"Bailey! BAILEY!"
The woman in question grunted and rolled over.
"Don't you go back to sleep missy!" Riley shouted, walking into the bedroom and crumpling her nose up at the dishevelled heap passing as her best friend. Riley whipped the duvet away from her and tossed it on the floor, pulling the curtains back and tripping over Bailey's almost unpacked suitcase. "Honestly, have you not unpacked?"
"I only got here yesterday," Bailey offered, her voice muffled by her pillow, which was promptly wrenched from her grasp. "Hey!"
"Shower, you smelly git!" Riley commanded, pointing in the direction of the shower room. Bailey grunted and go to her feet, staggering slightly and barely making it across the hall in her pajamas before half the school it seemed ran down the corridor. Riley rolled her eyes and made the bed before hastily unpacking Bailey's two suitcases, arranging her personal items as Bailey had had them back at her apartment until her friend stalked back across the hallway. "There, don't you feel better?"
"What? I showered yesterday, you know," she replied, dragging a black smart shirt and jean-skirt out of the wardrobe.
"Makes no odds, you still looked like you'd been dragged through a hedge backwards twice before being run over by a lawnmower," Riley scolded, folding Bailey's towel and putting it over the radiator.
"Feel the love," Bailey snapped, applying a pale pink eyeshadow with thick black mascara and a slight brush of blusher. "What are you doing here, anyway? You live in England, remember?" she said with a wince as she stood up and the skirt brushed on her knees.
"No, I forgot! I just booked a plane ticket to 'wherever' and turned up here!" Bailey frowned at her friend as she heated her straighteners up. "I investigated where you were, someone told me San Fransisco, another told me New York. I went on the internet, and found this place. I got here about twelve last night, Ororo gave me a room. You're not... Angry, are you?"
Bailey stood up, a look of disgust on her face, before she launched herself on her best friend and hugged her. "This is my angry, manly hug," she laughed.
"Hey, Ladies, if you wanna do that stuff, at least have the decency to let me come watch," Logan said, leaning nonchelantly against her doorframe.
"I assume you have a reason for interruting?" Bailey snapped, squaring up to him. He laughed and started to walk down the corridor.
"Listen, Danger Room Admission session, five minutes," he said as he walked.
"He's multitasking," Riley said in mock horror.
"Aka, doing two things badly."
"Oh, you brought Adam with you," Bailey asked, nudging Riley. The two had been 'off and on' for a while now, and it seemd their relationship had escalated recently.
"Yeah, he fancied a holiday," Riley blushed, waving shyly at him.
"Hey, you're all new here and it is the policy of the school to give you a short exercise drill in our Danger Room to test your battle strength and your powers. Alright?" Ororo explained. Tangle and Fallen drew closer together and Adam, also known as Acid,smile at them before gulping nervously. "Iceman and Shadowcat, as well as myself, Wolverine and Angel will help you out if you get too stuck. Er... Good luck?" she offered as the doors behind her opened and they stepped into an empty, grey chamber. When the doors were shut, the simulation began. Fallen glanced around, taking in the destroyed city around her with what looked like robots swarming everywhere. Hearing a noise behind her, she spun around and saw Tangle fighting with what looked like a stick. She rolled her eyes and dived at her friend, her shoulder hitting Tangle's hip and her weight dragging them to the ground.
"OUCH!" Tangle exclaimed loudly.
"No problem, MOVE!" Fallen yelled back, rolling over to her right and pulling Tangle with her, wincing as a large boulder landed on the ground where they had been laying.
"Too damn close, c'mon!" The two got to their feet and ran for cover, slamming up against a half-beaten down wall with their backs. Tangle concentrated and two vines appeared in her palms and she held them gingerly. She then glanced at Fallen who grinned back and, with a graceful movement of both her hands, two lightening bolts appeared, one in each hand. She grasped their centres like a double-ended lightsaber and twirled them. "Ready?"
"As ever," Tangle sighed, flinching as Fallen blew the wall behind them away and caught two of the robots with her bolts. She span on her left foot and took out another, backflipping and catching another across the neck. Tangle meanwhile was flinging her vines at robots and dragging them over or ripping their heads off with the vines. If one snapped, she simply regrew it and entered battle with it moments later. The two managed to battle their ways, backwards, up a set of external stairs onto the roof of what was left of a building. "Fallen! WE'RE TRAPPED!"
"Oh bugger," Fallen said to herself, glancing behind her. She spotted a telephone wire and tossed a bolt at the nearest robot before grabbing Tangle about the waist and, by slinging the bolt over the top of the wire and, after Tangle had a strong grip around her waist, she pushed off as they whizzed along the wire. "WOOOHOOOO!" They screamed in delight until, halfway across the wire, it snapped. For a moment, they hung in the air and glanced at one another before screaming in fear. Fallen dropped the bolt and grabbed Tangle who, a few feet from the ground, shot out a vine and they swung through the air like Tarzans'. Tangle landed them on a ledge and they fell to their knees. "OUCH! BLOODY HELL! SWEET MOTHER OF ALL THINGS PINK!" Fallen yelled, hopping around as she regrazed her already grazed knees.
"DUCK!" Tangle suddenly yelled.
"That ain't a duck, that's a... GRENADE!" Fallen shouted, looking for an escape route. "Oh bugger," she thought, closing her eyes tightly. Something very hard hit her, winding her and she felt herself falling but... In a controlled way. She peeled one eye open and found herself looking at the ground from very high up. She squealed and shut her eye again. This is not good. Then suddenly her hands realised they were resting on skin, and she retrieved them back into her personal bubble.
"Miss Wat- I mean, Bail- No, Fallen, please stop fidgeting!" someone said softly in her ear. Her eyes pinged open so wide she was sure they'd fall out and Angel just smiled back at her, manouvering around a spire before her landed and set her down.
"Hey, you didn;t crash," she stuttered, staring at the ground.
"I guess that your tips work-"
"WARREN!" she shouted as she landed on him, pulling him out of reach of the laser blast. She then got to her feet hurriedly and, with a motion that looked like she was throwing a smoke bomb at the floor, she threw up a shield in front of them, made of blue, pulsing light. He reached out to touch it but she grabbed his hand. "Can you touch 1000 volts without dying?" He shook his head. "Please do not touch the shield." A vine appeared from no where and wrapped around Angel's ankles. Fallen responded immediately, zapping the vine with a short pulse from her right palm, looking board.
"Your friend is going to kill you," he mumbled, putting his hand over a spot on his ribs which was grazed from the rough ground. Fallen shrugged with a smile as the simulation disappeared.
"THAT HURT!" Riley immediately launched at Bailey who smiled again.
"Don't try to attack me then, sneaky git!" she replied, slapping her friend gently. "Thanks for saving me, Warren," she said softly to him as she passed by. He blushed and smiled, looking away to his right. When Riley and Bailey were outside, Riley noticed the dreamy look on her friends face.
"Oh my god, you fancy Flyboy!"
"What?"
"He's like, six years younger!"
"And?"
"AHA! So you do!" Bailey stared at her friend with her mouth open.
"I-"
"I knew it! I have to go and tell Kitty!" and she was off, scuttling along the corridor. For a few steps, Bailey followed, but decided against it.
"Hey, Adam? Yeah, you know, Riley really, really, REALLY, likes spiders, you should catch one and leave it on her pillow, she'll love it."
"Really? Thanks Bailey, you're a pal," Adam smiled, wandering off to the garden while Bailey smiled evilly, beginning to hum as she walked along the corridor to the bottom of the stairs, where she walked into Warren. Literelly.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said quietly, beginning to walk up the stairs away from her. She hurried to catch up, running an eye over his wings and melting at the sight. "Everyone usually asks to touch them."
"Well, it's a part of your body, I don't see you asking to touch my boobs, so, I'm not going to ask to touch your wings. They're not mine to touch," she said and shrugged, chewing on her bottom lip. They glanced at one anothers faces and saw that they were both chewing their lips. "Nervous tick?"
"Yeah, since I was a kid," he smiled back. She felt her heart melt again and smiled back, opening her mouth to say something but rudely cut off by Riley screaming. "Is she alright?"
"Yeah, there's a spider on her pillow," Bailey replied, catching sight of Riley with an angry grimace across her face and sprinting out into the gardens.