Thanks to:
Steph14Wales – something bad is gonna happen when Jean comes back. Believe it!
Oceanbang – I was trying to think of a way for Jean could control her powers without Xavier's help and if the enhancer affected her emotions too, nothing stands in Evil Jeans way! New recruits will be up in a couple of chapters!
DemonRogue13 – it was probably a squash in Magnetos orb and I bet he didn't like it one bit!
Zeroeye – check out this chapter for Lancitty goodness and plenty more to come!
Furygrrl – Jean's not gonna be using those powers for good, that's for sure!
Rogue14 – Jean ain't happy with Mystique and sparks are gonna fly…
X00001 – you'll find out what happened to Jean…next chapter. Wow, I'm getting as evil as she is!
LadyEvils – I'm not really setting it up as a Scott/Rogue fic, but I thought it fit with her regaining her crush on him and I needed some one to talk him out of being a bad guy!
Carol J – always glad to get your reviews and glad you enjoyed the last few chapters!
Enfant-terrible – thanks for the review!
UniversalAnimeGirl – yeah, Jean's still advanced and she'll be showing off her improved powers soon! Lance and Kitty are back in this chapter and Pyro just might transfer his love of fire…Kurt and Rogue will discover the truth later on in the fic, but not in any way seen on the show – mysterious eh?
XX-Goth-Gal – Jean's not a happy bunny – but I'm afraid you'll have to wait to find out what she does!
Wen1 – thanks for reading although it's not your usual thing!
Lyranfan – I was a bit worried about the Advanced Scott/Rogue dialogue and I'm glad to know it worked.
King-Cold – Jean will be back next chapter and causing havoc (not Alex!) to all the Evo teams!
A/N - This is a short chapter, especially in comparison to the last one. I didn't want to completely rehash all the episodes unless they were necessary to the plot – that's not interesting for anyone – so I've essentially squished all the in-between bits into this chapter. Like? Hate? Let me know. I can always revise it. And I'll be updating again in the next couple of days to apologise for the briefness of this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution or any of the characters contained herein. I mourn this fact on a daily basis.
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Life in Bayville was quiet. For a while.
Without leadership, the Brotherhood drifted. Pietro put himself in charge of the group, but in reality there was nothing much for them to do except annoy the X-Men as often as possible. For all their talk of grand schemes, they did little to upset the balance of things. They kept their heads down and missed a lot of school.
A horde of new recruits joined the Xavier Institute shortly after the Asteroid M debacle and one of them, Tabitha Smith, decided to live with the Brotherhood after some awkward scenes with her criminal father. The boys had been on shaky financial ground before her arrival, but soon afterwards their water was turned back on and they seemed to have enough for the necessities once again. Because Tabby had no grudge against the X-Men, there was no reinstatement of the hostilities between the teams. The boys would never have admitted it, but she made their lives less boring.
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In a cheap motel some 300 miles from Bayville, Lance and Kitty counted their money and realised they were going to have to make some decisions about their future or start sleeping in the jeep.
"I'm tired of running away anyway," Kitty told Lance as she lay on her stomach on the sagging bed. "We're gonna be mutants no matter where we go. In Bayville at least there are other people who know about us."
"And when they know about us, they try to manipulate us into being on one team or another," Lance pointed out. "I'm sick of being used."
"But we can't keep staying in motels or the jeep. And I want to go back to school. Just because we're mutants, doesn't mean we don't have to think about the future."
"I dunno Kitty. I'm having enough trouble dealing with the present."
"And dealing with your powers."
"One little earthquake!"
"Lance, we can't go on like this. Look, we've got enough cash to get back to Bayville. I think we should go back, now that we know our own minds again."
"We do now. What's to stop Jean from just getting into our heads again?"
Kitty bit her lip. "Remember how much she used to bitch about Xavier's mental blocks on the X-Men?"
"X-Men? You want us to join the X-Men? Are you outta your mind?"
"We need to go somewhere! And there's no way we can go back to the Brotherhood, not when we know what they did to us! And how do you know the others didn't leave too? Rogue left already."
"I don't know why we need anyone."
"Because we need to eat and a place to sleep. And they can help us Lance. I trust them."
Lance glared at the floor, but didn't contradict her.
"We can learn to use our powers to like, help people instead of doing the whole mutant domination thing."
Silence.
"We can make Jean Grey really suffer."
They got back to Bayville the following day.
Kitty settled into life at the Institute immediately, making friends with the other X-Men and beginning a tentative correspondence with her parents, mostly via E-mail. She and Kurt rapidly became close friends, a fact that irked her boyfriend greatly.
For a long time, Lance felt as though he didn't fit in with the other X-Men. He hated abiding by Xavier's rules about curfews, schoolwork and sleeping alone. He was continually butting heads with Scott, getting lectures off Logan and giving threatening looks to Kurt whenever the elf spoke to Kitty. Several times he was tempted to give up and return to the Brotherhood, especially when he learned that both Mystique and Jean were absent, whereabouts unknown. Thinking about Kitty always stopped him. Away from Bayville, he had been forced to confront his feelings about her and had vowed that no one was going to make him doubt that he loved her again, not Jean, not anybody. They'd promised to stick together. If he went back to the Brotherhood, Kitty would go with him, but she was so happy at the Institute. Going back would be selfish. He'd just have to stay at the mansion, for her if not for himself.
At Christmas, Kitty went back to her parents' house for a few days. The reunion went well. Neither knowing nor caring where his parents were, Lance remained at the Institute. He went with Scott and Rogue to New York in search of a new mutant, where they discovered that Magneto was indeed alive and well. The chance to work as a team allowed him and Scott to work through some of their mutual animosity and whilst they would never be close friends, they at least called a truce. The holiday was the longest time that Lance and Kitty had been apart since the day they met and both were overjoyed to be back together again, leading more than one X-Man who witnessed their reunion to suggest they get a room.
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The X-Men got a new tutor shortly before Christmas, Henry McCoy, AKA The Beast. The younger students in particular grew fond of him. His training sessions were less gruelling than Logan's and more fun than Storm's. Used to Kurt, none of them were concerned that he was covered in blue fur and had a habit of sneaking up on them outside by swinging through the trees.
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The disappearance of Principle Darkholme threw the school administration into a panic. Fortunately, they were able to find a replacement relatively quickly. At Principal Kelly's inaugural assembly, a new student, an English girl named Risty Wilde, approached Rogue. The pair became close friends. It pained Rogue that she was never able to share the truth of her 'skin condition' with her friend, but being around Risty made her forget that she was a mutant, different. It even made her forget about Jean and all her plans for revenge, for a while at least. Risty was an extrovert, fun-loving and happy and she was the one person who could bring Rogue out of her shell and always put a smile in the face of the sullen Goth. When the other students managed to get Scott stranded at Lookout Point, thinking he was meeting Taryn, the only person that Rogue invited to the party they threw in his absence was Risty.
Walking to the local coffee shop after school one day, Rogue waved to a familiar looking boy across the road. Risty grabbed her arm, staring curiously at him. "Whoa girl, who's that guy?"
"Oh, that's Forge. He's some kinda super-genius."
"He's fit! Come on Rogue, introduce me! Please?"
Rolling her eyes, Rogue went over and introduced the pair. Risty flirted madly with the boy and Forge was clearly interested in her too. Before long, the two were an item, although Risty went out of her way to make sure she still had time for Rogue.
Forge abandoned his invention to extend Kurt's teleportation range in favour of spending more time with his girlfriend. Trapped in Middleverse for over twenty years often made him feel like a middle-aged man trapped in a teens body, but Risty could be surprisingly mature for a teenage girl. She invited him to the school dance, they went on dates and he found himself more involved in the world than when he had first escaped Middleverse, when he had never seen all the things that the X-Men seemed to take for granted, like mobile phones or the Internet. Risty seemed to find his ignorance of such things amusing, particularly when coupled with his inherent ability for inventing. In a matter of a few short weeks, he was completely smitten.
He never really noticed the way she undermined the X-Men when Rogue wasn't around, but gradually his feelings about them changed from respect and gratitude to irritation at their high-and-mighty attitudes. He was also getting tired of his parents, who seemed to forget that according to his birth certificate he was too old to be ordered what time to be in and where he could go, no matter what he looked like. They were terrified of him leaving the house in case he disappeared for another twenty-odd years. Had he been still caught up in his inventions instead of his girlfriend, he might never have noticed – but the only person who seemed to understand how he felt was Risty.
One evening as the couple sat in the park, Forge decided it was time he was honest with his girlfriend. "Uh, Risty, I've got something to tell you."
"What?"
"This is gonna sound crazy, but…I'm a lot older than I look. You know the inventions I work on? One of them trapped me in a pocket dimension back in '78. I was stuck there 'til a few months ago and I didn't age while I was there. So I'm, y'know, a lot older than you. And I'm a mutant too. I have special powers – I can turn my arm into different tools and that's how I can invent all the weird stuff I do."
Could that have sounded any worse? he thought miserably. At best she'd think he was trying a really bad practical joke. At worst, she'd think he was a total freak and dump him on the spot.
He waited for her to laugh in his face, but her expression was serious although her eyes glinted – yellow?
"I've got something to tell you too…"
And life in Bayville was quiet.
For a while.