Tessa was a field medic at best. She was not a doctor. As such, when Cass had demanded that she meet her in the infirmary, a separate building near the center of the compound, she rudely woke Josh, who groggily followed her. He was their doctor by virtue of his powers.
Something had gone on. Something about Charles. Jean had told her that much, but had gone brain-silent after that. As such, she was only partially surprised to see him there with Jean and Cass. There was, however, an extra.
"Holy shit," Josh said as they entered. They had propped a bed next to the exam table. A woman with pale skin and red-brown hair was laid there, unresponsive. The faint pinkish glow that occasionally refracted around her was Jean's doing.
"What the hell is going on here?" she demanded as she closed the door.
"Tessa, I'm sorry," Cassandra said. "We need to make sure that she stays under."
Josh put up his golden-skinned hand. "I can..."
"Sorry," Cass interrupted. "This time we need drugs."
"What drugs, Cass? We keep local anesthetics and ibuprofen here. Josh deals with anything more serious."
Cassandra rolled her eyes. "Good god."
"No one has told me what is going on."
"I'm sorry, Tessa," said Charles from the corner. "I need you to decode this young woman's genome."
Tessa laughed. "Josh, you're free. Back to bed."
The teenager grumbled at his dismissal but complied, all but slamming the door behind him. Charles moved forward on his chair and Jean glanced at Tessa as she held the girl in a telekinetic cocoon.
"Tessa," Charles said. He seemed...rattled, maybe? Like someone coming down from an intense emotional state. "I'm sorry. This is a sudden request but one that's very important to both myself and mutantkind. I need to know if this woman is a mutant."
Tessa took a step toward the girl. Jean remained rigid, and Cassandra had the slightly distant expression that would often overcome her when she was deep in some intense telepathic undertaking. "I mean I might be able to answer your question without having to use my powers. Are either or both of her parents mutants? Does she, you know, have powers?" Charles sighed, apparently put off by her sarcasm.
"She's Magneto's kid," Cassandra said, her eyes still unfocused. Again, Tessa laughed.
"Please, Tessa. Take a sample. I trust your opinion and your powers more than I trust..."
"He wants you to scan her and find her x-gene and turn it off, you know." Cassandra's tone was accusatory. Charles looked at her and sighed.
"Tessa, permission to broadcast something? A memory?" Charles asked. "I need you to know what she can do."
Tessa shook her head and moved towards Wanda. "Look, I've been processing statistical data all day and I've currently got like fifty other independent lines going in my head and I'm way too tired for any of this. We can use Forge's genomic analyzer and then we can deal with this whole other mess once I've let my forebrain rest for a bit, OK?"
Tessa went to one of the shelving units against the wall and pulled out a fresh single-use hypodermic and sanitizing swab. "Jean, let her go? Just for a second." Tessa quickly washed her hands and put on some disposable plastic gloves. The pink ripple faded, and Jean's posture changed, relaxing a bit. She grabbed the girls arm and started wrapping a tourniquet.
Tessa felt the muscles in the girl's arm clench. A wave of reddish light cascaded around her body, startling her. "Jean, stop." she said.
"That wasn't me," Jean said flatly.
There was a perceptible shift in the air of the room, like a sudden surge of static. The girl jolted awake and cowered, her body heaving. She curled towards the edge of the bed, glancing around at the various faces frantically. In Tessa's hand, the tourniquet melted into some strange liquid.
"What the hell?" She shook it off as Jean punched an open palm forward, streams of her signature pink glow churning as spirals around Wanda.
"No!" Wanda screamed. Jean went slack and was hurled through the air, slamming hard against one of the walls.
Get out of here, now! screamed Charles, directly into her head. She turned towards the door as Jean stumbled to her feet and angrily grabbed the bed sheets with her mind. In midair they twisted into a rope then instantly began to coil around Wanda like a snake. The girl winced, and in a flash of intense red light the fabric unspooled into a haze of cotton spores.
"Wanda!" Charles screamed. There was a large cracking sound and the opposite wall opened up like a flower. Charles, in his chair, was set aloft, and blown outside. Cassandra screamed. Sage ran through the door into the cold of the night as Jean began pulling chunks of the wall and lobbing them at Wanda. They bounced off her, transfiguring into a flurry of leaves.
Outside, people had begun to gather a few dozen meters away from the building. A few had found Charles in a pile on the ground and were tending to him. Tessa couldn't see any of the staff. She called out to Cassandra with her mind but didn't receive and answer.
There was a puff of black smoke and sulfur. Nightcrawler materialized beside here. "You," she coughed "you have to get Jean and Cass!" He nodded and disappeared, and instant later Cassandra fell to the ground on her right.
She looked up to the sky for Storm. She couldn't see her, but clouds were gathering overhead at such a pace that it looked like a time lapse. One of the walls of the infirmary wrenched from the ground and was shot off into the sky, landing with an explosion of dust some distance off.
There was Jean, alight in pink flame.
Wanda was wreathed in some shell of red light, and Jean was afloat, her fists clenched as she pummeled the girl with anything within her telekinetic reach. It all bounced off, churning into some inscrutable prismatic miasma. Lightning rained down from above but this seemed to have no effect. Wanda, eyes glowing read, was motionless, a fireworks display of chaos tendriling around her.
Nightcrawler bamfd into being next to her. "Jean won't let me get close," he said, his white eyes wide. "Neither will the girl."
Tessa shook Cassandra back to consciousness. "Cass!" She groaned and rolled over, coming to standing on unsteady legs. "What the hell is going on?"
"I can't get in. To either of them!" she said hoarsely. "This needs to stop, now! Prep for incoming. I'm letting the blondes loose for a hot second."
Sophie! Cassandra mind-shouted. All brains on deck! Take the girl down!
Tessa felt the five Cuckoos heads join and instantaneously connect to every telepath on the compound. In her mind's eye, she could see their identical faces, floating and translucent like a holographic projection. It was strange, intimate, and utterly, drunkenly, exhilarating, a sense of power completely unequivocal.
Sleep, they all thought at once, directly into the forebrain of the lightstorm. The command shot like a warhead from their temporarily collective hivemind, immediately shocking her to silence. She fell to the ground and the scarlet light faded.
Jean, though, was still flurry of pink fire. She turned towards Cass and Tessa, her eyes glowing a ferocious white.
What shall we do about Ms. Grey, Ms. Xavier?
Cassandra wavered for a moment, considering, but before she could respond Jean faded back into her normal self, setting food on ground again. Her orange hair fell back down along her back, and her eyes dimmed to their usual emerald green. She shook her head, as if dispelling some fogginess, and breathed deeply.
We're fine, Cassandra thought. Thank you. If you please, back to your posts. The connection was caught, and they were all again themselves, singular.
Nightcrawler teleported in a flurry to Wanda, grabbing her from a semi-corporeal blur of dark blue and magenta before disappearing entirely. A few seconds later he reappeared in front of them. "She's in the Sphere," he said solemnly.
Storm swooped down and the sky above began to clear. Charles, upright on his chair, rubbed his skull.
"Shit," Cassandra sighed.