A/N: Here is the seventh chaper. Enjoy it. It's a pretty long one.
Disclaimer: So... I was told to write one of these. I do not own X-men: Evo. I am not that awesome.
7.
The next morning found Wolverine and Ravyn together in the danger room. With all the action and drama that had happened during the last few days the last thing Logan wanted to do was have a session with the instigator. Earlier that morning, he had driven Storm to the train station, where she was going to take an train to Washington D.C. She hoped to convince congress that mutants and humans could live together in harmony. Though he didn't harbor any special feelings for Storm, Logan found himself greatly missing her presence in the mansion.
Logan had just finished showing Ravyn around the danger room; every motion she made or word she said greatly annoyed him. "Since you have already been 'trained', the professor created a scenario that will show us what you could do."
"Alright. But what's my mission?" Ravyn was wearing a loose-fitting black t-shirt and comfortable, short jean shorts. She had put her hair in its customary French braid, making sure there wasn't a strand of hair in her face. She could tell that Logan saw her outfit as uncomfortable and inappropriate for the danger room, which he treated with some form of sacredness.
"To survive."
"Wait. What?" Ravyn chased after Logan, but he closed the door to the danger room before she reached him. She heard the drone of a machine before the lights in the danger room dimmed and the room was transformed from a large open room to the grounds of a city. Ravyn recognized the layout as the alleyways of Bayville. Reaching behind her back and pulling out her gun, she entered the maze of streets.
Calming her frayed nerves, Ravyn picked an alleyway and walked its length. Mist shrouded her vision, and she hugged the wall, keeping her eyes and ears open. This test looked too real.
Hearing the sound, Ravyn shot at the figure moving behind her. She heard a satisfying thump as the figure collapsed. Ravyn approached the body and turned it over. The figure she killed didn't have any weapons on him, or any facial features, which freaked her out. She stared, partially hypnotized at the dummy's limp body.
Suddenly, something grabbed her from behind. Giving a gasp of surprise, Ravyn kicked her attacker in the groin. After he rolled off her, she shot him in the head. Another faceless dummy stared up at her. Looking above his body, Ravyn made out three figures coming steadily closer to her, all armed: one of them carried a gun, while the other two carried knives.
Ravyn hit the ground as a bullet whizzed over her. She slid across the rough concrete floor and shot the leg of the dummy with the gun. As the dummy was still falling, a bullet buried into his head and claimed his life.
The dummy's two companions were already close to Ravyn when she shot her gun. Leaping to her right, she grabbed the neck of one of the faceless creatures, and, while using him as a shield, fatally shot the other dummy. As a bullet exited her gun, another bullet buried itself into her inhuman shield. The dummy she was holding collapsed, and Ravyn faced the direction the bullet came from. She could barely see three yards in front of her because of the heavy mist which settled around her.
An eerie silence fell over the danger room. Out of nowhere, one dummy holding a gun launched itself out of the mist. A steady bullet brought him down. Rushing to the lifeless lump, Ravyn ripped the gun out of his hands. She sprayed the mist with bullets, hearing thump after thump as she brought down countless attackers. There were many of them. They were climbing up the buildings and rushing towards her on every side. Ravyn heard a rhythm of clicks as her gun signaled the end of its usefulness. The assassin jumped behind boxes and crates in time to hear and feel bullets hitting the wood of her makeshift shield. They were getting closer.
Ravyn peeked from behind the crates and fired her shotgun. The mist had disappeared to reveal fifty dummies, all armed with knives and guns, quickly approaching her. They were ten yards away when she heard the dooming click of her shotgun.
Muttering an expletive under her breath, she threw the gun away, reached behind her, grabbing her knife, and charged into the fray. Quickly, she was forced to jump onto her side, dodging gunfire. She felt one bullet graze her side, but didn't feel the pain. She slid under one dummy, cutting into his groin with her knife. She was close enough to all of her attackers for them to render their guns close to useless. She kicked the chest of one dummy into the crowd behind him as she sliced the throat of his friend beside him. She kept turning, now pretty much surrounded on all sides, laying corpse above corpse, not leaving her side unprotected for long.
It was only a few seconds before she found herself gasping for breath. Her steps became uneasy from exertion and she turned slowly, trying to keep her flanks defended. Through her peripheral vision, she caught a movement to her right. She turned to find a long cutlass through her chest. She closed her eyes tightly and a tear squeezed out. She failed.
Ravyn slowly opened her eyes, feeling the absence of pain. Wolverine stood in front of her, slowly clapping his hands mockingly. The alley and all of the bodies had disappeared, leaving the danger room as spotless at it had been when she had entered it. The cutlass had disappeared, leaving no tear in her clothes or skin.
"Not once did you use your power, kid. What's wrong with you?"
The sweaty girl collapsed to the floor, panting. At Wolverine's words, she looked up at him defiantly. "What was the point of that?" She gasped out.
"I wanted to see what you could do."
"And what did you see?"
"Recklessness. You shot anything that moved. The professor had put in civilians in this test, and you killed most of them. Half of the things you killed weren't trying to hurt you! You failed, kid. Bad."
Ravyn flinched. She had never failed any test or mission. She shot back angrily. "So what? I failed because I shot civilians who I could heal later?"
Wolverine bent down until he was eye level with Ravyn. "You know how much it hurts to heal someone. You are literally taking the pain out of someone's body and inflicting it on yourself."
"I have trust and respect in my power-"
"You don't know anything about respect, kid. You will never respect your mutant ability until you respect yourself... I should know." Claws shot out of Wolverine's knuckles after he spoke. Ravyn felt an unusual feeling of admiration mingled with anger at her teacher as she looked at him again.
She couldn't argue with him. He was right. As long as her family, the only people she loved, were safe, she didn't care what happened to her. Her employers gave her the most difficult missions, knowing that she would jump at the opportunity to gain more money for the people she had to protect.
Wolverine saw her bottom lip tremble in anger and defeat. "Wash up. You're done here. You will resume training with the others tomorrow.
Ravyn lost no time in storming out of the danger room, but instead of obeying Logan's orders, Ravyn headed straight to the institute's gym. She had spent most of her time there yesterday, after escaping from Storm's garden, punching a large red boxing sack until her knuckles bled then healed themselves.
Upon entering the gym, Ravyn found that she was not alone. Kurt was high above her on the rafters, swinging from one to the other, doing complicated acrobatic flips. She had not spoken a word to him since their talk in Storm's garden, where she almost told him the one thing that she knew she couldn't tell anyone. What scared her was how easy it was to give up her secret to him, and since then, she had made it a point to stay as far away from the blue devil as possible.
Kurt saw her looking up, amazed at his acrobatic feats, and hung upside-down from his tail. "Gutentalk!" He was shirtless, and Ravyn found herself staring at his well-toned muscles.
"Uh-sorry. I didn't know someone was in here. I was just gonna- you know what? Never mind." Ravyn muttered, turning to leave. She heard a muffled gun shot behind her and saw Kurt materialize in front of her. She jumped back in horror and tripped over a mat, falling ungracefully on her back.
"Sorry. Logan always tells me not to do that." He grabbed her limp arm and pulled her up.
"Well, maybe you should listen to him." She immediately regretted speaking when she saw Kurt's hurt facial expression. Besides Jean, who was more or less in a coma, he was the only one who tried to reach out to her and get to know her better. As he was turning away, she reached out and grabbed his shoulder, feeling his velvety fur. "Wait."
She saw his ear twitch before he turned back to face her. As his eyes met with hers, Ravyn felt her legs grow weak and her brain stop working. "Um-look… I didn't mean that. I just-It's just… instinctive…"
Kurt said nothing, but continued to gaze into Ravyn's eyes as if trying to figure her out. Finally, he spoke. "You don't have to leave if you don't want to." He said before nodding to the red punching sack.
Reluctantly, Ravyn took her place beside the punching bag as Kurt continued jumping fancily from rafter to rafter. She threw punch after punch into the bag's soft body, but, more than once, Ravyn found herself taking quick glances up to the rafters in time to see Kurt do a complicated flip. She could feel his gaze on her at the times when she threw in a kick or would punch the bag far away from her. She smirked to herself. Were they trying to impress each other?
Ravyn was the first to stop the cycle by moving away from the boxing sack to get a drink of water. She gently jerked her head to one side, inviting Kurt to join her. She heard the familiar muffled gunshot and felt the air beside her get displaced as he reappeared. He was covered in sweat and panting heavily, but still smiled as downed a bottle of water.
"Where did you learn those tricks?" Ravyn's voice sounded foreign in the spacious gymnasium.
"Germany. I was in a circus," he said, avoiding eye contact with his peer.
Ravyn's mind worked quickly, picking up his untold story from his body language. Germany. Circus. He was in the freak show. Was possibly maltreated while there, but still loves what they taught him. Aloud, she said, "Well. You're a really good acrobat."
"Danke. It comes in handy sometimes." He smirked at her. "You just came from a session with Logan, didn't you?"
"Yeah. How did you know?"
"I could tell by the way the punching bag took a pounding."
For the first time, Kurt saw Ravyn smile. He could tell it was a while since she had actually smiled at someone. "You smile nice." He blurted out. Ravyn immediately whipped her head to stare at him strangely, the smile gone. She didn't look angry, but she looked confused; almost self-conscious.
"Um… Gracias. It comes in handy sometimes." Her smile briefly returned to her face, but quickly vanished when she turned her attention to the window. A car was parked outside the gates to the Xavier institute. Ravyn shook her head, ruling it to her paranoia, and turned her attention back to Kurt.
Still slightly mortified, Kurt had turned away from Ravyn to gather up his things, revealing his back to her. On his back were long, snake-like, stripes which didn't seem to have a pattern. Scars. Some were recent, no doubt from his fight with Sabertooth, but some were old and permanently hardened into his flesh. There were so many of them. Ravyn didn't know a body could carry that many wounds and still be able to function properly.
Ravyn could hear Logan's words to her ringing in her ears, but she still reached out to touch and heal Kurt's scars. She was inches away from feeling his fur when Kurt's tail shot up and twisted her arm, gently but firmly, behind her back. His eyes burrowed into hers. "Don't."
"I wasn't-"
"No, Ravyn!" Kurt's tail released her arm. Ravyn was only able to stretch it out for a second before Kurt grabbed both her arms with his three-fingered hands, forcing Ravyn to stare into his golden eyes. She could have easily twisted out of his grasp, but a part of her didn't want to. Once Ravyn looked up at him, Kurt continued, "I know what you were trying to do."
"Heal you? Why is everyone telling me not to use my ability? Why am I here if no one wants my help?" Ravyn exploded.
"So you're going to heal me, then what? Are you going to writhe on the floor while I celebrate ?"
Ravyn stared wildly at Kurt, tears building up in her eyes, that she didn't let fall. She didn't even show that she had tears threatening to fall down her face. "Pain is the only thing that makes me feel like a human."
Kurt was silent. He didn't know what to say to her because there were times when he felt the exact same way. For the longest time, his most prized possession was hologram watch. Whenever he had it on, he relished the time when no one judged him or ran away from him in horror.
Hearing someone approaching the door, Ravyn pulled herself out of Kurt's grip just as the door opened. Rogue stared from the ex-assassin to her step brother, sweaty and panting, glaring at each other. "Am I interrupting something-?"
"No. I was just leaving." Ravyn walked away from Kurt. She nodded to Rogue in greeting before exiting the gym.
"What was that all about? I could hear your voices from the-"
"Rogue…"
"Fine. I'll leave you to your sulking," Rogue said, throwing up her arms in mock surrender before closing the door. Turning, she saw Ravyn staring curiously through a nearby window. "You okay? Is Kurt being annoying, again?"
"Can you read the license plate of that car for me?"
Rogue looked at Ravyn strangely, but took a look out the window. "643….NGP… or B… I can't-"
"I thought so."
"Um… Excuse me?"
Ravyn ignored her. "Where's the professor?"
"Ravyn, look at me." Rogue grabbed the younger girl's shoulders. "What is going on?"
"Nothing. An old acquaintance is just paying me a visit." Rogue noticed a shadow crept over Ravyn's face. The younger girl's gaze returned to the parked car. "I've gotta find the professor." With that, she sprinted past Rogue and disappeared down the hallway.
Professor Xavier was silently sitting in his wheelchair doing paperwork when Ravyn barged through the door to his office.
"There's an assassin watching the institute."
The Professor took a quick glance at Ravyn before returning his gaze to the window. "I know. Is he a friend of yours?"
"None of them are my friends."
The Professor turned his wheelchair to face the institute's newest student. "Ravyn, what do you want from me?"
"I want to speak with him."
"So how can I help you?"
"Turn off the alarms." The professor stared at her with a confused expression. "Your fountain has guns. There are three cameras in this room alone and even more in the foyer."
"I guess being an assassin has its perks," the Professor chuckled. He pressed a button to the side of his desk. "Go."
Ravyn left the professor and stopped at the front door. Through the clear glass doors of the institute, she was able to clearly see the silhouette of a woman in the passenger seat.
She slipped out the back door of the institute and tediously climbed up the high brick walls that surrounded the property of the Xavier Institute for talented youth. Calmly, she approached the parked car from behind. There were two people in the car: a man and a woman. The man had his hand out the window, holding a lighted cigarette. The woman was on her cellphone, obviously not paying attention to the mansion or anything around her. Who hired the two idiots to spy on me? She thought. She bent towards the passenger-side window and tapped the glass.
Two sets of sky blue eyes fell on her. She didn't have to wait long before the woman rolled down her window, an annoyed expression on her unattractive face. She had short blonde hair, cut to her ears. Her bright blue eyes were the only thing likeable on her face. Her nose was slightly turned up, making her look like she constantly smelled something bad. Her eyes, nose, and mouth all seemed to be all close together at the center of her face.
Her brother, who sat beside her, smoking a cigarette, was not much more attractive than his older sister. His hair always had a buzz cut which accented his thick neck. His eyes were deep inside his skull and his nose was long and pointed. He stared at Ravyn with extreme disgust. And flexed his muscles, the only good quality he had on his bulky body.
"You may want to change cars next time you stalk a house," Ravyn stated. She laughed wryly. "I should have known the bosses would send the two dumbest assassins to come and find me. "
"We weren't hired by the bosses, Elle. We were privately hired," The girl said, getting out of the car. She wore and a white shirt, which she had tucked into her long, tight, black pants. Her brother got out of the car and approached the two girls.
"By who?..." Ravyn paused as she noticed the heavy built man get uncomfortably close to her. "Hello, Chaz."
"Elle." The man said in greeting.
"Isn't it obvious?" his sister said in her annoyingly high-pitched voice.
"Connor? Why would he hire you two?"
"He had no one else to hire. Plus, we had… useful information for him," the woman reached up and brushed Ravyn's hair in a motherly fashion. "Your scar is gone."
"I know." Ravyn whacked the woman's hand away from her face. "Well? What do you want from me?"
"Tell her, Lucy," Chaz said.
Lucy spoke quickly. "You left on a mission and never came back. So, Connor freaked out…"
"I know. He called me."
Lucy continued as if Ravyn didn't speak. "We were driving yesterday when we saw some a man carrying you away from some mutant fight. There were two cars and a levitating girl. The man threw you into a van and the van took off. We followed it back here. I then confronted Connor and forced him to pay us ten thousand dollars for your safe return."
"I'm not going back." Ravyn lifted her hand to her ear and removed her hidden earpiece. "You could go tell the bosses and Connor to go fuck themselves." She threw the earpiece at their feet.
Ravyn saw Chaz's hand curl up into a bone-breaking fist. His sister gently put her arm on the mutant's shoulder. "Elle, honey. He loves you."
"I don't give a damn about him. Does anyone else know I'm here?"
The siblings did not speak. Good. They haven't told anyone. Idiots.
"Come on, Elle. We're going to take you home." Lucy grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the car.
"No." Ravyn pulled herself out of Lucy's grip. "You two, get out of here. I don't ever want to see you again."
She had barely finished the sentence when Chaz pulled out a gun from his coat pocket. "Get in the damn car, Elle."
Instead of answering, Ravyn reached behind her for her gun. It wasn't there. The girl's mind raced. She thought back to what she did that day before realizing that she had left it in the danger room. She slowly raised her hands. Chaz chuckled at her helplessness as his sister, Lucy, patted her down. Ravyn prayed that the Professor was watching the scene from his office window. She turned and found to her dismay that the hedges covered up the entire area that the scene was taking place.
Ravyn quickly grabbed Lucy and shoved her into her brother. She then sprinted for the gun, which fell from Chaz's hand..
Chaz quickly untangled himself from his sister and grabbed Ravyn's arm, and, using all the strength in his one arm, threw her against his car. Before the girl could recover, he began pummeling her with well-placed blows.
Ravyn was on the defensive. The only thing going through her mind was the way to block the next punch Chaz aimed at her. She knew that she could easily handle Chaz or Lucy any day, but, now that they were working together as a team and she had forgotten her gun, she knew she didn't have a chance. She felt bruises forming on her arms as she blocked blow after blow. Chaz lifted her off the hood of his car and held her up for his sister to land a punch on her jaw. Stars flashed across Ravyn's vision. She tasted the metallic taste of blood and for a moment, she lay limp in Chaz's arms.
Lucy's voice brought her senses back to reality. "Elle, we are going to ask you nicely one more time. Do you want to voluntarily get in the car, or do we have to force you?"
Ravyn struggled to stand. She was tense all over and forced her legs to lock in place. She waited for the tingling sensation of her mutant ability, but it didn't come. She faced Chaz, who stared at her with a triumphant glare. She spat her blood onto his face.
She watched as Chaz's face turned nearly as red as the blood on his face. "Chaz, no!" His sister screamed, getting in between him and Ravyn. "He wants her alive." Her brother roared in anger as he tore his sister away from Ravyn and threw her to the ground. He then grabbed Ravyn's shoulders and rammed her hard against the driver's door of his car. Ravyn felt something snap in her back before she crumpled to a heap beside the car. She lay limp on the ground as Chaz took his time to reach her, relishing every moment. She felt a familiar tingling on the surfaces of her back, arms, and mouth. Her relief was only for a second. Chaz, having reached the motionless girl, put his heavy boot on Ravyn's chest, slowly breaking her ribcage and puncturing her lungs.
Ravyn knew Chaz. She had worked with him for two years, and had saved his worthless life thousands of times. She knew that inside his pants leg, he kept a spare knife. Grabbing his ankle with one hand, she tried to relieve the crushing sensation that was quickly spreading throughout her body. The other hand slid deftly up his pants leg until it felt something sharp and metal. Flicking her wrist, she expertly cut her attacker's leg with the knife.
Chaz bellowed in pain, and his foot left its place on Ravyn's chest, and was immediately replaced with the tingling sensation. In Ravyn's hand was a three-inch pocket knife. Quickly rolling onto her feet she grabbed the screaming Chaz and forced him to his knees and slit his throat. The sound emitted from his mouth turned from a pure note to a gurgled mess as he quickly choked.
Lucy screamed in horror and grabbed her brother's gun. Tears poured out of her eyes, blurring her vision, making her unable to aim her weapon. Ravyn used her momentary blindness to her advantage and stabbed her in the heart. Lucy dropped the gun, and stared, shocked, straight into Ravyn's hazel eyes. Her hands went around the younger girl's neck for support, before slowly sliding down, beside her brother, joining him in death.
The fight, which had taken less than two minutes, seemed to Ravyn to have taken place over two hours. The murderer sank to the ground, trembling uncontrollably. She had killed many people, but she had never killed anyone as gruesomely as she did to her ex-coworkers. Fat tears of regret and extreme shock fell down her cheeks as she gently cradled Lucy's face. "Please don't die…" she muttered over and over, trying to suck out the death from Lucy's face.
That was when Professor Xavier entered the scene. "Ravyn…"
"I didn't want them to die." Ravyn muttered, barely audible.
"It's time for you to choose sides, Ravyn. You could leave now. We won't look for you again… Or you could continue your training with us… but… if you choose to stay with us, we cannot afford to have any more of this."
The whole time the Professor spoke, Ravyn had dragged herself upright and put herself to work on stuffing the two siblings into the trunk of the car. "I'll be back in an hour."
Ravyn got into the driver's seat. The professor wheeled himself to her bloodstained window. Leaning his head thoughtfully against his hands he spoke one word. "Where?"
"Putting my past behind me."
Ravyn drove away. If she had taken a glance back, she would have noticed that, in the place of the professor, was a blue skinned mutant with bright red hair.
Branches scratched the car on every side as Ravyn returned to the woods where Kurt had teleported her to when they had first met. In the bright daylight, the woods had a foreboding sense of mystery and intrigue. Most of the trees had no branches close to the ground, adding to the mysticism of the area. Ravyn knew where she was going, but at the moment, was driving wherever she could. Many times she passed clearings that could have been where she and Kurt spent the day yelling at each other, but, quickly glancing over to scan each clearing, she never saw the gun she had recklessly tossed aside. Finally, through a bit of luck, she found her destination: the cliff.
After putting the car in neutral, Ravyn exited the car and walked behind it. She held tightly to Lucy's prized possession as she took her position behind the car. Lucy's cellphone seemed to retain the warmth of its previous owner's hands. Ravyn dialed the one number she had dialed many times in her past.
"You find her?" a male voice seeped through the cellphone.
"You disgust me."
"Elle?"
"Sending the two idiots after me? The hell do you think you are?"
"Where are you? Are you alright? Listen-"
"No you listen to me, Connor," Ravyn spat out the name, "I can take care of myself. For the first time in my freakin' life I feel safe and you think it's your responsibility to destroy that? Leave. Me. Alone."
"Wait-what? Elle-"
"You will never see or hear from me again, got that?"
"Wait, Elle-! Ravyn hung up on him before she could hear any more. She peered down into the small canyon that the cliff overlooked. There was a large river flowing between the two cliffs moving rapidly over jagged rocks. The mutant took a deep breath of the crisp autumn air, feeling as though a burden had been lifted off her shoulders. Giving a loud, hysterical laugh, Ravyn genuinely smiled at the cloudy sky… until the phone rang. The obnoxious Valkyrie tune played over and over as Connor tried to get back in contact with her.
Taking a step back for more force, Ravyn flung the cellphone into the canyon. The Valkyrie tune faded into silence before crashing into the ground ten seconds later. A light drizzle of rain began to pour as Elle moved again to the back of the car. Placing one foot on the trunk, she gave a strong push to the vehicle, sending it toppling over the cliff. Stiffly turning on her heal, Ravyn left without taking a glance back.
By the time she had returned to the Xavier institute, the sky had turned into a dull, wet dark. The light drizzle had promptly turned into a full-blown thunderstorm when Ravyn left the forest, and she was eager to get into her warm bed. The Xavier institute loomed ahead of her, casting a welcoming light on the pavement. The girl sloshed through a mud puddle before reaching the ominous gates. Finding them unlocked, she silently slipped through the gate and cautiously made her way through the front yard, being on guard for the mansion's unique alarm system.
Her reflexion in the doorway stared back critically at her. The rain had washed away the bloodstains from her skin and, thanks to a short stop at a friendly gas station, she was able to wash and brush through her hair in the cramped bathroom. Wrapping her arms around her cold body, she rang the doorbell. She didn't have to wait long before someone opened the door.
Logan stared at Ravyn for a moment. He hadn't seen her since their session in the danger room and no one had told him that she had left. He had assumed that she purposefully missed lunch and dinner in order to shun him. She stood, lighted by the dim outdoor lantern, arms wrapped around her shivering body. She was dripping wet, pools of water forming quickly at her feet. "Are you gonna let me in?"
"When did you go-"
"Ravyn, there you are. Can I speak with you privately in my office?" Professor Xavier appeared behind Logan and motioned for Ravyn to step inside.
Although, the inside of the institute was considerably warmer than the crisp autumn outdoors, Ravyn still shivered in her wet clothing as she stepped into the foyer. Muttering something moodily under his breath, he retreated into the kitchen.
The rest of the remaining x-men, who had just finished eating dinner in the dining hall, entered the foyer. Immediately their talking and laughing ceased as they took in their new comrade's appearance. All of them had assumed that Ravyn was having a mood swing in her room.
Ravyn entered the Professor's office and locked the door behind her.
"Well?" the professor asked, motioning to a chair.
"I'm done with the life of an assassin. I took your advice. Now I want to learn."
The professor didn't remember giving her any advice recently, but didn't let that fact bother him.
"Then you have to live by our rules. You've got to truly leave that world behind you. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. You will join the rest of the students in a danger room session this weekend," the professor handed her a brown bag. "Here. You will need to wear this. It's the x-men uniform."
Ravyn peered into the bag. "There's no way I'm wearing-" She stopped and looked at the professor, who gave her an unsympathetic look. Ravyn rolled her eyes and responded. "Fine."