Disclaimer: I don't own anything from X-Men Evolution, but I wish I did However, I do own Fritz and Axel. They are mine. Steal them and I will break your virtual kneecaps. So there.

Author's note: AU Fic. This is in fact a PG-13 story. So, if you're not allowed to subject yourself to mild language and gore, you should stop reading now. You've been warned, so I don't want to see any angry letters from mothers telling me that their child is swearing up a storm because of this story. Please read and review.

/\/\/\/\= Massive time change.

******= Character focus change.

Blah.

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Berlin

January 4th, 2001:Sunday

6:37p.m.

"Ugh, Axel we're out of bread," Axel Fultz's mother complained, gazing at him hopefully.
            "So, what do you want me to do about it, exactly?" Axel replied, peering over his comic book at his expectant mom.
            "Will you please go down to the market and buy a new loaf? If you don't we won't be able to use it for dinner."
            "Mom, come on! This book is just getting good! I want to finish it before school tomorrow. Have Felix do it or something."
            "Axel Benedikt Fultz! If you don't get up right now and go to the market, you will never see that comic book again! Got it?"
            Axel sighed, cursing under his breath in German as he rose to his feet and grudgingly accepted the bread money his mom was holding out to him. He threw his comic book into his room as he made his way to the front door.
            "I'll be back in a few minutes!" he called to his mom, stepping out into the afternoon air and shutting the door.

            He inhaled deeply and let it out in another sigh. "Why does mother pull me away from my comic book day after day after day?" He thought to himself. "Hey, perhaps I'll end up like those kids in the movies. They're obsessed with comic books and end up becoming super heroes."  He snickered at the thought of being doused in radioactive chemicals and becoming super strong.
            People called out his name and made annoying small talk about the weather and about his family, his pets, blah blah blah. He ended the conversations as soon as he could, by making up excuses, to get to the market so he could get back home and finish his book.
            After talking to at least eleven different people about the weather and his family, he finally reached the market, and slowly stepped inside, making sure the money was safely in his pocket. Through his prescription-tinted glasses, he looked at all the different prices of bread, deciding on the cheapest one.
            "Hm. This'll do, I suppose," he muttered to himself, taking the loaf off of the shelf. He strolled up to the counter and placed the bread in front of the cashier. "This will be all."
            "Hey, Axel. How's it going?" the cashier asked, taking the money from him and ringing up the prices.
            "Not bad, not bad. You?" Axel replied, clearly wanting to get out of the market and back home as soon as humanly possible.
            "Fine. Very fine. Here's your change and here's your bread. Have a good day Axel; say hi to your mom for me."
            He muttered under his breath as he speed-walked to the door, bolting out into the throng of people moving along the sidewalk. "Fine. Very fine," he mumbled. "Say hi to your mom for me, I'm a stupid asshole and need to run myself off a cliff, blah blah blah. Grrrr, why does everybody annoy me when I need to get home. Bread, small talk, dumb cashier."
            He was speed walking home, and he completely ignored the people that called out to him. He began to whistle absently, attempting to occupy himself with some random German tune while he practically ran home.
            He stopped at the crosswalk and tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for his opportunity to cross. All he could think about was making the stupid cars stop so that he could cross and go home. For some reason, the fact that the cars wouldn't stop for him was making him very angry. His heartbeat sped up, and his breaths became shorter and closer together.
            Suddenly, as if his mind had some kind of power over what happened, the cars all stopped. They didn't slow to a stop, or screech to a stop. No, they just stopped. Right where they were. And it wasn't just the ones in front of him, it was everywhere. Out of sheer curiosity, he walked up to one of the cars directly in front of him and gazed through the window at the immobile driver, his eyes half closed in a frozen blink, a cup of coffee touching his lips, but not letting the liquid into his mouth.
          "What's going on..?" he asked out loud to nobody in particular, as if he could provide some kind of answer. He knocked on the window repeatedly, but the driver didn't move a muscle. He didn't even flinch at the sound of Axel's knock. He whirled around and bolted back up to the sidewalk. The same thing was happening to the people. It wasn't just the cars that had stopped; all the people were frozen in mid-walk. Some of them had their legs outstretched before them, and some of them had their leg bent behind them. A dog off in the distance had one leg poised in the air over a tree root, obviously ready to urinate all over it. But it never happened. The dog stayed where it was, on three legs, unmoving.

            "What is wrong with everybody? Why are they all frozen?"  He ran to another person, and poked him in the chest. Nothing. Axel even poked him directly in his eye, and while his finger came back moist, the man didn't blink at all. He didn't seem affected by it whatsoever.
            Axel reared back the hand holding the loaf of bread and swung it as hard as he could at the man's head. Although it wouldn't have hurt much if he could feel it, it would at least let Axel know if the man was alive.
            Just as the loaf was centimeters away from the mans cheek, he began to move again. He was no longer frozen, and Axel's bread slammed into his face, causing it to recoil a bit. He spun around at Axel, holding his injured eye and rubbing the side of his face.
            "What the hell was that for?!" the man wailed. His eye was watering from when Axel had poked it, and his face was all red from the blow from Axel's bread.
            "Uh… Well… I--" Axel stuttered and couldn't think of a response if his life depended on it. He was a bit afraid by now, considering this man could probably pummel him so far into the ground that only his spiky black hair would be visible. "See--I was--…" His words trailed off suddenly when the man disappeared.
            The space where the man used to be was now nothing but a blur of color and skin. The people that were frozen minutes ago--and normal seconds ago--were now flying past him like bullets.
            "Am I the only normal one here or what?"  He turned to the left, then to the right and saw the same thing. People, cars, birds, all moving at highly unnatural speeds. The dog he had seen before was now gone, and the people in the markets were buying their item and leaving in the space of split seconds. He was ready to scream in confusion and rage at the phenomenon of everybody being completely crazy and out of control just as they all slowed down again. He was back at square one, surrounded by statues.
            "No! NO!!" He ran out into the street, standing right in front of a bus and glaring at the driver, whose face was staring at the mirror, no doubt watching one of the bus riders behind him. "MOVE!!" Nothing. Nothing happened. The cars and busses all around him were still frozen. "Even a frozen person can't withstand somebody running right into him," he decided, his voice tainted by rage and confusion.
            He turned to the left and targeted one of the frozen people, narrowing his eyes to slits. He backed up a bit and started running. He pumped as hard as he could, but got about two steps before the frozen bus on his right side came to life and slammed into his lower right arm. He wailed in pain and whirled around from the force of the blow and flew over the curb. He landed flat on his face on the sidewalk just as the bus screeched to a halt, blood gushing from his now mutilated lips. He could already feel the concussion settling in when his vision became ultra-bright, and his body produced excess amounts of adrenaline. Enough for him to use his good arm to stagger to his feet and gaze around him absent-mindedly. He vaguely saw the bus' side mirror hanging limply off of its screws, the corner of it splattered with blood.
            Blackness began to envelope him as he staggered toward the side of a building, holding out his hand for support. He leaned toward the wall, but his hand never felt it; instead, he fell to the ground again and slipped into unconsciousness.

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Berlin, St. Joseph's Hospital

January 5th, 2001:Monday

10:16a.m.

            "What the… Where am I? Did mom get the bread? How come I'm sleeping? I couldn't have been that tired from just walking to the market…"
          A thousand thoughts were going through his head as he lay there. "Why am I laying down?!" His eyes flew open and he looked around frantically. He was on a very uncomfortable bed of some sort, in a room that was all white. White walls, white ceiling, white tiled floor. There was a nightstand next to his bed that had various paper cups holding medication and a metal tray of what seemed to be hospital food. There was a TV in front of him hanging from the ceiling depicting some football game from the 80's. He opened his mouth to call out for somebody, but his swollen lip prevented him from saying anything tangible. He tried to lift up his arm to inspect his lip wound, but pain shot through his lower arm and up to his shoulder. He groaned in agony and shut his eyes, gritting his teeth against the pain.
          "Try not to move, Axel. Your wounds have not fully healed yet and you have been asleep for a long time so you may be stiff," Axel heard a disembodied voice say from somewhere to his left. Or was it right? His head was spinning, and he didn't think the concussion had fully worn off yet. He vaguely heard the metallic hum of a motor of some sort, getting louder. He rolled his head to the left and saw the blurry form of…something. He could barely make out a man's bald head and his shoulders. But from their on, it seemed like metal. A machine perhaps? He closed his eyes tightly and opened them, repeating the process several times to get the effects of sleep out of his eyeballs. He turned toward the blurry form again, and saw what wasn't a machine, but simply a bald man sitting in a wheelchair--an electric wheelchair, which explains that weird humming noise he noticed earlier.
            "Hello Axel. I am Professor Charles Xavier. You've suffered a minor concussion, so you'll have to stay here in the hospital for tonight. After that--well, that's what I want to talk to you about," the man said, folding his hands in front of him and resting his elbows on the armrests of his chair.
            "Wha…. Where's mom? Why… what…" Axel could hardly talk at the moment, his head occasionally rocking back and forth on the pillow.
            "Calm down, Axel. I will answer all your questions soon enough. But first, I would like you to answer a few of mine," Xavier said soothingly, wheeling back to the door and shutting it, then making his way back to the bed. "First of all, I'm sure you remember--at least vaguely--the incident at the street corner, yes?"
            Axel nodded faintly, memories of the frozen people, the speeding cars, and the bus slamming into his arm came back to him.

            "Yes, of course you do. As you also know, you suffered minor injuries from that incident. A very long laceration down your arm, and of course, your lip. Well, considering you remember the injuries, I'm assuming you remember what was a little bit…different about that incident?"
            He nodded again, this time a little more noticeably. He could feel himself fully returning to the world of the living.
            "Well, Axel, I'm here to tell you what happened. You possess special abilities that allow you to dramatically change the speed of your own molecules. It's obvious that you noticed the enormous change in speed when the people and cars in Berlin were going slower than snails. Well, in reality, they were not going slow, Axel. You were moving extremely fast. And vice versa; when they were going faster than bullets, it was actually you going extremely slow. This may be a lot to take in all at once, Axel, but it's the truth. " Xavier stared hard at Axel, waiting for his response to what he had just heard. Axel shut his eyes again, but not so tight this time, and sighed deeply.
            "What are you trying to say, Professor? I'm a freak?" he asked, barely above a mutter.
            "Absolutely not, Axel. You are anything but a freak. You see…every few millennia; certain humans evolve differently than the others. They are given special abilities, and often times, it is hard for others to accept that. It may even be harder for you to accept it than it will be for everybody else," Xavier replied.
            "Where's mom and dad? And Felix? Where is everybody?"
            "They are out in the waiting room. Don't worry, they're fine. And so are you. Now, what I've just told you is the truth, Axel. You were given a special ability, and whether or not you choose to control it is up to you. What I'm proposing is that you come to my school, Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters, where you will be accepted for what you are. The Institute is a place where you can learn to use your abilities among others like you. Mutants, we call them. Of course you will be able to see your family over the holidays if you choose to come, and it won't interfere with your high school learning experience. Think of the Institute as sort of a dormitory. You go to high school, then come to the Institute and to your room, where you'll have a roommate. Obviously, you can choose not to go to the Institute. You can go about living your normal life, going to high school, going home to your family, et cetera et cetera. All I'm offering is a chance to harness your newfound ability. A chance to live among those who have abilities like you. A chance to live in peace, because believe me Axel, the rest of the world is not kind toward people like us."
            "Us? What's that supposed to mean? You're a…mutant too?"
            "Yes Axel."
            "What uh… what are your 'abilities'?"
            "I'm a telepath. I can read another person's mind, and also project thoughts into that mind."
            "Do you have the ability to do it to anybody?"
            'Just about.'
            Axel gasped and looked at Xavier. The professor's mouth wasn't moving, but Axel could feel him inside his head, talking to him.
          "And if I don't go to this… Institute?"
          "If you don't, you'll go about your normal life, like I said. The offer will always be open to you, of course, should the prejudice and hate ever start to bother you."
          "I can still see my family if I go? And the people there will like me? And I can still read my comic books?"
            "Yes, you can still read your comic books. I can't guarantee that everybody at the Institute will be your friend, but they will accept you. There is no prejudice against people that are different there."
            "Alright. I'll go to this Institute. For now, anyway."

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Bavarian Alps

January 3rd, 2001:Saturday

9:47p.m.

            "I am going out mama!" Fritz Jager yelled from the living room.

      "She is not here beast boy," he heard from behind him. He turned around and found himself face to face with his 14 year old cousin Sophie. He let out a long breath before speaking again. "Where is she?"

      "How should I know? All I was told is that she was leaving and won't be back until later tonight," she replied, walking up to Fritz and stopping in front of him. "So that means it is just you and me until later tonight. No one for you to go running to. No one to look out for you…no one to love you," she said getting closer with every word.

            "Yeah, whatever.  Why don't you go play with your ugly dolls or something? I'm leaving," Fritz said, raising his voice while side stepping around her and heading towards the door again.

            "I don't have any dolls," she said calmly. "Besides, you're the only thing that's ugly in this house, freak. You only have three fingers, and a tail for god's sake!  Don't even get me started on your fur.  My aunt and uncle should have done you a favor and let you die in those woods where they found you!" She had moved back in front of him and was now pushing him back toward the stairs to his room.

            "Oh and you look better. Pale skin, five fingers…no tail?! Maybe I would have been better if they had let me die in those woods! Then I wouldn't have to put up with you!"  He was yelling now and started emitting small coils of electricity from his body.

            "You better calm down. Remember what happened last time? It would be a shame for you to have to replace all those fuses again. I know how much you loved that." She said sarcastically.

            Fritz took some slow deep breaths to calm himself. The waves of electricity that were slowly growing bigger with his anger started to die down.  He pushed past her and walked out the front door and slammed it behind him.

            Fritz wandered around his town aimlessly swerving around trees while muttering to himself. "Stupid Sophie. Gah, I could kill her!" he said to himself. "Cause I'm a stupid bitch who always gets everything I want. Blah, blah, blah, I'm a dirty tramp," he said mimicking his cousin's voice. It was about 10:00 at night.  This was the only time he could leave the house, or chance being seen by someone.  He had to be careful to stay out of the light. Even though his fur made him appear almost invisible in the dark, he still needed to be careful not to be seen. He walked to a clearing of trees in the back of the little town he lived in, where there was a small stream. He usually came here to be by himself, and release built up emotion.  So far, he didn't think anyone new about this little sanctuary. He lay down, putting his hands behind his head. He stared up at the moon and eventually fell asleep.  Fritz dreamed of a place where there were people like him who lived together.  Away from others who would persecute them because they were different. 

            Fritz awoke at 2:14 in the morning and stood up too stretch his cramped muscles.  He looked at his watch and realized he was late to return home.  He usually returned home at about two o'clock. So, walking in a bit of a hurry, he left the clearing and started walking back through the town, towards his home.

            When he passed a clearing he heard some muffled screams. Being the curious young boy that he was, he decided to investigate the noises. He walked a ways into the clearing and spotted two silhouettes. One was on the ground with its hands over its head and the over was standing over it with a bag in its hand. When Fritz got closer he noticed that the person on the ground was an old women and the person standing over her was man with her purse in his hands. Fritz hid behind a large tree to stay out of sight, but slipped in a puddle of water and fell out of the shadows, right in front of the man.

            The man turned around and dropped the purse, "Whoa, what the hell are you?" he asked. "No way man. No way." He took one last look at the woman on the ground and ran out of the woods, muttering things about beer and weed.

            Fritz picked himself up and looked over at the old lady who was staring wide-eyed at him.

            "A-are you okay?" He asked her. But the only answer he got was "Demon!" Not like he hadn't expected that. But, after all, he had just saved her. 

            She got up, grabbed her purse, hit him in the side and ran off down the alley. He just stood there staring after her.

            After the initial shock of being hit in the side by an old lady wore off, he turned around and slowly walked out of the clearing towards the town. "Note to self: never help women in distress," he thought.

            When he reached the edge of the clearing he heard more screams, yells, and loud noises. He looked to his right and found some of the town's people outside in their pajamas with torches, pitchforks, and clubs. They turned to face him and started running towards him.

            "There's the demon!" One of the men shouted pointing in his direction. "Get it!"

            Fritz was sure this wasn't going to turn out good. The only thing for him to do was to turn around and run in the opposite direction. Soon he was running full force on all fours through the town. He swerved around as many trees as he could, trying to lose them but when he looked back, they were still there. He turned back around, and ran into a tree, falling to the ground and clutching his face as pain spread through it like fire. This was all the time the mob needed to catch up. They swarmed around him like bees on a flower.

            "You're not going anywhere, DEMON!" A man in the front said.

            "Get the rope," another said.

            "Tie it up!"

            "Don't let it move," he heard from different people in the crowd.

            "No, please, don't hurt me! I didn't do it! I saved an old lady. Doesn't that count for anything?" Fritz yelled over the noise of the mob.

            But no one cared. "Don't listen to it. It will only tell you lies and corrupt your mind!" Yelled the man with the rope.

            They grabbed him by the arms and tied them behind his back, gagged him, then they tied his feet together and lifted him over their shoulders. Fritz was carried to the town square where there was a gallows and town's people waiting for the lynching. A big man dragged the struggling Fritz up the ramp to the top of the scaffold and stood him in the center of the platform. The man slipped the noose around Fritz's neck and stood back while another man, in a black robe, walked up the platform and stood in front of him. He produced a bible and a cup of water from his robes. He turned to a page in the bible and started reading from it. Then he dipped his fingers in the water and splashed it on Fritz's forehead.

            "May you return to hell and never return," the priest finished and walked off the platform.

            "Hey man, I not from hell. Get me the fuck down. I swear, if I ever get down from here I'll…well, you don't want to know what I am going to do. That's right, you'd better walk away, pansy!" Fritz looked out over the crowd from his position and noticed little kids and babies had come to watch the lynching of the "demon." The man who carried him to the top of the gallows said some things to the crowd, though Fritz didn't hear any of it because he was to busy struggling to get out of the noose. The man finished and pulled the lever by his side. The door under Fritz's feet opened and he fell through. All he saw was a blur in slow motion of faces and people cheering and clapping. The only thing he could do was struggle. Fritz had never felt a worse pain. The rope started to dig into his flesh and rub his neck raw. Fritz could hear pops and cracks in his neck and the fur under the rope was about gone by now. 

            After hanging there for what seemed like hours, his vision started getting really hazy and faint. He was struggling less now and couldn't feel his body anymore. Numbness was spreading through his limbs and was working its way to his head. His arms and legs were not responding to his commands any more.  Just when it seemed like he could not go on any longer, he let out a cry of pain as a wave of electricity burst from his body.  All the towns' people dropped to the ground.  The rope had caught fire and started to burn.  Just then it snapped and he fell to the ground gasping for air.  He struggled for a while trying to get the burning rope off of his neck. Finally it gave way and he tossed it to the ground. 

                        Fritz just lay there trying to get as much air as possible. He could feel the numbness leaving his body and light headiness ease up.  After a delay, he slowly rose to his feet and looked around.  All the people who where there to watch the lynching were now lying on the ground unconscious.  Fritz stepped over a few unconscious bodies, turned around and sprinted as fast as he could, on all fours, back home.

            When he arrived home, he didn't want to wake anyone up so he walked around to the back and climbed up the wall leading to his bedroom.  He climbed through the window and walked over the mirror to inspect his neck.  There was a visible ring around it where there was no more fur. He looked at the clock on the wall and it was nearly 3:00a.m. Since he couldn't sleep, and he would be waking up in a few hours anyway, he decided he would stay up the rest of the night.  So he jumped up to his ceiling and started pacing back and forth trying to figure out what the heck was going on.  Pacing the ceiling was a habit he had for as long as he could remember. Although he could never quite figure out how he was able to do this.  He had to get down every now and then because the blood would rush to his head.  He spent most of the night walking around on the ceiling of his room.

            He smelled his mothers cooking around 8:00a.m, and decided not to tell anyone what happened the other night.  He grabbed a scarf out of his dirty clothes basket and wrapped it around his neck to hide the ring around his neck where there wasn't any fur, because the rope had rubbed it off. He changed into a clean pair of clothes and walked down the stairs taking each step two at a time. His room was in the attic so he could hide there when his parents had guests over. When he got into the kitchen his family greeted him.

            "Pepper!" his mother yelled. "Where were you? I didn't hear you come home last night; I was so worried." She ran up to him and wrapped her arms around him in a giant huge.

            "Sorry I scared you mama," he said. "I…lost track of time." He held up his wrist that still had his broken watch on it. 'Probably got broken by the mob,' he thought.

            "Just as long as you are OK," she told him. "Now come and sit." She motioned for him to take a seat at the table for breakfast.

            "I told you he would be fine, Marge," his father told her. "Fritz is old enough to look after himself. Besides, if anyone saw him, he would be hanging by a rope right now," he said laughing.

            "Yeah…rope," Fritz said uneasily, rubbing his neck. He sat down at the table and served himself some sausage and eggs. His was the biggest serving there, as always.  He always ate a lot.  He never knew why.  But he felt very weak if he didn't eat anything, which was the case right now.

            "Glad you came home in one piece." Sophie said sarcastically. "That would be a bummer to find you dead," she said emphasizing the last word.

            Fritz looked over at her and stuck his tongue out.

            "Fritz. Manners! Your cousin is just concerned for you." Margot said

            "Yeah. I'm sure she is," he responded while staring across the table at his cousin. 

            "Why are you wearing a scarf inside, Fritz?" His uncle Tobias asked.

            "It's cold," Fritz responded quickly.

            "Makes sense," his uncle said. He cleared his plate from the table and turned to Marge. "Thanks for that wonderful breakfast Marge."

            "You're very welcome." She answered.

            She cleared the table after everyone was finished eating, then went into the living room to read. Sophie went outside to play with some friends, and Herman went outside in the back to work on the shed he was building, and his brother Tobias went out to help him.

******

            Fritz spent most of the day in his makeshift gym. His father had turned one of the empty rooms in the house into a workout room. He had free weights, a tread-mil, and mats and bars for his gymnastics.  He would come in here every other day for a few hours.  There wasn't much else he could do during the day.  After a while he got bored so he decided to listen to his CDs. He walked up the stairs to his room and changed out of his sweaty close and into some clean ones. He couldn't find his CDs in his dresser where he usually put them so he thought either his mother or father had put them somewhere. He turned and left his room to find his mom.

******

            Ding-Dong! The doorbell rang and Margot put her book down to answer the door. When she opened it, a bald man in a wheelchair and a big burly man greeted her.

            "Hello Mrs. Jager," the man said. "I am Professor Charles Xavier and this is Logan," he said pointing to the man next to him. "May we come in?"

            "How do you know my name?" She asked, standing in the doorway.

            "I know your name because I am a telepath. Please, may we come in? I will explain everything," Xavier said, motioning towards the door.

            "Oh, I am sorry. Where are my manners?" She held the door open for them.

"It is perfectly fine," Xavier said as she showed them to the living room. They sat down in the chairs around an antique table.

"Can I get you something to drink?" She asked them.

            "Water will be fine," Xavier said

            "I don't suppose you have any beer?" Logan asked.

            "Actually I do. My husband drinks," Margot replied, getting up to fetch their drinks. "I will be back in a few moments."

            She returned a few minutes later with a cup of water in one hand and a beer in the other.  She handed the water to Professor Xavier and the beer to Logan, then took a seat across from them.

            "Now, what is this about?" she asked, stirring her own tea on the coffee table to the left of her.

            "Mrs. Jager, I know your son has been going through some…changes," Xavier said taking a drink out of his water.

            Margot stopped stirring her tea. "How do you know about Fritz?" She asked skeptically.

            "As I said before Mrs. Jager, I am a telepath. I can read other people's minds," he said, tapping his temple with his first two fingers on his left hand. "I have come to offer your son a place in my school, the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. This is a school for children who have special abilities. Mutants," he said.

            "Will Fritz be able to live a normal life at this school?" She asked.

            "Yes. Along with training and learning to harness his abilities, he will also attend a normal high school," Xavier said, placing his hands together over his lap and interlocking his fingers.

            "How can he with the way he looks?" she asked. "He will be cast out as a freak."

            "I am aware of this. There is another student at my school that looks similar to him," Xavier said. He wheeled over to her and produced a watch from his jacket. "When he puts this on, he will appear...normal," he said, handing her the watch.

            "Don't worry about your son, miss. He'll be fine," Logan said, finishing his beer. He walked over to the doorway of the living room, sniffing the air. "Hmph. Smells like the Elf," he said, looking around.

            "Where's Fritz now Mrs. Jager?" Xavier asked.

            She looked from Logan back to the Professor. "He should be in the gym right now."

            "Would you mind if I went looking for him?" Logan asked her while moving closer to the doorway.

            "No, not at all. Down the hall, first door on you left," she said motioning with her hands.

Logan turned and headed out of the room in search of the young mutant.

******

            Fritz bounded down the stairs taking them two at a time. "Mama! Have you seen my CDs? I can't find--" He stopped in the middle of his sentence when he bumped into Logan and fell to the ground with a thud. "Please don't hurt me," he said looking up at the big man. "I'm not a demon. Please don't scream." He began looking down the hall behind him frantically.

            "I'm not going to hurt you kid," Logan said holding his hands up. "We just want to talk. That's all."

            "W-who's we?" Fritz said stopping where he was and switching to english.

            "Just come in the living room and we'll explain everything," Logan said, moving aside to allow Fritz room to pass. Fritz stepped forward and moved passed the man in the hallway, staying close to the opposite wall, still not trusting him all that much.  Logan shook his head and chuckled to himself while following the young mutant into the next room.

"Ah. There you are," Xavier said as Fritz entered the living room followed by Logan. "Now, I believe you would like an explanation," he said, turning to face Fritz. "Please, sit," Xavier said, motioning to the chair in front of him. "I am Professor Charles Xavier. You have already met Logan. I was just telling your mother about the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters," he said. "If you choose to, you may attend this school in America."

            "Vhat kind of school ees zhis?" Fritz asked, looking nervously over at Logan while rubbing the bleached, spaded tip of his tail. Another habit he had developed when he was nervous.

            "A school for mutants. You will learn to control and develop your powers," Xavier said, interlocking his fingers over his lap again.

            "You mean others like me?" Fritz asked.

            "Yes."

            "No. I mean do any of zhem look like me?"

            "There is one other," Xavier said. He grabbed the watch off of the coffee table next to him and handed it to Fritz. "Put this on."           

Fritz took the watch and strapped it on his wrist. Xavier flipped a switch on the side and Fritz's appearance flickered and was replaced by a pale skinned boy with five fingers and no fur.

            He stood up and walked to the mirror on the wall. He stood staring at his image for a while before speaking. "So this is just a disguise."

"Well…yes," Xavier said. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah, It's still hiding!" Fritz turned around and was now in front of the professor. "I thought I vas going to be able to live a normal life at zhis school. How can it be normal if I am hiding from everyone?"

"You only need to wear it when you are away from the Institute," Xavier said. He motioned for Fritz to site back down, and he did.

            "So…zhere is another person like me? He *looks* like me?" Fritz asked.

            "Yes Fritz. He is in school right now, otherwise I would have asked him to come along with me to meet you," Xavier said.

            "Vhen can I go?" Fritz asked excitedly, turning his gaze from his mother to Xavier to Logan and back again.

            "Are you sure you want to go, dear? America is a long way away," his mother said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

            "Yes mama. I'm sure," Fritz said. "I can still come back and visit, right?" He asked the professor.

            "Of course you can Fritz," he answered. "We are not trying to keep you away from your family." He turned to Logan. "Would you go prep the X-Jet Logan?"

            "Sure think Chuck," he said. Then he turned to face Fritz and ruffled the boy's hair with his hand. "See you soon kid." He passed Margot on the way out the door. "Ma'am."

            Xavier turned to roll out the door. "Now, we must be going. You will take a plane to New York in a few days. So make sure you pack," He said to Fritz. "Thank you for your hospitality Mrs. Jager," Xavier said. Then he turned and rolled out the door.

            "Wait!" Fritz yelled. "Vhat is your power?" He asked the professor when he was on the front porch. 'I am a telepath.' He heard in his head. Then the professor was gone. Fritz and Margot just stood there watching the X-Jet fly away.

            "Well what are we doing just standing around here? You should go pack, and I will tell you father and uncle you will be leaving." Margot walked out of the room towards the backyard.

            "Aye-aye captain," Fritz said with a mock salute. Then he bounded down the hall towards his room.

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Chapter one will be up soon. Fritz and Axel arrive in America. R&R please. Likes? Dislikes?