Adult-FanFiction.org : Marvel 'Verse

Changes	By : SpaceCowgirl Category: X-men Comics > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 2220 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men comics, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Jean Grey sat on the low fieldstone wall that ran in front
of the main doors of Xavier High, watching the massive crane lower a section of
new wall into place. It had been nearly
eight months since Magneto's attack, but repairs on the wing of the sl thl that
had been destroyed were just now being completed.

Jean's thoughts were far away from where she was sitting in
the soft early spring sunlight. She
could still see it so clearly--the explosion, the telekinetic shield she had
thrown up around herself and Betsy, although just moments earlier Betsy had
been smirking as she tore Jean down in front of most of her classmates.

Jean had expected Magneto to kill them both--after all,
that's what he was, a murderer.
Professor Xavier had told her so.
But he hadn't. Instead, he'd
given them a choice. Stretched out his
hand in friendship. And Betsy had taken
it. Magneto left Jean to ostensibly be
crushed under the rubble he'd created.
When Jean had woken up in the Institute's infirmary the next day, Betsy
had been gone, and Scott had been sitting by her side.

Jean forgave Scott almost instantly. She'd lost her best friend--she wasn't about
to lose him. Scott had barely let her
out of his sight since then. Jean could
still feel the guilt that radiated from him sometimes, and something deeper,
more buried that she didn't care to delve into.

She turned her head slightly at a familiar mental
signature. <Scott.>

"Hey, beautiful," he said. "Why the long face?" Jean stood briskly, fluffing her wavy red
hair wone one hand.

"I was just thinking." Scott looked at his watch.

"We'd better book it if we're gonna make it to the
professor's training session on time." Jean nodded.

"Let's go."
She looked back at the destroyed walls once more before walking away.

---

The Xavier Institute
for Mutant Research

Jean paused outside Professor Xavier's study. "He's with someone." She reached out. <Professor? Is this a bad time?>

<Not at all, Jean.
Please come in.> Jean nodded
to Scott. "It's alright." The two students entered the professor's
study, stopping when they saw who he was with.

"Jean, Scott," said Xavier. "Please take a seat. Governor Shaw was just leaving." Scott extended his hand to Sebastian Shaw,
Governor of Massachusetts.

"It's a pleasure, sir." Shaw smiled.

"Likewise.
Always uplifting to speak to Xavier's best and brightest." He turned to the professor. "I'll have my assistant fax you those
campaign strategy reports in the morning, Charles." Xavier nodded.

"Thank you, Sebastian.
You take care." Shaw left,
closing the door behind him.

"Why was he here?" Jean ventured to ask. The Professor raised an eyebrow.

"I'm sure you know, Jean, that the governor is one of
the most openly pro-mutant administrators this country has. His laws have opened many doors for our
kind."

"I did, sir," she said. "Are you helping him with his
re-election campaign?" Xavier
smiled cryptically.

"Something like that.
Now," he wheeled from behind his desk. "I trust both of you are prepared to
work?"

"Yes, Professor," said Scott. "Jean and I have been practicing her
finite telekinetic control over objects."
Xavier opened the door and wheeled down the hall, making a pleased
sound. Jean and Scott followed.

"Excellent," he said. "Once you've mastered control over small
objects, Jean, there will be no limit to what your powers can do." Jean smiled a little.

"I hope so, Professor."

"Scott," said Xavier. "What of the two students I asked you to
speak to--Ororo and Henry McCoy?"
Scott ran a hand through his hair.

"Well, sir, the...recruitment didn't exactly work
out. Ororo said she was too busy with
her college applications and Henry...well...he's Henry."

"Big, bouncy and obnoxious," put in Jean. Xavier frowned.

"Scott, I cannot emphasize the importance of our strike
force possessing more than two members.
If the war were ever to come, the two of you would be ill-equipped to
fight off a contingent of heavily armed soldiers, never mind a troop of
Sentinels. You are both inexperienced
and ineffectual in real combat."
Scott looked at the floor.

"I'm sorry, Professor."

"As you should be.
Jean."

"Yes, sir?"

"Speak to Ms. Munroe and Mr. McCoy for me. I want them here and ready at our next
session." Jean nodded, trying to
ignore Scott's humiliated expression.

"Of course, Professor."

---

Department of Mutant
Affairs
Compound C, Building
Block 52A
Virginia

Code Name: Department
X

"And furthermore," the man on television was
saying, "I fear for my children--and for your children--if these
abnormalities are allowed to continue to roam free!" Amid enthusiastic applause, the newscast cut
to the weather.

"He's a real firebrand, isn't he?" said one of the
two men watching the small set. He was
slim and rather young, in glasses. He
could be a good-looking MIT grad except for the white lab coat and the
Department of Defense top-secret clearance badge attached to it.

"He likes to shoot his mouth off, ya mean," said
the other man, who was dressed in army greens with the rank of colonel
attached. "He keeps this up, we're
gonna have another Trent Goddamn Lott on our hands." The bespectacled man raised his eyebrows.

"I always figured you for a Trent Lott fan, personally,
John." The colonel shot him a black
look, reaching into the box on his desk for a cigar.

"I see he ain't the only one around here with a big
mouth, Gyrich." Gyrich smiled
thinly.

"Point taken."

"Now I know you didn't come in here just to flap yer
jaws about our beloved candidate for president."

"Indeed I didn't," said Gyrich. "I merely wanted to inform you that the
advanced strike force we've been assembling is 90% complete." The colonel grinned around his cigar.

"About time I had some goddamn good news. Once those things are ready to fly my
contact'll give you the exact coordinates."

"I'm still awed you managed to place a mole inside
Xavier's operation," said Gyrich.
"You are one sneaky son of a bitch, John."

"That's why they gave me this job, son. Now git."

"Pleasure speaking with you, as always." Gyrich walked out before his sarcasm could
merit a retort.

---

Xavier Institute

Victor walked into what was supposed to be his new room and
stopped. A short guy with blue hair and
abnormally large hands and feet was standing on his head in the middle of the
floor. He was also dressed in a Hawaiian
shirt so bright it made the point between Victor's eyes ache slightly to look
at it.

"Hello!" he said when he spotted Victor. "You must be the lucky player who has
won the incredible honor of being my roomie!"

"Uh...sure," said Victor. The blue-haired guy stuck out a hand, still
keeping his balance.

"Henry McCoy.
Call me Hank. Everyone does. Some of the lesser primates that populate the
athletic teams will swear my name is something creatively humorous yet obscene,
but really, it's just Hank." Victor
set his bag down. His single bed
appeared to be covered in small glass petri dishes arranged in no particular
design, surrounded by pillows and heat lamps.

"What's this shit on my bed, Hank?" Hank swiveled
slightly to look.

"Oh that! I'm
culturing a new strain of bacteria."

"On my bed?"

"You don't have anything to worry about, unless you're
a strain of a particular water-borne Amazonian virus that my bacteria is
designed to eat. But I'll thoroughly
disinfect the bed before you sleep in it, if it will make you feel
better."

"Much," said Victor dryly.

"My goal is to win the Nobel prize by the time I'm twenty-one,"
said Hank. "I only have three more
years to go...right now I'm stuck."

"Stuck?" said Victor. He opened his bag and started putting his few
possessions into an unoccupied drawer.

"Yes. See, I was
working on a complex formulae to disassemble mutant DNA and locate the specific
aberrant gene that causes mutation, and suddenly--poof! I hit a brick wall, as it were." He did a brief break-dancing spin before
regaining his balance. "Going
inverted usually helps. Blood to the
brain, you know."

"I think you might have a little too much blood in
there already, pal," said Victor.
He sniffed once. "So where
do you keep the booze?"

"Pardon?" said Hank.

"Booze.
Hooch. Wowie sauce. Alcohol," said Victor. "This is a boarding school, ain't
it?" Hank frowned.

"I don't have any spirits handy...but I could probably
make some." Victor raised an
eyebrow.

"Moonshine?"

"Oh yes," said Hank. "It's insultingly simple. All you do is distill the corn..." He suddenly blinked and then flipped over, coming
to his feet. He rushed to his computer
and typed frantically for a moment before deflating. "The paradigm still doesn't
work..." He flopped backwards on
his bed and sighed. "So I hear you
and Piotr Rasputin scuffled."
Victor blinked at the two abrupt subject changes.

"Yeah. So
what?"

"You're either even dumber than you look, or you have a
very large chip on your shoulder."
Victor growled, talons sprouting from his fingers.

"I'm no dummy."
Hank held up his hands.

"I assure you, I was not disparaging your
intellect. Between you and me, the
behemoth deserves a good ass-kicking."
He frowned slightly. "Of
course, you will keep that
confidential, won't you? I may look like
a dock worker, but I have an aversion to big metal fists hitting me repeatedly
in the face." Victor snorted.

"You make me the booze an' yer secret is
safe." Hank grinned.

"Deal."

---

Emma Frost lit a cigarette and directed the smoke at Logan. "I hear you met the new guy."
o:p>
"News travels fast." Logan
plucked a cigarette out of Emma's pack and lit it with her own lighter.

"So what's he like?" said Emma. Logan
shrugged.

"Big, blond and rude."

"Right up your alley, my dear." Logan
extended her middle finger.

"Shove it, Frost."
Emma looked over at the two males in the boathouse.

"Either of you boys know anything about our dark and
mysterious newcomer?"

"He's a senior," said the smaller of the two,
blue-eyed with unruly hair.

"To be horribly pedestrian, Alex--no shit," said
Emma. "What about you,
LeBeau?" Remy lifted his dark
glasses to look at her.

"Don' know not'in about nobody, mon chere." He lay back
on the pile of musty lifejackets that served as a sofa and continued puffing on
his own cigarette.

"Well this is totally unacceptable," said
Emma. "I must know--who is he? Where does he come from? What are his powers?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" said Alex,
pointing to the door of the boathouse.
Everyone turned to see Victor. He
smiled widely and raised a hand.

"How y'all doin'?"
Emma narrowed her eyes.

"What is he doing here?"

"I invited him," said Logan. Emma inclined her head.

"Nice work, Logan. If you can be sure he won't rat us out to the
J. Crew Brigade."

"The what brigade?" said Victor.

"Scott Summers and Jean Grey," said Emma. "And to a lesser extent Ororo Munroe,
Piotr Rasputin and that entire odious little cult of upper-middlasslass
mall-shopping arse-kissing culturally backwards cretins."

"They spy on other students for the Man," said
Alex.

"He means Xavier," said Logan
by way of explanation. Victor chuckled.

"I'm not gonna tell anyone about yer secret clubhouse,
Blondie." Emma pursed her
lips.

"Victor, this is Emma Frost, Alex Summers and Remy
LeBeau," said Logan.

"Pleasure," said Emma, extending a hand.

clasclass=MsoNormal>"Yo," said Remy, waving from the lifejacket
pile.

"Summers," said Victor, fixating on Alex. "Any relation?" Alex pulled a face of utter misery.

"Maximum family ties, dude. I'm the brother of the Man."

Victor sat down next to Logan. "So what do you do in here, besides
bitch and moan about the popular kids and smoke a lot of pot?" He cast a significant look at Remy, who
guiltily stubbed out his joint.

"That's about it," said Logan. Emma cast her a look.

"We consider this a safe haven from the slings and
arrows of the outrageous comedy that is high school life."

"Why use two words where fifteen will do, huh
Blondie?" said Victor with a snarky grin.
Emma blew out a sigh.

"I'm beginning to think this was a mistake on Logan's
part." She stood. "I'd love to exchange witty banter with
you, Victor, but I have a date."

"Who wit'?" asked Remy.

"No one from this
school, that's for sure," said Emma.

"Translation: twenty-five-year-old stockbroker with a
BMW and an expense account," said Logan. Emma stood, tossing her hair.

"Daddy always told me to take what I can, when I
can."

"Yeah, right before he disowned yo' ass," said
Remy with a chuckle.

"Fuck you all," said Emma in parting, leaving the
boathouse.

"Pleasant, ain't she?" said Victor.

"Almost as pleasant as me," said Logan. Victor grinned.

"Pleasant is overrated."

"I feel the same way," said Logan. Victor leaned back on his elbows, and Logan
got the sense once again he was showing off for her, like an animal trying to
impress it's mate.

She couldn't say she minded it much.

"So, Logan,
tell me about the man Xavier," he said.
Logan raised an eyebrow.

"Why do you care about Xavier?"

"I like to know what kind of tightass is runnin' my
life." Logan
snorted.

"You got the tightass part right."

"What else did I get right, darlin'?"

"Don't call me that.
What's to tell--Charles Xavier, savior of mutantkind, political figure,
billionaire. Everything else is just
fine print." Victor perked up a
little.

"Like?"

"Some of the more...well-behaved students have been
training with him ever since I've been here.
Logan
glared at him. Thought he wo cuo cute
with his little games.

"So Xavier lives here?
How d'you manage to sneak out?"

"Emma figured out a way to leave telepathic signatures
in all of our rooms. If he does a mental
scan for us, we're there."

"She can do that?"

"Yeah."

"Handy talent to have..." Victor filed that one away. Frost could be useful or she could be an
obstacle. So could Logan....

He'd just have to wait and see.

---

A/N: I know that one was long�having so many plot points
becomes an exercise in pacing�so if you�d like me to continue, please review or
email!
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Changes