UNEXPECTED MEETING
Part 4: Taking Flight
written by
Jenni
Taking Flight
(part 4 in the Songbird Saga)
by Jenni
SUMMARY: Marie lives past the first week, and is gonna be in her
first training session. Plus, Paige and her finally settle their
differences.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Generation X or its characters. They all
belong to Marvel comics. Marie is a character I made up though, so
even though all those Gen X ppl belong to someone else, Marie is MY
character. Mine mine mine mine mine. (K, writing all these disclaimers
is finally startin to get to me...) The Spanish may be a bit off cause
its been a year since I was in Spanish 3-4.
_______________________________________________________________________
I run out of the dorm as fast as I can. Its really all Paige's fault
that I'm gonna be late. Had to be up running around at 5:30 AM! Wait,
flying would be definitely faster. I am so dead. Well, maybe I won't be
the last one there. Wishful thinking. Oooo! Yes, home stretch! There's
the door! I glance down at my watch. And a minute to spare...oops. I
backtrack a few feet and walk calmly in. Well, at least Jonothon and
Angelo aren't here yet. I don't look THAT bad. I take a seat in the
third row behind Everett and next to Monet. I know she is WAY too
fanatic about how she acts and looks but, well, I'd rather have someone
like her as a friend, not an enemy. And Ev's not that bad either. Still
have to work on becoming 'chummy' with Jubilee and Paige.
Ms. Frost walks in. "Good morning class. Today we are going to have a
lecture on the astral plane. I request your full attention throughout
this lecture and absolutely no talking, chewing gum, eating, spitting,
smoking, note passing..."
She keeps going. She just keeps going. I bet she won't even notice when
Angelo and Jonothon walk in. Guess she really takes that other
dimension seriously. No biggie to me though. I wonder if she'd notice
if I listened to a CD? I decide to chance it and pull out my destroyed
CD player, which is covered with various stickers and signs. Jubilee
notices me pull out one of two CD cases.
"What are you gonna listen to?" She whispers, taking care to hide from
Ms. Frost.
"Either the new Boyzone or Santana." I whisper back. Her face lights
up.
"You've actually heard of Santana? Is it the one with 'Smooth'?"
I smile and nod. Maybe being friends with Jubilee will be easier than
I thought. I notice Ms Frost start a new topic.
"Until our remaining two members decide to show up, you are free to
talk amongst yourselves." Emma walks to the desk and sits down with a
book. Jubilee walks over to my desk, and I produce my big CD wallet for
her to shuffle through.
"OhmiGod!!!!! You have the new Sugar Ray and Jennifer Lopez!" Jubilee
shrieks. "K, everyone! Marie has become my new bestest buddy cause
anyone who has Santana, Sugar Ray, and Lopez has to be a soo cool
person! And I know when peeps are incredible because I was with the
X-men..." Everyone moans, then Jubilee stops and pouts. She drops my CD
case and walks back to her desk. "Fine, then I won't talk at all
then."
Ev rolls his eyes. "This is gonna be the quietest ten seconds ever..."
"I HEARD THAT THOMAS!" Fireworks blast in his face. I'm beginning to
realize that maybe when she blasted me like that on the first day, she
was using her natural reaction to when people make her annoyed or mad.
I guess Jonothon was right. Maybe I am startin to think of them as
family, all except for Paige though.
I settle back into my chair and pop on my headphones. Right now
everyone is pretty much doing what they do best. Paige is trying to
look smart, Monet is acting like everything is below her, Ev is trying
to get Lee to calm down, and Jubilee, well, she's being Jubilee. I
wonder why Jono doesn't just walk in. He's been standing outside for
a while now. Guess he wants to make an entrance. Amazing, for a guy
who wants to be left alone, he sure does crave attention. Finally I
can sense Angelo. Out for a smoke. That is such a gross habit.
"I can explain Ms. Frost!" Angelo ran in.
"Yes, well, I suppose that even though you have been here 5 months
it is still a challenge to find your way out of the men's dorms. Now
Mr. Starsmore, if you would kindly join us, we can begin." As she
starts to drone on, I turn up the volume and wondering if WWF is on
tonight. Sad that I actually got hooked on that. Only thing is, I
wanna watch it on the good TV, and that means I'll prob have to fight
Lee and Paige for it. Maybe I can get Ev to side with...
"Ms. Waite, would you like to tell us how all telepaths are connected?"
Uh oh, Ms. Frost doubted me, gotta bluff.
"All telepaths are connected on the Astral Plane, aka the dream
dimension. They are granted access to this dimension at all times,
because of their powers." I stop, I wanna see if this satisfies her,
and if it doesn't, I am so in for it.
"Thank you Ms. Waite. Now Monet, would you like to explain the..."
No need for me to listen anymore. Didn't think she'd buy any of that.
--- Fifteen Minutes Later ---
"Class dismissed. All of you report to the biosphere in five minutes."
I walk down the hall towards the locker rooms.
"Marie, wait up!" Jubilee ran up to me. "You sure you can find your way
around here?"
I smile and nod. I may be inexperienced, but people still can't tell
when I go through their minds.
"Cool. Listen, I wanna make up for startling you when you first got
here, so lemme tell ya what'll happen, so no one catches you off
guard. First we all run three laps around the grotto. Its kinda like a
race. Then we either work in pairs on our powers, or we face off."
"Face off?"
"Yeah," she smiled, "Then its every mutant for themselves."
"Ms. Lee, Marie is most likely more mentally gifted than you and after
being here for a week realizes how training sessions work and where
everything is situated." Monet says as she walks past.
I smile as Jubilee sticks her tongue out at Monet. Well, Monet is good
at stating the obvious. Still, I'm trying to be good and friendly right
now. "Cool. You think Frosty knew I wasn't listening to her?"
"Nah, you even had Monet fooled. Trust me. I should know. I've learned
the art of pullin the wool over the teachers eyes. Course I knew, but
I can always tell when someone is doin what I have mastered." She
popped her gum loudly.
"I can only hope that I may one day follow in your great footsteps."
She nodded and shoved the door to the girls' locker room open. Five
minutes later, Lee sat at the foot of a tree while I circled overhead.
"God, what is taking Monet so long." I landed and took out my deck of
tarot cards.
"You know she puts on make-up and matching earrings for all our
training sessions." Lee was watching me.
"Really?" I shook my head. Guess thats just how some people are. Ev
walked up and sat down with us.
"You gonna tell your future?" Everett is looking at my cards.
"Nah, I'm just gonna play a quick game of solitaire." I shuffled and
spread them out. Slowly, everyone trickled out, Jonothon being last
again. If he doesn't want attention, then why does he always do this?
"Hey Ev, you gonna watch Smackdown tonight?"
He looked at me in awe. "You actually watch WWF?"
"Yeah, gotta love the Rock and Socko." I smile and put my deck away as
I sense Sean's thought pattern.
"All right ye harpies, three laps!" I get up and start running. I hate
running. I mean really hate. And it doesn't help that most of them are
all faster than me. After a while everyone stops and I just stop with
them. Like Cassidy would know that I skipped a lap. Never thougt coming
here would require getting in shape.
"We all will be facing off today." Ms. Frost looked at all of us. "We
will assign each of you a partner, there will be one group of three."
I looked around. Anyone but Paige. Even annoying Jubilee. Just not
Paige.
"Songbird." I hear my codename and I perk up. Emma continues. "You will
work with Skin. Synch, you will work with Husk. Chamber, you will be
with M and Jubilee."
"An try t' keep the lasses from killin each other." Sean smiled at him.
"All of you go off in different directions, then start hunting down
other teams." I look at Angelo.
~Vamos a la casa de el arbol?~ I project into his head.
He nods and we each head off in different directions to throw off the
others. I fly up and circle for a while, then dive down into the Leech
and Artie's tree-house.
"Well Chica, what's the plan?" He looks at me skeptically.
~Use thought projection or they'll hear us! We sit and wait till
there's only one other group left. Then we hit them hard.~
~Fine Chica.~
I look over at him. Why did I have to be the only one in my family with
a conscience. ~Sorry I didn't tell you bout me being a mutant and
coming here back in Chicago.~
He looked over at me. ~Guess I shouldn't have jumped all over you. At
least you didn't read my mind. Its K.~
So we wait and watch. And we wait.
~I'm sick of waitin, I'm goin out there." He leaps down, and right on
top of a very surprised Synch. I try to help Skin, but he moved around
too much and eventually they wrestled into the lake.
"I know you're here Husk." I don't bother to use thoughts. She comes
in the window, wearing diamond skin. "Let's do this outside so we don't
wreck the place." I fly out, not giving her an option to fight in
there.
As I go out, I feel a hand grab my ankle. A VERY sharp hand. I kick
her off, and watch her fall.
"Angelo is mine!" She tries to reach and pull me down. I dodge and
land a few feet away.
"Good, you can have him!" I thrust two mind beams at her. As she is
knocked down, I make a forcefield hold her down.
"You don't want him?" She looked confused.
"No, we're just friends." I sigh. Why is it that when people get
jealous they don't pay attention to reason. Or the very obvious.
"Oh. Well, um, he told me you were practically throwing yourself at
him."
Case solved. "Trust me, I wasn't." I roll my eyes. "He's a good guy
and all, but not my type."
She nodded. "Well, Ah was wonderin if it would be too much t'ask you
to let me up."
I smile. "Apologize first."
She smirks. "I'm sorry. Now let me up."
"Fine." I let down the field and step back. "I did win though."
"Yeah, but if it woulda been no powers, you would have been finished."
"K, I might concede that." I smile and start to walk towards the exit.
"I still don't know if I should believe you though. Why would Angelo
lie to me? How do I know you're not still after him."
I shake my head. Some people are way too thick-headed. I fly off. A
voice comes on over the intercom.
"Students, M and Songbird are the last students standing after 10
minutes. They are therefore excused from kitchen duty for the next
week."
I smile and fly off, blasting a few stray branches out of my way as I
go. I see Monet flying nearby, and I start to try to beat her to the
wall. Maybe things here aren't that bad after all.
