Subject: [OTL]: (New Mutants 4) Gust Arc Prologue (PG-13) Date: Mon, 10 Mar 2003 21:10:01 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Hartman will1@earthling.net Gust Arc: Prologue by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: They're mine. Their parents belong to their creators/owners. Etc. NOTES: At the end. -------------------------------------------------------- They crashed against the rocks, sending probing fingers up into the beach. #Waves,# the boy kneeling on one of the rocks thought, boredom prompting him to pick up a pebble and throw it into the ocean before him. #Come and go. Never any impact. Never any real need.# He was lean - wiry - for his age, with short brown hair cut above the ear, mussed by wind and water. He wore a pair of baggy swim trunks, plain black, which set him apart from most of the other under-20 crowd on the beach. #Everyone ELSE gets skinwear,# the boy thought with a jealous frown, glancing at where a crowd of his friends were playing volleyball in skinight swimsuits. #I look like some stupid cowardly human.# ~Relax, buddy. Nobody's gonna mock you.~ The boy forced a smile, nodding when one of the other members of their clique - a slightly-taller boy with short red hair and clad in a blue swimbrief - sat on a rock next to his friend. "We know you can't control your home life. 'Sides, humans aren't freaks. They're just more ... inhibited," the newcomer said reassuringly. "That's us, the Inhibited Family," the first boy growled. "Language, anything goes, but fashion ..." The newcomer laughed, but gave his friend a sympathetic smile. "Remind your dad that the twen-cen died a well-deserved death 20 years ago," Aidan Richards said, his green eyes flashing. "It's not so bad - the folks are OK, and even Aaron's ... well, he's Aaron," Daniel Wisdom mumbled. "But we're MUTANTS, not some hume-pack. I mean, Mom went through a dozen costumes when she was an X-Man." "Lemme talk to my mom. Your mom'll listen. I just think if we reason with the grown-ups, they'll understand," Aidan said, smiling again. "This from the Lord of the Pool," Dan chuckled. Aidan snorted, dodging Dan's attempt to give him a noogie, and the two laughed together for a while. "I'm going back in. Later," Aidan called, telekinetically launching himself towards the Long Island shoreline. Dan watched with a jealous wince, his 11-year-young blue eyes darting around the beach. Powers were in evidence everywhere. There were few humans - few LEFT, after a spike in the x-positive population following the genetic conflicts of the first decade of the 21st century - and some of the most daring swimsuits Dan had ever seen were in evidence as well. #Is that one made of ENERGY ?# Dan pondered, watching two girls passing by. One of them - green skin, emerald hair, perfect grin - glanced at him, waving politely as she and her blue-skinned friend headed up the beach. Dan blushed, smiling; he was still just entering the range for normal maturity for second-level mutants, and the feelings he was getting were unusual for him. "Well. Isn't that precious ?" The blush returned, this time with a glare, as Dan scowled over his shoulder. The speaker smirked back, surrounded by a crowd of other late-teen partiers. "You've got your worshippers, Aaron. Go phase through something," Dan spat. His 19-year-old brother returned the scowl, then muttered something about "ingrates," and headed down the beach towards a small bonfire. The Wisdom brothers' age difference was a considerable part of why they had never bonded, but in recent years, they had become positively antagonistic towards one another. #He's such a showoff. Stupid double-power smart-ass - like a density-controlling bioelectrical mutant is anything special,# Dan thought, pouting. He looked over at where his friends were playing, and sighed. Powers were in abundance there, also. If it wasn't Zach Guthrie's occasional spurt of plasma energy putting a spin on the ball, or Morgan or Payne Summers' telekinetic tricks, it was Lucian DaCosta super-spiking the unstable-molecule ball into the sand. #Or Brad Drake getting everyone wet, or N'Kera using her wind powers, or ... anybody but me,# Dan thought, shaking his head. #I'm a 'late-manifester,' Mom says. 'Nothin' to be 'shamed of,' Dad says. Aaron got HIS powers when he was a baby, and I can't even -# "Dan ! Heads up !" Dan turned just in time to feel the volleyball slam into the side of his head - - and keep going on through. "Whoa - WHOA -" Dan yelled, flailing about while he began to sink into the beach, looking around in surprise. His entire body felt like he'd shuffled his feet and touched a doorknob. #Phasing - I'm PHASING -# "About time !" Dan whooped, trying to airwalk as his mother had done with him hundreds of times before. He concentrated on solidity, and landed on his feet. And realized that the wind was getting sharper. #Oh, PERFECT,# Dan thought, blushing when he noticed his swim trunks phased partially into the rock behind him. A fog suddenly rolled in, while a pair of what looked like blue bicycle shorts landed at his feet. A grinning face appeared amidst the murk, followed by a polite - if damp - clap on Dan's shoulder. "I always carry a spare 'suit, amigo - unstable molecule blend, too. At least now you've got an excuse to ditch the hume-look," Brad Drake said warmly. "BTW, congrats." "Thanks, Brad," Dan said sincerely. He pulled on the swimsuit, and breathed a sigh of relief as the fog disappeared. "Goddess be praised ! Dan, I'm so happy for you," N'Kera Munroe - one of Dan's closest friends, and, he suspected, the fog's source - said. She hugged him, as the rest of their group gathered around. "Thanks, Kera," Dan whispered in the dark-skinned girl's ear. "Did anyone - ?" "Relax. Nobody would've noticed, with the energy-caster contest going on down at the bonfire," N'Kera said reassuringly. "Are you solid ?" "I - think so," Dan said, taking a deep breath. He tried to relax, and finally returned the others' smiles. "OOH ! I'm so happy for ye, Dan !" Nora Ramsey gushed. The shorter, red-haired girl hugged Dan briefly, and had to concentrate to keep from shapeshifting wildly. "I jes know ye'll get accepted t' the Academy this fall !" "You'd better, Wisdom. Lord knows we need all the gang we can get," Lucian DaCosta chuckled, greenish geokinetic energies flickering around him. "So, up to serving ?" "I ... dunno. Just 'cause I don't have to worry about my trunks phasing anymore doesn't mean that I should push it," Dan said sheepishly. "Dan !? Are you -" The boy turned around, looking up at Aaron with a skeptical eye. "You're OK - good. I thought I heard someone yelling that you'd phased into a rock," the older Wisdom panted as he caught his breath. "You care ?" Dan snapped. "Yes ! Look," Aaron began, putting an arm around his brother's shoulders and walking them away from the knot of Dan's friends, "I can help you with your power. You don't have to feel so alone anymore." "Where was all this brotherly concern when I ASKED for it !?" Dan hissed through clenched teeth. "I'm not some whiny little baby who needs attention, Aaron. My FRIENDS helped me out when I needed them. If you wanted to be my brother, you should've bothered to treat me like one when I needed you." He turned and walked away, fighting the tightness in his throat as he headed back to the rest of the incoming sixth-graders. #I don't need that overgrown jerk. He doesn't care,# Dan tried to convince himself. "Dan ? You OK ?" Aidan asked, walking over with his twin sister Aislinn. "You look - and feel - hurt," Aislinn said, wrapping her towel around Dan's shoulders. "I can feel the chronal fluctuations from some kind of -" "Just - leave it, OK, Ace ?" Dan snapped. The chronovariant girl blanched, and Dan instantly felt guilty. "I'm sorry ... I just - I'm - I've got something that's MINE, and Aaron comes along and wants to 'make it all better', after teasing me and poking and prodding me all these years, and I just wanted to enjoy something of MINE for once !" Dan blurted. He wiped at his eyes, and managed a smile when Aislinn patted his shoulder. ~You're not a baby. But you do have friends, and we do want to help if we can,~ she sent with her weak telepathy. "C'mon, Dan. We've got a spot open on the rotation - guys versus girls," Aidan enthused, nodding towards the volleyball net. "OK," Dan said, smiling weakly. The three headed down the hill, and Dan tried to smile a little wider. #I'm OK. Really, finally OK,# he told himself. #But maybe the other trunks were better ...# -------------------------------------------------------- NOTES: -------------------------------------------------------- This is an alternate future I've been mulling over for a while - and one that I can actually see happening, so to speak :) Seriously ... after going over myriad possibilities for the future of the Breeze and Summerswind arcs, I began to recognize that Aaron Wisdom and time travel were a poor fit. The poor guy needed to be able to grow up in a straight line ... and I couldn't see Pete and Kitty having just one child. Hence, Dan Wisdom. Aside from his powers and the put-upon younger brother viewpoint, Dan was little more than a rough concept in my musings until recently. Hopefully, he'll bring a new viewpoint to the Wisdom family - as will the adventures of a grown Aaron. (Well, college-age Aaron, who was a member of the Gust Arc's third team of New Mutants after all ... and that story WILL be told, eventually.) Most of the rest of the mutant offspring in the Gust Arc may be familiar to longtime readers, but some will be new - yes, really. And there WILL be non-Summers stories ... More soon, Phil H.