Chapter 5 Meanwhile, at the Brotherhood House
Disclaimer: It all belongs to Marvel, except for my original characters, of course. But if Marvel wants to use them, they can. Feel free to post this, or any other Glaivester fic, anywhere, but please notify me so I can brag about it.
Friday night.
Todd and Lance were walking together to the store to get groceries for the next day. After everything had gotten weird when Wanda was pregnant, the Brotherhood had gotten along a lot better and started to act more like a team.
Normally, they would have taken Lance's jeep, of course, but the store they were going to was only half a mile away, and Todd had really needed to talk to Lance about something, and this afforded them some privacy.
"So," asked Lance. "What do you want to ask me?"
"Lance, have you ever liked - liked someone who was too young for you?"
"What's her name."
"Natalie."
"How young?"
"Fourteen."
"I'd say be careful, wait until the age difference is less pronounced, say three or four years. I suppose you could go out, but really, that's a little too young to be getting serious with someone."
"Uh... another question. Have you thought that the place has been rather empty since Wanda left, yo? Have you wondered what we should do with the room? Perhaps someone would like to use it, we could take in a boarder maybe who has no where else to-"
"Is this related to your first question."
"Uh - no."
"Todd?"
"Uh - well, yes, actually. I met a nice girl who wants to stay with us, yo, and..."
"She's fourteen."
"So? I've been on my own since I was thirteen, yo. She needs some people to take her in and give her, I don't know, a family, sort of."
"Why not direct her to the Institute?"
"The X-Mansion? Nah, she doesn't want to go there right now. She wants to be a littlem ore free-wheeling. You know, like Boom-Boom. Uh... there is something else you should know about her."
"What?"
"She isn't exactly - normal. I mean, she wasn't produced by the birds and the bees, yo."
"Are we talking about Slayer here [A/N Slayer, aka Lyssa Summers, for my new readers, is an OC. Slayer is to Cyclops as X23 is to Wolverine, except that she was made by Sinister instead of HYDRA. Her powers are like Cyclops', except that her eyes shoot green optic blasts and she uses emerald quartz to contain them]?"
"No, we're talking X23, yo."
"Sounds familiar..."
"The X-Men might have mentioned her, she was Wolverine's female clone. Made by some terrorist organization or something."
"Wolverine? He'll have our hides if we..."
"She didn't want to stay with him, and I'm not planning on takin' advantage of her, yo. Won't he be happy she has a place to stay?"
"Maybe."
The relationship between the two groups of mutants had changed considerably in recent months, not so much after Wanda's pregnancy as after she had given birth and the baby was clearly Kurt's. Magneto had confided in the Brotherhood that he still believed that there was a war brewing and that he was determined to make certain that mutants won. However, he was going to try to be less manipulative and to try to avoid firing the first shot, as it were. Basically, he was going to try to be more open about his plans rather than being the mysterious and feared leader.
As for the relationship with Xavier, Magneto had explained his new position to Xavier, but not to the rest of the X-Men. They had basically agreed with each other that they would worry about the coming war, if it were t occur, later, because more pressing concerns were apparent right now. If Sinister or Apocalypse were to get their way, there would be no doubt that both mutants and wild-types would be devastated. Magneto was particularly concerned because despite his hatred of the wild-types, he had never wanted to kill them all, just to put them under his thumb so that they could not hurt him [A/N this is how Magneto is in the version of XME I am writing]. He had thought that it might eventually be necessary to use sterilization to reduce their population, but for the most part he had always planned on killing only wht would be needed in order to assert mutant dominance.
"Well, Lance," said Todd, we're at the supermarket, yo."
Back at the boarding house, Fred was watching some episodes he had taped about some show with vampires, and was sniffling.
"No... he can't die. Poor Screed. He was my favorite character."
Pietro was unimpressed. "He's a stupid vampire who lives in the sewers, Fred. He doesn't even suck human blood, he likes rats. Good grief are you a baby."
"Well, I like his character. It's too bad the show only lasted three seasons."
Suddenly there was a knock on the door. Pietro ran to open it, only to be hit with a Taser. He screamed loudly, but by the time Fred got up, he was only able to see a red car peeling out of the driveway.
Graydon Creed looked down at Pietro, who was slumped over in the back seat.
"I could never get into the Institute," he explained to the unconscious mutant. "But I am certain that Kurt will try to rescue you if I use you as bait. After all, you are his daughter's uncle." He paused for a moment. "I don't want to do this, believe me. But just because Kurt may be one of the good ones, doesn't mean that we can trust you guys. It is either you or we. And we will not surrender this planet to mutants. I'm sure that you understand."
Pietro did not reply, not being even aware of what Graydon was saying.
"If it makes you feel any better, I have avoided mentioning little T.J. So maybe she will get to survive a little longer, as no one knows of her existence."
Graydon's face suddenly burned with shame, as he realized that he was mainly going to get Kurt killed not because he personally wanted to because of his ideology, but because it would fit his personal ambition to move up in the Friends of Humanity, and, truth be told, because he was too much of a coward to leave them. It wasn't that he didn't agree that mutants needed to be eradicated, it's just that he thought that Kurt might be an exception to the rule.
But he drove on, nonetheless.