The "Big Mutant On Campus" Series
By David D. Amaya

Part Three "Bridges To Burn, Crosses To Bear"
Chapter 1

Disclaimer: As always; the first step of the journey.

Logged in as EmeraldWizard 20:37 Pacific

{EmWiz}Yo 'Watt, oto. You there *_Yet_*! -=#:-)

Logged as PowerPlant 23:39 Eastern

{PwrPlnt}Never fear, I iz here! %-\ Yawn!

{EmWiz} Konbanwa, Sairasu! ( ﾟ▽ﾟ)

Kawatta koto aru?

So, is the new school better than Dullwell?

{PwrPlnt}Well, I don't wear church clothes to go to class, I can go downstairs without running into a tour group of Girl Scouts, the West Wing doesn't have reporters and the best thing of all is this place is _WELL_ stocked with Chocolate Covered Sugar Bombs!

If it wasn't for the fact that it's not raining, it feels like home! O genki desu ka, Oz? How U holdin' up?

{EmWiz}Well, you remember what I told you about trying to explain what happened at Seattle U that day? Well, a note from your pops saying I was a witness in the plot to snuff your dumb gaijin ass was enough of an experience, but when Col. Fury delivered it to SUA surrounded by three Cyber-Troops was more that anyone should have to deal with, and I remember thinking they found the mImI-code I took the liberty of inserting when I was locked in GW Bridge's office ;)

Well that was the **highlight** of my first semester back. Meds ain't seeming to be working like they used to and I dropped 4kg's since then, Quacks think its stress, After that day 'stress' is just a misspelled 4-letter word! If it wasn't for the fact the O-Z can get the homework done before sundown so I can pillage the 'Net, I'd go bonkers!

But you know what they say *Ame futte ji katamaru*!

PLEAZE tell me your tuitati with X-Men-lite wasn't boring!

{PwrPlnt}Well, I told you about what happened in the biosphere, well the next morning made that look like spring time on Rainer!

Getting used to the students here is easier, I only have 9 others to worry about, besides Lariat, Sean and Mz Frost. But of all the people I worried bout getting into a tussle after Jay and Angelo, I'd NEVER thought it'd be those 2!

An alarm buzzes. Quickly it is shut off, by an alert person who swings their legs to the floor.

The time is 5:45am and Paige Guthrie, as usual is getting ready for her early morning jog. Only on this pre-dawn day, Jubilee is back in the bed across from hers. Like she had never left all those months ago, she is sprawled underneath her covers and does not wake.

"Well as long as some things return to normal quickly." Paige reflects, tying her running shoes. "I'm going to break twenty minutes today, I can FEEL IT!" She proclaims to the four walls of their room because she knows that they will respond at this early hour before Jubilee ever will.

Reaching the front door to the biosphere, she completes her stretching routine, starts the timer on her wristwatch and begins a steady consistent pace.

The spacious grounds of the Massachusetts Academy gives the dedicated Generation X student a course that not only affords Paige Guthrie a scenic path to jog, but with the sparse population of the quiet community of Snow Valley, she can be alone with her thoughts when need arises.

As several changes have been made to the school she proudly calls home, she utilizes the solitude distance running provides to put things in prospective.

"It's hard to believe the President's son is a student here," She relays to the New England darkness. "I wonder how Cyrus' Ma and Pa reacted when they found out. I can't believe the story Jubes told me about his rescue! I thought that Senator Kelly was a bad man, but killing the President's son to pass the Mutant Registration Act! Just when I thought I had seen everything at this school! Here is the first marker, YA!"

She presses a button on her watch. 4:58.42.

"Great time, Paige! And those other new students. That Hawaiian girl sure is pretty, and she's got a take-charge attitude just like her Pa. And that boyfriend of hers. Goodness graces! I used to climb that tree in the biosphere. I hope Mr. Cassidy and Ms. Frost can find a way to control that temper of his.

"And Stewart and Nathan, what kind of nicknames are Yoink and Nuff? Okay, okay, they are both very nice, and Stewart kind of reminds me a lot of Sam. Very sweet, and kind of cute, too. And Nathan, well his momma must have raised him right! I mean he's polite, and holding the doors for us girls isn't something Angelo and Jono do often, Okay, at ALL! All right! The halfway point … NOW!

10:01.26

"Shoot! I got to pick up the pace if I want to break twenty! Come on, Paige move those shoes!

"I still do not see why Cyrus would need a bodyguard here of all places! And on top of that, Agent Nichols is carrying a loaded weapon here on campus! I HATE guns! Even when Bishop brings one here, it bugs me! Why would Professor Xavier allow a federal officer to teach here, much less one without any mutant abilities?

"Cyrus said he's tougher that Wolverine, HA! We have all tried that program once or twice while staying with the X-Men. There is NO way a non-mutant can survive that alone much less beat all thirty of those goons in fewer than eight minutes! Speaking of minutes, there's the door, Sprint, Country Gal!

"Almost there!

"Just a little further! STOP!"

19:59.39

"YES! I DID IT! I LAPPED THE GROUNDS IN TWENTY MINUTES! WAY TO GO, HUSK! Come on, Guthrie, victory lap!"

Paige then proceeds to jog but at a much slower pace, and in the opposite direction.

"Twenty minutes, a new record! No one here at the Academy can do it in less that twenty-three minutes I'm sure of it! Girl, you have to celebrate! I know! I'll study for only six hours tonight. Yea, one hour off for each ten minutes. I deserve a rest!"

As she continues back the way she came, she sees movement ahead.

"Someone's inside the Academy grounds! I should run to the mansion and get help. No, Paige you don't have the time. There's no telling what it wants to do here. I've got to stop it!"

She pulls her hair and rips off her skin. 'Husking,' she calls it, hence her codename, and reveals something stronger underneath. She is now covered in small orange-colored, rock-hard scales.

"In the words of the Thing, 'It's clobberin' time!'"

{EmWiz}The Thing! Honki nano!

{PwrPlnt}Yea, the Thing! I guess she doesn't like Reed Richards or something.

{EmWiz}She can change into the Thing! Joudan deshou!

{PwrPlnt}Well I guess turning into **Spongebob SquarePants** wouldn't have been helpful at that moment.

{EmWiz}Yokatta koto! What happened next, 'Watt?

{PwrPlnt}According to what I was told, the Fantastical Fifth then stalked the bushes, waiting for the right moment to strike the intruder….

The Generation X student instantly recalls all the pointers from Gambit, Wolverine and Bishop. She ducks down low, peering through the foliage. The intruder obviously is trying to cover much ground quickly, as it is in what appears to be in a dead sprint, rounding the biosphere near the main entrance Paige is across from. If the intruder passes the biosphere, it's only another fifty yards to the dorms.

"I can't let it pass me. I got to stop it here and now, then yell for the others!" She can now get a better look at the intruder. "Male, about six feet tall, medium build. He has an ankle gun holster on his left, a front gun holster on the right side of his chest. Okay, he's left handed. He's carrying something about four-feet long in his hands, a weapon of some kind. Probably a riffle or a rocket launcher. He dropped it! He's checking his watch. It's now or never!" She leaps silently from her hiding place and bravely rushes the intruder, before he can attempt to harm her friends.

The figure sprints, knowing he should be at his assigned spot immediately. Delays can cost lives. The heavy object clutched tightly in both his hands. He holds it diagonally across his chest, just like he was trained to do. He rounds the biosphere, the main part of the Academy dormitory is within clear sight. He never breaks stride as he approaches the biosphere entrance.

Closer, he thinks to himself as he nears his objective Get ready, He is now scant meters from his designated objective. Don't wuss out now! You're almost there!

He reaches the front entrance of the biosphere, he stops dead in his tracks, tosses the object in his hands to the ground before him and consults the watch on his wrist. 12:21.98 is displayed showing how much time had expired since he engaged the device.

Twelve minutes, not bad initial time. Special Agent Kordel Nichols thinks as he reverts to his Secret Service training, holding his breath to slow his heart rate down to normal quickly. I know I can shave a whole minute now without the barbell.

He then hears a faint rustling towards his right. He turns towards the noise to find an orange fist swinging for his head.

{EmWiz}Lariat didn't shoot her I hope!

{PwrPlnt}Luckily, no.

{EmWiz}Aa yokatta! Yokatta koto!

{PwrPlnt}Yea, but I wished I was a chipmunk on a tree for that 4-rounder!

The fist swung hard and fast to the federal officer's head, but his combat skills honed and second to none, Agent Nichols easily ducks the roundhouse from the lunging scaled-down version of Ben Grim, using it's own momentum to subdue the orange-colored attacker, the Secret Service agent armbars the attacker all the way to the ground, utilizing a textbook handcuffing maneuver he learned while still in high school. Hammer-locking the attacking right arm behind the back, then chicken wings the left and easily places his service handcuffs on the attacker.

But for the first time in his law enforcement career, the cuffed attacker snaps their bonds, knocking him to the ground and leaped to a fighting stance and stares him down, only to find she had met him yesterday. "Agent Nichols?"

Kordel who also was instructed before his high school graduation on how to handle a suspect that breaks out of wrist restraints, also leaped to a combat stance and recognizes the voice, milliseconds before drawing his service pistol, as one of the original academy students.

"WHO GOES THERE!"

"Paige, Paige Guthrie. Jubilee's roommate."

"Guthrie." He remembers Jubilee telling him and Cyrus about her roommate, then that line about her getting up at 'the butt-crack 'o dawn' to run, filters in his mind.

"May I ask you what you are doing out of bed at such an early an hour, Miss. Guthrie?"

"I was taking my usual morning jog," she replies. "I saw you running and I thought- Wait, what was the object you were carrying, a barbell?"

"Yes."

"How much does it weigh?"

"Forty pounds."

"Wow! How fast were you able to run the campus?"

"May I ask you a question, Miss. Guthrie?"

"Sure, Agent Nichols."

"Why are you dressed as a member of the Fantastic Four?"

"Oh, I'm a metamorph, I can husk myself into a different form."

To punctuate her statement, she husked to her normal self. But as he is still unused to the abilities of the students of Generation X, a slight shiver runs down his spine at this slightly creepy scene of an orange pile of rocks transform into a blonde teenager from Kentucky, and the words of Charlie Block rings in his ear from when he met the X-Men in Washington. 'I was wrong, Lariat, you did join the Service for all the charming people we meet.'

"I'll ask you again, Thomas," The scared visage of Sebastian Shaw said to the restrained teenager. "What are the goals of Project Acquisition, and where is the file located?"

"I … told you, Shaw." Everett Thomas replied softly as Shaw turned his back to him. "I've … never heard … of it."

"It's a shame you're making this difficult," was his reply as he turned on his heel and thrust his fist into his right eye.

"…Well Jono mainly stays in his room," Paige explains to the Secret Service agent walking her back to the girls' dorm. "Angelo and Jubilee like to play Halo, Call of Duty, John Madden football, Grand Theft Auto, and games like that in the Rec Room."

"Is there anything else I should be aware about of the rest of the students, Miss. Guthrie?"

"Well, Agent Nichols, I don't know any of the new students' habits yet."

"Remind me to ask," Kordel requests as they arrive at the bottom of the stairs to the hallway that contains Alea's, Monet's and the room shared by Paige & Jubilee.

"So, Mr. Thomas, have you changed your mind? Are you ready to tell me all you know about the file?"

"Shaw, you listen to me, and you listen good, because this is the last time I'm gonna tell you We- don't- know- anything- about- that- damned- file!"

The pair of runners make their way quietly through the hall, not wanting to disturb the other three sleeping students as dawn still had yet to make its appearance in the New England horizon.

"Why yes, Agent Nichols, it would be nice to have some company when I'm jogging, thank you for offering. I'll reset my alarm clock for tomorrow morning."

"What time do you usually get up in the morning, Miss. Guthrie?"

"I get up at a quarter to six."

"Then you should not bother to change it."

"What time do you get up in the morning, Agent Nichols, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Not at all, Miss. Guthrie. I usually get up at half past four."

Paige's eyes lit up. "Really?" He nodded curtly. Golly, those Secret Service Agents really ARE as dedicated as they sounded in that those documentaries!

Slowly, Shaw shook his head. "That really is too bad. And I had so hoped that a little time alone to rest would refresh your memory. It appears I over estimated your abilities."

He then gestured to two hulking henchmen. Both men, well over six feet and muscle to match, stepped towards the St. Louis native and proceeded to work him over. Punches and kicks to his face, his chest, his stomach.

"Oh, God, please, stop!" an agitated high pitched voice pleads. "Stop it! You'll kill him!"

"If you do not mind ME asking, Miss. Guthrie. What was your lap time?"

She quickly regained her composure as they arrived at her door. "Just under twenty minutes."

"That is an outstanding time."

"What about you, Agent Nichols?"

"Just over twelve. Well, have a good morning, Miss. Guthrie," With that he turned to return to his room.

TWELVE MINUTES! And with forty extra pounds! All doubts and worries she may have had with him carrying a weapon, not having mutant gifts, or believing he could be tougher than Wolverine is, in that moment, purged from her thoughts. I really have to exercise more. I guess those extra two hours are going to be put to good use tonight after all!

"Oh, God, please, stop!" a high pitched voice screams from the other side of the door Paige is standing in front of. "Stop it! You'll kill him!"

"JUBILEE!" Paige exclaims. Before she knows what hit her, Agent Nichols pushes her out of the doorway, knocking her to the floor of the hallway. Drawing his Sig Sawer, he shoulders open the door, leading with his weapon out front, prepared to place every last round into the heart of whoever was in the room hurting Jubilee.

A quick sweep of his service pistol told him there was no one in the room but Jubilee, who was sitting up in her bed, still screaming in terror. He instantly realizes she is having a nightmare.

Paige quickly leaps off the floor and despite the weapon that is being waved around in her room, her only thought is her friend and she jumps to the bed and shakes Jubilee softly by the shoulders.

"JUBES! JUBES! WAKE UP! IT'S ONLY A DREAM! JUBES! WAKE UP!"

Jubilee's tear-streaked eyes now focusing on her roommate and the man waiving a gun around, then she finally realized her nightshirt was drenched with sweat. She wipes her face with her sleeve, telling her she had been crying.

"What…. What happened?"

"You were having a bad dream, Jubes." Paige told her then gave her a big hug. At that moment Monet and Alea burst into the room, the Hawaiian's fists were glowing white hot, a large ball of fire in her right hand, but both stopped in their tracks when they realized the only three persons in the room were friendly, despite the fact Agent Nichols brandished his weapon.

"Is everyone all right?"

"Yea, M," Jubilee weakly let out.

"Are you sure you're okay, Pahupahu?"

"Yea, Island Gal, I'll be okay."

Alea dissipated her power, then addressed the only male in the room.

"We know you want to help, 'Ãkena Keneka, but maybe you should let the women-folk take it from here."

Agent Nichols holstered his service pistol and agreed. "Very well. I shall head to the kitchen and make everyone some hot chocolate, if you want."

"That's very sweet of you, Agent Nichols." Paige replied

"I like mine milk, nuked for 45 seconds and two marshmallows, okay Secret Agent Dude." A wiry grin crept on Jubilee's face as Kordel left the room.

End of Chapter one

Chapter two will be posted in Feb '10

©David D. Amaya 2010