Evo: Hurricane Warning ch 11

Chapter 11: A Sense of Foreboding


Chase didn’t always keep her thoughts to herself.  It was hard to anyway, when you lived in the same home as two telepaths.  She was rather used to talking with the other Institute girls as well, especially the newer recruits.  But sometimes she just had to quell certain thoughts and hide them even from herself.

She wasn’t ready for everyone at the Institute to know she was afraid.

Walking through the halls of Bayville High, she mulled through her thoughts. The worst part was she wasn’t even sure what she felt so afraid of.  Trying to figure it out was like trying to grasp smoke; as soon as she thought she had it, it would slip between her fingers.  The constant chatter and rushing bodies in the hallway didn’t help to stimulate her brainstorming either.  Irritated, she forced her way through the halls to her class.  Arriving at the Photography Level I classroom, she dropped her books at her desk and retrieved the camera and materials needed.

At least there was someone she could talk to.

Five minutes into the start of class, Chase and her peers were set loose to roam the school and pull their subjects out from their respective classrooms.  Chase all but ran to one of the Study Hall rooms, careful not to drop the camera.  She didn’t have to do much beyond lurk outside the door for a couple of seconds before the instructor let out a long-suffering sigh and muttered something.

“Yo, thanks Mr. Kesling, you’re the greatest, y’know?” A voice said in response to the instructor’s words.

“Just… get out of my class, Tolansky.” Came the exasperated groan.  He hadn’t even finished talking before Todd strutted into the hall with a wide grin on his pale face.

“Sup, Owens?”

“Come on.” She murmured in a low voice, power-walking away from the classroom’s open door and heading toward a rarely-used stairwell that led to a couple of basement-level classrooms.  It was a moment before she heard Todd following her, trotting to catch up.

“Yo, what’s the ish?  You’re never like this.” He demanded, eyeing her suspiciously.  She spared him a quick glance before indicating which stair he needed to stand on as she began to set up the camera for shooting.  He consented to pose as she took the first few shots, but then frowned at her.  Chase lowered the camera irritably.

“Come on, Tolansky,” she grumbled.  “Would you work with me here?  This is for a grade.”

“Hey, I’ll cooperate when I wanna cooperate!” He shot back defiantly.  “I’m a model, you can’t just boss me around!”

“Actually, I’m the one holding the camera, and I’m the one in a photography class.  That gives me plenty of license to boss you around.”

“Seriously though, yo!  What’s eatin’ you?”

She scowled and gave a one-armed shrug, trying to dismiss the matter.  She did want to talk about it with him, but the fact was she did still need to get so many pictures taken, and that was first priority.  It would be all they needed if Principal Kelly or someone was walking the halls and caught them “slacking off”.

“Just been having a bad feeling lately.” She attempted to put as much nonchalance behind her words as possible.  Todd crinkled his brow, confused.

“You sure it ain’t indigestion or somethin’?”

She gave him a flat look in response.

“Hey, I was just makin’ a suggestion, yo!  No need to get hissy about it!”

“Nice to know you can take me so seriously.” Chase snorted.  “Really, it’s just been some bad feeling I’ve been having lately.  I’ll tell you more about it later, but it’s just the growing sense that something’s going to happen soon.  Something big…and bad.  Really, really bad.”

He sobered up a bit at that and went silent, figuring he might as well cooperate.  He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew exactly what she meant.  The same feeling had begun eating away at him in the last week or two, and Todd had the uneasy suspicion it had something to do with those training sessions between Magneto and Arial.  But of course, he couldn’t say anything to the rest of the Brotherhood.

Because really, who would take him seriously?  He was Toad.  If anything, Lance and Pietro would laugh at him, Arial and Faulkner wouldn’t care, and Tabby wouldn’t care, plus she would laugh.  Maybe Fred would take him seriously, but if he did the big guy would just get worked up.  And then he and Todd would both get told off.

And yet, there was still that feeling…




He was in the kitchen when the attack came.

Spikes of agony drove into Charles Xavier’s mind, and a cry of pain tore from his lips.  It was worse than the last time, and he tumbled out of his wheelchair, crashing to the tiled floor below.  He heard three familiar voices shouting for him, but his ears filled with a high-pitched ringing as the pain intensified.  Again there came the images from his nightmare.  The raging sea, Arial’s terrified face, Erik struggling alongside Charles…

And the thorns.  Those black, grasping thorns, greedy with an insatiable, fatal hunger.

The thorns reached for him.

He opened his eyes, trying to see the physical world underneath the layers of the psychic intrusion.  Faces swam in his vision, clearing and blurring.  Strong hands were trying to pick him up—

The thorns whispered in vicious glee.  Their voices were thin, high-pitched, and they spoke in a sort of pidgin language he couldn’t understand.  But he didn’t need to know the words to comprehend the vile intent behind the whispering.  They were welcoming Xavier into their final, terrible embrace, eager to drink his life dry.

“Chuck?” Someone said worriedly.

<<NO!>>

He drove the image of the thorns out of his mind, forcing it to retreat, and hastily he began to erect several more telepathic barriers.

“Charles?” Another someone asked.  He opened his eyes again, taking in deep gulps of air and lowering his shaking hands from where they clutched at his head.  Hank had hesitated, one of his large, fuzzy blue hands frozen in mid-air above Xavier.  Another powerful hand was resting on the telepath’s shoulder, and he shifted slightly to see Logan’s countenance slowly growing grim.  Ororo, seeing the immediate danger had passed, gracefully slipped between the two men and touched a cool hand to Charles’ forehead.

“It’s alright.” He exhaled.  “It’s passed.  I’m fine now.”

“What was that?  What happened?” Hank asked.

“Another vision of some kind.” Logan said, half-statement, half-question.  Xavier shook his head as they helped him to sit up.

“Not… exactly…” He replied.  “I saw visions, yes, but I believe they are a diversion.  Someone is trying to enter my mind.”

The other three were temporarily stunned into silence.

“Is that even possible?” Hank whispered.

“It has happened before, though very rarely.” Ororo’s deep, warm voice was soothing to the ears in spite of how tense she was.  “Charles, are you saying that has been what is happening to you?  Someone has been attacking you?  They’ve been placing that nightmare into your thoughts?”

“I believe the nightmare was originally my own.  But when this intruder stumbled upon it, they realized they could use it to their own advantage.  They’re utilizing it as a sort of shield and a weapon all at once, hiding their presence and intentions while trying to attack me.  They don’t want me to know their true aims.” He spoke softly, almost as much to himself as to them.  “But I believe they have underestimated me.”

“You found ‘em out?” Logan prompted.

“I believe so, at least in part.  This young telepath is not attacking me of their own volition.  They’re being held against their will and acting on another’s orders, trying to find something in my mind.  However, despite their raw power, I don’t believe they have any training in the use of their gift.  They hardly know what they are looking for or how to pry it from me.” Xavier explained patiently.

“Someone else’s orders…” Hank echoed, scratching his chin in thought.  “You don’t think Mystique or Magneto—?”

“No, it’s not them.” Charles replied quickly.  “We only have a guess as to who it might be.”

At this Ororo and Logan exchanged a swift, sidelong glance.  They knew exactly who he was referring to.

“And,” Ororo inquired softly, “is it…?”

“I have no concrete proof yet.” He answered.  “Although if this young mutant is forced to reach out and attack me again, then I plan to go on the offensive and see what I can glean from their mind.”

A tense silence began to descend between the four of them, and nobody met anyone else’s eyes for a long moment.  Hank fidgeted a bit uncomfortably, warring with something weighing on his mind.  At last he spoke up about it.

“Do we tell the students about this?”

“The kids don’t need to worry about Chuck’s problems.” Logan immediately retorted.  “Not right now, anyway.  If this becomes a threat to the entire Institute, then we’ll put the kids on guard.  But until then, we say nothing.”

“I don’t recall anyone putting you in charge.” Ororo remarked, half-amused.  “I think Hank raises a sound point.  What if this psychic intruder attempts to invade the children’s minds?  Only Jean might be able to defend against that, and even then there is no guarantee she’ll be able to protect herself, let alone help anyone else.  Her telepathic training is still too minimal.”

Logan hissed, tongue between his teeth.  Clearly that hadn’t occurred to him, though he wasn’t about to admit it.  Hank looked even more worried than before, and Xavier nodded in a way that suggested he had been thinking along the same lines as Ororo.

“That is my worry as well.  I have no wish to frighten any of our pupils, but I also don’t want them to become possible targets either.” He said with a deep sigh.

“So what do we do?”

“For the time being, I will do what I can to put a basic psychic block in each of the children’s minds.” Xavier declared.  “That way they’ll be safe for now, without any fear or worry about my visions.”

Besides, he thought to himself with a weary half-smile, They have enough to be getting on with, with that school dance to worry about.



The first sign that the Sadie Hawkins dance was going to happen at Bayville High was a bright, obnoxious pink banner hanging in the main foyer, coated in glittery writing.  The second sign was Principal Kelly’s overdone enthusiastic announcement over the P.A. system.  But the sign that really drove the reality of the dance home came in the form of multiple large gatherings of teenage girls converging in the hallways.  Arial passed by more than one of these on his way to the cafeteria for lunch.  He found he was sparing a second glance to most of these groups, realizing he was hoping to see Jubilee somewhere among their numbers.  More than once some of the girls caught him staring, and when a bunch of giggling broke out, he went red and sped up his pace, trying to get away before any of them said anything.

“What’s up, Rudolph the red-faced squid?  Don’t you know the point of the Sadie Hawkins dance?” Pietro sneered in his ear before taking off and laying claim to a table in the cafeteria.  Arial clamped his mouth shut.  He didn’t know anything about the dance—though he suspected the name of it had some kind of significance—but he wasn’t about to admit that to Pietro.  He hoped if he ignored the other boy, he would make it through the rest of the school day without incident.

Lunch at least looked like it would be alright.  He made it through the lunch line and to the table the Brotherhood had claimed without any further issues.  But once he sat down and glanced around, he realized with a small twinge of worry that the groups of girls were starting to appear around tables in the cafeteria.

My God, they’re everywhere.  He thought in mild horror before quickly snagging a seat at the table.  He half-waited for either Pietro or Lance to make a remark when he sat down, but the former was already chowing down, and the latter was in a mild glaring contest with Scott Summers, who was sitting with some of the other Institute boys a few tables away.  Thankfully, Faulkner didn’t have the same lunch period as the rest of them, and so Arial was able to relax as he prepared to eat.

Unfortunately he hadn’t been there long before Tabitha abruptly sauntered over to their table, getting between Lance and Scott’s glaring contest.  She had her friend Amara trailing along behind her and looking at them nervously.  Arial glanced away from Amara in hopes he would avoid scaring her and instead focused on popping the tab on his can of soda.

“Hey Lance,” Tabby announced without any preamble to speak of, “Amara and I are sitting at our own table today.”

Lance scowled up at her for a second, snapped an annoyed “Whatever!” and promptly attempted to resume his glaring match with Scott.  She gave Lance a withering look, and Arial brought the can of soda to his lips in order to keep from snickering.  Really, Tabby was a better door than a window in the best way.

“Oh really?” Pietro spoke up in mild irritation at this, eyes flicking from Tabby to Amara, who squirmed slightly under his gaze.

“Yes!” Tabitha insisted, not missing a beat as she cut off any chance for further prying.  “We’re all gonna be talkin’ Sadie Hawkins!”

A groan rippled through the table.  Arial stifled his own groan as he sipped at his soda and rolled his eyes.  Go figure.  Why was it when school dances came around, it was all girls seemed to think about?  Surely a silly dance wasn’t all that amazing, was it?

Bored, he watched the progression of the two girls as they moved away from the Brotherhood table and passed by the table of Institute girls, Tabitha addressing them in a terrible stage whisper that carried.  Jean and Rogue seemed to glare at them, but the other girls got up and followed them. As they began to clear the table and find a different place to talk, Arial noticed Jubilee was one of the last ones to join them.  As he watched she turned slightly, her steps slowing, and caught sight of him and smiled brightly.  Arial quickly lowered his soda, trying to avoid choking to death on it and feeling his face go red-hot.

Maybe… maybe dances deserved more credit than he thought.  Just maybe.



Fauna wasn’t really one for dancing.  Or at least, previously she hadn’t been.  Line-dancing back home during a rodeo or a fair or some other big, fun event?  That was nothing.  Texans loved their line-dancing.  But the idea of going on a date to a school dance that encouraged young couple interaction wasn’t one she’d been real keen on before.

That is, until she’d joined the Institute and met Kurt Wagner.

Something about the fuzzy blue boy just put her at ease and melted her heart and gave her butterflies in her stomach.  She had had crushes before when she was little, but nothing quite like how she had a crush on Kurt.  Here was a funny, sweet guy her age she could consider a best friend, with extraordinary gifts like her own, and they could totally relate to each other!  Of course, he had no idea she felt that way about him, but that hardly mattered.  She had all the time in the world to tell him, didn’t she?  And until then, he was an awesome friend.

So at first when all of the girls in the school started to go crazy and freak out about the Sadie Hawkins dance, she shook her head and laughed good-naturedly.  Dances weren’t the end of the world to her, and sometimes she was given to the impression that too many girls got way too worked up over them.  Toward the end of class, she expressed as much to Jubilee about it.

“Sure, I can understand it’s a big deal to a lotta people,” she remarked, gathering up her pencils and notes.  “But I tell ya what, it’s not the apocalypse, ya know.”

“Yeah, I’m kind of with you there,” the other girl agreed.  “So does that mean you don’t want to go, then?”

Fauna shrugged lightly.  “Didn’t give it a whole lotta thought.  Why?  You gonna go?”

Jubilee flushed pink and gave a tiny nod, looking down at her desk.

“I-I’m planning on asking Arial to the dance, actually.” She mumbled, fidgeting a bit.  Fauna couldn’t hold back a grin at this news.

“You’re gonna ask ‘im out?  That’s great, Jubes!  Go get ‘im, girl!”

“What about you?”

“Huh?  Whaddaya mean, what about me?”

Jubilee glanced around to ensure no one would overhear, then said in a conspiratorial whisper, “Well, aren’t you going to ask Kurt to Sadie Hawkins?”

Fauna pulled up short, a little thrown off by the question.

“A-actually I hadn’t given that much thought either.” She confessed awkwardly.  “Kurt’s kinda my best friend, ‘side from you, of course.  I dunno… D’you really think he’d like t’go with me?”

“I don’t think you’re going to lose anything by asking him.” Jubilee replied, scooping up her backpack.  “That’s why I’m going to ask out Arial.  I mean, what do I have to lose, right?”

“Well,” Fauna said slowly as she pondered the idea, “I guess that’s true.  And I guess it’d be a good opportunity to… well, y’know…”

“Tell him how you feel?” Jubilee whispered, an encouraging smile on her face.  Fauna blushed a little and gave the smallest of nods, and Jubilee went on excitedly.  ‘Tell you what, Katy; how about we both ask out our guys today?  And at the end of the day, we can tell each other how it went!  What do you say?  The opportunity may not come around again for a while, and besides, I think you can do it, no problem!”

Fauna thought about it.  Really, what did she have to lose?  At worst Kurt could say no, he wasn’t interested in going to the dance, and she would have to tell him how she felt at some other point down the road.  At best, he could accept, they would go to the dance, and they could have a great time and hang out with their friends.  What would it hurt?

“Alright,” she said at last, nodding.  “Sounds like a plan!  Let’s do this!”

The two shook on it, Jubilee suppressing a giggle, and they parted ways as they each headed off toward their fifth period classes.  And try as she might to focus on the lesson, Fauna found she was unconsciously trying to plan out how she would approach Kurt.  The best place to meet him to ask would probably be when he was at his locker.  But then how would she pose the question?  Would it be best to start up a casual chat and then ask a little bit into it?  Should she perhaps ask if he had thought about going to the dance if he were ask, then ask if he would like to go with her?  Or maybe she should just abandon all pretense and just bluntly ask the question?

Aww, come on Katy, focus!  She chided herself when she realized she wasn’t paying attention.  And so she redirected her concentration back on the class lesson, but the question of how she was going to approach Kurt lingered in the back of her mind all through class.  And by the end of the period, she still hadn’t decided on a way to ask him to the dance.

I’m just gonna hafta wing it! She told herself as she made her way into the crowded hall and headed in the direction of his locker.  Just be cool and say what comes naturally.  That’ll work best.

After a minute or two of being jostled, some of the hallway congestion cleared and she got free, delighted to realize she was within sight of the locker.  Better still, Kurt was there, switching out his books.

This is it!  Go get ‘im, girl! She cheered herself on, taking a couple of steps forward.

Except someone else got there before she did, and started talking to him.  Fauna didn’t recognize the girl, but she was quite pretty and spoke in a soft, shy voice that still reached Fauna’s keen ears.

“Have you been… asked to the dance yet?”

Kurt glanced at the girl in surprise before hastily stammering that nobody had asked him yet.  She seemed to hesitate for a breath, and then asked, “Would you… go with me?”

“Who, me?  Uh, yeah!  Sure!  Okay!” Kurt stuttered somewhat breathlessly, his face slowly lighting up.

The things in Fauna’s arms slipped, threatening to fall, and she barely caught them in time to prevent drawing attention to herself.  Her grin from earlier felt like it had never happened.  Had she even talked to Jubilee?  It didn’t feel real, it felt like something out of her imagination.  She didn’t anticipate this; she had never considered somebody else might ask Kurt out.

Suddenly the day felt gloomy and escaping to sixth period sounded like a solid idea.  Slowly she turned and walked away, curling in on herself as her shoulders slumped dejectedly.

I guess I should’ve spoken up sooner and not been such a big chicken.  I wasn’t fast enough.