Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution. GO FIGURE!
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Chapter Five –"No, you listen to me, Jean!"
Brianna's hollering could be heard from the recreation room downstairs, where Jamie and Bobby were well into a game of foosball.
"Wait – stop!" Bobby said once the racket hit his ears. Just to make sure Jamie wouldn't hit it into his goal while he hasn't paying attention, Iceman swiped the little ball up.
"What?" Jamie asked, a little mad that Bobby stopped the game – it was an important game, after all. It was the third round, the tiebreaker!
"You know what they're arguing about, don't you?" Bobby asked the twelve-year-old mutant.
"Uh, Brianna still hates Jean for telling Kitty that she was a bad influence on her?"
"No, stupid!" Bobby replied, smacking him on the back of the head as he strolled across the table to stand next to the younger boy. "It's because of you. I mean, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but they're totally into you!"
"You think so?" Jamie perked up with happiness, only to slump back down seconds later. "But what about Kitty?"
"Listen! I just don't think that Kitty's going to come around. And, if you don't make your move on one of them soon – I think they'll be over you."
Anyone else could plainly see that Bobby had been lying, with his Jack-o-Lantern type grin and evil eyes to match, except for poor little Jamie, who looked up to him, and thought that Bobby would never try and make him look like a moron. Anyone that agreed to watching Digimon with you had to be a true friend, right?
"B-But, I don't know what to do… or what to say." All of a sudden, Jamie looked horrified, and four copies of himself popped out of his sides.
"What should I do?" they all said in unison.
"Don't worry about it," Bobby said, jabbing his finger against the center one's chest – the one he assumed to be the real Jamie. "I'll teach you."
Again, if it had been anyone else, they would have then expected Bobby to break out in a series of maniacal cackles, but all Jamie could see was someone willing to help him with all of his problems.
As Brianna slammed the door in Jean's face, Kitty passed with Rogue close by.
"Like, you should totally grow your hair out, Rogue, it'd look so – Jean, like, what just happened?"
Jean hugged onto herself, looking a little hurt. "Well, I just asked her if I could borrow her flat iron, and she started yelling at me. Kitty, you didn't happen to tell her what I said, did you?"
She didn't even need to read Kitty's mind, because it was written all over her face that she was guilty of doing so.
"Oh," was all Jean could manage to say.
"Even if she did, Brianna needed ta hear it!" After saying her piece, Rogue stormed off.
Jean followed her, but not before saying to Kitty, "I trusted you."
"Jean – Rogue!" Kitty called after them, but they didn't turn around, so she phased through the wall, and into Brianna's room, where Kitty found her reading some fashion magazine.
"Kitty!" Brianna growled. "I could have been getting changed!"
"Good thing you're not," Kitty said, lowering herself onto a chair that had been sitting close to a desk – a desk which slightly resembled the floor, cluttered with make-up, scarves, jewelry, and just about anything else you could imagine.
"So, like, you're having problems with Jean," Kitty stated the obvious.
"And just about everyone else here!" Brianna straightened her back, getting out of the comfortable position she had previously been lounging in, and tossing the magazine onto the floor. "I mean, it's been two months and not one single person other than you and Scott have honestly tried making friends with me. That's why I need to get out of here… get a breath of fresh air. I'm going out to eat with Taryn and everyone else at eight."
"You're going someplace with them again?" Kitty asked, trying to hide the venom in her voice, and failing miserably.
Brianna groaned, stomping up from her bed and grabbing a comb from the top of her dresser, and then running it through her locks. It didn't look like she needed to brush her hair – it was as straight as a board, like it usually was, but Kitty had learned by then that when Brianna was aggravated, she took it out on her hair, the bristles stroking against her scalp furiously.
"You know, Kitty," Brianna said, sticking a black bobby pin into her hair as an attempt to keep her side bangs in place. "I am allowed to have friends other than you."
She knew why Kitty was upset, but Brianna didn't feel like leveling with her at that very point in time. It was often that her other friends had brought up Kitty, talking about how stupid and ugly she was, but it's not like Brianna ever agreed with them, right? Well, at first she had joined in on the jokes and everything, but once she realized that Kitty was actually kind of cool, she just ignored their comments.
"Like, you totally are… I just wish that you'd pick friends other than them, you know? Besides, don't you think you played a part in everyone's… you know… hating you? I mean, there was Amara, and Tabitha, Jean, and Rogue, and Kurt—"
Brianna cut off the long, long list of names by saying, "Don't even go there. I mean, it's not my problem that he wouldn't accept my apology, right?"
"Well, it's kind of hard to forgive someone when they call you 'it' and 'Papa Smurf,' isn't it?" Kitty defended Nightcrawler.
"Let's talk about something else," Brianna suggested. "Like… has Logan said anything about me?"
"Nope," Kitty replied, flatly, obviously still a little mad about the argument they just had.
"Listen, Kitty, I'm sorry, okay? But are you sure Logan hasn't said anything about me? I mean, I've made real progress with him… really started to open him up."
Kitty kept down the strong urge to tell her that she was self-centered, instead responding, "Well, he asked if we were doing anything this weekend—"
"You told him 'no,' right? What if he was planning on taking us somewhere—"
"I don't think so. I just don't, like, think Logan is the type of guy who would, like, date someone our age. He's more of the father figure. Why don't you just, like, give up before everything gets all weird?"
"Give up?" Brianna repeated, shocked. "They say that the right woman can change a man's mind on anything. But, which color shoes – red or black?" She shoved two heels, one red with a pointed toe, and one black with a round toe, underneath Kitty's nose.
"Uh, red," Kitty chose, getting up from the chair and leaving Brianna's dormitory. "Have a, like, great time with your friends!"
Brianna got up to try and talk to her, but decided against it when she realized there was only thirty minutes until she had to be at that new, exotic Indian restaurant.
"Scott!" she screamed minutes later, as she banged on his bedroom door. "I need a ride! C'mon! You don't have anything better to do!"
"Oh, yes, he does," came Jean's voice as she, instead of Scott, answered the door.
Before another fight between the two had the chance to start up, Scott nudged Jean out of the doorway.
"Where do you need to go?" he said.
"Does it matter?" was her reply. "You still owe me one for covering up for—"
"Jean, I have to go!" Scott's voice was raised far above Brianna's, so her remaining words were drowned out completely.
When they were far enough away, Scott whispered, "What are you thinking? If Jean ever finds out about that time with Lindsay, I'm dead, and you are, too. So, watch it!"
Brianna smirked. There was nothing she enjoyed more than blackmailing people into getting what she wanted.
And, once Brianna had arrived at 'The Royal Taj,' she had a pretty good time, despite the horrible taste of the food. They had even convinced their waiter that they were all twenty-three, and he had brought them all a glass of green-tinted liquid.
They didn't really know what it was, besides that it was alcohol, because Taryn had just ordered 'whatever you got.'
"I know, I know – and then she said that Target had great belts."
That's when the waiter placed the bill on their table, and Taryn immediately picked it up, since she had offered to cover it and all. "What?" she shrieked, causing the waiter to twirl around, to see what was wrong. "Those drinks were fifteen dollars a piece? What were they?"
Brianna couldn't even imagine how large that bill was, after counting eleven girls at the table – all but one having that drink, and everyone single one of them had ordered a meal, and meals ran pretty high there. It was going to be pretty expensive for a dinner – even for Brianna.
"Well, you asked for anything, so I just –" the waiter began, in his fake Indian accent.
"Don't worry, you guys, I'll handle this." Brianna raised from her seat, and just stared at the waiter for a moment, earning a few giggles from the girls around the table.
In that moment, Brianna was trying to do as the Professor had told her so many times before… clearing her head of all thoughts other than her target and what she wanted them to see.
Before long, her eyes had fogged up until they had turned completely black, and the waiter had let out a terrified scream, the kind you make when you're about to meet your death, and sprinted off, having just seen a gigantic spider crash in through the ceiling and hiss in his face. It wasn't the coolest of things she could have done to frighten him, but it was the only thing she could think of in time.
"Let's go!" Brianna barked, beginning a race towards the exit.
The other teenaged girls had been close behind, without paying for their food, and the group hadn't stopped running until they had run out of breath, in fear of getting caught.
Brianna had been bottling her excitement – she had finally been able to create an illusion herself – when a brunette that had accompanied her and the rest of them pointed her index finger at Brianna and said, "You're a mutant! I saw your eyes turn all black! I knew you lived that that freak school!"
