Chapter 16: Race's Pen

Phillip joined the rest of the school for dinner but he did not join in any of the festive conversations that took place. He simply ate his meal and quickly excused himself from the table after only sitting down moments before. He saw the Assistant Head Mistress give him a queer look but he did not let that deter him from his flight. And flight is exactly what it was. Outside of the brief conversation he had with Wolverine prior to the meal, no one had talked to him in hours and yet he couldn't help but feel like he was suffocating for simply being at the school. Disappointment in himself as well as what his classmates wanted from him was more then he could take. Wolverine was correct, he was a coward, he wanted nothing more than to run out that main gate and not stop running until he couldn't take another step.

One thing was keeping him from running though; the thought that Sinister was out there and what Sinister would do to him if he was caught. In the back of his mind, Phillip understood what an absurd thought it was, Sinister probably didn't care who he was; if anything, the Hellfire Club would be more interested in Phillip since he knew that they had already taken one recently manifested mutant, but Phillip had no clue what was done to that mutant. Ann Marie and Carol at the school and the three local high school boys made it clear what Sinister was capable of.

Looking up Phillip saw that he was walking towards the hangers again; thankfully, not along the lakefront where he saw Dani and Rahne that time. One more mistake. Dani hated him and Rahne was afraid of what he knew about her. He tried not to think about the two of them, but he wasn't always successful. Nor was he always successful in thinking about their coupling; especially coupling while Rahne was changed.

Phillip acknowledge another failure; he promised himself and the Professor that he would spend all of his free time at the hanger working towards completing the required man-hours for him to start flight training. Instead he had less then five hours on the flight simulator because any free moment he seemed to have was taken up trying accumulate all of the surreal experiences from being at the school. So many hours it seemed were wasted while he walked along the flight vehicles in and around the hangers. Those occurrences were the most normal for him because he would allow his mind to daydream. Daydream not about being a mutant or learning how to fight or scantily clad teachers or sex in a Common Room; but daydreams of him flying through the sky at the controls of a single engine plane or hovering hundreds of feet up in the air in a helicopter. Daydreams like that were safe to Phillip.

Sometimes one of the school's faculty members would be out at the hanger working on the vehicles and Phillip would quietly watch from a slight distance. Scott, his brother Alex, Remy or Lucas he would watch, but not Kitty, Warren or Kurt. Kitty liked to tease him by making ridiculous faces with her large mouth and extremely long tongue. Warren and Kurt were particularly nice to him, but Phillip did not like the not so subtle reminder that those two were mutants because of their obvious physical appearances.

This night was different, Phillip couldn't escape into his daydreams; visions of bare breasts, mind fried boys, undulating males, scraping claws, mouths moving in to swallow him, angry faces, dogs lapping and his class mates laughing at him overwhelmed his thoughts. Phillip tried to circumvent those thoughts by hopping into the flight simulator and virtually fly away; his thoughts proved too strong here as well as he found himself constantly crashing. After his sixth crash, Phillip gave up in frustration.

Meandering through the woods, Phillip was surprised to hear his name. Jerking, he realized that he actually heard someone's voice and not a mental projection. After seeing who was standing there, apparently waiting for him, he immediately wished it was a mental summoning.

Standing in the woods between him and the school were his Year 3 classmates, with Teresa in front.

"Phillip, it is time we have a talk."

With a leery look on his face, Phillip's eyes darted from one classmate to the next and then twice behind him, "Talk about what?"

"You and the issues we think you are having." As Teresa spoke, she clasped her hands in front of her pelvis, Rachael stood sideways behind her looking mostly at the ground, Illyana and Sally sat down against a tree off to the left of their leader while Stacy sat and leaned against another tree on the right.

"Issues? Here? Now? What exactly are you talking about?"

Rachael looked at Phillip directly knowing what Teresa was going to say. "Phillip, almost everyone here at the school knows what you have been trying to hide."

"Hide? How?" came Phillip's shocked response.

"Well, I know from Rachael."

After hearing that he looked hurtfully at Rachael who simply shrugged it off since she knew it was coming. "What? Teresa is my lover, I share with her everything; we have been working on forming a mental bond."

Ignoring her, Phillip looked at the rest of his classmates, wanting to know their answer.

Illyana smiled gleefully, "I check out everyone's package."

Teresa laughed, "You mean you scrutinize them with a microscope."

Bashfully faced downward, while looking up at Phillip, she placed her left index finger in her mouth, "What can I say, I am a size whore. I can admit that." Immediately, she recognized her gaff and tried to rectify it, "but that doesn't mean I can't have fun with someone your size Phillip."

Hoping to stop the embarrassed, hurt look on Phillip's face, Stacy cheerfully jumped in, "I know the size of everyone here. Everyone. My powers tell me. Just as I can tell how explosive a guy is or how horny. And you Phillip are very horny and very explosive. A girl will definitely feel you."

Looking at Stacy for some hint that she was bullshitting him, Phillip saw nothing but sincerity and something else. Not love, caring maybe? Confused, it was Phillip's turn to look at the grass for a few seconds before he looked up again.

"And you Sally, how do you know?"

Sally stopped looking at him, looked down at her bosom briefly then looked Phillip directly in the eye, reaching up she uncovered her hidden eye, pushing her bangs behind her left ear. "Well, I was told to put you to bed, well actually Ms. Frost told me to strip you. This was when you were assaulted and cleared medically. They brought you to the room and told me to get you ready for bed. Heh, I sat there for hours, looking at the door, dumbfounded by what that bitch Frost told me to do. Then I heard you snoring lightly and decided that I should do as I was told."

Phillip took a step towards her and then kneeled into the grass, intent on her words since he didn't think his roommate ever said so much to him at one time.

Sally continued. "I kind of understand why she told me to do that. It was a test you see. A test for me and the control I have, well, didn't have on my powers at that time. My powers would automatically prevent me from touching anyone, so how was I supposed to be able to strip you? Right?" Nodding her head, she looked around her classmates for support that was there as they all moved to sit closer to her while she explained it to them as well as explaining to Phillip how she knew what she knew. As she looked back at Phillip, she pushed her bangs back behind her left ear.

"Well, I kept telling myself that you weren't a danger to me because you were asleep and you had been injured. And I did it. I was able to willingly turn off my slide shield. It took a bit, but I did it!"

"Bravo!" cheered Teresa but before any other congratulatory remarks could be heard, Phillip interrupted them.

"So you stripped me? Saw me naked?!?"

Sally allowed herself a half smile, "No. I just stripped you down to your boxers. But I saw your thing's outline and even though I really wasn't sure what I saw, I mean I thought it was hard, but well you know..."

Feeling disgusted at himself, Phillip agreed, "Yeah, I know."

"Right, so later I asked Rachael about it, because she made the comment that you weren't a bad guy at all, which surprised me because Rache had gotten upset with you."

"Water under the bridge" Rachael added.

"Well, yeah, I know that now, but I figured that if anyone would know, Rache would, because of her powers. Sorry about that Phillip."

Pondering why Sally said she was sorry, Phillip came to the conclusion it was because he had been trying to hide that embarrassing thing about himself and she had found out. Nothing was said for a few minutes while Phillip looked at each of his classmates, finally, settling on Teresa he spoke.

"So where does that get us. You know my secret, but do you understand why I don't want to play Longshot?"

"We didn't. So when we talked about it, Rachael was the one who explained what happened to you at your two previous schools. How they laughed at you and embarrassed you. I am sorry Phillip. I didn't think, I just wanted you to enjoy yourself the way everyone else enjoys my touch!"

Stacy's answer was heartfelt by all and Phillip felt his defenses waning. Then he remembered Veronica and Kailee at Scared Heart Middle and James and Bill at Lejeune Southern and he remembered why he feared what he did. And so did Rachael.

"Phillip! What did I tell you about projecting your thoughts like that?"

"SHIT!" Embarrassed, Phillip went to stand to move away.

Rachael wasn't going to let him, verbally. "It is okay Phillip. I understand, but what you have to understand is that there is no one like Veronica, Kailee, James or Bill here at Xavier's. No one is going to tease you about that part of you."

Nodding, Teresa added, "Right, there is no malicious teasing here. None."

Not believing them, "But what about Roberto or Sam?"

"Sam is one of the nicest guys you will ever meet!" Stacy quickly defended her older brother.

"Phillip, look at me." The steeliness in Illyana's voice caught everyone off guard. "Yes, Bobbi, will tease you, he teases everyone. But have you noticed, we all tease him right back. And Bobbi isn't trying to hurt someone because everyone would have hurt him ten times over if he was teasing to be mean."

"Illyana is right, Roberto isn't being mean, teasing is the way that he shows his affection. He so much wants to be like Wolverine, but he isn't and he knows it, so he tries to be the clown to hide his own insecurities and demons."

Phillip looked at Teresa, unsure where to go from there, but Rachael had an idea.

"Phillip, I think maybe we need to open up to you a bit more to help you trust us. We can do that by sharing some of our demons with you." Looking at each of her classmates in turn, who all nodded their head in agreement, Rachael continued, "Something I think should be painfully obvious to you is that almost everyone here at this school has a personal demon and or painful secret. You are no different then anyone else here."

"She is right. You know about me and my father. Thanks by the way for some of those points and observations you made, they have really helped with my sessions with the Professor." Phillip felt Sally's hand on his wrist and gave her a half-smile. Sally continued, "I wasn't happy about you rooming with me at first, but you have been a great roomie and I am will gladly room with you as long as you like."

Suddenly Phillip envisioned watching Sally changing her clothes in front of him and that dirty thought made him look at Rachael guiltily.

'Nothing to be ashamed of, she has quite the hot bod hidden underneath all of those clothes, maybe you can convince her to do away with some of those layers so the rest of us can enjoy looking at her too!' But everyone else heard, "You have heard part of my sordid past but not all of it." Rachael moved to sit closer to Phillip and Teresa immediately leaned against her, wrapping her arm behind her shoulder, tweaking Teresa's cute nose, Rachael winked at her and then continued talking to Phillip. "I wasn't the only Hound that Sinister had, but I was the only clone of Cyclops and Phoenix, Yes, I do think Sinister made additional clones, but I never saw one. The other Hounds were either mutants or mutates; some were telepaths like me, others were like Wolverine and would sniff after their prey in one form or another. Not all of us were females either. But the Kennel Master was male. A big fat slob of a man who was our caretaker, trainer and a man who to this day I hope to be able to kill."

Rachael stopped talking as she remembered painful memories. Then laughing a sorrowful laugh, she continued with her story. "I guess his brutality worked because the Hounds were a rather efficient bunch. We would stay in the field until we found our prey. Failure was not something we considered, the Kennel Master made sure of this. Yes, he would beat us, but only to improve on our training. He had other means to torment us when he was in a mood or feeling rowdy. He would mate us among each other, male/female, male/male, female/female, it didn't matter to him, he always wanted to know who the Alpha was and who wasn't. I ... I wasn't the Alpha. I don't know why, maybe because of what was imprinted in me while in the tubes, to obey or whatever, but I wasn't the Alpha, though at the time I wished I was."

Sometime after Rachael started talking; Teresa began to gingerly caress Rachael's short orange red hair. Phillip could hear Stacy sobbing lightly into Illyana's right arm. Looking next to him he was sure Sally had a tear behind her bangs that had fallen again to cover most of the left side of her face.

"The Alpha wasn't a male in the Hounds, it was a female mutate telepath that Sinister's experiments brought about a few years before I joined them. Tess was not to be messed with because while she was totally loyal to Sinister, the twelve battery sized electrodes sticking out of her bald head ensured she was always angry and her bites were vicious. Yes, bite. Kennel Master literally kept us in dog kennels. When not training or on a mission, we were not allowed to walk on two legs; it was four legs for us and when we fought for food or pecking order, we could only use our mouths. Jess was another mutate, Sinister deemed to grant her a dog's snout and their sense of smell. We thought when Jess showed up into the Hounds Tess would be taken down, but when Jess tried, Tess used those metal electrodes sticking out of her skull to keep Jess at bay. Since neither one could reach the other's neck, Tess bit off one of Jess's tits. Unlike Rahne, Sinister did not deem to give Jess additional ones so Jess was down to just one. A week later when she was healthy enough to join the Hounds, Jess immediately submitted to Tess and became the runt of the litter. This made me happy, simply because it meant I would no longer be the runt of the litter."

Phillip was unsure whether he should interrupt her with a question, when he finally decided to ask, Rachael looked directly at him and answered before he could speak it.

"None of us could use our powers in the Dog Kennel. Nor could we use them on Kennel Master, that fat son of a bitch slob. I can still smell him today; damn did he stink. I pitied those that could smell better than me, 'cause he was really rank and the Hounds were the ones that would clean him. Ever day we would all be using our tongues to bathe him. It was worse when he did his daily constitutional, because the runt of the litter would have to lick him clean. When I was the runt, I would puke every time I was done cleaning his ass and I ... I would..."

Phillip wasn't stunned when Rachael broke down and started bawling. He had noticed tears starting to run down her face shortly after she started. Phillip suddenly didn't want to hear any more about the retched life Rachael had prior to joining Xavier's.