Mother Nature Part 1
Storm was sitting in her usual place at the breakfast bar, surrounded by her usual friends, Scott, Jean, Remy, Logan, Marie and Jubilee. She wasn't looking forward to her daily routine that was lessons. She hated them. As much as she loved her students as though they were her own, she hated teaching normal lessons to abnormal children. She was sure that professor knew this as he made subtle hints to her as they passed in corridors, and when they ate together at the dinner table of breakfast bar in a morning. She wasn't too happy about this either, as she knew that she would be disappointing Charles and she hated disappointing people. She was much like Scott in her pride sense.
As she set off for her Religious Studies lesson, lugging her books around with her she stopped suddenly, a pain burning inside her head. She dropped the books and, screaming in agony she clutched her head, as though trying to squeeze the pain out of it. It was a vision. She saw her spiritual son, Mjnari, crying out to her, screaming for his real mother and her. Sweat ran like rivers down her forehead, drenching her headband and sari. Jean had obviously felt this and rushed to her from her science lesson on the floor above. Children were now creeping out of their lessons to see what all the commotion was about. As Jean went to touch Storm's head, something like an electric burst hit her, sending her flying through a nearby Mechanics room door. Children screamed and ran back inside their classrooms as Storm rose into the air, eyes her usual white colour, hair blowing about in the self-produced gales that were now forcing their way down the corridors, pushing anything away that stood in its path.
"Now students I want you to hand in your essays on Charles Darwin. I hope they are all at least one side long and contain useful information. I don't want to find any rambling in there that you might have gotten from books or the Internet. We will start with Kitty, have you got you book Katherine?
"Yes sir, its right here!" said Kitty, as she pawed her way through her backpack, looking for her Physics essay. "Ahh here it is!" Just as Charles was about to carry on he sensed the disturbance with Ororo's mind. "X-men detain Storm immediately, she is being possessed by something!" There was an odd hurried and panicky tone about his voice, and it worried him and others, as Charles was never panicky about anything. Not even his worst enemy and best friend, Magneto!
CRACK! This was the sound of Jubilee's back crunching against the garage door. Storm had blasted the X-men out of a nearby window, and taken the fight outside. Whatever was controlling her had the decency to at least not involve and harm the children. The problem was that neither Charles of Jean knew what it was that was controlling her.
"Jubilee are you alright?" Jean cried as she raced over to her to check for injuries.
"Yea, I'll be fine, once I've knocked some sense into that bitch!" she said angrily as she got up and dusted herself off. Jean smiled at this comment, before she too was flung across the basketball courts by a gale force wind. She smashed through the bench with such force that it looked as though her backbone had smashed.
"THAT'S IT! I'm sorry Ororo, I know you're my best friend and that I would never do this to you but, well…your not you are you?" Scott screamed as he turned up the power on his visor and readied himself to blast Storm. Unfortunately he did not get the chance as she raised her hand and a huge bolt of lightning shot out at him, hitting him squarely in the chest, launching him into the water fountain.
"ARRRRGGGHHHH!" Ororo screamed as she felt an intense heat blast her skin. This was Jubilee's work. She had got up from being blasted a second time and fired her energy globules at Storm, sending her into the side of the mansion. Ororo hit the concrete with a hard thud and her eyes changed from the deadly white colour they had been, to her normal soft, loving brown eyes they were an hour ago. The self-created hurricane around her dispersed and she slowly fell unconscious. A satisfied smile crept onto Jubilee's face and she turned her back on Storm to go and help Jean and Scott. She lifted Jean up from the shattered remnants of the broken bench and helped her up.
"Are you alright Jube?" she said, hugging her and smiling.
"Yea I'm great, as I said I would be once I knocked some sense into that bitch!" she laughed as she made a gesture at Ororo's unconscious heap of a body by the wall. Jean smiled and embraced Scott as he came over to help.
"Nice work Jube, but I don't think she'll be too happy with you when she wakes up!" he smiled at her cheekily and pulled her into a three way hug with Jean.
"I don't care, the moody little cow can have another slice of the magnificent Jubilee if she wants!" her voice was muffled by their hug and Scott and Jean just laughed at her.
"Ohhh!" Storm moaned as she began to lift herself off of the floor. Jean ran over to her, tears in her eyes as she had felt the pain they had caused through her Empathy.
"Ororo, are you alright?" She said in a desperate struggle to block out her pain and stop the stinging tears from rolling down her cheeks.
"I will be once I get out of this cold air!" Storm replied, as all she was wearing was her thin sari and now broken headband.
"Come on lets get you inside to Hank and get you all cleaned up."
"Now as you can see," Jean held up a mental brain scan that she had printed out on the computer, " The furthest part of her brain is the part which remembers her life and her son Mjnari in Africa and it is this part of her brain, that is the weakest and the easiest to attack and possess. Now I do not know how the attacker found this part of the brain, as it took me a few attempt to reach it, and still it takes a lot of Telepathic power to delve that far into someone's mind and, there aren't many Telepaths that are more powerful than me so…I have no idea how it was done unless…"
"…Unless somebody were to relay that information to the attacker right? Someone that is close to her and that knows her well enough to know that that part of her brain is the weakest and that she would be easily broken if attacked there right?" Scott piped up, knowing that the others would look at him as a prime suspect.
"Scott, I'm not bringing any names into this as we don't know how it was done." She replied, smiling weakly.
It was the next day in the mansion and the X-men were relaxing after a day of tough prep lessons for student exams and of course cleaning up after Storm's destructive mess. Storm entered the lounge last of all and switched off the TV much to many of the children's dislike, and said, "Guys, I want to apologise for the mess I've created yesterday and for hurting some of you!" Tears were running down her face, but she wasn't carrying a miserable tone in her voice.
"Oh Ororo you don't have to apologise, it's me that should be sorry cuz I blasted you and…" Jubilee began, hanging her head, her fluorescent pink shades falling into her hands.
"No Jube, if it weren't for you god only knows what I could have done. It was your powers that stopped me from totally destroying the mansion and possibly Salem and the rest of New York." Storm replied smiling and pulling her into an emotional hug.
"Aww shucks 'Ro now you're being too forgiving to me!" Jubilee said, blushing slightly.
"Well," Scott interrupted smiling, although still a little pissed off about the fact that his fellow X-men might think that he was the reconnaissance operative that was relaying the information about Storm back to whoever might have actually committed the attack, "We better go we all have lessons this afternoon and well we wanna comfort the kids about yesterdays…complication so they don't start rumours and stuff you know? He said ushering Jean and the team out of the lounge and to their lessons.
"Well class that explains the finals you've got coming up in three weeks and only 50 of the class has actually begun revising! I really don't think you know just how important these exams are, do you? They will determine whether you will be allowed to enter your chosen A-level and A2 examinations. Being as you all are top set for science I'm quite sure that you all want to do the latter won't you?" Jean was telling her year 11 Science class.
"Yes but Mrs Grey-Summers can't you understand just how much pressure we are under? It is this pressure that makes students not want to revise for crappy S.A.T exams of finals or whatever. It is teachers like you that stops children from achieving their optimum grade with all the unnecessary stress that you are causing." A young girl named Gwen stood up and shouted, to Jeans utter shock and disbelief.
"Well…Gwen if you feel that annoyed with my revision advice and the so called 'pressure' I'm putting you under then maybe you should leave my class and secondly I'll have less of your unnecessary language as I don't need to be insulted that badly!" Jean replied with a look of falsely controlled serenity on her face as she lowered her glasses and laid them to rest on her desk.
"Maybe I should Jean or maybe we don't want your crappy revision timetables and stupid revision advice, we have been through 10 years of it and we don't need it anymore!" Gwen answered back with a look on anger spreading across her face.
"You are NOT allowed to call me that, GET OUT! I WILL NOT BE SPOKEN TO LIKE THIS, I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN FOR BITCHES LIKE YOU AND YOU GO AND THROW IT BACK IN MY FACE! WELL FINE GO INTO HANK'S SET, YOU NEED IT AS YOU GRADES ARE CRAP AT THE MOMENT, GO ON…GET OUT!" Jean spat as her eyes darkened and flame enclosed her hand. Gwen's face sank as the words truly hit her. She burst into tears and ran out, blowing the door off its hinges with her power as she went.
"Jean, I'm sorry but that is simply not acceptable!" Charles said half saddened, half frustrated by her sudden, erratic actions. "What has gotten into you this week?" He carried on, his face dropping even more.
"What are you talking about Charles, that little bitch was slagging off the revision advice system and was totally trying to overpower me in my own subject, thinking she knows best! Plus if you're wondering why I told her the truth about her crap grades, then I'm sorry but I won't lie for you, just because you want to try and improve her even though you know you can't. There are people in Hank's set that deserve a shot at the top class. I don't understand why you can't see my point of view." Jean replied with a defiant expression.
"Fine then Jean if that's what you want and how you feel, then I will move her into a lower set. After all it's your choice as you are the Science coordinator, you have the power to move children into appropriate classes in your subject area." Charles wheeled off in search of Gwen to tell her the upsetting news.