We survived the surprise test. Or at least I 'survived' it. Felicia and Gwen looked relaxed enough that they probably didn't even struggle with it. At least the rest of the class looked like they suffered just as much as me, most of them anyway.
"That wasn't so bad." Felicia says casually from my right as I breathe a sigh of relief and wipe the sweat from my brow, having just survived an execution.
"I'm sure those papers you had helped a lot." Gwen grumbled, still unhappy with Felicia having stolen them, even if they were from genocidal mutants. "Are you done with them yet?"
"Yeah, I copied them all over, so I have no more need for them." Felicia said nonchalantly, not too bothered about the unhappy girl pouting at her. She takes out the stack of papers from her bag and drops them on the table. "It's lunch break, let's go. I'll give these back when we see them in the cafeteria, alright?"
She stretched her arms high above her head as she stood up, showing no signs of stress. Gwen followed behind and a second later I also shook off my post test stress and followed the two. My brain still felt like scrambled eggs from the studying last night followed by dungeon diving, while Gwen was quiet, probably still mulling over Felicia stealing and her not doing anything about it.
We made it halfway down the hallway toward the cafeteria when we suddenly heard raised and heated voices from one of the classrooms on the way. The one where, to my knowledge, all the mutants study.
Which, may I add, must be a shitshow if all the Xmen and Brotherhood members are in the same class. That's even crazier than all the important Spider-Man characters being in mine.
We slowed down as curiosity got the best of us and could immediately hear Pyro screaming at the group standing opposite of them.
"I'm telling you, they did it!" he shouted, a little too loud. Had everyone not gone for lunch, it would have turned many heads. "The only other freaks who'd bother touching our stuff are sitting right here!"
"I don't get what you think you're accusing us of." Scott said, calmly, like he was trying very hard to not lose his cool. "But no one here is wasting their time on you lot. Go find something better to do with your time, maybe study for once."
"Then how do you explain it, huh?" Toad's voice cut in. "Everything was in our desks yesterday. And now? Gone. The notes, the cheat sheets, the backup copies, and suddenly nothing. Someone snatched 'em, and I can only think of one group petty enough to do it and dumb enough to need it."
"They're just mad because we didn't bomb the test like they did," The voice of a brown haired woman chimed in, all sweet and sarcastic.
"Oh, screw you, Kitty," Avalanche snapped at her. "You think you're funny? Where do you think our papers disappeared to?"
"Probably just dropped them or something." Another guy with shoulder-length purplish hair answered instead of Kitty. "I know it's embarrassing, but just owe up to it and stop blaming us."
"Do I look stupid to you?" Avalanche growled at the boy, but only had everyone turn away from him in silence as a response. The silence and lack of eye contact spoke volumes, and Avalanche got even angrier. "Fuck you all."
You could feel the temperature raising inside the classroom through the open door. Not literally, though it would probably be possible with Pyro there, but in terms of tension. There were a solid 9 superpowered mutants there, some of which could blow this whole building away in seconds, and they looked like they were about to clash heads.
That's when Felicia did a turn from the cafeteria and toward the classroom, stepping straight into the fray without even breaking stride, the all important papers in hand. She pushed the classroom door open and walked in without a care in the world. Gwen and I followed reluctantly, not wanting to see her enter into that battlefield by herself.
"Hey, sorry, I'm late to the drama," Felicia said, cheerfully entering the conflict. "I've got some stuff to return, sorry I forgot to check in if it was okay to take them before, but I'm sure it's fine."
The entire room froze. Every pair of eyes turned on us as we stood in the doorway. Gwen looked like she wanted to vanish, and I would have happily gone with her. The only thing on my mind right now is going through the members here and wondering if I could survive if they all suddenly started blasting us.
Felicia walked right up to Pyro's table, which he was standing next to, and dropped the stack of papers onto it with a thud like she was returning a book to a library, not something which she stole. "Thanks for lending these to me, they were super useful."
Pyro didn't take them. He just stared, face twitching between disbelief and outrage.
"You took them?" he growled.
"Borrowed! Key difference," Felicia corrected with a friendly smile. "And now I'm returning them, so we're good, right?"
"Are you insane?" Toad screeched, pointing at her with a trembling finger like he was looking at an alien. "You stole our homework!"
"Well, I did ask first. You just weren't in the classroom to answer me, so I took the silence as confirmation." Felicia said shamelessly like she didn't just say the stupidest excuse known to man. "And let's be honest, you weren't gonna lend them if I asked face to face."
"You took it without permission!" Pyro stepped forward, "That… That's theft!"
"Oh come on…" Kitty sighed. "Like you haven't done much worse. Now you just know how it feels to be on the receiving end."
"Take it as a learning experience and… I don't know, maybe don't do crime anymore?" A boy with short beige hair spoke.
Pyro turned on him. "Oh, shut up! You think this is funny?"
"It's kind of funny," Rogue mumbled, not looking at anyone in particular.
"She stole from us!" Toad repeated, gesturing wildly with his hands. "That's a crime."
"Nothing you have been concerned with before." Scott said. "And what exactly do you want us to do? She's not with us."
"I…I…" Toad was lost for words and looked at both Avalanche and Pyro for support. Seeing that they too didn't know what to say, he pointed angrily at Felicia with a glare before also directing it at both me and Gwen. "This isn't over. I don't care that Mystique told us to not bother you. I'm not just gonna stand for this."
Felicia just yawned at the threat. "I'm gonna go eat now if there is nothing else. You guys have fun."
Without waiting for a reply from Toad or the rest, she turned around and walked through the gap in the middle of Gwen and me to leave the room. Not too interested in staying around, we followed after her too.
The minute we were clear of the classroom, I turned to her. "You realize you… no WE… just made enemies out of everyone on the Brotherhood, right?"
"I prefer to think of it as inspiring long-term grudges," she replied. "And don't worry. I can judge people pretty well, I'll tell you know they won't do anything. They are a bunch of scaredy-cats that won't act as long as the principal doesn't allow them. I just had to get back at them for Friday."
"That's not much better," Gwen mumbled. "Why is it that we get dragged into so much drama as soon as you transferred in? I feel like a mountain of bad luck is going to fall down on me any second."
"Oh, come on now. I prefer to look at it as me making your life more interesting." Felicia grinned as we made it to the cafeteria. "I do apologize if it actually bothers you, but I find it hard to just let go after they tried to corner us like that."
Gwen didn't reply to that and only sighed. Within a few minutes, we got our food and sat down at the table. Soon after, though, a few more people showed up at our table with their own trays.
"Mind if we join you?" Rogue's voice asked. We looked up from our food to see her, Kitty and the purple haired man who I assumed to be the human for of Nightcrawler standing beside us. The other three X-Men were missing.
Felicia blinked and looked over at my direction, Gwen did the same, leaving the final answer to me.
"Sure."
Rogue sat across from Felicia, Nightcrawler plopped down next to me like we were best friends already, and Kitty sat next to Gwen.
"You guys always this dramatic?" Kitty asked, cutting up a potato for herself.
"No, just on Wednesdays." Felicia said, unfazed.
"It's Tuesday." I corrected her.
"Whoops, must have got my schedule mixed up." She shrugged and continued eating. "Wanna do this again tomorrow?"
Rogue leaned her elbows on the table. "They're really pissed now."
"I'm shocked," Gwen deadpanned. I could tell she wasn't happy about the situation but knowing the people at our table were superpowered and had been spying on us for the past week she didn't show anything outwardly.
"Just warning you," Rogue went on, ignoring Gwen's sarcasm. "They don't let stuff go easy."
"That's a surprise." Felicia said. "They sure were shivering in their boots when the principal bailed them out of their own mess a few days ago."
Rogue grimaced at the mention of the principal. "Well, she is one scary woman when she needs to be."
"If she told them off, though, you might be fine." Kitty said thoughtfully. "Expect a bunch of petty pranks, though. They will do as much as they can without drawing her ire"
"And that's why we're here," Nightcrawler followed up with a sly grin. "This sounds like the perfect setup for a prank war, and you'll find no better allies than me or Kitty."
"Sounds fun to me." I say, accepting his offer easily. I'm getting stronger quickly and soon the brotherhood won't be a threat to me, but for now being buddy-buddy with the X-men would be a great deterrent. "Is Scott okay with that, though? You being here, I mean. You've all been admiring us from afar for a week now. I've been expecting a love letter in my locker the whole time, and it never came."
Rogue rolled her eyes. "We didn't tell him we are coming, but he probably wouldn't approve. He is the type to watch and plan rather than act. Not a bad guy though, just very serious about his role in keeping us all safe. It seems you already know what we are, though, and we know about you. I see no reason to continue this pointless Cold War."
"Hey, that works for me." I say. "This little game was fun at the start but started getting old real fast. Let's team up against 'the big threat' that is glaring at us right now."
I look behind Rogue, at a table not too far away, where the Brotherhood members are angrily chewing their food and glaring daggers at us. I'm sure this will be just fine.