Misfit- Chapter 2
Disclaimer- I own nothing, (My sister asked for the cream back.) Well I do own Lizzie and her classmates, but they don't pay rent. Marvel owns the X men, at least until I can consolidate my Power and stage a mass breakout of the characters, at which point there will be a party at mine!
Notes- Still spoilers. Again with the thanks to Anything but Ordinary3 for the advise and badgering to get on with it. Again, hopefully the reviewers. Again check out Retribution X for a good giggle. To all however please read and review, and remember an author is for life and not just for Christmas.
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Three months later…
The sun lazed on the soft Greenwich grass of the Xavier institute for gifted youngsters. It was the 13th of September- intake day, and the students were milling around after lunch before starting what seemed like a long walk back to the lessons that waited. Some lazed in the shadow of the trees framing the large mansion, others played on the basketball court with those who were too tired to play sitting on the sidelines, watching. It was the perfect image of the typical North American schoolyard… except that it wasn't.
Those playing basketball would never make their dream of the NBA because of the strangeness of their abilities. Being able to leap 3 metres into the air as though you were stepping up a shallow step would probably contradict about a thousand rules. Those under the trees were playing cards and chatting- at least those who weren't telepaths were chatting, they were talking without a word being uttered.
Logan wandered through the grounds watching the students at leisure, inspecting those who were using their powers and making sure that they were doing it safely. Looming above almost all of the pupils gave him an advantage, his presence made most reconsider making any trouble- and that was the way he liked it. As much as others would loathe to admit it, Logan rejoiced in the fact that his charges were slightly afraid of him. It gave him the power.
He sauntered with his back straight, the sun caressing his jet-black hair and ruff-leathered skin. Even though it was September the Greenwich sun still shone bright.
"Why in hell did you do that?" Came a young voice, distracting Logan from his thoughts of peace. He turned to see a boy standing amongst a group of sitting people, his comment was directed at a boy who was making his way down from a position in one of the browning trees.
"Sorry Petite didn't see you there," The tree dweller smiled as he walked towards the other boy, offering his hand. The other boy looked as though if he could rip the offered arm off then he would.
"How could you not mean to send a ball of fire at me, Mate?" The boy smiled flippantly. The tree dweller stood for a second before answering "Actually its energy, not fire. Secondly it was a card not a ball…"
"I don't care what the hell it was all I know is that you sent it flying at my head!" The second boy yelled pushing the tree dweller. The first didn't respond, just calmly reached into his pocket and pulled out… the queen of spades.
"Last time I didn't mean to hit you, this time I will." The card began to glow fiercely between his fingertips and those surrounding the scene pushed back against the tree trunks, others fled for cover, Logan stood and watched.
The other boy faced down the card carrier looking him straight in the sunglasses that obscured his eyes. Card boy flinched, casting his arm back and snapping it forward and releasing the card, sending it souring through the air straight and true, the other boy pushed his hand forward palm up as if protecting himself at the same moment that the card boy was starting the move. A blinding blue and white flash followed, disorientating both Logan and the card boy who couldn't stop completing the move. The card did go straight and true but landed a few feet clear of the opponent, the card exploded on impact with the stonewall. If it had connected, it would have knee capped the other boy.
Now was when Logan decided to take action. As the card thrower reached into his pocket again, the boy with curly black hair from which the flash emanated, took a chance and lunged trying to grab hold of anything of his attacker. Logan though stepped between them, clutching hold of the front of their collars and hoisting them into the air. The two started kicking their legs helplessly and clutching at his arms hoping that he might let them go, but Logan didn't even bat an eyelid. He was a little preoccupied in keeping his anger down as the boys called him and each other every obscenity under the sun. His fight though ended abruptly when his attention was drawn by something out of place.
Beside the risen pond a girl stood hunched over, looking at her reflection. There was nothing strange about that; Logan had seen almost all of the students perform this act at one time or another. It was the girl, not the act that was out of place. Logan knew he had never met her before but she was strangely familiar.
She wore a light cream summer dress under a thick brown Suede jacket that was two sizes too big for her- it obviously belonged to someone else. The fringes on the sleeve left ripples on the surface of the water as she purposefully let them come into contact with it. As she did so she scuffed her brown knee length boots against the paving stones, and hummed absentmindedly. She obviously didn't want to be there. With a large sigh, which only Logan's finely attuned hearing could detect from this distance, she reached her hand and pushed a thick strand of her yellow-blonde hair behind her ear, the rest was kept firmly away from her face by an Alice band embroidered with silk flowers that covered her hairline and half her forehead.
Logan didn't know where he had seen her before but it hadn't been in this style of dress- and this was backed up by the fact the girl obviously wasn't comfortable in them.
She looked up from her reflection, and met his gaze. She gave a worried smile obviously in recognition that he was holding two young men by their shirts about half a foot off the ground.
Where had he seen her before?
"Please sir, just let us down…" One choked, drawing his attention back from the distance.
"I don't want to die…" The other exclaimed, drawing giggles from the girls he was trying formally to impress. Logan looked on him with pity, tears were starting to form in his red eyes.
"You boys do this again and I'll slice you in half." Logan could feel the boys both gulp, before he released them and let them fall with a bump to the ground. Both let out a small yelp of fright, but Logan didn't check to see if he had hurt either boy. He turned back to the pond, to where the girl had been standing seconds before… where now was only an empty space of Greenwich sunshine.
"Thank you for agreeing to see us at this late stage, we know it's a huge inconvenience for everybody…"
"No inconvenience at all Mr Johnson, we take new students on throughout the year, this isn't any big deal for us." Storm assured the man calmly as they walked the hall that lead to Professor X's office. The man seemed a little uptight to Storm- she guessed it was the same feeling she felt when she walked through a room of ordinary humans, the thought that the unknown surrounded and could leap out and devour you at any second; the feeling of fear.
The stuffy Englishman coughed behind her, trying to gain her attention. She turned a little as she walked so he could ask what question he felt he needed to. He looked utterly embarrassed, his face had turned a deeper shade of red and his tones were whispered "Excuse me miss but… um… are you one of…" He halted, unsure what to say.
"Them?" Storm completed, knowing it was what the man was longing to say. He just gave an uncomfortable grin, nodded and when he thought her back was turned again gave an uneasy shudder. "Yes" sighed Storm. She had long ago accepted that the populace of the fragile world they lived on would forever see the two sides of the coin as 'Us' and 'Them', but having such a bigot on the grounds of the academy, a place where tolerance was taught, was mystifying. If it wasn't for the sake of a young woman who needed their help Storm would have called upon her powers to get the horrid little man out of the school as fast as the wind could carry him.
When she had looked around Storm hadn't noticed the girl that was being taken to the office though. She turned quickly to see that she had been mistaken, the girl still moped behind, looking disheartened at the wooden panels of the wall. Since the pair had arrived; Mr Johnson and his ward Elizabeth, the girl had constantly been dragging on the mans heals at his own insistence, every time Storm indicated something that might grab the young mutants interest the girl got a look in her eyes that begged that she be able to leap forth to see the wonders- but each time he shot down any hope of her being allowed such a seconds pause.
Finally they reached the offices door, outside as usual on intake days sat two large brown leather chairs for those waiting for an audience with the headmaster. Storm indicated that they should sit and while Elizabeth took the opportunity for a rest, Johnson merely stood, ramrod straight against the wall, straightening his charcoal grey suit.
Storm checked her watch, if she was correct then there were still 2 minutes left of the lesson before she could interrupt the Professor and bring her guardianship of the man and the girl to an end- he couldn't annoy her any more in 2 minutes… could he?
Almost as if he had heard her thoughts he leaned forward and sharply tapped the girls leg, which was folded under the other on the chair. "Elizabeth, manners please." His English accent flavoured with distain. The girl gave a sulky look and removed her leg from underneath her, straightening her cream summer dress as she did. "Sorry sir." She bit back with just the right amount of annoyance in her identical accent. Storm wished she could have spoken to him so.
It was obvious that these two were not father and daughter, probably not even related by blood- she prayed not by marriage either, if he had a wife then if would mean that there was the chance of more like this monstrosity. She was blonde, he had a short crop of black sprouting from his head. She was tall and had curves in the right places that she tried to hide under the thick dark brown Swede jacket that she had bundled around her. He on the other hand was short and thin, thin enough that his face looked like a daggers blade. All of her facial features however exuded warmness, except for this moment in which her lips were pursed and thin with annoyance at the snivelling bag of slime that stood beside her seat.
The door opened and a hand full of young people bolted out of the door calling back thanks to the occupant.
Storm stuck her head in when all had left and asked if now was an opportune moment for a meeting with a potential new student. When he replied it was, Storm indicated for the couple to enter. The man made it to the door before realising his companion wasn't coming… she wasn't coming because in the space of a second she had vanished completely.
Elizabeth gently eased her way through a doorway, checking right and left that no one was coming. If her timing was right then all the other mutants would be in their lessons and settling down to another hours hard work. They were doing what they should have been doing. She however had no thoughts of going back to what she was supposed to be doing, she wasn't going back to sit while Johnson spoke to the headmaster like she wasn't in the room- she'd had to put up with years of him doing that and she had had her fill, it wasn't going to happen. She wondered if other nineteen-year-old girls had to go through that kind of ritual humiliation, she wondered if it was normal. Then again she was anything but normal she reminded herself, which was one of the reasons she was here.
She finally stepped through into the next corridor, careful not to make a sound as she did so. Her boots clicked against the polished wood floor but she had neither the time nor the energy to stop it, it was incidental anyway no one would pay any attention to such a small amount of noise, it was just the fact that she was making so little.
She wandered past thick wooden door upon thick wooden door, wishing she could take a peak inside without endangering her newfound freedom. So instead she wandered, thinking about what kind of weird and wonderful lessons were taking place behind the walls, it would be magical, fantastical… this was a real life Hogwarts.
She leaned forward, turning the knob of the door in front of her, deciding that life was nothing if risks were not taken- plus the temptation was too great to combat. She opened it just slightly so that she see through the slit and hear what was going on, just to get a flavour of what she would have to sit through in the advancing months if she was accepted.
"Right, today we deal with guarding against weapons. You'll all have your own way of protecting yourself of course but there are some standard defence techniques you can use…" Elizabeth listened spellbound as the deep masculine voice detailed the events for the lesson ahead. She leaned closer still until her cheek was pressed against the cold hard wood, she didn't listen for anything but the teachers voice as he told the class that he would be using throwing knives on a target.
Because she was concentrating so deeply on the voice she didn't hear the sound behind her, or see the mutant materialise from some point further down the hall. The first knowledge she had of it was something clutching her wrist. She gulped as she realised someone had hold of her and gingerly looked down, unsure of what she would see and if she wanted to see it.
It was a paw. A blue paw. A large blue two fingered paw, with a thumb. A large blue two fingered paw, with a thumb, on the end of a blue arm. She gulped again, her pupils dilated with fear.
Slowly she turned and faced the… thing holding her. She didn't know what to think really, because fear had grabbed hold of her stomach and was twisting and turning in it and that was all she could think about. She didn't really have any brain cells left to register the fear of a blue demon with scars covering his face, which looked back at her with yellow eyes.
"What are you doing out of Lessons?" He asked in his thick German accent. She couldn't answer, just let her mouth hang open as she stared, and then finally as the shock hit her brain… finally her body let the fear leave her body in the quickest way it knew how.
She screamed. Long and loud. And she didn't stop.
From inside the room the sound was loud, not as loud as some screams that the academy has witnessed, but still loud.
Logan turned to his charges as they sniggered and whispered, each perplexed as to what was happening but each showing an individual response to the situation.
"Hey, lets keep it together guys" Logan growled gaining the attention of the class of 7 again. The four boys, three girls each had an ability which meant that they could avoid the path of a thrown knife quite easily, so none were in real danger of his test. All they had to do was have quick enough reflexes to move, which he had explained.
He pushed the shrill squeaking to the back of his head "I'll give you a clue as to how long you've got till the blades hit." He told the students as he prepared himself to throw a knife at the target hung on the back of the slightly ajar door. The second he let go of the grip, sending the weapon arching through the air, he knew he'd made a grave error hanging it there though.
As the knife spun through the air the door fell open as a young woman tumbled over the thresh hold backwards. The group gasped as the woman tumbled into the path of the knife while Kurt Wagner whose blue face she was seemingly fleeing could only stand helplessly by.
Logan winced as he saw the blade come into contact with the soft flesh at the back of her neck and thought he heard a soft yelp before… nothing. The girl no longer was tumbling through the doorway; the knife continued arching through the air, as though it had never touched anything before finally smashing into the wooden panelling of the opposite wall. Kurt reappeared with a BAMF having left in the knife's path a cloud of blue smoke.
"Where's she gone?" He questioned, looking at the spot where she would have lain. Logan moved forward into the corridor pulling the knife out of the wood like it was warm butter. The corridor was empty apart from him. "No sign out here bub." Kurt's expression changed to a look of even deeper concern "Storm sent me to find her, I didn't mean to frighten her." From his position, Logan could see the entire room and the full group of students that stood collectively watching the two teachers look for the girl who had disappeared before all of their eyes. 16 eyes staring at the two. 16? Logan thought back for a second, Before the interruption there had only been 14 eyes belonging to 7 people. Now there was an extra pair shifting uneasily between the floor, the Blue mutant and him. Two ice blue eyes that Logan had never seen before, belonging to a girl. The girl he had glimpsed at the pond side that he was sure he knew.
He let no one know though as he crossed the room to Kurt who gave him another concerned look. "What is wrong Logan?" Logan walked slowly past him lingering just long enough to whisper, "Just be ready." As he did. As he walked forward the students in front of him parted in silent fear, again he thanked whatever divine force had made them afraid it made things quite easy for him at the moment. Finally he reached the last group the two that the girl stood behind parted and left the girl standing self-consciously in front of him. She looked up into his face, and gulped knowing she had been caught. "I'm in trouble aren't I?" She sadly grinned. Kurt and Logan nodded in unison. She rubbed the back of her neck embarrassed, "I'll come quietly." She conceded.
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