The Uncanny G-boys

[Author's Note: Unfortunately, the playground was removed several years ago. I did the best I could in recalling its features. ^_^ ]

"Who is Dorothy?" Relena asked, puzzled.
"She's the one going around frying the brains of perfectly nice guys." Duo's face twisted into a look of hatred. "Not to mention messing with a certain Shinigami. So I think she needs to learn how powerless she can be."
"No way!" Heero growled. He stormed over and stopped just short of grabbing Duo's collar, tempting as it was to shake some sense into him. "That's stupid, even for you. Haven't you learned by now that we shouldn't use our powers to hurt others?! And how could you even think of involving Relena?!"
Trowa phased in right behind him, arms crossed sternly. "You of all people should know about not 'messing with' others."
"They're right," Hilde put in. "I don't think this is such a good idea."
Duo clenched his fists, averting his gaze to the ground then closing his eyes. Very calmly he said, "Hey, guys, it was just an idea. It isn't like I'm forcing Relena to do anything. She could say no, y'know?" He promptly whirled on his heel and walked away.
None of them followed.

There was a knock on Professor Xavier's office door. He knew it wasn't the person he had been waiting for. "Come in," he called, setting aside the pen he had been grading an assignment with.
The door eased open far enough for Duo Maxwell to stick his head in."H-Hi, Prof. Got a minute?"
"Several." Xavier motioned to the chair in front of his desk.
"Thanks." Duo shut the door then shuffled to the appointed seat, absently tugging at his gloves. "Uh, if you're looking for that Relena girl, I was showing her around and now I guess she's talking with m-my friends. I'm sure she'll be here soon." He shifted uncomfortably.
Xavier nodded. "So, is there something bothering you?" He could simply read his thoughts but preferred that the boy speak for himself.
Duo pulled at his glove again. "Uh...well. I'm pissed at this Dorothy thing, okay?"
"Understandable." He overlooked the boy's choice of words for the moment.
"Well, I just got all my friends pissed off at me."
Xavier raised an eyebrow.
Duo huffed with impatience and decided to stop hemming and hawing. "I'm so pissed I want to get her back, okay? There, I said it, okay? You coulda read my frikkin' mind and got the answer anyway."
"But you're afraid of others using their powers on you, aren't you?"
Duo scowled. "Yeah, duh, okay?"
"But you would use powers against someone else?"
"She deserves it."
Xavier's visage softened. "Does she? Does it make such actions justified?"
"Prof, she scares the shit out of me."
"That doesn't answer my question, Duo. Is it right for you to return cruelty with cruelty, when there is a different way?"
The braided boy glared at the floor. "Guess not. But Quatre sure as hell didn't deserve it." He abruptly glanced around. "Hey, ah, where is Quatre?"
The Professor waved to a door opposite the one Duo had entered through, leading to Xavier's private library.
Duo smiled. Hey, Quatre, mind if I bug you? There was no answer. Hey, Q-man? His smile faded. He stood and opened the door. Quatre was at the single desk, hunched over a notebook. Duo called softly, "Hey, Quatre?"
The blond boy looked over, startled. Then he smiled. "Hi, Duo. I'm doing math homework." His voice sounded forced and overly cheerful, but at least he didn't seem like a scared rabbit anymore, ready to bolt.
"Okay, I'll leave you to it." Duo closed the door, gulping as he turned back to the Professor. "H-He didn't hear my thoughts..."
Xavier's face was grave. "He can't."
"W-What do you mean..?"
"He has shut away his powers. I'm not certain if it is only temporary. At this point there is nothing I can do."
Duo swallowed hard, turning a shade of gray. "D-Does that mean h-he's normal now?? H-He's not a mutant anymore??"

"We will forego the last twenty minutes of today's class to discuss Friday's event -- a field trip to nearby historical landmarks, for those who have not yet heard." Beast smiled then turned to the board, reaching for a piece of chalk even as a voice spoke up excitedly.
"Cool!! Does that mean we're going to the city?!"
"I should have expected as much from you, Mr. Maxwell. Please save your questions for the end of class."
Duo sighed loudly and flopped back in his seat. How could anyone expect him to pay attention with such a tantalizing prospect hanging unanswered? That'd be cool, getting out of the middle of nowhere and seeing the city. All the cool places and stuff to see, all the people... He then recalled that there were tons of crowds in New York City -- many people to bump into accidentally... His excitement was replaced by apprehension. Maybe I'll sit this one out...
He attempted to focus on the lesson, scribbling notes only to feel miles away from the paper. Man, why'd I have to think of that... He nearly jumped out of his seat when Beast said, "And now to address your question, Mr. Maxwell."
Duo swallowed and lifted his gaze to the board. Beast had pulled down a map of lower New York State. Several spots in and around Westchester County had been marked by red circles. "These are a few of our choices: George Washington's Headquarters, the Kensico Dam, Van Cortland Manor, Philipsburg Manor, and Sunnyside -- home to Washington Irving..."
Duo breathed a sigh of relief. All were places in the 'burbs, and less likely to have crowds. He could relax a bit. The Beast went on to explain how they would be divided into groups depending on where the students would each like to go -- they could even get together with friends from other classes, and so have until the next day to decide.
The class dissolved into said divisions, and Duo swapped seats to be next to Heero. "The dam," he blurted out. "Out in the air, places for 'blading, nice open spaces..."
Heero seemed disinterested. "Being paranoid?" He wrote something along the bottom of the previous day's notes.
"What?" Duo asked more sharply than he intended.
"About ending up touching someone."
"Naw, hey--" he stopped himself and hastily grabbed the end of his braid, twirling it nonchalantly. "As I said, we'll be able to 'board and skate, and the girls can have a picnic. It'd be cooler than those other stuffy places."
Heero shrugged, distracted while checking over his notes. "Fine. I'll tell Trowa next period."
"Cool. I'll tell Relena and Catherine." He then twirled his braid in a more thoughtful manner. "I wonder if the Prof'll let Quatre go."

"Are you Professor Xavier?"
The addressed man raised his gaze from a sheet of statistics to the face of a young woman with honey-blond hair and alert blue eyes. She wore a light turquoise sweater and tan slacks, and was currently leaning on his desk sporting a slight scowl. "Yes, I am." He glanced past her for a brief moment as Storm appeared in the doorway with an apologetic look on her face. The woman had obviously not waited for an escort through the school. He deftly lifted her name from her mind. Iria Winner. Quatre's eldest sister.
Oh dear. Xavier was visibly perturbed. This could be difficult...
"I'm here to see one of your students."
"Yes."
She scowled further, noticing that his reply wasn't a question. "My brother usually e-mails me twice a week. I haven't heard from him in two weeks, and I was concerned when no one contacted me."
Does she already know? He chose to not see for himself. This incident wasn't supposed to leave the school... Then he mentally raised an eyebrow. She came all the way from the M.E. on such short notice? At least that showed how much Quatre's family cared for him. Most mutants weren't so lucky. "Miss Iria...I assure you that Quatre is fine now."
She drew back, brows knitting. "Now? Are you saying that he really was in some type of accident?! Why weren't we contacted?!"
Xavier sighed, steering his wheelchair out from behind the desk. "It is somewhat complicated...for someone not familiar with the powers of the mind."
Iria's demeanor changed drastically to an impossible softness as she placed one hand on his arm. "Professor, I was the very first person Quatre used his ability on. I might not understand it perfectly, but I know I have a connection with him. And I am a doctor, after all, so you could at least try telling me." She stepped back, an almost pleading look covering her visage. She was a normal human, but truly wanted to understand the extraordinary change occurring in her brother.
Xavier steepled his fingers thoughtfully for a moment, then constructed a reply. "There was a misfortunate incident with another student who also has heightened mental capabilities. I had been monitoring this student, but she managed to avoid an attempt at control and I regret to say that Quatre became her target. I am in the process of finding out why exactly she chose him. The dispute left him with a temporary deterioration of mind and memories -- these two weeks have been spent rebuilding them. I overlooked mundane things such as e-mail in the process." He frowned slightly. There had been no traces of keeping constant contact with family in Quatre's mind. He wondered if Dorothy's attack could very well have erased memories permanently.
Before Iria could react with any further alarm, he finished, "Things have gone well. While he hasn't completely recovered, he is very close to it. At the moment he is...very quiet." He wasn't certain if he should let her know of the loss of power altogether.
She swallowed everything he had told her, then forced a smile. "Well, that's normal. He has always been a bit shy."
"That isn't exactly what I meant." Xavier moved to his library door and opened it. "Quatre, you have a visitor."
The blond boy scribbled one last homework answer before looking up. His face brightened immediately. "Iria! What are you doing here?" He hastily stood up and met her halfway to the door as she rushed forward to embrace him. She was shaking as she held him tight. "Sister?" He squirmed out of her hold enough to see her face. She was crying. "I-Iria? What's wrong?"
She drew back, wiping at her cheek. She cast a forlorn glance at Xavier, saying softly, "Now I know what you meant..." Her voice broke. "H-He didn't hear me..." Xavier's only answer was a sympathetic look.
Quatre glanced back and forth between them in confusion.

"The Dam? I was looking forward to seeing Philipsburg. Those antique houses are so beautiful." Hilde nodded her agreement with Catherine.
Duo had to stop himself from shredding his notebook. "Aw, c'mon -- those historic things are cooler around Christmas! Let's enjoy the warm weather outdoors!"
Hilde shrugged. "So do whatever you want to. I, personally, want to read up on local history. There's plenty of time to hang out outdoors after school."
Duo scowled and was about to argue but stopped when the door to their English Lit class opened. He swiveled his head in that direction, hoping to see a familiar, if meek, blond-haired figure. Quatre hadn't been there when the class started, and his last meeting with the former telepath had left him worried about his friend's condition. His attentiveness was rewarded as Quatre did indeed enter the room, followed not by the Professor but by a woman with similar coloring. Does the Prof think he's recovered enough to show around a new student?? Duo was perplexed by the thought, completely doubting it.
Quatre settled at a desk one row over from Duo and the two girls, while the woman took a loose chair from the computer station at the back of the room and brought it over to sit next to him. Quatre smiled broadly at the three. "This is my sister, Iria. Iria, meet Duo, Hilde, and Catherine." Greetings were exchanged. Quatre continued, "She's visiting for the day." He seemed very happy about it. Duo was simply glad to see that he was pulling himself together. The braided mutant glanced at Hilde and Catherine. They, too, were relieved.
Duo completely forgot about his impending argument with Hilde as he began to wonder if Quatre would be leaving with Iria when this visit was over...

"I hope your worries have been eased, Miss Winner," Xavier remarked when Iria returned from following Quatre around all afternoon.
The young woman stood by the window in his office, afforded a perfect view of the yard where her brother sat alone on a bench, reading. "To be honest, I'm not sure what was more nerve-racking -- finding out that he has a special talent, or learning that he has lost it." Her face was close to crestfallen as she uttered the latter option.
Xavier was intrigued. "How so?"
Iria glanced outside again. "Being the youngest was a bit rough on him. And then, being the only one out of so many children to develop such a...skill seemed worse. But he took it in stride and I think it gave him something to identify himself with, even if he wasn't very sure of it." She turned to Xavier with a sad frown. "But now, if h-he's..."
"He will adapt," he reassured her. "He made it through this better than others with less control might have. I believe he can continue without a problem."
Iria hesitated, biting her lower lip from nerves, then nodded her agreement.

"...completed in 1915, this edifice of concrete and granite was constructed below a smaller, older dam that formed Lake Kensico. The former town of Kensico was flooded to created it, and parts of the town still exist today. It has been said that on days when the water level is low enough, one can see the tip of the church's steeple..."
Duo staggered along dead on his feet as he listened to Beast's voice drone on and on about everything he never wanted to know about the Kensico Dam. He and a small group of X-students were being dragged across a brick-and-concrete walkway at the base of the dam, having the entire history of the dam being dictated to them on the way. Duo glanced to his right, over the granite wall, looking past the rectangular pond below the walkway, and past the four-flagpole-bearing plaza before it, to gaze enviously at the people who either lounged on the grass of the field or played along the pathways surrounding it, the last thing separating him from the Bronx River Parkway.
He sighed and shifted his attention leftward, looking up along the dam itself. Three hundred feet high, eighteen hundred-thirty feet long. Damn, yo. His eyes danced over the details of myriad differences in stone placement and colors; mostly pale gray lined with white, pink, black, and shining flecks, sometimes streaked with rust or sloppy mortar -- not to mention the occasional graffiti. Someone had even managed to paint their name about six feet down from the very top of the structure. Must've been a flying mutant, he mused.
They were reaching the end of the walkway as Beast -- disguised as a regular-looking man in casual wear thanks to an image-inducer -- was ending his lecture. The students disbanded, some heading down the wide steps that exited onto a brick path situated between a paved road which rimmed the pond and a trench containing tiered walls radiating from a long-defunct vertical fountain. The sculpted fish bookending the spout now boasted only obscene graffiti.
Stradling the steps were two stone gazebo-like structures pretending to be twelve-foot watch towers. Three windows and a doorway all sported stalactites and stalagmites, currently dripping as Duo and a few others glanced around them. In the one closer to the pond Duo found yet more graffiti, several weeds growing through cracks, and, at the top of the domed roof, an empty light socket given over to rust. He could just imagine the Beast tsking away at all the disrepair.
A girl's voice, hissing from the other tower, caught his attention. "Kurt! Are you crazy?!" Duo glanced over to see a pony-tailed brunette wearing pink capris and a light tan teeshirt dart inside the structure. Curious, he went over, passing a pair of discarded tan shoes just beside the entrance. He blinked. The girl stood at the right-side wall, hopping up to grab at...a long, blue, pointed tail which hung out the back of a pair of baggy green pants belonging to a boy with indigo hair who was climbing up the stone with no more than his bare hands and feet. The rest of his garb included a three-quarter-length sleeve red shirt topped by an open short-sleeved tan shirt that would have fallen halfway to his knees had gravity not begun pulling it away as he moved on to the ceiling, taking his tail easily out of reach. "Kurt!!" the girl cried again.
"Relax, Kitty," the agglutinative boy replied with a faint accent. "You'll draw more attention than me." When he gestured toward her with one hand his fingers were oddly split wide down the middle -- his pinky and ring seemed adhered to each other, as were his middle and index fingers.
"Just get down here before someone sees you!"
"Okay, okay..." The boy retreated back down the wall, muttering something in German all the way. He leapt the last five feet, landing in a crouch to scoop up his shoes. He saw Duo and grinned. "Don't mind her, she's paranoid." He straightened and slipped on his shoes, then walked past the two, completely ignoring Kitty Pryde's scowl. Duo noticed that his tail seemed to have disappeared. The braided boy realized this was the trick of an image-inducer housed in the boy's watch. Usually Kurt Wagner went around Xavier's school in his normal blue-furred, impish features of pointed ears, fangs, and luminous eyes.
Duo then shrugged apologetically at Kitty before following her as she stormed down the steps. She moved in the general direction of the pond where Kurt was now wandering. Duo left them to whatever mischief the disguised mutant might be imagining, veering across the plaza to the red-roofed cinderblock building that housed restrooms and a supposed snack bar. It was closed at the moment, and looked like it had never been open at all. Beside its shuttered window, however, was a promising soda machine. Duo dug a bill out of his pocket and chose the drink with the most caffeine. He needed a jump start after that mind-numbing lesson. He pitied the second group which was going to be tortured by it after lunch. Taking an oxygen-depriving chug, he headed around the building to the playground where he had last seen Catherine and Wufei. They had been sitting on one of the wooden platforms with a physics assignment arrayed around them. We get a chance to do some serious 'blading and they have to bring along homework!
Now the two had their lunches out, and Heero had joined them. He nodded to acknowledge Duo and tossed a second paper bag to the braided boy. "Thanks." Leave it to Heero to notice that Duo had forgotten his lunch back on the bus. He didn't sit down right away, instead walking around the wooden contraption that served as a play place. Large steps in a semi-spiral led to a platform giving access to steel monkeybars. Two steps higher was a flexible bridge linked to another ledge which sprouted a wide metal slide; to the right of this was a red plastic tube containing half-circle handholds, acting as a ladder to the slide. Duo doubted that he could duck low enough to get inside the tube.
Circling behind the playground, he wove around a pole supporting the thick beam that held up a giant tire swing which could easily hold five people -- if they were less than three feet tall and six years of age, that is. Duo was pondering if it could hold his weight when he heard someone yell, "Banzai!!" and a sandy-haired boy he didn't immediately recognize dashed past him. Even as he turned to watch, the boy seemed to shrink as he leapt for the tire, until, as he settled on the rim, he was about the size of a -- well -- six year old. Duo chuckled at the rampant usage of powers. He continued on his circuit back to his friends.
He paused when he noticed a familiar figure sitting on a bench outside the wood-chip filled perimeter of the playground. Startled, he hurried over. "Quatre? Why aren't you sitting with the gang?"
The blond didn't seem to hear him, perhaps intent on his lunch...or not. He took a single slow bite of his sandwich then almost self-consciously set it aside on the foil it had been wrapped in. He then placed his hands in his lap, gazing at the ground.
Duo was confused. Hadn't Quatre been better earlier in the week? He had seemed disappointed when his sister left, but he still came to class and had talked more, though pointedly not about powers. Maybe he was nervous about being out in the open, and even insecure being away from the professor's care. "Hey, Q-man, you okay?"
"Huh?" Quatre hesitantly raised his eyes. "D-Duo? I'm...sorry. Were you...talking to me?"
"Um, yeah. Why're you sitting over here? We're set up over there." He pointed.
"Oh..." Quatre looked at the ground again. "Duo, this might sound weird, but I feel like...Like something just isn't right."
Of course something's wrong. You lost your powers. The braided mutant kept the thought to himself. "Well, yeah -- even I'm nervous being out where normal people might notice -- stuff." He could have kicked himself. The Prof had advised against encouraging Quatre to talk about powers; while the blond acknowledged such things as Wufei's and the Beast's appearances, he didn't seem to find anything unusual about it.
The comment didn't phase Quatre one bit. "No, it's like something is wrong -- just here. At this place..." His gaze swept the field and plaza then returned to Duo. "It's just so...weird. I can't figure it out."
Are his powers coming back? What if they work and he's not ready for them? Duo suddenly hoped he wouldn't be babysitting a vegetable for the rest of the day.

Back to the Uncanny G-boys

(c) 2001 - 2004 Autumn Loweck. This work may not be copied, distributed, or reprinted without the author's permission. The flame-haired girl and the resizing dude belong to Shiri (aka Autumn L.). Characters of Relena, Duo, Heero, Trowa, Hilde, Quatre, Iria, Catherine, and Wufei belong to the creators of the GundamWing series, Sotsu Agency, Sunrise, Bandai, and whoever else in Japan involved in this most cool anime. Professor Xavier, Beast, Storm, Kitty, and Nightcrawler belong to Marvel Comics, FOX/WB, and all those other cool people who created the X-Men.