Part 6: Double Trouble
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The three mutants standing on the shores of Alkali Lake when the being that had once been Jean Grey emerged didn't know it, but the fact that neither of them was psychic was a distinct blessing in that moment. It probably saved their lives, in fact.
Telepaths and sensitives around the globe felt it as the being that had slumbered on the bottom of the lake for the better part of a year awoke. Its mind, so vast, so glorious, so painfully bright, expanded and encompassed the Earth for a single split-second. Millions of minds were touched as it brushed across their thoughts in an instant. Only the smallest portion of them realized it, even less knew what it was.
Some collapsed, screaming, weeping tears as something beyond their ability to comprehend passed them by and left them trembling in its wake. Others merely stumbled, either too distant or their sensitivity too weak to experience more than a passing sensation. A very few, who had the misfortune of being closest to the advent, had their sanity shattered by the rumble of a giant's footsteps.
One telepath, Charles Francis Xavier, founder and leader of the X-Men and arguably the strongest psychic on Earth, also felt the touch of the entity's awakening. It penetrated his mind like a series of hot pokers, shoved in without preamble or warning. He hissed in pain, almost toppling from his chair, but held on and quickly brought his mental shields to full power. They held, barely, allowing his sanity to survive. He also caught a glimpse of what it was that had assaulted him, right before he passed out.
A group of students found him several hours later, wondering why the Professor was late for their class. Their concerned screams alerted Kurt Wagner, the teleporting mutant known as Nightcrawler, who appeared in the Professor's study in a cloud of black brimstone.
"Professor? Professor, answer me! Are you all right?"
Two of the students left to get the school nurse, but by the time she arrived Charles was coming around again, clutching his aching head.
"Kurt? What...? Oh, I... I think I fell asleep. I was up too long yesterday grading papers. I'm so sorry to have alerted you all."
Kurt hadn't been a member of the X-Men that long, but he recognised quickly that Charles was lying for the sake of the students present. So he quickly aided him in shooing them out, their class would be rescheduled. The nurse also left, not before making the Professor promise to catch up on his sleeping.
When they were alone, Kurt turned his yellow gaze questioningly on his teacher.
"What happened, Professor?" he asked, his German accent thick with worry.
"I am not yet certain, Kurt," he answered, reaching for the communication console built into his desk. "Possibly something wonderful. Or maybe something terrible."
Not trusting his telepathy, Charles activated the com equipment and radioed the X-Men's jet. It took him but a few seconds to get Storm on the line. In fact, he could see that his people on the X-Jet had tried to reach him several times already while he'd been unconscious.
"Ororo, report! What happened?"
"Professor, I'm glad we finally reached you. We're on our way back to the mansion. ETA in about thirty minutes."
"Ororo, please tell me... is Jean with you?"
He heard the white-haired mutant hesitate for a moment before she answered. "I think so, Professor. I... I am not quite sure, but I think so."
That answer disturbed him more than anything, less because of the ominous wording, but because he could hear the undercurrent of fear in Ororo's voice. Being one of the most powerful mutants in the world, Ororo wasn't afraid of much. When she was she usually had very good reason.
"I will prep the med lab," Charles told her. "Hurry back, Ororo!"
"We will, Professor. Storm out!"
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Thirty-two minutes later Charles, along with Scott, Logan, Ororo, and Kurt, was in the med lab and stared at the figure lying prone on the examination table. This was both the stuff of his dreams and his nightmares, his hopes and his fears.
Jean Grey was alive. She was right here, her steady breathing a clear sign that she had somehow survived her ordeal. She was sleeping, apparently passed out from sheer exhaustion, had been since the moment she broke free from the lake and set down beside her friends.
Even a blind person would have realised, though, that something about her had changed significantly. Her hair was longer, of course, her skin pale from lack of sunlight, and her body almost painfully thin. There was a glow about her, though, like small flames licking across her skin like a simmering fire.
Right before their eyes her body seemed to grow healthier, all signs of having spent close to ten months without food or light or warmth vanishing without a trace. No, it was more than that. The faint lines age had only just begun to carve into her face also faded, leaving her looking as young as she had ten years ago. It was as if every flaw, every imperfection, was being burned away by the purifying flames.
"Scott?" Charles asked, his voice laced with concern.
"I heard her voice in my head," the younger man told him. "Somehow her telekinetic powers reached out and took my glasses away. She then told me to open my eyes and look at her so she could be free."
Seeing Scott without his glasses on had nearly caused Charles a heart attack at first. His eyes were glowing red, but no beams came shooting forth. Scott had put his spare glasses back on, though, for he feared that this calm wouldn't last long. He could already feel his body recharging. Soon his gaze would be lethal once more.
"Somehow she absorbed the energy from my eye beams," Scott continued. "Then she came forth and... I can't really describe it. It was... you had to be there."
Ororo and Logan just nodded as Charles looked to them, neither having the words to describe the sight of Jean breaking free of the lake amidst a flaming bird image that outshone the sun itself.
"She floated under her own power and set down beside us," Scott finished his tale. "Then she collapsed and we rushed her back here."
"This is extraordinary," Charles said, carefully reaching out with his telepathic senses. "It seems Jean was able to preserve herself somehow, using her powers to protect her body from the waters. But she needed energy to break free and used your eye beams to get it."
"Jean was never this powerful," Ororo said, concerned. "Professor, what happened to her?"
His mental probe carefully brushed over Jean's mind, looking without touching, trying not to disturb the slumbering conscience.
"As a matter of fact, Ororo, Jean always had the potential to be much more powerful than she was," Charles said. "For various reasons that potential was never quite realised, though in the months leading up to Alkali Lake she grew progressively more powerful."
Logan gave him a strange look and Charles could see the mutant's nostrils flare slightly.
"You're not telling the whole story, chuck," he said, a slight growl in his voice. "What aren't you saying?"
A very uncharacteristic swear word almost escaped Charles. Logan might not be a telepath, but with his acute senses and God alone knew how many decades of experience in evaluating people, he was better at reading thoughts than many a psychic.
"Professor?" Scott asked, confusion in his voice.
Charles sighed. "It's... it's complicated, Scott. Jean... when I first met her I realised how very powerful she might become. Her abilities had manifested so early, so powerfully... it was more than her mind could handle. So I used my own powers to put psychic blocks into her psyche, sealing away the largest part of her powers from her conscious mind."
"You lobotomised her?" Logan asked, enraged. "Who gave you the right...?"
"I did no such thing, Logan," Charles said forcefully. "I helped a young girl who was on the verge of brain death because of powers she couldn't control." Calming himself, he continued. "It was always my intent that, as Jean grew older, I'd work with her to release these blocks bit by bit and let her grow slowly into her full potential. Unfortunately that process seems to have been accelerated far ahead of schedule."
Once again he brushed over her mind, his worst fears realised.
"Whatever happened to Jean, the psychic blocks are completely gone. Every last one of them has been erased. For the first time since she was eight years old Jean is now in full possession of her power. I am afraid there is no telling what this sudden surge in ability might have done to her sanity."
"She called for my help," Scott said. "She remembers me and she remembers her friends."
"Jean is strong," Ororo agreed. "Whatever is going on with her, she'll push through it. She always does, even when the odds look insurmountable."
"I hope you are correct, Storm," Charles told them all. "I really hope you are."
He rubbed his tired eyes, checking the life signs monitor they had attached to Jean's sleeping form.
"She will wake soon," Charles said. "When she does, Scott, the most important thing of all will be to keep her calm. Her power has grown exponentially. At this very moment she is probably strong enough to blow this entire building apart with a stray thought. Stay with her, keep her calm and focused. Do not do or say anything that might cause her stress or anxiety."
"Understood, professor," Scott nodded.
Loan was still looking at him suspiciously, Charles saw, but right now he was too tired to care.
"You others should go and take some rest. It's been a long day and I doubt we will find much time to relax in the coming days and weeks."
With that comment he left, feeling that he should not be anywhere near Jean when she awoke. However good his intentions, Logan's comment had hit close to home. A quarter century ago he had seen the limitless potential of Jean's mind and reacted with fear. Granted, he had resisted his very first impulse, which had been to kill Jean right then and there. But he had sealed away her powers. Because they had been a danger to her, yes, but also because they had terrified him.
Now the blocks and seals he had created were gone, wiped away as if they'd never been there, and he couldn't help but wonder how Jean would react. Would she seek his help to control her newfound might? Would she be angry with him that he had never allowed her full potential to bloom? Would she even be sane after what she had gone through? There was no telling until she awoke.
And then there was that other matter he needed to concern himself with.
"Thank you for waiting, Jamie," he told his visitor as he rolled into the reception room. "I'm afraid bad things do travel in packs more often than not."
The two identical-looking men sitting in the room looked up from the chessboard between them. A moment later one of the two vanished, his shape absorbed into the other. Jamie Madox, sometimes called Multiple Man because of his powers to create doppelgangers of himself, rose to greet his mentor.
"No problems, Professor. I always manage to keep myself entertained."
"I can imagine. So tell me, what is my old friend Erik up to now?"
End Part 6
