Shattered Images
Jeanne M.
Sunstar80@hotmail.com
Summary: Directly follows the events of "Illyana's Waltz."
Legal junk: Some of these characters belongs to Marvel Comics, I'm just borrowing them for fun, and I promise to return them unharmed and good as new once I've finished with the story. Allison Kivirin and Mrs. Web are my creations. Take them and die. Or just ask, I'll probably let you have them. The way this thing is looking, there might be a part 2. Let me know what you think, ok? I'm a poor, indebted college student, so please don't sue me. Feedback is much appreciated, I even write back. Onto the story!!!!
The songs used are "Giant Ants from Space" and "Little Lisa" by the Kabalas, geniuses that they are.
This one is for Lady Tigger, who asked so very nicely for a sequel.
**telepathic conversation**
inner thoughts
Part One......
Jubilee hadn't expected anything other than total and complete grounding, despite what she had told the others, but what Emma was saying was beyond punishment. "Ya can't do that!"
"Rest assured young lady, that I can. I have placed a restraining order against Wolverine, and it will remain until I feel that I can trust you not to run off irresponsibly. You two are not to be near each other. At all. He is too dangerous, and is obviously a very bad influence on you. And if this destructive pattern of yours continues, I will place restraining orders against Remy, Bobby, and the rest of your fellow troublemaker friends. Maybe this will make it clear that you have other responsibilities." Emma Frost looked at her charge from behind her desk. "That is all, you may go. Oh, and Jubilee? Your social worker will be here in two hours. Please try to look a little more..........composed."
Jubilee looked the White Queen directly in the eyes. "You aren't the only headmaster here. Cassidy will never allow ya to do this, the X-Men are his friends and benefactors of this school. Not ta mention a vital group of powerful allies, do ya honestly think you can stand against them Emma? Think about what happened every time the Hellfire Club and an X-team clashed. I'm still one of them, an' they take care of their own. You'll lose. Don't provoke 'em."
"To the contrary. Mr. Cassidy, and even my sister are in agreement with me. Jubilation, you are not allowed to go near the other X-teams without one of us saying so. When they come here as guest teachers, that is one thing, but you are suspended from seeing them outside of class." Emma stood up. "Now that is all. I will have no more of this mind-numbing rebellion out of you! I cannot teach you how to survive in the real world, or how to use your powers if you insist on running away to play with your old teammates!" She walked over to the door and opened it. "Oh, and reflect on this. If they 'took care of their own' as you so quaintly put it, why are you here? If they cared about you so much, why didn't they train you better? So don't hand me any of those threats, you know as well as I do that they won't do anything. I must go prepare to greet your social worker. So should you." Then, with as much calm dignity as she could still retain, Emma Grace Frost left.
Why couldn't Jubilee see that her precious X-Men regarded her as nothing more than a shiny plaything? To be taken out and played with every so often, but ultimately shoved back on the shelf? She turned into her room, shut the door, and sat on the bed. Yes, some of them might care for Jubilee, but they would never see her as anything but the sparkler facade she showed them. Emma was well aware of the fact that Jubilation Lee was more than she seemed, but not even the girl's vaunted mentor noticed the steel beneath the attitude. She wasn't a wolf in sheep's clothing, but a dragon disguised as an innocent kitten. A kitten who could detonate matter on a molecular level. The White Queen allowed herself a smile. She was going to make sure the kitten would have a chance to live long enough to grow into her powers. No matter what.
************************************
Kick. Spin. Flip. Roll. Jab. Roundhouse. Uppercut. Flip. Flip. Slide. Jubilee let loose against the fake Hand assassins that the new Danger Room provided her. She had already made it through the first three of the nine levels in under seven minuets without using her powers. Jubilee bared her teeth in what might pass as a grin as she neatly broke one Hand warrior's kneecaps and moved on to the next target. No training, ha! Wait 'till Frostbite saw these scores!
But you didn't learn this from the X-Men, did you? You learned this on the streets, by yourself. What did they ever really do for you than make you a walking target for psychopathic powerhouses? Family? Yeah, right. You know better than that, family doesn't leave you in the clutches of insane genocidal freaks.
"Stop that." Jubilee muttered to herself as she swept the feet out from under two ninjas. "They didn't know I was there. No way they could have known." She vaulted over the head of another pseudo-ninja, hitting pressure points to render him unconscious as she went.
Don't give that crap. You know as well as I do that they suspected. Especially that precious Logan of yours. He knew something was up. But they left. They left you. Again. How many times does that make it?
"I said, shut up! Gawd, for being me, you really don't understand, do you?" Jubilee ducked a bo staff and gave it's owner a solid kick to the gut. "Now leave me alone. I need ta cool off before Miss Kivirin comes. You can just go back to sleep for awhile!"
Sleep? Don't kid yourself. I am you. We are you. I'm just that ruthless thief and cutthroat survivor that you're afraid to let the spandex brigade see. They don't like people with secrets, do they my sister, my twin, my self? Just look what they did to Gambit...............
Jubilee clenched her jaw and tossed her opponent into a wall. "And? Yeah, I'm you, and I'm hiding stuff. So is everyone else. I don't *need* ya anymore! So take a hike!" She picked up the fallen bo staff and used it to wack a few more ninjas along side the head. With that, the taunting inner voice faded, and Jubilee promptly slammed her remaining opponent into the wall. She had time to make it through a few more levels before she had to go play nice with Miss Kivirin.
*****************************
"I'm sorry, but I need some form of confirmation. You realize the position I'm in here, Miss Lee is a ward of the school. I am responsible for her welfare, and I would like some type of identification other than you waving a bunch of papers that you won't even let me look at." Emma gave the woman sitting at the opposite end of her desk the same look that made CEO's around the globe crumple. "This is not acceptable."
"I have little care about what you find acceptable Miss Frost. All you need to know is that Allison Kivirin has been dismissed from her post and that I am now Jubilation's social worker. Allison's work regarding Jubilation and her other 'special cases' has been deemed, shall we say, unsatisfactory by certain persons. I am now in charge of her entire caseload, including Ms. Lee." The woman returned Emma's glare with interest. "I want to see Jubilation. Now. This is going on my report."
"An' on ours." Sean Cassidy placed his hand on the back of Emma's chair. "I would like tae know exactly who your superiors are. This is a very well respected and prestigious school, Miss, ah, Webb, and we dinnae take well to threats."
"Jubilee is standing at the door as we speak, waiting for me to call her in. Which I will not do until some things are settled."
"I fail to see any problem here. Why are you so resistant to the fact that the girl's social worker has been changed?" Ms. Webb tapped her fingers on her briefcase.
"Jubilee has.........problems with authority. You are by now hopefully familiar with her case, so I will not go in to details. She has trouble trusting anyone, and this sudden switch is bound to make her very suspicious and hostile towards you. Jubilee likes Allison Kivirin, and trusts her as well. That's not a small thing. Miss Kivirin had the patience and the guts to get through to Jubilation. I can say with complete confidence right now that you and Jubilee are not going to get along very well, and I would hate to see such a promising girl relapse into the jaded and bitter creature she used to be because of your pre-existing prejudice towards her." Adrininne stood up from the chair she had been sitting in next to Emma's desk. "You have made no secret of your feelings about her."
"You are correct. I do not feel she belongs here. She is a threat to the well being of all the other children at this school. Jubilation is an emotionally unstable criminal, and I must think of the welfare of the others. The only way that girl will ever get any better is in an institution."
Emma's eyes snapped a brilliant blue. "And that is something that I will never allow!"
Jubilee clenched her fists. She could hear every word, Frost's door was cracked just enough. "So I'm a threat, huh? You have no clue lady!" She pushed her hair back behind her ears and smoothed down her uniform's skirt. Ali Kivirin had understood. She knew. She knew all too well.........................
When they walked around campus, Jubilee always laughed and joked around, hitting Ev or Angelo for their comments and jokes. But it didn't escape her how the "normal" people always moved away from her. How they whispered and pointed at her. How "chaos and destruction poster girl", "wild child" and "orphan street-trash" floated through the air. She couldn't let herself feel anything. No, she had made the choice to go her own way a very long time ago. She was Jubilation Lee. Jubilee. She couldn't feel regret. She would not feel the pain. She would not be left alone again. As long as she didn't care, she was safe.
Was it really only a few hours ago that she had been sitting with Illyana? Jubilee wiped her eyes quickly. She still missed the blond girl that had she had so quickly bonded with. "We're kindred souls, you an' me kid. They don't get it, do they?" Strong. She had to be strong. Nobody could know what she really felt, what she was going through, or they'd recoil with that look on their faces usually reserved for the Marauders or the Acolytes.
**Jubilee, calm down. I am attempting NOT to read your thoughts, but you are broadcasting, and that is not making my job of dealing with this bitch in my office any easier. If you want to listen, I will push the intercom button to Sean's office. You can go raid his coffee stash and throw things around in there.**
Jubilee straightened up, mentally attuning her mind to Emma's. **Is it his coffee, or Moria's?**
**His. McTaggaert's coffee is a health hazard.** Emma broke contact with Jubilee to turn her full attention to the throughly unpleasant woman before her. She had not been completely honest with her student. The fact that NO emotion had been leaking through Jubilee's shielding had alarmed her. That, combined with the fact that Jubilee had suddenly 'disappeared' from her psionic radar had forced Emma to broadcast in order to find her. The White Queen tapped her cup of tea thoughtfully. While in Australia, Psylock had never picked up on the girl's presence. She had even scanned directly for Jubilee back at the mall after the M-Squad fiasco, and the girl had been unreadable. It was as if she didn't exist. To her knowledge, the only people invisible to any form of psionic scanning were Gambit, Logan, and that lout Creed. This would bear further discussion with her young protegee.
*****************************
Five hours earlier.......
"Giant ants from space, snuff the human race, then they eat your face, never leave a trace! La la la la la!" Jubilee happily sang as the jeep tore down the road at a reasonable ninety miles an hour.
"Darlin', go a little easier on the old eardrums, will ya?" Logan glanced into the backseat where Kitty, Ororo, and Jubilee were sitting, looking perfectly innocent. "What is that racket, anyways?"
"Music, duh." Jubilee gave Logan her patented 'if you loved me you won't say another thing' look. She rummaged around in her backpack, finally pulling out a cd. "Here. Put this in the cd player."
Peter took the cd from the young mutant and looked at it. "The Kabalas?"
"A friend sent it to me. I was playing it for 'Yana earlier, you might actually like it Petey."
Logan sighed and took the cd from Peter. "What number?"
"Um.......four! That's my favorite!"
The sky is cold and gray, so's my hair so's my life
The boss chewed out my ass today
I better stand up to drink this beer
What's this, I thought I threw out the Christmas cards last July
A wallet size falls out, my God that gets me thinking
that life was so much better when I had summer vacation
if I only knew then what I know now, I could ask her advice
So I'm dialing ring ring...........
"Summer vacation......ha! I haven't had one of those since I first came to Xavier! No time off for good behavior in X-land." Kitty leaned back and wistfully looked up at the clouds as they sped down the interstate. "A vacation from all the madness......"
Hello? Hello can I speak to little Lisa on the phone
you see, I've got a photo with me and I can see
little Lisa with the phone in her hand.
Oh, oh I need a child's point of view, can't you see
back then we thought the world was our own
now I'm full grown, can I hear the voice on Lisa's phone?
Not that a child's view is much different, Storm reflected silently as she glanced over at Jubilee and Kitten. What will happen when not even children can look out at the world in innocence and awe? Two girls, one about to turn eighteen, the other only about twenty..... dear goddess! How old was Kitty? Ororo frowned slightly and thought. Kitten had been seventeen when Illyana died..... so that would make her about twenty-two.....yes, that sounded right. It disturbed her that so much time had gone by without her noticing it. So much had happened to these two children. They weren't children anymore, even though it hurt her to admit it.
Peter tried to keep his eyes glued to the dashboard. Yes, I used to think I owned the world, he recalled. And it took the absence of a child's voice to remind me that I did not. And now it has taken a child to show me that life goes on, and that my pain was not honoring Snowflake's memory.
I held my breath and patiently waited as she picked up the phone
I asked her how's it going, how she's doing, what's up
and she said, "Hi"
I asked her what the secret was to happiness, she paused
and then said, "Hi"
and then I heard her phone, I knew what she was telling me,
I'd better lighten up or face a life of uncertainty
I realize now that to her nothing's real, it's just fun
so I'm dialing ring ring.......
Logan looked at Jubilee out of the corner of his eye. Not for the first time he wondered how she always kept herself pulled together. Her parents were murdered, she had lived on the streets, watched friends die, been abducted and tortured, and had been the target of so many attacks because of her ties to the X-Men to count anymore. Life kept throwing the worst it had at her, and Jubilee just threw it back with a laugh and an insult. If she ever stopped and thought about how hellish her life really was, she never showed it. The fact that she was still sane was nothing short of amazing. It was all his fault too, if he hadn't dragged her back to the X-Men with him. If he had only put her with Yukio or Jessica Drew in Madripoor or something! Anything but what she was living now.
Jubilee snuck a look around the jeep. Great. Kitty was daydreaming, Ororo had spaced out, Pete was looking down at the dash board, and Logan was trying to sneak worried glances at her. So much for a happy song perking them up. Ok, so it's not really that happy of a song. But somehow she thought it would have made them a little happier. The last thing she needed right now was Logan having yet another angst attack about 'dragging her into his world' or Storm getting all motherly on her. Jubilee cracked her gum in annoyance. This had to stop. There was enough angst in the mansion as it was, the last thing the world needed was more mopey mutants. If these were the guys saving the world, she was gonna move to Shi'ar. Even if her royal-flightiness is a bitch.
.....End Part One............?