Disclaimer: I don't own, and will never (sadly) own the X-men, howe ver all my OCs in this fic and all my other fics are mine, so it's not all bad news
Secondly a big thank you to everyone who's reviewed so far, especially regular reviewers Jessie07 and X00001, thanks guys, your review's mean a lot, as do all the others
And now, on with the fic
Chapter Nine: Summerset Part 1
As the humans walked along the sidewalk, each going on with their daily lives they didn't know who was passing by them. With his tanned skin, dark blond hair and surfers attire, Alex Summers definitely stood out a mile from the inhabitants of Bayville, while they'd been battling with snowballs and building snowmen he'd been out on his board, catching the massive breakers off the Hawaiian island that had been his home ever since the crash that had orphaned him and his brother Scott.
He looked up at the Institute on the hill above Bayville and felt the butterflies that had filled his stomach when he'd boarded the plane in Honolulu return. He was finally going to get a taste of what life was like at the Xavier Institute. His brothers endless attempts to persuade him to give it a try had finally paid off, his foster parents had let him come here, the surfing championships in Hawaii were over for the year so he didn't need to worry about them affecting his stay here, everything had been planned out months before.
So why did he feel so completely terrified?
He walked up to the gates of the Institute and pressed the button next to the speaker.
"Err, Alex Summers here to see Scott Summers" he said, unsure of what the response would be
"Please come up to the building Alex, Scott's been expecting you" Professor Xavier said over the intercom.
The gates swung open and Alex started up the driver towards the building. The leaves on the trees were slowly starting to turn from green to red, brown, orange and yellow, he'd never seen a real Autumn before, he could barely remember life back when his and Scotts parents were still alive and in Hawaii it was either a sunny day or a typhoon. He reached the mansion and quietly knocked on the door, feeling very out of place in the chilly costal town. The door opened and Scott was waiting to welcome his brother to the Institute.
"Hey bro" he said, hugging him briefly
"Hey man, what's up?" Alex replied, returning the hug before breaking away and looking more closely at his older brother. The months since he'd last seen him seemed to have taken their toll, Scott had kept him up to date on things at the Institute and Bayville, so as to make sure he'd know what to expect when he came here. His brother seemed tried, he seemed fine but Alex could see in his eyes that the stress and worry of recent events were taking their toll on his older brother. He wondered if coming here had been such a good idea after all.
"Not too bad bro, things've been better, c'mon I'll introduce you to the others" he said, leading Alex inside the Institute.
Inside the Corsairs, Kitty, Rahne, Roberto, Bobby and Rogue were coming out of the danger room with Doug, the Institutes newest student, in tow.
"That was an awesome simulation, how'd you mange to write the program for it?" Roberto asked Doug, not being especially good with computers himself
"It was pretty easy actually, I just borrowed a few video game characters and backgrounds and wrote the program based around the already existing one for the computer game I got them from" he replied, feeling more at ease than he had been before the session had started. His power wasn't much use in a fight and it was good to find a way it could be put to good use.
"Hey guys, this is my brother Alex" Scott said, introducing his brother
"Hi" Kevin said, the others gave similar responses
"Hey guys" Alex replied
"So bro, up for a run in the danger room?" Scott asked him
"You sure I'm O.K to?" Alex asked
"Sure, in fact Beasts team's just about to start their session in there, you can tag along with them" Scott replied, not noticing how the colour drained form Alex's face when he said that, he'd surfed waves that most seasoned surfers wouldn't go near, fought off a shark, but the thought of stepping inside the room that Scott had told him so much about filled him with more fear than any wave or sea creature ever could.
Ten minutes later he was dressed in a X-men uniform and standing alongside the Wildcards.
"O.K guys, your objective is to stop your opponent and save the civilians. And don't forget to work as a team" Beast told them over the intercom as the simulation kicked in.
"Whoa, Doug's really modest about his work" Bryce said. They were in a simulated city and for a moment they were blissfully unaware of who or what they were meant to be fighting, but alas, all good things must come to an end.
Suddenly a salvo of missile shot through the air and slammed into a nearby newspaper stand, blowing it to smithereens. They looked around and saw four sentinels, in all the black and red, mutant hunting glory.
"Oh great, just great" Holly said, looking up at their opponents
"What do we do?" Alex asked Illustrati, who replied in sign language
"Ah, gotcha" Alex replied
"You know sign language?" Bryce asked him
"Yea, when you're out in the middle of a wave with the roar of the water in your ears, signings the best way to talk to the guys riding the wave next to you" Alex replied, sending a energy blast at the nearest sentinel, the blast hit it in the kneecap and the robot equivalent was blasted clean off, separating the sentinels lower right leg from the rest of the robot. The sentinel teetered for a few seconds, desperately trying to remain upright, before its remaining leg failed it and it fell sidewards, right in top of a group of school children.
Medium started to rush forwards before Bryce caught her arm and pointed at Illustrati, who was busy scribbling on his notepad. A massive baseball bat appeared in midair and swung at the machine, sending it flying through the air to land in the middle of the street, exploding in a massive fireball when it hit the ground. Illustrati looked up, smiling and started signing at his team-mates.
"He's saying there's a sentinel for each of us, and since he just took that one down, the others are your problem" Alex told them, translating for the mute Italian.
"The time he picks to be humorous" Bryce grumbled, setting off towards his sentinel.
Another sentinel fired a blast of green gel at Medium, intending to trap her just as its real world counterpart had captured the X-men when Trask had first set it loose. At the last moment she turned ethereal and floated effortlessly out of the goo. She floated up to the sentinel, which was hovering in the air by this point, and saw a dead pigeon lying on a nearby window ledge. Her hands glowed with eerie green energy as she zapped the pigeon with it, its eyes glowed with the energy as it rose, revived by her mutant power. It flew at the sentinel and worked its way into one of its exhaust vents, the vent exploded in a fireball and the sentinel plummeted to earth, smashing into the ground like a meteor, it emitted a few whirls and clicks before it finally fell silent.
Alex distracted the final two sentinels, firing a barrage of energy at them while Bryce sneaked closer. He climbed up to the sentinels waist and unwrapped the bandages around his hands and placed them on the sentinels left arm as it was charging up its cannon to fire at Alex. His acidic blood ate away at the cables connecting the lower arm and it rusted through them just as the cannon was ready to fire. It fell away and hit the ground, spinning around to point right at the other sentinel. It fired and the sentinel's head exploded, Bryce leapt away as the headless sentinel fell backwards onto the other one, bringing them both down and exploding in a massive blast of metal and plastic.
The holograms faded away and Beast came into the danger room
"Nicely done Wildcards, and you too Alex" he told them
A few hours later Scott was sitting out on one of the Institutes balconies with Jean when the door opened and Alex stepped out into the cool evening air.
"I'll leave you two alone, this looks like one of those brotherly moments" Jean said, floating up over the edge of the balcony and landing on the lawn below.
"So, how'd it go?" Scott asked his brother
"Not bad man, it was a blast, not as much fun as surfing but it's pretty close" he replied
"Close enough for you to stay here fulltime?" Scott asked him, Alex looked uneasy as he replied
"I don't know bro, I've got a good life back in Hawaii, my adoptive parents have always been really good to me and I'm not sure I wanna call it quits on my surfing career" he said, noting how disappointed Scott looked, he knew how much him coming to the Institute meant to his brother and as much as he didn't want to upset him, he wasn't sure he wanted to make such a big decision based on his brothers happiness.
"Well you don't have to decide right away. Me and Jean are going on a date later, what about you give me an answer when we get back?" he asked him
"Sounds cool, O.K, you'll have an answer when you get back" he told him.
"Are you sure it's a good idea to go now?" Storm asked the Professor
"It will be fine, Logan is away on personal business and Hank will be staying here to keep an eye on things. I think the two of us will stand a better chance of convincing Warren to join us then if I go alone" he replied as he prepped the X-jet. The two of them boarded it and it took off, flying out over Bayville towards New York city, hoping to return with Archangel.
As the jet left and Scotts car pulled away form the Institute a pair of very untrustworthy youths observed the X-mens senior members leave.
"Looks like now's the best time, they're sitting ducks without the old guy and Summers and Grey" Duncan said to Graydon, who nodded
"Told you, wait till you see what I've got for those little freaks" he said, whistling. A pair of his cronies emerged from the darkness behind them, carrying a large weapon, a big red and black laser cannon
"Dude, did you get that where I think you got it?" Duncan, now with the .P.O.H insignia on the back of his football jacket, said
"Sure did, my dad's one of the clean up crew who got rid of all the wreckage from the big sentinel fight with the X-men a few months back, it was pretty easy to salvage some of its better parts from the dump where they left it" he told him as he raised a pistol and fired it into the air three times, the signal for the war between the Patriots Of Humanity and the X-men to begin.
The cannon charged up and fired, blasting down the Institutes iron gate as if it was made of paper and carrying on up to the front of the mansion.
Hank McCoy was walking down a hallway, sipping a cup of coffee and reading one of his favourite books when he noticed a strange green light out of the corner of his eye. He turned around to get a better look as the light got brighter and brighter until it filled his line of vision completely. He realised what it was and threw himself backwards as the beam tore through the front of the mansion in a massive explosion and the entire front section collapsed, burying Beast amid tons of rubble and masonry. As the dust settled the Patriots Of Humanity and Duncans gang advanced, all wielding new and improved beam weapons as well as shotguns and semi automatics.
The front door was blasted down and they entered the building. Rahne, Kendra and Beserker were loitering around and were thrown to the ground by the laser blasts impact. By the time they'd gotten to their feet the P.O.H were upon them, Beserker took a hit to the chest, was slammed against the far wall and slid to the floor, barely breathing, Wolfsbane turned into her wolf form and leapt at his attacker. She clamped her jaws around his left arm and shook it violently, taking comfort in his screams in pain, avenging the injured Beserker. As she let go and prepared to go after another target a shotgun blast echoed through the air and she dropped to the floor, her hindquarters a bloody mess from the shotgun blast. Kendra turned around and blasted the alarm system, hotwiring it, she took a bullet to the thigh and dropped back down to the floor, in immense pain but happy. She'd managed to get a warning to the others to spare them a similar fate.
As the P.O.H advanced further into the building another mutant stepped up to confront them. When Duncan saw who it was he laughed like a hyena.
"Get out of here kitty cat, we might even let you live" he said
"I don't think so" she said, crossing her arms
"Whoa, looks like this kittys got claws guys, shame she didn't think to bring some backup" Graydon said, training his beam weapon on her
"Actually, I did" she said and the wall behind her was smashed into rubble as Nightcrawler, Rogue, Silver Whisp, Drac, Zamiel, Solaris, Alex and Stormcaller charged forwards, fully intent on ejecting the unwanted intruders.
As the P.O.H engaged the X-men Kitty ran at Graydon, forgetting that she'd gone solid, he smacked her to one side as he concentrated on his main target.
"Your brothers the heart of the X-men, and you're the only family he has left" he sneered, training his pistol on Alex. Rogue and Solaris both saw what he was planning to do and shoved their opponents aside, charging towards but both realising they wouldn't make it in time, and hating themselves for it.
"You're his heart, so if I kill you it'll kill him. And then the X-men will be easy pickings" he added, drawing back the hammer on his handgun, Rogue and Solaris neared him but despite how close they were, they knew they'd still not get there to save Scotts brother, he'd found his family again and now he was going to lose it again, this time, for good.
"So long mutant filth" he snarled, pulling the trigger. The gunshot rang in the ears of all the X-men as Alex Summers fell to the ground, a hole in his chest. His vision became blurred and the sounds of the fighting around him grew fainter and fainter, finally it faded away completely and he sank into darkness.
In chapter 10 – Will Alex survive and if he doesn't, will the Patriots Of Humanity survive the X-mens retribution?
To be continued, as always, all reviews are greately appreciated