In The Heat
An X-men: Evolution fanfic by Lavender Gaia
Editing and Assistance by Cassie
Chapter Eighteen: Karma
Disclaimer: I do not own X-men Evolution, any of its characters or Rachel Summers. They are all property of Marvel.
Dedicated to Cassie, who helped me with this.
It was a flash of mental pain that woke up Rachel Summers in the middle of the night. Beforehand, she had been dreaming, but as she rubbed her temples to try and rid herself of the new headache, she couldn't remember what it was. "Weird," she muttered to herself. "I haven't had pains like this since Mom…"
Glancing over at her clock, she saw that it was past midnight. Scott should probably be home by now. Rachel decided that her mother might have spoken to him whenever she got telepathic headaches, and even if he didn't know how to make it better, it would be nice just to see him.
She climbed out of bed, heading down the hall towards the male dorms when she heard voices, very unfamiliar voices. Doing her best to ignore the headache pounding in her mind, she reached out with her telepathy. Strange…she thought. I know they're there, but I can't get them with my telepathy.
The young X-men turned back around, running into Kitty's room. "Pryde!" She hissed, shaking her friend. "Wake up."
"What do you want, Rach?" the brunette muttered, hugging her stuffed dragon tighter. "Lockheed and I are trying to sleep."
"There are people here."
"There are a lot of people here. It's a boarding school."
Rachel rolled her eyes. "People who are immune to my telepathy?"
Kitty sat up, rubbing the sleep out of her blue eyes. "Okay…that is a little weird. Maybe they're new students?"
"How many new students come in the middle of the night, without any X-men with them?"
She reached aside for her ponytail holder, putting her hair up. "So what are you going to do?"
Running a hand through her short red hair, Rachel shrugged. "I guess I'll go downstairs and check it out."
Standing up, Kitty offered her a hand. "Wanna take a short cut?" Holding on the to redhead, she phased down to the first floor, then air-walked herself upstairs to her room. "Rogue!" she shook her roommate through her comforter. "Wake up?"
"Why are you waking me up before the sun is out?" Rogue grumbled.
"We're being invaded."
"You had a dream," the southerner groaned. "Go back to bed."
Kitty shook her head, ponytail flying back and forth. "I'm serious. Rogue, I'm not kidding. Listen, you know if you sleep through this you're going to feel really stupid."
Rogue pushed back her blanket, sitting up. "Look. We'll just take a peek outside and I'll prove to you that you've just got an overactive imagination." Walking towards the door, she opened it just a bit, then shut it quickly, making no noise. "There are people out there!"
The brunette smiled righteously. "I told you so."
Pulling on some clothes, Rogue glanced at Kitty. "You should go wake everyone else up."
"But if I go out there, they'll see me!"
Pointing to the side, she rolled her eyes, "Then go through the walls."
"Oh. Heh. Right." Kitty headed towards the far right hand wall, then looked back at Rogue. "And don't give me that look. It's too early to be up, let alone think of battle plans."
In the hallway outside the student dormitories, five figures were trying to get a sense of their surroundings. "Can we find a light?"
"We should have already memorized it," a female voice chimed in. "Why would we need a light?"
"Because, when I was memorizing the blueprints, I was doing it in the light."
"There has to be something around here," a third voice added. Suddenly, the hallway was ablaze with overhead lights. "Oh, there we…" a dark-skinned teenage male looked around at the X-men surrounding the group, "…go…"
Rogue crossed her arms over he chest, standing in front of her door. "Y'all might want to explain what yer doin' here."
A tall man with light brown hair raised an eyebrow. "And if we don't?" He nodded toward Kitty. "Are bunny slippers supposed to be intimidating?"
Bobby snorted. "Yeah, and the magenta spandex is so threatening."
"If you're not going to tell us that you're here peacefully, I suppose there is only one thing for us to do…" Kurt informed casually. The X-men all exchanged looks with each other, before attacking in unison.
Surveying their opponents, the residents of the Xavier mansion knew that while they outnumbered them, the newcomers seemed to know more about them. There was the tall light-brown-haired male, accompanied by two other men: one dark-skinned and shorter, the other one large, muscular, easily topping them all. With the men was a auburn-haired woman about the same height as Rogue, who didn't look nearly as hilarious in the magenta v-neck spandex that her companions were wearing. Finishing off the group seemed to be a cat of some sort, resembling a smaller, thinner, more agile lion. The only difference was, this cat was lavender.
The feline bounced on Ray, causing him to miss his lightning strike and instead scorch the ceiling. As his back hit the floor hard, he couldn't help but wonder how much trouble he was going to be in because of that.
For a while, it seemed to be a general free for all. No one was quite sure whom he or she was fighting without the decisive leadership of Scott. While Iceman was the leader of the New Mutants, he knew he wasn't up to giving the X-men orders and didn't even try.
The only moment of peace came for Amara as the brown-haired foe approached her. "My dear señorita, I am Manuel Rodrigo de la Rocha," the Spaniard explained, eyes glowing. "You don't want to fight me, do you? Surely, you don't want to upset a friend. Someone you…love." With that he reached over, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it gently.
Bobby broke away from helping Nightcrawler and Ray against the cat when he saw his girlfriend standing in the middle of battle, letting the enemy flirt with her. "Hey!" He roared, running over to the pair and firing ice at his opponent. Manuel was pushed back against the wall by the weight of the ice, slashes from the sharpness appearing all over his uniform.
Amara shook her head to clear it as Iceman appeared at her side, wrapping an arm around her. "You okay, Princess?"
"I-I'm fine," she rubbed her head slowly. "I think…"
"What did he do to you?" he asked in concern.
Before she could answer, Manuel had freed himself from the ice prison pinning him to the wall. He glared angrily at Iceman. "You foolish man! How dare you do such to Manuel Rodrigo de la Rocha! I should—"
"Definitely get out of here," Kurt finished for him, teleporting in front of the enemy and shocking him. "Iceman can get really possessive." Nightcrawler grabbed on to the magenta bodysuit and began teleporting his captive all around the hallway. "Ever played the—" BAMF! "—Perfect Murder game?" BAMF! "The best weapon is always the icicle—" BAMF!" "— because the weapon always melts." BAMF! Finally, he stopped teleporting, but his passenger was more than slightly discombobulated. "You should be safe over here."
The intruder stumbled from dizziness, falling on to Rogue's outstretched, bare hand and immediately succumbing to unconsciousness. Kurt put a hand over his mouth in mock surprise. "Oops. Guess I was wrong."
It took Rogue a minute to adjust to the new powers and memories before her green eyes opened wide. "Ah know where they're from."
Before her brother could even ask the question poised on his lips, the dark male flew like a jet-stream over their heads, causing them to duck. "He's just like Sam," Kitty realized from the other part of the room.
Next to her, Ray grumbled. "Stupid Sam, visiting his stupid family in stupid Kentucky."
"He's not exactly like Sam," Jamie noted from behind them.
"What do you mean, squirt?" the other New Mutant asked.
"Look at him. He looks pretty beat up from running into all these walls. I guess he's not invulnerable like Sam," Multiple explained with a sadistic grin. "And if I'm right, then I've got a plan."
He quickly described it for Ray and Kitty, just in the nick of time before the large lavender cat attacked the X-man. She did her best to fight it off without using her powers, settling instead for the roundhouse kick Logan said she did well at. It knocked the cat away long enough to get the fliers attention. When he thought Kitty was distracted, he flew at her, intending to knock her off balance. Instead, he flew right through her as she turned intangible. As his mind tried to process why he didn't hit his target, he was hit with a straight on bolt of lightning, unable to keep his concentration and falling to the ground, barely holding on to his last shred of consciousness.
It wasn't soon after that the cat returned, obviously vengeful over her teammate. Ray tried to hit her with his lightning, but was too scared to go all out in fear of harming Kitty. The brunette growled, flipping over the cat as it tried to scratch her again. "Listen here, feline!" she hissed. "I'm the only cat here!" With a quick combination of moves that seemed like a mixture of kenpo and gymnastics, she subdued the cat. Ray and Jamie stared at her in awe. "Whoa," the youngest mutant said. "You're like a ninja, Kitty!"
"How did you do that?" Ray breathed.
Wincing as she pressed a hand to one of the many scratches her pajamas didn't protect her from, she tried to smile at them. "Personal practices with Wolverine. He always said martial arts would come in handy. Of course, he didn't say how to get blood out of satin."
On the other side of the hallway, Iceman was not faring well against the large, bulky man. "You puny little boy," he growled as he through Bobby against the wall for the third time, "You're not even half my size."
Bobby groaned in pain, holding his shoulder, which he could swear was going to pop out of his socket any minute. Silently, he cursed himself for trying to take on this guy when everyone else seemed to be busy. "Where's Roberto when you need him?" he mumbled to himself, knowing his teammate was the only match against his strength.
"Getting tired now, brat?" the tall man growled, picking Bobby up and holding him over his head. "You wanna give up?"
"Nope." Iceman forced a cocky grin. "Just wanted an easier shot." With that, he sent a large block of ice directly on to the skin of his opponents face.
He screamed in fury and pain, throwing Bobby against the wall harder. The New Mutant not only felt, but heard the crack of his shoulder dislocating. For a minute he cradled it, fighting back tears. It was then he noticed that he was not going to be left alone.
"I will crush you!" the large opponent cried as Bobby continued layering ice on him with his good arm, unable to get up from the floor. "I will crush you like the flea you are!"
"I don't think so." Without warning, the back of his costume burst into flames. He screamed in surprise, watching with wide eyes as the Princess of Nova Roma stood in front of him in her Magma form. "Don't touch my boyfriend."
The different, painful sensations of the ice freezing his front and the fire burning up his back was too much for him. Rogue simply brushed him with her fingertips and he fell over.
The X-men stopped for a moment to catch their breath when Kurt realized, "Wait…that's…that's only four. Where's the girl?"
As if on cue, the X-men discovered that they had four new villains. The redhead girl was standing on the other end of the hall, holding up four different cards. Only Kitty seemed to understand it. "They're tarot symbols," she realized. "The Hanged Man, the Magician, the Devil, and..." she glanced at the Grim Reaper behind them. "You probably know what that is."
"Ah'm guessin' it's not the Ice Cream Man," Rogue replied sarcastically.
With her retort, the red devil swung his chain link towards the Southerner, wrapping it around her wrist and pulling her towards him. She yelled out in anger as Kurt tried desperately to free her. Amara stood in front of her hurt boyfriend, firing balls of magma at the hanged man who somehow was coming closer than was comfortable.
The magician had a hold on Kurt, rising him up out of the air and putting him out of reach of his sister. She was continually pulled closer to the Devil, and her kicks to his legs did nothing to deter him. Kitty hid behind Ray, ready to turn the pair of them intangible as he continued to shoot bolts of lightning at Death in front of them. "It's not working!" He called out into the hall. "What do we do?"
"Hey, these are cool!" came Jamie's voice from the other end of the hall. Somehow he had gotten behind their enemy and was now holding the remainder of her tarot cards.
"Give those back, you little monster!" she screeched, suddenly finding herself suddenly surrounded by a hoard of Jamies.
"Awwww, but everyone trades cards around here," he complained, four of his clones deftly taking the cards from her hands. "I just wanna see."
Her eyes widened in fear. "Give them back. Give them back and I'll let your friends go."
Soon, each card was held by an individual Jamie. They all looked at each other, then grinned. "Nah." All at once, they ripped the cards in half, scattering the pieces around.
"No!" she screamed as the figures in the hall suddenly disappeared. Rogue, rubbing the chain links still around her ankle, got up and walked furiously towards the girl. "Lights out, Sugah," she announced before punching the other girl.
For a moment, the X-men tried to relax, realizing that they had won. It was a very brief moment of victory, as everyone was at least sore, if not injured worse. Amara knelt next to Bobby, wiping the sweat off his brow when someone from across the hall cleared their throat loudly.
The mutants of the Institute turned to look at the Professor, who was sitting there with Hank behind him. He fixed his students with an angry glare, demanding, "What on Earth is going on here?"
After Kitty dropped her off downstairs, Rachel roamed through the mansion before noticing that the light in the kitchen was on, filtering out into the hallway. A quick use of her telepathy indicated no one inside, but looking inside the large room painted a different story.
Scott and Emma were lying on the ground, both obviously unconscious as a blonde girl in a magenta bodysuit sat at the table looking bored. Rachel fought down the panic rising in her throat as she stared at her father. Furiously, she marched into the kitchen. "Hey, short little blonde girl, what the hell did you do to my dad?"
She looked up, surprised that someone was talking to her. Glancing at Scott, she replied, "You're dad, huh?" A malicious smile crossed her face. "Well, it's nothing like I'm going to do to you."
Rachel noticed a tiny black disk, no larger than the diameter of a quarter coming her way. She ducked, letting it hit something above her head. Cold metal touched her skin, and she looked at the floor to see what had rained over her. "Aah. Paperclips."
Another small black disk hit her in the face, and she felt a sharp pain in her eye. "Ow…eyelash…" Brushing the small hair out of her eye, Rachel squinted at the girl across from her. "What are you even doing?"
"They call me Roulette," she explained loftily. "I can create bad luck and good luck. I'm sure you can guess what you got."
She snorted. "You think that's bad? I'd call it an inconvenience, really."
Roulette smiled. "I like to give you a little taste of what I can do. Now I won't hold back." She threw a larger disk towards the redhead, hitting the cabinets above her head, making the doors fall off. Rachel jumped to the side, using the telekinesis so that the doors fell harmlessly to the side. Hanging pictures exploded all around her as she dove under the thick wooden table for cover.
"That's not going to save you," the blonde told her in a sing-song voice. Rachel ducked her head as a large black disc hit the table, flying it off of her and slamming it into the wall.
Of all the times for my telepathy not to work, Rachel thought, as Roulette seemed to think over her plan.
"You know, maybe there's a better way to do this." She turned towards Scott and Emma, sending a disk of bad luck their way. Phoenix's eyes widened; she knew the specialty knives drawer was right over them. The cover to the drawer and the countertop over it exploded, making the sharp objects into projectile weapons. Rachel managed to catch them all with her telekinesis, dumping them into the sink harmlessly.
Moving in front of Scott and covering him with her TK, Phoenix faced off against Roulette. "Don't touch him."
The blonde raised an eyebrow. "Or else what?"
"I'll kill you!" Rachel hissed.
Roulette rolled her eyes and then covered herself in white light. "Don't you get it? I control luck. The good luck goes to me and all you get is bad."
Rachel stared at the tile floor beneath her, chuckling. "You don't think I know that? You think you know bad luck?" She looked up again, eyes blazing in fury. "You don't know the half of it."
Warmth was flooding through her veins, filling her with power, as the other girl seemed frozen to the spot in fear. Striking out with her telekinesis, Roulette was soon shoved against the wall, moaning in pain as a dent was made around her form. Waves and waves of pressure flooding over her body as Roulette screamed in pain.
"Rachel!"
The redhead turned towards the doorway, losing her concentration and dropping the blonde. Ororo and Logan were standing there, looking at her in horror. It was at that moment that Rachel got a good look at herself. There was fire emanating all over her body, licking her flesh but not burning it. She looked Storm straight in the eye. "I told you so."
"So none of you are going to speak?" Professor Xavier asked for the tenth time, staring piercingly at the invaders of his home. And, for the tenth time, they just sat there with their mouths shut. Or at least, the ones that were conscious after the X-men had gotten through with the. He sighed. "Very well. Wait here and I shall return."
He rolled into the conference room and out into the hallway where Storm and Wolverine were waiting. "Have you gotten through to them yet?" Ororo asked.
"Unfortunately not. I can't guess how they could possibly get past my telepathy. Few people outside of telepaths themselves can build up a shield that powerful."
"Bet I know," Logan chimed in. "Just got off the phone with Fury. A while ago he was telling me that S.H.I.E.L.D. was developing some super powerful telepathic scramblers. Accordin' to him, when a shipment went out to be field tested, it was picked up. Guess by these punks. He was glad to know they work at least."
It was then that Hank was coming down the hallway. "They're all going to be fine," he assured the other adults before they could ask. "Bobby is going to have to be in a sling for a few weeks and Kitty needed a few stitches, but most them just had bumps and bruises. Most of the intruders are fine, a few burns on the flyer from Bezerker's lightning, but nothing the group can't live through. The Roulette girl Rachel was fighting is hurt the most. She has several broken rips, and perhaps a concussion."
Logan shook his head. "When this is all settled, Chuck, we have to talk to that girl."
"I had no idea her powers were growing so much," Xavier mused. "Jean never showed any control over fire."
"Jeannie never got displaced in a different dimension, either."
Ororo sighed. "I feel horrible. She tried to talk to me about it and I brushed it off like it was nothing."
The professor patted her knee. "If we indulged every single whim that a student had about growing power, we'd never have time to sleep. I will certainly talk to her, and I'm sure Scott will want to as well. Henry, how is he?"
"He and Emma will be fine. She was hurt more so than he was, so he'll be leaving the infirmary as soon as he can get the strength too. I'm keeping her there overnight for observations."
Logan suddenly sniffed the air, turning towards the entrance to the hall. "C'mon out, Stripes, I know you're there."
Rogue approached them warily. "Look, Ah know this is kinda a bad time, and Ah know y'all are busy, but I absorbed a couple of 'em and Ah learned stuff."
Professor Xavier smiled at her gently. "What is it dear?"
"They work for the Hellfire Club."
Scott was pulling on his shirt in the infirmary when there was a figure standing outside the curtain separating him from the rest of the room. "Dad?"
He drew back the curtain, smiling at her. "Hey, Rach."
"Are you okay?" she asked, and he hated seeing the fear in her eyes.
"I'm fine. Really. How are you?"
She looked at her feet, seemingly embarrassed. "Just great. I wasn't in the major fight." Meeting his eyes again, she went on to explain, "Mr. McCoy said that you could leave, but he doesn't want you doing too much. So, I was thinking I could make us lunch and we could eat it in your room and you could rest."
He kissed her forehead softly. "That sounds wonderful. Let me check on Emma, and then I'll meet you upstairs."
Her smiling face faltered for a minute, but she quickly replaced it. "Sure, Daddy."
As she left, he walked past the teenagers in the other beds to where Emma was lying behind her curtain at the other end. There was a chair sitting next to her bed, and he took a seat. The light pressure as he squeezed her hand made her eyes open. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "Did I wake you?"
"No, the pain did," she managed to smile wryly. "Did a train crash through the Institute and just manage to hit me?"
He chuckled. "No, not quite."
She closed her eyes with a light sigh. "Good. I can already hear Rachel's claims that it was karma that hit us. What did?"
"I'm sure they'll let us know. I was going to get something to eat, but I'll stay here with you, if you want."
"No, go ahead," her face softened. "I'm just glad you cared enough to stop by. I'm sorry our night was ruined."
He smiled reassuringly at her. "So am I. I'll bring you something to eat when Beast clears you." Kissing her cheek, Scott got up to leave."
Maybe he wasn't supposed to hear; she was speaking softly it was almost hard to comprehend as she whispered, "I do believe I'm falling for you, Scott Summers. And I'm falling hard."
When he reached his bedroom, Rachel had set up a tray of sandwiches, potato chips and brownies. She helped him settle into bed and he bit into his sandwich. "I hope tuna is okay," she looked at him carefully.
"Perfect," he smiled at her after swallowing. "You make it just like Jean used to."
Rachel grinned. "That would make sense. She taught me how to make it." She took a sip of her milk. "I miss her."
He stared at the chip in his hand. "So do I. Every day."
"Then why are you with Emma?"
"Rachel," he sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I…"
"Why is she more important than me?"
He looked at her in surprise. "She's not. Rachel, you're my daughter. I love you. I know I've seen…distant lately, but…It's just that sometimes you remind me so much of Jean that it scares me. But I love seeing her live on through you. I think that if you're this wonderful, that I must be able to do something right as an adult."
"I love you too," she told him, wiping her eyes. "God, I forgot napkins. I'll go get them, and you some aspirin for her head."
Scott watched her leave, leaning back against his pillow. He knew that the pounding in his head had nothing to do with his concussion. Even if he did, he reasoned as he put his hand over his chest, it wouldn't explain the shooting pains throughout his heart.
A/N: This chapter only got done because my teachers decided to have mercy and give me a day without homework. I really am busy this year with all my classes, but I'm not going to abandon this fic unless my teachers suddenly decide to do DBQs and AP practice exams every night.
Most of the fight scene (by the way, I'm really bad at fight scenes, so any constructive criticism on that would be appreciated) is based on New Mutant issues 16 and 17. The paperclips and eyelash bit from when Rachel was fighting Roulette is homage to Wogoat's hilarious "House of M- part 1" flash on Newgrounds.
Oh, and for anyone who is a Brotherhood fan…they come back next chapter! Yeah, I know, I'm excited too.
Questions, comments, reactions and reviews are greatly appreciated.
