Down the Rabbit Hole

Middleverse

Lacey groaned as her alarm went off, jarring her awake. She reached out and slammed her hand down on the clock. 5:45 was way too early to be getting up. She got to her feet and slumped past a tired looking Kitty who was coming out of the bathroom.

"Morning." Kitty yawned.

"Not by my book it's not." Lacey grumbled. Kitty chuckled.

"Count yourself Lucky, at least it's just Magneto and Beast, it could be a Logan session."

"I would have thought two instructors would have been worse than one." Lacey called after her as she splashed some water on her face.

"Yeah, you'd think, but you haven't met Mr Logan yet." Lacey shrugged. She brushed her teeth and changed into the uniform Kitty had given her. The two of them made their way down the corridor and into the lift at the top of the stairs. The lift doors snapped shut behind them and Kitty pressed the button to take them down to the basement level. When they reached the bottom the elevator pinged open. They walked out into a metal lined hallway and followed it until they reached a set of heavy double doors, Kitty pressed in a code and the doors shushed open. A group of students were already waiting in the room for them, Lacey looked around open mouthed, taking her surroundings in. The room was huge and circular with a control room sticking out of the ceiling, the walls were metal and so was the floor.
"Ah, good, that's everyone." A blue fuzzy creature wearing a pair of glasses came over to them.

"Lacey this is Mr McCoy, one of our instructors, Mr McCoy this is Lacey."

"Very nice to meet you. We're going to start with some warm up exercises so, lets have a few laps and some stretching." Mr McCoy pressed a button on the keypad in his hand and the room around them became a field. Lacey blinked, taking it all in.

"Wow." Was all she could manage. Kitty gave her a smile and they began their exercises. Once everyone had warmed up they regrouped and Magneto began to put them through their paces one by one while Beast had them doing an obstacle course. After some grumbling from Bobby, Beast allowed them to train to some music, using the keypad in his hand to activate the computer in the control room above. Kitty danced her way through the routine Magneto had her do followed by Amara. Lacey was next. She moved to the starting position and took a deep breath. She was about to move when the song cut out and Highway to Hell began to blast over the speakers. Lacey froze, her heart began to pound. She looked around her at the expectant faces, Kitty looked back at her worriedly. She ran for the doors phasing through and out the other side. She ran for the lift, phasing through those doors too and pressed the button for the first floor. She stood there leaning against the wall as the lift began to rise. She had been fine until that point, hadn't even really thought about him, the song had taken her by surprise. She tried to control her breathing but as the doors pinged open she ran again, this time towards the front door. She grabbed the handle and yanked the front door open only to come face to face with Wanda, standing there with her hand raised ready to knock. Lacey stepped back in surprise.
"Oh, hey. I'm glad I caught you. I wanted to talk to you."
"Uh, sure." Lacey glanced behind her before shutting the door. "Wanna take a walk?"
"Ok. And while we walk you can tell me what spooked you." Lacey raised an eyebrow at Wanda. Wanda sighed. "Look, I'm sorry about the other day. We didn't mean to give you the Spanish inquisition. We were just surprised to find you living with the geek squad that's all."
"It's fine. I'm surprised to be here too." Lacey confessed.
"So, come on tell me what's wrong."
"I just... something reminded me of something I didn't want to be reminded of." Lacey stammered, knowing she didn't sound very articulate.
"You gotta give me more than that." Wanda told her. They sat down on the edge of the fountain at the front of the drive. Lacey took a deep breath.
"I'm not from around here. At all. I'm not even from this reality." Wanda raised an eyebrow but let her continue. " I came here through a portal because I was so lost, I had to just get away."

"Get away from what?"
"When I was ten years old, wow this is gonna sound crazy." Lacey ran a hand through her hair.

"Not to me." Wanda promised. Lacey smiled at her gratefully.
"When I was ten I fell down a rabbit hole and I ended up in some alternate reality version of wonderland. Anyway to cut a long story short I was there for thirteen years, and then one day, I don't know how, I ended up falling out of the sky, back in my own reality and I landed on this car. It belonged to these two brothers, they hunted monsters. Yeah we have those in my reality." She explained at the look on Wanda's face. "So I stayed with them helped them fight and...and I fell in love. I spent a year with them, and then came the final battle. One of the brothers died and the other one, Dean, the one I was with, he left to have a normal life. And that's when I came here. And when you saw me come running that was because.. well it's stupid really but they were playing this song and it reminded me of him and I freaked." Wanda nodded.

"It's OK I understand. You should come visit us at the Brotherhood house, you would fit right in there, we all have our own issues, stuff that tears us apart but we stick together and we make it through." Lacey smiled at her.
"I'd like that."
"Great. Well I better let you get back to your training session, I'm sure they're wondering where you got to. But come by and visit us any time. Kitty knows where we are." She smiled before walking away. Lacey got to her feet and made her way back inside. As she walked to the lift she ran into Kitty who was coming out.
"I was just coming to look for you, are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll explain later, let's just not have any more rock music for now." Lacey smiled. Kitty nodded and they got back into the lift.

Later that afternoon Lacey kept her promise and Scott gave her a lift, begrudgingly, over to the Brotherhood House. She was actually quite nervous to meet all these people. She walked up the steps and knocked on the front door. She waited a few moments before the door was opened and a guy with mid length brown hair stood there, looking sullen.

"Can I help you?" He asked frowning at her.
"Oh hey, I'm here to see Wanda." His brow cleared and he began to smile at her.
"Oh, you're the new girl, Kitty's roommate right? I'm Lance."
"Yeah I'm Lacey, how do you know Kitty?"
"We're dating."

"Cool." She smiled back.

"That's not the usual reaction I get from the geek squad." He noted as he led her through the hall and into the living room.

"I'm not sure if I can be counted as one of the squad yet." Lacey shrugged. As she took a seat on the sofa the largest guy she had ever seen waddled through the door.
"Hey I made cake if anyone wants any." Lacey stared for a moment before Lance introduced them.
"Lacey this is Freddie, Freddie this is Lacey."
"Nice to meet you."
"You too." Freddie replied through a mouth full of cake. At that point Wanda came through the door followed by Mike and a guy with white blonde hair.
"You came." Wanda smiled.
"And just in time too. We're about to play Fable on the Xbox." Mike told her. Lacey looked at him like he'd just spouted nonsense.
"You're about to do whosit with what say?" Mike stared back at her.
"Lacey is a little out of the loop." Wanda explained.
"Well, we'll show you how to play then." The blonde guy told her. "I'm Pietro by the way." Lacey nodded.
"Sounds good to me."
She spent the rest of the evening with the Brotherhood, they showed her how to play the game and she got to know them all better. It finally felt like everything was slipping into place.