A/N: Thanks to Kittyxo for the amazing review :) Lancitty is incoming with the next chapter! Trigger warnings for brief reference to bullying (Luna) and parental death via memory (Amara).
The only thing worse than being a new student was being a new transfer student six weeks into the semester.
Luna was decidedly pessimistic – and envious of her roommate, who stayed at the Institute because her 'situation' hadn't been 'resolved' yet - before she got crammed into the back of the X-Van with three other people. And with the way that Bobby drove, it got even more crowded because Jamie was sitting right next to her. He multiplied every time Bobby swerved around a corner – and she ended up with one clone sprawled over her lap at the intersection by the parking lot.
Luna grabbed her backpack off the floorboard and pushed her way out of the van as soon as it parked. The six of them walked across the parking lot together, but she wasn't paying attention to them. She was watching the other students – the humans – until she reached the steps outside the building.
Bayville High didn't look that different from her old school. Over breakfast, Kurt told her that she could wear her holowatch if she wanted to. It would help her blend in with the others – they were all mutants, but she was the only one whose powers changed her appearance.
"Is that what you did?" Luna asked him, studying his blue furry face and yellow eyes.
"For a while," Kurt admitted around a mouthful of pancake. "It's one thing to be a mutant, but another…"
"To look like one?"
"Ja." He jabbed a fork in her direction agreeably. "We are always on display." Luna thought that was true, but she didn't go upstairs to get her holowatch. She knew she'd be outed as a mutant the minute she stepped out of the car with the other X-Men, so what was the point in hiding? She didn't come all the way to New York to hide.
"I'm not afraid of them." That's what she said to Kurt. She'd dealt with worse at her old school when she was the only mutant she knew. Her first week back – before she knew what she could do and it was only her looks that changed – some kids cornered her after seventh period in the parking lot. A couple boys and a girl beat her up. Her teeth were okay but her nose had to be reset and her face was swollen for days afterwards.
McCoy told her that the X-Men avoided using their powers in public as much as possible. The Institute's relationship to the schoolboard was tenuous, and they didn't need any incidents to give momentum to the anti-mutant movement. People had been throwing around the idea of a mutant ban for the past two years.
So Luna wasn't looking to pick a fight, but she was still surprised that it didn't come to that. People glared, and they whispered to each other, sometimes in earshot – but no one got in her face. No one threatened her. She shared two classes with Jamie and ended up sitting with him in both because none of the humans would partner with them. At lunch, Amara invited her to sit outside. The X-Men ate together. Luna didn't feel like one of them, but it was… nice to be treated like she was.
After her last class of the day - Algebra II - Luna met the others in front of the X-Van. One cramped car ride later, she walked through the garage door behind Sam and ran into his back when Kurt startled them with a bamf. Prefacing his announcement with a genial, 'don't shoot the messenger', he gave them their training schedules for the week. Luna was told to report to the Danger Room with Bobby, Amara, and Ray.
"When do we have time to do our homework?" Luna asked the blond mutant as she stepped into the elevator. Training in the morning, six hours of school, and training in the afternoon.
"Just be glad you've still got homework," Ray replied wryly, "When you're out of school, you have to spend the whole day avoiding Scott."
"You can go to college," Amara said, tugging at her gold gloves until they fit symmetrically. "Like Kitty. She has classes twice a week."
I'm not Kitty, Luna thought as the elevator reached the basement. Bobby opened the doors to the Danger Room. It gleamed in different shades of silvery metal. She shifted uncomfortably when the lights changed and Magneto spoke from the control room. "You will be practicing evasive maneuvers. Your mission is to recover this." It was a golden metallic sphere that rolled out of the wall and levitated into the air. It nearly touched the ceiling where it hovered under Magneto's control. "Begin."
"This is a piece of cake," Bobby insisted, turning to face the rest of 'his' team with a grin. "I got it." He rubbed his hands together and aimed for the floor. A whiteish blue light burst out of his hands and formed ice on the ground which Bobby started to shape into a craggy incline. He was building a bridge to the floating sphere above their heads.
Suddenly a panel opened in the wall to their left and two drones - they looked like spiders - unfolded spindly metal legs and skittered onto the floor, swiveling glowing red sensors towards the mutants. "Move!" Ray yelled as the whistle of a laser cut through the air, aimed straight for them. Luna scrambled backwards and the other three dove forward, Amara pushing Bobby's head down. It broke his concentration and he pivoted towards the drones. He froze one while Ray electrocuted the other.
A machine swung down from the ceiling, flat, about the width of a couch cushion. It released a series of spinning discs and Amara's hands lit up. She flung two fiery balls of lava in succession and took out two of the three discs, while Ray shorted out a third. Luna hit the ground covering her head with her hands to avoid the fourth - and it should've crashed into the wall. But instead it stopped in mid-air and swung back towards her, cutting through the middle of Bobby's ice bridge so that half of it tumbled to the floor and shattered. Luna barely got on her feet fast enough to clear the razor-sharp edges.
"Iceman!" Bobby turned at the sound of his codename and froze the disc in mid-air.
Suddenly, the Danger Room floor split into two levels - and Luna let out a cry of surprise as she lost her step. The X-Men were separated. Bobby and Ray were on the higher level, in the middle, while she and Amara ended up on a platform five feet below.
A tremor nearly knocked the girls off their feet, and Amara was the first to notice the rumbling things rolling towards them. There were giant metal balls that had been released into the gap they stood in. "Lunatica, run!" The two of them bolted in the opposite direction while Amara tried to slow the spheres with strategically-aimed fireballs thrown over her shoulder. Luna made the mistake of glancing back so she didn't see the six-inch metal wall that rose out of the floor in front of her.
Luna smacked right into it and staggered backwards, pressing a hand to her forehead and squeezing her eyes shut briefly. Her vision cleared and she ran her hands over the metal, gasping, "No, no, no," under her breath like a chant. There was no way through it, or over it and she looked up for help - all she saw was Berzerker being slung around, snagged in a massive claw fixed to the end of some kind of serpentine metallic arm. The boys had their hands full. "Amara- Magma!" Luna smashed her hands into the wall angrily.
Amara caught up to her and stopped short of the wall. "Hold on," she said, clenching her hands into fists. The flames engulfed her fingers again.
"I'm not going anywhere," Luna retorted testily, and she spun around and pressed her back against the metal. Amara started to melt the wall, pressing her hands into the metal until it began to give away. "Come on, come on."
"That's not helping," Amara replied, "It's working. I just need a minute."
"We don't have a minute!" Madre de dios. Luna glimpsed one of the misshapen balls rolling towards them. It was a little slower but would be no less effective at turning them into mutant pancakes. Amara was still focused on the wall but she couldn't melt through it in time.
Luna turned to her and ripped off one glove. She touched Amara's cheek and the two girls gasped in unison.
A little girl in a purple sundress with dark brown hair plaited down her back was standing in the doorway of a hospital room. Her housekeeper - Luna instinctively knew that's who the older woman was - held her by the shoulders so that she stood still.
There was a woman in the hospital bed - her mother - and the doctor had just turned off the respirator. They had hoped she would start to breathe on her own, but she didn't. She was dying. The doctor stood to the side. The grandmother had to be forcibly pulled away from the body because she was screaming at the doctor, and pushing at the tubes as if that would help her breath better. She wasn't breathing anymore. The father leaned over the bed and his face spasmed, and he took her by the shoulders and said a name over and over and over again. He was crying and speaking rapidly, pleading with his wife - Luna didn't understand what was being said, it was in Portuguese, but she knew what was happening because the little girl knew what was happening. The housekeeper rushed forward to comfort the father, and she left the little girl in the doorway. She forgot about Amara. Everyone forgot about Amara. No one came to comfort her. No one steered her away from the sight of her father collapsing in a strangled, wordless scream of grief. She watched with wide, watery eyes and did not move until a nurse gently pushed her aside.
The moment seemed to last forever but in reality, it was only a few seconds. Amara crumpled against the wall. Luna's entire body trembled with the energy she'd siphoned from her teammate and she sprinted towards the metal balls, crashing into the first, digging her fingers into the grooves left behind by Amara's powers to pull herself up. She jumped onto the ball and dangled off the side briefly until she could reach the ledge with one hand. Then she pulled herself up, kicking off and sending the two balls rolling in the opposite direction where they rammed into the half-melted wall and stilled.
"Magma! Magma, are you okay?" That was Bobby.
"Magma is currently indisposed. Complete your mission." Magneto's voice rang out over the Danger Room intercom.
Bobby traded glances with Ray and with the way his jaw set, Luna could tell he wasn't happy about the orders. "Berzerker, Lunatica, watch my back," he said, turning his attention to what was left of his ice bridge. He started to reform it and behind him, a massive weapon emerged from the floor. Luna ran towards the machine and Ray threw a bolt of electricity at the sensor, disorienting the laser. But instead of collapsing in on itself, the gun began to shoot energy at random. Luna tried to take it apart at the base, and she threw a punch at the joint where the metal arm bent to give the sensor full access to the room. Her fist left a dent in the external paneling, so she hit it again hoping to pop some screws loose. On the third hit, she glimpsed exposed wiring underneath the badly damaged steel exterior.
"Berzerker!" she called out to Ray, and pointed out the wires. One jolt of electricity was all it took to short out the mechanism.
Then Bobby shouted, "I got it!" He was standing on the top of a very unsteady ice structure, but he had the gold sphere in hand.
The Danger Room session was over. The lights changed again, the damaged machinery withdrew, and the floors leveled out. That's when Luna saw that Amara had barely moved. She had drawn her knees to her chest, and she was crying.
"What the hell happened?" Ray demanded, but he didn't wait for an answer before jogging over to Amara to help her up. Bobby was right behind him. Luna followed the three of them but she didn't say anything. The speed and strength were waning now, she'd spent the energy she'd absorbed from that memory. There was nothing to say.