Disclaimer: none of these characters are mine no copyright infringement intended this disclaimer applies to all chapters in this fanfiction.
The students were getting ready for school to begin after the two-day "rest break" to have the mansion cleaned up. The students didn't want any more time off, they just wanted to forget Alkali Lake and get back to their lives; to maintain what remnants of normalcy they still had. Jubilee felt her hands charging in an unusual way and her body was itching all over as if static was rushing in her blood.
"Jub' what is up with you today?" Emma Frost, her roommate asked as she put on her shirt and saw Jubilee standing in front of her open drawer, clothes sloppily shoved in there giving birth to their wrinkled appearance. She rubbed her hands together as if she were trying to warm them up.
"I don't know, my powers are just—I feel, so overwhelmed and agitated like my powers are trying to escape my body"
Jubilee, could I see you a moment in my office?
Xavier's voice called out into the hallway.
Jubilee looked at Emma. As soon as you finish dressing of course, the voice finished.
"You can't hide anything from that guy." Jubilee muttered
"Yeah, but that is what is so comforting about this place he always knows when to help you and how to help you so we don't have to go through it alone" Emma offered.
"Whatever, it sounds like the guy has a serious god-complex if he thinks he can be there for everyone. Besides no one else has to refer to their life as an 'it' –oh except maybe cancer patients and war veterans because they are either invisible or contaminated with some cellular disease that no one can cure—just like us." Jubilee said bitterly as she pulled a pair of black jeans from her pile of clothes in the corner that were less wrinkled than their companions mangled in the drawer; and combed her hair into one of her unique "Jubilation Lee original" styles. Then she changed her shirt and trudged herself to see the professor.
She entered the office and saw the professor sitting at his desk; hands laced together back erect and a loving but concerned smile on his face.
"How are you Jubilation?" he asked warmly
"You tell me." Jubilee said as her hands sputtered an irritated buzz sputtered along with a sharp pulsating bolt like lightning. She saw the hurt reaction clouded by concern painted on Xavier's face, so she softened up a little, maybe Emma was right and he was just trying to help.
"Ever since Alkali Lake I just feel so weird, you know, that place gave me the creeps, I still have nightmares about it all. It is so annoying. I just want to sleep, you know, but I don't want you to think that this is some scam to get out of class."
Xavier smiled.
"I don't believe you are trying to get out of class, you are one of the top students
in your class; but even if you were don't you think I'd know?" Xavier asked.
He did have a point, she realized. It is all his fault that I'm in this mess, him and his stupid cerebro machine she thought, wanting to blame somebody for all this then realizing that he probably heard her, she felt embarrassed and looked away.
"Tell me more of these dreams, or would you mind if I looked at them myself?" he asked as if he didn't hear her thought at all.
"You mean like read my mind?"
"Yes."
Jubilee hesitated, and then agreed to let him read her mind. She reclined on the near by sofa and saw Xavier coming up behind her in his chair.
"This won't hurt at all Miss Lee, don't worry, just try and relax." Xavier's voice was calm and soothing as he closed his eyes and placed each of his hands on each side of her head.
The room is dark, there are faint footsteps, suddenly there are shots and loud voices, a scream a loud piercing scream, Siryn--- who needs an alarm with a house guest like that—Jubilee remembered thinking .Then someone knocked down her door, a man in a mask carrying a gun. They shot at her, she threw the pellets back at one soldier but another came up behind her and put her in a dark bag. All she remembered was being dragged, some place, the shooting and screaming getting fainter all the way. The next thing she knew she was being thrust into a van and she hit her head on something hard.
Xavier stopped.
"What do you see?" Jubilee asked
Wolverine sat in his official new room smoking a cigar. All he could think about was Jean, he kept reliving the whole moment in his head, like a bad scene from a movie.
"Logan, are you all right?" Ororo asked as she peeked in his room. Logan didn't respond verbally back to her, lost in the torment of the old memory and it was clearly illustrated upon his face.
Bobby and Rogue were giving Nightcrawler the tour of the mansion.
"And down there is cerebro and down that way is the danger room" Rogue instructed.
"Cerebro? I have heard that word before. At that place with the snow, Miss Monroe asked me to take her inside. Then everything fell down" Kurt said, his German accent slathered over every syllable of his words. His tone was solemn as he recounted the event much like when he was explaining the assassination attempt on the president to Jean and storm at the church in Boston. Rogue and Bobby looked at each other as the awkward silence clot their vocal chords.
"Why don't we show you to your room?" Bobby said clearing his throat to kill the silence. They proceeded to the elevators.
"Will I be able to go back to Boston to retrieve my things?" Kurt asked as he stroked his tail and looked down the various hallways and encoding them into his photographic memory.
"What did you see, Professor?" Jubilee demanded.
The Professor smiled and rolled over to his desk.
"You are under a great deal of stress; I'm recommending you relax for a couple of more days. In addition, if you like you may see me for counseling twice a week. Perhaps sit down with a good book or--"
"Professor, look at me! I don't want a book and a couple days cooped up in my dorm. I am buzzing like nobody's business what I want is to know what is wrong with me!" Jubilee interrupted. She charged her hands, again they sounded almost like static from the t v.
Professor Xavier sighed as he readjusted himself in his chair. "It appears that this traumatic event triggered something in your mutation and you are evolving—or growing, your powers are becoming more powerful and that can be a scary and bizarre time for a mutant. That is why you need to rest stay stationery, we don't know what your powers may do. When Scott--"
"As if being a mutant alone isn't 'bizarre' enough" Jubilee interrupted scoffingly as she left upstairs and to her class.
Ororo just left Logan's room and was on her way to her classroom as the bell rang and school began; the halls were crowded with students. She bumped into the Jubilee in the hallway. She was already steaming after already hearing the news of her getting weirder and bumping into Storm just made it worse.
"Sorry I bumped into you Jubilee," She said with a slight smile
"Yes, I am sure you are everyone is—everyone is sorry about everything!" She said as she raised her hands up in anger as if she was strangling someone over her head and pulled them down just as angry and just as she did, she sent a 9-volt charge full blast at Storm. She quickly beckoned a bolt of lightning that cracked through the mansion to protect herself.
"Jubilee, are you alright?" Storm asked as her eyes dissolved from their cloudy film from bringing on the lighting. The students passing by were now staring at the two of them. Jubilee stared in horror at her hands like there was an oozing contaminant dripping on them and she felt the further death of her humanity creeping in on her. She darted in the opposite direction of her class to the elevator, bumping people along the way, completely distraught.
Rogue and Bobby showed Nightcrawler his room.
"You see, they already sent for your things" Bobby said with a smile as he saw Nightcrawler's face light up with a shocked happiness seeing all his things from the church all organized just the way they were at the church.
"I just hope they got everything." Rogue said the same happiness beamed in her voice, "this is your new home now,"
"We gotta get to class, but uh, you know just make yourself comfortable" Bobby said as he tugged lightly on Rogue's hand, and they left up the stairs. Night crawler walked into his new room.
"Das ist mein Zimmer" Nightcrawler whispered to himself as he looked around. He touched the crucifix and looked at his circus posters. "Das ist mein Zimmer" he repeated.
Wolverine stuck out his claws and laced his other hand between them as he stared at the picture of Jean.
"Why? Why wouldn't you let me help you?" he asked.
He heard Jean's last words resonate in his mind, an echo fading to nothing.
Her voice sounded so soft like it was fading, fading away from him forever, like the very possibility of love fading away, running away, choosing another man, it never chose him. Jean, Rogue, they had made him soft. . . .
On the other hand, did they make him more human--was it possible that he was running from the human inside himself because he always thought, felt like an animal that he didn't know there was a man inside this mutant shell of his with the claws and ghost past?
Stryker's voice struck him like a mallet. He closed his claws and put Jean's picture back in his drawer. Even though he had chosen to stay with the X-men and stop chasing his questions, he still had to overcome the feeling that he was some . . . mistake, a glitch in the gene pool of humanity.
Jubilee kept running as far as she could until she got to an unknown quarter of the building—a part of it she had never been in—where the adults slept, all the professors.
She turned a corner and she saw Nightcrawler in his room praying on his Rosary. It's him, that new mutant that was on the news for attempting to assassinate the president—she thought as she watched his three-fingered hand gently rub the beads. Then he looked up as if he sensed her presence staring at him, his yellow-chrome eyes so curious, as he cocked his head to the side almost like a playful puppy would. It was then she realized her hands were charging and it had captivated his attention. She tried with all her power to stop them. The she looked back up and saw he was gone; there was just a fog of bluish black smoke. Then she heard a bamf and smelled brimstone. She turned around and saw him standing there smiling.
"Hello." He said his smile made his features look brighter and more human—so gentle not so demonic and dark. That smell she remembered being in that dark cellar like place and those it yellow eyes staring at her and the other frightened kids, almost like they were floating in the air without a body. He's the one who saved us she thought, then she felt her hands charging and sharp pulses where going up and down her arms and around her fingers—she thought of what happened with Storm, she couldn't risk hurting another person . . . .
She ran. She ran right past him and onto the elevator. Once she got inside, she felt the lightning surge out of her again, this time it hurt her. The charges bounced of the walls and back into her vigorously. Now she knew how her victims felt. After a few moments she fell to the ground and the elevator sat there steaming, she let out a cry as she dropped. It reached Night crawler's ears; he ran to the elevator door and stared at it. Could he do it again he wondered. Could he bamf without seeing where he was going and not get hurt? Then he thought Jubilee how she could be seriously hurt and he might have been the only one to save her . . . .
He had to risk it.
"Our Father who art in Heaven . .. bamf hallowed be thy name--" he looked up and saw that he was safely in the elevator. He took a sigh of relief.
"Danken Sie Gott," he said. He then knelt down to Jubilee, gently stroked her cheek.
She moaned a little as she turned her head and opened her eyes to slits, she saw a foggy Nightcrawler peering over her.
"Wach auf" he said gently, "Wake up"
She soon shot up and scooted away from him. He stood up and faced her. He held up his hands in surrender.
"I won't hurt you," he said
"I know but, I don't think I can promise the same thing." She said, her hands were buzzing again. He looked confused and a little afraid.
"I can't make it stop," she said looking at her hands sadly then she looked at him.
"I don't want to hurt you." She said realizing her first remark sounded like a threat.
Nightcrawler's face dropped to concern. She passed out again. He ran to catch her.
The place was abuzz with the news about Jubilee. The other mutants wondered why they weren't feeling as strange as she did or why their powers weren't evolving. Would it affect them later or was the whole thing less traumatic for them than for her? But, if they underwent the same situation how could the trauma affect them less?