Wolf: Well, thank you Kit Cloud the time ghost, Satta Kurosama, and BlackHeartFrozenSolid for their reviews and I'll try to flesh it out more like Kit asked me to, but my style is kind of… contradictory to that. Also, with school starting just after Labor Day, I might update faster. Yeah, I'm pretty much the opposite of every other writer… ever. I write better and faster under a lot of stress.
While Charles was wheeling down the hallway, looking at the doors and their intricacies, he realized that there were personalities here that Lydia as a community hadn't had to deal with yet. They were rusted over and in need of painting, or at least that was what they looked like. Some looked like they hadn't even been painted a first time, meaning anything. Charles didn't have a huge amount of experience in the area of multiple personalities.
There was one door that was obviously unlocked and it looked inviting. The door, from what the professor could see, was covered in bubbles and diamonds. The hall itself had similar traits for the ceiling and floors, but instead of bubbles it was what looked like water all around him. The light came from nowhere but still bathed him in a glow while the door he'd been staring at opened for him.
Charles went inside and was immediately greeted by a small person, like Lydia, but much happier. Her hair was in pigtails, and she was dressed in pink, probably to represent how child-like she was. After all, the professor has some sway as to how Lydia's mind would display for him.
"Hello, professor," the child said. "I'm Nina. It's good to meet you. I was watching when Lain was talking to you. You seem pretty nice for an old guy."
"What can you tell me about your powers?" Charles asked, preferring not to banter with personalities. He knew that outside of their heads, time was passing. Nina knew this as well and didn't take offense at his briskness.
"I don't have any," Nina replied. "Try the doors with the red circles on them. Those are the ones with powers. We decided it when it started to be a little confusing in here. There were too many to always remember right away." Nina watched the professor leave and ran out the door.
"Don't go into Sophie's room unless she says it's okay!" she called, trying to throw that last bit of advice at Professor Xavier before he made a mistake that could have cost him something important. Then she went back to her toys and the door closed gently.
Charles hadn't realized that so many doors were red and came to the first one he saw, clearly marked with the red circle and two snakes curling around each other. The snakes seemed rather menacing although the door wasn't locked, so Charles decided to knock before entering.
"I see you managed to open the door, Professor X," a voice called, as Charles pushed said door open and viewed the girl in her seemingly endless room. "Are you having fun playing with the children?" The Lydia this time was completely different, taller, more muscular, and possessing scars that marred her face.
"Are you one of the personalities with powers?" Charles asked, looking at her. The girl smirked and sat on a bed of red silk that suddenly appeared in the room. Her entire aura emitted anger, something that made Charles stay wary. Angry people were usually quicker to show their hand and try to hurt others. She could be a danger to the rest of the students if she got like that.
"I'm Kelly, for your information," she said. "How about I give you a demonstration, my little intruder? I never actually invited you in the door, you know. That was very rude of you to just come into a lady's quarters."
Her eyes flashed suddenly and she held out her arms, throwing Charles back with an immense heat wave. Fireballs spat at him as he was forcefully thrown from the room, landing on the other side of the hallway as the door shut heavily. The snakes winked at him. She must have been a very angry person, someone to watch out for. That or he caught her in a bad mood. It was really a toss-up.
The door Charles was sitting near also had a red mark, but it was dark and was locked when Charles tried to open it. He pulled out the set of keys Lain had given him and a key with the shape of a heart on the end showed up. It pulled toward the door and it opened to reveal a darkened chamber with lights on two objects, a girl and a teddy bear with its stuffing ripped out. Another light illuminated him, making his clothing turn into a demented figure being overwhelmed with shadows, like the rest of the room.
"Hello," Charles said carefully, hoping that this personality wasn't as violent as the other had been. If there was more than one personality with offensive powers that used them like Kelly did, Charles felt that his school might be in trouble. Of course, he didn't want to turn the girl away. Where else could she go, really? The Brotherhood wasn't exactly looking for another girl who could destroy their house.
The girl was silent while she slowly looked up, shivering. Charles noted immediately that she seemed like a very nervous person and he didn't want to spook her any more than necessary.
"I'm Sophie," she said suddenly, looking away. "You'd better get out. You're scary and bad things happen when I get scared." Charles felt a chill down his spine as he remembered Nina's warning. He decided to chance it, though, and stayed.
"I'm warning you," Sophie said again as he didn't move. Charles tried to mentally reassure her and order her to be calm, but he only found animal instinct there and the girl attacked. She had deformed claws and fangs now that Charles could see and he was thrown back out of the room while he tried to defend himself.
Sophie's door shut tight again while Charles moved on, getting a little more beat up as time went on. He found several pleasant personalities who controlled different aspects of Lain's powers of transformation but with a little twist to make the power their own. From what Charles observed, they wanted him to enter their minds about as much as Kelly did. They were just much nicer about it.
It seemed the girls viewed intrusion as just something they dealt with all the time when they had sisters in such close proximity. Charles wasn't used to the rules, so he didn't realize that a couple of the girls weren't pleased with his blatant intrusions. He didn't know the intricacies of women's rituals and the
girls had established a set of codes that had to have been different from any other woman in the world. After all, there were people here who could easily invade another's private time.
Eventually the whole business was done with and Charles had gotten a few scratches and such because of people who weren't very happy with his intrusions. Most were from Sophie, whose attack was probably second only to Kelly's fiery encounter. Both of those personalities would have to be watched, although they seemed fairly decent toward the other girls. Dislike of all things male was a distinct possibility to exempt them from the label of unnecessarily violent.
The professor pulled out of Lydia's mind and the girl shook her head. Logan was still there, watching, but he looked a little bored of it. Who knew how much time had passed? Professor X couldn't really tell in his disoriented state.
"You may go back to your room now, Lain," Charles said, holding his head. The wounds he'd gotten inside of her mind formed into a headache back in the real world. It was gnawing on his brain, like some beast had decided that it would be fun to bite at the base of his skull and make all the lights seem far too bright.
"Actually, it's Kelly now," Lydia replied, smirking in that same way she had inside of her 'room'. Charles backed up as she stood and left, her manner completely different than gentle Lain. Logan seemed a little amused at this, not realizing yet that she was actually many different people. He hadn't been given the full explanation, although he would soon. Something like Lydia's situation wasn't a sort of thing they could keep under wraps. It would make good research material for mutant studies and the teachers had to be notified of the importance Lydia could potentially possess.
"Keep an eye on her," Charles ordered, reaching out to Nightcrawler, her only friend, to do the same as he'd ordered Logan. Kurt seemed surprised at the order, but didn't question it. The professor was almost always right about things like that and watching out for people never hurt. In fact, it was very good of him to keep an eye on his little buddy. She needed all the friends she could get, being so far from home.
"Hey, Lydia," Nightcrawler said as Kelly passed him without saying a word. Almost like it was an instinct, a flame shot out of her hands and nearly singed Nightcrawler's fur. He evaded the attack using Logan's response training, and even then it was a close call.
Click.
Lydia shook her head, becoming Lain again. Kelly was gone with Lain's anger at the invasion of all of her mind. Instead, there was just the contented and shy girl who was usually in control.
"I'm sorry," she said with a soft smile. "I'm afraid something came over me." Yeah, Kelly sneered. And its name was Lain. Lain pushed back at the personality and Kelly was banished to her room, where she was probably sulking. Kelly was always sulking when her fun was ruined. She would have loved to hit the little blue guy.
"Did you eat too much dinner?" Nightcrawler asked jokingly. "It was pretty spicy, after all." Lain laughed, pulling her personalities back under control. They each knew their place and if Nightcrawler kept this up he'd meet another of her. That wasn't a good option, especially since she hadn't officially revealed herself to him. It would come as a big shock.
"I didn't actually eat dinner just yet," Lain told him. "I was with the professor since the fish incident." She looked down. "I'm afraid he's going to blow the coop on a couple of things that I prefer under wraps. It can't be helped, though."
"The professor doesn't do things without a reason," Nightcrawler told her reassuringly, touching her shoulder gently. Lain looked up, something inside of her fighting for control. She clamped it down, maintaining her composure although it was difficult. Nightcrawler spoke again.
"So, we'll get you fed while you tell me about your blown coop. Then, it won't be so bad when you blow it to everyone else." Lain followed Nightcrawler, feeling, somehow, that he was a good person and she could tell him about her problems. He would listen and probably not hate her for it. He had enough problems to forgive someone else's.