THE DANGER ROOM.
He stared at the timeworn floral prints etched beside him, his fingers twitching, reaching for the wall's surface but stopping halfway, at the very threshold, then falling back to his side. Part of him wanted to touch it, another did not. Perhaps because touch meant feeling, meant having his palm assaulted with every sensation, every groove of worn-out wallpaper.
And perhaps...feeling, made everything all the more real. And that part of him didn't want it to be. Was content to stay in denial.
But... that was foolish.
Since opening his eyes in this world, he had felt plenty.
The headache from his first rising.
His toe knocking harshly against the leg of the counter by his bed this very morning.
It had been four days, more than enough time for him to have woken if this were truly a dream.
But then again all of this could merely be a coma-induced hallucination, some form of comfort his mind had formed to—
It was not.
This was real. That—
Headlights, loud horns, screams, skidding tires, smoke, fire, blood, pain...
That had all been real.
He had died, and now he was, Isaiah Grey, brother to Jean Grey the X-man,
Marvel Girl, future host of the Phoenix Force, telepath, telekinetic.
Jean Grey, who was now standing right in front of him, worry etched in her features and her hand waving rapidly over his face.
He paused in his steps and blinked, reeled back into reality, and now for the first time registered her voice.
"Isaiah? Isaiah, are you okay?"
He cleared his throat and offered her a smile. "I'm fine," he muttered. "Just a bit lost in thought, that's all." She did not look convinced, and he didn't blame her; he wouldn't fall for anything out of his mouth either. "Look, if this is all too much, we can tell the professor and—"
"If I want to get used to this, find some footing, a bit of normalcy in my life, I can't keep shutting myself away and hiding." His hands fell over her shoulders, clasping them in a comforting squeeze. Her eyes burned with worry, but her body relaxed a bit as tension slowly ebbed from her. "I have to put myself out there."
Her lips thinned, then moved as if ready to say something.
"To truthfully answer your question—" He beat her to it. "I am not totally okay... but I'm getting there. This is the first step to doing that."
She bit her lip and sighed, stepping back then to his side. He turned to offer her a smile, one she easily returned as she clasped her hand in his. "Okay then..." his sister whispered, beginning to walk. "First steps."
He snorted. "Thanks for the support, Mom..."
She rolled her eyes, but her smile did not fade. Together, they made their way through the hall, and once more, his eyes fell onto the wallpaper. It looked just a tad bit more vibrant... beautiful. And he let that sight settle in his heart, watching it fade as a large metallic door came into view. It parted right in the middle, one side sliding to the left and the other to the right, exposing its contents: a pristine white room with all manner of gadgetry around.
The Grey twins entered, their eyes immediately falling onto the crowd already situated in the room.
A bald wheel chair bound man...Charles Xavier....Isaiah's mind helpfully supplied, wheeled his way over, a small, knowing smile on his lips. "Mr. Grey, it's quite wonderful to see you out and about."
An awkward smile stretched onto the redhead's face as he rubbed the back of his head. "Glad to be... out and about," he muttered, his eyes falling onto the man before surveying the other inhabitants of the room.
Xavier, noting his attention, moved slightly to the side, his hand gesturing toward the other males crowded around. "These are your housemates," the Professor began, offering Isaiah an encouraging smile. The three males moved forward, the brunette in ruby red shades tipping his head in greeting before holding out his hand.
"Scott Summers, nice to meet you."
Isaiah stared at him for a moment, the seconds stretching into what felt like an eternity, before slowly reaching out and clasping his hand. "Isaiah Grey," he muttered, causing Scott to smile and nod.
The next boy stepped forward, a tall, slightly toned figure with dark indigo blue, near purple hair and deep black eyes. "Welcome to the Mansion, yeah? I'm Kurt Wagner!" His words, coated with a thick German accent and boundless mass of enthusiasm were infectious, stripping the tension from Isaiah's smile and transforming it into something more genuine. "Thank you," He mused, Kurt's grin seeming to stretch impossibly wide at the sight of his steadily widening smile.
The third figure moved forward, his visage one Isaiah was quite familiar with. "Doctor," The red haired male greeted.
"Please," the older man muttered, raising his hand. "Call me Hank... Hank McCoy."
"Ah, okay then... Nice to be acquainted, Mr. McCoy."
"Hank is quite fine, my friend," the man mused good-naturedly, not as excitable as Kurt but exuding the same easy-going wonder.
"Nice to be acquainted, then, Hank."
"I must thank you once more for agreeing to join us today. There is much we wish to learn about our people, our potential, and there is much growth we wish to incite within one another. This is just one of the many ways I hope to achieve that." Xavier began causing Isaiah to raise his brow.
Isaiah raised a skeptical brow. "With a high-tech death trap?"
Hank corrected him, raising a finger to emphasize his point. "With a state-of-the-art simulator intended to imbue you with the necessary skills to survive the threats that await you."
Isaiah's gaze shifted to Xavier, who smiled reassuringly. "It's something to help you unleash what you've been gifted with, without fear of the destruction it could cause. It's designed to push you to see the upper limits of your abilities, to grasp your true potential and then some. It also helps us better understand how your gifts work so you can use them more efficiently."
Isaiah bit his lip, considering their words, before slowly nodding. "Okay, then... Are you ready?"
All eyes turned to him, prompting Isaiah's brows to furrow. He glanced around, his gaze lingering on the others, especially Jean, who offered a small encouraging smile.
"I'll be doing this alone, won't I..." he muttered.
"We just want to better grasp your abilities," Xavier explained. "Once we understand them, we can see how well they might integrate with others."
"In other words," Kurt chimed in eagerly, "for now, you're the star of the show!" He grinned broadly, extending his arms in a theatrical gesture, earning a bemused huff from Isaiah, who glanced at Xavier and sighed. "If you say so."
It took little time for the others to file out of the room, the sliding doors shutting behind them.
And it took almost less for, a concentrated blast of concussive energy to immediately make its way toward Isaiah, the bright blue beams of light cutting dangerously close to his ear and charring the white wall behind him.
Reeling from the experience, his eyes widened. "Woah!" the exclamation flared from his mouth. "A little warning next time!"
"No true threat would ever warn you of its attack," Hank's voice echoed in his ears. "Why would you believe this would be any different?"
The redhead didn't dignify the doctor's words with a response, partly because he was busy dodging another energy beam and partly because he was feeling downright petty.
Razor-edged metal disks materialized from shimmering fissures in the air, spinning noiselessly before zipping with deadly precision through the space, as if that wasn't bad enough each disk emitted faint hums of latent energy from the raised nodes set on their centre, the circular cores pulsing with ominous, burning light that pulsed it's way towards him prompting him to drop to the ground and roll, narrowly missing one fly through the space he had just been in with a deadly whirr.
Evasion alone wasn't really something, effective. In the long term that is.
He needed to use his powers...And wasn't that just jarring?
The very thought alone was quite, hard to believe, he had powers, he was a mutant, hated by the human masses simply for existing while the X-Men, Inhumans, or whatever new spandex wearing cavalier were toted for their works and deeds. It was such an odd concept he would never quite understand it but that was bigotry right, it made no sense, held no reasoning it was....
A pule of blue slammed towards him the bright glow flickering in his eyes, they widened, before he squeezed them shut, bracing for the pain.
It never came and when he opened them he noted with great relief that he was at least five feet from where he had been, the spot now charred.
"Okay Isaiah focus!" He hissed lowly to himself, rising quickly to his feet and surveying the room for the next threat.
A laser canon spun around and set it's attention on him.
He held out his hand and dug deep for what he knew lay there.
His power.
Happily it hummed in response, crawling up his arm, every brush flaring out a tingling sensation as he fought to concentrate on his target. His palm warmed and the silver of the canon rippled, shimmered...unraveled.
Fracturing into a number of glittering motes, which twisted and bubbled, taking to the air in beautiful molten states that danced to the tune of his command. They took on a new shape...then tore.
They took on a new color, and fell.
The mighty canon now reduced to confetti.
Isaiah shut his eyes, he was wading in vast waters, they reached for him and he drew closer, sunk deeper, dived with little inhibition.
Around him more lasers made for his form, pulsing out their searing beams which oh so desperate to wrought pain reached out, only to stop right at the edge of his being, so close to touching his skin, yet so far away, frozen in place as if time had discarded them, no, as if time had gripped them tight and was unwilling to let go.
They lost their long solid structure, bending into ribbon like rivulets that spluttered all around the redhead, twisting and twining before like whips they lashed out, striking every cannon that had granted them form.
The metal disks whirred out once more, coughed out from the wall's wide grins and buzzing their way towards him.
The bands of energy wrestled free from gravity's hold, floating upwards and twisting their forms into spears, which with little pause struck, piercing right through the circular weapons and spluttering out just as they fell onto the harsh ground.
A piece of the ceiling creaked and groaned, much like a beast opening it's maw.
Slowly it began to descend.
Isaiah held out his hand and his eyes opened. He stared at them, not once sparing the platform eagerly making it's way to his form a glance.
He held his right hand out, palm facing up, and hovered his left over it.
With an echoing slap he pressed the hands together and the platform above groaned once more, creaking, tremoring before bursting in a bright flare of lights reminiscent of fireworks splaying the night sky.
"Thank you Mr Grey." Xavier's voice echoed. "That will be all."
The redhead blinked, taking in a deep breath as his head burst from the waters.
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"That was amazing!" Kurt exclaimed the moment Isaiah made his way from the Danger Room. "You were running around a bit and I thought, wow this guy's a goner but then you turn around and go BAM! lasers you're my super awesome whips and BAM! now you're spears and BAM! Crushing ceiling of death be fireworks!"
Jean chuckled a bit at that, glancing at her brother whose face grew redder and redder the more Kurt spoke. "How did you do it? Can you do anything else, change some other things to-"
"Kurt-" Scott began taking a deep breath and placing a hand to the blue haired boy's shoulder. "Let's let Isaiah catch a breath first before we overwhelm him with our questions hmm?"
Straightening slightly, a small smile forming on his lips, the boy offered Isaiah a bashful smile. "Yah..." He began rubbing his head a bit. "Great idea."
Jean was by his side in a moment, hooking her hand with his. "First danger room, you did pretty okay..." She brushed her shoulder against his own. "Eventually." She teased, lips stretching into a smirk.
Her brother groaned in response hanging his head slowly. "Although..." The girl held out her hand, and over it a bright flare of energy coalesced. Turning into a pink mirror like disk which after a moment began to reflect an image.
Or rather reflect him, running around with his eyes half shut as laser beams flared their way towards him.
Grin widening as her brother's face became practically red as a tomato. Jean chuckled. "-can't say I'll ever let you live this down."
"The hate I hold for you burns strong witch."