For the most part, I was fine with how that little get-together ended. I didn't get kicked out of school, kicked off of my squad, or even so much as any detention time. It was better than I'd actually hoped for. I'd even gotten out with time to spare to walk with Ruth from her last class of the day.
Things had a habit of following me, even though I'd planned on leaving them behind though. This time, that manifested itself in the form of Julian flying over me and coming to a landing in the middle of my path.
"Hey," He said, getting me to stop, "Hold on. I'm not finished yet."
Come to think of it, neither was I, "Why didn't you leave me to get burned just now?" He could have. It wouldn't even have been very hard to do. I'd already dug half of my own grave during the meeting.
Julian scoffed as if he were offended, "I don't need Miss Frost to fight my battles for me. You sucker punched me. Anytime you want to go…" He trailed off, a cocky grin slowly growing on his face, "You have no idea what you'd be getting yourself into."
"Good to know," I said in return, "I've always got enough of a charge in me for a fight. It's why I came to this school in the first place." I walked past Julian and stopped, holding up my index finger for him to see, the tip of it burning bright like a cigarette lighter, "Just so you know, if anything around me glows green anytime soon, I'm shooting first and asking questions later."
XxX
That settled things with Julian, at least for the time being. However, that still left the other offended party from the other day's standoff. I hadn't gotten a dressing down for that one, probably because it had been included, but that didn't mean I wasn't responsible for what I did to someone else.
It wasn't hard to find Santo, even in a school with as many various body-types as Xavier's.
There were other kids at his table. Brian, the kid with dreads from before, a girl with silver skin, orange hair, and a nice smile, another girl dressed head-to-toe in black-colored garb that I would have expected to see in the Middle East. An interesting mix of people.
Figuring that talking first wouldn't get me anywhere. I stormed up to the table before anyone could really notice me, and I set the box and plastic bag down right in front of Santo. He looked over at me, instead of up because he was so damn big, and when he saw me, the smile on his face from being around his friends disappeared.
"You!" He said, standing up from his seat, his chair falling over and sliding halfway across the room from the motion. I backed away several steps hands up.
"Whoa-whoa! Calm down. It's a peace offering," I said, trying to get a word in edgewise before round two started in the cafeteria, "My beef was with Keller, not you. And we cleaned the slate. Not sure how long it'll stay that way but, eh…" The deepening scowl on his face told me that I wasn't helping my case, "Anyway, that was him, not you. I shot you too, so I want to try and make things right."
"If things are cool with Julian, where is he?"
"I dunno. That's why I'm doing this now, so I don't start something else while I'm apologizing to you, because he sure didn't get one," I told the lot of them, mostly focused on Santo, "Then again, he started it. You were there, but I didn't get any psychic slaps from you."
Santo seemed more bewildered than angry at this point, either because I was actually apologizing, or because I wasn't afraid when he walked me down, "So you brought me a pizza and a greeting card?"
I shrugged haplessly, "I asked around," Thank you, Ruthie. You and your telepathy digging up people's favorite things, "If you don't want 'em, I'll take 'em back and do something else. I just thought-," I reached past him for the box, only for his hand to cover it.
"…Let me think about it for a sec," He said, his massive rocky hand descending slowly down onto the lid, "What kind of pizza?"
"Meat Lovers. Check out what's in the bag too," I told him, relaxing as he did as I asked. His eyes lit up. Score.
"12 month subscription to the WWE Network?" He basically shouted, the wrestling fan in him coming out, "That's like… almost $100 a year I don't have to pay!"
"About $120, actually," I corrected. Thank goodness I had a connection that came through for me back home. There was no way I was dropping a Benjamin on that. All I paid for was the pizza, "But whatever. The point is, are we cool?"
Santo nodded and began to reach for a pizza before a silver hand pressed the box shut again, "Not so fast," A girl with silver skin and red hair said, ignoring Santo's whine at not getting his food, "The other day, why were you so quick to shoot?"
Okay, this was definitely his team if that question really needed to be asked. The whole, 'He may be a dick, but he's our dick,' kind of deal.
"Because he was picking with me, and my powers aren't good for self-control."
"What are you talking about?"
I gave a grandiose, sweeping gesture to the room we were in. More specifically, to the light fixtures, "I absorb light, and it wants to be used. All the energy I have at any given time of the day relates to how much time I spend in it. So basically, I'm hopped up on light juice all the time. Get enough of it, and it's like a 24-7 caffeine buzz. All thanks to the power of the sun."
"Sunny D?" Santo chimed in. I couldn't tell if he was messing with me or not.
"No, I-," I paused and thought about the taste of the orange juice brand, "…Huh, now I really want Sunny D."
And with everyone's eyes on me, likely wondering what in the world was wrong with me, I wandered off to go and see if there was any orange juice in stock somewhere. If not, I really had to get to town soon so I could go shopping properly. There was a list of things I needed, of which my own personal supply of Sunny D became a part.
A rumor started shortly thereafter that my powers affected my short-term attention span. I never came up with the evidence to debunk this theory entirely.