The last of 'em are here."
If a dramatic chord was nearby, it would have played.
"Thanks, Rogue. I'll be down in a second." Michelle took the Mini-Sentinel from Hank's examination table and placed it in front of its originator. "Rouge, meet Rogue. Rogue, this is Rouge; your very own Mini-Sentinel."
The Southerner crouched to eye level with the minute robot. "Hi there, Rouge."
Hank, Michelle and Rogue listened as a series of whirs and clicks emanated from the Mini-Sentinel's circuitry. By the sound of it, Rouge was coming online.
"Hunts fangirls, eh?" The mutant doctor confirmed Rogue's guess with a nod. "You and Ah are gonna have some good times together, lil' fella," Rogue declared, grabbing the tiny robot by its metallic hand and led it out the door.
"Like a mother and her slightly homicidal, fangirl-hunting robot child."
Hank McCoy had to agree.
*****
Author's Note: First off, I'd like to thank all those who have enrolled... I didn't expect so many in such a short amount of time! You will all get your day in the sun, I promise! And for those who haven't enrolled yet, it's never too late.
A/N 2.0: Secondly, seeing as I am only one person and can't read every X-Men fanfic put out there, I'm going to need your help. If you see yourself a Mini-Sentinel (such as Rouge, my biggest pet peeve) let me know about it. Even if you *think* it's a M-S, send it in a review.