AN: Yes, I know it's been way too long between updates, but what can I say? I update when I can. No sooner, no later. So here's the long-awaited sixth chapter.
For a long tense moment no one spoke. Then Professor Xavier held out a hand, gesturing to Jesse to stand in front of his desk. The youngest Tuck seated himself, throwing a concerned glance at Ororo, whose hand was leaving a sweaty print on the window. Outside, what looked like a concentrated hurricane raged over a sillouette that looked suspiciously like a jet.
Tearing his eyes from the white-haired woman, Jesse stared in stupification at Logan and Scott. The visor over the younger man's eyes resembled a red slash, making him look like a futuristic cyclops. The silver claws jutting from Logan's hands glinted in the lamplight.
Looking to Professor Xavier, Jesse asked "Are you going to tell me?"
The professor smiled grimly. "Yes, Jesse, we're going to tell you." A moment of silence followed where it hit Jesse that Xavier had used his real name. No way he could know that, unless...
"You read my mind." Numb with slow realization, Jesse sank lower in his chair. Slow memories came back, of whispers in the underworlds he'd explored in the centuries of his wanderings, the rumors of people that weren't human. Those grunted half-murmers had reached his ears long before the media caught up, telling the world of the new race that had entered their world, of the people called mutants.
He read my mind...
Half frightened of what he would see, Jesse looked Xavier in the eye. "You're mutants."
The professor's smile dissapeared all together, replaced by determination and something like sadness. "Yes, Jesse, we're mutants. And as much as I hate to ask, I'm afraid I must: What are you?"
Jesse froze. He knows...He knows I'm not normal...
Heart in his throat and knowing what was coming, Jesse opened his mouth to make an innocent reply-.
-The window smashed in, andflying glass was joined byrain, wind and tornado debris tearing through the room. Jesse shot to his feet as Scott andLogan jumped past him.
A manfell through the jagged hole left by the window- but he looked wrong. Hisface was a sickly greenish-yellow, his eyes blank and amphibious.For an instant Jesse was frozen, glass shardsinhis hair and leaves onhis face. Then the -man- looked at him, opened his mouth...andsomething incredibly sticky splatted against Jesse's face, obliterating his vision and covering his mouth and nose.
As if from underwater Jesse heard the screaming wind and the loud thumps and cracks of a scuffle, punctuated by 'snikt', "crap" and 'bamf.' The stuff on his face wouldn't budge, and when he tried to tear it off he only got his hands stuck too. His lungs burned, and the sounds faded together like static and distortion. Just one thing managed to cut through the haze...
...What the heck was going on?