Max woke up the next morning with a feeling of nausea in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't a physical feeling, more of a mental thing. He felt as if something bad would happen. He got dressed and made himself some food. His parents sent enough money for him to live quite peacefully. He didn't have to work and he never seemed to run out of cash. He didn't spend it a lot. All he needed money for was food and cigarettes. He had enough clothes and it wasn't as if he actually wore a new pair every day. Yeah, he thought, I've got it pretty good.
He got to school late and even later to class. He had stopped for a smoke along the way. He didn't hesitate to smoke at school. He had been given a few warnings by the teachers before but never serious ones. They pretty much left him alone.
Classes went by in a breeze. Max never paid much attention in class. Most would've expected him to be a lousy student but in contrast, he was quite a good student. He wasn't a genius or anything but he didn't really fail any subject. He emerged after classes were over and was immediately surrounded by Whitney and his friends. Max was bored. He had lost it earlier for no apparent reason but now he didn't give a shit either way. Whitney often made fun and ragged on him but that was it. He had never been beaten up or actually harassed in any way. This time, Whitney didn't speak. He just stared. Max knew trouble was coming. He didn't like to fight. If he did, he might lose control and use his powers. Whitney and two of his friends grabbed him by the arms and propelled him towards the toilet. He was roughly shoved into one of the cubicles and made to sit on the can.
"I've ignored you for too long, freak. I think it's time you learned some respect," Whitney said. Oh man, how cliched is this, Max was thinking to himself. I mean, you gotta see this in a million corny movies. One outcast is set upon by the jocks and beaten up. The outcast fights back and actually beats them and somehow ends up getting the girl.
Two people again grabbed both of his hands and Whitney took off his jacket and put on knuckles. Max knew what was coming. He didn't struggle. It was inevitable.
He closed his eyes as he felt the first blow. It caught him on the side of his face and he could almost hear his cheekbone crack. A kick in the gut and a punch right in the Adam's apple. Max could taste blood now and the blow to his throat caused him to choke. He began to regurgitate the blood. He saw a dark crimson liquid come flowing out of his mouth. It didn't even look like blood. The two holding on to his arms let go and he fell forward. His face collided with the cold bathroom floor. As he lay there, numerous blows to the abdomen, groin and gut followed. He didn't know how long it had been but in the end, he could take no more. He curled up and put his hands over his head. Whitney said something garbled and they retreated. Someone aimed a final, parting kick at his stomach and then all of them left.
Max was done. He had expected a beating but not one as bad as this. His face was a mess; his cheekbone seemed broken and there was something horribly wrong with his throat. A horrible sandpapery feeling. He was unable to move. As he lay in a pool of his own blood, he heard more people enter. He tried to get up but that action just caused convulsions again. He lay down and hoped he would die.
When Kurt Wagner entered the toilet, he was busy talking to Bobby about the latest installation of the computer game, Halo. He froze when he saw the spreading pool of blood and the body lying in it. Quick as a flash, he and Bobby were beside Max, turning him over and trying to talk to him.
"Hey. Vake up. Vat happened?" Kurt tried to shake him but was afraid that that might just dislodge something and cause more damage. "Bobby, get Scott, quick. He needs help. Ve need to get him to za hospital."
Bobby ran off in search of Scott. Max opened his eyes and stared into the face of the German boy. His eyes were bloodshot and his mouth was still leaking blood. He tried to speak but no words came, just blood bubbles.
Bobby returned with Scott and Jean, to whom it didn't matter that it was the boy's toilet.
"We need to get him medical help immediately. It looks as if he might choke on his blood. Jean, can you do anything?" Scott asked.
"I'll try." Jean closed her eyes and placed her hand on Max's forehead. Focusing on his throat she used her powers to stop the blood from flowing down Max's throat. Max vomited another splurge of blood but this one was followed by a long easy draw of breath.
"I don't think he can walk. We'll have to carry him." Scott cradled Max's head in his arms and caught his arms. Kurt and Bobby grabbed his legs and all of them trudged out. Jean looked around for anyone to call but the school was empty. Even the janitor was nowhere to be seen. It was after-school hours and the halls were deserted. It was lucky for Max that the X-men had stayed back to wait for her. She had some work left and was just finishing up when Bobby had come running up, out of breath and talking endlessly about an injured guy.
They carried Max to Scott's car. Scott drove as fast as he could towards the hospital. Max was conscious and could tell where they were taking him. He remembered his last visit to the hospital. The machines going bonkers and everything short-circuiting. That had been when he had broken an arm. His powers seemed to go haywire when he was injured and around machines. Almost as if he were radiating static electricity.
"Not the hospital." He managed to say. He mouth still tasted like blood and his face and throat hurt like hell but pain he could handle. "Take me home."
"You need medical help immediately. Don't argue," said Scott in his leader voice.
"No. You don't understand. I'm not normal. I'm like you." Even through the blood and all the pain he had recognised the X-men. Lance's description had come in handy and he had seen them around school before. "Look." He said and tried with all his might to make his skin change colour. His entire hand turned brick red but that was all he needed. Jean saw.
"Scott, he's a mutant. We need to get him to the professor. He'll know what to do. The hospital might complicate things." This was Jean talking. Scott listened to her. He swung the car around and headed for the mansion. That was all Max remembered because then he passed out.
Max woke up with his head reeling and throat feeling as if somebody had shoved a hot poker down it. "Oohh…," he murmured and put his hand on his head. His face was bandaged and so was his chest and abdomen. He was lying in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. The pain had subsided but there was still a dull throb. He was too tired to care where he was.
"Hey guys, he's, like, awake. Come see!" Kitty poked her head through the door that directly faced the bed and then called out. There was a general hubbub and the sound of people moving around. A bald guy in a wheelchair entered the room followed by a group of teenagers. That was the professor. Lance had told him that he could read minds. Max found this thought particularly unsettling.
"You don't have to be uncomfortable. You're among friends here." The professor spoke pleasantly and smiled a little. "Now would you like to tell us who did this?"
"I'd rather not." Max's throat was still sore and it hurt like hell when he spoke. He wasn't going to rat especially to these geeks. He would handle it by himself. He could take care of himself. Things had just gone too far. He wouldn't let that happen again.
"Oh? I think you know how easy it would be for me to just read your mind and find out but I'll let you take your own time to tell us. It's your choice. You're welcome to stay here as long as you want," saying so, the professor wheeled his wheelchair out of the room. He closed the door behind him and said, "I missed him. I never thought to look at Bayville High for a new mutant. I assumed that those there were already either with us or with the Brotherhood. Find out everything you can about him, Logan." The tall dark man standing in the shadows grunted and walked off.
"Hey, you're Lance's friend, aren't you?" Kitty asked. She came over and sat down on the far end of the bed. It took a while for the question to sink in.
"Yeah. You're Kitty, I know. He can't stop talking about you," Max said grabbing one side of his head. It still hurt.
"Really?" Kitty started to blush.
"If it's okay with you, I think I'll be going now. Will the person who removed my shirt please give it back?" Max threw back the covers and tried to get off the bed. The second his feet hit the floor, his head started to throb and the world started to revolve.
"Better lay back down. You're not ready to go home yet." Jean lay him back on the bed with a flip of her hand. It was pleasant feeling, being floated through the air and then lay down on a soft bed.
"You're with the Brotherhood?" This was Scott speaking, his voice gruff.
"With them? Yeah, I guess you could say that. I just met the rest of them yesterday. Not much of a member," It was easier to talk but it still hurt his throat.
"Great. Now we have an enemy in our midst. He'll probably go back and tell them all about us. That whole thing was probably just a sham to get inside. I don't trust him." Scott was voluble about his feelings and didn't care who heard it.
"Scott, it wasn't a sham. I treated those bruises and they were real," Jean said softly. She put her hand on Scott's shoulder and that seemed to calm him a little.
"So you're a mutant? How come ve never found out?" Kurt appeared now.
"Well, I just joined the school three months ago, what do you expect?" Max was getting the third degree and he wasn't enjoying it. He hadn't asked for their help. He didn't really like these people and he especially didn't like Scott. "Look, if you're going to ask me questions all day then I'd rather be going. I didn't ask you to help me and I don't want to be treated like some spy or something. Look, I don't know much about this thing you have between you and the Brotherhood and frankly, I don't give a shit. Just fuck off and leave me alone okay?"
(Students would you please leave out guest to rest and come see me in the study.) The professor's voice reverberated through everyone's head, even Max's. Slowly everyone emptied out of Max's room and left him alone. Shrugging to himself, Max lay back down and tried to go to sleep.
"So what do we know about Max?" The professor directed this question at Scott, Kurt, Jean and Bobby.
"Well, we know he's with the Brotherhood. So there's not telling to what he's capable of," Scott said stiffly.
"Now, now, Scott, don't jump to conclusions. Max is just confused. He's just not sure where to go." Charles Xavier said thoughtfully, putting his hands together. "Jean, what do you think?"
"Yeah, Max is confused. He's hung out with Lance ever since he joined the school. He naturally feels he'll belong with the Brotherhood but now he's confused as we helped him out when the Brotherhood was nowhere in sight. He'll fight us but I have a feeling he may join."
"Hmm…do you know what his powers are?"
"We did see him turn red. His entire arm actually turned completely red, you know, like the colour Sunspot turns. We don't really know what he can do."
"That isn't so encouraging." The professor turned away and stared out the big French windows in his study.
"Vy not just read his mind?" Kurt asked.
"I could do that but that would just violate his trust. We shouldn't give him any more reason to stay with the Brotherhood. They are harmless now that Magneto is gone but it would be better if we could acquire his powers, whatever they might be. Rogue, I want you to go talk to him. He might connect to you." Charles said to Rogue who was idling near the door, not really interested.
"What? Me?"
"Yes, you."
"Okay but what do I talk to him about?"
"Oh, anything. Just get him to trust us." With this cryptic message, Charles Xavier dismissed the students.
"Uh…can I come in?" Rogue poked her head in through the door to Max's room. Max was awake and was sitting up, looking at the ceiling.
"Yeah. Though I don't know why you'd want to do that." Max was still hostile. Rogue had intrigued him before but he didn't want to seem overeager to talk to her.
"Hi, I'm Rogue and you're Max. Okay now that we got the preliminaries out of the way, let's talk business, shall we?" Rogue said matter-of-factly and sat down on one of the chairs facing the bed.
"Business? What kind of business?" Max was taken aback by her attitude. She was very antagonistic.
"Look, you're with the Brotherhood and it's not sitting so well with the professor. He wants you to join us. I can't give you a valid reason to do that and it's all up to you but…"
"Hey hey, listen. Everyone comes and blabbers on about the Brotherhood and the X-men. What's the deal with that? Why are you so concerned with who joins what group? I don't give a shit. As long as I'm not discriminated against by everyone for being a mutant and then thrown out of here, I'm fine. I wouldn't care if either side won or lost. Read my lips, Rogue, I DON'T CARE." Max's fiery temper rose up and he shouted the last three words at her. He really was fed up. He just wanted to be accepted as he was and not be afraid to just exist but instead he had been dragged into this power tug between these two lame-ass groups. It had been better when no one had known that he was a mutant.
Rogue was shocked into silence. She hadn't expected his reaction. She had come in here just because the professor had told her to, not because she wanted to. She hadn't given a flying fuck about Max until now. His little tirade had her interested.
"Hold on. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so straight with all the mutant shit. Look, I feel the way you do. Believe me. I was in this same place. I was with the Brotherhood for a while. Didn't enjoy it that much. With the X-men, you get a family. All these other mutants aren't just faces, they're so much a part of my life now. Hey, you could go join the Army for all I cared but just think about it okay?"
Max was silent for a while. "What powers do you have?"
"Powers? Huh…that's a laugh. Mine's more of a curse than anything is. I can't touch. Literally. If I touch somebody, I instantly absorb his or her thoughts, powers and strength. If I held on for too long, I'd probably kill them."
"That must be tough. I'm sorry for being such a jerk to you. It's just that everything's happening so fast and on top of it all, these guys beat the shit out of me. I'm just not in a place where I can decide." Max could feel her bitterness. He didn't know if he could relate to her pain but he understood it.
"What powers do you have?" Rogue said softly.
"It's kind of hard to describe but I'll try. I can will my body to run faster, be stronger and more agile than any normal human can. When I do this, my entire body turns this crimson colour, blood like. I like to think of it as my mutant blood showing itself. You may not get it but I'll show you sometime."
Rogue acknowledged this with silence. She had never met anyone else who had put into words her own feelings about the two factions. She didn't care either. She liked the X-men but they could be too goal oriented and too goody-goody. Opposed to Kurt and Kitty, there was no one in the entire mansion that she could talk to. Kurt was her brother and it had taken him a long time to get over the fact that Rogue had killed Mystique, actually shattered her into pieces. It must've been hard to get used to the fact that your sister had killed your mother. Kitty was a little out-there but she was pretty cool underneath it all.
"You know something, Max, I think I like you," Rogue said suddenly. She didn't know why but she just did. Most people knew Rogue to be quiet, cynical and not all that open about her emotions. Most people included Rogue herself.
"I think you're not all that bad yourself, compared to the rest of these idiots here." Max said. For the first time today, a smile creased his face. Rogue liked the way his smile lit up his entire face. She found herself returning that smile. She stood up and walked towards the door. Slowly, she turned around and found Max staring at her. Rogue could feel a twinge of pleasure go through her system.
"Think about me." Another phrase that erupted from Rogue's mouth as mysteriously as the previous one had. She came out of the room before she could say anymore.
Max was pleased.