Chapter Two

The Beginning

Three Weeks Earlier:

Jean was sick of this, ever since she returned the stupid 'Squad' had been tracking her every move, interrupting her at various times, and occasionally causing her to have accidents such as this morning when Jamie jumped out of the pantry and caused her to spill the coffee all over the floor.

That was bad enough, but they were also treating her like a time bomb, which was amusing at first, but her son had begun to notice. She was just done. Doing someone a favor was one thing, but if that favor was impacting your life you had the right to revoke it, right? Right. So she was done.

This was the speech Jean had been practicing for the last six hours, before finally getting up the nerve to make the call. She had just dialed, however when Julian appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and made her scream.

As usual, when she screamed it caused the lock down to trigger. The sheets of steel descended on the windows, the doors all sealed, the red warning lights flashed, the alarms sounded, and even from here she could hear the students being escorted to the danger room out of the line of fire. The worst part though was communication was cut off, just as the line picked up.

Logan came barreling into the room, with Wanda, John, and Jamie at his heels, screaming in his 'calming voice' "Now Now Jean, there's no reason to over-react and have another indecent is there? No no there isn't. SO let's all just take a deep breath and use our words. Words not Powers."

Jean rolled her eyes. 'Words not Powers' had appeared on every wall in the school six months ago after Logan had attended an Anger Management Class. He seemed to forget as soon as he had gotten home that the reason for taking the class in the first place was that he had freaked out in the mall when a saleswoman had offered him a free sample and destroyed the bakery. Instead he had adopted 'Words not Actions' and made it his own. There was an entire new chapter in the Book on the matter, as well as several new charts.

Jean opened her mouth to accuse Julian of being responsible for her scream, but was interrupted by Wade entering the room wearing full body armor and carrying a fire extinguisher. Everyone turned to the man and stared for a few moments before Logan finally (once again in his 'calming voice) asked Wade why he was wearing a cowboy hat on top of his mask. While Wade explained his reasoning, which seemed to include "Sneaking up on an elusive pocket dragon eating a peanut butter taco." Jean slipped from the room.

She pulled out her cell phone, and hoped that he would answer the phone if he saw it was her. She dialed quickly as she dived into the laundry room, the others had noticed her absence and were following her. The line picked up just as Logan ran through the door, with a large butterfly net, a sedative in a syringe, and a bullhorn (so that she could better hear his calming tone).

Before Logan could speak Jean said "I'm sorry about this" into the phone and turned on the speaker. She held it out to the others who froze wondering what diabolical plan would come of this.

"Sorry about what? What's going on Jean? Is Nate okay?" came a familiar voice through the speaker." Is it Rach?"

"What the- Violator?!" Logan said, through the bullhorn.

"Jean? What did you do?" Scott said through the speaker, now sounding angry.

"I couldn't take it anymore Scott! I can't even breathe without someone thinking I'm about to freak out. It's one thing to let them all think you're dead because you're stupid, but I've spent three years with them thinking I murdered you and got away with it! They can't make you come back here, so now they know the truth." Before Scott could respond she hung up on him, then turned to the others.

"... You mean Violator isn't dead?" Logan said, now lowering the bullhorn.

"Nope."

"You didn't Phoenix out and forget about it?"

"...Nope"

"We wasted hours of resources and time creating an unnecessary squad that could have been better spent on the Salesmen Threat?"

"Yup"

The others saw Logan's expression as he processed this, and by the time he had dropped the bullhorn only Jean, Julian and Wade remained in the room...or the East Wing. Luckily for Jean, and the rest of them, Wade managed to process his anger in a timelier manner than Logan. Unfortunately for them all, Julian was having one of his rare moments when he paid attention throughout an entire conversation.

"Three years! THREE. . Of my LIFE I wasted on this! You! You tricked me! I swore I wouldn't get dragged into your insanity like everyone else around here, and somehow you managed it anyway! How? How did you do it?! I don't even pay attention when you're teaching, let alone ranting and yet you managed to steal three years of my life?!" Julian said pointing and Logan before turning on Jean. "And you! You knew it was all a great big lie and you just let it go on. I could've been gone from here! I could have gotten away from this nuthouse, but noooo. Instead I get sucked into this idea that miss big bad class five is going to go nuclear any day now and we have to protect the world from her! Are you really even a class five? Are you really even a mutant at all? I mean in all the time I've been here I've never so much as seen you move a pen with your 'powers' how do we know you even have powers? Maybe you just like attention! I could be anywhere right now! I could be in Paris or London, or Springfield! I could be saving lives for real instead I'm stuck here with a crazy badger looking freak for a boss and some zen-washout nut job as my therapist living in the woods. How did I get into this? I'm out. Done. Over. Goodnight."

"Julian-" Logan began.

"No sir, I said good night." Julian replied as he walked out of the room.

"...It's three in the afternoon! You still have another English class to teach!" Logan said.

"You teach it then; I need a nap." said Julian's muffled voice from down the hall.

Wade, as it turned out had used the time Julian was ranting to think further on the subject and had decided he was not angry after all. In fact, he saw this as a good thing. Now they could focus on the real threat. "Okay. So, the whole Phoenix thing is off the table, which is good. By this evening I can get the members refitted so we can take on the Elves. I found the tracks of at least five more today in the pantry. I know, I know, Wanda assured us all those weren't elf track, and were in fact the fingerprints left over from when she was teaching the kids how to make cookies this morning, but think I can tell the difference between fingerprints and elf tracks. Those sir were elf tracks, and because we have wasted so much money on watching the red-head, including all the surveillance updates last week, we still can't afford to import the pocket dragons, and catching wild domestic pocket dragons in this climate without peanut butter is next to impossible. Since you still won't let me have back my ammo we have to resort to pocket dragons, if you would just give me back my ammo we could have it handled, or at least my real swords. I swear I wouldn't hurt any of the students, and I would only maim certain members of the staff, I've gotten a lot better at my anger control issues and my memory troubles, plus the elf threat is increasing and why are we all standing around in the laundry room when the elves keep getting in through the kitchen. I'm going to rewire the surveillance feeds to catch the elves so you and Mr. High-and-Mighty out in the woods can see I'm not just crazy. Oh and here's the new numbers you wanted on baby-projections, with the new batch of students. Also, I decided not to violate the court order on giving you those Sales Projections, I gave them to Ororo instead, I'm going to go inform the rest of the PPS that they are now on elf duty. Also, young lady, if you ever waste valuable time like this again you won't have to worry about the look Logan is giving you right now. Okay, have fun."

"...Did he just threaten me, or the make believe elves, or you?" Jean asked after Wade had left the room, skipping happily and ripping pages from his copy of The Book. She saw the expression on Logan's face, and slowly walked the other way as he chased after Wade silently thanking Wade for distracting Logan from her.