Disclaimers: This story, though probably not in all chapters, will definitely have celebrities in it. I don't know what they're sexualities are, and this is not meant to imply them, either. If you are not of legal age in your area, or are not interested in this type of literature, then GO AWAY!!
The X-Men, Spiderman, Blade, the Fantastic Four, Mutant X, and all associated characters are the property of Marvel Comics.
Charmed is owned by Warner Brothers.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and all related characters created by Joss Whedon. Copyright 20th Century Fox.
The characters of Highlander are owned by 20th Century Fox.
Hercules and Xena are owned by Renaissance Pictures, I think.
Street Fighter and Final Fight are owned by Capcom. Fatal Fury and King of Fighters are owned by SNK. Tekken is owned by Namco.
You can reach me at either of my addresses: jercolap@hotmail.com, redrealityranger02@hotmail.com, or whitephoenixranger@yahoo.com. The other email address I had is too full at this time, so please send comments to the above listed addresses.
I know it's been months guys, and I'm sorry for the delay, but the end of last semester, as well as the Christmas holidays at work, really kicked my ass. On top of that, I was having computer issues and lost this chapter, had to go back and rewrite it. I've been typing ahead now as well. My goal is to post once a week, every two weeks at the latest. So, here you guys are, enjoy!!
Tales of a Young Mutant
Chapter 11: On the sidelines
I was seriously starting to miss my telepathic powers, because if I'd had them, there would be no way that Devin could have taken me by surprise. I groggily recovered from being slammed into a wall by his telekinesis, just in time to see Remy being taken captive by Devin, who opened the sliding glass window of the hotel room and flew out with Remy, likely to the roof.
Kevin seemed to be contemplating what to do.
"You have to stop him." I told him as I walked up to him.
"I can't take him alone. Can't you help me with your powers?" he asked.
"I can't help you. He's made a challenge and you've accepted. Rules of the Game, no outside help. The fight is a one-on-one. You have to take him alone." This was very true. The Game was highly an honor system. There could be no intervention once someone accepted a fight. There were other rules as well, like no fighting on hallowed ground, which included cemeteries, churches, and any other religious scene.
"But where will I get a weapon? He's already outmatching me!" Kevin replied exasperatedly.
"For the time being, you can construe one from your death energy powers," I told him. "You must do this, Kevin. I know you don't like it, but this is your life, your destiny now."
Kevin seemed to be deep in thought, but quickly nodded, and with renewed confidence, he jumped out the window, and I watched as his body seemed to dissolve as he turned into a dark shadowy mist and floated up. I myself jumped out and used my TK to fly up to the roof.
When I arrived at the roof, Devin and Kevin were engaged in a projectile battle, Kevin using his death blasting power, and Devin using telekinesis. I watched as Remy began to charge a kinetic card to throw at Devin.
"No Remy!" Kevin shouted. "I have to do this myself. This is my fight, and mine alone!"
Remy looked defiant at first, but finally relented. I quickly ran up to Remy, pulling him back out of the way of the fight.
"Josh, we gotta help him!" Remy said, trying to go back to Kevin.
"No, Remy, we can't. He has to do this himself. It's the way it has to be," I replied.
Remy didn't seem happy with that answer, and I couldn't blame him, as we watched Devin and Kevin fighting, first using their powers, then Devin threw my brother one of his swords so they could fight that way, considering in mutant ability they were evenly matched. I didn't like having to sit on the sidelines, and I couldn't help but think that it was possible that I would have to watch my brother die yet again.
It didn't help when Devin stabbed Kevin, impaling him on it. "Kevin!!" Remy shouted.
I held on to Remy tight, trying to fight back tears. Memories I held dear of me and Kevin began to cycle through my mind, and my heart hurt as once again I was about to lose him.
I watched Devin raise his sword, about to slay my brother. And because of the stupid rules I could do nothing. It was over.
And as Devin swung his sword downward, Kevin rolled forward out of the way, and a slicing sound accompanied the falling of Devin's arm to the ground, followed next by Devin's scream of pain. You sly son of a bitch, I thought to myself. Kevin hesitated, but only for a moment before he beheaded Devin.
I was happy that Kevin had won, but I quickly had to catch hold of Remy, who was ready to pounce and hug his boyfriend/my brother. I knew of the legends of the Immortals, as well as what happened after taking a head. The Quickening would occur next, and from what I read of the event, it was violent and destructive. I pulled Remy back to the side of the roof, encasing us in a telekinetic forcefield.
We didn't have to wait long. Electricity flowed from Devin's body upward to the sky, and an amazing lightning storm ensued, though the lightning crashed through my brother's body. Kevin shouted out in pain that I could only imagine as wave after wave of power poured into him.
Finally, it ended, and Kevin slumped to the ground, and then floated up from the ground, likely from the newly-gained telekinesis. I finally released Remy and we walked over to him. "So, that was a Quickening?" he asked me as he landed on his feet, and I nodded in reply.
"We should go," I said, before the cops show up." Remy and Kevin agreed. Kevin looked around for the body of Devin, which was gone, only a pile of dust remained where his body must have decayed away. Apparently, similar to vampire staking, a dead Immortal must dissolve, the age finally catching up to the body.
Remy and I stood close to Kevin, who used his shadow teleporting power to take us back to the hotel room. After Remy and I got over the feelings of sorrow that are coupled with that strange teleporting power, we all gathered together their clothes and belongings. Which was a hell of a lot of clothes. I knew that Kevin liked to dress well, but damn!! He and Remy must have shopped all over the city!!!
I used my telekinesis to scan for any approaching people, and to my surprise, no one was coming for us. It could have been possible that no one was home in the neighboring rooms however. That or they may have been too busy getting their freak on to notice the fighting. Remy carried the two swords with him under his trench coat, per Kevin's request.
We went to the front desk and checked out, Gambit using his charm on the girl at the desk so that she would hurry along the process. As we left, the concierge from before returned to the desk, and he gave me an inquisitive eye. I gave him a wink as I joined my brother and Remy in leaving. I knew the concierge would probably wank tonight imagining us in a threesome, and I figured the easiest way to get by would be to let him think what he wanted.
I gave Remy instructions on how to get back to the building where I left my mini X-jet, uncloaked it, and boarded.
"You sure you guys will be okay with multiple Hellfire Club members here?" I asked.
"Yeah, we'll be fine," Kevin replied. "Go on ahead. The sooner you go and come back, the sooner we can save Tessa and then go to Xavier's."
"Okay. I'll be back soon," I replied, then gave Kevin my cell phone. "I'll call you when I get back, okay?"
"Don't take too long, okay little bro?" he said.
"I won't," I replied before giving him a tight hug. I then looked to Remy. "You watch out for each other, okay?"
"No worries, mon ami. Kevin in good hands," Remy replied.
"And so is Remy," Kevin added, hugging Remy.
"I'll see you guys when I get back," I replied, getting in, closing the hatch. I waved good-bye to my brother and his boyfriend before lifting off and heading for home.
The ride home gave me time to reflect over everything that had just happened. Not only was my brother actually alive, but he was also an Immortal, a mutant, and he was also dating Remy. My thoughts were interrupted by the beeping of the communications system as my teammates at the mansion were trying to make contact with me. I ignored the comm. system, eventually turning it off so that I wouldn't have to hear the noise. Thanks to the advanced cloaking and jet fuel technology granted to Xavier, I was able to go into warp speed, making it back home to the mansion in an hour's time without anyone being able to detect me.
As soon as I landed the mini jet
in the hangar and stepped out, I was met by Cable,
"Whoa, what's going on?" I demanded.
"Joshua, what the hell's the matter with you? We've been worried sick!! And where is Remy?" demanded Jean.
"He's still in
"But weren't you supposed to
bring him back with you?" asked
"I was going to, but something urgent came up. There's a rescue mission we need to organize down there."
"Hold on a sec, kid, you mind telling us what the hell is going on?" demanded Cable, putting away his gun.
"I'll tell all of you, but I'd rather not have to repeat myself constantly, so we need to get to the War Room and meet with the rest of the X-men," I replied.
"Damn, I leave for a day and there's a whole uniform revolution while I'm gone," I said seeing the others gathered. The only person whose uniform hadn't changed while I was gone was Wolverine, who kept his blue and gold uniform. And Beast apparently wasn't the only one that went with the X-design on the chest. In fact, those without the X were in the minority, and quite a few of them had added to it an armor-theme.
"Well, when the juniors got to re-do their uniforms, I figured that we'd redo ours too," Rogue replied. She sported a green spandex bodysuit, with thigh high gold boots and gloves that went up past her elbows, almost like Jean's previous uniform. Her long brown hair was tied back into a ponytail, her white-streaked bangs hanging down in the front, with a golden belt that hung low on her hips and a gold X across the chest.
Angel's uniform was a very dark blue uniform, with a violet X across the chest and some sort of armor-like gauntlets around his wrists and legs.
I saw Colossus, and had to force myself to not stare. Forming a sort of top across his chest was a gold armor-plated stripe that formed an X going from his shoulders to his belt and leaving much of his sides exposed, a look which was very sexy on him. Also on the uniform was a gold belt with a red square X-buckle. His shoulder pads, boots, and gauntlets were all red and seemed made of armor, and he also wore very short red shorts.
If the wrong person looked at Nightcrawler, they might have thought he was naked. His new costume was almost the same exact color as his indigo fur. In addition to his indigo bodysuit, he had white gloves, white boots, silver armor-plate shoulder pads, and a large red X graced his chest.
Psylocke I noticed had a completely different look going on for her. Her costume was indigo as well, but it was way different from the ninja-bathing suit from before. Her top was sleeveless and revealed her midriff. Her matching gloves came up past her elbows, and the outfit also had matching pants with knee-high boots. She also wore a sort of scarf around her neck and a matching red headband. The trim around the knuckles and elbows of the gloves matched her silver belt which had a red X-buckle on the hip. She had also cut her hair, stopping right at her shoulders. She was one of the few who didn't wear an X on her chest.
I noticed she was being real cozy
with one of the newcomers that the professor spoke of, Thunderbird if I
remembered correctly from the Cerebro files.
He was Indian (as in from
My dad, Bishop, wore a new costume in the blue and gold color scheme. His new costume had a gold-plated X across the chest, with gold shoulder pads over a blue sleeveless body suit, with long pants. On the pants was a gold dual-stripe on the left leg, and gold straps on the right legs, with blue and gold boots. Dad also carried several firearms with which to focus and amplify his powers.
Shadowcat seemed to follow along with the main theme of X's that everyone else had as well, with a dark blue costume with gold boots and gloves, similar to the style of the in-training uniforms given to new members of the senior team of X-men, with a large gold X over the chest. I also noticed that Kitty had cut her hair quite short. It looked awesome on her, making her look more dangerous, yet gave her a new exotic look as well. Her costume came with a mask around her eyes, and attached to one of her gloves was one of Wolverine's claws, which must have been for offensive use.
Iceman's costume reflected the change in uniform as well, a dark blue uniform with sky blue gloves and boots, and a silver-blue X over the chest. Havok's uniform was black, with white gloves and boots, a black hood/mask which covered his hair and had holes around the eyes, and large X on the chest. As the X was white with the black circle design going within the X, this was obviously a suit designed to help contain his powers, as his constantly absorbed solar energy into his torso. The white area was glowing because of this.
Quicksilver's new costume was a royal blue, with sky blue gloves and boots that had lightning bolt designs at the edges. Lightning bolts also formed armor-like shoulder pads for him, and on his chest was a large white X-shaped breastplate, held in place by the shoulder pads and lightning bolts that went from the bottom of the breastplate and fastened together in the back. Next to him was Polaris, whose costume was all green, matching her hair and new lipstick. On her costume was a forest green cape, similar in style to the ones Mom always wears, and green shoulder pads, as well as a belt with a black-on-green X buckle. I noticed she had decided against the trend of wearing an X over her chest.
Seated before us all was Professor Xavier, who was dressed prepared for battle himself, albeit his attire was a brown polo and camo-pants, as if he were a military sergeant (and I couldn't help but notice that his shirt accentuated his muscled chest and arms. Damn, Chuck is lookin' good today. Focus! Damnit!)
"So, now that we're all assembled, Joshua, would you be so kind as to fill us all in on why you didn't follow protocol, call ahead your arrival, inform us, update us on your situation?" asked the professor. "While I admit that it was a little inappropriate that Cable shoved a gun in your face when you arrived, you have to understand that we were a bit worried. After all, you could have been Mystique instead of yourself. That and you also didn't return with Remy, which was the mission."
I don't know if he meant it that way or not, but the manner in which he said this I took as not only inquisitive, but also as a way of scolding as well, which served to piss me off rather than to make me feel ashamed or embarrassed or whatever the desire emotion would have been.
"Did you at least find the
Cajun?" asked
"
"To answer the question, yes, I did find Remy," I replied. Though he wasn't the only one I found.
"So why isn't he back here? Wasn't that the mission? For you to bring him back?" asked the newcomer, Cable.
"The situation has become complicated," I replied. Before I could explain, however, Rogue interjected. And from there it all went downhill.
"Complicated. As in he's probably down there fucking around with some whore and is too involved to come back," she said.
"Hey!!" I shouted, considering the fact that the person that Remy was with was Kevin. But I forgot the fact that I was the only one in the room who knew that. And of course my outburst caused everyone in the room to gasp because they thought that it was me.
"You whore!" shouted Rogue,
leaping from her place at the table and flying at me. I quickly blocked her
attack with a telekinetic forcefield, but she kept
pounding away at it, ignoring the Professor's repeated insists for her to stop.
I had no choice save increasing my power into
the forcefield, using some of the
"So I guess Scott wasn't enough? Now you're after Rogue's man, too?" I heard. I looked to see that it was Jean who had spoken, and the look on her face was one mixed with pain and hatred.
How dare she?
After she bedded
I could smell the anger, confusion and hatred well enough that I didn't need my telepathy to understand the emotions, and I suddenly had the urge to amplify it to feed off it. Instead, I willed my power to subside, anchoring myself to the supporting feelings from Mom and Dad, then implored to the professor, "Professor, may I have the floor so can I finally explain everything?"
"Yes, I think that that would be best right now," replied the Professor, eyeing everyone else in the room for them to let me explain. No one else raised any alarms, though many eyes looked at me in anger.
"Thank you. First of all, I did begin by saying this would be complicated. I did NOT sleep with Remy. But Remy is seeing someone else. Also, there's something else. My brother, Kevin Monroe, is alive.
That elicited a few gasps as well. "How is this possible?" asked the Professor.
"He's an Immortal," I replied. Before I could be interrupted, I continued with an explanation. "An Immortal, proper capitalized name, is a magical being that has the ability to live essentially forever with little to no signs of aging over centuries and centuries. They can be killed only one way, and that is by decapitation. When an Immortal kills another, he takes on their power through what is called the Quickening. Some Immortals, like Kevin is becoming, wish simply to live in peace, and only fight and kill other Immortals in their own defense."
"But of course every race has those that quest for more power, so there are Immortals that will seek out and kill other Immortals just for more power, right?" asked Betsy.
"Correct. We or rather, Kevin was
confronted by one while I was there.
Kevin defeated him, and now, in addition to his own mysterious shadow
and death powers, has acquired those of the Immortal he killed.
And, before I get down to the real business,
of why I couldn't contact you guys," I said, before turning to Rogue, "Remy is
seeing Kevin, so I'd appreciate you refraining from calling my brother a whore.
After all, you did ditch Remy in the
"Okay, so now that we've got the preliminaries understood, why couldn't you contact us?" asked the Professor.
"Because I was afraid I'd compromise your secret agent," I replied, "though I fear that I may still be too late."
"Secret agent? You mean Thunder, right?" asked Mom, referring to Cole by his codename.
"No, I mean Tessa," I replied.
"Tessa?
Hellfire Club Tessa?" repeated
"Are you trying to say that Tessa is one of us?" Jean asked.
"Yes," replied the Professor,
receiving gasps from everyone. It was
then his turn to explain. "While I was
training my first team of X-men, Jean, Scott, Hank, and
"Hey! I detest the `little' comment!" Bobby said.
"Bobby, you were 10 then, while the rest of us were 19 and 20," Jean commented.
"This must have been years before the school became a full-fledged school?" I asked.
"That's correct," replied the Professor. "At that time, while I was training the X-men, I was also training agents in espionage. While the X-men would be defenders in a military sense, the spies I was training would infiltrate negative mutant organizations and be able to diffuse them appropriately from the inside. For example, Cole was with Sinister."
"So you put Tessa in the midst of the Hellfire Club?" Jean asked. "You actually tasked someone into such a deviant organization? If that's true, then you had that woman risk her life...almost since the creation of our team?!"
"Tessa is a very capable woman, Jean. She has done just fine—"
"Until now," I said. "Because of events that transpired between Remy and Kevin with Tessa, the Hellfire Club now knows that Tessa is indeed one of us and has been a double agent the whole time." I explained to them the fights Remy and Kevin had with Tessa, as well as the tranq gun.
"This may be a trap, however," the Professor said. "It may very well be that the Hellfire Club is only attempting to see whether or not someone will try to come to Tessa's rescue. She's been able to avoid being compromised many times over."
"Yeah, well, I don't think she's been able to avoid it this time," I replied. "Which is all the more reason why we need to go down there."
"Going down there might complicate matters more!" Xavier replied.
"Professor, spy or not, she's one of us! We can't just leave her there!" Mom said. "We've done that once. We can't do that anymore."
Xavier thought for a moment, then sighed, "Very well. I'm going to see if I can locate Remy. Maybe we can get him to find wherever it is that the Hellfire Club is planning to base their operations in New Orleans." While the Professor said this, he lifted a Cerebro helmet to his head and began to scan for Remy. In a couple of moments, Xavier's face twisted to worry.
"Oh no. What's wrong?" asked Jean.
"I have no choice to send a team now. Remy and Kevin are being detained and kept powerless by a mutant who is in league with Belladonna Boudreaux."
"Belladonna?!" Rogue shouted, shooting up to her feet.
"Who is Belladonna?" I asked.
"Some one hasn't been reading their Cerebro files," Dad said in a tsk-ing manner.
"Belladonna is Remy's ex-wife, and, from Remy's thoughts, the current leader of the Thieves' Guild, which Remy used to be a part of. Belladonna may be trying to exact revenge on Remy. Therefore, it can't be helped. I will be dispatching Storm's team to retrieve Gambit and Kevin, as well as Tessa. Rogue's and Angel's teams will remain here to guard the mansion."
"Angel's team? Rogue's team?" I said, wondering what was going on.
"Oh, I'm sorry, forgive me for
having not filled you in, Joshua," Xavier apologized.
"With the time of emergency that we have,
I've had to give out new team assignments. Storm's team is
After saying this, everyone looked to me, Jean, and Logan, and slowly, we all replied in the affirmative.
"Professor, what are we going to do about Scott?" Jean asked.
"I'm afraid that it is already too late. I've tried to reach him, but his mind has been completely overtaken by Apocalypse, and I can no longer find him with Apocalypse's mental shielding. All we can do now is wait for a sign for him, but this business with Tessa and Remy must be handled immediately." Jean nodded reluctantly in understanding.
After this, Xavier adjourned the meeting, and we all went to cover our own tasks. As we went into the hangar, I realized that I was still clothed in civilian clothes. However, when I thought of changing my clothes, I realized that all of my recent costumes had traits of me being Firebird. And after me mutilating Bobby and Remy, as well as the issues with Jean and Logan, I definitely didn't want to take on the codename, nor the costume. So I concentrated on my clothes, and altered them to a style similar to my first training costume, this one being black spandex, with blue boots, blue gloves, a silver belt with an blue X on it as a buckle, and a large blue X over the chest, edged in silver, with a blue mask with silver lenses that only covered my eyes.
As I entered the jet, Mom, Jean,
Hank (or Storm,
"So I take it that you're going by Psyche again?" asked Mom.
"That I am," I replied as I strapped into a chair next to Cable. The only other chairs in this X-jet were the one next to Hank and the two behind me. And considering it would have looked too awkward if I sat in the rear alone, and the fact that Hank was sitting behind Mom and sitting next to him would mean sitting behind Jean, I decided to sit next to Cable. I figured since I really didn't know him all that well I'd just refer to him by his codename.
As we lifted off from beneath the
basketball court, I looked out the window, thinking about my brother, about
And now that we were becoming so engrossed in the issue of the Legacy Virus, just what was Apocalypse going to plan now?
Sorry it took so long for this one to get out, but don't worry, it shouldn't take so long for the next one. As usual, email me all your comments to me at either email, redrealityranger02@hotmail.com, or whitephoenixranger@yahoo.com, or jercolap@hotmail.com. Any one of these will do. Also, thanks to all my readers for all your replies. Special thanks to Adrian, writer of X-men Story, under XXX-men series on Nifty, for his mention and compliment. His is definitely my fave X-story.
Oh, someone asked me why all the costume changes. I like to keep up with the costumes in the comic so that the readers who are heavy x-fans (myself included) have an average knowledge of what era in the comic the story is at, as well as different personality changes in the character.