Chapter 2- Standoff
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men. They belong to Marvel. I only own Alex, but I wish I owned Colossus as well. ;)
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She hid a grin when she saw who was standing there. The imperial snow queen glared down at her regally. She stood with her hands on her pristine white slacks. "Did you know that you are trespassing on private property?"
The harsh tone would have made a lesser person nervous. As it was, the girl just stood up from her crouched position and looked the White Queen in the eyes. "I'm terribly sorry. This wind just came out of nowhere and blew my sailboard off course." She pointed out to the water. Her face held a look of complete innocence. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you? After all, the New England weather is so unpredictable."
Almost instantly, she felt a gentle touch inside her mind. She physically recoiled from the probe. She lashed out at the only cause for her attack. "Stay out of my mind, Frostie. Nobody invited you." She could feel the power grow in her as she carefully but quickly constructed the force field around both her mind and her body.
Emma Frost cried out in pain as her psychic probe was thrown back at her forcefully. Her yelp brought others running to her aid. Scott Summers, her lover and co-headmaster, was the first to show up. He was quickly followed by Kitty Pryde and Piotr Rasputin. Scott took the scene in and automatically assumed that the girl had attacked Emma. His optic blasts bounced off of her force field and nearly succeeded in taking out Kitty and Piotr in the process. Thankfully, Kitty phased them both in time.
"Whoa, I didn't know I could do that," the girl muttered. She saw Cyclops gearing up for another blast and she braced herself. She concentrated everything she had on changing the density of her force field bubble. This time, instead of reflecting the blast, her bubble absorbed the impact of it. It glowed red with color. "Now, that was cool!" She looked over where the X-Men were attempting to regroup. "Look, I don't want to hurt you so I'll give you a heads up. This force field cannot be breached unless I want it to. That includes phasing, Miss Pryde. All I want is to leave in peace, but if you can't handle that, I'm prepared to wait."
"The question is how long you can hold that force field up," Emma purred. "My guess is that you're already weak from holding it up so long. And you managed to absorb the power from that blast. That has to be taking its toll on your endurance." She smirked at the girl in the bubble.
"Actually, it has done nothing of the sort. I feel better than ever if that's possible. I can wait in here for hours. Besides, I'm not the one that started this fight. I was just sitting here, trying to think how to get my board unstuck from those rocks. You had to come along and try to invade my brain. It's not my fault you couldn't handle it. Oh yeah, nice job handling this situation. Here, I heard you were the good guys. I guess attacking a stranger is okay if you're on your home turf, right?" She laughed at the expressions on their faces. "Wow, I've got you speechless. Hasn't anybody ever criticized you for running into a situation without looking?"
"How do you know so much about us if you're not an enemy? How do we know you're even telling the truth?" Kitty was suspicious of her, but she could tell that the girl wasn't lying. After all, Emma was known for sneaking into other people's minds.
"Well, first off, I am not your enemy. Second, one of your teammates told me about you guys. He claimed you were trustworthy if I ever needed anything. Yes, I'm telling the truth. I'm sure if you check your security tapes, they'll tell you the same thing." She glanced over at Piotr. "Hey, Colossus, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but weren't you dead? Or was that somebody else?"
"Da," he replied. "I was dead for awhile. I came back, though." He looked at Kitty for a moment with sorrow. It didn't take a genius to figure out that he hadn't been back from the dead very long.
"Wow," she mused to herself, "I don't know which would be worse. For once, I'm grateful not to be living the superhero life." A flicker of motion brought her back to reality. A small purple dragon floated around her bubble, trying to chew its way inside. When he landed on top of it, she relaxed her hold just enough so that he could fall through. "Who are you, little one? At least somebody around here doesn't want to attack me without reason." She let him curl around her neck as she scratched him on the head.
Kitty lunged forward. "Lockheed! Dragon, you get out here right now. You don't trust strangers like that." She looked more nervous than angry. The dragon looked at her with one eye as if to challenge her to come get him.
The girl gently pulled him off her shoulders. "Come on, little dragon. Your mistress isn't happy with me. She thinks I'm going to do something to hurt you." She murmured encouraging words to him as she pushed him out of her sanctuary. "I'm going to leave now. Just to let you guys know, though, if you ever need help, I'd still give it to you." She trudged out into the water, but kept her force field secure around her. There was no point in giving anybody a free shot.
She felt the strain of her muscles as she swam out closer to her board. She hadn't lied. It would be no problem for her to keep her force field for hours, even days if she wanted to. The problem was from her ribs. She was having difficulty breathing due to the pressure they were putting on her lungs. She gritted her teeth and tried not to let the pain show. She knew she'd been foolish to attempt any strenuous activity. Still, her stubborn streak made her think that she could handle it.
She let her thoughts wander to the X-Men. She hadn't been too harsh on them, but they'd given her little choice but to hold her defensive position. She could have fought them all and, quite possibly, won. Still, there was no use in fighting somebody that could be an ally someday. She was still disappointed, though. For all the stories she'd been told, she had imagined that the X-Men would welcome her with open arms. Here she hadn't even been looking to join the team, or even find them, and they still had cast her out like an evil villain.
"Hey, kid, are you going somewhere?" The hairy man seemed to show up out of nowhere and managed to banish all bad thoughts from her mind.
Instinctively, she let her force field disappear. "Logan! I should have known that you'd show up sooner or later." She took a good look at him and noticed the grin that he was trying so hard to hide. "How much of that did you see?"
"All of it," he said shortly. "I even saw the part where you went diving off the board like you were going to drown. You've got a nasty cut from it, though. What do you say we get it cleaned up at the med center?" He reached out to touch the oozing wound. "Besides, I'd like to get them to apologize for treating a friend with such disrespect. You weren't doing anything wrong. Frost just has panties in a knot for some reason."
"That still doesn't explain why everybody else got so offensive without me doing anything. I wasn't even trying to defend myself. Thanks for the offer, Logan, but I've got a first aid kit in my van. I can take care of myself. I need to get on the road, anyway."
He gave her a curious look, but held his tongue. He'd have plenty of time to get the truth out of her later. "I never said I was giving you a choice. Now, grab your board and let's go. We don't want to keep them in suspense, do we? I'm sure they're dying to know what we're discussing."
She glared at him but he merely grinned in return. Finally, she just gave up and went to retrieve her board. If it had been anybody else but him, she'd have never given in, let alone that easily. Still, he'd been one of the first people to give her a chance. She wasn't about to question his good reason now. "All right, give me a second." She paddled out to un-wedge her board from the boulders. She pulled the sail out of the water and unattached it from the board. Then, straddling the board to keep her balance, she slowly made her way back to where Logan was treading water.
"Come on, kid. We need to get you on dry land where you can get the water out of your brain. Then, you can tell me why you're here in New England all by yourself." He gave her that knowing look again. "You know I'm going to get it out of you, so why not make it easy on yourself and tell me now?"
She managed a nervous laugh. "You're probably right. I'll tell you later what's going on. Right now, don't push your luck. At least you got me to come back to shore. I'm already regretting letting you talk me into this."
"Trust
me, kid, they're not always this touchy. You just caught everybody
on a bad day. Under normal circumstances, they'd probably be a
little more helpful. Just let me do the talking, will ya? I've been
around these people for a long time." They walked up the sandy
beach where everyone was congregated. "What's the idea here? I
thought you guys actually had manners. Some kid washes up on shore
and you attack her just for that? I know Frost isn't a gracious
hostess, but I thought better of the rest of you." He stared down
each of them before continuing. "This here is my friend, Alex Fox.
You might know her better as Princess Alexandra."
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Yeah, second chapter!
Shout out to the people that reviewed. (That's right. If you review, I'll talk to you as well!)
Enigmagirl2727-Thanks for putting this story on your favorite's list.
Jeremy Harper-Haha! You don't have to send Solovey after me! Hopefully, I answered all of your questions, but left you thinking at the same time. (I'm diabolical that way.) I'd answer in more detail right now except my fingers are ready to fall off. Still, send me an e-mail and I 'll get back to you. I hope you're still interested after this chapter.
Anyway, everybody get fat on Thanksgiving! Now, press that review button. You know you want to.
