"When I asked you to undertake a surveillance of the Brotherhood's house, this was hardly what I was expecting, Blaze." Charles Xavier, the world's most powerful telepath, addressed his newest team member with a speck of humour in his voice. The slight redhead only shrugged. She shook her long curls back from her face as she looked down on the paper copes of the infrared photos on the kitchen table. She had brown eyes, accented perfectly with make-up, and her earlobes glinted with a handful of piercings. Whilst the Professor was smartly dressed in his usual black roll-necked top and brown blazer, Blaze wore a black vest and tight blue jeans that didn't quite meet in the middle.
"Look at it this way, there's even less going on down there than there is up here Professor." Smiling coyly the English girl pulled out a particularly embarrassing shot of Lance sleeping with his mouth open. He was gaping like a guppy and drooling with it. "Maybe if I post 'em up round the mall we can goad them into doing something?" Xavier didn't reply, but Wolverine did. Logan had been sat in the bay window of the Xavier Institute's kitchen, listening as Blaze made her report to Xavier. Now he put down his unread morning paper and crossed the room to the coffee machine.
"The Firefly's right, Charles," he offered whilst pouring himself a large cup of coffee. "No news might be good news from where you stand, but from here it smells like trouble. Sooner somethin' happens round here, the better."
"Hey Kitty," Blaze offered as the mutant schoolgirl arrived through the wall with an unexplainable grin on her face. "Wanna come with me to the mall after school and help me post these very important notices?" Kitty glanced quickly at the assorted photographs, but she didn't get chance to reply as Professor Xavier turned on her.
"Kitty, why aren't you down in the Danger Room? Ilehana's training session is due to start any moment. If I know my daughter she won't take kindly to you being late."
"But I…" Kitty began in her defence, but there was sternness to Xavier Senior's tone that did not broker an argument. Shadowcat sighed and left, walking back through the wall the way she had come.
"Poor Half-pint," Logan sniffed, adding too much sugar to his coffee. "This surprise party had better work out or she's gonna hate all of us by the end of the day."
"It'll work out," Blaze chirped optimistically, "so long as everyone remembers to forget it's her birthday." She gathered up the copies of the photographs into her arms. "And now I have the perfect excuse to keep her away from the mansion until you've got everything ready."
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The grey wolf with black tipped ears snarled silently as she stalked her quarry. Flitting like a ghost from rocky outcrop to rocky outcrop, she closed the distance with belly almost touching the dusty ground. Her prey was oblivious to her approach, scanning the horizon and unaware that already she'd crept so much closer.
Ilehana Xavier was the animorphing, telepathic, grown-up daughter of Professor Xavier. Right now she wore her favourite animal form. As a wolf she was every inch a predator, her muscles tensed for the killing leap. Her brown Xavier eyes were focused only on her target and not on the watching mutant children or their teachers Storm and Beast. This was a lesson in stealth. In stalking your enemy until you were so close you could see the whites of their eyes. Or rather, in this case at least, the blacks.
She sprung the trap, the holographic enemy not getting the chance to react as Vixen flung herself on him. Her savage wolf's teeth snapped just short of his throat, her weight pinning him down as her wolf claws dug into his shoulders and soft belly. Before she could announce her victory, she felt a whoosh of air behind her left shoulder. She turned just in time to see a large fireball thud into a holographic Colossus and knock him off his feet. Blaze grinned, "What would you do without me to watch your back?"
The redhead held a hand out to Vixen as the shape-shifter morphed back into her human form and accepted the hand up. As a human, Ilehana was tall and lean with stern Xavier eyes and her deceased mother's nose (for which her father was eternally grateful). She wore her straight blonde hair tied back in a functional ponytail. Above in the control room, Hank McCoy addressed the class of X-Men on Ilehana's behalf.
"Can anybody tell me what the lesson here was?" he asked, glancing from Scott Summers to Jean Grey to Kurt Wagner. It was Kurt who replied, "Don't get on the wrong side of Vixen and Blaze."
There was awe in his voice as they all glanced down to where the women stood side by side. Blaze opened a palm, a fireball dancing there lightly. Their X-Men uniforms were the same blue-black as everybody else's, but with subtle differences. Both females wore high collars, black boots and gloves, whilst the X-emblem was noticeable by its absence on their shoulders. Instead, Ilehana wore her father's symbol over her heart, black X on a red background surrounded in yellow. A broad yellow stripe ran like a sash over her shoulder in a part-echo of Cyclops' design. Blaze didn't bother with such decoration; her X-emblem was the buckle on her flame-red belt that sat slightly skewed over her hips.
"Hum, perhaps that is a worthy lesson." Beast mused amusedly. "However any further discussion of stealth tactics will have to wait until this evening. You're all running dangerously late for school." With grumbles and groans the X-Men filed out, Scott in the lead and a depressed-looking Kitty to the rear. Shadowcat couldn't believe they'd all forgotten today was her birthday… Meanwhile down in the Danger Room, Blaze stood over the fallen Gambit hologram with a twinkle in her eye.
"I have got to get me one of these," she said.
"You're impossible," Vixen cautioned her friend. "Have you seen our Cajun recently?"
"He's about," Blaze shrugged, not betraying any emotion regarding the man who'd befriended and deceived her, only to then go against his boss Magneto to save her life. She also swiftly changed the subject, "So what are we getting Kitty for her birthday?"
"Speak for yourself," Ilehana laughed. "I'm already going halves with Logan on the cake!"
