Several months later…
Laura Kinney was sitting at the breakfast table looking around at the others. They all looked happy. Jean was cooking with Scott; kitty was sitting at the other end of the dinner table with her boyfriend, Peter. Logan and storm were out jogging, they all seemed to be in relationships-happy ones. She couldn't quite believe that of the all the students teachers in the Xavier institute, she was the only one without any kind of close personal relationship. She brooded over this for some time until the professor wheeled in. "Everyone! I have to speak with you all urgently." Laura looked at Charles with notable attention-that telepath didn't often get this agitated. "What is it professor?" he took a breath to regain his composure, "I was checking with Cerebra when I was struck with an overwhelming psionic force. Somewhere in New York, there is an impossibly strong psychic. One with such power should not be left to her own devices. I know that this is highly irregular but I need some of you to go and convince this child to come and receive training." There was a murmur of wonder as the news sank in-the professor usually only sent them out when there was a serious danger to mutants en masse. For him to send them to retrieve one lone mutant, she must have been very powerful. "Jean, Scott, I would like you to go of course, but I think it would be a good idea for you to take Kitty as well, I think it would be a good idea to bring someone she will look upon as an equal, and also, I felt a wisp of sadness when I sensed her and a companion would most likely help convince her."
"I'd like to go." Laura blurted out. They were all surprised by the sudden outburst-Laura most of all. The professor looked at her skeptically, "if I may ask, why do you want to go?" She looked away awkwardly. "I just feel that I should." She answered simply. The professor looked at her for a moment and then said, "very well, you shall go to-If you don't have any objections scot?"
"Not at all. In fact, I think it's a good idea for Laura to go along-she might get a friend out of it." Laura scowled at him, she wasn't trying to make friends, she just felt that she should be going with them. "Alright then. we leave in an hour." Scott said.
A few hours later they had landed the black bird in New York and were Making their way to Emilys house. Laura scowled. She didn't like New York.
In an hour or so, they wer at Emily's house in the suburbs. it was a perfectly normal hous-no one would guess that an insanely powerful mutant was living in it. Jean rang the doorbell. Moments later a woman opened it, "oh, hello. May I help you?" she asked politely.
"Yes. We're here about your daughter-" Scott started, when the woman suddenly got nervous.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Did Emily do anything to you? If she said something wrong I'm really sorry."
"Oh no, it's nothing like that. We're here from the Xavier institute for gifted children-"
"The X-men?" she asked, sounding surprised.
"Yes, basicaly. We're her to ask you to enroll your daughter into the academy. You might not realize it but she's a mutant-a very powerful one at that." Emily's mom didn't look at all surprised' "Oh, I know. She told us months ago. Could we please talk inside?" They followed her into the house. it was ubeleivably normal. It was tasetful, elegant and precise-Laura felt like she was suffocating. how could anyone live in this much normalcy? she sat down on the leather armchair in the living room. kitty sat on the couch next to Scott and Jean. "Ma'am, I'm sure it's a shock for us to be coming to you like this, but we feel it would be in your daughters best interest to come with us." She sat down in the chair across from them and nodded. "I'm sure it is, but there's a problem..."
"You can rest assured that we'll take the best possible car of your daughter."
"Oh, I'm sure you will. the truth is...she's the problem ." Scott raised his eyebrow, "what do you mean?"
"Well, she closes herself off from the world. She has these headphones and she always wears them. She says that it's the only way she can keep out the noise of the rest of the world."
"It's understandable. the awakening of powers can be overwhelming."
"No, that's the thing, she's been wearing them since she was seven. she doesn't take them off until last thing at night. She doesn't even take them off in the house. the one time we did take them off she just...fell to the floor...screaming. it was horrible" Scott was quiet, if she had, had her powers at seven, the proffesor would have sensed her long ago. he wasn't sure what was happening. Jean decided to take over. "Mrs. Hale, I promise you, we will do whatever it takes to help your daughter figure out this problem." She let off a bark of bitter laughter. "I wish that was the only problem." The mutants looked at her with a look of bewilderment. "What do you mean? What else is wrong?" She took a shakey breath and all the others in the room leaned forward, the anticipation going up several notches. "It happened about two years ago. We were worried about her so we took her to a therapist. He insited we be with her for the first session so we sat in the background while they talked. It was just regular conversational stuff-school, CDs-that kind of thing. Then he asked why she always wore those headphones." She paused, looking as if to prepare herself for what she was going to say. "She said it was so that she wouldn't have to hear all the noise other people make. When he asked why she didn't want to hear it, she said these exact words. 'I hate them. It doesn't matter if I've met them or not, they're alive, so I hate them. I wish they would all die." The older woman quivered. "Her voice. It was so calm. You could tell. You could tell she meant it. I-we felt terrified. We still are. We're afraid of our own daughter!" She sobbed, burying her face in her hands, "what kind of parents are we? We fear our own daughter more than we love her!" She sobbed. Laura was dumbfounded-she had never seen someone break down like this before and she didn't know what to do. Jean and Kitty didn't have that problem and immediatly went to comfort her. "It's okay, you can't help how you feel." after several minutes and many more such sentences, she finally calms down. They sit in the quiet, contemplating what they had heard, when the sound of the door opening breaks their brooding. "Hey mom! Who's here? It's louder than usual!" Came a yell from the hall. Moments later, Emily Hale appears in the livingroom. She looks around, her eyes cutting through each of them as effectively as if she'd had cyclopeses powers. Her gaze rested on Laura, who was left speechless. Emily was dressed simply in a navy blue T-shirt and black jeans, her red and blue headphones clamped firmly around her ears. She had black hair cut jagedly around he jaw-line. Her eyes were a peircing shade of violet. Laura looked her up and down, taking in the girls posture and admitedly- her curves. She was the most beautiful person Laura had ever seen. The only flaw she could see was the hatred in the girls eyes, turning her otherwise pretty face into a mask of anger. "What do you people want?" she sneered, as if the word people was the worst insult known to man. Jean was the first to speak. "Emily, We're from the Xavier institute. We'd like to have you enroll as a student. You have exeptional powers, and we would like to help you develop them."
"You mean you want to keep me were you can see me to make sure I don't kill evrerything if I snap." They were stunned into silence for a momment by the bluntness of her response. Jean had opened her mouth to respond whe Emily cut her off again "Don't you dare lie!" she snapped "even though it's what you people are best at. you can't lie to me!" Jean got up to try and walk to her, but she suddenly stopped, feeling as if she shouldn't come any closer. "Please, we want to help you!" Jean pleaded. The look in Emilys eyes shifted from hateful to murderous and everyone felt the sudden, crushing sense of intimidation. "How can you help me?" she screamed, "how can someon like you ever comprehend how I feel for even a momment?" and then Jean let out a horrifying scream and clamped her hands over her ears and crumpled to the floor. emily glared at her mother, who flinched at her daughters gaze, "I'm going out mom. It's too noisy here. I'll be back...whenever." and she turned to leave while everyone else rushed to help Jean. She was quivering, her eyes shut tightly. after a few minutes, she slowly sat up, her breath heaving and uneven. "Jean, what happened? How did she get past your blocks?" The psychic shook her head, "I don't know. For a second I felt this overwhelming sense of intimidation, then suddenly, I was hit by...noise. More noise than I had ever felt before. I thought I heard voices in it but there was just too much." Laura looked at the door Emily had just left through. "How could anyone make it passed your psychic barriers so easily?"
"I-I don't know. it's like she just...found a chink and got in through there." They couldn't understand what ahd happened. there were far too many things wrong with this situation. Why had her powers manifested this late? How could she be that powerful? And what was this thing going on with noise? Laura felt like she had to be the one to do something about this. "You guys take care of Jean, I'll go find Emily." She said flatly, and then ran out the door.