It was dark. Pitch black actually and she felt... Cold... All over... She looked around desperately, not sure what she was supposed to be looking for... There had to be something... Anything... Stumbling around, she saw a figure. Right in front of her... Feeling relived, she darted towards that person only to skid to a halt as the figure whirled around, disgust in her olive green eyes.
"Mum?" she asked confused, before screaming out in agony, as two bullets ripped through her abdomen and out her back, causing her head and ears to ring like crazy.
Aghh!" Greer screamed as she bolted up in her bed, hissing at the unfamiliar noise hurting her sensitive ears. She stopped as she looked around at an unfamiliar room...
"Where am I?"
Looking around in confusion, she shook her head to try and piece together what on earth happened only to have the memories of the previous day flood back to her. Greer's breath quickened, as she hunched over, sickened, before she caught sight of her lower body, covered in a blanket...
"Please let this be a nightmare... Please..." she prayed before closing her eyes and summoning enough courage to toss the blanket away. Still praying, Greer opened her eyes and looked down at her lower half... She held back a sob. It was worse than she remembered... Hesitantly, she managed to bring herself to stroke the soft orange and black-stripped fur...
"Horrible..." she thought before curling her toes, cringing as felt the claws extend, and the leathery pads at the base of her feet. Lost for words, Greer hugged her furry knees... She felt terrible... awful... Just a day ago she hated mutants with all her heart. Now, she was staying at the institute surrounded by mutants who at least looked human... Unlike her...
"Stop." She told herself as her tail curled around her.
"Just stop... Don't think about it... Don't think about anything right now..." she instructed herself. Whispering this over and over until the tremendous urge to cry diffused... Only a little though... Getting off the bed, Greer looked around hesitantly, at loss for what to do only to stiffen up quickly when the door swung open to reveal a worried looking Jean.
Both girls stared at each other for a while before Jean leaned forward.
"Hey are you alright? I heard you...um hissi... getting up. "
Greer backed away slightly but managed a quick nod.
"Yeah... Yeah I'm all right... The bell just gave me a shock that's all."
"Oh sorry about that... It always rings this early. But you get used to it!" Jean added in quickly upon seeing the look of complete and utter mortification on Greer's face, a stark contrast from the sullen scowl she was used to. It caused her to raise an eyebrow. Greer on the other hand had momentarily forgotten her misery and was trying to compute what Jean just told her.
"Get used to it? But it's a Saturday... Don't any of you want to sleep in? I mean... Just why?"
Jean smirked.
" The professor believes in sleeping early and rising early, even on weekends."
Both of them stared at each other.
"Please tell me you're joking because if its always this early... in a matter of days I'll be really really grouchy from the lack of sleep. And you don't want that..." Greer said finally... That was her uneasy attempt at trying to crack a joke, feeling that if she was going to be depressed... she at least... Shouldn't do it in front of Jean. That would be in fairly bad taste... Jean was the one who "rescued her" providing her with some hope for the future... Most importantly Jean was her only friend at the moment, and she didn't want to destroy that... She couldn't afford to...
Greer could not help but feel a little relived when Jean laughed at her terrible attempt at being cheerful.
" The professor believes in sleeping early and rising early. Even on weekends" the red head grinned causing Greer's jaw to go slack.
"Oh God why?"
Jean couldn't help but laugh again.
" I was kidding, the bell doesn't ring on Sundays so you'll get the luxury of sleeping in." she comforted patting Greer's shoulder.
"Why not Saturday too?"
"Oh, that's because we have combat training with Logan every Saturday and we better be heading down, I have to introduce you to your fellow housemates."
Personally, Greer couldn't decide what was worst at the moment, training every Saturday at 730 a.m. in the morning... Whatever the hell that was... or meeting a mansion full of people? Pulling at the hooded sweatshirt that was handed to her, Greer couldn't help but wring her hands nervously as she reluctantly followed Jean out of the room.
"What am I going to do?" she thought helplessly as she bit her lip everytime the claws on her bare feet caused a sound on the metallic floor. God, she just didn't want to face anyone looking like this... What would they think of her? If she couldn't even fully accept how she looked, how on earth could strangers be expected to do so... Greer kept close to Jean almost ducking behind her if there was even the slightest of sounds... Which didn't really help, as she was noticeably taller than Jean. Jean noticed this and couldn't help but feel bad for her new friend.
"Scared?" she asked gently while Greer wanted to do nothing more than to force Jean to take them back to the room but she somehow managed to force on a somewhat convincing close-lipped grin.
"Out of my wits" she replied casually.
"Well don't be, because here we are!" and Greer could only pray that the thrashing she was about to receive would be mercifully short as she braced herself to enter the noisy dinning room.
"Well this isn't too bad..." Greer thought as she entered carefully. No one had attacked her or ran for cover. In fact, most of the people in the dining room didn't even notice her walk in. She looked around carefully and recognized some familiar faces... such as the Professor and Mr. McCoy. Both gave her warm smiles of welcome, which made her feel a little better... Until the Professor cleared his throat...
" Students, may I have your attention please?"
Almost everyone fell silent.
" This is our newest student, Greer Nelson. She joined us only yesterday night, please make her feel welcome here."
Greer looked downwards. She could practically feel everyone's eyes travelling up and down her and it was almost painful... If this was two days ago, it was the norm and she would have been flattered. But now, all she wanted was to run out and hide... She just couldn't bear to see any possible signs of rejection from her new housemates...
"Whoa! She's like me!" a boy with blue hair and a germen accent exclaimed. Before she could reply, she heard a loud "Bmf!" followed by the smell of brimstone and all of a sudden the boy was right in front of her. He pressed a button on his watch and she couldn't help but growl loudly in shock as he turned into some sort of blue demon with bright golden eyes. As if by instinct, she felt herself leap backwards, her lips once again pulled back to show her fangs only to realize half a second later that this was extremely rude and just downright insulting. Quickly she tried to fix this... To apologize... Only to stop as a tall African woman with white hair and the most piercing blue eyes stepped between them.
"Kurt, you're going to scare the poor girl if you jump at her like that." she said in a commanding and yet still gentle voice.
"Yeah Kurt, personal space buddy" A taller boy with brown hair and red sunglasses mumbled before getting off his seat and approaching Greer.
"I'm Scott Summers." He grinned. "And you've already met Kurt and Jean. That's Ororo..." and the white haired African smiled at Greer.
"Evan, her nephew." (an African American skater boy with dyed blonde hair) "Rouge," (a Goth girl waved lazily at her)"Oh and Kitty's at a sleep over, won't be back till tomorrow night. That's Mr. McCoy, the Professor and that's... Logan." Noticing the pause in Scott's voice, Greer actually turned to stare at where Scott was looking at... She froze as she stared into the eyes of the man named Logan. He was... different from the rest to say the least and she couldn't help but notice how the fur on the back of her neck started to bristle. Logan seemed to notice this and he surveyed Greer from head to tail with careful ice blue eyes before abruptly going back to reading the papers.
A silence settled over the dinning hall but Greer didn't notice as she was still fascinated by the man named Logan and what on earth just happened...
"That was really... weird..." Greer thought confused before noticing that Scott's hand had remained outstretched the entire time. She stared at the outstretched limb... and then subtly at her own-clawed appendage... Greer felt her stomach clench, but not wanting to be rude; she stretched out her hand and shook Scott's slowly, praying her claws wouldn't accidently harm him. They didn't, but Greer couldn't help but notice how he had squirmed ever so slightly as their palms made contact. Quickly she released his hand.
" Nice to meet you all." She mumbled before lowering her head, her eyes refusing to meet anybody.
Thankfully, before Greer could feel even worse, Jean intervened quickly and offered her a seat between her and a now less enthusiastic Kurt. Taking her seat, and looking at the sullen boy next to her, Greer suddenly felt ...really awful for growling at him... and getting him into trouble...
"I'm such a j***..." she thought guiltily. After all, he was only excited about finding someone who was... like him... and from what she could tell no one else in the mansion was... It must be really... frightening... Not knowing who was afraid of you and who wasn't just by your looks alone... Greer lowered her head. She could definitely relate to that. It had only been a day... and already she understood... Taking a deep breath, she turned to face him and did her best to try and conceal the fear in her voice.
" Friends?" She asked nervously while offering her hand. She heaved a sigh of immense relief in her head when Kurt grinned back devilishly at her and clasped his three fingered hand within hers.
"Friends." He nodded before declaring to the whole table.
" See? Chicks dig the fuzzy dude".