Chapter 17: Mutant And Caught

WORRIED glances were exchanged between Jean and Steve at Robin's panicked exclamation regarding the presence of something upstairs.

The two of them, Erica and Dustin began following the blonde up the metal stairs that echoed with loud clang sounds as their feet heavily stepped upon ascension.

Once they'd reached the top, the five stopped in front of the large door that had two glass windows. Jean, Steve and Dustin peeked at one, while Erica and Robin looked through the other.

Jean and the rest could only gasp what were in front of them. Scientists seated in an observatory room, and outside of it there was men in hazmat suits walking up to a giant machine, it was what caught their attention.

"Holy shit." Steve mumbled at the sight.

A low frequency pulsing noise boomed from the machine as well as a loud electric crackling. A beam was shooting out from the device, directed ahead at a crack in the wall.

Jean suddenly winced as she focused on the glowing slit in the wall. A headache suddenly hit her, dizziness, as well. Something was on the other side, she realized.

"Ah." Jean's breathing picked up as she rubbed her temple, the loud thrumming was right against her eardrum. A shriek came out from the other side of the wall. Images invading her mind. She didn't know how she knew, but she realized what that thing was.

It was an entry. A doorway between worlds.

"It's a gate." Jean announced, her wobbly feet taking a step back from the door. At her declaration, Steve and Dustin snapped their heads at her in shock, while the other two girls scrunched their faces at her.

"How'd you know? Did El tell you?" Dustin asked, eyebrows raised. He's never seen the Gate to the Upside Down before, but he had a rough idea of how it looked like. This was definitely it.

"Tell me what?" Jean said, equally as confused. She wasn't comprehending what this was or how it came to be. And so, the redhead quickly went down the stairs followed by the rest.

Robin jumped the last few steps, her face painted with a shocked perplexity. "I don't understand. You've seen this before?"

"Not exactly." Dustin mumbled.

"Then what, exactly?"

"All you need to know is it's bad." Steve claimed, eliciting an agreeing nod from Dustin.

"It's really bad. Like, end-of-the-human-race-as-we-know-it kind of bad."

Jean ran her hand through her head and began pacing across the room, her head was so bombarded with thoughts that she failed to notice that a certain someone was missing from the floor.

"And you know about this how?"

"Um, Steve? Where's your Russian friend?" Erica's inquiry made everyone pause, their eyes traveling to the now empty space on the tiled floor.

"Uh oh."

When matters couldn't get worse, an alarm blared throughout the room, and a red light started flashing.

Harrington immediately sprinted to the door and just as quickly closed it once he'd seen the soldiers coming their way. "Shit!"

Jean released a whimper before they all started running.

"Go, go, go, go, go!" Steve demanded as the group of five dashed in a rush.

"Shit." Dustin muttered once the door flew open and they stood in the observatory room. The lab coat wearing scientists turned to them, surprised at their presence.

"Move! Let's move!"

Jean could only pant as she scampered behind Dustin and Steve. They rushed outside, charging against the russians by the large screeching machine.

"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit! Shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!" Dustin screeched as they stood by the edge, seemingly they had no where to go.

"Guards!"

"Go! This way!"

They went down the stairs on the sideline and quickly made their way down a dark corridor, their feets were barely carrying them as they were being chased by the armed men.

"Oh, shit! Oh, shit!"

The only thing that seemed to come out of the group members' mouths was either 'shit' or 'let's go' as they made their way to a closed room.

Steve grunted as he closed the door behind and slammed his body against it to prevent the men chasing them from entering.

"Come on! Go, go, go, go, go!" Jean gestured for Dustin and Erica to head towards the small door leading underground. She rushed to the struggling Steve once she realized his legs were giving out against the external pressure applied on the door.

Steve and Jean were starting to fail to maintain their grip on the door, especially with how weak Jean had felt ever since laying eyes on that 'Gate'. Steve released a grunt as they waited for the kids to open the vent and leave. "Help me, come on!" He yelled to the blonde who was frantically trying to help them escape.

Seeing that Erica was becoming hesitant to leave, her babysitter widened her eyes. "Erica, go now!" And the ten year old complied in a rush.

"Go! Just get out of here!" Steve bellowed at an also reluctant Dustin.

"No!"

"Just go get some help, okay?!"

"Go!" The doomed three yelled at Dustin who still didn't seem to relent.

The guards yelled in their mother tongue, banging against the door, and Jean's whole body shook as she tried to push all her weight against the door.

"I won't forget you!" Dustin yelled with glossy eyes. His fear was that this could possibly be the last time he'd see them.

"GO!"

And so, the fourteen year old departed, going underground and closing the hatchet behind him.

A sigh of relief escaped from the three, and at that moment of relaxation, their guard was down. The Russians pushed the door open and it's momentum made Steve, Jean and Robin slide across the floor.

The redhead and the blonde yelped in surprise while Steve grunted from the pain. Their eyes snapped open in fear when about five soldiers threatened them not to move in russian.

Jean just watched them. She was frozen, face stricken and hands clenched by her sides. Her breaths were shallow. She could feel her eyebrows quivering between neutral and and furrowed, and lips trembling.

Guns cocked in the three's every direction, the men were still yelling at them in the foreign language.

Jean's nails dug into her palms as she stared at the scene and she could feel blood bead beneath the assault.

It was all so sudden.

Two of the russians dropped their guns -much to their comrades surprise- and grasped their heads. The telepathic girl scrunched her face in disdain as she induced pain in their minds.

She honest to god didn't know how she was doing it, but she projected from her mind bolts composed of psychic energy, that enabled her to stun the mind of the two men into unconsciousness.

The remaining soldiers could only watch in panic as their comrades collapsed to the ground. They yelled indistinct russian words at each other.

Steve glanced to Robin and then to Jean who held a grim look on her face. At that moment he knew it was her responsible.

With one last jagged breath, Jean shut her eyes before she descended into darkness.

Doctor Zharkov had seen a great deal in his life. Working for the Russian army had granted him access to things most wouldn't be able to fathom.

And while he'd seen so much, a doorway between worlds even, he hadn't seen anything like the unconscious red haired girl lying on the examination bed of his laboratory.

The doctor hadn't bared witness to the feat that the soldiers had claimed she accomplished. With just an intense glare, two of their best warriors collapsed. They'd barely awoken after hours of intense care, and once they did, they blamed her. Saying she was in their heads, inflicting pain upon them

He, and a select few of Russian officals heard whispers of special children. Children born with extraordinary gifts that the US government was experimenting on. But that was all that it was. Rumors. There haven't been any evidence of any of those kids, no matter how much their government searched for them or any like them.

He was reluctant to believe what they claimed at first, but as Zharkov ran his tests on her, he became painfully aware of how wrong he was.

Now, the Officer -the one responsible for the intruders- had entered his office, standing statically as he awaited for the diagnostics on the comatose girl.

"Vital signs, good. Brain activity's normal. The genetic reading..." He started, looking through his papers. His eyes still not believing the spike in her DNA. "While the phenotype appears to be normal, she possesses a unique genetic trait... A mutation."

The military man remained stoic, but a glint of curiosity flashed in his eyes. "Enhanced in a laboratory?"

Zharkov shook his head, the fingers grasping the papers slightly trembling. He's never seen anything like this before and it both amazed and terrified him. This was out of his area of expertise. "I don't think so. It's encoded into all of her genetic material. Too advanced to be artificial."

"She has so much potential. I've never seen a power reading like this, she's literally off the charts." The doctor declared.

"So, what does that mean?" The Officer questioned, nudging the physician to haste to the point.

Zharkov could only release an evil chuckle. The possibilities were endless when it came to this kind of mutation. "This could be the next stage in human evolution. It could help us win the war."

The officer smirked. "Do you think you could replicate it?"

"I'm not quite sure just yet, but if I could-""The tables would turn significantly."

Giving a brief nod, the Russian official turned to leave and acquire further information from the other two prisoners. "Take as many samples of her blood as you can." He indicated, his eyes traveling to Jean. "It must be delivered to our home office overnight."

Steve Harrington and Robin Buckley hated themselves so much at this very moment. They cursed their curiosity that got them into this mess in the first place.

Once Steve had woken up from the beating-induced coma, his ears started ringing. Every breath he took caused an immense stabbing pain to surge in his chest, he probably had a broken rib or two. And his left eye was throbbing and felt like it could fall from the socket at any moment.

And to make matters worse, Steve had more things to worry about than the Robin did. The reopening gate to the Upside Down being one of them, and of course, Jean Grey's safety was the first. The telepathic girl just suddenly went out cold after presumably doing something to those guards. And despite his protests and screams, they took her to a different cell than his or Robin's.

Now he could only imagine what they were doing to her.

He, nor Robin had barely time to talk as a buzzer sound echoed through the quiet room before a door swung open.

At the threshold to the torture chamber, the Officer who administered Steve's beatings stood. "Pardon the delay, our physician is preoccupied with your red haired friend." He announced with a thick russian accent, strutting towards the pair tied against the chairs.

At the mention of her, Steve's body jolted upwards, the confines surrounding him prevented any move he intended to make. "Jean?! What did you do to her?!"

"Don't worry, we are taking excellent care of her," The Officer smirked, enjoying the rattled look on the boy's face. "for now. As long as you answer my questions regarding her."

Steve visibly tensed, fearing that they'd figured out her.. abilities. While Robin just scrunched her eyebrows.

"She's your countries weapon, no?" The man asked, going in circles around the two to assert his dominance.

"What?! No!" Steve out flat denied, like it was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"We have no idea what you're talking about!" Robin yelled the truth. She was completely in the dark to what happened back there.

"Then I suppose she didn't stun my men with her mind?" The Russian sarcastically asked, standing over the blonde.

"We don't know anything. Those two guards just collapsed on their own. Right, Steve?" Robin quickly said, tilting her head to look over the boy tied against her back.

"Y-Yeah." The stammering Steve berated himself for his bad lying skills. And the military man caught it.

"How embarrassing, your meal plans must really suck!" She said, looking up at the man and releasing a smug chuckle. Apparently, she thought it was low blood sugar that got the two soldiers.

Then, the door swung open, revealing a couple of other guards who spoke to their commander in russian before entering.

They were dragging Jean inside.

"Jean?" Again, the brown haired teen struggled against the binds that dug into his skin, his legs trying (and failing) to aid him in jumping forward towards the girl he liked.

Seeing her unmoving, pale form, Steve's face twisted to pure disdain to the men carrying her. "Jean! What did you do to her, you bastards?!" He growled. His anger was spiking once he saw them throwing the unconscious Jean in a chair opposite him; her sleeves pulled high up to reveal the multiple needle stab wounds on her forearm.

The man released a sadistic breathy chuckle as he observed Steve's reaction. "Just a few tests. I see you're quite fond of her. Hopefully that means you will cooperate this time." The Officer said, a sickly sweet smile on his face as he approached Steve who was glaring daggers at him.

"Let us out of here, we told you we don't know anything!" Robin whimpered, again trying to explain that they had nothing to do with the injured soldiers.

"Let's try this again. What is she?"

The first interrogation session had been fruitless for the Russians. And so, the guards had left them for about half an hour, but promised to return with their doctor to 'patch' them up.

Steve's head was hazy from all the beatings. So naturally, he wasn't surprised when he started seeing things. Things like the medical plates and equipments splayed across the metal table shaking and trembling.

"Steve..What's happening?"

Said male gave a breath of relief that he wasn't the only one seeing this, he was glad that it wasn't the trauma affecting his head. "Oh, shit. Is it an earthquake or something?" He asked in slight panic. They were so far underground, so if an earthquake would occur, they'd be totally screwed, he thought.

"That's only affecting the table's surface?" Robin asked, mocking sarcasm dripping from her tone. Nothing else was moving, only the objects on the table were dancing in a vibrating motion.

"I think we already established that russians can't build stuff for shit." He clarified, referring to the makeshift, deadly elevator and the possibility that it was a faulty table.

"Do you think...maybe it's her?" Robin hypothesized, her eyes traveling to the unconscious Jean.

Steve had told the Buckley girl everything there was to know about Jean Grey after the Russians left them. It seemed only fair, since they were all in this together. Robin was reluctant to believe him at first, but as he explained every bit of her ability one-by-one, she pieced everything together. And it made perfect sense. Of course, she still had a shit ton of questions that she wanted to ask the redhead.

Steve pinched up his face, his head tilting towards Robin who was pinned to his back, and he was unable to meet with her face. Jean wasn't able to move things with her mind, she only read people's thoughts and went in their heads, he thought. "What? No, I told you she's a telopath."

"You mean, telepath." Robin corrected, fair eyebrows scrunched.

"That's what I said."

"No, you said telopath."

As the two argued, they didn't pay attention that the trembling of the medical equipment had ceased.

"Same thing."

"You know what? It's not the same thing."

The two bickered in a loud volume, and although Jean's chair was right up against theirs, their voices weren't even as low as a whisper in the unconscious redhead's mind, Jean's very confused and jumbled up mind.

She only heard and saw the glimpses of what she only presumed were her own memory.