"Well, well, I find all four of the new mutants in one room. Magneto sent me over to see what the new recruits are like." He looked each one of us over before his eyes fell on Priya. "I know the rest from school, but who are you?" he asked her.
"Uh…" The others seemed confused, and I only knew of him because of stolen memories. So it fell on me to do the introductions. "Guys, this is Pietro. He's part of the Brotherhood of mutants. They want to kill the entire human race. They're also sort of the x-men's enemy."
"Well, we wouldn't *have* to be, if you guys would just stay out of our plans. And I'm still waiting to hear who *she* is." He gave Priya another curious look.
"That would be Flamey." I said, making up a nickname for her quickly. "That's Ripples." I said pointing to Jenn. "And he's Haze. I'm Memory."
"Don't I get her real name?" he asked, seeming slightly offended. But before I could retort, the mansion alarms went off. "Damn! It seems they've finally found out I'm here. And before I could even get your name." He looked at Priya. "But we will meet again." And he was gone with a zip. A few seconds later Wolverine rushed in, followed by Scott and someone who looked like he could be related to kurt or a gorilla. I searched all the memories I had gotten from the xmen and found a hazy one that identified him as "Mr. Mc Coy."
"Professor said he sensed Quicksilver, er Pietro, in the mansion, coming from this wing. This is the only place I can get a good enough sent of him, so I figure I should start here." Wolverine looked at us half inquisitive, half scary.
"Well, Pietro *did* stop by, but he only wanted to find out who we are. Probably report back to Magneto. He did seem more interested in some of us that others." Priya glared as the rest of us stifled giggles. I noticed that her hands had flared up, as a result of her annoyance. Now Wolverine looked confused, but he didn't pry. "We didn't give him any names or abilities. Just aliases. May I introduce Flamey, Ripples, Haze, and Memory. He did recognize us from school. All except Priya. She went to a different school, but come Monday he'll know. Then the alarm rang and he ran off."
"Lemme guess." Said Priya. "Super speed." I nodded. "Well, If you see him again, tell someone right away." Put in Scott. With that, the adults/ Scott left us looking amused. The look on Priya's face was priceless. It was as if two emotions were fighting on her face. One was annoyance and displeasure. The other was, well, excitement and at the same time confusion. I think she wasn't sure what to make of Quicksilver.
That Sunday was our first Danger Room training session. The professor and Logan watched us fight the machinery from a little sky box in the corner. It was supposed to be just us new students, but Kitty and Kurt begged them until they were allowed to join in. None of us were really good. Priya seemed to know what she was doing, but really she was just exploding everything, as shown by the fact that she nearly blew up Andy three times. Jenn was managing to destroy some stuff, but she didn't really seem to know how to properly control her powers. She was good at making it go on, but sometimes she would make ripples unintentionally. Andy could phase through stuff, but, like me, he couldn't really do offense. I didn't have hardly any defense either. I deflected a few blasts with minor telekinesis, but I mainly just tried to dodge stuff, and Kurt had to save me several times from being zapped by a laser. Memories were no good against technology.
After about 15 minutes, the professor took mercy on us and let us stop. Several of us were slightly scorched, and Andy seemed to have a slight limp from when he didn't phase in time and tripped over something. Kitty tried to support him with her arm, but he ended falling straight through her. We tried not to laugh…too hard.
"Not *too* bad for your first time. But you're obviously gonna need some hand-to-hand combat training. That can start Monday, after school. And you'll need to train in acrobatics, agility, and reflexes. We can get some of the older xmen to do that, at least for a while.
"EEEEEEEE!! PRIYA!" It was the next day at school, during lunch. We had introduced Staci to Kitty, who had decided to sit with us, and then had made Priya jump out from under the table. Staci was seeing Priya for the first time since she had moved away, two years ago. "What are you doing here?"
"I moved back. And…" but she was interrupted by Pietro. He had walked over and hidden behind a nearby tree (since we always sat outside) and just now had come out.
"So your name is Priya eh. I like it." Priya blushed furiously.
"What do you want, Pietro?" Kurt asked, sounding annoyed.
"Nothin' concerning you, fuzzy. I just wanna have lunch with Priya." He said her name in a weird way. Sort of like a lovestruck puppy. Priya giggled. … Wait, Priya giggled? Priya *never* giggled. Devilish grinning, sure, meniacal laughter, definetly. But giggling? Hmm, pigs must be flying somewhere.
Priya gave a pointed look at Staci, who went and sat next to Jenn so Pietro could be next to Priya. Good Dan and Liz were missing that day. Everyone was staring at Priya, who was acting so out of character that we all expected her to sprout wings and fly away. I guess stranger things had happened. Staci broke the awkward silence first.
"Did, um, Pietro just call you Fuzzy? Cause, like, you don't look fuzzy at all. Unless you're an alien that's taken over someone's body and plans to eat old people!" Staci and Pietro broke into laughter and the rest of us faked doing so. Way to close to the truth.
Suddenly we were surrounded by what seemed to be shadowy people. They didn't seem real somehow. As if they were vapors or smokey versions of their former selves.
"Any of you guys doing that? Kurt whispered.
"Nope." Was the collective response.
"Beth, any chance this is some sort of memory?"
I shut my eyes. "Still there?"
"Yep."
"Then its not me."
Even Pietro had stopped laughing and noticed. He obviously had no idea what was going on either. No one else was outside, luckily. We all turned to Staci, who was still giggling about Kurt being a little green alien. "Staci?" Jenn asked.
Staci opened her eyes, looked around and then back at us horrorstruck. The people disappeared. "Oops, uh, I didn't do it? Too late for that now I guess. Ok, so I'm a mutant, whachagonnadoaboutit?" She said, looking as if she expected us to pull torches and pitchforks from behind our backs. The bell rang before we could respond. "Don't worry, Staci, we're all mutants too." Priya said in a comforting voice. She breifly lit up her hands. "See? We can't talk now, or we'll miss class, but after school follow us home and we'll explain everything." Staci looked relieved that none of us were planning to kill her, nodded, and then we all said goodbye to each other.
That day after school, we all met in Jenn and Priyas room (minus Pietro of couse). We showed Staci our powers, and then asked her to show us hers. It turned out that she could sometimes see people from the past and sometimes even make them visible to others. During lunch she must have brought back a whole bunch of students who had walked there before.
The longer the person had been there, the clearer their "image" was and the easier it was to make other people see them. Staci showed us a little navaho indian girl who had lived on the property long before the institute had stood there. "They can talk to me and understand me. They call me Echo, since I can see the "Echoes of the past". I told them that sounds lame, but they won't stop." She blushed, but then I told her we called Priya "Flamey", and she felt better. Priya kicked me in an annoyed sort of way as the rest of us giggled. "We have to introduce you to the professor."
"You don't have to. I've been listening." The professor spoke into our minds. "Sorry, I don't usually do this, but I wanted to know who this new person that you brought in was. Staci is welcome to stay, if she so wishes. And Beth, you have a danger room training with Logan in five minutes. Priya, Jenn, then Andy are after her. He's going to start teaching you hand to hand combat."
I said goodbye to everyone and made my way down to the Danger Room. I was slightly nervous, but I figured it couldn't go much worse than the first time. It might even improve if I was fighting a real person. Memories work much better on things that are actually alive. But then again, Logan looked about 10 times scarier than any machine.
When I got into the room, Logan handed me a long wooden stick. Evidently I was supposed to use this to fight him. He flashed out his claws and told me to try and hit him with the stick. I stood there, unsure of what to do. I really hate hurting people, even if they are provoking me. While I was trying to work up the courage to hit him, he used his claws to cut the stick in two.
"C'mon! Do something."
I managed to whack him once in the leg before he kicked both the sticks away. Then he grabbed my wrists. "What are ya gonna do now, bub?" I did have a slight idea. I doubted if it would work, maybe I'd just been reading too much Harry Potter. But I needed to search his memories, to find his worst memories. Maybe that would destract him long enough for me to get away. And for me to do this, I had to touch his skin. He was wearing gloves, but I might be able to touch his ankle. I slowly kicked off my shoes. I had purposefully not worn socks, in case I needed to try this. I put my foot against his ankle, hoping it'd be enough to get memories off of. Luckily it was. Searching for certain memories is like searching through boxes of photographs. If it's a clear memory, its labled and easy to find. If not, well, it'd take a lot of searching. But a person's worst memories sort of float around their mind, never really forgotten. It's not too hard to find them, which is why when I first looked at Kurt's mind, I got some of his worst ones right away. Logan's mind was a little different.
They werent floating around, but I could sense them. There was a weird box, instead of smokey, it was red, and it was also locked. I touched the lock and it melted away. And then the box exploded.