Playing With Fire (EDITING)

Unlikely Friends

When we reached the top deck, the X-Men stopped and gathered around Pixie, the girl with the pink hair. "Everyone holding on?" she asked, glancing mischievously around the group. The others nodded and Pixie smirked. "Then let's go."

I wasn't sure what happened in the next couple minutes, but a blinding light forced me to close my eyes. When I opened them again, my surroundings were unfamiliar. I was standing on the outskirts of a small city. A highway roared faintly in the distance and cars passed on a road nearby.

The X-Men brought us to an apartment complex that spanned roughly the same length as three school buses end to end. Steps and wrought iron railings led up to darkly painted doors and brick walls. The first floor had windows to either side of the doors and the second floor had swing-out casement windows that jutted out slightly from the brick. The roof was steeply tilted and shingled until it abruptly flattened into a widows' walk, fenced in with a black railing. On one end of the widow's walk, there was an expensive telescope and a set of scales. Odd.

Monet led us through the middle front door and down a couple hallways and past vacant rooms and closed doorways before leading us out a backdoor and down the steps into a large, open backyard-an acre or two- scattered with sparring mutants. The first to catch my attention was a man probably in his late twenties with thick blonde hair and blue eyes; but his most startling feature was the set of massive white, feathery wings sprouting from his back.

"That's Warren," the girl to my right said, following my line of sight. It took me a second to remember her name, but it came to me: Rachel Summers, Marvel Girl. "He goes by Angel for obvious reasons."

I let my eyes scan over the other mutants and was surprised to find deformities much worse than mine, Beast and Nightcrawler being the most prominent among them. Some were partially human, some were fully human with freakish powers, and some, like Wolverine, had added appendages that could be hidden at will. I wasn't alone.

"So let's see it," Angelica said, facing me. Her long auburn hair had been pulled into a ponytail and she'd traded her yellow spandex suit for jeans and a tshirt.

"What?" I asked stupidly.

"Your mutation! Let's see it," she repeated.

I smirked. "Everyone might want to make room." The mutants backed off and some that had been sparring paused to watch. With a grand flourish, I let my wings appear and flapped them twice for show before letting them fold comfortably behind me. A few mouths dropped open and the man- Warren- grinned.

"Welcome to the club, kid," he remarked as a friendly greeting.

I let my wings disappear, and a couple heads turned away to resume their work. I noticed a man in a wheelchair watching me and felt my mind go slightly fuzzy before his expression hardened and he wheeled himself toward our cluster.

"Welcome to the X-Men," he said, rolling up the last couple feet. "I'm Professor Charles Xavier."

"Lyrica Duquesne Barton," I replied, shaking his outstretched hand.

"Do you have another name?" he asked.

"Like a middle name?"

He chuckled. "No, something people call you maybe as a nickname."

"Aquila," I answered.

He knit his brows together and tilted his head downward ever so slightly. "And why's that?"

"It means eagle as far as I know and, well, it's not hard to connect the dots after that."

"Did you choose this name for yourself or was it assigned to you?" he asked. As he did, I felt my brain lapse into the sensation of fuzziness again. But this time I fought back until I could think clearly again. Professor Xavier's eyes widened a fraction and he sat forward in his wheelchair.