I apologize for any weirdly shaped paragraphs. Copy paste wasn't copy-pasting like it should
and I can't even preview what it looks like because EVERYTHING I'VE TYPED IS OUTLINED IN
BLACK so that features basically useless to me right now. But that's mah ramble.
THANKS FOR READING, YO
Professor X looked over the girl that was seated on the other side of his
desk. It was nearly three in the morning, and he'd spent the last hour and
a half trying to coax her out of her stone form. When she had, he rewarded
her with a Poptart, which she was now currently nibbling on.
"What is your name?"
"…"
"Do you have a parent or guardian to call?"
"…"
"Where is your home?"
"…"
Professor X leaned back in his seat and studied her over. She had veiled her
face with her disheveled blond hair right after he had given her the treat, and now
she refused to make eye contact.
He has Medusa powers, Lorelei reasoned.
She must be up to something, Charles figured.
The white noise that obscured her thoughts from him while in griffin form had
dissipated as soon as she had become human again. It was easy for the Professor to go
in and poke around now, but there were large chunks of her memory that was
mostly - for lack of a better word - silent white noise. Charles understood that the
silent parts in her mind must come from her memories when she was transformed; the
rest must be from when she wasn't.
What disturbed him the most was that the parts he could read were set in
Germany. Well, that wasn't the real problem; the real problem was that it was
set in the Stillmans home on Loreley Cliff.
There's no doubt that this girl is related to the Stillmans. Charles thought. She is literally
related to them, she is a Stillman. He laced his hands together in front of his face and leaned
onto the desk, making it creak on the edges a bit. Lorelei glanced up, startled by the sudden
high pitched noise, and then quickly looked away. Shoot, I looked in his eyes.
Charles grinned behind his hands. Most people were afraid that he would see their
deepest, darkest, most intimate thoughts. This one was worried she'd turn to
stone.
"Is there anything that you'd like to tell me at all?"
Oh… crap. That's what Papa says when he gives me a chance to tell him what I've done wrong.
"…Lorelei?"
Oh. Lorelei peeked through her fringe at the bald headed man. He didn't look angry.
He knows my name.
He wants to know what I did wrong.
He knows my name.
HE CAN READ MY MIND!
Lorelei jumped up from the chair and threw the processed pastry to the ground.
Her eyes were welling up with tears and it made his bald head look distorted
and stupid.
"I didn't mean to do it!" She shouted, "He made me!"
Professor X was not fazed by her outburst, if anything he expected it; such a
thing was common for people in denial.
"Who did? Made you do what?" He scrutinized at her twisted facial features. Was
she admitting to being involved with the Stillmans so easily?
Lorelei sobbed softly and covered her face. "That horrible, horrible man..."
Charles nodded understandingly. Stillman. He often employed children to do his
dirty work… but his own child? "What
did he make you do?"
"I vasn't thinking. It's just, I vas so afraid and… and… I had nowhere else to
go…"
"It's all right," he soothed. "I understand. You were scared that he'd come after you if you
left?"
Lorelei simply nodded.
"It's all you grew up knowing, isn't it?" Charles asked.
Lorelei contemplated the question for a brief second, then nodded a bit more
hesitantly than before.
Charles noticed her apprehension and prodded for more answers. "Is that why you
left?"
Lorelei looked at the Professor between her fingers and wiped her eyes with the
back of her sleeve and sniffed very loudly. "No, it's why I threw him off the
cliff."
She threw Stillman off a cliff? "Really? You threw Mr. Stillman off a cliff?"
Lorelei squinted at the mind-reader. Papa? "No, Knives Guy."
Charles managed to conceal the confusion that flashed across his
face for a moment, and tried to look through her mind. There was no memory
of anyone being thrown off a cliff. "Knives… guy?"
Lorelei stared blankly at Professor X. I thought this guy could read minds…
"Yeah. He made me. I vas really scared 'cause he cut off my ear and I vasn't thinking
right and I didn't really have anywhere else to run so I just… I… just threw him."
Charles frowned and continued "I'm not quite sure we're on the same page here.
Why don't we start from the beginning?"
Lorelei huffed and flopped back down onto her seat. Talking to adults was so
time consuming.
"Alright, then." Professor X prompted "So, obviously you're related to the
Stillmans?"
Lorelei groaned inwardly, her entire plan was falling to pieces, no use in
hiding that anymore.
Professor X debated telling her he could only see parts of her mind, but
decided that it'd be best if she had no idea how much he could actually see. What plan? He wondered.
Lorelei retold her tale of woe as she took on the X-men and threw Wolverine off
a cliff, but paused just after she watched him fall.
Professor X finally understood what she was talking about. She had attacked the
X men when he had sent them back to Germany, and thrown "Knives Guy" off the
cliffs edge. She was very distraught over that little fact, but he'd tell her
later on that Wolverine was not dead. "What happened after you saw him fall?"
Lorelei paused and pulled at a split end. "I'm not sure. It vent something like
this…"
~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~
Lorelei paled under her stony complexion. What
have I just done?
The blue guy on the ground looked up at her and grinned; "Now you've gone and
made him mad."
Lorelei had no idea what he was talking about. She'd just killed his friend, why was he smiling?
She looked over the rocky drop again to see if he had resurfaced.
Nothing.
"I…"
Suddenly there was a very low rumble, and the ground beneath her feet rippled.
Lorelei looked up just in time to see the space where the group had first
appeared almost buckle inwards, and then explode. Lorelei dug her talons into
the ground to keep from flying off the cliff, and Blue and Scary Wide-eyes had
been flattened to the earth. The explosion had made a large crater in the
field, but other than that, nothing was too badly damaged.
Lorelei raised her head when the blast was over and had walked tentatively over
to where the explosion had taken place. Wide-Eyes was unconscious, and Blue
Monkey was holding his head up and telling him to breathe. Let the records reflect that I did not kill that one, Lorelei
thought. She was almost able to see into the crater when Garvey appeared from the side
of the house.
"What the bloody hell is going on out here?!"
"Garvey!" I swear it wasn't me, it vas the butterblumes!"
Garvey came to a stop next Red Lenses and took in the scene. There was a
smoldering crater, two people near the cliffs edge, and one of them looked
quite dead. There was an unconscious man right beside him, and an animate statue
yelling at him about God-knows-what… wait that's Lorelei.
He rubbed his brow and sighed. "Ah. Well, at least ya managed to stop them…"
If Lorelei had teeth in her beak, she would have grinned. "I know! Mama and
Papa are going to be so-"
~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~
Lorelei bit her lip and found the cracked fingernail polish on her nails very
interesting. Professor X waited patiently for her to continue. When she didn't, he cleared
his throat softly. "Do you remember what happened after Garvey came out?"
Lorelei nodded and continued fiddling with her cuticles, "Ja…"
~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~
"Listen, Lore, we can discuss this later
okay? We need to round them up before anything else happen-"
"And that's when Garvey stopped talking and seemed to be choking."
"Choking?"
"Ja. He turned all red and scratched at his throat and made choking noises."
"How long did this continue for?"
"'Bout a minute. Then he fell to his knees and started crawling towards the
edge of the cliff. He… just… stopped for a second. And that's when the second earthquake thing
started. The ground went all wobbly; Blue poofed off with Wide-Eyes and stopped
to get Red Lenses… then he disappeared. Then… there vas this huge explosion in
the exact same spot as before. It looked like a bird-"
"A bird?" Professor interrupted.
"Ja. A bird. The explosion… ah, well, it looked like a giant fire-bird was
inside of it. And… it exploded everywhere. Garvey got burned and he screamed
and jumped off the cliff. I got burned too but it didn't hurt; the explosion
lasted really long time though - I lost my footing and I fell into the river.
Charles leaned back again. "I think I understand what happened now." Jean. "But how did you get here?"
Jean needs help, now.
"Not sure." Lorelei lied. It's a white lie.
Professor X nodded, he needed to check on Jean. He'd pursue this girl's story
at a later date. "I'm going to go downstairs for a bit. You're welcome to any
of the rooms upstairs, or you could wait for me here."
"I'll wait." Lorelei quickly replied. No
way I'm exploring this place, with its serious lack of visible doors.
Professor smiled and nodded and wheeled to the door. "I'll be right back"
he assured.
Lorelei watched him leave, and heard the elevator door open and shut again. She
stayed very still for a couple minutes, then jumped up and grabbed a hold of
the doorknob. Ha-ha I lied!
She threw the door open and froze when she came face to face a huge furry
blue bear. She stayed still for a second, then slowly pushed the door closed
again. She sat back down on her chair and stared wide-eyed at the fireplace until
the professor returned.
~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~
Professor X wheeled towards the elevator, "Hank?"
Beast lurched out of his dream when he heard the professors' voice. He rubbed
his face and eyes, "Ugh, yes?" He rumbled sleepily.
"There is a young lady in my office. Please make sure she stays there."
"Very well" Dr. McCoy replied. He shuffled off his bed and made his way
down the stairs. He only had to wait three minutes until the door was suddenly
thrown open and the young girl in question nearly ran into him. She leapt back
at the sight of him, froze, and then quietly closed the door again.
He smiled. Gotcha.
~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~
The Professor didn't even have time to enter Cerebro when the door to the hangar banged
open. Wolverine and Scott spilled through holding a badly battered Gambit, and
Jean came in helping Kurt walk.
"Aren't ya going ta ask what happened?" Wolverine asked.
"I'm not sure I need to" The professor answered. "I've already got the story
from someone else."
Logan looked at him quizzically, but didn't bother pursuing the subject.
Charles turned to Jean, though. "How are you feeling?"
"I feel fine." She replied quickly.
Wolverine and Scott lifted Remy onto the gurney and gingerly set him down.
"Where's Hank?" Scott asked.
"If I'm not mistaken." Professor X replied, "He should still be in front of the
office door. I'll tell him to come see to Gambit. And you too, Kurt"
"What's he doing there?"
"I asked him to watch over Lorelei."
"Who?"
"Lorelei, she showed up in the basement here. She was hiding by Cerebros door."
"Someone broke in?"
"It appears that way, but there is a huge time discrepancy between when she
attacked all of you and when you returned. Unless she can teleport… but, that
seems unlikely; she shows no indication of having that abilit-"
"Wait, wait, hold on." Scott interrupted. "Someone attacked us and then showed
up in the mansion?"
"Essentially, yes."
"Who? Where are they now? Why haven't' you locked them u-."
"For goodness sake, Scott, weren't you in Germany? Who attacked you there?"
The team (minus Remy) all looked at the professor, horrified.
"That statue turned up here?" Wolverine asked.
"Yes. However, I'm not quite sure I believe all of her story; I can't fully
comprehend how a one foot tall granite statue managed to take out the X Men."
"One foot tall?!" Wolverine seethed, "That thing was at least five feet tall,
taller if it stood on its back legs!"
Kurt nodded as quickly as his reeling head allowed "Ja, it might not be the
strongest of all the mutants in the world, but even a well-aimed pebble can
kill a king."
Jean gently touched Kurt's head. "You need to lie down," she insisted.
"I don't mean to question your combat prowess." Professor X backtracked, "I
just need to get the sequence of events in place. I'm also not entirely sure
how she even got here; I don't think she even knows."
"Well I'll tell you what happened! This stone mutant-"
"Lorelei. Her names Lorelei; she looks about sixteen, seventeen, has blondish hair
and the ability to turn into a stone griffin."
Logan's pride was a bit bruised by this point. "Some kid took out the entire
team-?"
"And basically killed Logan-" Scott interjected.
"She knocked you out."
"No, you knocked me out. You landed on my head."
"She threw me-"
"A seventeen year old girl threw a three hundred pound man off the side of a
cliff-"
"Wish I could throw you off a-"
"Gentlemen! Now is not the time!"
Beast burst through the door at that moment and went hurriedly to Remy's
side. "Good Lord! What on earth happened to Gambit?"
"Gargoyle."
"Haha, you mean gar-girl right?" Kurt laughed at his own joke.
Dr. McCoy placed a firm hand on Nightcrawlers' shoulder, "Kurt please lie down."
"Actually I think it was a griffin." Scott corrected Jean.
"What's the difference?" Logan asked.
"One's a lion-bird and the others a fancy waterspout"
"I saw no difference."
"I'm not surprised. You were too busy getting your ass handed to you to notice."
"I swear to God one of these days I'm just going to-"
"Have I talked to you about our Lord Jesu-"
"KURT LIE DOWN."
"I CANNOT, THE STARS ARE NOT IN ALIGNMENT!"
Dr. McCoy left Remy's side to restrain Kurt and check his head injury. "Severe concussion, and
probably a fractured skull… Charles can you deal with him?"
Professor X moved to Kurt's side. "I can deal with the concussion probably, but
the fracture's all yours, doctor."
"That's fine. I need to see to Remy." Dr. McCoy hustled everyone else out the
door and went to work fixing Gambits broken bones.
Scott crossed his arms and looked through the little window into the lab, "Well,
that wasn't one of our most successful missions."
Logan snorted.
They stayed there a few more minutes before Jean got up and stretched. "I'm
going to bed." She announced.
"Be right there…" Scott called after her.
"Not if I get there first…" Logan
muttered.
~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~
Lorelei was asleep when the professor finally returned. He chuckled when he saw
she slept with her eyes open. That's unhealthy… and a little eerie. He stopped in
front of her, "Lorelei?" he asked.
She jolted awake, blinked furiously and rubbed her eyes. "Uh, ja? I didn't go
anywhere."
"I know, thank you for being so patient. We had a couple of injuries to deal
with that took longer than expected."
Lorelei looked guilty at the word injuries, and Professor X noticed that she
still hadn't connected the place she was in now with the team she had taken on – or
the X men in general.
Charles just had one thing he wanted to figure out before he left her side
again. "You look exhausted. Why don't we get you into bed and discuss this all later on?"
"I'm not tired." Lorelei insisted, "I was just-"
"Resting your eyes, I know." Professor X leveled his gaze with the girl, "But I
think you should get some rest now"
"Rest…?" Lorelei's eyelids felt heavy.
"Yes. When you reawake, you'll feel bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to take on the day."
"Right…" Lorelei felt her head droop.
"You'll feel much better. Sleep now."
"'Kay."
"Now, Lorelei."
The little voice in her head was very insistent that she fall asleep immediately.
Don't tell me what to do, she fought pathetically, I'm an adult, I do what I want…
But sleeping is much better.
Yeah but I'm a rebel.
Even rebels need their sleep. How could they rebel if they're too sleepy to even lift their heads?
Yeah… yeah.
Sleep?
Sleep.
Good night.
What?
Shh.
'Kay.
Professor X eyed her sleeping form, half expecting her to pop up and say "I lied." When nothing happened,
the Professor relaxed. Well at least she's not immune to that part. He wondered if it would work if she was
in griffin form, but that was a test for another day, it was almost six by this point; the rest
of the mansion was about to wake up – and a few had already risen early.
He considered waiting until someone came down to help him take Lorelei up, but
instead he loaded her onto his wheelchair and took her up himself. He put her next
to Ororos' room so that she could keep an eye on her, eventually. He wasn't too
worried about her waking up now; she was in a pretty deep sleep. He rolled out
the room and shut the door quietly behind him.
"Charles?" Storm passed him coming from the bathroom. "What are you doing in
the women's wing?"
"Just dropping off a new student." He answered.
"You should have called for me. I would have come to help."
"I know, Ororo, Thank you."
"Did she show up last night?"
"I suppose you could say that," Charles answered. "We'll get more answers later on."
Storm nodded and proceeded down the hallway, banging on the doors and telling
everyone it was time to wake up. Rogue and Kitty were doing the same thing on
separate levels, and the mens' wing had its own way of waking late sleepers up. Professor X
retreated to his office to avoid the stampede to breakfast. The rest of the mansion eventually made
its way into the kitchen and various classrooms, and the usual routine kicked in.
~~~~~~~~OoO~~~~~~~~~
Professor X occasionally checked in telepathically on the inhabitants of the
mansion for the rest of the day. In the lab, Kurt's eyes followed the bright spot of
light that reflected off Hanks watch and danced across the room whever Beast moved.
Remy was still asleep, though grinning in his delirium and drugged up to the
point of numbness. Rogue was pacing outside the lab, and Jean and Scott were
fast asleep. Logan was uncomfortable and tossing in his sheets, and Iceman had
just shattered an ice crystal and startled a group of first-years. Beast had tripped
over the sack that Lorelei had emerged from, and upstairs Griffin was dreaming
of flying.
All's normal, then.
Normal is subjective, just like your thoughts on reviewing *subtle hint hint wink wink*
I LOVE YOU.
But not... you know, creepy like.
Someone shut me up.