"You'll love it here," said Lorna Dane, the fifteen-year-old who had all but taken Jean up.
Lorna was petite and paper thin, some might say. She had wavy, chestnut hair that framed a cherubic, heart-shaped face. Her eyes were a staggering emerald green that glimmered in the afternoon sunlight. Jean had thought that, had Lorna been taller, she could have made a very good model.
"The classes are really like being home-schooled. Have you been home-schooled? I doubt you were. There are so many good schools in New York! I miss New York. I visit my mom and stepdad there. Anyway, so you plan your whole day and the Professor guides us or whatever. But, for me, the best part of the day is PE. You know, Physical Education? That's where we get to practice our abilities and what not. Get better at them. So when we graduate we won't, like, hurt people or something."
Jean had found herself on the far side of the lake with Lorna, who was currently threading water next to her, and Lorna's boyfriend, Bobby, who was floating nearby, at her feet. She was sitting on the jetty in her bathing suit, her feet in the cool lake water.
For a while after she'd left the Professor's office and changed into her bathing suit, she'd found herself lurking by the mansion like some kind of weirdo while the other kids were frolicking in the nearby lake. She could have heard their shrieks as they enjoyed the summer fun and she even saw Warren—the angel—flying up into the air and dive down into the lake, to much fan appreciation. Especially by a dark-haired, voluptuous girl who was in a barely-there bikini.
But she hadn't actually gone to the lake until Lorna and Bobby appeared behind her and led her to it. But not to the jetty the other kids had been inhabiting, but another, on the other side. She had been hoping that Scott would have called her over. But, instead, he just looked at her as she passed by, not even bothering to call her over to introduce her to his friends.
Lorna and Bobby were perfectly nice but, at seventeen, Jean felt like she was way more mature than they were.
"Okay, Lor, I think you've tired Jean out," said Bobby, pulling his body up onto the jetty next to Jean.
Bobby was slender and lanky and awkward at fifteen. He had curly, dark-brown hair and cool, blue eyes. He was handsome, Jean supposed, but in a less look-at-me way as Warren. It was subtle: a kind of boy-next-door attractiveness, Jean guessed.
Since meeting them, something had just felt…off about their pairing. While Jean was a telepath and she was also telekinetic, she was also an empath: which meant that she could sense the emotions of others. Empathy was a natural extension of her telepathy, Professor Xavier had told her, and most telepaths had the ability of empathy, though to varying degrees.
She'd learnt that she'd had this gift the hard way, unfortunately.
But with them, she didn't get the feeling that they were the typical couple. From Lorna, she felt her deep feelings for Bobby: her devotion to him. Like she couldn't be without him. But she didn't get that same depth of feeling from Bobby. Jean sensed that he adored Lorna, but as a very close friend. A companion. Not a lover.
But it really wasn't Jean's business to get in the middle of all of that.
"So what's your ability, Jean?" asked Bobby.
Jean squinted her eyes in the direction of the water at her feet and used her telekinesis to scoop up some of it, shaping it into a perfectly spherical ball, floating it above Lorna's head with ease.
"You can control water?" asked Lorna.
Annoyed, Jean allowed her water ball to plop into the lake.
With that, Jean squinted her eyes at Lorna herself and, with the same ease, Lorna began floating out of the lake and ended up tiptoeing on top of the water.
"Damn!" squealed Bobby.
"I'm telekinetic," she said, gently lowering Lorna back into the lake. "I can move things with my mind."
"I've never met someone like that before," said Lorna.
I'm also a telepath, she said to them both. Like the Professor.
"I hate when he does that," said Lorna and Bobby in unison, causing them all to laugh.
"Me too," said Jean. "What are your powers?"
Bobby stood up and took a deep breath before jumping as if he was going back into the lake when, all of a sudden, from the tips of his fingers frost formed a bridge beneath him and he was suddenly sliding all around Jean and Lorna. After his display, he returned to Jean's side and assumed his seat again, a curt smile on his face.
Lorna suddenly began to float out of the water and she extended one of her hands in the direction of Bobby's ice bridge. A green beam of energy left her palm, which shattered the ice into a million pieces.
"It's actually a lot more complicated than that," she said. "The Professor calls it magnetic field manipulation. I can create force fields, ride the Earth's magnetic fields and that beam you saw was what my dad and I call our magnetic pulse."
"Lorna! Bobby! What are you doing?" yelled the buxom brunette from across the lake, at the other jetty.
The girl began making her way around the lake towards them, the rest of her group (including Scott) in tow. In a few moments they arrived and Jean was able to see her up close.
The girl was tall and statuesque like some of the models Jean had met whenever she visited her mom at work. She was certainly beautiful, with cascades of wavy, dark hair that she'd slung across one shoulder. Her skin had a naturally sun-kissed color that Jean would never be able to attain, no matter how much she tanned. Her eyes were a dark green with flecks of gold in them.
Behind her was a young man who shared almost all of the same features as the girl and who Jean assumed to be her brother. He was about average height and had a much more defined body than Bobby's, though not as good as Warren's or even Scott's.
Warren and Scott closed the group.
"What do you want, Wanda?" spat Lorna, as if the girl's name was a curse word, as she allowed Bobby to pull her out of the lake.
"I want you to stop using your powers like they're toys," said Wanda, folding her arms across her considerable bosom.
"Oh, why don't you mind your business, Wanda," said Lorna, standing up and looking Wanda dead in the eyes, her own arms folded across her chest. "You're not even a Mutant. I mean, you shouldn't even be here. I wish Dad had sent you to boarding school or something."
"Hey, that's unnecessarily mean, Lorna," said Wanda's twin, getting in between the two girls. "Wanda just wants you to be careful. And if she had to go, don't you think I'd have to as well? I'm not a Mutant, after all."
Lorna's face softened. "Well, you've always been a darling, Pietro. I'm sorry. It's that…I don't know what to call Wanda!"
Overhead there was a sudden clap of thunder as storm clouds formed seemingly out of nowhere. Torrential rains fell on the group and they all frantically ran back to the mansion to get out of it.
"What the hell?" said Warren, closing the door behind their group. Jean couldn't help from thinking that he looked even more beautiful wet and she smiled a little.
Students, please join me in my office, said Professor Xavier. There's something that I need to discuss with you.
"I guess we should go change, guys," said Scott, making his way out of the kitchen. "Five minutes, people. Let's not keep the Professor waiting."
Jean was the last to arrive at the office, she realized, as the rest of the student body of Xavier's was already seated in different parts of the Professor's office.
There were two people she hadn't seen before: an older guy, who was standing behind the Professor, his arms folded across his face and his nostrils flared; and a guy about Jean's age who was squatting in a corner.
The squatter was in a lily-white lab coat. He had dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and he was unnaturally hairy. His feet and hands were inhumanly large and Jean's mind wandered to dark places: he was in a room filled with several Mutants. But not one of them actually looked different from a human. He was the first that she'd seen who looked like he wasn't human. She wondered if he'd ever be able to graduate and leave the mansion like the rest of them could.
He caught her looking and she quickly pulled her eyes away, though she felt a wave of sadness hit her from his direction. And she felt like she wanted to cry.
"Thank you for joining us, Miss Grey," said Professor Xavier. "Now, there's something that I'd like to discuss with you all. I was approached by a government agency to put together a team. A team of Mutants who could cast a good light on our people. They could be superheroes."
"Like Spider-Man?" asked Bobby, getting up from his chair.
Again, Jean felt something that she wasn't supposed to feel from Bobby again. But she kept it to herself.
"Something like that," the Professor said. "More like the Fantastic Four. And I'll seek your parents' permission to have you do this. But you'll have the responsibility of recruiting new students to fill our rooms, help people out of dangerous situations. It will be good PR."
"It sounds dangerous," said Scott, who was leaning against a bookcase in a green turtleneck and brown cords. "Very dangerous."
"I would expect someone like you to see the dangers in this," said the gentleman behind the Professor.
"Max," said the Professor, giving the guy a stern look.
"I think it sounds great," said Warren, who was seated cross-legged in khaki shorts, a blue polo and a yellow sweater wrapped around his broad shoulders. "I don't know how I didn't think of it myself."
"I doubt my mom is going to be okay with that," said Bobby, sitting back down and slouching into the chair. "She's annoying like that."
"She's just looking out for you," said Lorna, taking her boyfriend's hand and squeezing it tight.
"As am I," said Max. "Lorna, you will most certainly not be participating in this scheme. I won't have you endangering yourself."
"Dad!" yelped Lorna.
"I think it's very reckless, Uncle Charles," added Wanda. "Dad's right."
"I intend to be there with the team every step of the way," said Professor Xavier, waving his hands. "Not in the field, of course. But overseeing, training. At the first sign of danger the agency is going to swoop in and extract you."
"Professor, I don't know if it's a good idea," said the big guy Jean had noticed in the beginning. "It does sound quite dangerous. While I understand the need to foster good relations between humans and Mutants, does that mean that the lives of your students should be endangered? Fighting crime?"
"Endangered is a bit of a hyperbole, Hank," said Warren.
"Mighty big word there, Worthington," said Bobby, with a chuckle.
Warren glared at Bobby before her continued: "As the Professor said, we'll have an extraction team. Support. We're not exactly powerless, you know.
"Yeah? Well let's see you convince our parents to be okay with it," said Bobby.
"Leave that to me," said Professor Xavier. "For now, continue your studies and your training. In fact, the agency is going to build an even better training center for you in the basement of the school. There's just so much unused space there. It's going to be great. So go back to your summer fun."
The students all filed out of the room, chattering on about the possibility of becoming superheroes. Except for Hank. Hank ran down the corridor and disappeared.
"What do you think about it, Jean?" asked Lorna.
Jean didn't really think it was a bad idea. "I'd do it." She shrugged nonchalantly.
"As would I," said Warren, sliding up next to Jean and smiling down at her. "We'd be teammates."
From Wanda Jean felt waves of jealousy.
"Come on, Warren," said Wanda, grabbing the angel by the forearm. "We have to go practice the waltz. You wouldn't want me being embarrassed at the debutante ball."
"Debutante ball?" said Jean.
"The Manhattan Debutante Ball," said Wanda, flipping her hair and rolling her eyes. "Hosted by the New York chapter of the Hellfire Club." She proceeded to give Jean the once over before twitching her nose. "I doubt you would have been invited. Anyway, Warren is my escort."
"Duty calls," said Warren with a shrug, as he allowed Wanda to lead him away.