Okay, the first three lines you’ve read before. . . bear with them. After that it’s 100% new. Wasn’t the second part of the cauldron great?!?!? You didn’t know how it was going to end until it had ended. I can’t believe we have to wait until September for new episodes. I LOVE Alex *formulating an Alex fic in her head muhahahaha* He’s such a cutie! But I’ll finish Outfoxed first . . . it’s gonna get interesting soon. In the words of Yelhsa D : “I wonder what could go wrong on a ski trip? A lot!”
OUTFOXED
Chapter 7: The Joys Of Motion Sickness
Evan slid into the aisle seat next to Angeline, not quite believing his luck. Not only did he get to sit with Angeline, he was beside Kurt and Rogue, and Kitty and Scott were in front of them. If it wasn’t for the fact that he completely hated buses, he might have actually been happy.
But that was the fact - he did hate buses. With a passion. Sure, he had grown up in New York city, he should have been used to public transportation, right? Wrong. He could barely look at a bus without feeling queasy. He didn’t even eat breakfast this morning. At least he didn’t have the window seat. The bus lurched out of the parking lot, causing Evan’s stomach to jump along with it. It was going to be a long bus ride.
Beside him, across the row to his right, Kurt didn’t look much better. Maybe it was just Evan’s imagination, but he hadn’t been looking quite right since that night at the warehouse. And he was acting really strangely too - not talking at all at the dinner table, locking himself in his room, he hadn’t heard him crack a joke in a week. On Saturday night Kurt had woken up the entire household with screams from a nightmare - and he wouldn’t even let the professor help him. Evan was worried about his friend. Judging by the dark circles under his eyes that even showed through the hologram, it was a safe bet to say Kurt hadn’t slept since.
As the bus pulled onto the freeway, seemingly hitting every pothole there was to hit, Evan leaned across to talk to Kurt. He tried to keep the conversation light, every time he had tried to ask Kurt what was wrong he just clammed up and Evan didn’t want to push him, “So, you excited about this week?”
Kurt smiled back weakly, “Yeah, I guess so . . .” He turned his attention back to the magazine he was flipping through. So much for that conversation.
He noticed Kitty kept looking back at him and Angeline every couple of minutes suspiciously. His mind drifted back to a conversation they had had last night:
~He had walked down to one of the rooms in the basement to bring up some sodas since there were none in the fridge. It was their storage cellar and hardly anyone ever went there, except to get food and he was surprised to find Kitty there, poring over a file folder, which she immediately shut as he walked into the room.
Being the curious and instigatorial person that he was, he delightedly asked, “Whatcha got there Kitty?”
“Nothing Evan.”
“Well, if it’s nothing then you won’t mind me taking a look, will you?”
“But . . . EVAN!”
Evan had snatched the file from Kitty’s hands and began flipping through it himself. The first page of the file was a disturbing picture: A corpse - badly charred - with blue flames still licking at its clothes. A child of no more than seven was facing the body, their back to the camera. The strangest thing was that the child had a long red, white tipped tail and pointed ears which projected out of the top of their head. It was impossible to tell if they were a girl or a boy, but it was obvious the child had caused the death of the other person.
The next page was a summary, which he scanned quickly.
Name: N/A
Number: 725
Code Name: Elementia (Fire Fox)
Power: Elemental Manipulation
Comments: Dangerous. Approach with caution. She was the first mutant recruited for our program and therefore the best trained. Her original power was pyro-kinesis which manifested at birth unlike most mutants but, through genetic displacement and alteration by our scientists, she is also able to control electricity and water. Attempted escape in 1994 but was recaptured. Thought to have been a key player in the breakout of Nightcrawler (see file 1387) but would not reveal his whereabouts even after extensive torture techniques. Successfully escaped in 1996 and is currently at large. Not mentally sound but extremely good at concealing her powers. Believed to have a grudge against all mutants and has a tendency to attack even when unprovoked.
The only other picture in the file was of a pair of deep green eyes staring harshly from the glossy photograph. There was no clear photo of the girl. He looked at Kitty in shock, “Where’d you get this?”
She looked down at the floor in shame, “When we were walking in the warehouse, it was dark and I almost ran into file cabinet. I just phased through it and I accidentally grabbed a couple of files. When the Brotherhood came and attacked us, I just kind of forgot about them until we got home. Most of them are pretty boring actually, the rest of the kids in the files were killed. But this one . . .” She trailed of, becoming quiet.
“Nightcrawler?” his eyes scanned over the page again, “You don’t think it’s Kurt do you?”
“I really don’t know. But look at the color of the fire - blue, like in the warehouse. And the water and electricity manipulation, that happened in the cafeteria too . . . I think that Kurt’s not telling us something. Something about Angeline.”
“Oh man, this is big.”
“Should we tell Professor Xavier?”
“No. I mean, we can’t be totally sure it’s her. And it could really hurt Kurt. I think we should keep this to ourselves Kitty.”
“But it said she’s dangerous and a threat to other mutants.”
“Still, until we’re totally sure, there’s no use telling anybody.” Honestly, he was worried Kurt was going to get in a lot of trouble for not confessing that he knew about Angeline and Evan didn’t want to be the cause of it. Also, Angeline had never been anything but nice to all of them. ~
He looked over at her in the bus seat next to him. She was reading a novel and her brow was furrowed with quiet concentration, not noticing that the bus was bumping along at a sickening pace. How could she ever kill a person? As though sensing the eyes upon her, she turned and smiled at Evan, “‘ow rude of me. I didn’t mean to be ignoring you. Zis is just a really good book.”
He smiled back, “That’s okay. Are you looking forward to this trip?”
“Yes, I am actually. Zere’s something very satisfying about cutting through fresh powder.”
“Do you ski?”
“Snowboard. Et toi?”
“Wha?”
“Sorry. It means ‘And you?’”
“Oh okay. I snowboard too.”
After they talked for a bit, Evan was surprised by how much he and Angeline had in common. He was almost upset when the bus stopped after about 5 hours for a lunch break - almost. To be honest, he was happy to be on solid ground once again, and made a trip to washroom to “pray to the porcelain god” as his father used to put it because he hated the sound of the words “puke” and “barf”. Personally, Evan didn’t find them that offensive, but if his dad heard some of the language that he used at school, he would have been dead.
He was actually feeling pretty good by the time they had gotten back on the bus. Most of the road’s bumps were filled in by the soft snow that had just begun to fall and Evan couldn’t help himself from falling into a deep sleep in the lull of the bus.
*~*~*~*
He was awakened seven hours later by Angeline, gently tapping his shoulder and calling his name, “Evan. Evan, look at zis.”
He followed her gaze to a large building nestled at the side of the mountain. Though it was only seven o’clock, the sky was a dark midnight blue and lights shimmered from the chalet, which loomed in the darkness. The snow falling in large flakes completed the impression that Evan was living in a scene from a Christmas card. It was unreal. “Oh wow.” There were no other words to describe it.
“I know, it’z beautiful.”
Minutes later the group was unloading their bags from the compartment under the bus. Angeline grabbed her bag and as she straightened up, a snowball hit her lightly on her shoulder. Evan noticed Lance laughing to himself about 10 feet away. He hated those guys and was about to give Lance hell when he realized Angeline was laughing too.
“Alverz, you won’t be laughing for long!” She said good-naturedly. In an instant she had dropped her bags and bull-rushed him, tackling him down into the snow. He pulled her down with him and they ‘fought’ for almost a minute, laughing hysterically, before they both stood up covered in snow. Evan was reminded on some of the snowball fights they had had at the institute. Maybe it was just him, but it felt really weird that Angeline was friends with both them and the Brotherhood.
They trudged up the snow-covered path towards the lodge and entered the heavy oak doors. The common room was huge and the dark wood ceiling stretched high above them. Overstuffed chairs and sofas littered left side of the room, in front of a large flickering fire, and to the right was a reception/ski rental desk. A plump, smiling woman shook Mr. Grantis’ hand and handed him 9 keys. Scott, who stood behind him, whispered to Evan that she an her husband ran the lodge.
Mr. Grantis, in turn, looked at them, “Alright class, I’ve done my best to make the room arrangements fair . . .” he named off the groups of four and to Evan’s surprise, Mr. Grantis had actually done a good job with the room arrangements, everyone was happy. He was rooming with Kurt, Scott, and Scott’s friend Paul. The girls (Jean, Rogue, and Kitty) were all together, too.
They slowly climbed up the stairs to their rooms to claim beds or shower or change their clothes or a combination of them all. Evan was one of the first to return to the common room, about twenty minutes later. Paul was the first to go into the shower and Evan really didn’t want to wait so he had simply changed out of his clothes and headed back down in search of something to eat. He hadn’t even bothered to unpack his clothes. He would do both of those things before he went to bed tonight.
To his surprise, in the time it had taken to change his clothes, the kitchen had set out a buffet table with hot chocolate and about four different kinds of soup. He also noticed, for the first time, a small stage with a karaoke machine on it. God help them. He ladled out a bowl of something that looked like minestrone and sat on one of the sofas, devouring the hot liquid. He hadn’t eaten since last night.
Slowly, his classmates began to filter in small groups down the stairs, taking soup and chatting quietly amongst themselves. A couple of the brave ones were singing - very off-key - but most were too tired to do anything but sit and chill. Scott and Kurt came down a few minutes later and joined him on the couch, mumbling that they had never seen a guy shower for that long, even Jean and Kitty were quicker and they took forever.
They got up to get some soup, and Evan noticed Angeline come down the stairs by herself. Her hair was piled at the back of her head with a silver clip and she had shed the heavy gray down parka and jeans that she was wearing on the bus for an ice blue, fitted hoodie and a navy blue, cargo-pocketed floor length skirt with ice blue trimming. Overall, the effect was breathtaking. She had a sort of quiet grace as she descended the stairs and Evan couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Kurt and Scott crashed back down on the sofa beside him, filling all of the seats. Angeline crossed the room to the table and all six of the three boy’s eyes were on her. Surprisingly, she took a seat on the arm rest beside Evan, smiling as she sat and balancing the soup in her lap.
The girls came down next and sat on the floor in front of the couch, sipping hot cocoa and watching their classmates butcher song after song doing karaoke. Out of the far corner of the room, Todd got up to get something to eat and passed their sofa, leaning in to talk to Angeline. “You know, you should go up there and sing, at least there would be some talent for once.”
He looked in the general direction of the stage, where some of the guys were goofing off and doing a very disturbingly accurate rendition of Brittany Spears’ “Oops I did it again”.
She shrugged, “Zey’re not zat bad.” She said, grinning at Todd.
“Yes . . . they are. Trust me. You’re much better.” He continued on to the table.
As though empowered by what Todd had said, she headed for the stage. Evan was curious to hear her sing. She stepped up to the stage and held onto the microphone, as the opening bars of the intro played she spoke quietly, “Zis iz Honestly Okay, by Dido,” she laughed a little, “‘opefully I can do it justice.”
“I just want to feel safe in my own skin
I just want to be happy again
I just want to feel deep in my own world
but I’m so lonely I don’t even want to be with myself anymore.
On a different day, if I was safe in my own skin
then I wouldn’t feel lost and so frightened
but this is today and I’m lost in my own skin
and I’m so lonely I don’t even want to be with myself anymore.
I’m not safe but I hold on
I’m not safe but I try to hold on
I just want to be safe in my own skin
I just want to be happy again.”
To be continued . . .
This seems shorter that it actually is, oh well. Probably because one page is purely dialogue. And the most important part was the file, obviously, the rest was just sort of filler. Sorry that it took such a long time . . . I’ve been working on a website to post. I’ll probably have it up soon but not yet. In the meantime, I’ll continue to work diligently on OUTFOXED. See you all at the next chapter, I don’t know who’s POV it’s going to be yet. Either Scott or Kurt . . . it’s going to be sooooooooo good, better than these last two chapters, but I had to set some groundwork. Oh yeah - REVIEW!!!!!!!!! You know you want to ^_^ Chp 8