Here's another chapter… not a lot of Romy, but it's comin' up in a chapter or two, and loads of it, don't worry. Thanks for reading and reviewing my story. I already have the next chapter or two written, so I'll update soon! Thanks again! And if you're reading my story, but not reviewing… c'mon… would it kill ya?
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"Uggghhh… What do you want?" Betsy grumbled at 9:30 later that morning.
"C'mon Betsy, I've got to assess you and the Cajun." Logan said, trying to pull her out of the bed.
"Assess us how?" She looked up at him through a tattered nest of dark purple hair.
"Your powers. We're goin' for a workout, now get up and get dressed and meet me in the danger room in twenty minutes." He walked out of the room to avoid any more of her whining in her annoying British accent.
"The danger what?" Betsy tried to yell at him but he ignored her. "Bloody Christ… what am I supposed to wear?" She murmured to herself. She got up and it took her a second to orient herself
"Here." She heard a soft voice say to her. She looked to the door and there was everyone's favorite red head, Jean. "It's your new uniform." Jean ripped a black plastic bag off the hanger she held up, like a magician revealing the box after making the rabbit disappear. Betsy was moved by what she saw. It was just like her Nasty Boy uniform, but all the random pieces of purple material were connected by a thin black material. He purple boots were longer heeled, but still thigh high. And instead of a purple sash, there was a yellow utility belt with an X-Men logo on the clasp. "And Logan says that any trained samurai knows how to use these." Jean said, holding out a long set of swords. "They fit in the belt."
"Katana knives." Betsy identified them as her jaw dropped slightly.
"The professor thought your old uniform was a bit revealing." Betsy nodded without taking her eyes off the uniform as Jean laid it on her perfectly made bed. "I'll show you to the danger room when you're ready." Jean said as she walked out of the room.
"Oh, hey, d'you have a hair brush I could use?" Betsy called out just before she left.
"Oh… you're not gonna get purple hair in it, are you?" Betsy looked puzzled by the complete randomness of the question.
"I don't have much of choice." Betsy said once she decided Jean was serious about the question.
"Fine." Jean pouted. "It's in the middle drawer, under the vanity." Betsy narrowed her eyes at Jean as she left the room. She changed into her X-Men uniform, smoothing out every wrinkle, carefully and with pride. She brushed her fine, waist long purple hair, then plucked every last one out of Jean's hair brush. She yawned and rubbed sleep out of her eyes then snapped on her belt and slipped her knives in it. She felt strong and beautiful in this uniform, not slutty and distracting like before. She walked out of the room with a model's posture, finding Jean standing just outside the door way.
"Oh, don't worry, I cleaned your brush." Betsy said as genuinely as possible.
"Good." Jean leaned in to shut the door behind Betsy. "Oh, you're not going to make your bed?"
"I haven't got time." Betsy said, surprised as Jean's pushiness.
"Here's your wrist communicator, you wear it all the time." Jean ordered. She handed it to her and Betsy slapped it on. "The danger room is right this way." Jean started walking down the hall to the elevator.
"The danger room… that sounds like fun." Betsy said with a smile.
* * *
Kitty, Logan, Rogue, Hank, Ororo, Scott, and Xavier were all waiting when Jean and Betsy arrived.
"Oh! You all turned out to see my show!" Betsy was excited at the prospect of audience watching her display her power against this "danger room" that everyone is so afraid of.
*BAMF!*
Kurt and Remy popped in. Remy was rather dizzy, as he was unused to Nightcrawler's teleportation, but he quickly regained his composure.
"T'anks for the ride, mon ami."
"Don't get used to it…" Kurt mumbled, still leery of the new X-Man.
"Kurt…" Kitty chided him, ever the diplomat.
"Lemme see your new uniform!" Betsy said to Remy, lifting open his trench coat. It revealed a one piece black jumpsuit, tight enough to show off his lanky muscles with a big pinkish red 'X' across the chest. His boots were the same steel, with X's over the knee plates. "Ooooh… it's nice." She approved.
"Aww… dey took all de skin outta yours." Remy remarked about Betsy.
"That's charmin'." Rogue said under her breath, just loud enough for everyone to hear it.
"I dress to impress an' I aim ta please." Remy said back to her.
"Oh, that reminds me," Betsy interrupted, "Kitty and I are going shopping later, you wanna come?"
"D'accord." Remy agreed.
"Anyone else?" Betsy asked the group.
"I'm still grounded." Kurt grumbled.
"Jean and I have plans." Scott said for the first time all morning.
"Ah'll go." Rogue said. Everyone looked at her in disbelief. "What?" she barked defensively.
"Great! Once we get this over with, we'll go." Betsy shouted.
"Well, good luck, Betsy and Remy. Just remember, this is a test of your skills, not a battle. When it gets to be too much for you, just say so and Logan will end the simulation." The professor said as he went down the hallway to the elevator and pressed the button.
"You mean 'if', M'sieu." Remy said. The professor glanced back to him and smiled.
"Peter and I are to leave for Scotland soon. Logan, don't be too hard on them, apparently they have no idea what they've gotten themselves into." Xavier disappeared into the elevator.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" Remy asked in response to the professor's warning. His French was received with blank stares. "What is dis, whas' goin' on?" he translated.
"You guys are going on a run through one of Logan's sessions." Scott said as they all moved off to go up to the control room. Betsy and Remy were confused at Scott's words as the big metal doors behind them opened to reveal an even bigger metal room.
"That s'posed t'be hard or somethin'?" Remy replied to the snickers and evil grins.
* * *
Gambit and Psylocke stood poised in the muddle of the danger room floor. At first, one human like droid came at each of them, arms extended, each arm forming into a mallet, slowly waving up and down. Gambit flung a few heavily charged playing cards at it and the robot was quickly disabled. Psylocke grabbed one of the arms and the flipped the robot over it, knocking its head off with her foot.
"Was that all?" Psylocke said to Gambit over her shoulder, shocked. He shrugged his shoulders and her often dormant precognitive sense flashed. "DUCK!!" She shouted as heat seeking laser guns appeared out of the walls, all 360 degrees of the room. They quickly learned that these guns wouldn't kill, but left nasty painful welts when they hit. Gambit threw up a bunch of charged playing cards to divert the laser fire. He vaulted Betsy up, forming a step with his hands and fingers. She landed elegantly on top of one of the big bulky metal weapons, and unsheathed one of her katana knives from her hip. She slashed at the gun next to the crouched on and it fell to the floor. Playing cards continued to explode next to her head, and Gambit tried to protect her from the laser fire aimed at her. She struggled to maintain her balance as the gun thrashed to fire at the explosive cards, but being so well trained in the martial arts, she had the patience to anticipate each gyration the machine took, and adapt accordingly. Gambit was getting impatient though, as he ended up taking at hit or two in the arms once in a while. He started charging the cards for longer, making each explosion greater, and knocking off some of the guns himself. Psylocke jumped to another shooter and sliced the one she had been on, off the wall. They continued with this until each gun had been disabled. Psylocke stood on top of the last one. She leaned down and grabbed the arm that held the guns fixed to the walls and swung from it with one arm. She planted a foot on the ledge of the wall from where the weapons extruded. As she slashed the gun off the wall, she fell backward, going into a flip before she landed safely on the ground. Gambit looked at her, nursing what would become new bruises on his arms.
"You wanna do a show, go join de ballet, Betts. I'm hurtin' here." He said to her. She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Once again, out of the massive walls of the room, various objects flew out and sailed through the room. Some were spinning razor disks; others were metal orbs about the size of baseballs. Psylocke did the best she could to slice apart as many of them as possible, but she was still only human, and her mutation helped her little with her reaction time. Gambit, however, was able to put most of the threat out as he never missed his target. Just about every object that posed a threat to either of them was met with a kinetically explosive playing card. Every once in a while, he let a metal ball slip and hit her, payback for the laser fire. As soon as that hazard was diffused, they found themselves surrounded by six, bigger, and better armed robots, equipped with laser guns on their arms.
"If you don't think you can handle it, just say so." Logan called down from the control room hanging in the center of the ceiling. Gambit and Psylocke both smiled as they stepped backward toward each other.
"Bring it on!" They both yelled back, meeting Logan's challenge.
"Your funerals." Scott said, making them both chuckle. Four more bots then joined the circle. Gambit and Psylocke stood back to back. Gambit held up an entire deck of cards and charged the whole thing. He bent the deck back, releasing them all into the air. He managed to disable three of the robots right off the bat, before they began shooting at them. As the bots began shooting, Gambit ducked down, and Psylocke ripped out her second her sword. Using her patience, she aimed the blades of the swords so that they reflected every laser beam back at them. The thick robots were rather immune, but she was able to put down another four, leaving only three. Psylocke pulled one over its shoulder, and Gambit shoved a handful of explosive cards in its mouth, and then used his staff to fling it across the room. It hit the wall and exploded, distracting the two heat seeking robots that were left. Once the explosion had dissipated, the robots were focused back on Psylocke and Gambit. They each had one left. They pressed their backs against each other and locked elbows. With their feet, they each pushed themselves off a bot and flipped up in the air. Gambit charged his staff, making it like a hot poker. He sliced the bot Psylocke had pushed off of as he came back down, and Psylocke did the same to the other bot with the knife she had not dropped. The two both landed expertly on their feet. All the on lookers were fascinated.
"Ohmigod." Jean muttered.
"Wow." Kurt said.
"That was amazing. That was 30 laser guns, twelve bots, and 3 minutes in the projectile space." Scott said, taking inventory.
"And they barely broke a sweat!" Kitty giggled.
"Well, we'll just have to see what it'll take." Logan said as he was itching to press more buttons. Storm grabbed his hand.
"Let it go, Logan, you can play with them some more some other time." Logan pouted. Rogue just smiled at all that had happened.
Back on the floor, Gambit and Psylocke had to catch their breath. "Wow… that felt good." Betsy said.
"Oui. Been a long time since we fought t'gether like that." He replied.
"You two are dismissed." Hanks called down to them as the big metal doors reopened.
* * *
Rogue and Kitty were waiting outside by the car Rogue and Kurt will share until 18th birthdays. Each student at the Xavier Institute gets their own car on their 18th birthday, but since no one who is 18 goes to Bayville High anymore, Kurt and Rogue have their car they share.
"They were like, awesome this morning." Kitty said, preening her hair using the reflection in side view mirror.
"Yeah…" Rogue said, only half way paying attention.
"Remy is totally hot." Kitty said bluntly.
"Yeah… wait, what?" Rogue was snapped back into consciousness.
"Well he is. He's totally not my type, but he has a cute butt."
"Type? What's this type? How do you know what your type is?" Rogue mocked Kitty.
"I just know… I wonder if there's anything going on between him and Betsy."
"No, there isn't." Rogue quickly got jealous, making Kitty kind of afraid.
"Okay, geez… I was just saying…"
"Well don't." Rogue said as Remy and Betsy walked up to join them.
"Oh, hey guys!" Kitty said. Betsy and Remy were rather huddled up for a mid summer day. "What wrong?" Kitty said, noticing immediately.
"Oh… it's nothing… let's just go but new clothes." Betsy said quickly, trying to jump in the car. Kitty's attention was immediately directed to what they were wearing; she stopped Betsy dead in her tracks.
"Ohmigod… lemme see…" Betsy was wearing Jean's ¾ length light lavender top and tan cargo pants.
"Ugh…" Betsy lamented. "It clashes horribly with my hair and it's so out of style. I haven't worn anything like this since my first show…" Betsy stopped realizing she shouldn't have said what she just did. Kitty and Rogue looked puzzled.
"First show?" Kitty asked.
"Uh, yeah, I used to a model a bit…" She mumbled and rushed what she said. "But look, Remy's wearing Scott's clothes!" She changed the subject, hoping they would ignore her slurred explanation. It seemed to work.
"Ohmigod!!" Kitty shouted louder. Remy was practically swimming in Scott's dark blue sweater and khaki slacks.
"Hey, for not havin' a two foot pole up my ass, I pull it off pretty well, non?" Kitty kept giggling.
"Lay off Scott, alright?" Betsy said as they all climbed into the car. Kitty got behind Rogue, who was, of course, in the driver's seat. Remy sat in the passenger's seat and Betsy sat behind him.
"C'est seulement une blague, Betts… I kinda like the man, don' t'ink he like Remy, though."
"He'll warm up to ya." Rogue comforted him. Remy smiled at her.
"B'sides, Kurt only had 'bout ten of his X-Men uniforms." Remy tried to explain his appearance. "Not like he woulda lent me one anyhow. An' Cyke, mon dieu he's buff!" Kitty giggled and Rogue smiled to herself. Remy, awfully proud of his being able to win the affections of the girls, decided her felt comfortable to take his sunglasses off. Rogue noticed his eyes as she looked out the passenger side window to make a turn.
"Remy, your eyes!" She shouted, surprised. Remy quickly grew worried.
"What?"
"Ohmigod!" Kitty shouted yet again.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" He grew increasingly worried as he pressed his face to see if he could feel out the problem. Kitty and Rogue both seemed too speechless to tell him what was wrong.
"They're brown… and white." Betsy said, leaning forward over the shoulder of Remy's seat to see what the commotion was about. He immediately grew vexed and flipped down the visor and opened the mirror.
"Zut alors…" he said, admiring his new, normal eyes.
"I bet there's an image-inducer on your wrist communicator." Kitty concluded.
"Oh…" all the others said, in a trance at Remy's eyes. He looked at himself in the little mirror as he blinked his eyes and rolled them around in his head, testing them out. They were like normal eyes. He'd never had normal eyes. He kept flickering them around in his head. He rolled them as far back as he could, and he asked the girls if the whites were still white. When he finally couldn't think of any other way to outsmart his brown and white eyes, he pulled his cheek down with middle finger, and slowly brought his index finger closer to his eye. He wondered if they felt the same.
"OH MY GOD! YOU"RE NOT GONNA TOUCH YOUR EYEBALL, ARE YOU? THAT"S SO GROSS!!" Rogue shrieked. All three were completely shocked at her girliness. But Remy, of course, was still a guy. He continued to inch closer to his eye ball with his finger tip. "EW EW EW EW EW!!" She shouted some more. Remy just smiled.
"You should see her when I put my contacts on in the morning." Kitty whispered to Betsy over Rogue's commotion.
"Remy, cut it out while she's driving." Betsy chided him. "Don't see how you all can drive on the wrong side of the road like this."
"Ah prefer your real eyes anyhow." Rogue interrupted. Remy smiled honestly, but she didn't notice.
"So, is there anything going on between you guys?" Kitty asked randomly.
"Me and Remy?" Betsy laughed.
"Hey, what's wrong wit' Remy?" He said, looking at her reflection in the mirror.
"It's no offense Remy. I love you, darling… I do, it's just that you're not my type."
"Type?! What is with all this type stuff? How do you know what your type is?" Rogue yelled in frustration from the diver's seat.
"Uh… well, it's a combination between what you want in a man and what you need in a man… or woman." Betsy acknowledged Remy, who smiled in appreciation.
"See, I told ya." Kitty sneered at Rogue.
"Alright Miss Genius Pryde, what's your type?" Rogue challenged her.
"Okay, let's see… he hasta be cute… I like bad boys kinda, I guess…"
"Oh puh-leeze…" Betsy interrupted.
"What do you mean?" Kitty was slightly offended.
"I mean… well, you have this air about you that you want to save people…" Remy glared back at her. "Well, we all do to a certain extent, that's why we're X-Men. What I'm saying is that you want a bad boy so you could save him and make him better. You'd tear your hair our over someone who disagrees with your own morals. And for one thing, you can't change a person that doesn't want to change, and most bad boys simply find their lives too easy to want to change. Your type is someone who makes you want to be a better person, because you're always looking for ways to make that glow about you shine brighter." Kitty blushed at Betsy's blunt flattery, but everyone was silenced by her insight, regardless.
"Oh." Kitty said.
"What's your type?" Rogue asked Betsy.
"My type?" She repeated. "Well… I need someone who's handsome on all levels. Definitely someone very sophisticated and refined, someone whose intellect matches my own."
"Wow… that don' sound at all snobby…" Remy mumbled sarcastically.
"Just because it's not you doesn't mean it's snobby, Remy… like I said, you're not my type." She retorted.
"No, it's definitely snobby." Kitty said.
"Well, that's not all. I don't merely want someone who looks good on my arm, he can't be money obsessed and distant like most of those guys are, I've had plenty of that in my life. But he also can't be a pushover. That's why Remy doesn't float my boat, all I have to do is cry and I get whatever I want."
"Noticed that, non?" He answered.
"Yeah… I need more of a challenge." She said.
"Now do me, what's my type?" Remy asked excitedly, his brown eyes widened as he contorted in his seat.
"Well… let's see…" She eyed him carefully. His new eyes made him look like a totally different person. He lost about half of his mystery with his more natural, innocent eyes. "You need a girl who plays hard to get, sweeps you off your feet as much as you do her. You need a challenge to make her stand out against all the rest, someone who's going to draw more out of you than a night. You need a bird that'll take no less from you than your heart." Remy nodded his head in agreement. He wasn't shocked by anything she said, he just never realized some of it until she said it aloud.
"Do Rogue now!" Kitty said excitedly.
"This oughtta be interestin'" Remy smiled.
"Rogue is easy." Betsy boasted. "She needs some bloke who's not gonna drop at the first or second sign of trouble… she'd feel betrayed if they did. No, she needs some crazy fool who's persistent enough to break through some of her imaginary and emotional barriers, but adores you so much that he gives you enough self confidence to knock the rest down yourself." The car finally stopped in the parking lot of the mall.
"What're your credentials anyway, Betsy?" Rogue was offended at how easy she was to read when she prided herself on being an enigma.
"Psylocke is a premiere pre-cog." Remy answered for her as they all let themselves out of the car.
"Used to be," Betsy responded, "And I was hardly premiere."
"You still retain some a that power, p'tite, n'est-ce pas?"
"Well, sometimes I get a flash, but very rarely. Not like your friend Destiny." She addressed Rogue.
"Destiny?" The name sounded familiar to Rogue, but she wasn't sure if it resonated with her memories or someone else's.
"Adler, I think, right Remy? Irene, Irene Adler."
"How d'y'all know about Irene?" Rogue was worried the bad guys knew about the only mother she'd ever known.
"We've done reconnaissance on all of you, for Sinister. He keeps detailed records on everything pertaining to mutants ever since the first signs we even existed. It's how we knew about all of you." Kitty and Rogue felt rather violated. Remy's empathy picked p on it and he felt ashamed as they crossed the parking lot. Reading the thoughts they all projected annoyed Betsy. "Well I'm not sorry about any of it. What I did was against my will, and what I learned by spying on you all gave me hope, a reason to fight, to reason to get out of there. You guys showed me that not everyone who wanted to help me lookin' for something in return from me. You showed me there was good in the world when I honestly didn't know if there was any." Kitty smiled at her.
"Well I was happy to help." She said.
