Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

Chapter Three

Dinner that night was an interesting affair. Tyger had offered to cook, and the others were curious to how it might turn out. Kurt had started bets to what kind of poison Tyger might use, and the odds were 2:1 for ansenic. Ororo and Hank still believed that Tyger was a good kid underneath the tough, fierce, and...deadly exterior, and that she wouldn't hurt them. Still, it was a somber group that sat at the dinner table.

The X-Men exchanged very nervous looks as Tyger set a huge pot of a boiling substance on the table, a few drops of it spilling onto the table in the process. Kitty could've sworn that the tabletop had sizzled with the heat. But by the time she mustered up the courage to look again, the table had been wiped clean.

"Are you, like, sure this stuff is, like, edible?" asked Kitty in distaste. "What is it anyway?"

"Well, it doesn't have a name," Tyger replied, a small smirk on her face. "It's a mixture of almost everything in the house. It doesn't really have an exact recipe."

Ladling the food into bowls, Tyger shook her head in annoyance. They would never learn. As she sat down, Jean lifted a spoonful to her mouth. Suddenly, without warning, she began crying, gasping for air. "Water! I need water! Somebody get me some water right now!"

Scott leaped up and got Jean a glass of water. Gulping it down, Jean's face began to change back from bright red to normal. Glaring at Tyger, she pushed away her bowl. "I'm not eating this stuff! It's lethal! Didn't you make anything else?" The rest of them all gave similar comments.

"Duh. You think I only made one thing?" Tyger rolled her eyes and walked to the fridge. Opening the door, she pulled out a package of raw steaks. "How'd you like your steak?"

"Well done. Why didn't you cook them yet?" Jean sniffed, her nose in the air.

"Because I'm cooking them right now, idiot," Tyger snapped, a ball of flame forming above her hand. Taking careful aim, she blasted the steak, cooking it to perfection. The others, following suit, told her how they wanted their steaks, and she cooked them, except for Kitty, who just ate her salad. Unsurprisingly, Tyger was the only one who ate the soup.

Ororo decided that it was time they learned more about Tyger. "So, Tyger, do you have any hobbies or interests?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Really? What are they?" Ororo asked, feeling that she was finally getting somewhere with Tyger.

"Arson," Tyger replied, smiling sweetly. There was stone cold silence at the table, broken only by a small clink as Evan's glass of Coke tipped over.

"Tyger, you can't be serious!" Ororo reproved, her brow clouding. It usually wasn't the easiest thing to get her upset, but Tyger was doing it.

"I know, I know," she laughed. "I'm just kidding. Don't you have a sense of humor?"

"Not when it comes to you, punk," muttered Logan under his breath. Tyger's golden eyes flashed dangerously, and there was a telltale sound of something boiling. With a loud KABLAM!! the soup pot exploded. Glaring at Tyger, Logan stomped out of the kitchen to find a towel.

"Now that Hedgehog's gone, I think I'll tell you the truth. I play the keyboard as a hobby. I'm pretty good at it. Oh, and some advice: touch my keyboard, and I'll burn your hair off." Tyger's warning struck both fear and amusement into the hearts of the X-Men. It brought fear to Jean and Kitty, who loved their hair, and amusement to Kurt who wanted to see what a hairless Kitty would look like.

Logan arrived back at the table, and the meal passed in silence. Nobody dared to talk when Logan was in one of his bad moods. Usually Kurt was the one to cause them, but Logan already seemed to have a grudge against her that had started from the beginning and was magnefiyed by now.

***That Night in Tyger's Room****

Pace, pace, pace...that was what Tyger was doing at 12:00 that night. She glanced at her clock radio and continued pacing. She couldn't go to sleep...wouldn't go back to sleep. It wasn't hard for her to stay awake. She didn't really have a choice.

It wasn't that she had insomnia, she could sleep if she wanted to. Unfortunately, with her firepower also came a power she considered a curse.

When her father had married, he had wed another mutant. Tyger's mother's powers were powerful. She could tell the future, past, or present at any time. Her mother had predicted her own death six months in advance when Tyger had been only a few weeks old.

Tyger had inheirited those powers unwillingly, and they broke loose at the worst of times. Should she ever fall asleep, visions of the past, present, and future would manifest themselves as her dreams. She had given up on sleep a long time ago. One night she would see murder, the next, car accidents. The visions were almost never good. Afraid of worrying him, she had never told her father.

Sighing, Tyger walked over to her closet and opened the door. A small ball of cold fire appeared above her hand as she checked her Halloween costume. She had been working on it for months, getting ready for the Halloween dance at her old school. Unfortunately, she had gotten expelled for fighting, and would have to wear it to the Bayville dance.

Ororo had told her earlier that night what her schedule would be like. She would be training at the mansion that week, honing her powers. She would be starting school on Friday, the day of the dance. The Professor had decreed it so. Tyger didn't mind. The less time she spent at school, the better.

Flopping down on her bed, she wondered about what the school would be like. When she started, it would be too late to get a date, but she'd work with it. Sighing, a plan came up for future pranks as she realized that maybe joining the X-Men wouldn't be so bad after all. Besides, Halloween had always been her favorite holiday.

***The End***