Title: The Dopplegang Effect
Author: Becka
Chapter 02: Under a Different Sky
o
The kid was a strange one all right. Logan pulled the sleeping bag tightly around him, and studied his companion in the firelight.
It had been almost three months since Xander had approached him in the bar. He'd just been looking to kill some time, maybe get his bearings before he headed out again. A stiff drink didn't hurt either. And then he'd noticed the dark-haired boy with the dark brown eyes who smelled like alcohol, bitterness, and old blood.
That conversation had been the first of many. Logan had come to respect the boy a bit; he never complained that he'd had a hard life, and despite that first mention of a drunken father who beat the shit out of him on what Logan guessed was a pretty constant basis, he'd never asked for pity, or used his past as an excuse. He didn't try to unearth Logan's demons either, which was a pleasant change of pace from Jean and Scott and Charlie, and just about everyone else he'd ever met.
Xander carried his own weight, just as he'd promised that first night. Logan had thought the kid would want to take his car instead of hiking, but the dark-haired boy hadn't even seemed surprised that they'd be walking. He just reached into his car, pulled out a backpack and asked which way they were heading. He never complained about the long hours they walked beneath California's sweltering sun, and he seemed content to take breaks whenever Logan deemed it appropriate, which wasn't very often. And as for when they camped, he didn't mind chopping firewood or performing any one of the hundred menial tasks involved in setting up camp. Hell, the boy had taken to hunting as if he were a natural born predator. It had amazed Logan the first time he'd been witness to it in a way that few things did anymore.
:: "You know how to hunt?" Logan's gruff voice cut through the still air, and Xander nodded with a quirky smile and a hint of humor in his eyes.
Logan noted the expression and tucked it away for later examination. He waved his hand towards the woods with feigned impatience. "Go get us dinner, kid."
Xander nodded again, never loosing that strange look. It teased the corners of his eyes like a madness. The older man waited until the boy's footsteps were a fair distance away before he smoothly rose from the fire's side, melting away into the shadows as he followed. He didn't care who his partner was; any human who thought they could catch an animal with their bare hands was obviously a bit off. He figured he could check out the kid's moves and maybe surprise the boy with a rabbit or two that just happened to find its way to roast over the fire.
His senses told him the boy moved smoothly. His nose told him the kid was downwind of any animal he might meet, insuring that the creature wouldn't know the boy was there until it saw him. And his heart... well, that told him the kid was enjoying this. Really enjoying it.
Logan took to the tree tops to get a better view of his companion. His jaw almost dropped when he got a good look at the boy. Gone was the awkward gait of a boy who wasn't quite done his growing. Gone was the jovial expression of a kid who learned to smile because it kept him from crying. Gone was the youth from those dark brown eyes. In his place was a hunter, born and breed. Graceful, silent, focused. He stalked his prey, a young doe, with deadly intent.
It only took a moment to finish. Logan knew if he'd blinked his eyes, he would have missed it. As it was, he was still having a bit of trouble reconciling this predator to the boy who tried _everything_ to get him to crack a smile.
When Xander pulled a knife from his boot and began to skin the creature efficiently, Logan took the opportunity to slip back to their campsite. A few minutes later Xander appear, carrying quartered-up sections of meat in a pack crudely made from the deer's hide. He greeted Logan with a grin, dropping his prize at the older man's feet. To Logan, his expression was that of a cat who'd just laid a small, furry present at his owner's doorstep.
Logan tossed Xander a canteen of water before he began to spit the meat. The boy looked at him, the question written plainly on his face.
"Go rinse yer mouth, kid," he said softly, and Xander's eye's lit up with understanding. Chagrined, he did so, taking a handful of water and wiping his mouth clean. Logan was almost able to ignore that the water came away red. Almost... but not quite. ::
Logan shook himself from his reverie. The kid was interesting, all right. And with every day that past, he became a little more disturbing. It wasn't any specific change, so to speak. It crept up so slowly that Logan hadn't even noticed it for the first two months. But now that he _had_ noticed, there was no denying it.
With every day that passed, the kid reminded Logan more and more of... well... himself.
o
"Hey, Logan..." Xander stretched out beside the campfire's side casually, "What are those exercises you do in the morning?"
"Exercises?" The older man dumped his armload of firewood on the ground with a grunt and sat on his bedroll.
The dark-haired boy grinned, "Well, whatever you call them. You always do them in the morning before we leave... I figured they were a warm-up for the hike or something..."
"They're called 'katas'... it's a way ta clear yer mind," Logan answered honestly. "An'... doin' 'em reminds me of someone I knew a long time ago."
"That's cool." Xander paused a moment, then asked hesitantly, "Is it like... a personal thing? Or... would you teach me?"
The mutant saw no trace of mockery in the boy's eyes, only a great curiosity and a need to learn. "Sure, kid. I can try."
The next morning, after breakfast and about an hour of Logan instructing Xander in the art of the kata, they were on their way. Most of the journey was in silence, which was just fine by Logan. He had enough to think about without splitting his attention with his companion.
Though, he smiled ruefully, his companion was all he could think about at the moment. The kid was a slow starter, but he'd expected as much. No one mastered those exercises in a day. Xander seemed to have a little trouble remembering what motion came next, and the transitions between those motions weren't the smoothest, and his balance was a bit off, but all in all, he was shaping up like Logan expected. That was, until the kid ran through the exercise by himself.
To Logan it appeared as if someone else had taken over the kid's body. He ran through the kata smoothly, wasting no energy. His balance was superb, his eyes were closed, and he looked as though he'd been practicing that particularly form since he was a baby. When Xander finished the kata, he'd let out a deep, shaky breath, opened his eyes, and grinned, obviously pleased with himself. Logan had said nothing.
The kid finally broke the silence and asked, "Would you show me another one?"
So Logan had.
Six more times Logan lead Xander through various katas. Six more time's Xander followed shakily, balance off, like a beginner. Six more times Xander ran the exercises by himself and executed them like a master.
Now that they were on the move, Logan glanced at the dark-haired boy out of the corner of his eye. The kid looked the same as always, breath coming easily as they continued their trek along the side of the road.
People didn't just learn a set of katas in a day, at least not to the point where they could perform them flawlessly. Even the intermediates had a little bit of difficulty focusing their attention on something so completely. From his time studying katas, Logan knew it took a lot of energy out of a person. He'd gotten used to it over the years; he could dismiss the drain on his energy simply because he'd spent so much time building his reserves. Not to mention he was a mutant; nothing ever tired him as much as it did most other people simply because of what he was.
Xander showed no strain.
His step was lively as ever, and his eyes were alert.
No one could perform seven katas in their entirety and not feel _something_. But if the kid was feeling anything, he certainly didn't show it.
Logan didn't know which of those two possibilities impressed him more.
o
Six months. They'd been traveling for six straight months, to the day. Not anywhere in particular... just wherever their feet happened to lead them. Logan had come to accept a couple of things on this trip of theirs, only a few of which had been easy for him.
He looked over at his friend, watching the man going through the newest set of training exercises he'd been taught. He performed them flawlessly, but that no longer surprised the older man. After mastering every kata Logan knew and a few he hadn't even remembered he knew, Xander had asked if there was anything else like the katas, and when greeted with an affirmative, he'd asked to be taught those as well. Logan had agreed and had begun instructing Xander in various exercises he'd learned over the years: the meditations taught to him by his Japanese master, the rigorous military exercises he'd learned from his time as the governments pet project, the training sets he'd picked up at Xavier's institute. Xander soaked them up like a sponge.
The time had been good for the dark-haired man; Logan could see that plainly. He'd had muscle before they'd started this trip, probably from the construction work he'd mentioned, but he'd built them denser with the constant walking and cutting of firewood, and he'd toned them with the katas and training exercises. Where Xander's skin had been pale before, his arms, legs, and chest now darkened from the long days under the sun. His dark hair brushed his shoulders now, and he'd stopped shaving as well. The wild beard suited his tan face.
When they first started their trip, Logan thought of his friend as a kid. Now, with these changes, he could see him as a man. So did anyone else who looked at him, for that matter.
Occasionally they'd stop by a bar for the night; Xander no longer was carded for his drinks.
They'd done a lot of talking as well. Logan didn't claim to know everything about Xander - most of his past was still shaded - but they'd talked about sports, interests, and just about everything else. At night, by the light of the campfire, they exchanged stories. Logan's were usually about the places he'd traveled, the sights he'd seen. Xander's leaned towards humorous anecdotes about his friends.
Still, Xander had only told him of the good times in his life, and while their seemed to be a lot of those, he knew their were probably just as many bad times to weigh it down. Xander never seemed to talk about those. The older man thought he probably knew more about his companion's friends than he did about Xander himself.
The real turning point in their relationship had been about two months ago. They'd set up camp and a vampire (Logan could say that without any disbelief now) had found it's way to them. It only took Xander a moment to slam a stake through it's heart, turning it to dust in the wind, but it changed the way Logan viewed his friend completely.
Before when the dark-haired boy talked about vampires and werewolves and creatures that went bump-in-the-night, Logan only listened with half an ear. He knew Xander wasn't lying to him, his nose told him that, but he'd though maybe the boy was deranged somehow. He should have known better.
All the creatures Xander talked about were real. The time he'd almost been eaten by his high school teacher, the giant praying mantis, and the one where he'd kept a gang a resurrected zombies from blowing up his school, and the Incan princess mummy who'd fallen in love with him but happened to need to suck the life out of living creatures... they weren't just real in Xander's head. They were all _real_.
So he'd come to look at the dark-haired man in a different light. He respected him and the things he accomplished as a young kid, and a human one at that.
Only now Logan wasn't so sure that Xander was actually human.
It wasn't unheard for mutant powers to develop later in a mutant's life, and Logan had smelt the change. He didn't know what the man could do, but he did know one thing for sure.
Xander was, without any shadow of a doubt, a mutant.
o