Xmen REVAMP 11

Trick Shot

A lazy Saturday morning and Magneto walked down to the dining room. A few of the kids were awake with breakfast, including his son, Pietro, and his little friend Kody. Kitty was there next to them and the trio was surrounded around a laptop with Kody trying to get it working. Charles and a few of the other of the professors were at the end of the table in quiet conversation. He grabbed a mug of coffee and went to sit with the teachers.
“Are you gonna fix this thing or not?” Kitty asked.
Kody clicked away at the buttons, but nothing was changing with the blue screen and list of random code. She huffed. “Not unless we dump the hard drive and start from scratch.”
“But I got, like, import stuff on there, you know?” Kitty informed.
“If I can access the hard drive remotely, I’m pretty sure I can save the important stuff, but there’s probably a lot that needs to be wiped off if you want your computer to work.” She pulled out a screwdriver, flipped the laptop over and began taking the back apart. Kitty stopped her from doing so.
“What are you, like, doing?”
“I gotta get the hard drive out in order to access it.” Kody answered.
“You’re not gonna break it are you?” Kitty questioned. “Because, like, my parents would kill me if I told them I broke another laptop.”
“Hey, she’s built three different computers on her own.” Pietro scoffed. “Plus her mutant powers revolve around this kind of stuff. I’m pretty sure she could fix this with her eyes closed.”
“Whoa, chill there dude, I just don’t wanna tell my parents that I need a new laptop.” Kitty informed.
“Pietro, can you get me my–” Before she could finish the speedster returned with one of her laptops and a case that held a lot of computer diagnosing equipment. “Oh, thank you.”
Kitty watched as the fourteen year old began plugging up her laptop to the one Pietro retrieved. Watching as the technopath took apart the back and began creating a complicated web of hard drives and wires. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to come up with some lame explanation to you parents about getting you a new computer.” Kody replied booting up the program on her computer to begin the process of copying the files. “I can bring any piece of technology back to life.”
“Something tells me she doubts your powers.” Pietro remarked.
“Well, just because you’re good with computers doesn’t mean you’re really a mutant.” Evan retorted. He was opposite of them almost finished with the eggs and bacon he had.
Kody shook her head and went back to her work. It was very difficult to convince others that her powers were of the mutant variety. She could talk with computers, getting them to do things that no ordinary computer nerd could get them to. When she was capable of bringing a battery that had been “dead” four three years, clearly she had extraordinary powers.
“You’re probably gonna have to do what you did to prove to Lance and Wanda about your powers.” Pietro suggested.
She shrugged. “Okay.” And she positioned herself to where she was upside down in the chair, but still typing away at her computer without even looking at it. “… How can one person have so many Selfies?”
“How many does she have?” Pietro asked.
“I would have to categorize them by similar face structures, location, and when there’s someone else in the picture as well… she hasn’t passed a hundred yet I can tell you that.” She hummed. “Do you even back your files up? You don’t know how much that can help you… Huh, your password is pretty creative, though you might want to change it to something else when this is over with…”
“How can you possibly know all that stuff?” Kitty asked. The screen on the computer she was typing on held nothing but random letters and numbers. It gave nothing away, no pictures or anything.
“It’s what your computer is telling me.” She answered. “Wow… you have way too many viruses, no wonder why your computer crashed… don’t worry I know a pretty good protection program that can work wonders… Your history paper has a lot of typos… also the Civil War ended in eighteen-sixty-five, not eighteen-eighty-five, but that just might be an error due to quick typing. I do that from time to time too…” She scoffed. “I pegged you for an Ed Sheeran fan-girl…”
“What’s wrong with Ed Sheeran?”
“Nothing, just not my type of music… you should probably be careful where you get his music from now on… your downloading is the reason why you have so many viruses…”
“Okay, okay, you’re a mutant capable of talking to computers.” Kitty informed with a shake of her eyes.
“That means I can sit back up again, right?” Kody asked.
“Yeah, I think they believe you now.” Pietro answered.
“Good, I hate when I have to do that.” She got up and stretched her arms. “That is really uncomfortable.” She sat back down in her seat and studied the code her computer was displaying. “Okay… just a few more files to download and we should be ready to dump the hard drive.”
“So you can get any information you want by touching the computer?” Evan asked.
“Uh… yeah, pretty much.” Kody replied with a shrug. The computer was done copying the files from the nonfunctioning one. “And I can manipulate them to do certain things that couldn’t otherwise do… And the reset begins, should only take a few minutes before your computer is back to normal…”
“Thank you!” Kitty exclaimed with a little bit of an exasperated tone.
“No problem.” Kody said, not really catching the tone of her voice.
“… Hey, what happened to Charlotte?” Pietro asked.
“Who’s Charlotte?” Kitty asked.
“My old computer that I typically use to fix problems… unfortunately it didn’t survive the bad guy invasion.” Kody explained. She then gestured to the computer she was using now. “This is Cheryl.”
“They touched your room?” Pietro clenched his fist.
“Well, the room where I was hacking files in.” She answered.
“You were hacking Senator Kelly?” Evan asked.
All the adults turned towards Magneto. He reply was a shrug. “We needed to know their plans.” He got up to place his cup in the sink. “By the way…” He turned to his son and his friend. “Where were the two of you when the abduction happened?”
“Uh, well, we were, um–” Pietro stammered.
“We went to watch a movie.” Kody replied, looking over to her friend when he gave her a look. “What? We did?” Pietro’s skin tone developed a pinkish hue. Magneto looked between the two teenagers before nodding. Kody shrugged. “O… kay… well, looks like the computer is done with the reset.” She began clicking away to make sure everything was going the way it should be. “Good news… this computer should be as good as new.”
“Really?” Kitty asked.
“Yep, as soon as the memory is put back in, it should be working just fine.” Kody informed, typing away, telling the computer to do just that. Soon the computer was working as if there was nothing.
“Hey thanks.” Kitty said as she went through her files and a few test runs on the internet. “Wow, cool, it’s never been this fast before.”
Kody chuckled. “You’re welcome.”
Kitty and Evan soon left and Pietro went to get him and Kody sodas while the technopath went to delete the extra files that had to be recovered from Kitty’s laptop. He sat down next to her, took a sip of the can of soda before speaking.
“So… now that that’s taken care of, got any other plans for today?” He asked.
“Uh… not really, unless you have an idea?” Kody answered.
“Well, I heard of a thing that happening at Square Park.” He started fiddling with the top of the soda can until the piece of metal that one had to flip in order to open a can popped off. “Not sure if it’s an art thing or musical, but sounds kinda fun to go to.”
“Okay, cool, when does it start?”
“Noon-ish I think.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She closed her laptop and stretched once more, smiling at her friend soon after.
He smiled in return and the two sat there in a casual conversation, which ended when Pietro decided to see if he could toss his empty soda can into the recycling bin. It bounced off the end and landed on the ground shortly after.
Kody snickered. “For a guy who played Basketball for most of his school career, that was a pretty lame shot.”
“Oh, and you could do better?”
“No cheating.” She said before she finished her soda. She decided that she was going to be fancy by tossing it in the air for a brief moment before kicking it towards the recycling bin. It too hi the very edge of the bin, but instead of hitting the floor, it actually fell into the bin, a soft crash as it hit the rest of the bin’s contents. Kody held both fists into the air with a cheer. “Ha!”
“You just got lucky.” Pietro informed.
“Oh, you’re just a sore loser.” Kody teased.
“This wasn’t a competition.”
“That’s what all the sore losers say.”
“I’m out of here.” Pietro stated getting up from his seat.
“Oh come on.” Kody laughed, packing up her computer supplies and soon following after him. “Admitting that you’re jealous is the first step!”
“There’s nothing to be jealous when someone gets lucky!” He retorted.
“That’s not admitting it!” And they heard her laugh as they went back and forth until they finally disappeared further into the institute.
Magneto watched as the two left, raising an eyebrow with curiosity. “He had informed me that she was just a friend when he had first mentioned her, now I’m seeing just a bit more than that.”
“Do you think they know?” Storm asked.
“I’m going to say no, for right now, but we’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

Zero rolled over underneath the covers and pillows, softly groaning as she tried to settle from the uncomfortable motion. She knew that the sun was well above the horizon, filtering through the curtains of the room she was given, but she didn’t feel like getting up just yet. Allowing her body to rest and relax from the nuclear-like explosion it had created, led her to become very lazy and sleep oriented. She hadn’t tried using her powers since the sore and stiffness wore off a few months prior, not that she was even remotely eager to use them considering what happened the last time she did.
The door to her room opened and the light flicked on. She groaned once more as she rolled over in a pathetic attempt to get away from the light.
“Il est temps de se lever, chère.” Gambit informed, going over to the curtains and pulling them back, allowing even more light to hit her.
She glared at him for a moment before resorting to pulling a pillow over her head. That did not prevent Gambit from going up to the bed and snatching the pillow, along with the warm blanket away.
“Non, ma amie, the morning is too beautiful to stay in bed.” He continued.
“Aller en enfer, Gambit.” She spat, trying to get the pillow and blanket back.
He clicked his tongue. “Such vile language should never be spoken by a belle such as yourself.”
“Hey, at least it shows I’m learning the language that you’ve been trying to shove down my throat.” She replied, succeeding in getting her cover back, placing it over her bare shoulders because all she was wearing was a thin tang-top and sweatpants.
“I’ve got to do something to keep you from sleeping all day, chère.”
“What if I just like staying in bed all day?” She asked.
“Something tells me you don’t.”
“And you think you know me because?”
“Who could possibly like staying in bed all day for six months straight?”
“Well, it hasn’t been six months straight because some crazy guy has been getting up and force feeding me French twenty-four-seven.”
“Which you’ve only managed to learn one phrase from apparently.”
“Fine, here’s another, laisse-moi tranquille!”
“Je ne peux pas faire ça, ma chère.”
“… Pourquoi pas?”
“Parce qu’il est pas sain pour vous.”
She huffed and folded her arms. “You know that professor guy told me to relax as much as possible, and you making me do things that I don’t want to do is the complete opposite of relaxing.”
“You have gotten a few months to do so, now you’re just being lazy.” He gave her a once over. “Have you even tried using your powers lately?”
“I shouldn’t rush into something that caused the need to rest in the first place.”
Gambit mocked her pose by folding his arms as well, giving her frown. “Something tells me you’re afraid, chère.”
She scoffed. “Really? You’re going there?”
“Well, how else would you explain your sudden interest in lounging around?”
“Maybe because I haven’t had such a luxury before?” He raised an eyebrow. “What? All I’ve known about my life is that street in Detroit that wasn’t far from where I exploded for no fathomable reason. For all I know I’ve never had an actual bed until you showed up.” She stretched out and rolled to her side, making him look at her back as she tried to get comfortable. “So excuse me for wanting to enjoy having a pretty comfortable one before the boss man makes us move again… metal slabs are not very ideal for back support after all.”
“Magneto hasn’t shown interest in leaving. It seems we are here to stay, chère.”
“Good, because I actually like having a decent bed to sleep in.”
She heard him sigh, soon followed by the bed sagging a little bit more under his weight. Next thing she knew was that he was laying beside her. If her eyes were open she would have rolled them. Instead she rolled over to face him. “What are you doing?”
“Your right, this is a pretty comfortable bed.” He replied, settling down further. “In fact, I’d say it’s better than mine. Maybe I should voice a complaint…”
She scoffed. “Maybe you’re just crazy.”
He looked her way with a smirk. “Or maybe there’s another reason why it’s comfortable.”
This time she did roll her eyes. “Yeah.” She rolled over to face away from him again. “You’re just crazy.”
“Well, you haven’t kicked me out, obviously you don’t mind it.” He remarked, rolling to his side, wrapping an arm around her waist and moving just a bit more closer to her.
“You won’t go away even if I did mind it.” She informed, grabbing the hand that accompanied the arm around her and messing with edge of the sleeve.
“Are you sure you’d rather stay in bed all day, chère?” He asked, his voice losing the rough edge it usually held.
She sighed. “I don’t… I don’t want to start using my powers again right now. I just… can’t get that picture out of my head.”
“But not using your powers could result in the same thing, ma petite.” Gambit explained. “And like I’ve said, I’m here.”
“You don’t get it, Gambit.” She groaned. “You may have stopped it, but you were the one threatening to blow everything and everyone up. You weren’t the one that lost control, and for no reason as well.”
“No one got hurt, chère, not by you anyways.”
“I still lost control.”
“And you won’t lose control again. No one blames you for what happened.”
“Gambit, please, I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” She sighed. “Next week I’ll… start practicing.”
“Je vais vous tenir cette promesse, chère.” He pulled away, closed the curtains and went to turn off the lights as well as closed the door. She finally felt peace until Gambit resumed his position right next to her.
“Uh…?”
“What? It’s a comfortable bed.”
She huffed. “You just better have your shoes off. I don’t want dirt in it.” She elbowed him lightly. “And this better not become a habit.”
“Whatever you say, chère.” He chuckled. “And maybe when you feel like getting up we’ll go to that festival thing in the park some of the kids were talking about going to.”
“Fine.”