After a week of non-stop 'new,' new school, new workout routine, new roommates, new life, existence felt like it had finally begun to more or less settle. Things still weren't great, but at least Anna had grown to know what to expect. For example, Kitty in the morning was a frigged bitch and in the afternoon was a non-stop chatterbox that could talk the paint off a wall. Evan was an equally frigged bitch except you couldn't bribe him with coffee to melt the ice off his hackles. King and queen Scott and Jean were ever absent, not that Anna was complaining, and Kurt was a gigantic doofus. A doofus who, Anna would never admit to his face, was a lovable kind-hearted little twerp who never seemed at loss for something nice to say about anyone or anything and few things seemed to ever phase him. Which is why it struck Anna as odd when she felt Kurt suddenly stop in his tracks on their way to their lunch table.
Anna turned and found herself standing several feet in front of the frozen line of her roommates as they started ahead in petrified horror. She looked at them, then in the direction where their eyes were fixed, and found the lunch table they had been sitting at for the past week occupied by two gross-looking dudes.
The pair were two different breeds of gross looking. One had longish hair that just reached past his ears. Even from where Anna stood she could see it was a tangled and greasy mess. Likely he was the type that didn't comb because 'it was gay' or something equally as asinine. He wore a brown vest, the buckle in the back that was meant to sinch the waist had long been broken off and now only frayed bits of fabric, and indigo blue jeans that were distressed around the knees like he never got the update that 90s' grunge was dead. The other boy was more typically disgusting. His sallow-looking skin was covered in pimples, and he wore a filthy-looking flat-rimmed cap with a logo of some team Anna had never heard of. He wore a shirt that was several times too big with a gigantic hole in one of the armpits, and a tank top underneath Anna was fairly sure was intended to be a white color originally. The two looked deeply involved in some conversation and hadn't yet noticed them.
Anna looked back at her statued companions and made to say something when Kurt cut her off at the pass.
"There are other tables outside the courtyard." He grimaced and made to turn.
"Who the hell are those guys and why do they have you guys sweating so damn much?"
"They're trouble." Evan nodded at Kurt and made to join him.
"We'll explain later, Anna. Just trust us, the table isn't worth it." With that Kurt and Evan both made strides past the exit of the cafeteria, towards a shady breezeway leading beyond the school walls. Anna watched Kitty and noticed her eyes dodging both Anna's and the boys. She spared another glance in the direction of their table intruders, ducked her head, then followed after Kurt and Evan.
Anna sifted her jaw back and forth as she followed after. She could feel the muscles in her shoulders and forearms tighten, but if that was from the stress of the situation or fatigue from Logan's sadistic workout routine, it was hard to say. She had just entered the shade of the darkened breezeway when she heard the drop of something light and tinny sounding. Loud voices then bounced off the walls too distorted to make out, but she thought they might be Evan's. She peered down the dark stretch of corridor, her eyes struggling to adjust to the low light. On the other side, she could see a square of daylight where the hall ended, then the square was obscured by something big and round. There was a loud snap and the sound of a shrill scream that sounded like it could have come from Kitty.
Anna dropped her food and raced down the long throat of the corridor till she spotted the figures of her roommates standing before the eclipsed silhouette of a giant standing right in front of Kurt. The goliath's hands balled into fists, he stepped up to Kurt, one of his feet crushing what Anna could now see was Kurt's lunch tray.
"Time for some sweet revenge." Said the giant. His voice was throaty and had a distinctive Texan drawl.
"I told you to back off, Blob!" Evan pushed Kurt behind him and a long twisted looking brown spike drew out from the back of his arm like a hidden club.
"And what are you going to do, you little tard? You going to jab me with that little poker of yours?" The giant then plucked the spike from Evan's arm and jabbed it in his own gut repeatedly. His ample stomach fat formed around every self-inflicted blow like water to a stone. The sharp edge of the spike tore at the giant's shirt, but his flesh looked completely unfettered. He then took the spike between his two great paws and snapped it in half.
The giant slapped Evan aside, sending him spiraling like a football till he smashed his back into the cement wall on the right. The boy then swept Kurt up in a one-armed tackle and pinned him against the opposite wall, just missing Kitty who watched the whole thing unravel totally petrified.
"Hey, fuck-head!" Anna heard herself say.
She saw the small head of the giant look down at her while Kurt struggled under his grasp. "You best get moving little lady. None of this concerns you."
"Go… Anna!" Kurt gasped then gritted his teeth. "The school is neutral ground, Blob! No - gah - powers!"
"I don't remember ever agreeing to that." Blob leaned in closer to Kurt's face. "Sides,' like I said, we got a score to settle you and me, you little shit-bird."
"That… right?" Kurt raised his feet and kicked Blob in the stomach. It looked as if Kurt were pressing his feet into a vat of taffy the way the boy's fat was displaced by the pressure. Regardless, it was apparently enough to ease the weight resting on Kurt's chest enough for him to vanish. Anna first thought she must have blinked and missed watching Kurt slip away, till there was a visible puff of smoke behind Blob and a fraction of a second later Kurt appeared to deliver a swift kick to the back of the boy's head. Blob fell forward and smashed his face into the wall where Kurt once was.
Kurt, back on the ground, bounced back and forth on his toes like a prize fighter. "Enough, Blob! You're just going to get us all in trouble!"
The other boy pushed up from the wall and turned to face Kurt, his face remarkably undamaged rough landing. "Like I give a damn about 'getting in trouble.' What are you? Some kind of prissy schoolgirl?" He cracked his knuckles then his neck. "I wanna fight, and I know - despite that pussy footin' - you wanna too."
Something fast flew through the air and caught Blob by the shoulder. He reeled back, grabbed his shoulder, and pulled out a long jagged spike. He looked at it, then down at Evan who had joined Kurt's side. "How many times you got to learn you little porcupine?" He threw the spike to his right, where it skipped across the floor till it slowed at Anna's feet. "You can't hurt the Blob!" He slowly approached them till their backs were against the wall.
"Well-" Anna dropped her backpack and shed her gloves "Maybe they can't." She formed her hands into fists as she bolted for Blob. When she was close enough she leaped on him, and despite the entirety of her weight, he didn't fall or even budge. So instead she crawled up his back and held her hands over his head. "But I bet I can!" She then slapped both of her bare hands on his naked scalp.
She was suddenly somewhere she had never been. Hell, everywhere up here in Yankville was somewhere she had never been. At least it was in the countryside, nowhere near as pretty as back home in Lubbock, but at least the sky was a nice blue like back home. Normally she wouldn't take in the sights like this, but kicking these X-Men's asses is just too damn easy. They come in with their pretty outfits and supped-up jet, but they weren't even a match in a real fight. All it took was getting them all locked up in a barn, then Avalanche got them locked down in that ravine inside. Well, it would have been nice and easy if it wasn't for that damn fruity little blue boy. He somehow escaped and gave her some sort of ninja kick-flip to the back of the head and sent her tumbling into a pile of pig shit. Oh, the guys had a great laugh at that… she'll be sure to give them something to laugh about later right after she wrung that little tard's neck.
Anna was back in the school breezeway, her trembling arms keeping her upright off of Blob's prone body. Under her hands, she could feel him gently breathing, then heard a light snore bounce off the hallow walls of the long chamber. Sweat stinging her eyes, she looked up and spotted Kurt and Evan staring back at her with eyes as wide as dinner plates.
"Are you ok?" Kurt asked.
"I reckon,'" Anna pinched the bridge of her nose then looked back at Kurt. "Yes, I'm fine." She stood, slowly, off of Blob's back and held herself upright using the wall. Suddenly her backpack and gloves were presented to her. She looked and saw Kitty avoiding her eyes while holding her things before her. Anna wordlessly plucked the things from the other girl's grasp and put them on.
"Dude!" She felt Kurt's hand clap her back. It was strange, the blow felt lighter than normal. The shock wave of the clap seemed to ripple up and down her body like a ripple of water, till it disappeared altogether. "You totally saved our bacon back there!"
"Don't mention it." Anna shook her head, trying to sift through all the strange thoughts and memories bitting for her attention. "Who the hell was that guy?" She rubbed her head. "I mean, I know his name is Fredrick J. Dukes and he was raised as a ranch hand on his dad's farm in Texas. But what does that have to do with you guys?"
"He's a part of The Brotherhood." Evan joined Kurt's side. "He's with those other guys that were sitting at our table."
"You guys fight on the reg' then?"
"We have all the times we've been sent out, yeah." Evan nodded. "They're all a bunch of assholes."
"Well now, more sounds to me like you guys are just being a bunch of sore losers!" Said a shrill and wholly unpleasant voice. Anna glanced down the breezeway and from the area where they had walked from stood two figures she recognized as the boys who had taken their table. The boy with the wide-brimmed hat and sallow skin sat strangely atop the tabletop of a classroom desk. Both of his hands planted on the lambent top of the table near his groin and his legs neatly folded at either side made him look like some sort of frog resting atop a lily pad. The other boy was leaning against an opposing wall to the desk. He was more well-built than the first but his muscles lacked definition. He was tall and on the leaner side, and despite the distance, Anna could tell his teeth were remarkably white.
"How about we go round two and see how Xavier's little 'gifted youngsters' handle a second ass whoopin.'" The boy with the cap was the proud owner of the shrill, paint-thinner voice. He made a show of cracking his knuckles.
"Hang on-" The other boy straightened up and peered beyond them. "What the hell happened to Blob?"
The frog boy looked poised to make another cutting remark when he bit his tongue and looked. "Wow. Yeah, what the hell happened to fatso?"
"Round two did." Evan wasn't especially tall, but the way he stepped up to the boys and formed his arms into bracing curls on either side of his body seemed to give him another head on his height.
"That right?" The frog boy licked his upper teeth and then tilted his chin. "Who's the new chick?"
"Someone you don't want to fuck with, Toad!" Anna felt the name fly out of her mouth without even thinking about it. The sudden name recollection gave her pause. She looked at the other boy. "Avalanche." She said without thinking then blinked. "Wait… there is one more boy isn't there? But he's not here. He's new or something right?"
"Hey!" The other boy, Avalanche pointed. "The hell is going on with her? How does she know that?"
Kurt joined Evan's side. "Wouldn't you like to know!"
"My words exactly!" Reared a hard voice from behind the boys. They shot up as did the others when they saw a woman dressed in a gray power suit and black-rimmed glasses appear behind the pair. The woman looked between the boys and then beyond at Anna's group with a haughty glare. As if she were a hawk being offered bits of rancid meat for dinner as opposed to living fighting flesh.
"Oh, uh, hey there Principal Darkholme." Wheezed Avalanche.
"Oh shit." Mumbled the foul-mouthed Toad boy.
*
The two windows fixed behind Principal Darkholme's tall leather back chair leaked in a warm light that make the air in the room stuffy and difficult to breathe. The afternoon's rays reflected off the room's many plaques and other glass-plated trophies, all - as far as Anna could tell - were awarded within the Principal's varied and well-traveled carrier in education. Her office too was well kept and manicured to the point near obsession.
"I don't tolerate violence on my school grounds." She said, the tips of her fingers splayed and pressed together just below her chin. Her narrow black eyes navigated between the many faces before her.
"If that's true," Anna straightened up in her metal chair, sandwiched uncomfortably between Kitty and Kurt. "Then why the hell aren't those two boys in here getting the paddle with the rest of us!"
Principal Darkholme laid her hands flat on her desk. "Miss Marie! You speak when spoken to in my office!"
Anna felt her face screw up with rage. She clutched the bottom of her chair and could feel the flimsy metal give way under her clenched fists, and the small muscles under her eyes twitch. Eventually, she crossed her arms and rested her back against the back of the folding chair.
"To answer your little outburst." The Principal stretched her arms to either side. "Where do you suggest I host them, Miss Marie? As you can see, I can barely fit you lot. Don't worry, I've already had my word with them while you all were waiting in the lobby, but I'm afraid my office simply doesn't have the capacity to handle gang-on-gang violence."
Anna could see in the corner of her eye Evan's lip twitch into something close to a snarl. Finally, he and she were on the same page on something. Hating whoever the hell this lady thought she was.
The woman looked between them all. "According to them, they came by the breezeway to investigate a sound, then they found you all standing over the unconscious body of their friend." She looked at Anna. "One of them said they saw you standing on top of him. Is this true?"
"I mean - I guess, but -"
"So you attacked the boy? Why?"
"He started it!"
Principal Darkholme leaned back in her chair, her face difficult to read. "Really? We're already in 'He started it' territory?" She flicked a casual hand in her direction. "Okay, pray-tell, how did the fallen boy 'start it?'"
"He attacked Kurt!" Anna perched on the edge of her seat and gesticulated wildly. "I heard this crash! I didn't see what happened exactly - but, then Kitty screamed and when I ran down the hall I found the giant freak pinning Kurt against the wall and-"
The Principal held up her hand, cutting off Anna, and looked at Kitty who had been staring at her shoes. "Pride, is any of this even remotely true?"
Kitty looked up just below her eyebrows, she opened her mouth ever so slightly before averting her eyes. She eventually nodded then grew a sudden fascination with her thumbs.
The Principal rolled her eyes and then looked at the boys. "Where were you two during all this?"
A wall of voices erupted from both of them and she rose her hand to still them. "One at a time!"
"Well-" Kurt looked between Evan and Anna. "It's about what she said, ma'am. I was just walking when Blo- um… when the other boy blocked me and knocked my tray out of my hands."
"And he pinned you against a wall?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Do you have any scrapes or bruises to support this, Mr. Wagner?"
"Um-" Kurt looked over his arms and hands.
"Because presently I have a young man with a big fat scuff mark on the back of his head who is still unconscious in the nurse's office. If I understand your story correctly, Mr. Wagner, this was the boy who attacked you?"
'Scuff mark?' Anna felt the words rebound in her head, then remembered Blob falling face-first into the wall and reemerging without a single scratch. Then there were his self-inflicted stabs with Evan's spear where he too came out unscathed.
"I uh -" Kurt rubbed his shoulder. "Uh-"
"This is ridiculous!" Anna shouted.
"Miss Marie, you will watch-"
"Just because we managed to defend ourselves you're going to punish us? What would you have us do, lay down and take it?"
The other woman raised her back to its greatest height. "Miss Marie, if you can manage to contain yourself for a moment, you will find I'm saying nothing of the sort! What I am saying is that you have nothing, but your friends to support your claim. The facts show that there was a fight on school property, which is a very serious offense. There was also a clear victim in that fight, and it's obviously none of you."
Anna stood. "But that's not true!"
"Marie, another word and you will be suspended!"
Anna gritted her teeth so hard she felt a shallow snap in her jaw. Every muscle in her chest and arms tensed to the point she near forgot to breathe. A hand wrapped around her wrist and saw Kurt looking up at her from his seat next to hers. She swallowed, tucked her chin to her chest, and sat back down.
Anna could feel the Principal's eyes linger on her before she started. "Now, my school has a zero-tolerance policy for violence. Considering all of your spotless records up to this point, it will allow a sliver of leniency. I understand you all live together under the guardianship of some sort of foundation. If the boy requires any sort of medical attention, your foundation will be charged to the full extent of his medical bills. I also want you all to formally apologize to the boy in the form of a letter no less than 1,000 words -"
"Bull" Anna mumbled.
"2,000 words." The Principal looked at Anna over her thick-rimmed glasses. "Wanna make it 3, Marie?"
Anna bit her lip and glared at the woman.
"You four will also stay after your lunch period and help clean the cafeteria. You will still be responsible for making up any time lost in your following period."
"What! You can't -" Evan stopped when the imperious woman shot him a withering glare and he then joined Anna in her stewing.
"Consider you four lucky. Try it again and I'll have some pretty serious grounds for expulsion from Bayville. That is if you're still lucky enough to not land a criminal charge from the other student's parents." Principal Darkholme folded her hands neatly in front of her on the desk. "You have been warned."