Transformation-Time Travelers

Chapter 1

Rochelle was a normal 12 year old girl. The last thing she wanted was to have this creepy old guy hanging around her house. She was on her way to school one morning when a guy about 14 walked over to her at a stop light and said” Can you come here a minute? You look familiar.”Rochelle thought this guy was pretty cute. She walked over to the other side of the wide sidewalk. I’m Rochelle, what’d they call you? “I’m Alistair… your last name isn’t Xavier, is it?” Now this was creepy, how did this guy know her?

“Have you been stalking me or something, how do you know that?”

“How do you not know me, we’ve known each other for 5 years!”

Rochelle was dumbfounded, she had never seen this guy in her life. She figured that this guy wasn’t worth her time. And that’s when she was abducted. That creepy old guy we mentioned was stronger and smarted than he looked. He came up behind her and shoved a rag in her face. The last thing she saw was Alistair yelling and pushing the old man into the street and she fell.

She was almost conscious when the old man was carrying her away, she wanted to yell to Alistair to ‘Come help me dang it!” but she couldn’t move. She was so scared she thought that she was changing from the inside out, then she realized she was changing! She started getting bigger, and bigger, and soon she started growing scales like a lizard. Bot then, she started sprouting enormous wings, powdery and thin, like fairie wings. A thin feathery tail. She had no idea what was happening. Rochelle felt a sparking sensation in her mouth, which now looked like dogs snout, I must look HIDEOUS!, she thought. Then an arch of lightning shot out of her mouth. It threw itself into the air and smacked the old man in the chest. At first she thought he was dead, the old man’s body was smoking and charred, like he got a little too close to a bonfire. But he stood right up and smiled maniacally, “You’ve finally discovered your abilities, intriguing…usually it happens at 9 years.”

“Abilities?”

Rochelle was definitely going to be late for school. She started to create another spark, but the old man was already gone.

“What the heck was that!” Rochelle was once again dumbfounded. Ms. McLaughlin would definitely give her Saturday detention. She was already booked everyday, every week for the next two months. Her allergies aways made her mascara run. She couldn’t help but touch up her make up in the middle of history class.”This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.” Alistair was behind her, along with about fifty by-standers, staring at her in amazement. Rochelle had a feeling she was losing it, was it just her or did Alistair look closer to her age, before he looked a little over 16, now he looked 12 or 13.

“ Did you get plastic surgery, you look different.”

“ We’ll talk later we need to get out of here. I saw someone call the cops.”

Rochelle didn’t want to argue. Alistair looked like he used a couple steroids as well. He led her down the street, holding her wrist and running down the street as fast as the lightning that shot out of her mouth a while before. He led her into a Walgreen’s down the street.

“ I’ve got answers if you have questions…” Alistair told her blankly. “ Of course I have questions, I just turned into, like this giant dragon-fairie looking thing!”

“Than start asking.”

“ What in the world just happened.”

“You shape-shifted, plain and simple. You were in danger so your instincts took over.”

“Two, why do you look so much younger.”

Alistair froze. He was as pale as the the insane old man. “ I… time travel.”

“ You’re insane! You must be hopped something if you think I’m gonna believe that! No , if you think that’s true you need serious help!”

“ You should get to school, your teacher has probably sent out a search party.”

“ NO! You are going to give me answers and you’re going to give them now!”

Alistair gave in and started explaining, but Rochelle was distracted by a girl about their age eying them from across the isle. She was short for her age and had two small mounds in the middle of her back. She was dressed all in black and her long blond hair covered most of her face, except for those piercing dark purple eyes.

“Is she like, emo. Her dress is so out of style.” Rochelle was a bit of a gossip girl.

“ Alistair, long time no see. How are you’re ‘travels’?”

“Uh, you know this chick?”

“ Hey, be nice. This is one of my… colleagues.” Alistair was really jittery.

“ What’s your name, gossip girl. Mine is Zia.”

“ How did you hear me, I was at least 15 feet away!”

“Alistair, let’s take her to base. She could be useful.”

Rochelle was tired of being dragged all over the place, but she felt she could trust Zia for some reason.

“Were are we going? This is not the way to Chesterward Middle.”

A few minutes later they arrived at an empty street corner.

“Now, we wait for Edward.” Zia said when they stopped. This was freaking Rochelle out. Why had they stopped five miles out of town? And at an empty street?

“Are you guys insane? Where are we?” Zia looked over at her and said, “ We are going to wait for our ride, little girl. Edward is always late, I told him to wait for us at 8:30.”

“ Little girl, you’re like, a day older than me! And who’s Edward?”Alistair stepped in, “We have…basically a private car. Edward is the driver.” Well that makes sense, Rochelle thought. They waited a good half an hour until a sleek, silver four-seated Mercedes showed up at the corner. Rochelle was speechless. This was every kid’s dream car around these parts. The three climbed into the sparkling car.

“Where to, Batty?”Zia seemed to be offended by that.

“Don’t call me that. Clover Hill, we can get to the base from there.”

“Right, hold on.”

While they were riding, Rochelle’s mind was going a mile a minute.

“ Why did he call you ‘Batty’?”

“I was afraid you’d ask that? You know how Alistair can time travel? Well… I’m a mutant. I have… bat senses.”

“Really, prove it.” Zia looked like she didn’t want to, but she took off her black jacket and to Rochelle’s surprise, she had bat wings! They were thin and leathery, and jet black. “Oh, okay. Didn’t expect that. Any other bat parts?”

“Yes, actually.” Zia reached up behind her hair to show bat ears. “ These babies helped me hear you from across the isle at the store.” Soon they pulled up near a street sign outside of the town of Clover Hill. This was the first time Rochelle got a good look at Edward. He was a tall African-American man, maybe 25 years old. But the strangest thing about him was that he had only one eye. It was beautiful and kind of creepy at the same time. “Well, have fun kids, don’t blow anything up.”

“Well what makes you think that?’ Zia replied with a laugh, which worried Rochelle.

They walked a little ways into the town, and stopped near a Walgreen’s.

“What is with you people and Walgreen’s? Do you own it or something?” Alistair and Zia looked at each other. “Do we?” Alistair asked Zia. “ As far as I know, no.” They walked into the drugstore. As they passed the soda isle Alistair said, “Zia, do you remember where the anomaly was? I can’t.”

“Follow me, old friend. I’m not surprised you forgot.”

Hey, I’m 1500 years old. Give me a break.” Rochelle thought she might faint.

“How old!?”

“Fifteen- hundred. I’m immortal.”

And then, she fainted. Zia and Alistair carried her into the storage room. Rochelle was partly conscience so she knew what was happening. They were about half way to the back when they came to a glassing shimmering in the air. Rochelle came to as soon as she sensed that. “What’s that? Is that the analogy, or whatever you said?”

“Anomaly, and yes it is.” Alistair explained. “This is the way into the base.”

“ What is this ‘base’? You’ve never mentioned a real name.”

“ We work for The International Society for Mutants. It’s unknown by most, but we have mutants from all over the world.”

“ That’s just amazing, isn’t it.” Zia added. “I’ve been here for…” She had to think for a little bit, “ I think it’s 14 years now, no, 13.” They walked through the anomaly and soon Rochelle almost fainted again. This place looked like they walked into a science fiction novel. There was metal pipes running every where in the structure. Steel railings were everywhere. People were walking, surprisingly, flying everywhere. A huge steam-powered machine spouting fire and lightning. One girl, maybe 15 dancing on one of the balconies. “Julia! Stop hypnotizing Jack! I don’t care if he has you bracelet, Stop!” Alistair yelled to the girl and she shot back, “ But it’s my Michael Jackson bracelet!”. Alistair told the boy to give it back, and the boy flew at Julia and threw the bracelet at her. The three walked over to a huge door. It was made of stainless steel, like everything else. “ You guys are big fans of steam-punk aren’t you?”

“ Well, I guess you could say that.” Alistair replied, “You should meet Fredrick, Mrs. Fredrick that is. She runs the institution.” Zia walked nonchalantly toward the door. She knocked on the door three times, which Rochelle thought was kind of creepy. “ Come in Zia…” a woman’s voice came from behind the door. Alistair tried to help Zia open the humongous door and motioned for Rochelle to help too. After a tiring two or three minutes they got the door open and stepped inside. An African- American woman was seated at a computer desk. She looked middle aged, but Rochelle could tell she was probably much older.

“Mrs. Frederick, This is Rochelle Xavier. She’s a shape-shifter.” Alistair introduced her while Zia walked over to a coffee machine in the corner of the huge room. “I know who she is… I’ve known of her her whole life, remember.”

“How do you know me?” Rochelle asked the old woman demandingly.

“I’m a psychic. It would be stupid to run an institute for mutants if I wasn’t one. I know what you’re thinking, ‘This sounds a lot like the X-men’ it isn’t. This is where mutants get their training to go into the secret service. Although, some stay and work here. We specialize in protecting magical and mythical items, for example, we have Pandora’s box in vault 315.” Rochelle found this amazing. She didn’t know magic existed. The old woman continued, “ We have protectors here, like Alistair, who help find other mutants and bring them here, using their abilities, naturally. You will have some training here, then you will work with Alistair and Zia to become a protector. That sound alright to you?” Rochelle liked the sound of this. “ That sounds awesome to me! I’d live to work with them.”

“Than it’s settled. Alistair, you take Rochelle to the girl’s dorm. Julia can take her from there. Zia, you go find Sven and head to the tracking room and let me know when you track down someone.” They all said goodbye to Mrs. Fredrick and set out. Alistair led her to a huge door with a sign saying ‘girls dormitories’ in big gold letters. The girl that was hypnotizing the guy called Jack was standing in front of the door. “ Hey, Julia, got your bracelet back I see.”Alistair greeted the girl with a short hand shake. “Thanks for telling him off, my dancing didn’t work particularly well. Using your 13 year old self, are we.”

“Yes I am. This is Rochelle, you might recognize her from earlier. She’s a shifter.”

“That’s awesome!”Can I have a demonstration?” Rochelle wasn’t so sure about this.

“I’m not sure I can, it was just instincts before.”

“Can you try, I’d really like to see.” Julia was really polite about it, so Rochelle decided to try. She concentrated hard on the shape she wanted to take, she wanted to try turning into a medium-sized dog. She focused on the shape of the dog. She felt herself shrinking to the size of a border collie. Her fair skin started feeling warm was getting darker in color. Her short, blond hair was getting a lot shorter and darker as well. Soon, she had transformed into an adorable chocolate lab. “Nice work, Rochelle! That was amazing!” Julia praised her. As a dog, this made Rochelle extremely happy. She let out a loud, happy bark. She focused on her main shape. Within second, she was human once again. “Good job, Rochelle. You’re getting better control of your powers.” Alistair told her, “Soon you’ll be able to shift to forms even more complex, like a human form.” Julia told her it was near curfew, so they said good-bye to Alistair and entered the dorm. They went down a hallway that was painted in a beautiful shade of navy blue. Several doors were on either side of the hallway. Julia led Rochelle to a nice wooden door near the end of the hallway. “Well, this is your dorm. If you need anything I’m right across the hall. Goodnight, it’s way past curfew. And in case you need to know, curfew is eleven-thirty. We have harpies around here some nights.”

“Night, Julia. Nice meeting you.” Rochelle got her key from Julia and stepped into her dorm. She flopped down on the fluffy, queen-sized bed. Today had been a huge adventure, at least she didn’t have to deal with crazy Mrs. Kump for a couple of days