X-Men: Night of the Living Brain Dead
by
Ben Church bchurch@su.edu
All major characters are the property of Marvel Comics except
Hotshot.
Chapter 7
The plane landed in Massachusetts only four hours late. The
flight had grown bumpy in the last hour and Will had been sitting
behind a baby who, frightened by the turbulence, had been screaming and
crying. For a young child that boy had a powerful set of lungs. Will
hadn't minded that, but when the mother began to hold the baby and
comfort the boy, he was in the perfect position to throw up on Will.
And he did. Just as Will had gotten up to clean himself off, the
fasten seatbelts sign had gone on. By the time the plane landed, the
stain had set in.
"Now everyone will think that I wet my pants." he complained
to Betsy.
Betsy stifled a laugh and said "No they won't. That looks
nothing like you wet your pants. It looks like you threw up on
yourself."
"Oh well that's a load off my mind." he said. Looking around
at the crowd, he saw a woman in skimpy leather clothes. "Hey I didn't
know that Hookers worked airports."
Betsy looked where he was looking and saw a tall woman with
shoulder length blonde hair coming towards them.
"Uh, that's your new head-mistress Emma Frost. And you'd do
well not to think of her like that, she's telepathic."
Will tried to hide his surprise. "_That's_ the Head Mistress?
What kind of school have I gotten myself into?"
Emma Frost approached slowly, taking the time to study the
boy's mind. She found grief over his parents' death but nothing
terribly interesting, the surprise at her choice of Wardrobe was only to be
expected. The boy was watching her approach carefully,
sizing her up just as she had sized him up. He was not a bad looking
boy for his age, despite the eyepatch. And the friendly smile he had
was sure to help endear him to the other students.
"Hello Will," she said smiling "I'm Ms. Frost."
"Pleased to meet you." he replied, and shook her hand.
"Hello Emma," Betsy said, "How is everything?"
"Just fine, except I'm concerned about Jubilee. But I'll
talk to you about that later. Your bags somehow arrived ahead of you,
and they're waiting back at the school. Shall we go?"
They had no trouble at the metal detector this time, Will
suspected that Frost had shielded them from the guard.
The ride to the school was quite uneventful. Will didn't pay
much attention to the scenery, as beautiful as it was. He was too
anxious to see the school. When they finally arrived, Will was not
disappointed. The school was every bit as large as he'd pictured it.
There were many buildings on the campus, and it was surrounded on all
sides by forest. Will hopped out of the car and looked at the main
building. He walked towards the door and was met there by a man who
introduced himself as Sean Cassidy. His new head instructor.
"Well lad, why don't I show you your new room?" Will followed
Sean upstairs.
"So what should I call you?" Will asked.
"What d'ye mean lad?"
"Well should I call you Sean? Or would you prefer a last name
basis?"
"Whatever ye're most comfortable with lad."
"All right then Cassidy, does the same go for the head
mistress?"
"Just don't call her Emma."
"Thanks."
"Ye're welcome lad. Ah, here's your room. I'll let you get
settled then. Feel free to explore the campus, the computer has a
detailed map of the campus." with that the was gone.
Will set about unpacking his clothes. When he finished, he
opened the trunk that Logan had packed. There was another lid inside
with a note on it that said "Not everything was destroyed in the fire
at your apartment kid, enjoy. -Logan." Eagerly, Will opened the
trunk's inner lid and gasped. Apparently, his room had been virtually
untouched by the fire. All his computer disks and his hacker's
notes, had escaped destruction.
"It's a good thing I stored these things in fire resistant
containers." he thought. "I hope the disks are all right, you're not
supposed to expose them to heat." One by one he fed the disks into the
computer and checked them. Most of the floppies were useless, but the
cd's were okay. He didn't mind about the floppies, he had already
transferred most of them to cd anyway. The rest of the information was
in his notes. The cd rom in the desk computer in his room, was top of
the line. He searched the files and found a map of the main building.
The map gave him specific directions to the locations that he chose.
The gym, the biosphere, the girls' dorm, and finally, the music room.
It occurred to him that he really hadn't practiced for a while. He
decided to remedy that immediately.
He entered the music room and stopped in his tracks. In one
corner stood a grand piano and a very expensive looking electronic
keyboard. In another part of the room were large amplifiers surrounded
by every type of guitar and string instrument he had ever heard of, and
even some he hadn't heard of. Finally there was karyokee machine and a
display case with a large variety of wind instruments.
"I've died and gone to heaven." he thought.
Monet and Clarice headed for the gym. Monet was, as usual,
trying to get Clarice to come out of her shell. Her current attempt
was meeting with more success than most of her previous attempts.
"So what do you think he's like?" she asked.
"I don't know." Clarice whispered. "Maybe you could go into
the computer and look at his file."
Monet smiled. She had gotten Clarice to make a suggestion.
Something she'd been too shy to do before.
"You know what?" she asked. "I think I'll do just that. Come
on." She turned down another hall to the computer room. Halfway there,
she stopped, and tilted her head.
"Do you hear that?" she asked. The sound of piano music
wafted up the hallway to her left. Very good piano music. "Let's go
check it out."
They made their way to the music room and peeked in. A blond
boy sat at the piano playing a complicated tune that Clarice
immediately recognized from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The part where
Daffy and Donald were playing in a club. Monet recognized it as the
Hungarian Rhapsody.
"He's very good." Monet remarked. Clarice nodded in
agreement. The boy finished the piece and turned towards the opposite
wall and studied the selection of guitars. He selected an electric
bass and plugged it into the amplifier. He then broke into a series of
guitar solos that neither of them recognized. Then he played Amazing
Grace on harmonica, and a fast-paced fiddle solo.
Will was satisfied that his ability had not been hampered by
the weeks without practice. He still knew how to play every instrument
that he had learned to play. When he finished with the fiddle, he put
it away. Almost immediately he heard applause from behind him. He was
sure that he jumped at least ten feet if not higher. He whirled around
and saw two girls watching him. One was a tall black girl of
extraordinary beauty and the other was unusual in the fact that she had
purple skin and hair, and her eyes were entirely blue, with no
discernible pupils. Despite her unusual appearance she was, if not
beautiful, then very pretty. He wondered how long they had been
standing there.
"How long have you been standing there?" he asked.
"Long enough to be impressed." the black girl said. "My name
is Monet St. Croix, and this is Clarice Ferguson."
"Pleased to meet you." Clarice whispered.
"Likewise." Will smiled. "My name is Will Davidson."
"Listen," Monet said, "We're going out to play volleyball, do
you want to play?"
"Sure why not."
Monet could not help stealing sidelong glances at Will. At
first she'd been taken back by the patch over his left eye but now she
found it intriguing. She noticed that Clarice was trying hard not to
look at him. A sure sign of affection. By the time they reached the
gym, the other students were already there. Will had rarely seen such a
diverse group. First there was Creed who Will already knew. There
was also a Hispanic boy, a tall boy with bandages around him covering
his mouth and chest, an African American boy, two small children, one
with pink skin and one with green skin, as well as a blond girl and
a girl with bright red skin and spiky hair and sharp fingers. Then
there was a tall man with white hair.
"Will," Monet said, "This is Angelo Espinoza, Jonathan
Starsmore, Everett Thomas, Artie, Leech, Paige Guthrie, Penance, and
Eric Magnus. You already know Mr. Creed."
"I certainly do. How ya doin' Creed?"
"Pretty good."
"Say," Will asked, "Aren't you and Magnus a little old to be
students?"
Magnus smiled. "Think of us as student teachers." he said.
"If I may continue?" Monet broke in. "Everybody, this is Will
Davidson." When the introductions were completed, they began to
organize teams for the game.
"All right," Eric said, "Creed and I will be the captains. Is
this agreeable?" Everyone nodded.
"Creed you may have first pick."
"Thanks." Creed said. "All right, I pick...Will." Soon the
teams had been chosen. On Creed's team were Will, Clarice, Jonathan,
Artie, and Paige. On Eric's team were Monet, Angelo, Everett, and
Leech. To Will's relief there was no fuss about the teams not being
even.
Creed served first. Eric returned the serve, but the ball
disappeared soon after it cleared the net.
Angelo glared at Clarice and started to say something about
not using powers, he forgot that he had been planning to use his own.
Before he could voice his complaint however, he was struck in the
back of the head with the ball.
Clarice smiled. "Our point." she said softly.
"She's making remarkable progress. Don't you think?" Monet
asked him.
"Si." Angelo grumbled.
Creed served again but this time, the ball went out of bounds.
Magnus served the ball and Paige hit it back, for about ten minutes,
they had a good volley going, but soon leech missed the ball and it was
Creed's team's turn to serve again.
"Leech is sorry." Leech said sadly.
"Don't worry about it amigo." Angelo said.
Will served the ball. Hoping to catch the other team off
guard, he served so it dropped right after it went over the net. Monet
jumped and slapped the ball right at the peak of it's arch. The ball
flew like it had been shot out of a cannon, and hit Will in the
stomach. The force of the impact threw him into the wall. Immediately,
Monet flew to his side and helped him up.
"Are you O.K.?" she asked.
"Yeah I'm fine." he answered. "That's quite an arm you got
there."
"I apologize. It appears that I went a little overboard."
"Don't worry about it. Well, I can see it's not going to be
boring living here."
Frost and Betsy sat in Emma's office discussing the
development of the students.
"I'm very pleased with their progress." Emma said. "But
there's a more important matter that I must talk to you about. I'd
hoped to talk to Xavier himself but if you're going to relay the
message, than I guess you'll do. Jubilee, Illyanna, and Xi'an never
returned from their visit to Rahne. When I tried to contact X-Factor, I
couldn't get through. I'm concerned about their safety but I can't
take the time from teaching the other students, to look for them."
"I understand your concern." Betsy said. "I'll inform
Professor Xavier when I return. In fact, It's about time I got going.
I'll say good-bye to Will and then I'll be on my way."
"I won't take up any more of your time then."
To be continued...