All characters are the property of Marvel.
From his center seat in the back of Scott's car, Evan took a deep breath, almost like he was inhaling a sweet perfume.
"Smell that my friends...that's the smell of first day chaos," he proclaimed to his rather glum companions.
How can you be so cheerful? Its the start of the year." Kurt exclaimed from beside him.
"I take my pleasures where I can." Evan responded, trying not to let anyone's low spirits get him down.
"Some pleasure," Rogue muttered, not in the least bit happy to be returning to the place where she was considered even more of an outsider then usual. But on the bright side of things at least she had found a kindred spirit in Risty and she guessed she should take some consolation from that.
Scott who wasn't really paying any heed to their conversation carefully guided the car through the combination of parked cars and groups of students who were catching up on all the gossip that occurred during the summer.
"This is the worst day of my life," came a small moan from the last passenger in the back.
"What's up?" Scott asked as he turned in his seat to back the car into a space.
"The most important day of the school year and I get a zit the size of a tennis ball."
"You said Sadie Hawkins was the most important day last year," Rogue reminded her, knowing only too well it would irritate her further.
"Well duh...This is more important for other reasons," Kitty replied testily.
"You look fine," Scott assured her as he finished parking.
"Fine? I look so stupid I may as well have dressed up in a pink frilly dress. Its like I've got a whole new head growing out of my face."
"Yeah, but only a baby's head," Evan stated cheerfully, earning a glare from an enraged Kitty
"I'm sure that Lance will not mind," Kurt practically whispered.
"That's it," Kitty snapped, "I'm so going back to the mansion, taking a sick day, maternity leave, I don't care."
"If a guy loses interest over a zit," Scott observed as he popped the trunk, "he isn't worth the effort in the first place," which sounded to Kitty's ears awfully like Scott was implying that Lance wasn't worth the effort.
"So you'd still moon over Jean even if her face resembled a burnt pizza?" she retorted angrily, knowing exactly where Scott's Achilles Heel was.
Scott held his hands up defensively and bit down on his instinctive reaction to deny any untoward feelings about Jean...not that they were untoward as such. However before he got the chance to say anything at all, the familiar sight of Duncan's sleek car pulled up next to his own, Jean seated happily next to her boyfriend. She gave a small happy wave to the group as Duncan looked on, the smug grin on his face saying it all.
Scott looked from the car to Kitty who had her arms folded and her face set in a "go ahead and prove-me-wrong" manner. Scott simply sighed and walked quickly to the trunk, doing his best to ignore pretty much everybody else. Enjoying her small victory, Kitty pulled a black baseball cap down over the offending blemish and joined the rest of the group in retrieving their bags from the back of the car.
"What's first on the menu guys?" Evan asked the other two a few moments later as he pulled out his own rather tattered timetable. The three of them had been quickly abandoned by the girls who had gone off to meet their respective friends and classmates.
"After the assembly...double math with Carlin," groaned Kurt, not relishing the thought of two periods of numbers and angles. He already seemed to be dragging his heels in the hope that he might miss the whole thing.
"History," Scott answered simply, juggling his bag and timetable in his hands. "You?" he asked when he finally got everything arranged to his satisfaction.
"English Lit. with Jones," he replied evenly, not entirely sure yet whether English Lit. was a good or a bad thing in so far as how easy a class it was.
Evan spotted some of the basketball team hanging by the steps and was already racing off towards them when he shouted over his shoulder at Kurt and Scott. "See you at lunch."
The remaining pair nodded their silent agreement before heading towards the main hall, the place where most of the student body was slowly gravitating. It was customary at the start of every school year for the principle, some members of the senior staff and a representative from the school board to give speeches before the actual classes would begin proper. As a one-year veteran of this ritual, Kurt wanted to make sure that he got a good seat this year so he could snooze in peace.
"Hurry Scott, all the seats will be taken and well be front and center...again," he urged Scott who was moving along happily at his own pace. Scott just smiled and shook his head slightly, though he still increased his pace nonetheless for his friends benefit.
"I'm almost ashamed to say I know her," Donald Pierce informed his housemate Sebastian Shaw as they shadowed another of their housemates, Emma Frost. She was sitting apart from them near the back of the main school hall and seemed to be watching a spot off to the side intently. Both of them knew exactly whom it was that had captured her attention.
"Why? You don't think she's capable of the task," Shaw asked, his eyes continually scanning through the throng of students in the hall for anyone of note. Shaw was quite a tall young man at just over six foot and he had the look of a linebacker about him. Unusually for someone as young as him, part of his hair was already starting to gray slightly, making him appear older then he actually was. His current companion Pierce was quite similar, a powerful looking kid who had made something of himself due to a sharp mind and indomitable willpower.
"Her capabilities I do not doubt, it's her motivation that troubles me," Pierce answered. "She seems to have taken this task rather to heart, or at least one particular aspect of it anyway. I still cannot understand why Nathaniel thinks that Summers is so important," Pierce elaborated on a point that had puzzled all of the members of their extended "family".
"In all the time I have known him, I have yet to witness Essex being wrong about anything. If he says that Summers is important, then no doubt he is. However...I believe I share your misgivings regarding Frost. She more then anyone should know that business and pleasure don't mix. Well just have to continue keeping an eye of her while we go about our other...duties. Speaking of which, have the necessary arrangements been made?" Shaw asked, his voice lowering as the crowd settled down for Principals Kelly's speech.
"Of course," Pierce replied in equally hushed tones, folding his arms across his chest as the address finally began.
After the numerous addresses given by various members of the staff, the students were allowed to settle back down into the all too familiar though natural routine that was as integral a part of school life in Bayville High as the classes or teachers themselves. The same groups claimed the same lunchtime territory, the same cycles of bullying; romance and schoolyard drama played itself out again and again as it had done countless times before.
For the inhabitants of the Xavier institute, school life was a welcome diversion from their covert extra curricular activities. The normally outgoing Kitty Pryde felt she was being closely scrutinized while 0sequestered in the mansion, now felt confident enough to let Lance Alvers pursue her actively in public, strange and all as it seemed to both of their respective teammates. Kurt too was also busy nurturing his own budding romance with a girl in his class and despite his outgoing nature was agonizing over every little aspect as she was unaware of his unique nature which caused him real anguish and plagued him with doubts. Jean, who seemed to be doing a thousand things at once around the school, effortlessly re-established herself as the undisputed Queen of the School with Duncan her jock king. Evan gravitated towards a similar crowd as naturally excelling on the basketball court gave him a ticket to all the in-crowds major parties. Scott seemed content to toil away diligently while largely shunning the social scene. All the while a melancholic Rogue watched the rest of her friends and teammates with quiet envy.
School had resumed for two weeks when the first unusual occurrence took place: Jason Wyngarde, a new transfer student was elected onto the student council at the behest of someone in the faculty. A new transfer student wasn't unusual in and of itself. In fact there had been an influx of transfers in the past two years, many of them now staying at Xavier's. What only a few people noticed was that a practical stranger had been placed in one of the highest student positions with no input by anybody in the student body. No protest was made however, nor inquiry made as the truth was that the general student population didn't really care about the student council and so his election passed unchallenged.
It had been Shaw's idea to put Wyngarde on the council. He believed that it never hurt to have a friendly face in any place of power. Though the council was practically toothless, it still carried a little weight around the place and it couldn't hurt to have some clout on call if need be. So using Jason's talents they convinced a member of the faculty to push him onto the council, something he was only too happy to do.
There was another benefit to having someone on the council in Shaw's eyes. Jean Grey was also a member, in fact she was the senior student representative. Though Essex had not left any particular instructions regarding any of the other students in Xavier's mansion, he had spent more time discussing her then he had any of the others save Summers during his briefing. To Shaw that meant that he must have some interest in her too though he had net openly divulged it yet. Still, Shaw believed it was preferable to be ahead of the game then lagging behind it.
For the people that didn't really know him and that to be fair, was the vast majority of students at Bayville High, Scott Summers was a bit of an enigma. Other then the students who boarded with him at Xavier's mansion he didn't seem all that close to anybody. In fact he came off as being largely indifferent to those around him and pretty much a loner. Normally this would have marked him as a potential target for the more aggressive students but even they acknowledged that Summers was a guy best left alone. Don't bother him or his and you won't have a problem.
Much of this reputation had stemmed from an infamous incident on the football pitch where he faced off against Duncan Matthews and two of his cronies. Popular opinion had it that this fight was over the popular and pretty Jean Grey who had just begun seeing Matthews much to Scott's displeasure. The truth was a little different, as Matthews had simply been picking on another student, something a passing Summers took exception to. Though the underdog in every sense of the word, Summers faced the three of them down with unnerving calm. The fight could have gone either way by the time the Couch came out and broke it up. To avoid disciplinary hassles for football star Matthews the entire incident was hushed up but from that day on everyone knew that tangling with Summers was not something to be undertaken lightly.
So it was with a weary sigh that he approached a group of fellow final year students who had cornered one of the newer arrivals to the school and were happily taunting her, going through her bag with sadistic gusto. Everyone else in the corridor saw it too but knew better then to intercede lest the attention of the pack turned on them.
"Hey guys," Scott stated in an overly friendly manner as he arrived.
A number of them turned to face him, confident in their numbers.
"What d'ya want Summers?" one of the smaller ones asked. Summers recognized him from the football team as being unusual nasty especially given his size or maybe it was because of it.
"I need to get to my locker," he replied evenly, making sure to keep an unconfrontational tone from his voice.
"Come back later," someone else said.
"Can't you see were trying to warm up little miss Frosty here," another added, something unsettling in his tone.
Scott looked at the target of their attentions. He recognized her from one of his classes where she always sat near the back. He could tell she was pretty though she seemed to have gone to some lengths in order to hide it. Her blonde almost silvery white hair was held in a rather severe looking bun while a pair of plain glasses dominated her face. He couldnt tell much else about her as she was wearing a large light grey sweater and white pants that disguised any hint of her figure. What he could tell though was that she easy pickings for a bunch of Neanderthals like these guys.
"Can't do that guys," he stated as he calmly took his bag from off his shoulder and placed it against the lockers.
"Boy scout Summers to the rescue," the small one observed, getting a laugh from the others. "What are you going to do; tell us to pick on someone our own size."
"No," Scott replied. "I'm just going to swing at you just once and miss but Principle Kelly, whose walking down the stairs right now will see it, come over here and detain us all while he interrogates us."
They all looked back towards the stairs and indeed the dark suited Kelly was walking down towards them, discussing some papers with another member of staff. In what seemed to be an almost instinctual move, they all dispersed in different directions, muttering veiled threats and the like under their breaths.
Scott watched them all leave before he picked up his bag again, the girl watching him the whole time.
He noticed this and smiled at her briefly before shrugging slightly and regarding the lockers, "Hey, it turns out this isn't my locker at all."
"That was very kind of you," she practically whispered. He guessed that she was still a little upset from what had happened.
"Don't worry about it. Principle Kelly would have stopped then anyway."
"Still," she continued nore confidently, seemingly unconcerned with that fact, "to do what you did for a complete stranger."
"Well, we're hardly complete strangers. You're in my..." he searched to put the face in the class.
"History class," she finished helpfully.
"Yeah that's right. You sit near the back."
She blushed slightly, her head bowing coyly.
"It's easier to hide at the back," she stated, her voice lowering again to practically inauidible levels.
Scott knew that this was one of those key moments where he could politely make his excuses and withdraw to safety or he could stay and ask the question that meant reaching out and adding another complication to what he considered an already complicated life. He was a mutant, he was responsible for the lives of the teammates, he had a crush on his best friend while possibly being chased by two other girls; both of whom he liked and now he was about to take another one under his wing. But the simple fact was that for someone like Scott there was ever only really one option.
"And why would you possibly have to hide?" he asked gently.
Emma Frost looked up into the ruby reflective lenses and saw only her own face staring back at her and she knew right there and then that she had lost.