"I swear, Charles, she fell out of thin air!" Doctor Hank McCoy held up his hands, seemingly at a loss for answers. Besides him was Professor Charles Xavier, in his wheelchair, his calm gaze fixed upon the woman who was now asleep on a clean, white bed. He hesitated a moment, probing her mind with his own in an attempt to read it, but his attempts failed. That was perhaps even more unusual than her sudden appearance.

"Oh I believe you, Hank. I believe you." He said, tilting his head slightly to look at the woman. Her face was serenely calm at that moment, but the lines around her eyes and the evident strength in her arm and facial muscles spoke their own language. This was a woman who had seen too much of the world already. How old did she look to be? Thirty, at most. Hank looked at the professor with a somewhat uncertain glance. The blue-furred man had seen a lot in his time, but people appearing out of thin air, now that was a first. In the middle of his laboratory on top of everything. "So who is she?" He asked. Charles sighed deeply, rubbing his temples.

"I wish I knew."

"You mean you can't read her?" Now that was even more unusual. Charles Xavier was the most powerful telepath the world knew. There were only one man he could not read, and that was because he had invented a way to protect himself from telepathic brainwaves.

"Correct, Hank. I cannot read her mind." Charles offered his friend the slightest smile, thus reassuring him. Only when Hank smiled back, albeit hesitantly, did he continue. "We shall simply have to ask her when she comes to." He kept his voice calm, slightly aloof, even. He was of course concerned, naturally. Whatever this girl had done, it was serious. If she had teleported, she had done so without him having sensed it, so it seemed unlikely. She had to have come from somewhere, but the little he could see of her mind seemed strangely… Off. Not in an unhealthy or bad way, it simply did not work on the same frequencies as the minds he had encountered before.

"Shouldn't be too long." The blue-furred man lowered his glasses slightly, looking at the woman over the silver rims. "She's perfectly healthy, it seems to be nothing but a slight shock."

He was right. Only a few heartbeats later, she slowly opened her eyes. Her reaction was not entirely what they'd expected. She looked at Charles first, letting out the slightest groggy groan. But then her gaze fell on Hanks, and her eyes widened. She practically jumped up, standing on the bed, back pressed against the white wall in an attempt to get as far away as she possibly could.

"Holy shit what is that? He? It?" Her thoughts seemed to whirr around in her head for a moment. "Not a sasquatch, too human. Too hairy to be a wendigo. And why is it blue…" She seemed genuinely confused for a moment, letting her sharp gaze run over Hank, inspecting him from top to bottom. He raised a bushy eyebrow at her, crossing his arms with a huff. A sasquatch! Hah! He was certainly nothing of the short. Even Charles almost chuckled, he couldn't help but find it amusing.

"My name is Doctor Hank McCoy, and I am a mutant. You've heard of those, surely?" Judging by the way she looked at him, he guessed that she probably had not. Well, that was rather surprising. He frowned as he caught her eyes, there was something unusual about this woman. Very unusual. Not only the fact that she had reacted as someone who was used to having to draw a weapon or fight with just a moment's notice, but also the wisdom in her eyes. She looked as though she was wise well beyond her years. Her mind softened when she realised that he was, indeed, human and sentient. She sat down in the bed with a heavy thump.

"I... My name's Ace Hardstone. I'm a hunter. And I have never heard of mutants like you, they uh… God this is weird to say." She took a moment to grimace, what she was about to tell them was something she had never thought she would say, and would never have believed if she had heard it from anyone. "Well, they probably don't exist in my world." There, the bomb had been dropped. She was almost surprised by their reaction, mainly the lack of shock or disbelief. She looked from one to the other, trying desperately to read their faces. She hated this uncertainty, she hated not being sure of what she could trust and what she should distrust. Her instincts might be totally useless in this world, who knew?

"Your world?" Hank asked first, prompted by Charles' silent thinking. Ace's gaze immediately shot upwards to meet his. She tilted her head slightly as though she was trying to decide whether she trusted him for now, or not. "Yes. My world. It is filled with supernatural creatures, some of which are dangerous to humanity, so people like me hunt them down. I had a run-in with a planebreaker; he must have sent me here." The truth was obviously the only way to go with this conversation, so she chose it. The straight path for once. He seemed trustworthy, the blue guy. As for the bald one in the wheelchair, well, he thought a bit much in her opinion.

"A planebreaker… An interesting theory. Yes, it could work when the theorem of parallel universe sis applied. Still, it seems highly paradoxical." The beast – no, she corrected herself, Hank – seemed to be considering her information very carefully, and scientifically. She frowned at him, leaning her head forward slightly in an expression that clearly showed that she had no idea what he was talking about. Science talk wasn't exactly her strong side. "Yeah, that's all very good, blue guy – I mean uh, Doctor McCoy – but where does it leave me?" She meant literally, where was she. But she tried to use big words, it seemed appropriate to at least try.

"My mansion, the Headquarters of the X-men. Northernmost New York." The bald guy spoke at last, and the gentle smile he sent her made her feel slightly better about him, maybe baldy wasn't so bad after all. He still thought too much, though. "My name is Professor Charles Xavier."

"Wow, Professor and Doctor. I never got to meet many of your kind in my world." Ace looked from one man to the other, and then back again. She wasn't sure what to say or do. This was their place, and even more importantly, their world, so it seemed safest to let them stay in control. She didn't know how much different it was from her world, but the changes did not seem insignificant. "So… What now? You gonna run a bunch of crazy tests on me and use me as a bridge between dimensions? No, scratch that, I don't even want to think about it."

At that, Hank chuckled and smiled, that was the first smile she had seen on his lips, and it made her strangely pleased with herself. He did not seem to be a very easy man to amuse. "I can assure you that I will do no such things. A minor blood test perhaps, but nothing more than that-"

"Wait, blood test? Needles? Hell no." In a split second Ace was once more completely alert, her muscles tightening and readying to flee or fight, although it would probably not be necessary. Hopefully, but you never know. Hank was about to say something, but Charles spoke first, with a gleam in his eyes. "Well, I'll leave you to it." He said, slowly steering his wheelchair back, and out of the room. Hank stood for a moment, wondering what that amused look on his old friend's face had been, but he soon turned his attention back to the issue at hand.

"Look, I promise you that I will be careful. It'll be over in a mere moment, no need to worry." In spite of his comforting words, he was somewhat worried as to what might have caused her to build such a fear of needles. She had said that she hadn't met many doctors, so perhaps some amateur had once treated her? If this 'hunters' organisation of hers was underground, it was not unlikely. Ace fought her own panic for a moment, forcing her breath to even out and slow down to normal. Then she looked up at him, her jaw set.

"Fine. But if you screw up, I will kill you."

For some reason, Hank found that rather amusing.