X-men: Evolution
Project: Zodiac
Episode 01
“To sunny out
There’s a storm inside
To dark to mask
To big to hide
I wish it would rain
Go thundery and hazy
To bright and cheery outside
It’s driving me crazy
That no one can see
How I feel in my heart
Please. Just sit and talk with me
That would be a start
Oh Rain
Come hide my tears
Oh Thunder
Come drown out my fears
Oh Rain
Oh, please, let it rain.”
“Kitty, could you please turn that off? We’ve heard that song
a million times now!”
Kitty looked up from reading the CD jacket and glowered at Kurt. “It’s, like, such a great song though.”
“Sure it is.” He rolled his eyes. “The first hundred times
anyways.”
Scott sighed and sat down on the couch. “He has a point Kitty.”
“You people! No taste in music whatsoever!”
“Clam down half pint.” Logan said, walking into the room. “People
just get sick of hearing the same things over and over again. Now could you turn
it off? I’d like to watch the news if you don’t mind.” Looking over at the
ever-present bowl of fruit, he speared an apple with his claws and started
munching as he picked up the TV remote and turned the channel to the news.
Kitty sighed and turned her CD player off, folding her arms across her
chest, sulking.
Rogue
walked in and looked at her. “Someone finally got her to stop playing it?
Hallelujah!”
“Alright!
Enough already!” Kitty shouted and was about to stalk out of the room when a
familiar song came from the TV screen.
Everyone
groaned. “As if we hadn’t heard enough of it already!” Scott moaned,
clutching his ears.
The
song faded and the news reporter cut in. “You’re doubtless all familiar
with the music of the pop sensation known as Zodiac. The girls have recently
announced that they will be taking a break from their touring and recording and
going to a different city. Where that is, they refuse to say. ‘We’re
doing this so as not to create any sort of special welcome when we get there,’
said Zodiac’s lead guitarist Jen McCormick at the conference last night.
Avoiding publicity Jen? I doubt it. Well, wherever Zodiac winds up, they won’t
be able to avoid it. In other news…”
“Did
you guys hear that?” Kitty squealed. “Zodiac could be coming here!”
Jean
rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. A nationally popular band coming to live here?
Get real, Kitty.”
“Hey,
a girl can dream, right?”
Logan
turned the news off just as Professor Xavier wheeled into the room. “Come on
everyone, time to head to school. You’ll be late if you don’t hurry. Rumor
has it that there’s a new gym teacher to replace Hank.” Hank McCoy, the
former gym and science teacher had mutated into a blue fuzzy animal simply
called Beast.
“Hope
he’s as cool as Mr. McCoy was.” Evan said grabbing his bag and skateboard.
“I
thank you for your vote of confidence, Evan.” Hank rumbled from the doorway as
they headed off.
“So,
see the news this morning?” Risty asked Rogue as they walked through the
hallways of Bayville High, heading for their lockers.
“Yeah.
Nothing overly interesting.” Rogue grumbled, shifting her backpack to her
other shoulder to open her locker.
“Really?
I thought the possibility of having such a popular band attending our school
would be somewhat interesting.”
“Not
when you have their music blasting at you 24-7.”
Risty
laughed and grabbed her math books. “That would put a bit of a damper on your
excitement, now wouldn’t it.”
Rogue
rolled her eyes and slammed her locker shut. “I’d rather not talk about it
ok?” she said, turning around and crashing right into a tall black haired
girl, knocking her books everywhere.
“Hey!”
the unfamiliar girl shouted. “Watch where you’re going!”
“Speak
for yourself!” Rogue shouted back. “You shouldn’t walk so close to people
at their lockers.”
The
other girl rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” She bent over to pick up her
scattered books. “The least you could have done was help me pick these up.”
She straightened and looked at Rogue, her black eyes flashing angrily.
“Sure,
like it was my fault?”
The
girl turned and walked away, her long ponytail swishing behind her.
“What
was with her anyways?” Risty asked. “I’ve never seen anyone pack that much
attitude.”
Rogue
simply shrugged, retrieved her books, and turned towards the science lab.
“I’m going to be late.”
Elsewhere,
Lance and Pietro were lost in dreamland. They were far too busy watching the
cute blond girl to worry about getting to math on time.
“She’s
got to be new around here.” Lance said, not taking his eyes off of her. All
she was doing was walking across the schoolyard, her long blond hair hanging
loose behind her.
Pietro
nodded, mouth hanging open, staring. “Definitely. None of the girls around
here are that good looking. She looks like a super model.”
“Whatcha
staring at guys?” Todd asked, walking up. Spotting the new girl, he wolf
whistled. “Whoah! Hottie on campus!”
Lance
swatted him on the back of the head. “Idiot! You’re embarrassing us!”
The
blond looked over at the sound of the whistle and walked over. “Why did you
whistle at me?” she asked, her wide blue eyes blinking, head tilted slightly
to the side. She spoke with a strange accent that none of them could place.
“No
reason.” Pietro said, slapping his hand over Todd’s mouth to keep him from
embarrassing them further. “He was just whistling.”
She
frowned in confusion. “It wasn’t directed at me?”
“Nope.”
Lance said, grinning widely. “New around here?”
“I
transferred yesterday.” She nodded.
“Where
you from?”
She
shrugged. “Well, I was born in Tokyo, but grew up in North America. All over
the place really. I’ve lived in too many places to say for sure where I’m
from.” She paused and blushed. “I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself
yet. My name is Kiyoshi Yumeko.”
“Kiyoshi?”
Todd looked confused. “What kind of name is that?”
Yumeko
laughed. “Kiyoshi is my last name. Japanese people say their names last name
first, given name last. Yumeko is my first name.”
“That’s
a cute name.” Pietro said. “I’m Pietro Maximoff. My companions here are
Lance Alverce and Todd Tolansky.”
Yumeko
bowed politely. “Pleased to meet you.” She looked down at her watch.
“Shimatta! I’m late for class! Gomen nasai! I’ll see you around school! Ja
ne!”
The
three boys watched her race off to the gym. “Wow she’s cute.” Lance
commented.
“Wait
a minute. Blond.” Pietro frowned, leaning against the wall. “Japanese people
aren’t blond.”
“Maybe
she’s a mutant.” Todd suggested.
“Possibly.
C’mon. We’d better get to class.”
“Class,
I’d like you to meet Serena Kyle. She’s one of the new transfer students
that arrived in town the other day. Please make her feel welcome here. Serena,
there are a few empty seats here, so take your pick. Now, then, class turn to
page 36 of your textbooks and begin.”
As
Mr. Matthews droned on about the permutations possible with that particular
formula, Serena sat down and opened her binder to a blank page and opened her
textbook to the correct page. She was a fairly tall girl with sweeping blue hair
and deep blue eyes with thick lashes. Her clothes were fairly plain but clean
and somehow appropriate for the dark haired beauty.
Scott found it very hard to keep track of the lesson, spending most of the class staring at the new girl. She didn’t say anything, but her pen almost never stopped moving. His desk was close enough to hers for him to see the curvy handwriting.
A
pretty girl with nice handwriting, Scott mused. I bet she has a nice voice, too. Her
face does look somewhat familiar though.
Rogue
watched Scott stare at the new girl and rolled her eyes, burying her face in her
textbook. Idiot. How many new people are there around here anyways?
This is the second one I’ve seen today! This one and that walking attitude I
crashed into earlier in the hallway.
“I’m
sorry, Mrs. Perry, but you’re got it all wrong.”
Mrs.
Perry, the English teacher, stopped and stared at the speaker. The newest
student in her class, Tyler Wolf spoke with a strange growly voice and sounded
incredibly bored. “I beg your pardon Tyler.”
“Just
Wolf will be fine.” The silver haired teenager said, standing. “That
particular poem doesn’t mean what you say it means.”
Mrs.
Perry folded her arms across her chest and stared at Wolf over the top of her
glasses. “Oh?”
“You
think that the speaker in the poem is just angry at the world and suicidal,
correct?” Mrs. Perry nodded. “That’s where you’re wrong. The speaker,
clearly female as well as the author of the poem, is angry with her parents and
not suicidal. The death in the poem is mental death, not physical. You’d know
all this if you bothered to read the author’s notes at the back of the
book.” With this, Tyler sat back down in the desk.
There
was a pause before the teacher got her ability to speak back. “I don’t feel
the same way.” She said stiffly. “Everyone is entitled to his or her own
opinion.”
“I
suppose so; however, I’ll try to remember your ‘opinion’ next time I speak
with the author of that particular poem.”
Mrs.
Perry looked unimpressed. “I’m sure you will, Tyler. Now, then, that ends
our lesson for today.” She said, snapping her textbook shut as the bell rang.
“Read the poem on page 16 of your text for tomorrow’s class.”
Tyler
uncrossed his legs and picked up the textbooks and school bag, getting ready to
leave the class, but was stopped by Mrs. Perry.
“I
don’t like your attitude, young man.”
Tyler
sneered at her. “I don’t like how you teach.” He retorted. “Leave me
alone, and I’ll ignore you and we’ll all get along all hunky dory, ok?”
Tyler shouldered his schoolbag and walked out the door.
“Did
you see that girl in class today?” Evan asked Kurt as they headed towards the
table their fellow X-men were sitting at in the cafeteria.
“Ya!
She was so hot!”
“Really!”
“What
are you guys talking about?” Rogue asked looking up at them.
“The
new girl in our gym class.” Evan explained, setting his skateboard down.
“She’s really good looking.”
“New
girl?” Rogue snorted with disgust. “Nothing special about her. She’s
really rude, actually.”
Kurt
shook his head. “Uh uh. She’s really nice and polite. Bows a lot, too.”
“Maybe
there’s more than one new girl in the school.” Risty suggested. “What did
yours look like?”
“Average
height, blond, blue-eyed. Very skinny.”
“Looks
anorexic actually.” Evan added.
Kurt
ignored him and went on. “If you look closely, she looks like she’s Chinese
or something.”
“Hmm.
Not the same girl we bumped into earlier.” Rogue sounded relieved. “Ours was
tall with black hair and grey eyes. Very, very rude and obnoxious.”
“This
is really strange.” Scott mused. “There was a new girl in our math class,
too, Rogue. Remember?”
She
rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I remember. You kept staring at her all class.”
Scott l