12 Chapter 12: A New Day, with New Changes.

After the others had left, Bronte sat in his room for hours. He was no longer tired-- at least not physically, but the oddities of the day-- of what his life could now be, was enough to leave him deep in thought. Deep in fear.

Eventually he got up, listening to the sounds of people talking-- children laughing and running through the massive Institute. It sounded so calm-- so serene. It sounded like his home, it relaxed him. Almost made him forget he'd been taken from his home and thrown into a world of superpowers and primordial inhuman progenitors in the shadows.

Then he stepped out into the hall and watched a woman walk through a wall and begin casually talking to a gigantic man with metal skin.

If that wasn't enough, a group of children playing tag down the stairs ahead of him blurred across his vision laughing to themselves. One moving in a blur, another teleporting all through the halls. There was even a kid that ran on the walls like spiderman.

Yep. He'd never turned around and re-entered the room so fast. To hell with Professors eager to meet him and Students curious of his newfound abilities. The day was already enough on it's own.

He went back into his bed and used the installed phone to call home. Home, it felt years away as the beep rang out in his ears. It felt louder than usual. And home seemed different when his adoptive father answered on the third ring.

Like his mother, the man was hard. Calm and collected. But he too had the warmth of an invested parent. Apparently, he also lacked the surprise most would have after hearing their child was a Mutant.

They knew.

Bronte didn't have any more shock left in him. Not at their knowledge of what he'd become, their lack of preparation over the suddenness of his awakening or the ominous message given by his adoptive parents. He knew of Wolverine. They did as well-- said they'd met him a few times..... as if that didn't birth a million more questions. But that didn't matter, what they said about his other half was what left him awake hours into the rising night.

His father said he wasn't ready. He wasn't ready to learn of her-- wasn't ready to even contemplate her.... his birth mother... or her world that was so so different from the one he'd only just entered.

His father said one step at a time. To be safe, call every night, and not to forget where he came from. And then Bronte was having a brief conversation with his adoptive younger siblings up until he ended to call.

He laid in his bed awake for hours afterward. Left to ponder at everything. Decisions. Heritage. Monsters. Mutants. To fight or to flee. To die or survive.

Eventually, he fell asleep to the tapping of his hand on the bedframe, moving to the beat of the storm that suddenly bloomed to life outside his window.

As he slept, small sparks popped from the tips of his fingers.

***

Sleep was deep. No dreams of beasts born from the storms, no Monsters in the shadows. Just a deep sleep that felt like it went by in a flash. Probably too mentally exhausted for dreams.

Eventually, he woke up to the robotic ring of his alarm that he didn't know he had. He woke up with a start and shut it off before sitting on his bed in silence..... settling with the fact that it was all real.

Then his door opened and in stepped Gabbie. Raze followed in behind her like some crazed feral shadow. They both wore casual clothing-- no more dirtied hoods and baggie pants. Gabbie settled with a bright yellow t-shirt, jeans and the familiar goggles she seemed to always wear on her head.

Raze wore a white t-shirt under a black leather jacket and blue jeans. Hit fit the image of some rugged sadistic leader of a biker gang with his leather clothing, thick sideburns and roughened red hair. Well, that was if biker gang leaders had glowing eyes, fangs, claws and the tendency to randomly change skin colors.

"Good morning, Bronte!" Gabbie shouted as she raised her arms excitedly.

"Sup...." Bronte replied warily as they filtered into the room.

"You didn't come out last night..." Gabbie said suddenly.

"Yea..... I had to take a minute to get my mind right. You know, school full of people with superpowers and all that."

Gabbie nodded in understanding as Raze walked over to his bedside and sniffed at him. He leaned in far too close; Bronte could smell the chocolate and skittles on his breath.

"Do you have any more pancakes, brother?"

"Why are you like this?" Bronte asked with a sigh.

"He's a foodie, don't judge him!" Gabbie said from the otherside of the bed before throwing a pillow at Raze's face, "Also stop begging, Raze."

Raze grumbled something before turning away from Bronte to look around the room in a slump.

"He's not a morning person.... hehe." Gabbie said nervously as Bronte stood up off the bed.

She looked him up and down in surprise for a moment before pointing at his face, "Hey-- you changed again. Your hair.... it changed colors..... no fair!"

"I changed again....girl, what?" Bronte said before walking past her to approach the mirror sitting on top of his dresser.

What looked back at him was not the Bronte he remembered.

He'd changed-- as Gabbie said.

He wasn't gaunt anymore. He looked like he'd gained at least fifteen pounds of muscle overnight. Veins lined his arms and lower abdomen as he lifted his shirt. He was still thin-- but corded with muscle in ways he never thought he'd attain with his previous physical conditioning. He wasn't on Daken's level, but he was worlds closer than he would've been a week ago. And that wasn't all that changed. He looked older-- objectively. His jaw thickened and his face looked more sharp-- defined. His brown skin took on a lively glow, and when he moved to speak, he found that he too had fangs. He reached up to touch one and cut his finger, causing him to jump.

His hair swung in and out of his eyes, drawing his attention. It looked thicker. More coarse and tough-- almost like fur. If fur ended in tightly bound curls that stopped at his shoulders. He didn't remember undoing his braids.... he also didn't remember dying a thick strand of his hair pure white. Not the whole thing, just a lock of hair, white enough that it almost seemed to glow.

"The hell happened...."

Suddenly Hank's words of rapid metamorphosis entered his mind. It seems he meant it in a very literal sense.

"Does this happen to..... Mutants often?" He whispered aloud.

"Nope. Just you from what I've seen." Gabbie said calmly.

Before they could speak anymore, a man with a thick Russian accent yelled down the halls.

"Ok kids, if you're still in bed I suggest you get up. Breakfast is being served! Big day today, very big day!"

The smell of sausages, bacon, toast and sweet fruits entered his nose.

"WHOO! Lets go lets go lets go lets go!" Raze chanted at the doorway as he looked from them to the hallway beyond.

It seemed he was waking up.

Bronte got changed the second his stomach rumbled as Raze barked at him to hurry up. By the time he shrugged on his blue t-shirt and black jeans, he was heading out of his room while slipping on a hairband. No chance of turning back this time as the sea of teenagers and kids carried him down the massive stairs that led into the main hall.

"Why are y'all following me again? Couldn't we have just met at breakfast?" Bronte asked as they walked through the main hall backed by a fireplace and high set wooden railings connecting to the stairs.

The students around them briefly looked over Bronte, but otherwise didn't seem to care. It really felt like highschool when people weren't moving as fast as bullets and shooting fireballs.

"No. We're your chaperones, what if you got lost?" Gabbie said from his right as students passed by.

Raze chuckled at his left, "HehehHAHAH! Gotta keep the bullies away from that pretty head!"

Following his words, he leaned over Bronte with his jaws opening over his head as he jokingly attempted to eat him.

"Stop it, Raze." Gabbie said, causing Raze to return to his normal state, yelling at one of the younger kids that watched with a wild smile, "What are you staring at, you little squirt!"

The kid laughed and ran off with his friends as if Raze was some goofy boogeyman instead of a feral shape-shifting mystery mutant.

"You don't believe in social boundaries, do you?" Bronte asked him suddenly as Raze sniffed at him curiously. He really was bizarre.

"What is a social boundary?" Raze looked up at him seriously.

Bronte looked from Raze to Gabbie as they turned down a hall and the scent of foods grew.

"Oh word? So he's not like twenty-five?" He said to Gabbie.

"Big sis says he's a work in progress." Gabbie replied with a shrug.

With that being said, the big hallway him and around fifty other kids traveled down suddenly opened and gave way to a large dining hall turned into a sort of cafeteria. Students sat at tables laughing in between conversation as they ate..... and casually used abilities he'd only read of in newspapers.

"Welcome to the dining hall." Gabbie said as they stood in the entryway.

"Smells like heavennhuhuhahaha!" Raze added in excitement before taking off to budge a number of students waiting for food.

"Work in progress..... work in progress." Gabbie reminded herself before they entered the cafeteria. For a moment she looked older than her eight year old self.

***

Minutes passed by in a blur of amazement and a dozen other emotions drawn to the surface from the bizarre lifestyles that seemed to be a normality inside the Xavier Institute. After he'd grabbed his food, he traveled through the packed area in search of an open seat.

In the midst of his search, he found Laura and the others at the back of the room. Seated at a round table where no lights reached. Daken sat in a corner with a blindfolded woman on his lap..... she looked like she wanted to devour him on the spot. Daken looked..... bored.

Laura faced the room from her seat with Raze sitting on the floor beside her with six plates of food. His left arm snaked and slithered through the room, grabbing people's food when they weren't looking. He only stopped after Gabbie threw a sausage link at his head from behind him.

"You need a seat? We've got plenty ah room."

Bronte turned towards the voice and found himself looking at a familiar face. Freckles, long reddish brown hair and pale skin.

"Rahne.." Bronte said.

"Mornin! Come have a seat." She said in her familiar Scottish accent before leading him over to a table at the center of the room.

He took a seat, feeling Laura's eyes on his back during the process.

He began talking with Rahne as they ate. He asked all manner of questions and she did the same concerning the outside world. All mundane things such as celebrities, scandals and new fashion trends. It calmed him.

And sometime along the way, he stopped eating and simply tapped his knuckles on the table. An unavoidable urge some would say. Even so, he gave in as people began to fill the seats around them.

Rahne's friends.

The first to sit was a sturdily built blonde-haired man with a slight country-twang in the way he spoke. He was calm and respectful in his approach and introduced himself to Bronte as Sam. In his wake others filled in introducing themselves as Douglas, Danielle, and the girl who had walked through a wall only a day ago. Apparently, her name was Kitty.

Bronte casually conversed with them, finding them as normal as he hadn't expected them to be. Meeting people like Raze kind of altered his expectations of Mutants. So far it was high school part two.

And then, another came.

He caught her staring the moment she entered the room. Her glare was stunningly cold and made him itch. Other students his age stared and ogled; younger children rushed out of her way as she approached the table. She was nearly Bronte's height and slim in build. But there was a power about her. The itch had focused in his spine. Her hair was silver blonde and hung down to her chest in perfect straightness.

She was pretty. But something about her was off-putting.

When she approached the table, Sam and Kitty who were sitting in front of Bronte split and allowed her to sit directly across from him.

Her eyes never left him.

Rahne didn't introduce her. Instead, the awkwardness rose until Bronte could take no more. He stopped beating against the table and nodded off to her.

"How's it going?"

"It is going fine." Her accent was Russian. Just like the metal man.

"Bronte, this is Illyana. She is also fairly new here." Rahne said from beside him, "Illyana this is Bronte, the one I was telling you about?"

The awkwardness continued.

"Right.." Illyana replied, still staring holes through Bronte as his spine began to faintly tingle. She suddenly raised a hand across the table, "It is nice to meet you, Bronte."

He'd never heard his name sound so exotic in his life. He reached out to shake her hand.

As soon as they touched, the tingle in his spine became a supernatural spasm. His skin felt hot as Illyana went rigid and her eyes began to glow.

In a flash, blue sparks lit a path down her arm that was followed by the sudden emergence of sectional dark ornate armor.

The tingle in his spine burst and a bolt of lightning exploded from their joined hands followed by a blast of wind so strong everyone's food flew off the table.

"WOAH!" He yelled in response.

Bronte and Illyana were knocked from their seats.

He was on his feet in a rush, his adrenaline making the process blindingly fast as the students around watched and others in the distance moved toward him.

Illyana stared at him from across the table, suddenly a blue flaming blade in her armored hand when she spoke, it sounded like a deeper more insidious voice coated her own. Despite the change, their eyes mirrored each other. That same chaotic pale glow...

"..... What are you?"