Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men. Duh. I do however claim ownership over the original cast of mutants known as the warriors.
Authors Note: Okay, I decided that the last chapter was too short, so I made this one longer. A little more than twice as long, don't worry, it's still a good read... I think. Anyway, if you want to, you can put an original character into this community of mutants, and I can use them in the story, and of course, I will not claim ownership of them, or anything like that. I need to know the following: Name, Codename, Gender, Age, Height, Weight, Hair: color and style, Eye color, powers, personality, and if possible a link to a story that they've been in, so I can get an idea as to how the character could be used. Post that information in a review, don't email it to me unless you have to, if you do, I understand, but I might not receive it, my email is acting really wacky right now and I don't know why.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Chapter 2: The Christmas Eve Party
The computer café that Scott and Rogue had come to had a small back room, and a large front room with a large five-foot doorway open between the two. Rogue counted around fifteen people there, give or take a little, and the Christmas music was on loud near the front, but became quieter as you got farther back. The boy smiled and talked to Scott and Rogue like he had known them for years. "Most of us here are mutants." He began to explain. "And those that aren't mutants, are humans that are friends of the leader of the whole thing, that know mutants exist, and are our friends."
"So these are people, humans and mutants, living and celebrating the holidays in perfect harmony?" Rogue asked with a brow slightly raised.
"Yep. As much harmony as you can get with any group of people. We're all from different backgrounds and positions in social culture, different ages, different mutations, and all together just different people all with one common bond. We share a gift, or a curse as some might put it, that we must hide from society." Mike spoke rather poetically for someone his age Rogue thought.
"It sounds like a dream." Scott said looking around the room, taking notice of the large food table that was on the right wall of the large front room. "And it's all run from this Café?" He asked with a tone of curiosity in his voice.
"For the most part." Mike answered. "What you see before you is the majority of a secret crime fighting community, known as the 'Warriors' headed by a man named Thomas Walkner."
"I think we'd both like to meet this guy." Rogue said what both her and Scott had been thinking.
"He should be here soon, stick around, have some eggnog, or food, there's plenty of food, and talk to some people. Feel free to ask any of us about our lives, what we do in the Warriors, whatever you want, even our mutations. We consider it a compliment, a sort of bragging rights if you know what I mean." Mike said with a smile and then left them both to wander the room, and mingle with the crowd. They went to the food table; mostly Rogue following Scott to the food table, she noticed that it had caught his eye earlier. At the far end was the eggnog and punch bowls; a man was in line ahead of them, looking to be in his mid twenties. Scott almost went wide eyed when the man's arm extended about four extra feet than it should have, to reach a cup farther down on the table next to Scott. They both just weren't use to these strangers who seemed to use their abilities so openly. Rogue and Scott filled their cups with some of the eggnog, Scott wondering if it had any rum in it, but he didn't see anything like that nearby, and Rogue not caring, just watching the room.
Rogue was the first to talk. "I hope we ain't stumbled across some cult or something." She said. "You know, with arsenic in the eggnog and all that."
Scott looked quickly to Rogue, because he had already drunken about half of his cup and had a mustache from it on his upper lip that made Rogue break out into a smile. "Don't joke like that." He said as he took another sip.
"You got something there, on your upper lip." She said gesturing to her upper lip.
Scott turned and took a napkin from the table, since they were still standing at it. "Thanks." He said wiping his face with it.
"I don't know. I think he looked kind of cute with the mustache." Came a voice belonging to a girl, just on the other side of Scott, the girl was getting some eggnog, and didn't look to be much older than Rogue, wearing a turtleneck sweater, and an attractive skirt. "You must be the two that Mike brought in tonight, right?" She said with a slight smile.
Scott snapped out of his momentary daze and answered. "Uh... Yes." He answered. "We're both pretty new here. I'm Scott and this is Rogue." He said introducing both of them.
"My name is Danielle." She said, giving Rogue a side-glance. "So what are your mutations?" She asked as if it were as simple as asking their names.
"I uh... I shoot beams from my eyes." Scott said, wishing that hadn't come out as stupid sounding as it did.
"Ah... Ah absorb people's memories and powers." Rogue said, a little embarrassed to talk about her powers, and a little annoyed at this girl for taking such an interest in Scott.
Danielle smiled politely at Rogue. "Sounds as if you've got a lot in common with Joe. Looks that way too." She said glancing towards Rogue's gloves.
"Ah wouldn't know, but Ah can't wait to meet him." Rogue said politely. "So what's your mutation?" Rogue asked not as delicately or politely as she could have.
"Don't have one." Danielle answered. "You see, Thomas brought me in after I got attacked by some dog on the street. The dog managed to latch onto my throat here, and did some heavy damage to my vocal cords and esophagus. Thomas, along with whatever team of doctors Mr. Kamesama supplied him with, did some repairs on me, and gave me this..." She pulled down the neck of her turtleneck sweater to reveal two strips of computer chips from the base of her neck, to where the neck meets the skull, on either side of her Adam's apple, each strip covered by a blue colored plastic like material. "He gave me a new voice box." She said with a nervous smile as she raised the neck of her turtleneck again.
Rouge was a little weirded out, but Scott seemed even more interested now. "This Thomas guy sounds really awesome. He sounds like a good guy. I can't wait to meet him." Scott said, now thoroughly curious about this underground community.
Suddenly the bell above the door rang, and a man's voice was heard. "Ladies and Gentlemen! The Kings have arrived!" The man said with a laugh. A few of the crowd gave mock cheers and one yelled 'Long live the king' welcoming the large guy, and the small figure next to him. Scott noticed that the figure next to him, seemingly a girl, was completely covered, you couldn't see her face, or even her skin. Rogue noticed that the guy was quite muscular, and his right hand had a glove on it, with five rings one for each finger and one for the thumb. A gold ring rested on the thumb, with a black ring on the index finger, and three rings of varying shades of gray adorned the other three fingers.
"Remember what I said earlier about the cult thing?" Rogue said, in reference to the whole, 'the kings have arrived' and 'long live the king' comments.
Danielle gave a laugh. "No, no, it's nothing like that. It's making fun of their last names. The new arrivals there are James King, and Jessica King. They were the first to join the underground community here when Thomas first started it, so with their seniority to the rest of us, and the last name, we have fun." She said with a smile.
Rogue nodded, and Scott looked back to the door, to see the girl that had been with him, whom he now knew the name of, which was Jessica, was taking off the hood and the coat and the gloves that had been covering her from sight. Both he and Rogue were surprised to see when the girl took off her outer coat and things that she was covered, like another mutant they knew, completely in fur, only her fur was golden-brown-yellow in color. Scott noticed that nothing in the room changed, No one seemed to care that this girl had fur, even when her tail became visible behind her.
Scott and Rogue looked back to Danielle, wondering where they had left their conversation, when Scott spoke up. "Uh... Hey, Danielle, do you know what time it is?" Scott asked.
"What's the matter? A big boy with a mustache like you got a bed time?" Danielle asked with a teasing smile, reminding Scott that he should drink his eggnog slower, or wipe his upper lip after he took a drink, to keep from getting an eggnog mustache like the one he had on his face now. "It's ten thirty." She answered.
Scott, through a combination of not quite getting the joke until it was too late, and embarrassment over the eggnog mustache got a little annoyed. "No, I don't have a bed time. I just wanted to be responsible, and call someone to tell them we won't be getting back when we thought we would." He said irritably.
"There a phone right there." Danielle said pointing to the counter at the back of the café.
Scott turned and walked towards the counter, almost storming, almost running with his tail between his legs. Danielle turned back to Rogue. "Your boyfriend is really cute when he gets all embarrassed and frustrated like that." She said with a slight smirk.
Rogue looked quickly from looking at the large muscular man James from across the room, to Danielle with a glare that could kill. "He's not my boyfriend. He's just a friend, we go to the same boarding school." She said, almost as if defending herself.
"Sorry, just since you two came together I just thought... Never mind it." She said before a brief pause. "So... Is he taken then?" She asked, sounding curious as she turned her gaze back to the guy in ruby colored shades who's back was turned to them while he spoke on the phone.
"How should Ah know? Ask him." Rogue said, now thoroughly annoyed, and failing at hiding it.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to strike a nerve, I just think he's kind of cute is all, responsible, safe, and yet mysterious with those ruby shades that he keeps on." Danielle said almost as if daydreaming about something.
"He doesn't wear 'em to be stylish or mysterious, he wears 'em cause he can't control his powers, and if he didn't wear 'em he'd send those energy blasts out of his eyes every time he opened 'em." Rogue said now hiding her annoyance a little better, if not becoming less annoyed.
"Are you in the same boat as him then? You can't control your powers, and so you wear the gloves?" Danielle asked turning back to look at Rogue.
"Well... Yeah, if you must know." Rogue said, annoyance coming back into her voice as she said it.
"I was right then, you do have a lot in common with Joe." Danielle said with a genuine smile as the bell above the door rang again, and in entered a teen, about Scott's age, slightly older than Rogue. "Hey Joe!" Danielle called. "Come on Rogue, you've got to meet this guy." She said as she started towards the door, where Joe was already unzipping his leather jacket, and had removed his woolen snowcap.
"Merry Christmas Danielle." Joe said with a slight smile, he was tall, and muscular, definitely toned but his muscles weren't as large as James', but were larger than Scott's. "And who's this?" He asked indicating to Rogue with, what Rogue noticed to be, a gloved hand, in fact, both of his hands had gloves on them, the kind that Rogue liked to wear, not the snow kind.
"Joe this is Rogue, she's new, Mike brought her in." Danielle said, gesturing as she introduced the two of them. "And Rogue this is Joe." She said with a smile, which seemed to be becoming a more permanent attachment to her face. "I thought you two should meet each other, with your similar tastes in clothes and all." She glanced, and Joe followed her eyes, and it was then that Joe noticed Rogue's gloves.
"It's nice tah meet you." Rogue said with a smiling nod.
"The pleasure is mine." Joe said as he offered her is hand. "My full name is Joseph McKinley. Most people call me Joe." He said as she took his hand, and they shook, both wearing gloves.
It was then that Scott came back from using the phone, and after finding Rogue cleared his throat. Joe looked over to see him, and smiled slightly, offering his gloved hand. "Hi there, name's Joe." He said as Scott shook his hand.
"My name's Scott." He said with an almost fatherly protection of Rogue in his voice. "Uh... Anyway, what'd I miss?" He asked as he looked to Rogue.
"You didn't miss a thing." Rogue said, and there was a minute of awkward silence, broken of course, by the infamous Danielle.
"Here, come on, I don't want my big mustache boy to feel left out, let's go and get you introduced to some people." She said with a smile, and then started walking, almost dragging Scott with her.
Joe looked at Rogue with a brow raised. "Big mustache boy? Did I miss something?"
Rogue couldn't help but laugh, just Joe saying it like that made it sound utterly ridiculous. "He drank his eggnog too quickly, and got a little mustache, we've been teasing him for it all night." She explained.
"I see. Well I guess it's good I didn't get here late, or I'd have missed too much." He said with a slight smile. "So Michael brought you in, eh? That's cool, he brought me in too, found me after a football game with someone else's body." He felt the need to explain after Rogue gave him the most confused look he had ever seen. "Sorry, I guess I thought Danielle there might've explained my powers to ya if she was introducing me to you." He apologized. "Ya see, when I touch someone, I become them, literally, I absorb their looks, powers, all of their genetics, even their voice, and replace it with my own. The effects usually last for six hours, and I can't change back to myself until that time is up, and then it's automatic, I can't keep it longer. So I usually tend to shy away from skin on skin contact, since I can't control it."
Rogue looked at this guy and nodded. "Yeah, mine's kind of similar, when I touch someone, I absorb their thoughts, and their powers, but they got knocked into a coma or just get knocked out because of it. Does that happen when you touch someone?"
Joe shook his head. "No, the only real side affects that a person might have after I touch them is a slight headache, but that's the most that it's ever been." He said. "If you want to hear about someone being knocked out, your best bet is to talk to Mike, the guy that brought ya here, he's a telepath, but he can't block other people's thoughts from his head, so if he spends too much time in a crowd, and there's too many voices in his head for too long, it's kind of like his mind explodes or something, and it knocks everyone out in like a ten foot circle. It's pretty cool, but for a better definition of everyone's mutation, you need to speak to someone more scientific, I tend to just stick to the basics." He shrugged.
"Well that explains a lot. Like how Mike knew Scott and Ah were mutants, and how he commented on what I had been thinking when he gave me that note." She said with a brief pause. "Ah think Ah like this place already." Rogue said with a slight smile.
"Hey, you mind if we get some food? I'm kind of hungry." He said starting over towards the food table, on the right side of the large front room.
"Go ahead, Ah ain't gonna stop ya, a big fella like you." She said as they walked to the food table, and Joe picked up a plate, and began stocking it with some food. A lot of food Rogue realized, but he was a big guy, he probably did eat a lot.
"So where you from?" He asked as they moved down the table. "You ain't from this city with that accent." He said with a slight smile.
"I live in Massachusetts now a town called Bayville, but originally no, I'm not from here, I'm from Mississippi." She said with a hint of pride in her voice.
"That's cool." Joe said with a nod. "So what brings you to our city of all cities?" He asked as they reached the end of the table, and he picked up a fork.
"Well... Scott and I... We came here to visit someone, as part of a... School assignment." She said sounding un-reassured.
"Must be a cool school. You're kind of lucky, there's a few people in our group here who can't go to school, because of their physical mutations." Joe said before taking a bite of a mixture of foods that were on his plate. "Like Jessica King for one, me for another, I kind of dropped out after my mutation manifested, I've been afraid to go to a real school I suppose, I've been taking night classes." He said and then took more food.
"That's a shame. Perhaps a few of you should come and check out our school. They might have a way to solve all that, the Professor at our boarding school has all of the students going to the local high school, Bayville high, and all of the students in the boarding mansion are mutants."
"Maybe I will. I'll talk to Thomas about it." Joe said.
"You need his permission?" Rogue asked with a brow slightly raised.
"No, I just need to tell him about it, so that he can prepare incase of an emergency, and not have to depend on me." Joe answered as the bell above the door rang once again.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Coming Soon... Chapter 3: The Leader