Chapter 19- The X-men Gather

  Xavier’s School For Gifted Youngsters – 2nd Floor Cssroom 4- Oct 23, 2008 (10:20)

  Ororo Munroe- (Storm)

  "And that css is the five major types of clouds," Ororo said to them in a room of twelve or so teenagers. She knew that the css session was about to end, but she forgot what she was about to say when someone spoke directly into her mind.

  “Attention all X-men and New Mutants, we have something of an emergency come up, be prepared to leave at a moment's notice. Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, and Prestige, would you come to the Ready Room for a briefing please.” Charles telepathically told her.

  One of the students asked after the prolonged silence from her. “Ms. Munroe?”

  Ororo blinked and cpped her hands before saying. "Sorry, but I think that csses will be ending early today." She folded her hands into each other so she could point two fingers from each hand at the students before adding. "But I want everyone to read up on the next chapter of their textbooks. Next css, we will be discussing the ozone yer and what it does for us."

  As she finished speaking, the PA system released its alternate ringing, signaling to the kids to return to their dorm rooms, instead of to their next css. She didn't even put anything away from her desk, Ororo just left ahead of the students. She then heads for the School's only public elevator.

  She pressed the down button and waited. A moment ter another of the school’s teaching staff quietly walked up behind her. Only because of him lighting his lighter did she realize that he was there, that and the smelly thing that he pulled a drag off of.

  "You know Logan, I am pretty sure that there is a state regution that says you can't smoke inside schools." She told the other teacher. She knew it had to be him, out of all of the staff and students who smoked, he was the only one bold enough to do so indoors.

  “Bite me.” He muttered with the lit cigar still held in his mouth.

  “I don’t think my fiancé would approve of me doing that to you.” she shot back.

  The doors to the elevator opened revealing that someone was already in it. A young blonde woman was dancing in the back of the lift, while listening to her music pyer through the headphones on her head. She was Alison Bir, despite her love of music and theater. This blonde with the pixie haircut was the school's w and political science teacher.

  Logan brushed past her to get inside the elevator, and as he did he returned fire saying. "While when you're tired of Prince charming, or more than likely he will be tired of you, you know where to find me, and I'll show you what a real man is."

  Ororo frowned at the man’s back as he entered the lift. Despite being the shortest teacher on staff, Logan stood tall and took no crap from anyone. He also had everyone’s back should you need it. The bck woman’s frown deepened when Alison motioned towards the short man’s cigar. He took a long pull off of it, before offering it to the other woman, the blonde didn’t take as long of a pull off of the dirty thing, but the fact that Alison did made Ororo want to scold the two of them.

  Then Alison blew her smoke into the man’s face, causing Logan to chuckle. When the doors to the lift started to close on their own, he stopped them with his hand. Then he asked. “You coming, or what?”

  "Not with that smelly thing in there," Ororo told him.

  He shrugged and said. “Suit yourself.” As the doors closed she saw him reach for the controls of the elevator.

  Knowing that other concealed lifts would lead her to the Ready Room, Ororo moved off down one of the main hallways. She took the turns needed and came before a decretive alcove. In the alcove was a bust of one of the Professor’s family members, the pque read ‘Franklin Xavier’, but the dates on the pque had worn away.

  She reached over and pressed the handkerchief in the bust's breast pocket. The stone gave way from the pressure of her finger. Then the pilr the bust sat on lowered into the floor, and both the bust and the back wall slid off to the right revealing a newer steel set of doors behind the alcove.

  The light above the doors indicated that this secret elevator was currently on the third floor, so she pressed the button to call it, and then Ororo waited patiently. It didn't take long for the lift to reach her, but just like the st one, when the doors opened it revealed the people already inside.

  Insider was a pair of teenage boys, most wouldn’t know this but the taller of the two was the younger brother of the pair. Ororo greeted them before stepping onto the elevator. “Scott, Alex.”

  “Ms. Munroe.” The teen on the left with red sungsses said as he nodded to her greeting.

  While the taller one said, “Storm,” in greeting.

  Scott elbowed his brother’s arm before correcting him. “She is still in her casual clothes, Alex, she is Ms. Munroe.”

  The taller younger brother spped the arm that struck him. “We are in a secret elevator. Who but us, are going to hear me?”

  Not wanting to pick at side in their near constant bickering, Ororo instead asked. “I know why Scott is here, but why are you headed to the sub-basement Alex?”

  The boy in question brought both of his hands together and released a spark of psma between them. Then he said. "I need to let off a little before an accident happens so I am heading to the Danger Room. Only pce here that can handle the heat I let off."

  Both brothers were like her, mutants. While she had the power to control and direct the weather, they both were generators. They both seemed to store and emit energy in their bodies. Scott's came out of his eyes, and seemed to always be on, thus the specialty-made sungsses that could negate the bsts.

  Meanwhile, Alex could release it from several pces from his body, but his body didn't stop making it and they couldn't find a material that could negate his energy type, unlike Scott's. So every now and then he needed to release some before his body broke capacity, and he would just unleash it randomly around him.

  When the doors closed behind her, she waited for the lift to start moving before reminding the teenager. “Just remember to have some still in your tank Alex, if Scott and Jean have been called to the Ready Room as well, there is a chance that you and the other New Mutants will be going out with us X-men on this next mission.”

  "Bout time," Alex stated as he punched one hand into the other. When he noticed that his brother didn’t seem as excited as him he added. “What, training and csses are great and all, but unless we get some actual experience out there we won’t know if we are really ready.”

  “The training may seem boring to you brother, but I can tell that some of us still aren’t ready for a mission yet.” The older brother argued back.

  His younger brother nodded and started to say. "You mean like how Evan never… really…" However, Alex stopped speaking when he turned and remembered that she was also in the elevator.

  “What about my nephew? You think he’s not ready?” Ororo asked the New Mutants team leader.

  Scott rubbed his chin as he looked for the words, eventually saying. “It’s not just him, Hisako has never been in a real fight before, heck when those mutant traffickers tried to kidnap her and you and the X-men saved her, was the first time she ever saw a gun… and Alex is right about one thing, training is not the real thing, and I worry that she will freeze up when we need her.”

  “It’s a good thing we got two tanks on the team then isn’t it?” Alex muttered.

  Both the teacher and his brother gave him a look, before Ororo gave her own advice. “And that is why you might be going with us, because we X-men will be there to have you back when something bad does happen… Remember, one day your New Mutants will be the new X-men.” As she added the st bit, she reached up and held the panther cw neckce her Prince had given her in pce of an engagement ring.

  Then they stopped and the doors opened near the boy's locker room. Alex got out first taking a right so that he could change in the locker room, while Ororo and Scott went left and headed for the main hallway before turning to go to the Ready Room.

  Once there the teacher looked around to make sure that everyone was there. She was surprised to see that the Professor wasn't, but the other people requested were. Logan was at his usual spot at the long oval table in the middle of the room, the only one without a computer or monitor in front of it. He had one of his cws out and was carving on a piece of wood that he left here while he had nothing better to do.

  Ororo had to admit that he was getting better; this one actually looked like a person rather than the lion that looked more like a bear that he made st time.

  At the other end of the long table sat a teenage girl. She had long red hair hanging down her back, and she was already changed into her New Mutants costume. A mostly bck jumpsuit with red shoulders, gloves, and boots, the mask the girl picked out barely covered her face, but had a metal pte in the middle of her forehead. She once told Ororo it helped her concentrate and focus her powers.

  “I am surprised I beat you here Slim, what with even me taking the time to change and everything.” Prestige, or Jean Grey said to the boy who came in just ahead of her. She was sitting at a spot two away from hers, as Scott tended to sit next to Ororo during the meetings and briefings that the New Mutants got to attend. Watching her take notes and listen to the tips she feeds the eager teenage boy.

  “Had to check on my brother.” The other team leader admitted before moving to sit next to her. Prestige leaned over and kissed the boy's cheek. Ororo was surprised to hear Logan growled at the sudden sight of intimacy.

  ‘What’s that about?’ The teacher wondered, but didn’t have time to ask as the Professor rolled in on his wheelchair, before she could say anything to her co-captain of the X-men.

  "Good, you're all here." Professor Xavier said aloud, as he rolled in towards the table.

  Snikt. The noise stopped everyone from continuing their talking and looked at Logan who had retracted the cw that he was using to carve.

  Scott was the first to recover asking. "Professor, what is the emergency you mentioned?"

  Charles reached over and typed a few commands into the terminal in front of him, causing the previously muted news feeds on the far wall to change. As he did he muttered. “It's because of this.”

  All two dozen monitors changed to show an enrged recording. Judging from the grainy quality it was likely taken by someone’s smartphone.

  The video showed a kid trying to do a trick on a skateboard, as a trio of vans rolled up and parked near the edge of the poorly illuminated skate park. Across the street from the park was a roadside motel, and men from the vans exited, armed with various rifles and guns. One of the men threatened the kid on the skateboard but must not have seen the one making the recording because he just joined the others after the skateboarder started to leave.

  The footage gets very shaky and dizzying as the recorder runs up to the boy on the board, and then passes him to get a better view of what the men were doing. When it was stable again, Ororo started counting.

  ‘Thirty-two, not including the drivers.’ The teacher thought as she saw the lead man raise a device she couldn’t quite make out, only the lights on it really came through clearly in the recording.

  Then insanity broke out. As a door from one of the rented rooms burst open, and a boy clearly on fire flew into the middle of the crowd of gathered men, a second passed as he screamed into the sky, before a wave of fire blew all of the men onto the ground and set them abze.

  The boy's own fire was put out, and he was trying to catch his breath, but the battle was not over, as the drivers opened fire on him from inside their vans. Then another man, an older more mature version of the boy with fire abilities, exited the motel with a shotgun and started to return fire at the vans.

  Two of the vans started up and drove away, but the middle one stayed where it was.

  Then the video stopped and a repy icon appeared in the middle of the frozen image.

  There was a moment of silence broken by Ororo when she asked. “How is the child?”

  “Critical and is unlikely to recover. He received six shots to his chest, and more to his arms and groin. But the doctors were still working on him, when I was informed of this incident.” Charles answered her.

  “Is this the emergency? I didn’t hear about any of this in the news st night.” Scott asked, anger clear in the teen’s face.

  The Professor's answer chilled her. "The emergency is that this was not the first of these attacks. At least eight more simir attacks have reported to have happened here in the States, and another three have occurred in Engnd and France…I have been fielding calls all morning. First, the father who returned fire at the driver was in contact with me. He and his son were on their way here, so that Carlos, that was the mutant boy in the video, could be trained here.'

  "The other person I have been speaking with is Agent Duncan of the FBI. He tells me that he is the lead on this attack, because of the mutant nature tie-in and because the other attacks have occurred in the other states making this a federal case. What really worries me is that this is not the first defeat these people have suffered.’

  "Back in March, another roadside motel, in Iowa was attacked, but this attack was not caught on camera. Also unlike in this attack in that one, all of the attackers were sin on the scene. The local sheriff covered it up; Duncan is looking into before he was most recent attack happened."

  “How do we know all of these attacks are connected?” Prestige asked.

  Charles smiled at the teenage girl before answering. "Because in six of the eight scenes, a simir device was recovered, a small hand-held device that lights up or chimes when aimed at someone with the X-gene."

  "A mutant tracker, great," Logan muttered.

  “Professor, if these people are that coordinated and has such equipment, what is the mission?” The female teen asked.

  Xavier pointed at the girl before saying. "Hold on, there is still more to cover. The wife of the motel owner from Iowa went into hiding, after the attack with her son. Agent Duncan's partner found her and reported back that the boy is a mutant, and that her husband was killed in the attack.'

  "What's more she confirmed that there was one such tracker kept near the motel's register."

  "So the motel owner was in on it," Ororo muttered.

  The professor nodded, before adding. “However, unlike the other sites, this tracker is intact and undamaged. That is the mission. Agent Duncan wants us to track down this device so that we can give it to them. We hope that the FBI can try and track down the origin of these devices. And thus the people behind these attacks.”

  “So who is the lucky winner that gets a house call from us?” Logan asks with a smile.

  Charles took a moment to take a deep breath, before answering. “The Brotherhood of Mutants. The wife confirmed that Exodus was the one who thwarted the attack.”