Pixie and Toad silently followed Caliban's chalky white form through the alleyways of Manhattan, succeeding in remaining unseen to the public. They reached the alley that Psylocke had described in record timing to find it totally empty. "Now what?" hissed Toad, eyes filled with anxiety as he stared at the traffic going on the street just outside the alley.
"Caliban senses them! Caliban found them!" laughed Caliban excitedly, pointing to a sewer hatch in the ground. "They're in the sewer? !" gasped Pixie, wrinkling her nose in complete disgust.
Toad shrugged and lifted the hatch and climbed down with Caliban following him. "Pixie is coming?" asked Caliban, looking up at Pixie wonderingly. Pixie wrinkled her nose again before relenting and climbing down after them.
/\/\/\/\
Hermione was twirling about in the summer grass, barefoot, with her natural green hair waving with the wind. "What is that, a wig?" asked a voice.
Hermione froze before spinning around to see Harry gazing at her quizzically. "U-uh, yeah! Yeah, it's a wig!" Hermione said, quickly trying to cover her odd hair color with a hood.
"No it's not."
Hermione gaped at Harry as he grinned at her. "How do you know it's not? ! It is a wig!" Hermione snapped at him.
"Then why are saying 'I wish he knew the truth' over and over in your head?" Harry said without moving his mouth. Hermione stood stock-still, unsure what to do as the thought of 'What the heck? ! We haven't learned mind-reading spells yet!' ran through her head.
"Well, I guess I'm telepathic then, aren't I?" said Harry, once again without saying a word. "You are?" said Hermione, her voice squeaking in surprise. "Yep. It started a while after school ended. I thought I was using a spell, but when the Ministry never called I figured out that it was a mutation." Harry explained, tapping his head to show his point.
"How do you know it's a mutation?" asked Hermione warily. Harry looked at her like she was crazy. "Haven't you heard? The world's full of mutants now, and there are mutant telepaths after all. It's really the only explanation for what I can do. So," he said, "What's your mutation other than green hair?"
"Why don't you just read my mind?" Hermione asked, tilting her head at him quizzically at him. "I prefer not using such tactics," Harry said with a shrug.
"I control magnetic fields," Hermione said. "Sweet! I'm actually telekinetic too, but it doesn't give me any physical trait like your hair…" Harry said, looking thoughtful. "Yeah, well, you should feel lucky; green hair isn't as cool as it looks," grumbled Hermione, running her hands through her seaweed colored hair, "It's really ugly, isn't it?"
"What, are you kidding?"
Hermione jumped and looked up at Harry, who grinned at her. "That's the prettiest shade of green I've ever seen! It looks better than that brown dye you use!" he exclaimed. "Really?" Hermione asked in surprise.
"Of course! Hasn't anyone ever liked your hair before?" Harry said, still looking at it with a look of wonderment.
"Only my parents. All the kids in my neighborhood and anyone else who saw it thought it was disgusting!" Hermione grumbled, once again looking at her hair with distaste.
"Well, I love it!" Harry exclaimed, putting his hands on his hips. "And don't let anyone say otherwise, because if they do, I'll hex their heads off!
And with that, he spun around and walked off with his head high, as if to prove he really could hex someone's head off.
Hermione gazed between the retreating form of her best friend and her emerald hair, thinking, 'He's the first guy to ever compliment my real hair.'
/\/\/\/\
Hermione blinked awake, grinning as the dream faded away. "Someone looks happy today," yawned Parvati Patil, her other dorm-mate, asshe got up from her bed nearby.
"Dream about Harry?" asked Ginny, looking suspiciously at Hermione; ever since word had gotten out about Hermione and Harry's relationship, Ginny had been watching them warily whenever she could, jealousy holding tightly onto her heart.
"Sort of. It was a memory, actually," elaborated Hermione as she began getting dressed in her Hogwarts robes. "Memory of what?" Parvati asked as she woke up Lavender by hitting her with a pillow. "The moment I think I fell for him," Hermione said with a grin. A collective "ooooooh!" from the other girls signaled the beginning of a rather…. unpleasant day for mutant-wizards and witches.
/\/\/\/\
It was a nightmare. The day started off just like usual; everyone gathered into the Great Hall for breakfast at the same time as always. Nothing odd seemed to be happening, but unbeknownst to the students, something odd was happening at the staff table.
Umbridge was acting especially bright and happy today, talking more and more in her strange, condescendingly annoying voice. "My goodness, does she ever shut up? Mutant this, mutant that; when's she going to stop with that nonsense?" murmured Professor Snape, feeling irritated that he had decided to get out of bed that morning just to hear Umbridge keep up the mutant talk.
"She does have a right to declare her opinions….. no matter how annoying it might be," sighed Professor McGonagall, trying to block Umbridge's sickly sweet voice with thoughts of the disaster Neville would probably cause in Transfiguration class today.
It was so sudden nobody could've prevented it. One moment Umbridge was talking, and the next moment all of the windows had blown up in a shower of splintering glass. Students screamed in terror as shapes flew in through the sad remains of the windows.
The Hogwarts teachers were about to leap into action when a loud voice commanded "Hold it, Dumbledore!" All of the Professors turned in shock as Cornelius Fudge came in through a window.
"Fudge! What is the meaning of this madness? !" demanded Dumbledore, barely restraining himself from running up and grabbing Fudge by the front of his ridiculously clean business robe.
"No need to panic, Albus. The Ministry is simply gathering all of the mutant students together for safety reasons. Nothing serious," said Fudge with an unconcerned shrug.
"Safety reasons? They were perfectly fine before this!" snarled Snape, waving his arm towards the growing mayhem of the Great Hall. Students, mutant or not, were trying to flee through the main doors or even through the broken windows. Hexes, jinxes, and curses flew throughout the air as some mutant students tried to hold back the Ministry officials only to be subdued within seconds.
"It's nothing, Severus! Besides, do you really think the mutant students would've stayed cooperative to you, Albus? Word is travelling around that Voldemort is recruiting mutants now; these children are now nothing more than dangerous time-bombs waiting to go off! We can't risk any of these kids joining Voldemort!" Fudge explained nonchalantly as a hex barely missed him by a foot.
"What will happen to them? !" screeched McGonagall shrilly, her voice filled with strained fear for her students and House members.
"We'll be keeping an eye on them until Voldemort is apprehended. No reason to worry," said one of Fudge's bodyguards. "BULLSHIT!" screamed a voice.
The Great Hall seemed to freeze and grow quiet as the usually calm voice of Harry Potter rose frantically above the former din, "You're going to let the weak mutants rot in Azkaban while the stronger ones will be killed! Don't deny it, Fudge! You can't tell me I'm wrong, especially because I heard you thinking it just a second ago!"
For a second everyone stayed frozen in shock; then Umbridge, who'd been helping in the ambush, laughed harshly. "Look at that! The great Boy Who Lived is a mutant too! How fitting!" She screeched.
"He's not the only one!" Hermione snarled so quietly nobody heard her; she had been trying to discreetly help some of the captured mutants, but forget that idea. She was ready to kick ass for her boyfriend as he stood in the middle of the Great Hall, wand raised at Umbridge.
"I'm tired of this crap, Umbridge! Just try and face me and you'll regret it!" snapped Harry challengingly as he took a step toward her. Umbridge wasted no time at all; she took the bait and cast a curse at Harry, which he easily deflected; the duel had begun.
/\/\/\/\
Pixie didn't sense anyone at all, but the second she dropped into the sewer beside Toad, she felt a long steel knife pressed up against the top of her back, above her wings. "Move and you're dead!" snarled a voice in her ear. Pixie stiffened, seeing Toad and Caliban were in similar situations; Caliban was being held by a teenage girl in a perfect position for her to snap his neck, and Toad had his arm twisted behind his back by a teenage boy about their age.
"O-okay, we're not here to hurt you!" Toad said, holding still in surrender as the boy twisted his arm sharply. "Then why are you here?" snarled a new voice. A black-haired, brown-eyed girl came out of the shadows of the sewer with another girl behind her.
The lead chick stopped in front of Caliban, recognition swimming in her eyes. "Hey, Shelly, isn't this the mutant you told me about? The one that can sense other mutants?" she asked the girl that followed her.
The other girl, Shelly, nodded, and said, "It's alright Aurora, he won't hurt you." Aurora didn't relax her grip, but she did allow Caliban to breathe a little from her strangle hold.
"So who are you?" asked the first girl, glaring at Pixie. Pixie swallowed nervously and said, "I'm Pixie, and my friends are Caliban and Toad. We came here to ask for your help."
"Help with what?" hissed the girl holding a knife to her back. "There's some people- er, mutants, that are coming for our group. We need your help to fight them off!" Toad coughed, trying to loosen the boy's grip on his arm.
"Now why in the world would we help you?" asked the leader. "Our leader, Quicksilver, said you'd help us!" Pixie said quietly. And with that, war was prevented. "Quicksilver? You mean Pietro? Why didn't you say so? Let them go, guys!" laughed the lead girl, waving at her subordinates.
Immediately all three hostages were released, left to stare at their former captors in astonishment. "You know Quic- er, Pietro? !" asked Toad, bewildered.
"Course I do! He and his sister Wanda used to be a part of this group before they decided to make a bigger army! How are they doing?" asked the lead girl, eyes filled with amusement at their shock.
"Not so well. Some mutants called the X-Men came to our hideout, and now some guys called the Brotherhood are coming too. Pietro told us to come find the Silver-X Team, which I'm guessing is you people," said Pixie, staring at the group of five; all of them looked like dirty street beggars, but the leader and another girl looked like they could break a few necks if need be, and the other three looked ready to pick a fight as well.
"Really? Huh, well… I do owe Pietro a favor for saving my ass from a car, so…. Alright, I guess will help you guys!" said the lead girl, smiling at them.
"What are your names?" asked Toad.
"This is Aurora, Post, Fatale, and Shelly. You can call me X-23. And, as you guessed, we're the Silver-X Team," said the lead girl, looking at them smugly.
/\/\/\/\
The doors on the other side of the warehouse were crushed by an invisible magnetic force as Magneto and Mystique entered to find the X-Men across from them and a white-haired boy sitting on a crate in the middle, looking like a negotiator.
"Now what do you guys want?" asked Pietro.
/\/\/\/\
A/N: Oh, sweet cliffhangers, how do I love thee? Wow, this is the longest chapter so far... let's hope that this continues! LOL, hope you people enjoyed; please give your opinions in a review or vote for this story on my profile poll!
-Wind