Rock You Like A Hurricane

Posted on Wed Jun 9th, 2021 @ 2:48pm by Charles Xavier & Scott Summers

2,870 words; about a 14 minute read

Mission: Episode 1: X-Odus
Location: X-Mansion
Timeline: June 25, 1990

Picturesque panoramas of the Hudson Valley faded from view as the Blackbird descended into the cliffside that overlooked Breakstone Lake. Holographic projectors hid the underground hangar where the Blackbird laterally hovered into position beside smaller jets.

"Welcome... home." The words were customary for Scott upon return to the X-Mansion, but he didn't realize how unusual they sounded until they were already out of his mouth.

"Sanitarium, leave me be. Sanitarium, just leave me alone," Katy sang when she heard him say welcome home. It may have been his home, but she'd never make it hers.

Not catching the musical reference, Scott just gave her a sideways glance. Drama queen, impromptu musical performer, accustomed to coming and going as she pleased... This was going to be a handful. "Right..."

As the exit door opened and revealed the interior of the hangar, they were met directly by Xavier who had waited until the jet engines had powered down completely before approaching.

"Welcome to you both!" he cheerfully called out. "Scott... please wait for me in my office. Katy and I have matters to discuss."

Scott scowled at Xavier but made no argument. Setting a bad example in front of the hopefully new recruit would not bode well for him later on when he needed her to follow his orders. He simply nodded and left of his own accord.

"You must have questions," Xavier said to Katy. "I would hear and answer them, if you are willing."

"Like why your mutant thug blew off my door, tried to kill me, insulted me, and various other things?" She asked after taking an uninvited seat. "Just a few."

"I will not defend his actions," Xavier said, "for I intend to discuss with him at length our rules of engagement, but I can assure you that his intentions were nobler than when you robbed the armored truck. Before he came here, Scott was an orphan raised in the system, and suffered everything that entails." He paused long enough to give her a knowing look. "Everything you have been running from for over a year."

Katy raised a hand. "No, don't you dare compare me to him," she said flatly. "We're nothing alike. I did what I did to survive." She personally thought she would have been better off as an orphan, but kept that to herself.

"Yes, of course," Charles agreed at first, then subtly changed tack, "at least in the beginning. Your net worth in ill-gotten gains is far more than Scott will likely see in his lifetime, though, isn't it? But I am not here to judge you. In fact, dear Katy, it's just that very initiative that I hope to cultivate -- the desire to more than survive, but thrive. I am prepared to offer you a place here in my home, among my X-Men, where you can hone your fantastic gifts without the need to steal from your fellow man. In exchange, one day you can join me in my mission to ensure no other girl or boy has to suffer what you did all on their own."

Turning around in his chair, Xavier proceeded toward the hangar's exit.

"How so?" she asked, finding herself intrigued by his last line while suppressing the memories of what had happened to her. "Why me? Why him? Why us? I'm not a fighter."

Xavier paused his chair. "Because I am not looking for fighters," he said.

~I am looking for heroes~ he projected to her mind. ~And I see one in you~

"Do you mind not doing that?" Katy asked with a grunt of annoyance. "Or at least knock. If you can do that. So, a hero? What's that pay these days?"

~I will never invade your private thoughts~ Charles emoted. ~But telepathy is our primary mode of communication while in the field~

Verbally, he answered her question. "Heroism pays out with rewards that cannot be bought with money. If it could, then I would have made that purchase long ago. Instead, I am here, doing my work to cultivate a better world than the one into which I was born--into which we were born."

"You just did it again, Baldilocks," she said with a grunt. "Do we have to wake up a hero, brush your teeth a hero or go to work a hero?"

"It comes down to choices," Charles said as he led her away from the hangar and into the rest of the subbasement. "Choose to be courageous, noble, and heroic, and you become those things. As for training, you can find standard equipment here in the subbasement. There's a gym, an indoor pool, even jetted tub and sauna, as well as a fully automated medical center." Smirking, he went on to say, "However, the good stuff is one level lower." Approaching the elevator, he summoned it to head downward.

Katy walked beside of him even though it felt like a sloth crawling to her. She listened, but didn't hear a lot of what he was saying. She heard a lot of what he wasn't saying, though and wasn't sure if it was for her or not. "Do you have anything for speed training? And what about food? I eat a lot. I mean, a lot. Not to mention a bathroom. You do have them here, don't you? Also, what about a place to crash? My place kind of got wrecked by your thug."

"We have lodging aplenty," Charles said, "both down here in the X-Men's dormitories and above in the school proper, should you decide to continue your formal education. You will be welcome to help yourself to the kitchen and the larder in whichever area of the campus you find yourself. The nearest restrooms are in the shower areas adjacent to the sauna, as well as several on the main and second floor."

The elevator descended as they spoke. When the doors parted, it revealed the second subbasement, which looked far different from anything else. Rather than an air hangar or a glorified spa, it looked more like Mission Control from NASA headquarters.

"This is what the team has come to refer to as the War Room," Charles explained as he zoomed forward. "There is a planning area, a lounge area, the primary interface for Cerebro, a search tool of my own design, and of course the restrooms." He chuckled at the last mention.

"Woah..this is wild. Can we play war games here?" She asked as she went over to a station in a blur of motion, then took off in another direction. "Sorry, Charlie. Nature!" her voice came back to him almost as an afterthought.

Taking a deep breath, Charles drew upon his vast reserves of patience. Adolescents were a trying breed, and he knew Katy was amplifying that to the nth degree. Once he won her trust, he expected her to be rather dependable. Until then, though...

Katy returned a few minutes later wiping her hands on her pants. "Anyhoo, war room, cerebellum and...what? What's it all do? Why? Why me?"

"Why not you?" Charles asked, flipping her script.

"I'm no one," she said. "Just a runaway by force and a thief."

"You are someone," Xavier corrected. "You ran away from danger and were forced to steal in order to protect yourself. Take away the need to hide, and you still remain who you are. I would like the chance to help you find out just who that person really is."

"That person doesn't exist," Katy said almost too soft to be heard.

"You do exist," Charles said. "Descartes made a most compelling dictum on the subject, but hopefully we can skip that and get to the part where we discover who it is you want to be." Pausing for effect, he went on. "You can be whoever you want to be, Katy. Why not want something great?"

"I was becoming who I wanted to be," she said.

"You were running from who you did not want to be," Charles countered, leaving all inference of her father unsaid. "But perhaps I can show you a better path." He activated a nearby computer terminal which made one entire section of wall detached and slide into the floor and ceiling. It overlooked a vast enclosure that had various metal plates along the floor and walls, but otherwise stood empty. "We call this the Danger Room," he said. "Care to take a venture?"

"Hard pass," Katy said. "And I was running because I can." She looked out over the empty cavernous room. "What's so dangerous about this?"

Xavier pursed his lips as he pondered how best to explain. "The Danger Room is so called because it gives my X-Men an unparalleled simulation experience in virtually any environment or situation they are likely to encounter. Using avant-garde technology that you will find nowhere else on Earth, you can train for any number of scenarios." He raised his eyebrows almost playfully. "Care to give it a run?"

A part of it appealed to the young lady and she wondered how far the man would go. "So it's just a high tech video game, so to speak? You get it from Japan or on the market? Sure, set up a scenario with armored cars, a bank, whatever."

"Very well," Xavier said, pointedly ignoring her question of the technology's origin. "You may enter, though as a precaution, I warn you that I will initiate a scenario suited to your particular ability." Selecting the program from the menu, Xavier pulled up a metropolitan commercial district.

Within the Danger Room, the bare metallic walls vanished, replacing by the urban decadence of a downtown metropolitan area. The center of the room featured a large intersection with a bank dominating an entire corner.

"Where's the people?" Katy asked, noticing that he seemed to avoid answering a lot of questions. "And I'm hungry. A good bank stake out can take a while. You have to observe, get the pattern of the guards going in and out, shift changes, going in in disguise to scope where the cameras are, how alert the guards are and little stuff like that."

Slowly the wind picked up. A light summer breeze at first, though rather than a steady tickle it escalated in strength until trash and debris began to take flight.

"Ready yourself, Katy," came Xavier's voice over the intercom. "The current settings are for wind speeds of 60mph. If you feel overwhelmed at any point, I will end the program."

A newspaper that almost felt real blew toward her face.

"Mmph," came her response as she pushed the paper off of her face. "What is this, a hurricane heist?" she asked before she set herself in motion. Each moment she accelerated, her perception of time slowed in her vision and her body began to neutralize the build up of toxins caused by fatigue. She sprinted towards the bank, darting around what she called a trashnado - a dust devil made of trash - and stepped over a bottle spinning madly like a game of Spin the Bottle gone wrong. "As long as it isn't me," she muttered and accelerated on a parallel course to the bank. There was no way she was going in straight without a look see.

~Category 1 Hurricane speeds attained~ said Charles to her mind. Intercoms would not be effective under present conditions. ~75mph winds~

Airborne objects began picking up speed, which in orientation to Katy meant they went from a drip to a slow stream. Cracks began to form in windows as they rattled in slow motion.

Katy watched the windows start to ripple and revised her plan. "Roger, Roger," she said out loud and ducked around a parking meter. "Really? It still had time on it. Someone paid for that." She dodged effortlessly around it, keeping her speed at about fifty three meters per second as she turned and headed for the bank. It was a safe place from this flying doo doo storm.

Her eyes darted about, taking in the flying debris and nearly missed being hit by a flying trash can. However, the juice from it covered her from head to toe and the young woman gagged, stumbled and began to lean into the wind in a way she didn't want to. "Thisisgonnasuck!"

~Approaching Category 2 speeds~ Xavier projected to her. ~Signal whenever you've yielded."

"No chance," Katy said as she corrected her course after recovering from her stumble and let the stops out. Category two wasn't shit and she watched time slow down and things slowed to a crawl as she punched it. Now she was moving a hundred and thirty-four meters per second and everything else was a blur as she headed towards the bank doors. "I really need a advanced warning thingamabob," she muttered to no one and ducked under a small sapling as it whipped towards her in slow motion.

~Category 3~ the professor warned.

Just in time for the pressure differential to rip the unsecured doors from their hinges and send them flying straight toward Katy.

"Well, fool me," the speedster said as she changed direction on a dime and veered off to the left while still increasing her speed. "Come on, Professor, turn it up!"

~If you're certain...~ The walls of the building began to shake with the undulating winds. ~Category 4 winds achieved~

Katy veered away from the bank and headed away from it, dodging debris as she ran. If this was his idea of danger, he wasn't even close. She was doing twice the speed of the wind and knew she could double it again. She started showing off by letting flying debris almost hit her, then casually moving out of the way or around it. Then she grabbed a smallish tree branch and started hitting other pieces of debris as she moved through the street.

As the winds crashed together, the barometric pressure of the environment began to rise and fall as conflicting air pressure systems began to beat against Katy's body. Vortices of angry, swirling air made her medium of travel extremely uncooperative to easy motion and threatened to tear her limb from limb.

~Approaching Category 5~ Xavier warned.

"It isn't the velocity of the wind," Katy grunted as she felt her joints start to ache after such an extended amount of pressure from all sides, causing her tissue to swell around them. "It's the garbage!" She dodged another trash can and then turned and headed towards the place she last saw the bald man.

Deciding that safe was better than sorry, Xavier ended the program. In short order, the gale force winds abated as the cityscape dissipated into the lights and fog that had formed it.

"Well done, Katy."

"That was it?" she asked. "I didn't even get in the bank and you say well done?"

Charles let out a chuckle. "The exercise was not getting into the bank. It was pushing your abilities to their limits. From the Danger Room's computer readings, it seems that most hurricanes would not pose a problem for you. There is not much on Earth that can withstand the fury and devastation of a Category 5. If you wish to try again another day, then we can arrange for something more organized." He paused for a moment, his brow arching in a challenging question. "That is, if I've convinced you to stay."

"I told you, it wasn't the wind. The pressure is what got to me, and I wouldn't have stayed in the area of a hurricane if you paid me," Katy said. "But for now, I'll stay."

"That's good to hear," Charles said. "Because here you will learn that wind is rapidly changing pressure systems. I don't doubt that given time and practice, you'll find a way to circumvent gale force winds." He paused for a second. "You are not the first speedster I've encountered. Your abilities are at least comparable to another, and his demonstrations were nothing short of impressive."

"I"m not?" She asked. "Who's the first and how fast were they? For that matter, I don't even know how fast I am. I mean, I know I have a limit, but not how fast it is."

"Valid questions, all," Xavier said, "but for another time. Come! You must be hungry. Let me show you to the kitchen before I follow up with Scott in my office."

"Starving and do I get to go back and get my clothes and stuff?" Katy asked. The stuff being the nearly two million in cash she had to leave behind.

"If you wish," Xavier said. "This is a school, not a prison. You are free to come and go, so long as you maintain other house rules."

"Thanks, but food first. Did I mention I was starving? Going fast makes me really hungry."

Charles pointed to the corner of the subbasement. "That cylinder is a fast transit unit. It can quickly take you between the five levels of the mansion. The kitchen is on the ground floor. I will take the main elevator and meet you there shortly."

"See you then," Katy said and in a blur, she was gone.

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