AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks so much, tenshi no koneko and Thanx4reading, for
the reviews that reek of kindness and appreciation. For those who don't
read the comics: Nightcrawler's teleport is depicted as a stinky cloud of
brimstone, rather than a cool swirl of black smoke.
616 timeline 04-19-2004 Queens, New York, United States
The room was immersed in suffocating steam, but Rachel didn't mind. Her bruised and tired body basked in a glow of aroma and soothing shampoos. The events of the past 6 hours were a blur in her mind, but somehow she ended up in Queens with a young man named Nick. A struggling artist from Michigan, Nick had experienced losses similar to her own. He owned a large studio-apartment, full of watercolors and charcoal sketches, and he sheltered Rachel there, despite their incredibly short relationship.
She stepped out of her hot bath, drained the tub, and dried herself with a towel. Looking in the mirror, she saw her TK tattoos and felt the past 12 years seeping into her, threatening to revert her to the Hound. She shuddered and turned away to her dingy clothes, riddled with bullet holes. She tried to create a new outfit, but, as before, her jaunt through the timestream had stunted her abilities.
She sighed and put on her black pants and tank top, deciding that it was for the best, as she was hoping to start a life of normalcy here in New York. ~And where better to start~ she thought to herself, ~than in the way I dress?~ Ten minutes later, just as she was lacing up her boots, Rachel heard a scream through the walls. She replaced her Wendigo to the back of her pants, while running out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and into the combined dining room/kitchen. Nick was writhing on the tiled floor in flames.
"Hello, Rachel Summers," slithered an acidic voice behind her. She spun around to face a woman with long, jet-black hair in a shining black corset and cape.
"Who the hell are you?" Rachel spat.
"My name is Selene," answered the woman, "but most know me as the Black Queen of the Inner Circle. I've come to secure my place next to Mastermind on the Hellions' throne." Rachel knew the story well. Jean Grey had joined the club of mutant aristocrats, under the influence of Dark Phoenix. Now, this Selene character was convinced she was going to follow her mother's footsteps.
"I don't want to have anything to do with your Hellions," she said.
"Regardless," Selene purred, "Sebastian Shaw will be interested in you if he finds out you've entered our reality. So we'll just have to make sure he doesn't find out." She put up her hands to send a gush to telekinesis flying toward Rachel, but she jumped out of the way just in time. "Running form TK, Rachel? What's the matter, don't have your powers?" Selene laughed with a high-pitched voice, annoying Rachel to no end.
She pulled her gun from behind her, quickly took aim, fired, and flipped through the air to avoid a few flames shooting for her. The plasma embedded into Selene's left chest, burning through the skin and muscle. She yelped in pain and threw another punch of TK at her.
"I don't need powers to handle a slut in a Halloween costume," Rachel mocked her. But as soon as she had said it, her mind was seized by fierce telepathy, freezing her in her place, and Selene, gripping her chest, came forward with her hands raised. An enormous wall of fire pitched before her, roaring inches from Summers' face. The flames froze for a second or two, as Selene took a last look at her victim, and then came forward at an intense speed, straight for Rachel.
But a gust of wind and ice blew through the apartment window at the last moment, and a blizzard overcame the tiny home. As the fire died, Storm flew in, pinning Selene against a wall, and Rachel fell to the floor, freezing to death, the world slowly going black around her. A puff of smoke burst before her, and she was overwhelmed with a terrible stench. Rachel passed out, as Kurt Wagner picked her up and teleported her out of the apartment.
* * *
616 timeline 04-22-2004 Westchester, New York, United States
Rachel felt herself regaining consciousness, while her world was still dark. Her telepathy was somehow far more advanced than ever, connecting her to peoples and worlds far away, and as she quietly observed, she found that she contained prior knowledge of their history, cultures, and customs, though she couldn't remember where or when she'd learned them. This was far different than her first three experiences with timetravel, which took weeks for full recovery; she had total control of her abilities in less than 48 hours after she exited the timestream.
A voice in her head shook Rachel of her thoughts, and she opened her eyes. She was lying upon an examination table, wearing a form-fitting pair of gray sweats with a silver X upon the chest. She sat up abruptly, pulling an I.V. from a vein and several EKG sensors from her chest. A hand pushed her back firmly but gently, and she looked to her left to see the aged face of a bald Chinese man in a hoverchair.
He introduced himself. "Good morning. My name is Professor Charles Xavier, and you are being housed and cared for at my learning institution, the School for Gifted Youngsters."
"I know who you are," Rachel mumbled, as she gathered her memories of the past few days.
"Yes, of course," he said. "These are two of my students, and members of my mutant league against crime, the X-Men." She followed his hand gesture, and saw the blue-furred teleporter and, for the second time, the best friend she'd never met. "Five years ago, Miss Pryde, who had just joined the X-Men, informed her team of a future piece of legislation that would bring about the Mutant Massacre. With her help, we prevented a political assassination that would become a huge push for this legislation." Rachel began to wonder where the professor was going with his strange greetings. "However, the Pryde who had helped us was not the one you see before you today, but the psyche of a much older and experienced Pryde from a different reality, Kate Rasputin, of the 241 timeline."
It took a few seconds for all of this to sink in, and when Rachel finally understood his meaning, she was frustrated to find out that she had subconsciously known it all the time. "I got lost," she started, "when I traveled through the time space continuum, and accidentally sent her to M.E., here." Things were starting to make sense, though she still didn't know where she was receiving this new knowledge. "That's why nothing changed in our world! Because we never stopped Kelly's assassination there."
"Precisely," Xavier stated, pleased to see how quickly she caught on. "However, the conscious-switching procedure left permanent results upon both women, and Kitty here still has a few useful memories from Kate's mind. One of those memories was her best friend, you. Therefore, when we rescued the person we believed to be the revived Jean Grey yesterday, Kitty was the only one who knew that you were, in fact, her daughter."
Summers' mind began to spin. "Oh, no. No, no. You haven't told either of them, have you?" The other three figures in the room looked to each other with silent expressions of curiosity. "Have you told my parents who I am?!" she asked.
"No," Pryde answered quickly. "I only told my boyfriend, Kurt. He told the professor, but no one else knows. We weren't sure how everyone would react." She became silent.
"Well...thanks," Rachel managed. "I'd rather no one else knew."
Professor Xavier broke in. "Very well, then. None of us will inform anyone of your identity. I'd love for you to stay with us, if you'd like, but I will require that you take at least 8 of the classes we offer to sixteen-year olds. And, now that your powers are revived, the option to join the team is up to you, but you must uphold a 3.5 GPA or better. Now, if you will excuse me, I must attend to a meeting. I leave you with these two as your guide into school life here at the X-Mansion. If you ever have any questions, or want to contact me, they'll show you the location of my office." Using buttons upon a control panel of his chair, he left the room with a smile.
The three figures in the room looked at each other in an awkward silence, as Rachel tried to absorb the avalanche of information that had just poured over her in the past 5 minutes. "So," Kurt Wagner offered, "vat do you vant to see firsth?"
616 timeline 04-19-2004 Queens, New York, United States
The room was immersed in suffocating steam, but Rachel didn't mind. Her bruised and tired body basked in a glow of aroma and soothing shampoos. The events of the past 6 hours were a blur in her mind, but somehow she ended up in Queens with a young man named Nick. A struggling artist from Michigan, Nick had experienced losses similar to her own. He owned a large studio-apartment, full of watercolors and charcoal sketches, and he sheltered Rachel there, despite their incredibly short relationship.
She stepped out of her hot bath, drained the tub, and dried herself with a towel. Looking in the mirror, she saw her TK tattoos and felt the past 12 years seeping into her, threatening to revert her to the Hound. She shuddered and turned away to her dingy clothes, riddled with bullet holes. She tried to create a new outfit, but, as before, her jaunt through the timestream had stunted her abilities.
She sighed and put on her black pants and tank top, deciding that it was for the best, as she was hoping to start a life of normalcy here in New York. ~And where better to start~ she thought to herself, ~than in the way I dress?~ Ten minutes later, just as she was lacing up her boots, Rachel heard a scream through the walls. She replaced her Wendigo to the back of her pants, while running out of the bathroom, through the bedroom, and into the combined dining room/kitchen. Nick was writhing on the tiled floor in flames.
"Hello, Rachel Summers," slithered an acidic voice behind her. She spun around to face a woman with long, jet-black hair in a shining black corset and cape.
"Who the hell are you?" Rachel spat.
"My name is Selene," answered the woman, "but most know me as the Black Queen of the Inner Circle. I've come to secure my place next to Mastermind on the Hellions' throne." Rachel knew the story well. Jean Grey had joined the club of mutant aristocrats, under the influence of Dark Phoenix. Now, this Selene character was convinced she was going to follow her mother's footsteps.
"I don't want to have anything to do with your Hellions," she said.
"Regardless," Selene purred, "Sebastian Shaw will be interested in you if he finds out you've entered our reality. So we'll just have to make sure he doesn't find out." She put up her hands to send a gush to telekinesis flying toward Rachel, but she jumped out of the way just in time. "Running form TK, Rachel? What's the matter, don't have your powers?" Selene laughed with a high-pitched voice, annoying Rachel to no end.
She pulled her gun from behind her, quickly took aim, fired, and flipped through the air to avoid a few flames shooting for her. The plasma embedded into Selene's left chest, burning through the skin and muscle. She yelped in pain and threw another punch of TK at her.
"I don't need powers to handle a slut in a Halloween costume," Rachel mocked her. But as soon as she had said it, her mind was seized by fierce telepathy, freezing her in her place, and Selene, gripping her chest, came forward with her hands raised. An enormous wall of fire pitched before her, roaring inches from Summers' face. The flames froze for a second or two, as Selene took a last look at her victim, and then came forward at an intense speed, straight for Rachel.
But a gust of wind and ice blew through the apartment window at the last moment, and a blizzard overcame the tiny home. As the fire died, Storm flew in, pinning Selene against a wall, and Rachel fell to the floor, freezing to death, the world slowly going black around her. A puff of smoke burst before her, and she was overwhelmed with a terrible stench. Rachel passed out, as Kurt Wagner picked her up and teleported her out of the apartment.
* * *
616 timeline 04-22-2004 Westchester, New York, United States
Rachel felt herself regaining consciousness, while her world was still dark. Her telepathy was somehow far more advanced than ever, connecting her to peoples and worlds far away, and as she quietly observed, she found that she contained prior knowledge of their history, cultures, and customs, though she couldn't remember where or when she'd learned them. This was far different than her first three experiences with timetravel, which took weeks for full recovery; she had total control of her abilities in less than 48 hours after she exited the timestream.
A voice in her head shook Rachel of her thoughts, and she opened her eyes. She was lying upon an examination table, wearing a form-fitting pair of gray sweats with a silver X upon the chest. She sat up abruptly, pulling an I.V. from a vein and several EKG sensors from her chest. A hand pushed her back firmly but gently, and she looked to her left to see the aged face of a bald Chinese man in a hoverchair.
He introduced himself. "Good morning. My name is Professor Charles Xavier, and you are being housed and cared for at my learning institution, the School for Gifted Youngsters."
"I know who you are," Rachel mumbled, as she gathered her memories of the past few days.
"Yes, of course," he said. "These are two of my students, and members of my mutant league against crime, the X-Men." She followed his hand gesture, and saw the blue-furred teleporter and, for the second time, the best friend she'd never met. "Five years ago, Miss Pryde, who had just joined the X-Men, informed her team of a future piece of legislation that would bring about the Mutant Massacre. With her help, we prevented a political assassination that would become a huge push for this legislation." Rachel began to wonder where the professor was going with his strange greetings. "However, the Pryde who had helped us was not the one you see before you today, but the psyche of a much older and experienced Pryde from a different reality, Kate Rasputin, of the 241 timeline."
It took a few seconds for all of this to sink in, and when Rachel finally understood his meaning, she was frustrated to find out that she had subconsciously known it all the time. "I got lost," she started, "when I traveled through the time space continuum, and accidentally sent her to M.E., here." Things were starting to make sense, though she still didn't know where she was receiving this new knowledge. "That's why nothing changed in our world! Because we never stopped Kelly's assassination there."
"Precisely," Xavier stated, pleased to see how quickly she caught on. "However, the conscious-switching procedure left permanent results upon both women, and Kitty here still has a few useful memories from Kate's mind. One of those memories was her best friend, you. Therefore, when we rescued the person we believed to be the revived Jean Grey yesterday, Kitty was the only one who knew that you were, in fact, her daughter."
Summers' mind began to spin. "Oh, no. No, no. You haven't told either of them, have you?" The other three figures in the room looked to each other with silent expressions of curiosity. "Have you told my parents who I am?!" she asked.
"No," Pryde answered quickly. "I only told my boyfriend, Kurt. He told the professor, but no one else knows. We weren't sure how everyone would react." She became silent.
"Well...thanks," Rachel managed. "I'd rather no one else knew."
Professor Xavier broke in. "Very well, then. None of us will inform anyone of your identity. I'd love for you to stay with us, if you'd like, but I will require that you take at least 8 of the classes we offer to sixteen-year olds. And, now that your powers are revived, the option to join the team is up to you, but you must uphold a 3.5 GPA or better. Now, if you will excuse me, I must attend to a meeting. I leave you with these two as your guide into school life here at the X-Mansion. If you ever have any questions, or want to contact me, they'll show you the location of my office." Using buttons upon a control panel of his chair, he left the room with a smile.
The three figures in the room looked at each other in an awkward silence, as Rachel tried to absorb the avalanche of information that had just poured over her in the past 5 minutes. "So," Kurt Wagner offered, "vat do you vant to see firsth?"