X-Men Evolution is a trademarked product from Marvel, all the characters are owned by Marvel and not me. This is a work of fiction based off of said series. I make no money off this, yadda yadda yah. This is my first X-Men Evolution, or even X-Men related fic I've written. Be gentle.
"Angry Situation" - by Val Shrum (kiyonekatz at yahoo dot com)
Chapter 6
**********************************************************************
After much debate and arguing, Kitty won her case to attend school for the day. There had been a lot of concern about her current state but they had finally allowed her to go.
Third period, math.
"Prescott?"
"Here."
"Pryde?"
"Here."
"Radcliffe?"
"Here."
"Ramsey?"
"Here."
Kitty paused, then looked around the room and caught the direction where the voice had came from. Douglas Ramsey was a relatively handsome blond haired boy with blue eyes. He wore an untucked teeshirt and loose black jeans. Very average attire for a moderately average looking kid.
'He's the one from the file? Or at least was mentioned... does he even know? Should he know? Wow, is that ever a loaded question.' Kitty thought to herself.
Doug turned his head to notice the dark haired girl observing him. In that moment, they had made eye contact. Kitty blinked, then blushed as she looked down at her text book.
'Oh man. He noticed me checking him out. I hope he doesn't think of me as some sort of weirdo or anything. He's already gotta know I go to 'Mutant High' over there. Way to keep your cover up, Pryde.' She chastized herself. Kitty went back to her book and wrote down important missed homework information and worked on her assignment for the duration of class.
The class ended and moved onto the next period. Computer science. Kitty gathered her personal items and changed classrooms as part of her daily grind. She sat at a lone workstation, setting her books down on the floor and pulling out her notebook to write down anything important. A figure sat down in the normally unoccupied seat next to her. She glanced over to see it was Doug.
"...Hey." She acknowledged nonchalauntly.
"Do I have something on my face? You'd never looked at me like that before." He smiled, setting down his books.
"Oh, well uh... I guess. You reminded me of someone else for a minute, the way you dressed today. Like, completely distracted me in class." She hums, "So, it's always good to be the youngest two in class, huh?"
"I guess we're just lucky." He logged into the computer, "Hadn't seen you around for a week. Got sick?"
"Naw, family vacation." She scooted in to watch the screen, "Like... you're good at this programming thing, huh?"
"A talent, I guess." He shrugged.
"Say, even though I'm pretty good at this stuff, I'm a little behind..." Kitty smiles, "I'm having some trouble with my computer. I could use a wiz like you to check it out? If you've got the time, that is."
"Study session?" He blinked.
"Yeah, exactly that." Kitty thought about how easy this seemed. "I have to pick up my computer n'stuff, but I could sure use it." She jotted down the number to the institute and handed it to Doug. "Call me after school. We could meet up somewhere later."
Doug blinked, looking at the paper. "Oh, okay. Sure." The bell rang and class began, ending their conversation.
***
"OooooOooooOo! I heard a rumor!" Kurt settled down at the lunch table where a lot of the institute kids gathered to eat.
"What kind of rumor?" Jean set her tray down, Scott settling in beside her.
"Amanda said she saw Kitty passing her number to a boy in computer class." Kurt grinned, a bit full of himself. "Seems to be moving on, ja?"
"Moving on where?" Kitty sat down beside Kurt.
Kurt laughed nervously, settling down in his seat, "Nothing, nothing at all!" He took a bite of his lunch sandwich.
Scott awkwardly broke in, "Kurt uh... heard about you making a friend in computer class today."
"A friend...? Oh yeah." She set up her lunch, "I'm behind on a few things and he's really smart, like me. I asked him to help me with my classes since he's.. y'know, been here the last week." She paused, "Moving on... are you talking about Lance again? That was so three months ago. This isn't anything like that, it's just schoolwork. Sorry to get YOUR hopes up. Gotta tease someone else this week, fuzzy."
"You make it sound like I enjoy this."
"You *do*!" She made a face and laughed.
"You seem awfully cheerful, Kitty. I'm surprised you wanted to come to school today." Jean took a sip of her drink. Her tone put a bit of a damper on the lighthearted mood.
"Huh? Why wouldn't I? School is important to me. Beats hangin' around the institute bored out of my mind." Kitty observed Jean, noticing the different look she had received from her fellow team-mate. "Like, don't concern yourself too much. I'm just a little sore, but my emotions are in check now. I'm stronger'n that, Jean. 'Kay?"
"But... if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm always here for you as a teamate and friend." She urged.
"What's with the third degree?" Kitty wrinkled her nose, "Can't I be a little down for a day every once in a while? Can't I be human?"
"You know I'm not talking about the divorce, Kitty."
The boys exchanged looks back and forth from another. Rogue approached the table with her food, taking a seat quietly.
"Then what are you talking about?" Kitty asked, taking a sip of her orange juice. She baited Jean with that nugget of knowledge. Kitty smiled, knowing perfectly well Jean wouldn't force the issue in front of a group.
"You know what I'm talking about!" She let out a frustrated sigh, "Fine fine. You win, for now."
Rogue looked between Kitty and Jean, "What was THAT all about?" Kurt and Scott shrugged in unison.
***
The rest of the day was relatively boring. Catching up on schoolwork isn't exactly the most fun an average teenager could have. The troop headed back to the house in their separate ways. Kurt walked with Kitty, rather concerned about the conversation she had with Jean earlier that day.
"So that's what happened? Your parents decided to separate?" He walked with his hands folded together, placed behind his head as they walked.
"Yeah. I totally wasn't ready for that." Kitty held her books close to her. "It really all seems so... insignificant now though. Maybe I got over it." She thought about it. "Mn, no. I haven't gotten over it, but I've made peace with it. It's like that phrase, crying over spilled milk. What can you do? Accept and move on I guess."
"That's really mature of you, Katzchen. I'm proud of you." He smiled.
"You think so?" She poked back jokingly, "I'm growing up so fast before your eyes, soon enough we'll be reminicing about the old days, wondering where the time went."
"Not too fast, mein freund. Let's try to graduate first, ja?"
"Seriously!" She nodded, "Which reminds me, I have a study session tonight. Hopefully I'll get some answers."
"Answers to what?"
"Oh! Nothing really, fuzzy!" She half smiled at her tiny slip up. "Just going to be busy working to catch up to everyone. It can't be that hard, but it's a lot easier with a little help."
"I can dig that. C'mon, let's get home."
***
'Gah, everybody is making a cute little fuss about my study session. Kurt's practically my best friend and they don't bug me about that. Men and women can be friends, really! Grrr.'
The phone call between the two was simple and valid. The plan was to meet up at the library to study, then head to the mall afterwards so that they could get dinner and Kitty could meet up with her ride when the time came. Kitty packed a backpack with her laptop and a few schoolbooks, then headed down to the meet up spot.
She leaned against the wall just outside of the entrance for a few moments before Doug approached the girl with a smile, "Sorry, I had to finish up some things at home."
"I just got here a minute ago. Glad I wasn't late." She gestured to head inside. They set up their books at a table in the corner end of the library. Kitty pulled out her laptop and set it to boot up while she skimmed over some class notes. "Can't believe I feel so behind." She took out a pencil, marking down what had been done thus far.
Doug looked curiously at the computer, "So what did you want me to look at?"
"Oh yeah! Well, it's not really a problem with my computer. More like an I-D-10-T error, as in, I can't figure this thing out." She opened up a folder, then accessed one of the files from her recent adventure. "On a different system, I had no problem accessing these things. Now that I'm here, it's encoded and encrypted to make sure I can't see what's in there. I guess nothing I have knows how to read it, is all."
"Oooooh. I see. May I?" He asked politely, going to slide the laptop over toward himself.
"Knock yourself out." She opened up her book, starting work on a missed assignment while keeping most of her attention on her computer and friend.
He tapped away for a few minutes. "What I'm doing is creating a program that can understand those files. Like a translator."
"You can do that? Just code something up right here? Impressive." She ooohed a little.
"You probably can too, you know. We're both the top students in the class." He noted.
"I'm more of a hardware and hacker geek. I can fix stuff if I break it, but when it comes to creating new programs I'm a little clumsy." Kitty leaned against her hand, watching the progress.
"Then that must make us an unstoppable duo." He joked. "I think I have it. Let me test this baby out."
"Is everything saved?" She asked curiously.
"Well... yeah. I do good work." He nodded confidently.
She hummed and nodded back in acknowledgement. Doug accessed the file in the recently created reader. Kitty's eyes widened at the words that flashed across the screen. She shrieked and pointed in another direction, "Hey, what's that?!"
Doug blinked, "What?" and turned away from the screen. Kitty quickly moved her hand to phase through the battery pack to her computer. The system died immediately on contact.
"Well, just my bad luck. My battery ran out of juice and I forgot the extension cord! Oh well, I guess I'll have to check out those later. Thank YOU though for getting it to work before that happened." She folded up the laptop. "I owe you one."
"... uh... yeah, I guess." He looked over Kitty and her raised an eyebrow at her half genuine statement. "You don't sound concerned."
"Happens all the time. Really." She opened her notebook, "So, let's go over the last weeks assignments, okay?"
"Sure thing."
***
'Doug's really a nice guy. We connect on levels that some of my closest friends and teamates don't. I remember last semester before the institute blew up, we'd compare notes and talk of just about anything. It took a while for things to get back to normal. If the file is true, he's a mutant, too. They'd been studying him a while. A bit creepy -- he doesn't even know he's being used for something much bigger, but like... he probably doesn't even think about it. It's easy when a mutation isn't as noticable as like... walking through walls or shooting beams out of your eyes. I should mention to the Professor at least this much. Doug's only been here a few months, maybe the Professor's been too busy keeping up on all the other crazy events that looking for new kids to help fell by the sidelines. God knows we don't have that much room. Gah, what am I thinking? He's safer out here. His house won't blow up because someone wants revenge or hates him. Like... how does that factor into people who are being used for their abilities but don't know what it's for? Waah, I give up.'
They finished their study session and headed over to the mall, refreshed and satisfied with the day. It was relatively uncrowded for a weekend evening. A little over two hours before stores closed up for the night.
"I'm so hungry! I'm glad I got most of my work done at the library. More time for relaxing back at home." Kitty smiled, heading toward the food court.
"Well, I already ate. I think I'm going to call my parents to pick me up, if that's okay?"
Kitty tilted her head, "If you want, I suppose. It'd be nice to have the company.. but if you gotta go, you gotta go. I have to check out a store or two and I'll be heading home after that anyway."
"Yeah, I'm just really tired. I've been doing some part-time work that's taken a lot of my free time, so I like to get in an early night when I can." He nodded, "Thank you though. It was fun! I'd like to spend more time with you."
Kitty blinked and smiled, trying not to interpuret this in a wrong way. "Yeah, definitely! We've got to do this again... but not... like studying. Maybe catch a movie or something?"
"Sure." He replied. He pulled out his cell phone, "Talk to you later, bye!" He left the mall through the food court exit, dialing a number on his phone and heading away.
She gave him a polite wave, then headed over to a food kiosk to piece together a decent meal for dinner. 'Guys are just so turned off by shopping sometimes.'
***
"Angry Situation" - by Val Shrum (kiyonekatz at yahoo dot com)
Chapter 6
**********************************************************************
After much debate and arguing, Kitty won her case to attend school for the day. There had been a lot of concern about her current state but they had finally allowed her to go.
Third period, math.
"Prescott?"
"Here."
"Pryde?"
"Here."
"Radcliffe?"
"Here."
"Ramsey?"
"Here."
Kitty paused, then looked around the room and caught the direction where the voice had came from. Douglas Ramsey was a relatively handsome blond haired boy with blue eyes. He wore an untucked teeshirt and loose black jeans. Very average attire for a moderately average looking kid.
'He's the one from the file? Or at least was mentioned... does he even know? Should he know? Wow, is that ever a loaded question.' Kitty thought to herself.
Doug turned his head to notice the dark haired girl observing him. In that moment, they had made eye contact. Kitty blinked, then blushed as she looked down at her text book.
'Oh man. He noticed me checking him out. I hope he doesn't think of me as some sort of weirdo or anything. He's already gotta know I go to 'Mutant High' over there. Way to keep your cover up, Pryde.' She chastized herself. Kitty went back to her book and wrote down important missed homework information and worked on her assignment for the duration of class.
The class ended and moved onto the next period. Computer science. Kitty gathered her personal items and changed classrooms as part of her daily grind. She sat at a lone workstation, setting her books down on the floor and pulling out her notebook to write down anything important. A figure sat down in the normally unoccupied seat next to her. She glanced over to see it was Doug.
"...Hey." She acknowledged nonchalauntly.
"Do I have something on my face? You'd never looked at me like that before." He smiled, setting down his books.
"Oh, well uh... I guess. You reminded me of someone else for a minute, the way you dressed today. Like, completely distracted me in class." She hums, "So, it's always good to be the youngest two in class, huh?"
"I guess we're just lucky." He logged into the computer, "Hadn't seen you around for a week. Got sick?"
"Naw, family vacation." She scooted in to watch the screen, "Like... you're good at this programming thing, huh?"
"A talent, I guess." He shrugged.
"Say, even though I'm pretty good at this stuff, I'm a little behind..." Kitty smiles, "I'm having some trouble with my computer. I could use a wiz like you to check it out? If you've got the time, that is."
"Study session?" He blinked.
"Yeah, exactly that." Kitty thought about how easy this seemed. "I have to pick up my computer n'stuff, but I could sure use it." She jotted down the number to the institute and handed it to Doug. "Call me after school. We could meet up somewhere later."
Doug blinked, looking at the paper. "Oh, okay. Sure." The bell rang and class began, ending their conversation.
***
"OooooOooooOo! I heard a rumor!" Kurt settled down at the lunch table where a lot of the institute kids gathered to eat.
"What kind of rumor?" Jean set her tray down, Scott settling in beside her.
"Amanda said she saw Kitty passing her number to a boy in computer class." Kurt grinned, a bit full of himself. "Seems to be moving on, ja?"
"Moving on where?" Kitty sat down beside Kurt.
Kurt laughed nervously, settling down in his seat, "Nothing, nothing at all!" He took a bite of his lunch sandwich.
Scott awkwardly broke in, "Kurt uh... heard about you making a friend in computer class today."
"A friend...? Oh yeah." She set up her lunch, "I'm behind on a few things and he's really smart, like me. I asked him to help me with my classes since he's.. y'know, been here the last week." She paused, "Moving on... are you talking about Lance again? That was so three months ago. This isn't anything like that, it's just schoolwork. Sorry to get YOUR hopes up. Gotta tease someone else this week, fuzzy."
"You make it sound like I enjoy this."
"You *do*!" She made a face and laughed.
"You seem awfully cheerful, Kitty. I'm surprised you wanted to come to school today." Jean took a sip of her drink. Her tone put a bit of a damper on the lighthearted mood.
"Huh? Why wouldn't I? School is important to me. Beats hangin' around the institute bored out of my mind." Kitty observed Jean, noticing the different look she had received from her fellow team-mate. "Like, don't concern yourself too much. I'm just a little sore, but my emotions are in check now. I'm stronger'n that, Jean. 'Kay?"
"But... if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm always here for you as a teamate and friend." She urged.
"What's with the third degree?" Kitty wrinkled her nose, "Can't I be a little down for a day every once in a while? Can't I be human?"
"You know I'm not talking about the divorce, Kitty."
The boys exchanged looks back and forth from another. Rogue approached the table with her food, taking a seat quietly.
"Then what are you talking about?" Kitty asked, taking a sip of her orange juice. She baited Jean with that nugget of knowledge. Kitty smiled, knowing perfectly well Jean wouldn't force the issue in front of a group.
"You know what I'm talking about!" She let out a frustrated sigh, "Fine fine. You win, for now."
Rogue looked between Kitty and Jean, "What was THAT all about?" Kurt and Scott shrugged in unison.
***
The rest of the day was relatively boring. Catching up on schoolwork isn't exactly the most fun an average teenager could have. The troop headed back to the house in their separate ways. Kurt walked with Kitty, rather concerned about the conversation she had with Jean earlier that day.
"So that's what happened? Your parents decided to separate?" He walked with his hands folded together, placed behind his head as they walked.
"Yeah. I totally wasn't ready for that." Kitty held her books close to her. "It really all seems so... insignificant now though. Maybe I got over it." She thought about it. "Mn, no. I haven't gotten over it, but I've made peace with it. It's like that phrase, crying over spilled milk. What can you do? Accept and move on I guess."
"That's really mature of you, Katzchen. I'm proud of you." He smiled.
"You think so?" She poked back jokingly, "I'm growing up so fast before your eyes, soon enough we'll be reminicing about the old days, wondering where the time went."
"Not too fast, mein freund. Let's try to graduate first, ja?"
"Seriously!" She nodded, "Which reminds me, I have a study session tonight. Hopefully I'll get some answers."
"Answers to what?"
"Oh! Nothing really, fuzzy!" She half smiled at her tiny slip up. "Just going to be busy working to catch up to everyone. It can't be that hard, but it's a lot easier with a little help."
"I can dig that. C'mon, let's get home."
***
'Gah, everybody is making a cute little fuss about my study session. Kurt's practically my best friend and they don't bug me about that. Men and women can be friends, really! Grrr.'
The phone call between the two was simple and valid. The plan was to meet up at the library to study, then head to the mall afterwards so that they could get dinner and Kitty could meet up with her ride when the time came. Kitty packed a backpack with her laptop and a few schoolbooks, then headed down to the meet up spot.
She leaned against the wall just outside of the entrance for a few moments before Doug approached the girl with a smile, "Sorry, I had to finish up some things at home."
"I just got here a minute ago. Glad I wasn't late." She gestured to head inside. They set up their books at a table in the corner end of the library. Kitty pulled out her laptop and set it to boot up while she skimmed over some class notes. "Can't believe I feel so behind." She took out a pencil, marking down what had been done thus far.
Doug looked curiously at the computer, "So what did you want me to look at?"
"Oh yeah! Well, it's not really a problem with my computer. More like an I-D-10-T error, as in, I can't figure this thing out." She opened up a folder, then accessed one of the files from her recent adventure. "On a different system, I had no problem accessing these things. Now that I'm here, it's encoded and encrypted to make sure I can't see what's in there. I guess nothing I have knows how to read it, is all."
"Oooooh. I see. May I?" He asked politely, going to slide the laptop over toward himself.
"Knock yourself out." She opened up her book, starting work on a missed assignment while keeping most of her attention on her computer and friend.
He tapped away for a few minutes. "What I'm doing is creating a program that can understand those files. Like a translator."
"You can do that? Just code something up right here? Impressive." She ooohed a little.
"You probably can too, you know. We're both the top students in the class." He noted.
"I'm more of a hardware and hacker geek. I can fix stuff if I break it, but when it comes to creating new programs I'm a little clumsy." Kitty leaned against her hand, watching the progress.
"Then that must make us an unstoppable duo." He joked. "I think I have it. Let me test this baby out."
"Is everything saved?" She asked curiously.
"Well... yeah. I do good work." He nodded confidently.
She hummed and nodded back in acknowledgement. Doug accessed the file in the recently created reader. Kitty's eyes widened at the words that flashed across the screen. She shrieked and pointed in another direction, "Hey, what's that?!"
Doug blinked, "What?" and turned away from the screen. Kitty quickly moved her hand to phase through the battery pack to her computer. The system died immediately on contact.
"Well, just my bad luck. My battery ran out of juice and I forgot the extension cord! Oh well, I guess I'll have to check out those later. Thank YOU though for getting it to work before that happened." She folded up the laptop. "I owe you one."
"... uh... yeah, I guess." He looked over Kitty and her raised an eyebrow at her half genuine statement. "You don't sound concerned."
"Happens all the time. Really." She opened her notebook, "So, let's go over the last weeks assignments, okay?"
"Sure thing."
***
'Doug's really a nice guy. We connect on levels that some of my closest friends and teamates don't. I remember last semester before the institute blew up, we'd compare notes and talk of just about anything. It took a while for things to get back to normal. If the file is true, he's a mutant, too. They'd been studying him a while. A bit creepy -- he doesn't even know he's being used for something much bigger, but like... he probably doesn't even think about it. It's easy when a mutation isn't as noticable as like... walking through walls or shooting beams out of your eyes. I should mention to the Professor at least this much. Doug's only been here a few months, maybe the Professor's been too busy keeping up on all the other crazy events that looking for new kids to help fell by the sidelines. God knows we don't have that much room. Gah, what am I thinking? He's safer out here. His house won't blow up because someone wants revenge or hates him. Like... how does that factor into people who are being used for their abilities but don't know what it's for? Waah, I give up.'
They finished their study session and headed over to the mall, refreshed and satisfied with the day. It was relatively uncrowded for a weekend evening. A little over two hours before stores closed up for the night.
"I'm so hungry! I'm glad I got most of my work done at the library. More time for relaxing back at home." Kitty smiled, heading toward the food court.
"Well, I already ate. I think I'm going to call my parents to pick me up, if that's okay?"
Kitty tilted her head, "If you want, I suppose. It'd be nice to have the company.. but if you gotta go, you gotta go. I have to check out a store or two and I'll be heading home after that anyway."
"Yeah, I'm just really tired. I've been doing some part-time work that's taken a lot of my free time, so I like to get in an early night when I can." He nodded, "Thank you though. It was fun! I'd like to spend more time with you."
Kitty blinked and smiled, trying not to interpuret this in a wrong way. "Yeah, definitely! We've got to do this again... but not... like studying. Maybe catch a movie or something?"
"Sure." He replied. He pulled out his cell phone, "Talk to you later, bye!" He left the mall through the food court exit, dialing a number on his phone and heading away.
She gave him a polite wave, then headed over to a food kiosk to piece together a decent meal for dinner. 'Guys are just so turned off by shopping sometimes.'
***