Disclaimer: I still do not own the X-Men. However I still do own the warriors, and since no one supplied me with their own OC yet that they would like to see in the story, I also own all of my Original Characters that are in the Warriors.
A/N: I've decided to respond to some of your reviews, and answer some of your questions. Here goes nothing. Again, I beg of you, if you read this story, please, pretty, pretty please, review it and tell me what you think of it.
KaliAnn: Thanks for wishing me luck. And don't worry; I have over twenty different bios for original characters that make up the warriors. You'll get to see a lot more original characters, and their introductions to Rogue and Cyclops, and perhaps a few other X-Men in up coming chapters.
Ldypebsaby: Joe and Rogue might hook up, but definitely not right away. And I'm glad you like the new group. :)
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Chapter 3: The Leader
While Rogue had been talking to Joe, Scott had been taken to the back of the front room. "Scott, I'd like you to meet my friends. This is Jessica, Gracie, and Elise." She said gesturing and smiling as she introduced them. "Jessica, Gracie, and Elise, this is Scott. He's new to the group, Mike brought him in."
"Well... We haven't actually joined the group yet." He said referring to both himself and Rogue. "But it's nice to meet you all."
Jessica, the one covered in fur, with her tail wrapped around her waist spoke first. "It's nice to meet you too Scott." She said with a smile, revealing her fanged teeth. "Where is Mike anyway?" She asked looking back to Danielle. "I haven't seen him all night."
Scott nodded to Jessica, but stood silently as Danielle answered her question. "He might've left already, you know he can't handle crowds." Danielle answered.
Jessica frowned slightly. "Maybe he went to get Thomas." She said hopefully. There was a short awkward silence that followed, which was quickly broken by Gracie.
"So, Scott. Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, what's your mutation, what's your girlfriend's name?" She asked with a slight smile.
Scott was about to say something, when Danielle beat him to it, nearly cutting him off. "That girl isn't his girlfriend." She explained politely. "They just came together because they live at the same boarding school. At least that's what she told me. Is that right Scott?" She asked looking over to him.
"Uh... Yeah. Actually. She's not my girlfriend at all; we just live at the same school." He said almost confusedly.
"So what's your mutation Hun?" Gracie asked with a nearly flirtatious smile.
"Well... Uh... I shoot beams from my eyes, and I need to come up with a better sounding way to say that." He said the last part almost under his breath, but they all heard it. "And yours?" He asked them all as a brow rose from behind his shades.
"Mine is stabilized equilibrium." Grace said rather scientifically, and proudly, even though Scott had no idea exactly what that meant, or what it did.
"I've got Empathic abilities." Elise said, and left it at that.
"And I've got what you see before you." Jessica said with her arms out to the side, presenting herself with a slight giggle.
"I have a small question." Elise said, pausing before continuing. "Who runs the school where you and your friend attend? Is it all mutants?" She asked with curiosity in her voice.
"Well... A man named Charles Xavier made a place for mutants to live and learn how to use their abilities, or at least how to control them a little better. We live there, and go to the local school there in town." Scott explained.
"Sounds pretty cool." Elise said, in response to his answer. "Where does all this happen, the learning how to control the powers, I mean obviously the people at the local school don't know that all the attendees from Xavier's place are mutants, right?"
"No, the school has no idea. You see, Xavier built this place called, 'Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters' and so anyone who goes there, is supposedly gifted, and we all are, since we're all mutants." Scott said explaining it a little better. "So the local school that we attend believes that by boarding at Xavier's we just get extra tutoring and such and are extraordinary students."
Some of the girls nodded, but Jessica spoke up first. "Gifted huh?" She chuckled slightly. "That's not what I would call it. A mutation isn't a gift, it's a curse, because a gift can be refused, or returned." She said intelligently.
Scott wasn't prepared for this kind of discussion or debate, it could go either way, it was all on a person's point of view. "I suppose it's all in how you look at life." He shrugged.
There was another silence, which was suddenly broken by the bell above the front door, everyone turned to see who it was, and there stood Mike with another man. The other man was dressed in a Santa costume, with a large white beard on his face, and a smile hidden under it. "Ho Ho Ho!" The tall man with Mike said. "Merry Christmas!"
A few laughed, most returned the greeting of 'Merry Christmas' Scott noticed that Rogue and the guy she was talking to were smiling and looking towards the man in the Santa outfit. Suddenly his train of thought was interrupted by a whisper from Danielle. "That's Thomas." She said with a slight smile.
Thomas dug through the red sack, and to everyone's half surprise, half expectancy pulled out a gift, wrapped in red wrapping, with green ribbon. "Let's see here... To: James King!" He called out with a smile. The whole room was smiling, even Rogue. James went up and took the gift, nodding his thanks and turned with a chuckle to unwrap it. "And next we have... Oh, who do we have here? Scott Summers!"
Scott's faced dropped, he hadn't expected to be called at all, what would he get? "Uh..." He started.
"Oh come on, just go up." Jessica pushed him forward playfully as Scott went forward and took his gift from Thomas with a slight blush to his cheeks.
The gift giving went on, and on, and on. Everyone in the room got a gift, even Rogue got one, a pair of snow boots, her size, which was awfully convenient because she had been thinking about getting a new pair while they had been riding in the cab. She knew Mike had to have gotten these gifts for them, which explained his disappearance from the party.
Scott got a wristwatch, something he had been thinking about getting for some time now. Even Scott himself couldn't help but laugh when someone through the gift giving yelled out. "Hey! I got coal! Oh no wait... It's candy!" He had looked up, but not seen who had yelled that. This place seemed awesome, these people were so friendly, and nice, some of them were mutants, some of them were humans, all of them were celebrating, and having a good time.
"You must be the new guy!" A man's voice said a little loudly forcing Scott to look up to see the guy that had come in before with Jessica, James King, Danielle had said his name was, man was he huge.
"Uh... Hi. I'm Scott Summers." He said as he stood up and offered his hand.
The big guy laughed at the hand but shook it anyway. "I've heard all about you." He said with a smile. "My sister over there talks highly of you, so I thought I should come and see how you were doing myself." He spoke loudly, but friendly. "So how about it? You having fun?"
Scott nodded. "Ya, this place is great, it's like a dream world." He said a little sarcastically, but he meant it to be totally honest.
"Well just wait till you meet Thomas. You'll love him." James said with a smile. "Hey, Thomas! Get over here! Meet the new guy!" James waved him over from talking with the man that had stretched his arm across the table earlier while Scott and Rogue were getting eggnog.
Rogue came over too, tapping Scott on the shoulder. "About time we got to meet the leader of things here." She said quietly.
"Hi there miss." James said as he nodded. "Didn't see ya there..." He started as Thomas made his way over, and finally came up to them.
"Hi there, my name is Thomas Walkner." He said offering his hand. "You must be Scott Summers, and you must be Rogue." He said as each of them shook his hand. "Welcome to the party, I see you've already met a few people." He said looking to James and then to Rogue, who was now joined by Joe who was standing behind her.
"Yes. Well we've been wanting to talk to you since we got here." Scott started. "I mean this is great what you've done here and all, I love it." Thomas gave a nod as Scott continued. "But I have a few questions. What are the rules of the group? Is it like a cult thing? How many members do you actually have? And aren't you scared you'll be discovered by the general public?" He asked it all rather quickly, and was slightly out of breath by the time he had finished.
Thomas smiled a little and nodded. "Well... Let's see... The rules of the group are as follows 1) All Warriors have a responsibility to protect those who are unable to protect themselves, whether human or mutant. 2) All Warriors are forbidden to kill a human or a mutant even when doing so protects another human or mutant. 3) Respect your fellow warriors. And the last one 4) You are to pay the amount of one hundred thousand dollars to me upon signing up."
Rogue and Scott shared a look and then looked back to Thomas, however by the time they looked back to Thomas, he, James, and Joe, were roaring with laughter, because neither Scott nor Rogue had gotten the joke in time. "The fourth one there was a joke. We only have those three real rules. We help others, without killing anyone, and we respect others within our group, oh, and we do not reveal ourselves as mutants." Thomas explained.
"And I can tell you this think ain't no cult or nothing like that." James said with a smile, recovering from his laughter. Scott and Rogue felt so gullible, even Scott blushed slightly at his embarrassment.
Thomas however continued to answer his questions. "No, we are not a cult, people are free to come and go as they choose, however should someone choose to leave they must swear to secrecy about the Warrior community, because we don't want the general public knowing that we even exist." He said with a nod, changing the note of the conversation to a more serious one. "The last count I believe was eighteen. So we have eighteen people in the Warriors, as for a human to mutant ratio, if that mattered, I'd say it's like for every 1 human, there's about three or four mutants." He shrugged a little. "But no one here really cares if you're mutant or human, so we don't tend to make a big deal of it. And we're getting more and more members all the time, so it's hard to keep on track. That eighteen number was a few weeks ago, there's likely to be more than twenty of us now." The man in the Santa suit looked pretty funny explaining this all to them, but to anyone there actually hearing him you wouldn't have laughed. "And no, we are not exactly afraid of being discovered, but we do take precautions so that we won't be." He said finishing up the list of questions. "Was that all of your questions? Or did I miss one?"
"Ah think ya got them all there." Rogue said, speaking for the first time in this conversation.
"Well good." Thomas said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Kamesama doesn't look to happy over there, and I need to discuss business with him, please, stick around, talk to people, introduce yourselves. Do not be shy. Eat, drink, and be merry! It's Christmas!" He said with a good-hearted laugh, and went off to talk to the Asian man that he had been talking to before.
"Who is that Mr. Kamesama guy anyway?" Scott asked looking to James.
"He's the guy that pays the bills. The man behind the man as it were, he doesn't make any real decisions or nothing, but it's him that makes Thomas' projects and things possible. He gets Thomas what he needs, and Thomas does the work. Like Danielle, and Roger over there, and of course there's AI-9." James explained.
"Oh, Ah see..." Rogue said looking to Joe as he came up beside her, instead of standing behind her as he had been doing.
"Ya, the only odd thing is no one in this group knows for sure how those two met. Jessica told me this theory that was rumored before I got here that Thomas there saved Mr. Kamesama's life by using his powers, and the two became friends. And then they founded this group a few years later. But nobody knows for sure, and neither of them will tell us anything, they like to tease us with the secret I suppose." Joe said with a slight smile.
"And who's that with Mr. Kame... Kamasuma... With what's his name?" Scott asked, not able to remember the correct pronunciation of the man's name.
James smiled. "The twenty something lady there in the suit? That's Quinn Lee. She's sort of like his personal body guard." He explained.
"Is she a mutant?" Rogue asked rather bluntly, not meaning for it to sound the way it came out, but James and Joe didn't seem to care, they were used to discussing stuff like this it seemed.
"Ya. Thomas had some scientific terminology for it, but it basically boiled down to the fact that she is incapable of having emotions. She can't hate, love, or nothing. It's really kind of creepy." Joseph said as he looked to the lady standing next to Mr. Kamesama, and then turned his attention back to Rogue. "I don't know how they trust her, but apparently they take the risk." He shrugged.
"It sounds... Weird." Scott said as he looked towards them too, but when Mrs. Lee returned his gaze he turned away.
"Anyway. Come on, we'll introduce you to some of the other's here." James said with a smile, trying to lighten the mood. "Follow me." He waved them over to follow him with his right hand, which had the glove with the rings on it, and walked towards a group of certain people. "Hey, Roger, Will, Jonathan, and Amanda. This is Scott, and Rogue." James said gesturing. "Scott and Rogue, this is Roger McDowell, Will and Jonathan Howlett, and Amanda Suchil." He introduced them with a smile.
"It's nice to meet you all." Scott said with a nod to each of them, he noticed that Roger's right forearm and hand were slightly lighter in color than the rest of his tanned skin, and Jonathan and William were twins, both looking to be slightly younger then he, but both with obviously dyed blue hair slicked back, the color made to match their eyes. One was wearing an expensive outfit with nice shoes, the other wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and then there was Amanda, who looked to be in her mid thirties.
"They're new here, Michael brought them in." Joe said with a slight smile. "Rogue here is kind of like me, she absorbs people's memories and powers through contact. And Scott here... Well... What is your mutation anyway?" Joe asked looking to Scott.
"I uh... I shoot beams from my eyes." Scott said as if defeated, he was getting tired of saying that, especially when it sounded so stupid.
"It's nice to meet you both." Roger spoke up. "I'm a human, so I don't have any mutations, except that Thomas gave me this." He held up his right forearm, and Rogue too noticed that it was slightly lighter than the rest of him. Roger took a napkin and swiped the top of his hand, to reveal computer like replacements. "I'm a cyborg of sorts I guess you could say. Thomas made this for me after I lost the real one during an accident on a construction site."
Rogue thought that it was a little creepy, but didn't show it, meanwhile Scott was becoming more and more impressed with these people and the things Thomas had done for some of them.
Will spoke up next. "Mine's a little hard to explain but basically, I can pull smaller objects towards me, or pull myself towards larger objects." He said plainly, not really going to give a demonstration or anything.
Jonathan then spoke up. "I can uh... Basically I can create invisible fields of energy that expand out and push things away from me." He said shrugging.
Amanda at first didn't give hers, until James gave her a slight nudge. "Age manipulation. I can control my age." And she demonstrated, going from thirty something to fifteen in almost twenty seconds.
Rogue went wide-eyed at the demonstration, as did Scott, but returned to normal quite quickly. "That's so cool." She said after the demonstration was over and Amanda returned to being older, about twenty something. "So how old are you really?" She asked with a brow cocked.
"It's impolite to ask an old lady how old she is." Amanda said with a slight smile, she never gave that information out to anyone, no one except for maybe Michael knew, but in reality she was ninety-four years old. "So, anyway, what were we discussing?" Amanda asked changing the subject entirely and looking back to Roger.
"We were taking bets on who is going to get the fun job of taking that Wulf fellow his gift tomorrow morning." Roger answered.
"Ah yes. I still believe that Thomas will do it." She said with a slight smile.
"Oh no, it's been a tradition for two years now, you pick the name out of the hat, and that's the person that goes and runs the errands dropping the presents off to those that couldn't make it here for the Christmas Eve party." Jonathan said explaining it to Rogue and Scott, who were new, and probably didn't understand all of what they were talking about.
"I bet Jon's the one to do it." Will said with a slight smile.
"I think it'll be Danielle, she hasn't even seen Wulf yet." Jon recounted.
"It don't matter much I thi-"James was cut off by Thomas getting up on a small coffee table, and making an announcement by use of his hands. There was the Santa man, dressed in full Santa suit, cupping his hands to his mouth, and speaking in a loud voice as the music was turned off.
"Attention Ladies and Gentlemen!" He began. "It is time for several holiday celebration traditions!" And some people clapped. "There will be the drawing, to see who gets the fun job of being Santa's delivery boy to those who couldn't make it here tonight." He paused. "There will be the eggnog drinking contest, back by popular demand. And of course... There will be the mistletoe toss!" At this several of the younger girls and guys booed, but the older ones laughed.
"This is bound to be interestin'." Rogue said leaning up to Scott so she could whisper without anyone else hearing.
"Uh huh." Scott said with a slight nod, paying attention more to the man in the Santa suit then he was to what Rogue was saying.
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Coming Soon... Chapter 3: Traditions