(Vol 3: Freaks?)
(X-Mansion)
"VREEEE-VREEEE-VREEEE" The alarm clock rang annoyingly.
A ghostly pale hand was reaching from a mass of covers to turn it off. It missed once, and then twice, the third time was the charm as the enceinte buzzing was stopped. The girl sat up with a confused face and messed up hair. She got out of the bed, and walked to the door and looked out in the hallway to see a line for the closest bathroom. Damnation was placed with all the current teachers in case she decided to leave again.
She immediately closed the door again and walked to the center of the room placed her hands out and tiles seemed to warp out of nowhere and fall together along with metal piping to form a hotel like single shower. She dropped all her clothes, stepped in and pulled the knob in which cold water flowed out.
"Hey where is Nat?" Kurt asked in the middle of the line.
"I don't know but if she doesn't get in line she'll have to deal with a cold shower." Kitty said with an annoyed look on her face. "Bobby how long does it take for you to do anything?" She shouted at the door.
"Hey chill, I'll be out in a minute." Bobby said looking at himself in the mirror.
"I'm goanna go wake her up." Rouge said stepping out from the back of the line. She passed two other rooms before she heard water running. Rogue knocked on the door "Hey you might want to get up before classes start." She warned.
The only response was the water stopping.
"You okay" Rogue asked as she opened the door. She was shocked at what she saw.
"Close the door behind you." Damnation said in the shower.
"I don't think I should." Rogue said. The only light penetrating the room was that leaking in from the hallway. The window seemed to be blocked off with a wall of material so well that no light penetrated from it at all.
"I'll be out in a minute." She unknowingly copied Bobby's words
"Fine, but class is in thirty minutes." Rogue said closing the door.
A few seconds later Damnation stepped out of the shower and threw her clothes into it pulled the knob again and let the water wash away stains of blood. A few minutes later she stopped the water and pulled out the soaked shorts, black tank top, and under garments. She extracted all the water from each and every piece of clothing. And quickly put them on.
Suddenly the water disappeared in an instant as she walked towards the door of the room.
Her hair still a little wet Damnation or as the students called her "Nat" walked out into the hallway. She passed by the bathroom that the line was now Jean and Scott. As she passed the door it opened with a haze of steam as Rogue stepped out. Damnation turned around "Do you know where my next class is?" She handed her piece of paper to Rogue.
Rogue stared at it along with Jean and Scott over her shoulder.
First class: Trigonometry – Robert Drake (Iceman) L: F1 R13
Second Class: Advanced Physics – Hank McCoy (Beast) L: F1 R14
Third Class: Tech ED – Kitty Pride (Shadowcat) L: F1 R3
Fourth Class: Hand to Hand Combat – Logan (Wolverine) L: outside next to fountain
Fifth Class: Art – Kurt (Nightcrawler) L: F1 R5
"Combat training with Logan, ouch." Cyclops teased.
"All these classes are fairly advanced, why did they pick this curriculum?" Jean asked.
"I don't know but at least she has some breaks. The Rooms are categorized by floors and numbers F1 means Floor 1 and R13 means the room marked as thirteen." Rogue explained as she handed the paper back to Damnation.
"Thanks." Damnation said as she ran towards the entrance of the mansion. When she reached the entrance she ran down the steps and looked for a sign to tell her which way to go.
No signs were above any of the entrances to the hallways as far as she could see.
"You need some help my dear?" a voice called from behind her.
Damnation turned around to see the bulky blue Man she recognized from last night when she left the Danger Room. "Yes I can't seem to find which hallways hold which rooms." She said with a blush of embarrassment.
"Oh I understand. I always tell Charles we need more durable signs for these hallways. The more deviant children like to hide them so they have an excuse for being late. May I see which class you have." He asked kindly.
She handed the blue man the paper.
After looking over the paper he said. "Ah Hand to hand combat with Logan, you really must have impressed him." He said in a jolly tone.
"Not that this isn't intriguing, but I still need to get to class mister….um?" Damnation pointed out.
"Hank McCoy, it's so nice to officially meet you Nat." Hank said offering a handshake.
"I'm so to bother you sir." She said as she shook his hand.
"Nonsense, it is a teacher's job to help his students whenever possible." He said with a hearty grin on his face. "Now the classroom organization is pretty simple when you know it. The halls that are directly across from the entrance are 1-15 while if you were looking from the entrance the halls on right are 16-30 and those to the left are 31-45. You got that?" he asked concerned.
"I think so." She said as she walked into the hallway behind the stair case. "Thank you"
"You're welcome." He said waving.
"Okay." She said as she walked away. She walked down the halls and counted the doors up to 13. She was about to open the door when she heard a loud noise come from inside the room and several laughs afterwards. "I wonder if I ever went to high school before." She thought to herself. She then turned the handle to see a chaotic mob of boys and girls her age fighting for some reason or another. Damnation immediately spotted an empty seat in the back of the class room and took it.
A few minutes before class started some of the students took notice of Damnation
"Who is she?" one girl said.
"Her skin is so white." Another said.
"I heard she beat Wolverine's record in the danger room." A boy whispered.
"You're so full of shit." Another said to him.
"Whoever she is, she doesn't seem happy here." A different girl said.
Suddenly the door opened and a man covered in Ice walked in. "Okay class normally we start off with some boring mathematics, but now we have a new student her name is Nat." he then made a hand motion to signal her to stand up. "Nat" He repeated the hand motion, "Nat?" he repeated the hand motion again.
Every student turned around to see the desk empty.
"Where did she go?" "Did she a teleport?" "Why does she get to skip?" The classroom all seemed to ask at once.
"Now hold on, I'm sure she didn't leave." Iceman said trying to keep the class in order he looked to see one of every sheet of homework gone along with all the class work.
Damnation could hear the noise from down the hall she tucked the class papers in her pocket.
"Already skipping I see." A voice in her head echoed.
"I don't exactly enjoy speaking through my mind." She coldly said to the voice in her head.
"Very well then, let's talk." Charles said out loud as he rolled around the corner. "So why are you skipping?" he asked the both of them went outside.
"They were asking questions about me, making accusations." She said looking at the sky.
"They only ask questions to know you, not to make fun of you." Charles tried to explain.
"Look I got the material with me; I don't see why I can't do it on my own and turn it in later." Damnation trying to justify her escape.
"You don't seem to understand what we are about. Our institute wants to unite mutants to help our powered and non-powered brothers and sisters." He said calmly.
"Good luck with that." Damnation said as she walked ahead of the professor towards the gates.
"Won't you at least give us a try?" Charles asked.
Damnation stopped all she did was look at the sky. "After today if I don't like it, will you let me leave?" She asked Charles.
"I would let you leave right now if you wanted to." He said without hesitation.
"I'll go back to the classroom then." She said walking into the building.
After she went inside Charles let out a sigh of relief. "Logan you can come down now."
Suddenly Logan dropped from the tree "You sure we should keep her here, what if she didn't decide that compromise." He said correctively.
"As Ororo said Magneto is after her. She might be dead if we don't keep her here. Or worse someone else could get to her." Charles said thinking deeply on the many threats to a mutant as powerful as her.
"Chuck there is one thing I can't get out of my mind." Logan said.
"Well a week of sessions should help." Charles quickly answered.
"Not that Chuck, you said these mental blocks suppress her powers. How can that be? I was without memories and I still could use my powers." He asked.
"Well the difference is that her mind itself is blocked off from the other pieces entirely, that means her mind is working on half its normal capability. Without the other levels the mind is limited to what is written there. The scary thing is how well crafted these walls are." Charles changed the subject.
"Why?" Logan said going along with the flow of the conversation.
"Very few Telepaths in general can make blocks even close to that quality. And even fewer are on earth." Charles said in a grim tone.
"You mean Frost?" Logan said looking towards the direction the Damnation traveled.
"I doubt she intentionally is spying on us but anything past those three blocks is beyond me." Charles said honestly.
"That's another thing Chuck, how could you not breach those barriers in her mind?" Logan asked.
"Well to put it simply the door is locked and she has the only key." Charles said annoyed.
"So should I keep an eye on her?" Logan asked.
"Something about her Logan…I think she knew." Charles said in a strange way.
"That I was there. I got that exact same feeling when she asked permission to leave." Logan said with an intuitive look on his face.
"Logan I don't like the look on your face, what do you plan to do?" Charles asked.
"Easy, I'm going to see if she could leave if she wanted to." Logan said with a smile on his face.
Suddenly the bell rang for the next period. And the class emptied as fast as they could.
After an awkward reentry of the Trigonometry class Damnation decided it be best not leave suddenly again. As she walked into the room for advanced physics Damnation spotted a seat at the front of the room and decided to take another approach.
As the bell rang several other people walked in the room along with the teacher.
"Okay class today we are going to talk about different types of energies and how they can be used to befit." Hank said as he walked in.
Damnation sat up at this although she didn't know why.
"So who here can tell me three different ways to tell the intensities of multiple forms of energy?" He asked quizzing the students.
"The heat of the energy" One boy said.
"Correct young man. The heat radiated off an energy can help measure the intensity." He praised.
"The force exerted." said another boy stating the obvious.
"Very good, the basic feel is another way to tell the amplification of an energy." Beast said again.
The class was quiet for awhile only to be broken by the teacher.
"Does anyone have an idea of a third factor?" he said doubtful.
"The color" Damnation said.
"Intriguingly answer, please elaborate." Beast said.
"Well different strengths of energies can determined by how much light is refracted when passing through them so weaker colors with light pigmentation show lower outputs compared to those because so much light is flowing through." Damnation said not knowing where she remembered this from.
Beast stopped moving, his glasses almost feel of his face. "Go on." He said.
"It seems higher more potent energies would be darker colors due to the rays of light not passing through. The best example we can see of this are stars although most believe white dwarfs are most powerful when it is a fact blue stars output more energy in the end due to their life cycles being longer. Although they aren't the most powerful stars either. The most powerful stars are those that radiate light on the spectrum of purple or violet, but due to blue being easer to see it is defaulted to blue" Damnation said reaching in from an odd voice in her head. "Whose voice is it?" She thought to herself "It's not the Professor. It's familiar though."
"Class is dismissed." Beast said.
The class just left not asking questions just taking what they can get. The only ones left in the room were Damnation and Beast.
"You just listed off theories that I've only heard in whispers in the science community. How?" he asked amazed.
"I don't know." Damnation said as got up and left.
Students from the advanced physics class were walking around making conversation with each other in the hallways when one of the older girls walked up to her "Hi I'm Jubilee. What's your name?" she asked with a smile on her face.
Damnation didn't respond all she did was staring blankly at the girl.
"Well you're welcome to come over here and chat." She said trying to provoke a response.
All Damnation did was walk away. Halfway down the hallway she turned around with the feeling someone was watching her. Suddenly she heard the bell again. With nothing but shadows in sight she turned around and disappeared from view.
Suddenly Logan dropped from ceiling.
"Any updates Logan?" The Professors voice echoed.
Suddenly the ceiling Logan was griping on to turned to sand that crumbled under pressure. "Let me get back to you on that Chuck." He thought as he was looking at a young pale girl holding a gloved hand out to him.
"That's what you get for following the girl." Rogue said in a corrective tone.
"Not in the mood Rogue." Logan said annoyed getting upon his own.
"How do you think that girl feels? She was almost killed yesterday, now she is being stocked like prey." Rogue argued with a redder face.
"Stop following me." Damnation said behind them both. "Both of you." She continued without showing emotion.
"Nat, please stop." Rogue said trying to reach out to her. She landed her hand on the girl.
"I will never stop. Why do these burden me so much?" She said in a tone without emotion. She quickly shoved off Rogue's hand.
Rogue froze at this. "I don't think she just wants her powers gone." She thought to herself.
Damnation never stopped she walked straight into class quickly finished her class with Kitty and walked out.
"You okay?" The same older class girl asked.
"No" was all Damnation could get out before she walked away. Out in the courtyard where she stood just hours ago alone with Charles and Logan Damnation was now in a group of people she had seen before.
Some of the instructors along with the students in her classes were there.
"Now I unlike normal classes in combat everyone attends." Logan began to say.
"What do you mean? You never forced us to come before." Bobby interrupted.
"Well then you better adapt, fast." Logan snarled at Iceman.
"Yes sir." Bobby snapped quickly with sarcasm.
Several of the younger kids laughed at this.
"Keep that tone it will be hilarious when you run laps around the mansion." Logan said.
"What?" "Awe I knew it was a trap." "You have got to be kidding me." Several students complained.
"The objective is simple, just take this flag from me and you don't have to run." Wolverine said as he tied a small cloth around his upper bicep. "Go!"
(Inside The X-Mansion)
"Charles what are you doing?" Ororo asked as she walked up to her old friend looking at the computer.
"Trying to figure out this girls power." He said as she watched footage of Damnation in the danger room.
"Charles please she seemed to have them in check." Ororo said.
"I know and that's what scares me the most." He said not moving from the monitor.
"What do you mean by that?" Ororo said with interest.
"Well after what I heard from Rogue and what I can see here this girl doesn't just summon weapons." Charles said still looking at footage of Damnation firing her weapon repeatedly.
"What powers does she have then?" Ororo asked.
"Well Rogue told me when she was about to touch the girl the floor of the building turned to water and Logan just reported the roof he was…observing from turned to sand." Charles continued.
"You had him spy on her?" Ororo accused.
"Actually that was his idea." Charles corrected "There" he said excitedly as he stopped on scene of the girl in the danger room.
"What is it?" Ororo asked curious she looked at the monitor to see Damnation fire off a shot.
"If you look at the back of what she calls her "Shooter" there is two pieces that rotate and emit a blue glow as she fires blue ammunition of the same color." He said excited.
"Charles how is that relevant?" She said confused.
"The girl isn't controlling energy just matter. Specifically to a point where she can create energy based weapons out of air." Charles said concerned.
"I admit she is powerful, but with control over her powers how's this a major threat?" Ororo asked.
"Someone had to teach her this level control and it surely wasn't us. As I have gathered so far she can manipulate matter of inanimate objects to a full degree. Literally turning lead into gold with ease, as an example of course. With the right combination wounds could be gone in an instant." Charles said shaking at the video of the girl.
"Is she a threat?" Ororo asked.
"I doubt it. She seems too consumed with her own goals to really want to destroy anyone." Professor Xavier said.
"Her goals are even more dangerous." Ororo stated.
"They are even more so now that I know this." Charles said pressing a button that displayed footage of the day earlier.
"I will never stop. Why do these burden me so much?" Damnation said through the recording.
"I don't get this." Ororo said.
"This girl, she doesn't just hate her powers, she hates her emotions and memories along with it." Charles said in a grim tone.
"So that means." Ororo said shocked.
"Yes, this girl wanted everything gone. I what would cause someone to want that?" Charles asked.
"The question is "What emotion would make her want that?" Ororo answered.
"Indeed." Charles responded as he watched the girl take ammunition straight into the abdomen
(Outside in the Courtyard)
Several of the students were running towards Logan trying to rush him only to have him dodge and they all collided with each other.
Suddenly Logan sniffed the air. He jumped just in time to dodge Cyclops' beam. "Gonna have to do better than that specs."
Suddenly the ground underneath Logan turned to ice and Logan fell.
"Awe thanks for the new trophy." Iceman said as he was about to grab the flag.
"No way man I'm not running." Kurt said popping in and grabbing the flag.
"Good job elf." Logan said. "Now you have to deal with them." He said pointing to everyone else.
"Oh n." was all Kurt could say before everyone was after him except three people.
The mob of students and instructors were after Kurt Logan Rogue and Damnation stood looking at each other.
All they did was look at each other when suddenly they heard several miscellaneous noises that Damnation used as a signal to attack.
Quickly summoning her katana Damnation slid between Wolverine's legs slashing the tendon which do to the nature of Logan's power made him lose control just long enough to fall.
Rogue took off her gloves and tried to grab for Damnations face every time she tried she was that much closer.
Logan finally got up to see that Rogue was about
to touch Damnation when suddenly the Kurt popped in between them.
"Here this is your problem now, bye bye." he said as he handed Damnation the flag and teleported away.
Suddenly a rumbling was heard. Damnation turned around to see a large number of the faculty and students who hadn't given up. She instantly inhaled and the ground under her sucked her down a second before the oncoming group slammed both into Rogue and Logan.
Several people were knocked out. Those who weren't waivered got up and looked for where Damnation would surface from underground.
Down underground Damnation could hear every footstep, could see nothing but pitch black. This sensation was familiar to her for some reason. "Let's play a game, its called death tag, the one who is it has to tag the other in five minutes afterwards or they die." a distant but familiar voice that sounded like they belonged to a little girl.
Suddenly a memory appeared. She was in a dark room where she heard echoing footsteps. Suddenly she saw wheels pass by the door along with a pair of feet behind them. Suddenly they stopped the pair of feet turned to face the door. An unnatural glow seemed to appear as the door was opened.
A single pointer finger reached in closing in about to touch the center of her forehead when she saw a somber face of a girl with unnatural glowing neon green eyes. A girl in a wheel chair had the same kind of eyes except they were a blood red.
"You're it" the girl with the green eyes said emotionless. She then moved her finger closer and closer to the Damnation forehead.
Damnation tried to get away as much as she possible, treating the touch as if venomous.
The finger grew closer and closer. It finally touched Damnations forehead and it felt like her brain was about be destroyed from the inside out.
Damnation emitted an unearthly scream.
"What was that?" Bobby asked.
Suddenly Damnation burst from the ground underneath Bobby. Her katana in hand Damnation made a swinging motion for his head.
Missing by mere centimeters she cut a deep gash in his shoulder enough to make him scream out in pain. He fell to the ground twitching.
She quickly turned her attention to anyone else, slashing and hacking sloppily like a wild beast with a blade, she ran towards the younger children. Damnation almost got in reach if one of them if Cyclops didn't hit her right before she slashed at the child.
"GET INSIDE!" Scott yelled at the younger students.
Everyone except veteran and very experienced X-men ran inside the mansion.
Damnation ran towards the students trying to get in the mansion.
As she was about to grab one of the students Logan burst out and slashed her in the abdomen.
"Vhat is going on?" Kurt asked.
"I don't know but we need to stop her before she hurts anyone." Scott responded.
Damnation was still standing in the spot where Logan slashed her. Blood was dripping a crimson red down her shorts when she suddenly lifted her hand and the shooter formed around it. With three quick shots she hit Kurt on his reentry from teleporting, Logan who was trying to rush her and Jean who was about to knock her out.
Cyclops was reaching for his visor when his hand suddenly felt heavy; he couldn't even move his fingers. When he looked at his hand he saw his hand had turned to stone.
Logan got back up again this time trying to flank Damnation while Iceman was keeping her occupied.
He quickly clawed his way up a tree when and waited for the moment to strike. After one ice blast she revealed a weak point. Logan jumped from his spot about to strike silently.
Damnation realized what happened turned around to see Logan about to strike. Her eyes set ablaze with a deep gray fire the same color of her eye. A slash was made through the neck of Wolverine blood flowed onto the grass as Damnation was standing over Logan her eyes literally on fire.
"NOOOO!" Rogue screamed as she thought the worse.
This seemed to have jarred Damnation from her rampage. She had a confused look on her face. As she looked around to see children cowering inside, Rogue crying over an almost dead Logan, and a blood covered katana. She realized what she had done and ran she ran as fast as her legs could carry her away from the institute. "This isn't the first time I ran." she remembered.
Seconds after she ran away Cyclops found his hand was back to normal.
"Freak, Freak, Freak, Sophia is a freak" Damnation remembered the taunt clearly. "How could I forget it was the taunt made for Me." she said smiling. "Get ready Alpha the freak is coming back" Sophia said looking into the sky with her eyes on fire.
Of in the distance a man twirling a staff and shuffling a deck of card was watching her. He picked up a cell phone, the phone rang three times and there was the sound of someone picking up. "Yeah boss how many mutants call them self Alpha? ... London? ... Got it boss."
(London)
A girl in a wheelchair was accompanied by a girl who wore glasses that concealed her deadly green eyes. "Yay Delta is back." she said cheery at first.
"Omega this time you two finish you game of final death tag." she said in a childish voice.
"Yes mam." the girl wearing glasses said passively obedient.
"Good, its time she learned what she is, nothing but a pathetic FREAK!"