Different Kinds of Family pt 2


Outside The X-Mansion
„Bobby!!“ Jean shouted „you’re cheating!“ in her hand she carried a Baseball she had just picked up from the floor. Apparently, the object had been modified with a little ice in order to change its flying track.

Bobby looked over his shoulder. He saw the red-haired girl giving him an accusing look ::Think fast!:: Bobby choose the better way: denial. “I’m not!” he called back. “Fine” Jean snapped “two can play this game!” She tossed him the ball and the brown-eyed boy caught it easily. He threw it over to the home base where Jean was waiting to hit. The ball came flying directly towards her, she held out her bat and… missed.

Before the ball would punch into Cannonball’s glove, she lifted the it telekinetic into the air and right over to the green. Kitty “Shadowcat” Pryde spotted it and started running. She made it in time, the only mess was that the ball didn’t fall back on the ground. Soon Kitty got sick of jumping to reach the ball that Jean was keeping up there. In the mean time, Jean was busy accomplishing her “home run”

“Get the ball, Kitty!” Bobby rooted, the girl stopped instantly as she heard his voice, she stood still “Argh! Bobby’s killing me! I just got us an advance and now he jerks everthing up!” she hissed angrily.

Evan “Spyke” Daniels had already reached the base and high-fived Kurt “Nightcrawler” Wagner who elbowed him to watch Kitty. The poor girl was mentally cursing “that’s like, so great, Kitty! Another point in my list ‘situations where phasing is useless!’”

Jean finished her run with a wide grin in Bobby’s direction.

“That brings the total to 9:9!”

“Awesome!” Evan cheered loudly. “We kick butt! We’re soo good!!”
“Calm down, Spyke!” Kitty rolled her eyes, “It’s just because of like, Mr. McCoy was not here to watch popsicle over there!” with what she jerked her thumb towards Bobby.

“Alright, alright! I’ll surrender. Please don’t be mad at me!!” Bobby pleaded joining the crowd, he held out his hand and gave Kitty a little cat made of ice. The girl grinned… after all, manipulating ice is not that bad…

“Good thing, Logan’s back!” Beast addressed Storm to his left, sitting on the bench in the garden. ”How so?” Ororo asked him, although she already thought to know the answer. “After a time, it sure gets difficult to get so early to shoo the students in the danger room” he chuckled.

Just then Logan walked past the two of them. He looked at the back of his hands, sorting three of his claws and looking at them as if he’d been looking for a change. He pulled them back, and tossed the other three out.

”Logan, my dear friend!” Beast exclaimed and went on “Ororo and I were just chatt…” But Logan just passed them by. He murmured something that sounded like “whatever” and aimed for the garage.

“What was that?” Ororo asked Beast with a cocked brow. The blue, furry mutants shrugged. Suddenly the woman pressed her hand on her temple and her forehead tensed. “What is it, Storm?” Beast asked, putting his big blue claw on the tiny woman’s shoulder. It was over, Ororo stood up, “It’s Charles. He wants to see us.”

“Hey!” Europe came along and greeted them. “I’m heading for the pool. U coming?” she asked. “Maybe later” Storm replied and so Europe went alone.
She was wearing her black swimsuit and had a white towel hanging limp from her shoulders. Her hair was open, falling over her back and softly swaying by the rhythm of her steps. She wore sparkling sunglasses on her nose which sorta reminded on the shades of Cyclops.

“Hey teach!” Evan came arunning towards Beast and Storm who were just about to enter the mansion. Evan was hot tempered and had lots of ambition. After Kitty said that the team couldn’t have won without cheating, he knew only one solution: rematch! And that’s why they needed Mr. McCoy! He would hook them up and Evan needed him in his team before Kitty could ask him.

“Not now, Evan!” Storm cut him off. “But Auntie-O!” the blond boy tried to argue, but there was no chance. The two older X-Men were already inside the mansion.

“Now that’s what I call a vacation!” Europe remarked to herself as she sat down on the edge of the pool. . She put her legs up to her knees in the water and leaned back to feel the warm sunlight caress her skin. After a while she slid completely into the cold water, she stayed under top until she felt that all her hair had soaked wet. Then she slowly swam back to the top of the pool and held out her head. Her auburn long hair had turned near black from the water.

She hadn’t always been a swimmer. In fact, when she entered a pool for the first time, she almost drowned, but very quickly she figured it out and started liking it. Once in a while, she was practicing to become faster, this didn’t stay unmentioned. Soon her swimming speed had increased to an remarkable level, she remembered the surprised but still friendly face of Dr: Hoffman, when the older woman looked at the stop watch to note down the time after Europe’s third test. Those were the moments, Europe had appreciated as a child. The opportunity to surprise people, to make them even proud of her…

After her arrival here at the mansion, she had spent entire afternoons in this pool, just swimming for the fun of it. She hadn’t even been offended, when Logan had called her “fish” or “tadpole” for the first time, she even had to grin

She tossed her back off the wall and started swimming some lines.

“Hey shark’s fin! U at it again, eh?” a voice behind her asked. She twisted her body in the water and saw a boy standing at the edge, smirking down in her. “Scott!” she exclaimed and swam back to the border of the pool to lean with her back against the wall once more, pulling her arms on the ground to support her position. Scott slid into the pool next to her, he sure looked dorky with those shades in the water but without ‘em… well… “Was looking for those!” he pointed to the shades which were lying on Europe’s towel on the chair. “Sorry!” the girl shrugged, “couldn’t resist”

The two of them spent another while, silent looking at the sky. Europe admired the entire landscape. Sure, it was nothing compared to Japan, but the professor had good taste: the institute was surrounded by trees to all sides, not looking like sealed in, but looking nicely put out of sight from the rest of the city. Once in a while she glimpsed to her side, to see if Scott was still there. He was so quiet.

He had always been the closest to Europe from all the X-Men. First of all, it was him who had brought her to the mansion. He was something like her big brother. But he felt the same way about all the other X-Men, since the other students had arrived way after him, Scott felt responsible. Sometimes when he had a nightmare about his past, and he woke up crying and soaking from sweat, he felt responsible for his little brother. For Alex’s death.

The dream was always the same: he was four years old and in a plane with his family: his parents and his little brother Alex. The plane was under attack, and their father came towards his two children-in his hands two parachutes. He handed the first one to Scott who pulled it over and the second one to Alex, the little blond boy needed help to adjust the parachute. Then their parents told them to jump out of the flying plane.

The two boys were sailing along their way towards earth. They pulled the line at the same time, their eyes resting all time on the other, until Scott’s parachute caught fire from the exploding plane. Slowly he could see how his falling speed increased and how he left his brother Alex behind…

This is usually the point when Scott woke up. There was no medicine against memories and even the professor couldn’t help him.

Scott had been in a coma for several months after his crash and the police told him that he was the only one who made it. He could not believe that from one day to the other, his entire family was… gone.

One day, Scott concluded that if he could not be there for his own brother, he could at least be here for all the other kids who would come here, who did maybe lose their family as well.

Ironic, he thought that it was him, the older brother who found Europe… she had lost her family as well. Maybe the reason for their intense relation was that simple: Scott had lost his little brother and she had lost her older brother. Both of them missed what they once had.

Through the first weeks here, Europe had loved Scott for his keeping an eye on her. But somehow things were different now. Maybe she just thought this because she had changed so much? She had been through such a mess and crap that she sometimes thought she could literally smell the changes. No, a lot had changed here, that was for sure.
Indeed: now Scott knew that Alex was alive and he was happy living in Hawaii, Europe had left the X-Men for a while. All that mattered now, was that both of them were mostly healed from the sufferance of people they had lost.