Taming a Beast

My feet pounded against the forest floor as I looked over my shoulder at the flashlights waving me behind me. I was gaining some serious distance, even though I was in my true form. I couldn’t stop to focus and change into a different being; I had to keep going.

When I had enough distance to stop and take a breather, I saw a glint of metal in front of me due to the flashlights waving somewhere behind me. Leaves crunched and I caught my breath, but nobody appeared in front of me. I channeled all my energy into changing my being, going around the tree as flashlights shone right in my face.

“Glover!” One of the officers called. “What’re you doing here?”

The profile of the man whose being I had copied popped up into my head. Officer Reginald Glover, 5th Precinct for the NYPD. Husband of a stay-at-home mom, had two young sons. Worked at the police department from 9 AM to 5 PM. Considering it was almost nine o’clock at night, I understood why the officer was surprised I was out in the middle of the woods.

Perfectly imitating Officer Glover’s voice without even trying, I called back, “Looking for you guys! I heard your distress call over the radio, is there anything I can do to help?”

“We didn’t send out a distress call,” the officer said slowly. Panic coursed through my veins, but I acted fast. I turned around the tree and thought of the first mutant I could think of to impersonate-- Nightcrawler, a good mutant. I transformed into his blue self, and the police officers all began shooting as I teleported, able to control the powers of whomever I impersonated.

I thought for sure that I was stretching my teleportation skills to the limit as I shut my eyes and thought of the place I wanted to go: home. I knew the teleportation skills didn’t work unless you were 100 miles within the radius of where you wanted to go, so I had waited until I had gotten to the city before I tried it out.

I flipped through time, and landed on a linoleum floor, landing on my hands and knees. I rolled over with a groan as a surprised-looking red-headed woman asked, “Nightcrawler, what-”

She stopped mid-statement as my energy gave out and I shifted involuntarily back to my true form. She covered her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. I gave her a weak smile and put out a hand, asking her, “Gonna help me up, Jean, or just let me lie here on the gross floor?”

Instead of Jean grabbing my hand, a figure turned the corner fast and grabbed my hand. I looked up into the brown eyes of Wolverine, his arm around my waist. I heard heavy footsteps sprinting towards us, and Beast and Gambit slid into the kitchen. Gambit exclaimed, “WE THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!”

“I couldn’t find you on Cerebo,” I heard a thoughtful voice say. I turned around and found Professor Xavier sitting in his wheelchair, watching my reunion with my best friends. I grinned and turned out of Wolverine’s grip, facing Professor X.

“You know how you can never find Magneto on Cerebo either?” I asked him. He nodded slowly, and I signaled for them to hold a moment as I shifted into Nightcrawler again and teleported up to my room, grabbing what I needed, and teleporting back downstairs. Exhausted once more, Wolverine pulled me against him so I could stand with support, and they all looked at the helmet in my hands, mouths wide open.

“I was using it so other mutant’s powers couldn’t affect me. The only thing I had to watch out for were the humans, which I could easily override,” I said, handing the exact replica of Magneto’s helmet to Professor X. He looked down at it, grinning and shaking his head.

“I had no doubt you were still alive, but I never thought that this was how you were masking your detection,” he said, lifting up the helmet. He knew it wasn’t Magneto’s original because he could read my mind, but he still grinned. “I can’t believe you actually completed the mission. I’m not surprised in the least, however. I sent out my best, and rightfully so.”

We heard arguing coming down the stairs-- Cyclops and Storm discussing some new tactics, Rogue acting as referee. I smiled to myself, commenting, “I’m glad some things never change, even if I do fall off the face of the planet.”

“We weren’t going to just sit around and mope, that wouldn’t help anything,” Beast said.

“We were going to change our name to ‘The Shift-Slash-Shiloh-Grammar Avengers,’ but decided that was too long, so we changed it to ‘The Avengers,’ then we realized that name was taken... so we stuck to X-Men and left our true focus a secret,” Gambit said in his Cajun accent. I laughed, and the arguing, as well as Rogue’s voice, stopped. Suddenly, footsteps began racing as the three of them stood in the doorway.

“Shiloh,” Rogue whispered, her eyes filling up with tears. She sprinted towards me and wrapped me up her in arms tightly, and Cyclops was quick to receive me next. I cried because Rogue was, as Gambit tried to console her. Cyclops pulled away as Storm embraced me as well.

“How is this even possible?” Cyclops asked Professor X. He held up the helmet and I saw Cyclops’ eyebrows rise above his visor he wore to make sure his laser vision didn’t slice anything. He touched it with two of his fingers, then quickly pulled back, asking, “Is that... ?”

“Magneto’s? No, but a very impressive copy,” Professor X answered. He set the helmet down onto his lap, and read my mind. He smiled, and said, “Everybody, clear, out, they’ve got unfinished business here.”

“Welcome home, Shy,” Rogue whispered to me on the way out, smiling as she squeezed my arm. I smiled back at her, and before I knew it, everybody was out except for me and Wolverine. I turned to him, and his hand grazed my arm gently. He looked down at me, meeting my eyes as he shook his head.

“I don’t understand,” he murmured to me. “Why’d you break up with me?”

“So you wouldn’t follow me,” I said to him, looking up at him. I met his eyes, and I saw the hurt rage through them. He opened his mouth to argue, but I covered it for him. “The mission was better executed with just me working on it. I didn’t have to worry about you or anybody else getting hurt. And look at me-- here I am, in your arms, in all my glory, in one piece.”

“I thought you were dead. The only thing keeping me here afterwards was because I could find out where Magneto was and go out to capture him with a team supporting me,” he growled. I covered his hands, and he calmed down. There had been a few scares before where he had gotten mad and almost ripped into me with his metal claws, uncontrollable.

“Logan,” I whispered to him, moving my hands up to his neck. “I’m here, and I’m not leaving.”

He hesitated, looking around. When he decided it was safe, he leant down and pressed his lips to mine. He smiled against mine, pulling away only a little bit as he whispered,

“It’s good to have you home, Shy.”