Getting to Know The X-Men
"Are you sure this is safe?" Angelica gulped as the Misfits prepared to transport themselves to the X-Mansion.
"Don't worry," Wanda told her. "We've done this teleportation thing dozens of times."
"Yeah but not with Angelica along," Pietro indicated with his thumb. "Just our luck it will be the one time when all our molecules will end up scattered along the entire universe!"
"Pietro!" Wanda smacked him on the head. "Do you even know how to act like a human being sometimes?"
"You'll be fine," Althea told the two of them.
"I'm still nervous," Lina whispered.
"Don't worry," Wanda said. "They're just mutants like us. We just happen to have a semi-explosive feud with them."
"Oh that makes me feel much better!" Angelica groaned.
They teleported to the mansion. "Wow that was weird," Angelica blinked. Then she saw several mutants before her in the living room. "Woah…"
"There are…so many mutants here," Lina blinked.
"Welcome to the Xavier Institute," Xavier wheeled up to them. "Angelica, Lina, Spyder it's good to see you here.
"Is this all of you?" Angelica asked.
"Kurt, Jean and Kitty went with Ororo to get some stuff," Rogue said. "I'm Rogue by the way."
"Hi there," Angelica shook her gloved hand. "We didn't get to talk much earlier. You're Wanda's sister right?"
"Yeah I suppose you heard all about that huh?" Rogue sighed.
"I told them the abridged version," Pietro zipped over.
"And then I told them the real story," Wanda said. Wanda noticed Lina's nervousness. "It's okay Lina, everyone's a mutant here."
"Ah-hem," Arcade coughed. Shipwreck and the human Misfit handlers gave them a look too.
"Well mostly mutant," Wanda said. "And those that aren't are pretty cool."
"Thank you!" Arcade grinned. "Hey are those corn chips! Neat-o!"
"You would think Blob would be the first one to notice them," Rogue commented.
"Actually for once he has other things on his mind," Pietro snickered.
"Shut up," Wanda glared at him. "Not now."
That was when Kurt teleported into the room with his image inducer turned off. "Hey! We're back!" Lina gave a startled yelp. "Uh sorry Fraulein!"
"It's all right Lina," Xavier told her. "Kurt also has a physical mutation. However his was apparent at birth."
"Yeah that's our fuzzy elf," Todd quipped. "So where've you been? The party's just getting started!"
"We just got back from the mall," Kurt sighed. "For some reason nearly all our underwear went missing."
"Imagine that," Arcade whistled.
"Hey there's Thornn!" Angelica waved. Thornn the cat like mutant was the newest recruit for the X-Men. She too had been kidnapped like Angelica. "So how are you settling in Thornn?" Angelica asked.
"Not bad," The cat girl shrugged. "It's different, but it's not as hard as I thought it would be. Could do without the lasers though."
"I gotta admit," Logan huffed. "You learned to handle the Danger Room better than most rookies."
"Well in the first place, Morlocks don't exactly sleep in until noon," Thornn told him. "Living in the Alley you had to learn to fight and scavenge fast. Otherwise you'd be dead."
"I thought you said the Alley was a safe haven for Morlocks?" Jubilee asked.
"The Alley itself is, or used to be," Thornn grumbled. "It was going topside for food and having to scavenge in other tunnels where other gangs lived that was dangerous."
"Other gangs?" Angelica asked.
"Yeah," Thornn looked at her. "Ya didn't think Morlocks only lived down there did ya? There are a few street gangs and homeless people in different tunnels further outside the city that make a habit of hiding out underground. And a lot of them ain't happy about sharing with freaks. Fortunately we stay out of each other's way most of the time. Some of the other Morlock clans have problems when they come to visit us or we visit them."
"Wait, wait…" Todd held up his hand. "Back up. Other Morlock clans?"
"It's complicated," Ray said. "You see there are groups of mutants living underground all over the country. Most of the leaders originated in the Alley but moved on. Most of them call themselves Morlocks too. Underground you're either a mutant or you're not. Very little need to distinguish between different groups or 'clans' unless it's a dispute over leadership or territory. But since there are so many different tunnels that rarely happens."
"Between all the abandoned military and subway tunnels plus ones we dig ourselves there's plenty of room," Thornn told them. "All mutants are pretty much equal underground. To call your group something other than Morlock is considered well…"
"They think of it as trying to be above the others," Ray said. "Like they're superior or special."
"Wow," Kitty blinked. "Like I had no idea Morlocks were so…"
"Different?" Ray said. "Yeah it is. It's really hard to explain unless you've lived it. There are Morlocks in nearly every major city. Some in Chicago. Even some as far as LA."
"And you can travel to one Morlock territory to another all the way underground?" Kurt asked.
"Most of the time," Thornn said. "There are some exceptions. LA of course you have to travel topside for a while. There's just no getting around it. That's why that group is so isolated from us. We rarely see mutants from there and they're really different. Some of them even live above ground."
"Ray how come you never told us any of this?" Scott asked.
"You never asked," Ray replied. "Even after you found out I was a Morlock."
"I must confess this is a surprise to me as well," Xavier remarked. "I thought I was an expert on mutants but this is amazing. Tell me Thornn, how did the Morlocks become so diverse in such a short time?"
"Short time? Morlocks have been around for about 30 years," Thornn snickered. "But to be fair we've only started calling ourselves that for about fifteen or so. Maybe nineteen."
"Did you say…thirty years?" Scott blinked. "That can't be right!"
"Why not?" Thornn gave him an amused look. "You really didn't think you X-Men were the very first mutant group that ever existed did ya? The mutant population has been secretly growing since the sixties."
"But if that's true…" Lance said. "How come Cerebro hadn't picked up more mutants before?"
"Let me ask you something," Ray folded his arms. "How old is Cerebro?"
"I've only been able to detect mutants with Cerebro prototypes for less than ten years," Xavier nodded. "And with each modification I was able to improve on it's design, making it more powerful and its range more widespread. Able to pick up more subtle mutations."
"Right," Thornn nodded. "A lot of mutants don't really have powers like telepathy or laser eyes. The majority of the old timers just looked different. I'll bet your older versions didn't pick them up."
"True," Xavier nodded. "Kurt's for example. I didn't pick up his mutation until he actually used his teleportation powers. And Todd's I had trouble reading because his mutations were physical."
"So that's why you had your weather witch zap me," Todd grumbled. "You know you could have just asked ya know?"
"Hold on," Logan held up his hand. "I thought Callisto was kind of the founder of the Morlocks?"
"She is," Thornn grinned. "She may not have a healing factor, but she is older than she looks. She founded 'em with a few other mutants, but that's kind of a long story."
"Whew," Angelica blinked. "I had no idea that Mutant History was so involved."
"Indeed," Xavier said. "There's so much even we don't know. Now it's possible that there have been mutants since biblical times. But for some reason there were only a handful or so each generation, maybe less until now."
"Why now?" Rogue asked. "I mean why has the population all of the sudden exploded after all these centuries?"
"Could be a number of reasons," Hank counted them off. "Radiation, chemicals in the water, the ozone layer…television. No one knows for sure."
"I'd like to learn why," Lina said. "That is part of my training."
"Training?" Jean asked. "What training?"
"Lina's gonna be our medic!" Fred said proudly. "That means she don't have to fight!"
"The way these kids go at each other we could use another person in the medical profession around here," Hank sighed.
Next: The fic concludes with more X-Men/Misfit fun!