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Title: The New Mutants II, Volume IV: Back To Life
Author: kanedax
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Spoilers: X3; New Mutants I & II (see above)
Pairings: Remy/Theresa, Bobby/Kitty
Rating: PG-13/R for language and descriptive language
Summary: Back to the present, the new students get settled in.
Notes: As the summary says, this chapter is the first to take my story back to the "present," meaning that it takes place after all the events of the first series. It's more of a setup for the new characters and a re-establishment of the norm, with the big events starting up next chapter. As usual, I don't own the X-Men, Marvel Comics, 20th Century Fox, or Douglas Adams.
Previous Chapter (Fragment) / Next Chapter (Fantastic)
“Welcome to Xavier Academy.”
A burst of applause from the returning students greeted the end of Ororo Munroe’s speech. Looking to the new mutants, she saw without much surprise that they had a look of nervousness more than appreciation.
“Well, enough of the ‘rah-rah,’” Ororo said. “Let’s get down to business. Kitty will show Miss Guthrie and Miss Reyes to the girl’s dormitory, and Jimmy can take Mr. Guthrie, Mr. Richards, and, um, Yoshida-san to the boy’s dorm.
“Marie, Bobby, Lucas, and Cameron, it’s your turn for making dinner tonight…”
“Rrrrrgh,” Jones said, his head falling back against the chair.
“…And Kraft Mac & Cheese doesn’t count, Jones.” Ororo interjected, then turned to Sean. “You got kitchen duty, too.”
“I promise I’ll keep them away from the pizza delivery numbers,” he replied.
“Dinner is at six,” she continued, “or whenever the smoke detector starts buzzing, and after that the new students will be getting a tour of the facility. In the meantime, feel free to relax, get unpacked, and put your feet up.”
The students began to get up, with Paige and Sam looking for their guides and Franklin slogging behind with a look of anguished boredom. She saw that Cecelia and Shiro continued to sit in their places, both looking around confused. Ororo sighed.
“And they didn’t understand a word I said, did they?” she said, shaking her head.
“Oh, geez!” Forge yelped. “I forgot! I’ll be back in a minute, ‘Ro, don’t go anywhere.” At that, he jumped up and jogged back towards the school.
“Looks like we’re off the hook,” Theresa said to Remy as the group began to disperse.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Remy replied. “Another way is that we’re stuck with the dishes.”
Theresa punched him lightly in the arm, smiling. “Don’t get me in a bad mood.”
“Well, we have the afternoon, at least,” Remy said as the two walked back to their chess game. “Do we want to finish?”
“I dunno,” she sighed, closing her hand around his. “You wanna go train or something?”
“You wouldn’t say that if I weren’t so close to checkmate,” he chuckled.
“Whatever,” she replied, bending down to pick up the pieces.
“Training sounds fun,” Remy said as Theresa stood up and handed him the board. The two walked back into the Academy as Forge jogged past them, his mechanical leg clanking as he came.
“Jono,” Moira McTaggert yelled. “If you have some free time I’d like to meet you down in the lab and run some checkups.”
Jono’s shoulders heaved, and he exhaled out of his nose in a sigh. With a flip of his scarf, covering the metal unit that covered the gaping hole that used to be his mouth and chest, he motioned with his head and eyes that he’d be inside.
“Try this on, ‘Ro,” Forge said as he rejoined Ororo, who had been conversing with Sean and Kurt on the stage. She looked down at his open hand, which held a small piece of electronic equipment that looked like an old hearing aid with a number of wires running around it.
“What is this?” she asked.
“In the ear,” he insisted, motioning with his free hand. Slowly she took the unit, placing one piece behind the ear and another inside the canal.
“Is it comfortable?” he asked. She jerked in surprise. In the ear where the hearing aid was placed she heard his voice like normal, but in the unexposed ear she heard him speaking in another language.
“What the…?” Ororo breathed. Forge laughed out loud.
“Kurt,” he said through his laughter, “Say something to her.”
“What would you like me to say, Herr Forge?”
“Did you just say Herr Forge,” Ororo asked, “Or Mister Forge?”
“You made a Babel fish!” Sean said. “Fantastic!”
“A what?” Forge asked.
“Douglas Adams,” Sean replied. “He’s an acquired taste.”
“No, it’s a translator,” Forge said excitedly.
“That’s what I said,” Sean interjected, “only with a pop culture reference.”
Forge rolled his eyes, then turned back to Ororo. “I only have five languages programmed into it so far, since that’s all I had on my computer at the time. Since Japanese and Spanish happened to be two of them, I think that might help you teach the new kids better.”
“Well, it’ll help me understand what they’re saying,” Ororo said, mildly doubtful. “But I’ll still have trouble teaching them until they learn English.”
“I was only able to make three,” Forge explained. “Once I get more raw materials, or have a spare minute to sit down and think up another design using what I have left, I’ll have more for the rest of the professors. But until then, I was thinking one for you, and one for each of them?”
Ororo smiled. “That’d be great,” she said. “Thanks, Forge.”
“What other languages do you have on here?” Sean asked, examining at Ororo’s ear as Ororo called Cecelia and Shiro over.
“English, Japanese, Spanish, German, and Cheyenne.”
“Cheyenne?”
Forge shrugged. “Sue me for trying to study up on my heritage.”
“Hey, no worries, boyo.”
“There’s about forty gigs of memory on each of those pieces, though,” he continued, pulling the other two from his pocket and handing them to Ororo, “so there shouldn’t be any problem downloading other languages if we need them.”
“How do they know which language to translate into?” Ororo asked. Forge nodded and took the two units from her.
“Nihongo,” he said into one microphone, and handed it to Shiro, then handed the other one to Cecilia after saying “Espanol.”
“If it gets confusing,” Forge said as the two put them into their ears, “I say they could always haul around an iPod with them and play some music into the other year. A little chamber music might keep the unfamiliar language out and keep headaches to a minimum.
“Of course,” he continued as Ororo gave him a look, “I’m not the headmaster.”
“Go ahead and find your rooms,” Ororo said, turning to the two students. “I’ll see you both at dinner.”
As Sean and Kurt walked Shiro and Cecelia over to the rest of the new students, Forge shook his head. “Looking like it’s not going to be an easy year.”
Ororo laughed. “Is it ever?”
“Point,” Forge said, nodding. “Jet hold up okay?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. donated it to us to our assistance at the Raft,” Forge said. “Of course, they weren’t that appreciative. It’s an old model, stripped down. I was nervous that it wouldn’t make it across the ocean, no matter how much I tinkered with it.”
“Gee, Forge,” Ororo said flatly as the two walked back to the building, “I’m so glad you told me that before I took off.”
“And here’s our beds,” Jimmy said as he turned on the light in the boy’s dorm. “Any bed that has crap strewn all over it is already taken, so feel free to go wherever.”
“You mean we don’t get our own rooms?” Franklin asked.
“Nah,” Jimmy replied, sitting down on his bed. “There’s only so many bedrooms in the place, and those are taken up by the professors and the senior X-Men.”
Franklin grunted, then walked to the empty bed in the far corner, opposite Remy’s spot. He mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?” Jimmy asked.
“Nothing,” Franklin skulked. Shiro quietly looked around the beds, and chose one of the two closest to the hall door.
“I like it,” Sam Guthrie said with a heavy southern twang, choosing the bed between Jimmy and Lucas. “It’s a nicer bed than I have at home. I have to share a room with my brother, too, so this shouldn’t be much different.”
“The guys are a pretty quiet bunch, for the most part,” Jimmy said. “Jones might keep you awake some nights, he runs on a minimum of sleep. But most of the rambunctious ones are…”
He was going to say not around anymore. Then he realized he was talking about Arthur Centino and Artie Maddicks, both of whom had died in the Great Pulse. Not around anymore felt a little too much like saying that they had graduated and moved on.
“Most rambunctious ones are what?” Franklin asked.
“Never mind,” Jimmy said quickly. Franklin continued to stare at him, and Jimmy almost felt his thoughts shifting in his head, like fingers flipping through them. He looked to Franklin, whose face was one of deep concentration.
“What are you doing?” Jimmy asked.
“What do you mean?” Franklin said innocently. “I’m not doing anything.”
Instinctively, Jimmy extended his nullification field. Franklin’s scrunched face relaxed, and was replaced by one of perplexity.
“What happened?” he breathed.
“It’s not polite to read other people’s thoughts, you know,” Jimmy said seriously.
“What the fuck did you do?” Franklin nearly yelled. Sam and Shiro paused in their unpacking and turned to the pair.
“One of the first things you learn at the school,” Jimmy explained, “is how to control your powers. How to use them for good, and how not to abuse them.”
“Whatever,” Franklin sneered. “My dad says I’m here to train my powers to their full potential, not to stop using them.”
Jimmy shrugged. “That can be one and the same sometimes. But in the meantime, I think I’m going to keep my field up a little longer.”
“Field?” Sam asked.
“That’s my mutant power,” Jimmy explained. “I neutralize the powers of other mutants. Make them human.”
“You’re like the Cure, then?”
“Actually,” Jimmy said quietly, “I was the Cure.”
“Ahhh,” Shiro said, then began speaking to Jimmy in Japanese. About halfway he stopped speaking, realizing that no one in the room could understand him.
“Don’t worry, dude,” Jimmy said. “Forge’ll probably come up with some translator for you and the other girl eventually. Plus Professor Wagner’s going to be giving English lessons.”
“Sugoi,” Shiro replied, smiling.
“Getting tired yet?” Remy asked, throwing three sparring punches at Theresa.
“Not… even… close…” she panted, interjecting each word with a block. She countered back with a spinning kick. Remy threw his arm up, and her shin connected with his forearm in a slap that echoed dully around the dojo.
“You’re getting better at this,” he said, grabbing her ankle and twisting. She reacted by jumping in the air and spinning with the twist. As she did, she released a brief high-pitched wail, which vibrated the air around her and kept her aloft for the remainder of the spin.
“Ah!” Remy reacted, his spare arm flying to one of his ear. “Take it easy.”
Theresa landed and moved to him with a look of concern on her face. “Sorry,” she apologized.
“No problem,” he replied, grabbing her and rolling backwards. As he did, he planted his foot into her stomach and flipped her behind him. She landed with a “whoof!” on the padded floor.
“See,” she groaned as he approached her. “Now that wasn’t fair.”
“Now we’re even?” Remy asked, a small smile cracking his usually stern face. He bent down to his knee to help her up. She looked at him appreciatively, then wrapped one arm around is neck and the other around his leg, rolling him into a cradle position.
Theresa let go, and he flopped onto the ground. She launched on top of him, straddling him and pinning his arms with her hands.
“Now we’re even,” she grinned.
“You’re getting a lot better at this,” he said admiringly.
“Well, I learn from the best,” she said softly, and bent down to kiss him. As she moved her hands from his arms, he wrapped one hand behind her head, pressing her lips harder towards his as her tongue slipped into his mouth.
“Mmmm,” she moaned as her body slid further down his. “Someone’s enjoying the session.”
“I have a hot redhead on top of me,” he said, his hand sliding up the front of her shirt. “What else would you expect?”
Theresa gasped sharply as his fingers found her hardening nipple through her t-shirt, her hips instinctively twisting on the bulge in his sweatpants. “Maybe,” she breathed, “maybe we should…”
“Nnnn?” he groaned.
“This might not be the best place,” she said, frustrated.
Remy looked around, temporarily forgetting where they really were. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah. Danger Room.”
“Danger Room public,” she pouted, climbing off him and sitting on the floor.
“Yeah,” he sighed, sitting up gently. “Not the best, considering who might walk in.”
“We should probably keep training,” she relented, standing slowly. She walked across the room.
“You’ll have to give me a minute,” he said, looking down to see that he was in no condition to stand.
“So you think I’m doing okay?” Theresa asked as she looked at the Japanese paintings on the wall.
“You’re doing more than okay,” he said. “You’re picking up on things a lot faster than most would.”
“Like I said,” she smiled, “I have a good teacher.”
“You think so?” he asked with a rare note of nervousness in his voice. “You’re not just saying that because I’m your boyfriend?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Well,” Remy said. “Professor Munroe wants to keep up the class. The, um, Ass Kicking Class.”
“That would probably be good,” she replied as she walked over to the row of staffs leaning against the wall. “It’s good exercise, and it’s smart to keep up with in case we ever get into another fight. Who’s teaching it now that Logan’s gone?”
She turned to him, and saw a nervous smile cross his face.
“You?” she asked.
Remy shrugged. “I guess Logan had a lot of good things to say to Storm about me before he left. I guess it left a mark.”
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, running over to him and falling to her knees. “That’s awesome!”
“Yeah, I suppose,” he groaned as she wrapped him in a big hug. “I’m not much of the leader type, though.”
“You’ll do fine,” she said, hugging him to her. “You’ll do more than fine.”
“Thanks,” he said. She kissed him again.
“Keep this up,” he said after she broke the kiss, “and I’m never going to be able to stand again.”
Theresa sighed, and lay her head on his shoulder. “Sucks that neither of us have our own room.”
“Well,” he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, “on the plus side you don’t have a lot of roommates to deal with. Maybe we can swing a deal with them. Or Rogue. She spends as many nights in the dorm as she does in her room. We could bribe her with something, maybe talk her into letting us borrow the room?”
“Thought this over a bit, have we?” she said slyly.
“You’ll have two roommates on a good night,” Remy replied, “and three on a bad. While I, on the other hand, am up to six. It’s crossed my mind.”
“I don’t know,” Theresa said. “I don’t think Rogue’s that open-minded about her personal space. Besides, she can switch back and forth within the course of a night. She says it depends on what’s driving her more nuts: Logan’s mutant hearing and smell or the dreams she has. She says she doesn’t want to wake up alone some nights.”
“Damn,” Remy muttered. “Poor girl.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Theresa said. She slowly pulled herself away from Remy and stood up. “We should probably get back upstairs, huh?”
“I suppose,” he said. “Simulation off.”
The old dojo faded into glowing blue lines, then disappeared, leaving the couple in the middle of the large, metal-walled Danger Room.
“Let’s get showered,” she said, helping him to his feet, “And go meet our new roommates.”
“Right now it’s you two and Theresa,” Kitty said to Paige Guthrie and Cecelia Reyes after the two had found their beds. “You’ll occasionally have Rogue crashing in here too, depending on how she’s feeling.”
“So you’re in your own room?” Paige asked.
“Yeah,” Kitty nodded. “Right now senior X-Men get their own rooms. Me, Bobby, Peter, and Rogue each have our own, plus the faculty. And Jono sleeps in the lab, since it’s the only room that can hold the equipment he needs. Hope you don’t mind sharing?”
“Nah,” Paige said, shaking her head. “I shared a room until I was got to the age where Mama said it weren’t proper anymore. Our house only has two bedrooms, so I’m still sharing with Melody, and Sam and Jay are in the basement.”
“So Sam’s your what? Younger brother? Older?”
“We’re twins, actually,” Paige said. “We’ve done everything together. Born together, went to school together. Became muties together.”
“You manifested fairly close to each other, then?” Kitty asked. Cecelia, who had been sitting on her bed idly flipping through one of the magazines Alison had left behind, looked up with some interest.
“On the same night, actually,” Paige replied, sitting down on her bed. “Kinda funny, actually. We were at this bonfire after the football game. And Larry Redman, the quarterback, he’s all wasted. He starts hitting on me, you know, getting all touchy like guys do.
“When I say I’m not into him, he got all mad and hit me so hard I fell into the fire. Now Sam, he saw what happened. He was on the defensive line for the team, and he comes charging at Larry and tackles him. Only he don’t tackle him like usual. Naw, Sam ends up plowing into Larry and flying into the trees with him. And they were a long way off, too, like a half a mile or something.”
Kitty, who was finding the story far from funny, nonetheless was curious. “So what happened?”
“Well, I was burned up pretty good,” Paige continued, her accent thickening as she talked. “I burned my cheerleading dress and everything. I hurt like the dickens for a few minutes, and everyone was all ‘Oh my God, someone call the doctor!’ So I was holding my burned arm with my hand, and I kinda, I don’t know, wiped at it? And the skin came right off, and there was new skin underneath, not burned at all.”
“Wow,” Kitty said, thankful that she had heard this story before dinner. She saw that Cecelia had that same green look on her face.
“Anyway, I was fine,” Paige said, unaffected by the looks of the others. “Everyone else was freaking out, yelling ‘The Guthries’re muties!’ and shit like that. Probably a good thing that the ambulance showed up anyway, cuz Larry got pretty hurt after Sam flew him into the woods. His ribs were all broken and stuff. The town didn’t want nothing to do with no muties, so my Ma and Pa said they’d send us here if the Sheriff wouldn’t press no charges against Sam.”
“Wow,” a voice came from the door. The three girls looked up to see Theresa leaning against the wall, in a bathrobe with a towel around her hair. “Now that’s a story.”
“There she is,” Kitty said as Theresa entered the room. “Theresa Cassidy, this is Paige Guthrie and Cecelia Reyes.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, shaking their hands.
“And where have you been?” Kitty asked.
“Remy and I were training,” Theresa replied.
“Training?” Kitty said with an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Theresa said, blushing. “Training.”
“Well,” Kitty said to the other two, “if you two wanna follow, I can introduce you to the boys before dinner. See you downstairs, Siryn.”
After the students and faculty had finished dinner and the dishes, Ororo brought the new students together and began to take them on a tour of Academy. The rest of the students had clustered back in their normal positions in the living room.
“So,” Bobby said, sitting down on the couch next to Kitty.
“So,” Kitty replied.
“Rogue and I were thinking it might be fun to go see a movie tonight.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That new Radcliffe movie you were antsy to see is opening up in Manhattan tonight. We might be able to wrestle for some tickets.”
“Sounds like fun,” Kitty said, standing, “but we’ll probably have to get going pretty soon.”
“Great!” Bobby said, jumping up. “I’ll go grab her.”
Kitty looked down at Peter, who was scribbling on his pad. “Peter, you want to come with? Make it a grownups night out?”
Peter shrugged. “Why not?”
She patted him on the shoulder as she left the room. “Grab your coat.”
Remy and Theresa turned to each other. “So what’s the plan for tonight?” Remy asked.
“I don’t know,” Theresa said quietly, with a look of mischief on her face. “More training?”
“They’ll probably be touring the Danger Room,” Remy said. “Outside might work, though.”
“Outside definitely works,” she said, grabbing his hand and dragging him off, leaving Lucas, Jimmy, Jones, and Jono sitting staring at each other.
“Ummmm,” Lucas said. “Star Wars?”
Previous Chapter (Fragment) / Next Chapter (Fantastic)
Title: The New Mutants II, Volume IV: Back To Life
Author: kanedax
Fandom: X-Men Movieverse
Spoilers: X3; New Mutants I & II (see above)
Pairings: Remy/Theresa, Bobby/Kitty
Rating: PG-13/R for language and descriptive language
Summary: Back to the present, the new students get settled in.
Notes: As the summary says, this chapter is the first to take my story back to the "present," meaning that it takes place after all the events of the first series. It's more of a setup for the new characters and a re-establishment of the norm, with the big events starting up next chapter. As usual, I don't own the X-Men, Marvel Comics, 20th Century Fox, or Douglas Adams.
Previous Chapter (Fragment) / Next Chapter (Fantastic)
“Welcome to Xavier Academy.”
A burst of applause from the returning students greeted the end of Ororo Munroe’s speech. Looking to the new mutants, she saw without much surprise that they had a look of nervousness more than appreciation.
“Well, enough of the ‘rah-rah,’” Ororo said. “Let’s get down to business. Kitty will show Miss Guthrie and Miss Reyes to the girl’s dormitory, and Jimmy can take Mr. Guthrie, Mr. Richards, and, um, Yoshida-san to the boy’s dorm.
“Marie, Bobby, Lucas, and Cameron, it’s your turn for making dinner tonight…”
“Rrrrrgh,” Jones said, his head falling back against the chair.
“…And Kraft Mac & Cheese doesn’t count, Jones.” Ororo interjected, then turned to Sean. “You got kitchen duty, too.”
“I promise I’ll keep them away from the pizza delivery numbers,” he replied.
“Dinner is at six,” she continued, “or whenever the smoke detector starts buzzing, and after that the new students will be getting a tour of the facility. In the meantime, feel free to relax, get unpacked, and put your feet up.”
The students began to get up, with Paige and Sam looking for their guides and Franklin slogging behind with a look of anguished boredom. She saw that Cecelia and Shiro continued to sit in their places, both looking around confused. Ororo sighed.
“And they didn’t understand a word I said, did they?” she said, shaking her head.
“Oh, geez!” Forge yelped. “I forgot! I’ll be back in a minute, ‘Ro, don’t go anywhere.” At that, he jumped up and jogged back towards the school.
“Looks like we’re off the hook,” Theresa said to Remy as the group began to disperse.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Remy replied. “Another way is that we’re stuck with the dishes.”
Theresa punched him lightly in the arm, smiling. “Don’t get me in a bad mood.”
“Well, we have the afternoon, at least,” Remy said as the two walked back to their chess game. “Do we want to finish?”
“I dunno,” she sighed, closing her hand around his. “You wanna go train or something?”
“You wouldn’t say that if I weren’t so close to checkmate,” he chuckled.
“Whatever,” she replied, bending down to pick up the pieces.
“Training sounds fun,” Remy said as Theresa stood up and handed him the board. The two walked back into the Academy as Forge jogged past them, his mechanical leg clanking as he came.
“Jono,” Moira McTaggert yelled. “If you have some free time I’d like to meet you down in the lab and run some checkups.”
Jono’s shoulders heaved, and he exhaled out of his nose in a sigh. With a flip of his scarf, covering the metal unit that covered the gaping hole that used to be his mouth and chest, he motioned with his head and eyes that he’d be inside.
“Try this on, ‘Ro,” Forge said as he rejoined Ororo, who had been conversing with Sean and Kurt on the stage. She looked down at his open hand, which held a small piece of electronic equipment that looked like an old hearing aid with a number of wires running around it.
“What is this?” she asked.
“In the ear,” he insisted, motioning with his free hand. Slowly she took the unit, placing one piece behind the ear and another inside the canal.
“Is it comfortable?” he asked. She jerked in surprise. In the ear where the hearing aid was placed she heard his voice like normal, but in the unexposed ear she heard him speaking in another language.
“What the…?” Ororo breathed. Forge laughed out loud.
“Kurt,” he said through his laughter, “Say something to her.”
“What would you like me to say, Herr Forge?”
“Did you just say Herr Forge,” Ororo asked, “Or Mister Forge?”
“You made a Babel fish!” Sean said. “Fantastic!”
“A what?” Forge asked.
“Douglas Adams,” Sean replied. “He’s an acquired taste.”
“No, it’s a translator,” Forge said excitedly.
“That’s what I said,” Sean interjected, “only with a pop culture reference.”
Forge rolled his eyes, then turned back to Ororo. “I only have five languages programmed into it so far, since that’s all I had on my computer at the time. Since Japanese and Spanish happened to be two of them, I think that might help you teach the new kids better.”
“Well, it’ll help me understand what they’re saying,” Ororo said, mildly doubtful. “But I’ll still have trouble teaching them until they learn English.”
“I was only able to make three,” Forge explained. “Once I get more raw materials, or have a spare minute to sit down and think up another design using what I have left, I’ll have more for the rest of the professors. But until then, I was thinking one for you, and one for each of them?”
Ororo smiled. “That’d be great,” she said. “Thanks, Forge.”
“What other languages do you have on here?” Sean asked, examining at Ororo’s ear as Ororo called Cecelia and Shiro over.
“English, Japanese, Spanish, German, and Cheyenne.”
“Cheyenne?”
Forge shrugged. “Sue me for trying to study up on my heritage.”
“Hey, no worries, boyo.”
“There’s about forty gigs of memory on each of those pieces, though,” he continued, pulling the other two from his pocket and handing them to Ororo, “so there shouldn’t be any problem downloading other languages if we need them.”
“How do they know which language to translate into?” Ororo asked. Forge nodded and took the two units from her.
“Nihongo,” he said into one microphone, and handed it to Shiro, then handed the other one to Cecilia after saying “Espanol.”
“If it gets confusing,” Forge said as the two put them into their ears, “I say they could always haul around an iPod with them and play some music into the other year. A little chamber music might keep the unfamiliar language out and keep headaches to a minimum.
“Of course,” he continued as Ororo gave him a look, “I’m not the headmaster.”
“Go ahead and find your rooms,” Ororo said, turning to the two students. “I’ll see you both at dinner.”
As Sean and Kurt walked Shiro and Cecelia over to the rest of the new students, Forge shook his head. “Looking like it’s not going to be an easy year.”
Ororo laughed. “Is it ever?”
“Point,” Forge said, nodding. “Jet hold up okay?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. donated it to us to our assistance at the Raft,” Forge said. “Of course, they weren’t that appreciative. It’s an old model, stripped down. I was nervous that it wouldn’t make it across the ocean, no matter how much I tinkered with it.”
“Gee, Forge,” Ororo said flatly as the two walked back to the building, “I’m so glad you told me that before I took off.”
“And here’s our beds,” Jimmy said as he turned on the light in the boy’s dorm. “Any bed that has crap strewn all over it is already taken, so feel free to go wherever.”
“You mean we don’t get our own rooms?” Franklin asked.
“Nah,” Jimmy replied, sitting down on his bed. “There’s only so many bedrooms in the place, and those are taken up by the professors and the senior X-Men.”
Franklin grunted, then walked to the empty bed in the far corner, opposite Remy’s spot. He mumbled something under his breath.
“What was that?” Jimmy asked.
“Nothing,” Franklin skulked. Shiro quietly looked around the beds, and chose one of the two closest to the hall door.
“I like it,” Sam Guthrie said with a heavy southern twang, choosing the bed between Jimmy and Lucas. “It’s a nicer bed than I have at home. I have to share a room with my brother, too, so this shouldn’t be much different.”
“The guys are a pretty quiet bunch, for the most part,” Jimmy said. “Jones might keep you awake some nights, he runs on a minimum of sleep. But most of the rambunctious ones are…”
He was going to say not around anymore. Then he realized he was talking about Arthur Centino and Artie Maddicks, both of whom had died in the Great Pulse. Not around anymore felt a little too much like saying that they had graduated and moved on.
“Most rambunctious ones are what?” Franklin asked.
“Never mind,” Jimmy said quickly. Franklin continued to stare at him, and Jimmy almost felt his thoughts shifting in his head, like fingers flipping through them. He looked to Franklin, whose face was one of deep concentration.
“What are you doing?” Jimmy asked.
“What do you mean?” Franklin said innocently. “I’m not doing anything.”
Instinctively, Jimmy extended his nullification field. Franklin’s scrunched face relaxed, and was replaced by one of perplexity.
“What happened?” he breathed.
“It’s not polite to read other people’s thoughts, you know,” Jimmy said seriously.
“What the fuck did you do?” Franklin nearly yelled. Sam and Shiro paused in their unpacking and turned to the pair.
“One of the first things you learn at the school,” Jimmy explained, “is how to control your powers. How to use them for good, and how not to abuse them.”
“Whatever,” Franklin sneered. “My dad says I’m here to train my powers to their full potential, not to stop using them.”
Jimmy shrugged. “That can be one and the same sometimes. But in the meantime, I think I’m going to keep my field up a little longer.”
“Field?” Sam asked.
“That’s my mutant power,” Jimmy explained. “I neutralize the powers of other mutants. Make them human.”
“You’re like the Cure, then?”
“Actually,” Jimmy said quietly, “I was the Cure.”
“Ahhh,” Shiro said, then began speaking to Jimmy in Japanese. About halfway he stopped speaking, realizing that no one in the room could understand him.
“Don’t worry, dude,” Jimmy said. “Forge’ll probably come up with some translator for you and the other girl eventually. Plus Professor Wagner’s going to be giving English lessons.”
“Sugoi,” Shiro replied, smiling.
“Getting tired yet?” Remy asked, throwing three sparring punches at Theresa.
“Not… even… close…” she panted, interjecting each word with a block. She countered back with a spinning kick. Remy threw his arm up, and her shin connected with his forearm in a slap that echoed dully around the dojo.
“You’re getting better at this,” he said, grabbing her ankle and twisting. She reacted by jumping in the air and spinning with the twist. As she did, she released a brief high-pitched wail, which vibrated the air around her and kept her aloft for the remainder of the spin.
“Ah!” Remy reacted, his spare arm flying to one of his ear. “Take it easy.”
Theresa landed and moved to him with a look of concern on her face. “Sorry,” she apologized.
“No problem,” he replied, grabbing her and rolling backwards. As he did, he planted his foot into her stomach and flipped her behind him. She landed with a “whoof!” on the padded floor.
“See,” she groaned as he approached her. “Now that wasn’t fair.”
“Now we’re even?” Remy asked, a small smile cracking his usually stern face. He bent down to his knee to help her up. She looked at him appreciatively, then wrapped one arm around is neck and the other around his leg, rolling him into a cradle position.
Theresa let go, and he flopped onto the ground. She launched on top of him, straddling him and pinning his arms with her hands.
“Now we’re even,” she grinned.
“You’re getting a lot better at this,” he said admiringly.
“Well, I learn from the best,” she said softly, and bent down to kiss him. As she moved her hands from his arms, he wrapped one hand behind her head, pressing her lips harder towards his as her tongue slipped into his mouth.
“Mmmm,” she moaned as her body slid further down his. “Someone’s enjoying the session.”
“I have a hot redhead on top of me,” he said, his hand sliding up the front of her shirt. “What else would you expect?”
Theresa gasped sharply as his fingers found her hardening nipple through her t-shirt, her hips instinctively twisting on the bulge in his sweatpants. “Maybe,” she breathed, “maybe we should…”
“Nnnn?” he groaned.
“This might not be the best place,” she said, frustrated.
Remy looked around, temporarily forgetting where they really were. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Yeah. Danger Room.”
“Danger Room public,” she pouted, climbing off him and sitting on the floor.
“Yeah,” he sighed, sitting up gently. “Not the best, considering who might walk in.”
“We should probably keep training,” she relented, standing slowly. She walked across the room.
“You’ll have to give me a minute,” he said, looking down to see that he was in no condition to stand.
“So you think I’m doing okay?” Theresa asked as she looked at the Japanese paintings on the wall.
“You’re doing more than okay,” he said. “You’re picking up on things a lot faster than most would.”
“Like I said,” she smiled, “I have a good teacher.”
“You think so?” he asked with a rare note of nervousness in his voice. “You’re not just saying that because I’m your boyfriend?”
“Why?” she asked.
“Well,” Remy said. “Professor Munroe wants to keep up the class. The, um, Ass Kicking Class.”
“That would probably be good,” she replied as she walked over to the row of staffs leaning against the wall. “It’s good exercise, and it’s smart to keep up with in case we ever get into another fight. Who’s teaching it now that Logan’s gone?”
She turned to him, and saw a nervous smile cross his face.
“You?” she asked.
Remy shrugged. “I guess Logan had a lot of good things to say to Storm about me before he left. I guess it left a mark.”
“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, running over to him and falling to her knees. “That’s awesome!”
“Yeah, I suppose,” he groaned as she wrapped him in a big hug. “I’m not much of the leader type, though.”
“You’ll do fine,” she said, hugging him to her. “You’ll do more than fine.”
“Thanks,” he said. She kissed him again.
“Keep this up,” he said after she broke the kiss, “and I’m never going to be able to stand again.”
Theresa sighed, and lay her head on his shoulder. “Sucks that neither of us have our own room.”
“Well,” he said, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, “on the plus side you don’t have a lot of roommates to deal with. Maybe we can swing a deal with them. Or Rogue. She spends as many nights in the dorm as she does in her room. We could bribe her with something, maybe talk her into letting us borrow the room?”
“Thought this over a bit, have we?” she said slyly.
“You’ll have two roommates on a good night,” Remy replied, “and three on a bad. While I, on the other hand, am up to six. It’s crossed my mind.”
“I don’t know,” Theresa said. “I don’t think Rogue’s that open-minded about her personal space. Besides, she can switch back and forth within the course of a night. She says it depends on what’s driving her more nuts: Logan’s mutant hearing and smell or the dreams she has. She says she doesn’t want to wake up alone some nights.”
“Damn,” Remy muttered. “Poor girl.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Theresa said. She slowly pulled herself away from Remy and stood up. “We should probably get back upstairs, huh?”
“I suppose,” he said. “Simulation off.”
The old dojo faded into glowing blue lines, then disappeared, leaving the couple in the middle of the large, metal-walled Danger Room.
“Let’s get showered,” she said, helping him to his feet, “And go meet our new roommates.”
“Right now it’s you two and Theresa,” Kitty said to Paige Guthrie and Cecelia Reyes after the two had found their beds. “You’ll occasionally have Rogue crashing in here too, depending on how she’s feeling.”
“So you’re in your own room?” Paige asked.
“Yeah,” Kitty nodded. “Right now senior X-Men get their own rooms. Me, Bobby, Peter, and Rogue each have our own, plus the faculty. And Jono sleeps in the lab, since it’s the only room that can hold the equipment he needs. Hope you don’t mind sharing?”
“Nah,” Paige said, shaking her head. “I shared a room until I was got to the age where Mama said it weren’t proper anymore. Our house only has two bedrooms, so I’m still sharing with Melody, and Sam and Jay are in the basement.”
“So Sam’s your what? Younger brother? Older?”
“We’re twins, actually,” Paige said. “We’ve done everything together. Born together, went to school together. Became muties together.”
“You manifested fairly close to each other, then?” Kitty asked. Cecelia, who had been sitting on her bed idly flipping through one of the magazines Alison had left behind, looked up with some interest.
“On the same night, actually,” Paige replied, sitting down on her bed. “Kinda funny, actually. We were at this bonfire after the football game. And Larry Redman, the quarterback, he’s all wasted. He starts hitting on me, you know, getting all touchy like guys do.
“When I say I’m not into him, he got all mad and hit me so hard I fell into the fire. Now Sam, he saw what happened. He was on the defensive line for the team, and he comes charging at Larry and tackles him. Only he don’t tackle him like usual. Naw, Sam ends up plowing into Larry and flying into the trees with him. And they were a long way off, too, like a half a mile or something.”
Kitty, who was finding the story far from funny, nonetheless was curious. “So what happened?”
“Well, I was burned up pretty good,” Paige continued, her accent thickening as she talked. “I burned my cheerleading dress and everything. I hurt like the dickens for a few minutes, and everyone was all ‘Oh my God, someone call the doctor!’ So I was holding my burned arm with my hand, and I kinda, I don’t know, wiped at it? And the skin came right off, and there was new skin underneath, not burned at all.”
“Wow,” Kitty said, thankful that she had heard this story before dinner. She saw that Cecelia had that same green look on her face.
“Anyway, I was fine,” Paige said, unaffected by the looks of the others. “Everyone else was freaking out, yelling ‘The Guthries’re muties!’ and shit like that. Probably a good thing that the ambulance showed up anyway, cuz Larry got pretty hurt after Sam flew him into the woods. His ribs were all broken and stuff. The town didn’t want nothing to do with no muties, so my Ma and Pa said they’d send us here if the Sheriff wouldn’t press no charges against Sam.”
“Wow,” a voice came from the door. The three girls looked up to see Theresa leaning against the wall, in a bathrobe with a towel around her hair. “Now that’s a story.”
“There she is,” Kitty said as Theresa entered the room. “Theresa Cassidy, this is Paige Guthrie and Cecelia Reyes.”
“Nice to meet you,” she said, shaking their hands.
“And where have you been?” Kitty asked.
“Remy and I were training,” Theresa replied.
“Training?” Kitty said with an arched eyebrow.
“Yeah,” Theresa said, blushing. “Training.”
“Well,” Kitty said to the other two, “if you two wanna follow, I can introduce you to the boys before dinner. See you downstairs, Siryn.”
After the students and faculty had finished dinner and the dishes, Ororo brought the new students together and began to take them on a tour of Academy. The rest of the students had clustered back in their normal positions in the living room.
“So,” Bobby said, sitting down on the couch next to Kitty.
“So,” Kitty replied.
“Rogue and I were thinking it might be fun to go see a movie tonight.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah,” he said. “That new Radcliffe movie you were antsy to see is opening up in Manhattan tonight. We might be able to wrestle for some tickets.”
“Sounds like fun,” Kitty said, standing, “but we’ll probably have to get going pretty soon.”
“Great!” Bobby said, jumping up. “I’ll go grab her.”
Kitty looked down at Peter, who was scribbling on his pad. “Peter, you want to come with? Make it a grownups night out?”
Peter shrugged. “Why not?”
She patted him on the shoulder as she left the room. “Grab your coat.”
Remy and Theresa turned to each other. “So what’s the plan for tonight?” Remy asked.
“I don’t know,” Theresa said quietly, with a look of mischief on her face. “More training?”
“They’ll probably be touring the Danger Room,” Remy said. “Outside might work, though.”
“Outside definitely works,” she said, grabbing his hand and dragging him off, leaving Lucas, Jimmy, Jones, and Jono sitting staring at each other.
“Ummmm,” Lucas said. “Star Wars?”
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