XP: Drabbles!

[deathpixie]

For avarielwings, who asked for: Five AUs where x_wytchbrat met x_skin.





"All right, ladies and gentlemen! Eyes on the cards an' you might just catch me out. Nothin' up my sleeve, just three ordinary playin' cards. Round an' round an' round they go, where they stop... well, that's the profit, ain't it? Pick the Lady an' the money's yours."

The three Xavier's students stopped, joining the loose audience watching the performance. Jono snorted telepathically, glancing at the teenaged girl behind the card table. *And here we have a perfect example of a London con,* he said. *C'mon, Paige, there's this music shop I want to show you...*

"Yes, dear. You can drool over the shiny guitars again," Paige said wryly, before casting a glance over her shoulder at the third member of the party. "Coming, city mouse?"

"I'll catch up," Angelo said with a one-shouldered shrug. Jono's 'tour' of London was rapidly turning into 'places Jono wants to show Paige', and he was getting a little bored. The black-haired girl with the multiple piercings and the amateur magic act was just the sort of distraction he needed.

Paige looked to be about to protest, but then Jono tugged on her arm and she followed, with a small wave and a 'see you later, puppy!'

"An' for my next trick, I need a volunteer... you, sir, the young gent in the back, you look like a lively sort. Care to risk certain embarrassment by givin' me a hand?"

Angelo glanced around, realised everyone was looking at him, and stammered: "Uh, me? Sure, I guess..."

"Round of applause for the brave volunteer!" The girl gestured, and he stumbled forward, feeling awkward. There was some unenthusiastic clapping. "Couldn't help notice the accent - you a Yank, then?"

"I'm from California," he replied, reacting to the 'Yank' label. "LA."

"California boy, is it? Well, welcome to Blighty. Now, if you just stand here..."

Angelo stumbled through the trick, a relatively simple sleight-of-hand piece involving a ten pound note apparently being set on fire. As it ended, with the girl inviting him to 'take a bow, for being such a good sport' and a pat on the back, he rejoined the small crowd, feeling a bit better about this whole England trip.

It wasn't until later that he realised his wallet had been stolen.





"Angelo! I want you to meet someone. Do you have a moment?"

Angelo looked up from the book he was studying - finals were around the corner, and whilst he still didn't have a clue what he was going to do with himself, he wanted to at least have some choices, which meant cramming. However, Kurt was providing a perfectly acceptable excuse to take a break. It'd be rude to say no, after all. "Sure, Kurt." He lay the book down and approached the blue-skinned man, taking in the blond teenaged girl beside him.

"Angelo, this is my sister, Gemile. You might have seen on the journals she was coming for a visit? Gemile, this is Angelo, one of the students here."

"I'm pleased to meet you, Angelo," the girl said, sticking out her hand for him to shake without hesitation, even though he wasn't wearing the inducer. She had the same German accent of her brother, and met his gaze squarely. Her hand, when he shook it, was slightly callused and the grip surprisingly strong.

"Pleased to meet you too, Gemile," he replied, his smile warm. "You stayin' long?"

"A week or two. Mother wants me to make sure Kurt is looking after himself," she said with a grin at the older man.

To Angelo's surprise, Kurt laughed easily at the teasing. "Mother believes no-one can look after themselves without her input," he answered wryly. "But I am sure you will be finding that out for yourself." He turned to Angelo. "I know you are busy with finals, Angelo, but I have some business to attend to. Could I ask you to show Gemile the school?"

"Sure," Angelo replied readily. An afternoon spent with a pretty girl instead of a bunch of moldy old books? You didn't need to ask him twice. "No problem at all."






"Excuse me, is this the Jenkins Building, do you know?"

The girl was blonde and kind of pale, her accent English and rather prim-sounding, but when Angelo focussed on her, he was surprised to see faded jeans, Doc Marten boots and a leather biker jacket. Not even a hint of tweed, despite the fact she sounded like a Watcher.

"Um, not this one, but I'm headin' that way myself," he offered, hitching his book bag up onto his shoulder more securely. "You want to come with?"

"Oh, that would be brilliant," she replied, smiling at him, and the smile made her whole face come alive. "I'm Amanda. Amanda Wisdom. I'm here on exchange from Oxford."

"Um, Angelo Espinosa. From Cali originally, but my mom and I moved out here a while ago. Studyin' law."

"Really? So am I! You wouldn't be taking Professor Jones' class, would you?" She fell into step beside him, having to stretch her pace a little to match his longer stride.

"Intro to litigation law? Yeah, I am. That where you're headed?"

"Yes. Oh, this was a lucky coincidence, don't you think?" She laughed a little. "Sorry, personal joke. Rom, that's my mum, she says coincidence follows me around like the Queen's corgis. Whatever it is, I'm glad for it, because I've only been here a week or so and this place is so confusing. Tell me, do you find Professor Jones as dishwater dull as I do? Because I swear, he could make Sex Pistols lyrics boring..."





"So, this is the famous 'Danger Room', huh?"

Angelo cocked an eyebrow at the speaker, the young woman who had come from England a few weeks prior. Pete Wisdom's niece, apparently. Angelo had been away on Elpis business when she'd arrived and had been bemused to see the trainee name "Trouble" next to his name on the Danger Room schedule. A test of her skills, Scott had said. Nice easy milk tun. Now, catching a certain glint in her blue eyes, Angelo wasn't so sure about that. He tugged at the collar of his uniform self-consciously, wishing their uniforms weren't so... leather-y.

"Um, yeah. Doesn't look like much now, but once the scenario starts... I'm Skin - Angelo - by the way. I wasn't around when you turned up - I was off workin' in Tel Aviv."

"Trouble. Or, Amanda Sefton, if we're bein' less wanky." The girl's accent was broad South London, but her voice and expression held no malice, despite the words. Just amusement. "Uncle Pete's nickname for me - when they asked about a trainee name, it was the first thing that came t' mind." Thrusting her hands in her jeans pockets, she looked around. "So, how d'you switch this thing on?"

"Voice recognition." He nodded at the pendant she was wearing, some kind of crystal. "Um, you might want to take the jewelry off - wouldn't want it to get broken or somethin'."

"This? Oh, this ain't jewelry, 's a power source. Considerin' this place is about as magical as Milton Keynes." At his frown, she grinned again. "Oh, they didn't tell you want I do? This is gunna be fun."

Angelo swallowed. She had that same manic grin Nathan got sometimes. Oh, this was going to be fun all right. Clearing his throat, he instructed: "Begin evaluation sequence, Gamma-Zero-Alpha," and as the lights shut down and 'Trouble' lifted herself off the ground, hands and crystal charm glowing, he wondered just how she'd gotten that nickname.






"Here's what we've got so far," Scott said, his voice clipped and professional, the way it got when it was bad. "From what we've been able to get from Pete's contact..."

"His sister," Nathan corrected quietly, his voice bleak and his eyes stony. Scott nodded.

"Pete's sister, Romany. From what we were able to get from her before communications were lost, we're looking at a full-scale magical war that's destroyed a good chunk of London."

Cain snorted derisively, although one hand unconsciously moved to touch his chest. "Magic war. Right. A bunch of kids got hopped up on that Harry Potter crap and let off a few fireworks. We go in, give 'em a spanking and teach 'em to respect their elders."

"Ah think more than a spankin's in order ," came Sam's voice from the cockpit, hushed with something close to horror. "Ah think ya'll want to have a look at this."

The sun was rising, bathing the Dover cliffs in gold as the Blackbird skimmed above them, but it wasn't the landscape below that caught the gaze of the X-Men. It was the pall of smoke, thick and black, rising over one of Europe's largest cities. As they got closer, they could see the crumbled cityscape, skyscrapers toppled like children's building blocks, suburbs ablaze...

"Dear God," Kurt murmured, reaching for a rosary that wasn't there.

"What's the target?" Nathan said, and the sudden harshness of his voice startled them out of their shock.

"A girl." Scott said, holding up a grainy photograph, obviously taken from one of London's street security cameras. It showed a young blonde woman, eyes blazing with some kind of energy. Where her skin was exposed, they could see black lines of writing, a contrast to the mundane jeans and Union Jack tank top she was wearing, and in her hand was a familiar white object. A Kick inhaler. "This girl. She calls herself 'Mystic', and we believe she's single-handedly responsible for what you see down there."

"She's just a kid..." Marie said softly.

"And she's killed thousands of people already," Scott reminded her. "Just remember that."

*

It was a good plan, one of Scott's best. Perfectly executed, almost guaranteed to work.

Almost.

The fliers went in first, to distract the girl whilst the heavy hitters went in hard. With an almost careless gesture, the girl - Mystic - sent Sam careening into one of the gutted buildings. His blast shield protected him from the impact, but not from the walls that collapsed on top of him. Marie fared a little better, rebounding off the energy shield that Mystic erected at the last minute and ploughing into Lorna and Haller. Cain's massive fist shattered the shield, and the girl reached up and caught his hand against hers, looking up at him with an almost placid expression. Her pupils were so dilated, her eyes seemed black, a think strip of blue around the edges of her irises.

"Huh," she said, almost conversationally. "Elder god, is it? Haven't tasted one of those before." And with that her hand flexed, and Cain felt his strength, his power, his life being sucked out of him. The black armour faded and disappeared from his shrinking frame, his red hair thinning and turning white, his skin wrinkling and blotched with liver spots. He dropped to knees suddenly too weak to hold him up, mouthing protests in a voice too reedy to be heard.

Mystic shuddered, closing her eyes a moment, and when she opened them again, they glowed with a ruby light. "Yum," she said, and pushed the old man aside, looking at her leather-clad foes. "You know, you can't stop me," she told them, her tone matter-of-fact. "So you might as well go home while you still can."

"I really don't think so, little girl," Nathan replied, tone calm as the firebird took to the air. Mystic staggered back as he unleashed a combined telepathic and telekinetic strike, flinging her arms up to protect her face. "You think a shitty life is an excuse for this?" he continued, pressing deeper into her mind, shredding the drug haze and showing her exactly what she'd done. "Your... guardian - Rack, that was his name, wasn't it? - he was a monster, but that was no reason for you to become one as well." By now Mystic was on her knees, head bowed under the telepathic onslaught. "Revenge is all well and good, but this? This is too much."

"You think so?" The girl raised her head, and reached out to take Nathan's firebird construct by the throat. "I don't." And with that she made a raking gesture with her free hand, and the very fabric reality tore. "Bye," she told Nathan, and shoved him through the portal, closing it with a snap behind him.

"NATHAN!" The cry was ripped from the throat of the newest X-Man as Angelo shoved his way past Scott. "You fuckin' bitch! Where did you send him?"

"A world without oxygen," she replied serenely. "Bloody telepaths, always barging in where they're not invited." She smiled at him, and added: "Or it could be the world without shrimp. I get them mixed up sometimes."

An optic blast splintered the rubble beside her into fragments at the same time electromagnetic energies lifted chunks of rebar-reinforced concrete to float menacingly over her head. "Bring him back," Scott ordered, eyes narrowing for another blast.

Mystic shrugged. "Fine. You could have just asked nicely." Another ripping, tearing sound, and she reached into the portal, yanking back a limp, ashen-faced form, frost liming his still features. "Oops. Guess it was the world without oxygen after all. You sure you want him back?"

There was no holding back after that. And in the end, after barrage after barrage of percussive force beams, of plasma, of metal pylons and parts of bridges, of lightning and sheer superstrength, Mystic barely holding her ground, it was Angelo that ended it. Seeing an opening as she concentrated on knocking Ororo out of the sky, he shot out several lengths of skin from both hands, wrapping them securely around her face, cutting off her air.

She didn't struggle. That was the strange thing. And when it was over, and Angelo released his hold, there was the slightest hint of a smile on her face.

Comments

[avariel-wings.livejournal.com]

...wow.

Love them all. Even the evil ones.

[deathpixie]

Glad you liked. :) AUs are always fun drabble-fodder.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

Wow. Really, wow. Especially the last one, that one was amazing.

[deathpixie]

That one's threatening to be a full-on fic, dammit. Basically Rack introduced Amanda to Kick when she was fifteen or so, to increase the amount of power available to him and trusting the binding spell to keep her under his thumb. It sort of backfired and she drained him eventually. ;)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bounce_/]

That could be a very, very cool fic.

Go, on write it!