The P.A. system crackled, noisily for a moment then Principal Kelly's voice filled the air along with Katherine's muttering in the background. Xavier's voice could also be heard beside hers, talking in a much quieter, less aggitated way. Heads came up and conversations stopped.
"In light of new circumstances, developing since Friday Night's Halloween Dance...no pun intended, students. Don't laugh. Bayville and Ripley students need to raise money for repairs to the gym. No one was charged in this event except for a young man calling himself Alexander Johndyce who can control fire. Details are still being discussed, although a certain group of students, made up of Bayville and Ripley students, roasted decorations and other such items."
Katherine's voice filled the room after a moment of struggling and muttering. "There will be a bake sale, starting in three days. All students are asked to participate by baking something or having a relative bake something...those of you who participated in the bonfire are asked to make several special appearances at the sale," she said, sounding rather business-like then her tone slipped into a friendly voice. "That includes Rogue and Todd Tolensky."
Principal Kelly took over again then. "Give me that!" he said, obviously speaking to Katherine then cleared his throat and began again. "The bake sale will be held Saturday morning, in front of a local store, The Bouncing Orange. The following students will be requested to work there because of their part in the bonfire on Friday night: Julius Kanteon, Angel Blade, Rogue, Landon Keller, Tara Toynbee, Natasha Creed, Todd Tolensky and Jax. Damien and Jean will be chaperones during the bake sale...all students are to report at 9 a.m."
The P.A. system clicked off around the sound of loud arguing from the office. The rooms fell silent.
"Nice job, freaks," one of the guys clustered around a locker mumbled, glowering in the direction of the gathered mutants.
Landon's head came up then and his mouth opened.
"Don't respond," Tara said, quietly, almost under her breathe. "That's what they want and Katherine's already pretty pissed at us...Landon!"
He'd already crossed the hall and walked straight into their group, shoving the guy who'd spoken against the lockers; he forced the sharpened bones from his hands then against his throat and held. "What did you call us?" he demanded without relenting at all in his hold.
There wasn't a response.
"It's easy to talk when we aren't right in your face, isn't it?"
"Get off me, freak," came the response this time, though it held little to no conviction. His throat barely moved with his speaking but that was due in large part to the pressure there. "No one wants your kind around here."
Landon smiled, coldly. "You don't get a choice...get used to it or we might have a problem," he said without losing the smile. He removed his hands after a moment and forced the bones back into their original places, noting that the wounds were slowly beginning to heal themself, very slowly. He started away.
"Damn mutant freak."
He made eye contact with his friends across the hall, seeing the warning in Tara and Natasha's eyes, amusement from Julius, and sad understanding from Angel. He held eye contact long enough to convey his thoughts then started to turn, although instead of the jerks who were mutantphobic there was Rogue.
At some point between the mutual yet silent conversation with his friends and his turning, the halls had almost completly cleared. His friends waited only about another forty-five seconds before calling their closings to him and taking off down the hall. Julius and Angel had gotten into another swearing, fighting match.
"Ya friend was right, Landon...don't give 'em the satisfaction of a response. It's what everybody here wants from tha mutants," Rogue announced after a moment, coming up beside him. Her expression went from serious into worried then and she began to bite her bottom lip. "Oh, gawd, ah sound lahke Jean."
"What do you want, Rogue?" He started down the hall, clutching his single, broken spine binder with a pencil of some kind sticking out of the end.
"Jeez, would it kill ya to try for a polite tone?" she asked after a moment, falling into step beside him. She carried her bag in the normal fashion, though her shoes made more noise against the floor than the average high schooler's, mutant or not. He didn't respond. "What exactly is it that ya hate so much, Landon? The fact that they have something against mutants or that ya're mutant...?"
He glared at her. "We're not playing psychiatrist right now, Rogue. Tell me your purpose then leave me alone... you have a class to attend and I'm going for a walk," he said, continuing toward the front exit doors looming ahead. He ignored her irritated breathe and kept walking.
"Fahne! If ya wanna go sulk somewhere, it ain't mah problems!" she yelled at his retreating back then stomped off, muttering and cursing. The words 'damn' and 'boy' stuck out more than any others.
I don't have time for this. It's not like these people would even bother to get to know anyone...damn Rogue and damn the do-good X-Men. In a perfect world, we'd be forgiven but this isn't it.
Landon stalked away from Bayville High without even looking back. He continued to walk, ignoring everything around him, including the figures that had started following him since he left. Their shapes varied, ranging from really big down to small and frog-like.
"Hey, you! We got a proposition for you.." The almost completly white-haired youth appeared out of nowhere, zooming up at a speed faster than the normal rate. He stood there with an arrogant smirk on his face. "It's just the place for you, Keller..."
"I've had enough do-gooders in my time." He started past him, ignoring the others that had come into view. It was obvious they were all, or at least majority mutant.
There was something like a laugh then another voice spoke. "Yo, we ain't no do-gooders. We leave that to the X-geeks.."
Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters Kitchen 4:50 p.m.
"Are you sure we should be taking cooking lessons from Kitty, Angel?" Tara kept her voice conversational and friendly, though she cast several strange glances in the direction of their teacher.
Kitty was staring at a recipe with a heavy frown. The kitchen counter before her was strewn with ingredients for the cookies and muffins they were meant to be making, though she was still sorting through recipes.
Angel shrugged, placing the bowl part of a spoon against her nose in an attempt to make it balance there. It fell. "What's the worst that could happen? Kitty might even turn out to be a pretty good cook," she rationalized with a brief smile in her friend's direction. "It's not like I'm aloud to cook anyway...plus...Remy and John are here. Cooking lessons and harrassment!"
"You're a bad person." The statement was serious, though made less serious by the spoon that was now hanging off her nose. The serious conversation had been killed in those brief moments.
Kitty cleared her throat. "The first thing we must do is mix the batter. Please mix the following ingredients," she said then began read things off from the list in her open cookbook. She gestured to the ingredient ladden island that sat in the middle of the kitchen then removed a giant bowl that was bright red in color.
"Uh..." Tara hesitated while Angel simply began tossing things in, though she kept eating pinches of sugar and sprinkling flour in at random points. An accident, of course.
"Tara! You will, like, never get better unless you, like, try!" Kitty's voice was loud and plaintive. It held a note of whining, too. "You never know what you're, like, good at until you, like, try!"
I wonder if Kitty passed English? It sure doesn't seem like she could with all those stupid likes, Tara thought but held the thought in without voicing it. Something hit her elbow sharply, knocking over the canister of salt that rested there; it spilt into the cookie mix. Angel! Look what you made me do.
Relax, Tara. What they don't know won't hurt 'em, got it?
You're a bad influence on me.
She picked up the canister of salt, setting it back in it's normal position then began to stir the batter, whistling in a non-conspirital way that often showed guilt. The gesture was lost on Kitty and her recipe book.
"Have you two, like, finished mixing the ingredients or do you, like, need another couple of minutes?" she asked with a shake of her head that made her annoyingly peppy ponytail bounce up and down. She turned the book for them to see the page then pointed at a couple of sentences. "We need, like, a cookie sheet. Why don't you get that, Angel..?"
Angel gave a shrug then walked across the kitchen, making a point to bounce her hair in a similar fashion to Kitty. She dug around for a few moments and made entirely too much noise then came back with a couple of cookie sheets. "Like, here you go, Kitty," she said, taking on a weak version of the valley girl accent.
Tara waited until their teacher was focused on putting the covered cookie sheets into the oven then faced her best friend. "Bad imitation, Angel. It should sound like this..." She cleared her throat, thought a minute and then began to speak. "It's, like, a smooth transition not all, like, jumpy and stuff. You know, like, what I mean, right, Angel?"
"If you two are through, like, gossiping or whatever it is you people, like, do..."
"Yes, Kitty. We're, like, through gossiping.."
Brotherhood of Evil Mutants Headquarters (snickers Evil...uh-huh...) 5:05 p.m.
"This place is kept in order by who again..?"
Pietro looked around then shrugged, giving him a look that said it all.
"You people live here under the order that you don't destory the place and do whatever some blue colored chick says?" Landon asked, giving the place a critical look around before deciding anything. He scanned the falling apart walls and peeling paint then shook his head. "It seems you guys would have a better place if things were that good..."
"We're workin' on it, yo!" Toad, as he'd learned the guy's name was, hopped onto the back of the couch and crouched there, looking around their home. "It'll get better with time. Give Mystique some time."
"I'll think about it." He turned and walked out before any of them could reply. He had a lot to think about and would rather not be followed or harrassed. He turned back and came face to face with another mutant, Avalance or Lance. "Don't follow me."
"It's just a precaution."
"I don't like it, Avalanche."
Lance didn't move for a few minutes then back off, going back inside with a curt order to the others. Toad and the other flunkies followed him inside and the door shut, seperating them.
"About time," Landon muttered, removing a cigarette and lighting it. He placed it to his mouth and sucked on the end, holding the smoke in his mouth for a moment before blowing a couple of smoke rings into the sky. "I knew there was a reason I preferred silence to people talking too much."
"Ya actually think' of joinin' them, sugah?" He recognized the voice before she finished the endearment. It took another couple of moments for him to finish his next drag and think up a quick response.
"Run along and play with the other children, Rogue."
Rogue glared in his direction then plucked the cigarette from his lips and stepped it out. "What othah children, sugah? Ah scared 'em off when ah mentioned you, the wanna-be big, bad wolf. Logan already took that job," she said, crushing the cigarette tip even further. "What were you doing with the brotherhood?"
"It was polite conversation, dear," he said with a smile that could have frozen a lake. Unless, of course, that lake held the name of Rogue.
"Do ya know anythang about tha group ya're about to get yaself involved in..?" she demanded after a moment of glaring at his back. She hurried her steps until she came to his side then fell into step with him, ignoring the fact that he'd lit another cigarette.
Landon shrugged. "Seems like a better cause then living with whoever can take me for the night or the next couple of nights...and it's better than you people's do-gooder ways," he said after blowing another ring of smoke into the sky.
She waved it away with an almost humorous face. "Would ya stop and listen for a moment?"
"Not if it's another speech about why I should accept the X-Men's pity offer and Katherine's badgering," he commanded without breaking stride.
"You are sooo---" Rogue cut the words off then took a breathe and tried again. "Mystique and the brotherhood are only gonna use ya, Landon. Ah almost ruined the closest things to friends ah have now 'cause of her...think about it, Landon."
He blew a couple more smoke rings.
"What made ya so damn bitter and cyincal?"
Landon glared at her. "Don't ask questions you won't like the answers to," he said, sounding even more bitter.
I'm so sick of playing chess around everything. Nothing about this relationship makes sense and I'm gonna figure out why, she thought, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him to a stop.
He stopped walking and almost jerked her off her feet with the suddeness of his move. His hands caught her shoulders to keep her from pitching forward to the ground then held her there, waiting to see what she'd do.
"Ah'm sorry, Landon."
"Sorry for what?" he started to ask her but never finished the words. Her mouth pressed against his and she closed her eyes, struggling against the many memories that flooded into her head; it was strong, really strong and in graphic deatil.
A ten-year-old boy and girl. Building blocks. Screaming and crying. Fire flickering in a window. Landon. Police cars. Handcuffs. Screaming. Voices. A cell. Someone running. Bloody walls. A blur of faces, friends and others. Angel. Jax. Julius. Tara. Katherine. A school. Classes. Walking out. An explosion. Millions of events, eighteen years worth of memories within a few minutes.
Rogue broke their contact.
"Landon?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't hear her. His eyes had glazed over in a strange, unfocused way, though he stood upright unlike most of the people she touched for so long. Even as she talked, they closed and he fell, hitting a combination of grass and concrete. "Ah, damn...not again.."
Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngster's Rec Room 5: 45 p.m.
"Excuse me, everyone! Like, can I have your attention for, like, a couple of minutes..?" Kitty clapped her hands several times to get the gathered mutants', teenagers and new adults, attention then motioned forward her guests. "A couple of the students from, like, Ripley have, like, baked some cookies for you guys....it's, like, a special recipe of something.."
Angel and Tara both held out a plate of cookies. The strange part was the fact that one was dark brown, almost black, with funky tan chips in it and the other was normal chocolate chips. The cookies rested on China plates with Santa Clause decorations across their surface, thought mostly covered by the cookies.
"Did you have a part in making them, Kitty..?" Bobby Drake approached with caution, abandoning the game system before them. YOU DIED flashed across the screen briefly then it went blank, returning after a moment to the first screen. He poked at a cookie then picked it up, giving it a once over.
She huffed for a moment. "No, like, I just gave them the recipe...it was, like, completly their, like...creation or whatever," she said, giving them a much too bright smile. "What are you guys, like, waiting for? Eat up!"
"Rahne..?" Samural Gunthrie, or Cannonball to the others, looked at his teammate. She shrugged and took a cookie, sniffing it for a moment before taking a bite; she closed her eyes and made a humming like noise after a moment. "Are they okay for us to eat..?"
"Yeah. They're good," she said, reaching for another.
That was all it took. The others grabbed a cookie, ate a couple bites, then reached for more, nodding and mumbling their approval despite their mouthfuls of cookies. Within a matter of minutes, the plates were clean, spotless except for some crumbles and a couple of broken off pieces.
"Wow. You guys cook real good," Robert De Costa, or Sunspot to his teammates, commented, chewing and swallowing his last cookie. He smiled and patted his stomache. "I'm good until dinner or later."
"Yeah. They were good," Jubilation Lee, Jubilee to her teammates, said, creating a small shower of sparks. She smiled, giving a sly look in Kitty's direction. "Much better than what Kitty normal makes for us to guniea pig."
The others agreed especially the tweleve Jamies who were munching on the last of their cookies. "We should have saved some for poor Kurt and Scott...they'd have needed the refreshment..."
"My cooking isn't, like, that bad!" Kitty blinked to keep the tears that had formed at her eyes from falling. She sniffled a couple of times, too.
Rahne grimaced. "Now you've done it. What recipe exactly was that from? I might need to make those for something later."
Angel held up a book then flipped to a page, pointing down. "It's this one along with a couple of special ingredients," she said, giving a shrug then tossing the book to the younger girl. It landed in her hands, perfectly. "Salt, pickles, and sour cream can fix anything. You should try it. Remy and John like 'em."
Ray's eyes rounded and the others suddenly looked sicked.
"Salt..?"
"Pickles..?"
"Sour cream...?"
"Do you have anymore?"
The new recruits took off then, looking quiet sick except for Rahne who simply licked her lips and flipped to the cook book. "Salt, pickles, and sour cream. Got it. Thanks," she called before heading after her friends, head bent over the cookbook.
Kitty held her tears back until they were gone then began to cry, sending a spray of tears out on each side. She made the most awful wailing sounds without seeming to notice them especially the all but possible amount of tears she'd begun to cry.
"What's wrong, Kitty..? They liked the cookies.."
Angel nodded, picking a cookie half from the plate and popping it into her mouth to chew. "Yeah, they were good! What's the problem..?"
"You're ruined my recipe! GET OUT! I never want to see you again...ever! Kitty's School of Cooking for Girls is officially closed....FOREVER!" She ran from the room, sobbing and wailing like a freight train.
Tara blinked. "There wasn't a like in almost five sentences...wow..."
"We should change recipes more often. Wanna go try the recipe out on our own friends and family..?"
She nodded. "Yeah. Was it three large pickles, four pinches of salt, and a dolp of sour cream that we added to Kitty's recipe?" she asked, removing a sheet of paper with words scrawled across it from one of her many pockets.
"Who cares? We'll improvise...Julius and Jax will eat anything."
"Tasha, too."
"Yeah...I wonder if we could convince the staff to eat them..."
"Doubtful, Angel, but we can try. Think of it this way: there's always Gambit and Pyro."
Random Line from Next Chapter:
"What part of play nicely without powers and without causing an unneccessary problem do you people not understand? Telekenesis, pyrokenesis, fire sparks, and tongue slapped ARE NOT part of volleyball..."
End of Random Line from Next Chapter
Author's Note: Please read and review so I'll know who reads this. Let me know about your ideas for relationships, events, and other such fun stuff. I have two other clear ideas, though I'm looking for reader help. Y'all wanna help a poor band-enslaved, very-little-music-played-off writer? Much thanks, my buddies. Later.