Fell
Standard Disclaimer: Theirs, not mine.
Author's Note:
Shortly after I finished my first XME fic, "The Demon Bottle," I realized that I had presented two of the characters rather two-dimensionally. The first, most obvious one, was Storm, who simply held the role of a background character, providing a domestic influence within the school. The second, oddly enough, was Jean Grey. Jean is very much a hub that the other X-men tend to turn around and I found myself somewhat 'stretching' her telepathic abilities.
This story just appeared in front of my eyes.
Radical Nike
Part One
Clouds moved like waves, sometimes. Undulating. It was even a scientific term. Mackerel, like the scales of a fish. Peaceful words, peaceful waves, peaceful feelings.
The clouds could be anvils for the gods to pound on, harbingers of tornadoes and deadly lightning. Dread and terror. Fear of the dark.
Ororo Munroe knew about the darkness that clouds could be, as well as the joys. They could be a mysterious veil over the face of the moon or sparkle with the iridescent lights of the rainbow. Even when they were completely black, there was always an edge that shone so brightly that it burned its shape into the eye, floating like a ghost.
This was the image of Storm, who hovered between the earth and the heavens, her white tresses blowing like clouds themselves, eyes full of light and thunder. She held her arms up to the surging skies and let them embrace her. The arms of the tempest reached out and embraced her.
And she was filled with joy.
The weather in Bayville was subject to change without notice. The local meteorologists had been studying the erratic shifts in pressure and humidity for some time now, but no answers had emerged.
Professor Charles Xavier would have been concerned if they had actually made progress. He turned his attention away from the howling gale battering at the windows and placed it on his student. Jean Grey, more than any other the other students at the school except, perhaps, Scott Summers, was truly his protégée. One day, he knew, her telepathic abilities would surpass his own. Coupled with her increasingly powerful telekinetic powers, she would be a force of nature to fear.
That, however, was in the future.
"Exactly what did you wish to discuss this evening, Jean?"
The beautiful teenager sat silently for a few moments, choosing her words. The flash of light from the tempest outside highlighted her red hair and cast shadows over her cheeks. "Well, Professor, lately I've noticed that some of the other students have been becoming louder."
Xavier touched his hands together in front of his face, considering. "'Louder?'"
She sighed and averted her gaze. "It's like, well, like they're beginning to develop some kind of pseudo-psychic ability. It used to be that in order for me to communicate with them telepathically, I'd have to initiate contact first and then pay very close attention." She met his eyes again. "More and more, it seems like they're reaching out to me."
The older telepath was unsurprised. "I have always believed that all humans have within themselves the potential to communicate mind to mind, Jean. It is quite possible that the contact that Scott and the others have had with you, a more advanced mind, has actually begun to teach them how to use the ability." He reached over and touched her hand gently. "The other students do not have the potential strength and scope that your mutation has given you, but the ability is there. Their minds are trained to yours, and they seek it out automatically." He smiled. "I suspect that they reach out to you more easily than they would ever reach out to me."
Jean was still. "I feel like I'm contaminating them." She looked into her lap.
"Do not fear your influence on your friends, Jean. They don't even realize that it is their own minds, not just yours, allowing contact between you. It has served all of the X-men quite advantageously in the past."
"That's true, Professor, but I still have a bad feeling about what I've done to them. I just don't feel it's right for their minds to be open to mine so easily. What if I—" her words faltered and Xavier sensed what was troubling her.
"Your power surge was unfocused, Jean. It was simply a case of your strength outstripping your experience. Are you afraid that, should your power spike abruptly, that your teammates would be hurt?"
She hid her face with her hands. "Yes," she breathed. "Terrified."
In a separate part of the Institute, immaturity reared its oblivious head.
Actually, it reared two of them.
"Evan, hurry or we'll get caught," a German voice whispered furiously. "He'll be back any moment!"
"Kurt, relax," said his accomplice. "I've got the last bulb right here." A final, authoritative twist and he gave a thumbs up. "Let's get out of here. I just wish I could see Ray's face when his hand hits the connection."
The faceplate to the light switch next to the bedroom door had been pried loose, leaving only the exposed connections. The wires had been connected to a series of parallel circuits throughout the room, each of which was connected to a single light bulb. The power to the room had already been cut.
The two pranksters fled down the hall to Kurt's bedroom, where a pile of paper 'DNA' strands were scattered across their biology homework. "Man, I hope that set-up works," Evan Daniels worried. "I'd hate to have gone through all that trouble just to see it fizzle."
"No worries," Kurt Wagner said cheerily. "Even if it doesn't, he'll still have to remove all the light bulbs." His blue tail waggled mischievously.
"Yeah, after he kills us..."
A knock on the door was all the warning they had before Kitty Pryde walked through it. "Hey, Kurt, can I borrow—" She observed their conspiratorial huddle. "What did the two of you do this time?"
"Katzchen, I'm hurt that you would automatically assume I'm up to no good," Kurt said mournfully, a sparkle of mayhem in his eyes. "I am flattered by your keen observation of my humble self, though."
Kitty groaned. "Oh, puh-lease. Whatever it is, I'm sure I'm, like, better off not knowing. Plausible deniability and stuff. I just wanted to know if I could borrow your graphing calculator. I fried mine."
She did have a habit of doing that. "As long as you promise to hit the buttons with the tip of your eraser and not your fingers," he grinned. He jumped over to his desk and rummaged around for a moment. "Ah!" He vanished in a cloud of smelly smoke and re-appeared hanging off the light fixture bolted onto the wall by the door.
Kitty grabbed the calculator and looked at him with narrow eyes and a quirked eyebrow. "Thanks, fuzzy."
A loud curse exploded from the hall.
Evan jumped up. "That was Ray."
Kurt's smile extended from pointy ear to pointy ear. "Shall we see what he's so upset about?" The pair rushed out the door.
Kitty rolled her eyes. "Do I really want to see this?" She heard the laughs of the other students in the hallway. "Yeah," she admitted.
The sheer amount of blinding white light pouring from Ray Crisp's bedroom said it all.
The brunette sighed. "Ray, like, really needs to stop zapping every little thing he touches," she said to no one in particular, handling Kurt's calculator very carefully. Black kettles and all that.
Outside, Storm saw brilliant light fill one of windows of the dormitories, but it faded after a minute. It was not important.
The wind that tore at the trees and the rain that beat upon the earth did not touch her. This tempest was not of her creation, but she still reveled in it. A storm of this magnitude was rare and she never dared to create one herself.
She was not a goddess anymore. She had no need to punish or reward. Not with the might of nature itself.
The control she had of the elements had been hard-won, over the years. She had fought to contain her emotions once she understood how they impacted the world around her in the form of the weather. Ororo had sought and achieved serenity in order to keep her tribe—and then her comrades—safe.
Nothing would tear that hard-won peace from her. The result could destroy all she cherished.