Chapter 9
11 months later
November 20th , 1990
The Space Port Arcade – The mall
"You're cheating," Rachel said, drolly.
"I am not!" Jean said, indignantly.
"You've got to be. You can't be that good… Have you learned to sneak into my mind without me knowing?" Rachel asked jokingly, knowing Jean would never do that.
Jean scoffed. "I don't need to read your mind to know you'll hurricane kick me every time I jump up."
And with that, Jean finished off Rachel's Street Fighter character, Ken with a final Hadouken from her Street Fighter character, Ryu. "Want a rematch?" Jean asked with a smug smile on her face.
Rachel couldn't hide the annoyance in her voice. "I'm out of quarters."
Jean just laughed. "You're just like Scott! Always in a huff when you lose."
"Yeah well, show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser," Rachel said, sardonically.
"Alright, alright, no more video games. Let's go grab a bite to eat. I'm craving cinnamon rolls," Jean said, grabbing Rachel's arm and dragging her outside the arcade.
After the two of them ordered their food, they found a quiet spot at a corner of the food court and sat down. Rachel noticed Jean staring at her plate and asked, "Something wrong, Jean?"
"How do you eat so much and not put on any weight?" Jean asked, staring at the three large cinnamon rolls Rachel got all for herself.
Rachel shrugged. "Fast metabolism… got it from my dad."
"Well, I'm jealous," Jean said.
Rachel smiled back at Jean. "I know." Rachel flashed back to a time when she was about twelve years old. She, her mom, her dad and Nathan were out eating at an all-you-can-eat buffet on a Sunday afternoon. Her dad's plate was stacked with all the food you could possibly fit on it.
She remembered her mom looking at his plate with a somewhat amused look on her face and said, "Honey, I love you… but I hate you." She, her dad and Nathan all just burst out laughing. It was a fond memory.
"Rachel, have you ever considered wearing contact lenses?" Jean asked, changing the topic.
"What?" Rachel asked, confused at first, then realized that Jean was referring to her fake prescription glasses. "Oh, these," Rachel said, touching her glasses. "Umm… I'm fine with them. Why?"
"They take up half your face… and you have such a pretty face too. Here, let's see how you look without them," Jean said, reaching out to take Rachel's glasses off.
"No, wait!" Rachel said, standing up quickly so she was out of Jean's reach. "Umm… I meant, I can't see without them and I'm not really comfortable when I can't see, so if you don't mind, I'll just keep them on."
"Oh, okay then," Jean said, looking a little hurt.
After a few awkward moments, Rachel tried turning the topic elsewhere. "Where were you last night? I tried looking for you after dinner to go over some Biology notes for my class and I couldn't find you."
A soft smile graced Jean's face. "Actually, I didn't come home last night. Scott and I went out for dinner and a movie, then stayed overnight at the Hyatt."
"Oh, you mean -"
The blush on Jean's face said it all. Rachel said, awkwardly, "I see… that's… umm… good… good for you… and Scott." Rachel took a long sip of her 7-Up, very uncomfortable with the turn in conversation. She was happy for her parents. She really was. But she didn't want to get into the topic of their sex life. Way too awkward. It didn't help in the slightest that her mom was only slightly older than her at the moment. It was still an image she wanted to erase asap.
Jean laughed. "Rachel, I had no idea you were such a prude."
"Am not!" Rachel said, indignantly. How does she explain that it isn't the topic of sex that made her uncomfortable. It was the topic of sex and her parents that made her uncomfortable.
"Have you… umm… never been with a man before?" Jean asked, whispering.
"Oh, good God, I'm not talking about this… not with you," Rachel said, making a dramatic gesture of putting a finger in each of her ear.
"Come on, Rach, we're friends. This is what girlfriends do… we talk about our love lives," Jean said, laughing and pulling Rachel's hands away from her face.
Before Rachel could come up with a change of topic, their peaceful afternoon was interrupted by an urgent mental call from the professor. **Rachel, Jean, come back to the mansion immediately. We have an emergency.**
Thirty minutes later
The Mansion's Hangar Bay
Scott was the last of the X-Men to board the Blackbird. He sat beside Storm in the cockpit of the plane. They were heading straight to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The professor had briefed them all. Magneto's team of mutants were attacking the facility. The professor had no idea why, but they'd already killed a group of Security Protective Officers stationed by the entrance.
More officers were reported to be inside the building holding off the mutants' attack, but they wouldn't be able to hold out much longer. Moira MacTaggert, who was still trapped in the building, confirmed to Professor Xavier in the brief moments she was able to get to a phone that Magneto was not in the vicinity. His group of mutants consisting of Toad, Pyro, Avalanche, Psylocke and Mastermind were there. They claimed to be looking for top secret documents pertaining to an operation ORCA. Moira had never heard of such an operation.
The professor had lost contact with Magneto in the last several years. In light of the attack on the CIA Headquarters in Langley, the professor tried reaching out to Magneto to determine what his goals were, but with no luck. And so, the team found themselves en route to Virginia.
Upon landing, Cyclops quickly gave instructions. "Everyone, spread out so we're not an easy target. Kurt, you've got the point." Kurt nodded and moved forward. Behind him, the rest of the team took their positions, creating a large triangular formation as they followed him.
Rachel quickly recalled the team's history. The professor had initially made Raven the team leader, but the last few years saw Cyclops emerge as the de facto second in command. It's not been made official, but no one's ever questioned any of her father's orders. He had an inborn air of leadership about him. Even she knew not to gainsay him on a mission.
"I got a bad feeling about this," Peter said.
"All right, guys, let's not get ahead of ourselves." Scott looked to Jean. "Jean, scan the area, we shouldn't be far from the action now – see if you can pick up any thoughts that might allow us to get a handle on the situation."
Jean, out of habit, placed her fingers by her temple and did a quick scan of their surroundings. "They've gotten past the CIA's guards. Made quick work of them. They're in the vault trying to break in right now."
"We have no idea what they're looking for, but it has to be important if they were willing to go this far to retrieve it. We have to make sure they don't get their hands on it," Raven added.
Everyone nodded in understanding. They entered the headquarters. A trail of bodies were left scattered everywhere, mostly of the guards on duty. Kurt made a sign of the cross as he walked past the bodies. They quietly made their way down. They reached the last floor and found the vault demolished. Pyro, Psylocke, Avalanche, Toad and Mastermind were all scavenging through the files. Avalanche was the first to turn around, realizing they weren't alone.
"Looks like we got company!" Avalanche yelled at his teammates.
Pyro wasted no time, he let out a huge wave of fire right at the X-Men. Instinctively, Rachel and Jean put up psionic shields to protect everyone. Storm fired a lightning bolt straight at Pyro which knocked him back and stopped the deluge of fire.
Nightcrawler teleported right behind Toad and knocked him out before he could make any trouble. Quicksilver ran up to join him. "Good job, Elf."
"Err… Danke, Peter."
"I wonder what my old man is up to," Peter said out loud.
"That's what we're hoping to find out," Cyclops answered. He shot a well time optic blast at the feet of Avalanche to knock him off balance as he was about to unleash a series of seismic waves at Ororo, Jean and Rachel's direction.
"Long time no see," Psylocke said to Beast as she circled around him, her psionic blade glowing in her right hand.
Beast growled, took a door right off its hinges and threw it at Psylocke. She easily cut it in half with her psionic blade. Just as she was about to resume her attack on Beast, she was knocked forward by an invisible force. It was Peter! He hit her from behind at super speed. She took another blow before she even hit the ground. But before Peter could get in another blow, he froze mid-run, dropping to the ground and clutching his head.
Psylocke got up and brushed herself off, her fingers at her temple. She walked towards Peter and looking down at him said, "Tsk, tsk, you may be fast, but your speed won't help you against a psychic attack."
Rachel heard her friend's agonizing cries of distress. She saw Peter under a psychic attack from Psylocke. She made quick work of Avalanche and threw him telekinetically against the nearest wall and ran to help her teammate.
Without a word, Rachel psychically attacked Psylocke immediately freeing Peter from her telepathic hold. Psylocke staggered back under Rachel's relentless psychic assault. As a physical combatant, Rachel knew she didn't stand a chance against Psylocke, but as a psi, she knew she was far superior.
Before Rachel could finish her off, she was ambushed by another psychic attack – this time from another source. She looked around and saw Mastermind approaching her. Mastermind was not only a skilled telepath, but he could also create powerful, realistic illusions via telepathy. Rachel soon found herself overwhelmed holding off two separate psionic attacks.
Her first instinct was to cry out for help… to cry out for her mother. But she realized if Jean were to help her, she'd be privy to all her memories… all her secrets. She couldn't allow that to happen. She had no idea what the repercussions were – to this timeline, to her future… her existence.
Mastermind tried hard to create a terrifying illusion that Rachel's teammates were turning against her. The telepathic attack by Psylocke morphed to look like an attack from Jean. All of a sudden, the psychic plane that Rachel was on turned into the Danger Room. She was fending off an optic blast from Cyclops, she had to erect a psionic shield to protect herself from Storm's lightning strike. The Peter in her illusion was running circles around her, hitting her from every angle.
She was drowning in the illusion. She felt her physical body cry out in pain, clutched her head and crumpled to the ground. She fought hard to rid her mind of the illusion Mastermind created. She found some success, chipping away at the illusion – her vision alternating between the chaos in the CIA Headquarters and the chaos in her mind. She saw a glimpse of Jean running towards her.
It took all her energy to telepathically scream out, **No, Jean!**
**Why won't you let me help you?!** Jean asked.
**Just don't! Please don't interfere.** A part of her wanted to let Jean in. The psychic assault was agony to her senses. She knew she wouldn't be able to last too much longer. But the fear of the unknown, the unknown repercussions of Jean finding out who she really was, held her resolve.
As if she was on another plane of existence, she heard her parents arguing… sounding so far away. "Why aren't you helping her, Jean?!" Scott asked.
"She won't let me, Scott!" Jean answered.
On the psychic plane, Rachel had stopped fighting, she had no more strength left. Instead, she created a psionic shield around herself, completely in defense mode. She curled into a fetal position and put all her energy towards warding off the psychic attack.
Then Rachel felt it. An intrusion… not an attack, but someone trying to get in her mind. It was Jean! **No, stay out!** Rachel pleaded. She erected more walls around her mind, but she was drained. She held Jean off for a mere few more seconds. Then she was in. And Psylocke and Mastermind's combined powers were no match for the combined psi talents of mother and daughter. It didn't take long for the odds to tilt in their favor.
But it didn't take long either for Jean to see everything that Rachel had hidden from everyone for the last year. She felt Jean's wonder and awe upon seeing her thoughts, her memories. She felt Jean's confusion when she realized the majority of Rachel's memories were of her… of Scott… of their friends, the X-Men. And Rachel felt Jean's heart stop in shock when she realized the truth. She was Rachel's mother.
Scott was holding Jean in his arms. Her knees had buckled during the psychic battle she waged with Rachel against Psylocke and Mastermind. He didn't know what caused Jean to collapse. He looked at the two enemy telepaths both running away, retreating. She and Rachel were obviously more than those two could handle.
Raven and Ororo were helping Rachel stand up right next to Jean. Scott looked at her and thought she must have really been hurt during the battle as she had a look of pain on her face. Rachel quickly walked away, head down, Hank close behind her.
"Oh – Oh my God…" Jean cried, tears forming in her eyes.
Scott steadied Jean's trembling body.
"Jean, look at me, you're alright," Scott said, trying to get Jean to focus again. She just continued to cry, whispering over and over again, "It can't be… It can't be."
"What can't be? What is it, Jean?" Scott asked, tenderly stroking her cheek. But Jean wouldn't look at him. It seemed she couldn't even hear him. Gently, Scott pushed aside a strand of Jean's hair and whispered in her ear. "Jean, whatever it is, it's over. I'm here, let it go… come back to me."
It took several agonizingly slow moments until Jean seemed to gather herself. Jean's numbed expression softened, her trembling muscles began to relax. But the haunted look in her eyes remained.
"Scott?" Jean said, tentatively.
Scott smiled in relief. "Welcome back, hon."
"Rachel? Is she -" Jean started.
"She's fine… she's umm… somewhere," Scott said, looking around. "What happened to you?"
"I… Nothing," Jean said, a mask of indifference coming over her face. Scott decided to let it go for the moment. "Raven, Storm, did the mutants get what they were looking for?"
"No, it doesn't look like it. We were able to push them back and force them to abandon their search. With Rachel and Jean taking care of the two telepaths, the rest were easy for us," Raven answered.
"Alright, let's head back to the Blackbird before reinforcements arrive," Scott said, as he lifted Jean in his arms and led the way back.
Scott allowed Peter and Raven to fly the jet back. He stayed further back in the plane to make sure Jean was alright. He looked at Rachel who sat even further back in the jet. She and Hank were whispering fiercely to each other. Scott became curious what had the two in such a heated conversation. Even more baffling was that Rachel and Jean seemed to avoid each other.
Scott knew the two of them had gotten closer than sisters in the past year. To see them ignoring each other not only concerned him but really piqued his curiosity as well. What in the world happened to the two of them on the astral plane? He turned to Jean, "I know something happened to you and Rachel during that battle with Psylocke and Mastermind. I'm worried about you, can't you tell me what happened?"
Jean didn't respond, nor did she look Scott's way. But even in profile, he could see the turmoil in her eyes. He decided to drop the subject for the time being, but he promised himself he'd get to the bottom of things.
To be continued…