A/N: Hey, Everyone! I hope you had a very Merry Christmas! Here is the eighth chaper. I really wanted to get this in before 2012. This is also pretty long. Enjoy, and I hope you all have a great New Year!
Disclaimer: So... I was told to write one of these. I do not own X-men: Evo. I am not that awesome.
8.
It was only five in the afternoon on a Saturday when Ravyn found herself in the tight, spandex of the suit and sitting cross-legged in front of the danger room door. The red and black light suit hugged every curve of her body. She crossed her arms self-consciously over her chest. The week had gone by without incident. She stayed out of the way of most of the mutants and they did their best to stay away from her. The only people she talked to were the Professor and Jean, who she visited in the infirmary. Slowly, she had learned about the lifestyle of mutants from Jean, while the Professor worked privately with her, teaching her about the development of her ability.
She also talked with Evan from time to time, watching him as he showed off his skateboarding tricks. In turn, she taught him how to shoot a gun, which usually ended up with her becoming frustrated with Evan's lack of sharpshooting skill and leaving him.
Her relationship with Kurt puzzled her. It had become a custom that they would both go to the gymnasium at the same time, practice in their own corners for an hour, then have an uncomfortable conversation before leaving. As she practiced throwing punches at the punching sack, Ravyn found herself taking longer glances at Kurt, silently admiring his physique and talent. Something about him intrigued her… but only in the gym. Kurt learned the hard way to never talk or acknowledge her presence outside the sacred gymnasium.
"I never thought you'd be the first to be at the door of the danger room," Evan said, finding Ravyn in her position in front of the door.
Ravyn smirked. "Trust me, I never thought that either."
There was a pause as Evan bent down to tie his shoes. "So… you're staying for good now?"
"I guess."
Evan took a seat beside her and looked her over. "No gun?"
Ravyn shook her head and plucked at her costume. She had felt an unbelievable calm while talking with Evan, which disappeared when Kurt entered the hallway, looking quizzically at the two of them. "Hi," Ravyn muttered, quickly averting her eyes from his.
"You ready for the danger room, Nightcrawler?" Evan said, oblivious of the uncomfortable air between Kurt and Ravyn.
"Yeah. Spent some time in the practice room." Kurt tried to catch Ravyn's eyes but failed.
Kitty and Rogue both entered together. Kitty animatedly telling a story in hushed tones while Rogue pretended to listen to her. Her eyes were glazed over and her mind was obviously elsewhere.
"Hey Rogue," Kurt winked at her, a teasing tone dominating his voice. "Did you get a call from Remy yet?"
Rogue gave Kurt a death glare as Evan's face broke into a grin. Kitty glared at the two boys. Ravyn's eyes narrowed in recognition and disappointment, which wasn't lost on Rogue.
"What was that look, Ravyn? You know him?"
Ravyn found five pairs of eyes on her, Wolverine entering just in time to hear Rogue's statement. "The theif? We worked together. Once." Ravyn stated vaguely.
Rogue crossed her arms and looked at Ravyn curiously. "And?"
"He was nice. Very gentlemanly," the girl lied. She could tell that Rogue, as well as everyone else, weren't buying into her cheap, lazy attempt at a lie. She spoke, anxious to ruin Remy's reputation. "He needed help stealing this artifact."
"Artifact? What was it?" Kitty asked skeptically.
"It is not part of my job to ask my clients questions." She spit out the word 'clients' with disdain. "All I knew was that I was to kill whoever got in his way… quietly. I did my side of the job. He got whatever it was he wanted and promptly left me to find my own way out. Needless to say, I didn't get paid."
"And you never saw him again?" Evan asked.
A wry smile appeared on the assassin's face. "Oh no. I see him now and then. Incognito. He's smart. I'll give him that. Keeps dodging my attempts to kill him."
Rogue looked unbelievingly at Ravyn. "He's not like that."
Ravyn couldn't meet Rogue's piercing stare. She switched the subject of her gaze from Rogue to Logan, who stared at her, unreadable as always.
He cleared his voice. "Enough talking. Everyone in the room," he said gruffly.
"Scott isn't coming?" Evan asked.
"He's with Jean." Logan said, bluntly, leaving the teenagers to draw their own conclusions.
Ravyn entered the danger room to find menacing pincer claws, guns and pointed walls hanging from the ceiling. She took a step back, suddenly intimidated and unsure of herself. When she was an assassin, she always had the upper hand. She always had a well thought out plan and the element of surprise. She never had to wait for something to happen; she was the one who made a scene.
She saw the silhouette of Logan in a glass control room above her. She continuously shifted her weight from one foot to another, getting antsier as each second passed. Her companions were as calm as they were waiting in the hall, doing stretches and waiting for the test to start.
They didn't have to wait long before one of the guns went off, shooting the ground where Ravyn's companions were, signaling the start of the session.
Ravyn ran. It had always been repeated to her that if and when she was in danger, only one life counted: her own. She heard gunshots and the movement of machinery behind her, dropping to the floor just as a pincer claw flew overhead. Screaming out an expletive, she dove behind some steel boxes. Her more experienced companions flew across the room, neatly dodging and deflecting oncoming attacks.
It wasn't long before she heard Kurt teleport beside her. Ravyn stared at him defiantly. She must have looked like a coward; hiding behind boxes instead of putting up a fight. Kurt didn't say anything to her. He locked eyes with her and stretched out his hand.
"Fine." In one fluid motion, Ravyn got to her feet and grabbed the demon's three-fingered hand. She heard the familiar gunshot and felt as though she was being stretched then compressed back into shape. Opening her eyes, she found herself at the center of the danger room. Immediately she was forced to slide across the floor, dodging bullets. Through the corner of her eye, she saw Kurt leap in the opposite direction, dodging the same shots.
Duck… kick, slide, dodge… jump. A pincer claw caught her cheek, producing a deep cut. Ravyn smiled wryly as the cut instantly healed itself. The session tested her reflexes and accuracy, while keeping her on her toes by threatening her life. It was like a weird, sick, machinated dance.
She had just gotten more confident with herself in the test when Spike collided with her, sending both of them tumbling to the ground. Seizing the chance, two pincer claws headed straight for them. Evan shot out a spike, destroying one of them. Ravyn staggered to her feet just in time to watch the claw go straight through her torso.
Kitty phased completely out of the ground, her hand tightly grasping Ravyn's arm. She never had imagined being the first to step forward and make amends with her new classmate, but, when she stopped to think, she found herself wanting to know more about the girl's mysterious past and her true intentions at the school. "I got you're back. You got mine?" She didn't wait for an answer; she flew back into the frey, expertly phasing through anything in her path.
Ravyn stared in shock at her retreating figure. She was shaken back into her senses by Evan, who quickly dragged her behind some crates. "You okay?"
"Yeah. Fine." She answered quickly, staring at Evan's piercing gaze.
Evan took a quick look around the danger room. Smoke was beginning to rise from the machines as they moved faster and emitted deadlier shots. He saw his friends desperately running for cover. Rogue leaped over the crates and landed clumsily between Ravyn and Evan.
"The hell is wrong with Logan? It must be level 10 out there." Rogue said. The three mutants felt bullet shells hit the other side of the crates.
Ravyn looked up at the control room above her. Through the smoke, she made out the silhouette of Logan, leaving the control room in a hurry. Abandoning them. Ravyn whispered a chain of foul names under her breath.
The bullets were slowly eating away their cover. Ravyn considered making a run for it, relying on her mutant ability to keep her alive, but, for some reason she couldn't mentally convince herself to leave the two mutants trapped with her. She needed them. They seemed to know the tricks of the danger room well. Her hands clenched in frustration. In the assin world, it was a sin to become soft.
Rogue interrupted her interior battle by speaking. "We have to make a run for it. There is a wall about fifty feet in front of us. If we could just reach it…"
Evan took a peek over the crates. The machines answered by increasing their rate of fire. "We can make it. I'll try to take out the guns."
Ravyn pressed herself closer to Rogue, keeping her side protected. Rogue took her place as the leader. "Alright. On three. One… two… Three!"
They charged.
Two minutes earlier…
Everything went haywire. Logan couldn't explain it. One second, the machine was on level 5 and then, one second later, all hell broke loose. The lights in the control room dimmed and blinked and, once it stopped, smoke began to rise from the machines in the control room. He had tried to get the machine back under control or turn it off, but nothing responded to him.
Letting his anger get the better of him he slashed into the wall of the control room. It was then that he happened to glance down into the danger room. Bullets were ricocheting crazily off the walls of the danger room. The smoke from the machines clouded his vision on his students. Following a flash of blue fur, he saw Kurt and Kitty running the length of the danger room, using both of their powers to avoid the weapons that the level 10 danger room threw at them. Shouting curses, Logan ran out of the room to manually open the door to the danger room. He knew that the professor as well as Scott were alerted about their situation, but he couldn't stand to wait for them as five teenagers were left alone to face the danger room.
He was panting heavily when he reached the door. He grabbed the notch at the door and attempted to slide the door open. It wouldn't budge. Logan wasn't about to play nice with a door. His claws grew from his knuckles and he plunged them into the door. The door soon became permanently marked with deep claw marks. He kept throwing attacks at the door until it finally crumbled into an unrecognizable ball of metal. Smoke was all he saw in the room; gunshots all he heard.
"Logan, what hap-" Scott looked in shock at Logan, sweat beading on his arms and face, his face twisted in an angry mask.
"I'm getting them out."
They charged.
Ravyn could barely see three feet in front of her. Her eyes stung from the smoke and tears blurred her vision. She heard Rogue shout and followed her voice. A gun fell, only a few inches away from crushing her underneath its weight. Imbedded in the gun was a bone spike. It didn't take long for Ravyn to realize that she was separated from her teammates, deprived of most of her sight, and slowly choking to death from the smoke.
She screamed Evans name; the only name she could remember. She kept running, wondering how many times she already had been shot. To both her right and left she heard people calling her name. Whether she was imagining it or not, she didn't know. She ignored them.
A shout directly in front of her roused her from her panicked state. She saw a motionless figure in front of her. She sprinted. She needed someone to help her find a way out of the cursed room.
Stumbling onto the body, she felt spikes. Evan. He had multiple wounds to his torso and was losing blood quickly. She felt a bullet hit her directly in her back, but only felt the pain for a second. Her healing power was getting stronger. Placing her hands on Evan's sweaty face, she forced him to face her. "Evan. Evan, look at me! God damn it!" She slapped him hard across the face. Evan's eyes flung themselves open, and for one, solitary moment, their eyes met.
Ravyn felt a burning sensation along her torso and lower back, much like the feeling that she experienced while healing Rogue. She screamed out in pain, balling her hands up into fists and closing her eyes tightly. She felt another bullet land close to her neck and smelled the blood all around her. As well as healing him, she was also shielding Evan from a gun attack.
She stood up, still feeling the burning pain in her torso, she dragged Evan across the floor. He looked dead, but at least he wasn't bleeding anymore. She had only moved a few feet when she heard a soft, muffled gunshot and felt fur brush her arm.
Kurt grabbed Ravyn around the waist while his tail wrapped itself under Evan's armpits. Ravyn buried her head into Kurt's shoulder and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. For a split second before they teleported, Ravyn felt unbelievably calm. She felt as though, even though she was in the middle of flying shrapnel and bullets, nothing could harm her. For the first time since she was a little girl, she felt fully protected. Nothing could hurt her.
Kurt, Ravyn and Evan reappeared in the hallway that they had spoken in only fifteen minutes earlier. Scott immediately ran towards them, relieving them of Evan. As he passed, Evan grabbed Ravyn's shoulder tightly. "Hey… Thanks" he choked out.
Ravyn didn't answer him. Her attention was on the tall demon, she was still clutching. She willed her arms to let him go, and, reluctantly, they complied. She noticed that Kurt was looking at her strangely and quickly turned away.
Scott was shouting over his shoulder as he rounded the corner. "The professor is disconnecting the danger room. Logan is looking for Kitty and Rogue!"
As if summoned, Logan barged through the remains of the doorway, Rogue slung across his shoulders. Ravyn noticed that, besides a blow to her head and a bloody ankle, she looked unharmed.
"Where's Kitty?" Kurt asked. Logan silently shook his head. Both he and Ravyn turned to peek through the doorway of the danger room. The visibility in the room had gone down to zero, and the faint sound of a few guns firing was all they heard.
"I'm going back in." Kurt stated, preparing to teleport.
"No, you won't," Ravyn stepped between Kurt and the doorway. "You'll get shot within seconds in that room. I'll go." The last two words slipped out her mouth before she could stop them.
Goosebumps travelled up Ravyn's back and arms as Kurt's eyes met hers. "I don't care. I need to find-"
Logan stopped Kurt before he could teleport, pushing him against the wall. "No! She's right. Stay here with Rogue. We'll find her."
Kurt reluctantly nodded.
Logan turned to Ravyn, "You ready, kid?"
Ravyn didn't answer. She was terrified. For all she knew, her power might stop working as soon as she re-entered the danger room. Logan put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Let's go." With that, they both took off running back into the danger room.
Professor Charles Xavier couldn't understand it. The machine wasn't responding to any button he pressed, yet it kept shooting at anything that moved as if it was being controlled by something else. He tried to shut off the entire system; turn off the power for the mansion, but all that popped up onto his screen were errors and warnings.
This was an attack. He knew that much, but he couldn't figure out who did it and how they got past the mansion's defenses. "Scott, is everyone out of the room?"
He didn't have to wait long before he heard Scott's voice in his head. "Kitty's still missing. Logan and the new girl went back inside."
The Professor feverishly worked on turning off the systems. He had no doubt that Logan, as experienced as he was, would be fine. He was worried for Kitty and the new girl: Kitty because she was lost somewhere in the gigantic danger room and the new girl because neither he nor she knew the extent of her power. She was a young mutant; barely capable of controlling her ability.
The professor was so absorbed in his work, he didn't notice someone entering the control room until he heard a female voice.
"Hello there, Xavier."