Chapter Two: Children of the Revolution
Three Mile Island, 1979
I: Jean
Jean Grey ,13, had been thinking to herself that she didn't want to spend three periods in study hall this morning, and that if it was possible to get some action and show up late, instead, that would be cool.
Jean had a comfortable upper middle-class life with her easygoing intellectual parents, both of whom were college professors at Columbia, and former hippies, both very free-thinking and broad-minded.
They lived at the Dakota, one floor below Yoko Ono and John Lennon.
The Drs. Grey were supportive of their daughter's pubescent experimentations with her bedding sexuality, and they had her on the Pill.
However, had either of them known the extent of that experimentation, they might have started looking like the silent majority pretty quickly.
Jean considered herself a feminist, and it really was her belief that gender roles and the insistence upon monogamy were tools of the patriarchy designed to keep women under the iron heel.
On the other hand, she liked to fuck, and she was proof against dead rabbits, so, why not?
As such, Jean was not overly alarmed by being picked up and stuffed into a van by a giant of a man, with yellow hair and claws and fangs.
He didn't seem like the Ted Bundy type, he was just driving her someplace, he made no attempt to assault or restrain her, and there went any crowbars or missing seats in his van.
He was pretty hot in a very dangerous sort of way, and that was something that Jean liked.
Cheap thrills, fast times, good dope.
She figured on him being a lot less of a disappointment than that freshman at Columbia she had most recently been with.
"Look, man, what's with grabbing me off the street? I've got three study halls this morning. I don't have to be in class until noon. I was actually gonna get on the subway and go to the Village and look for a little action, so, it's cool."
"I'm no rapo, kid."
"I'm no kid. And who said anything about rape? Do you hear me screaming for help?"
Finding a case of beer, she opened a can and drank about half.
"You want me to leave the skirt on?" she asked.
The blond man looked in his rearview mirror.
"How old are you?"
"17. I'm a junior this year."
She wasn't lying, she was a junior in high school.
Jean was tall for her age, and fairly well-developed.
She found that with a little creative make-up and a lot of confidence, she could pass for barely legal.
"Why not? It's the last good time you're gonna get, sister, where you're going."
The blond man pulled over to the side of the Thruway, and parked the van in the brush.
He opened the back door and climbed in with her.
"You got a name, man?"
"Sabtretooth."
"No shit? Really? I'm gonna be huge when I get back to school. I'm a mutant, myself. Dig this."
Jean unbuckled Victor Creed's belt and unzipped his pants, without ever touching him.
"Holy shit!" he exclaimed.
"That ain't shit, man. If I wanted to, I could pick this van up and stick it in that tree. I could look at a guy driving past in his car and think I wanted his head to pop like a pumpkin , and, BOOM!"
"You know something, doll? My money's on you. Lemme take 'em off, myself."
The infamous Sabretooth, he really screwed the ass off of her, and Jean sacked out after that.
When she woke up, they were at some kind of airport and he handed her over to a military man, who didn't look anything like the guys on TV and in the movies did who were supposed to be military guys.
"Where am I going?" Jean asked.
"To a new school, marvel girl." Creed said.
He leaned over and whispered in her ear.
"Listen, kid, you show Bill Stryker you got balls and he'll fast track you out into Weapon X. As soon as you can, you start poppin' flunky's heads like pumpkins. You kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out, and I'll be seeing you again soon. Then, as my old CO in 'Nam liked to say, we'll really put these jokers through some changes."
He left her then, in the care of the guy who looked more like a spook than an army guy, and, discovering from a cursory scan of his mind that he got migraines, Jean gave him a whopper.
The spook led her from the airplane into a compound, and handed her over to some flunky in coveralls, like one of the faceless goons in a James Bond movie.
He had a machine gun.
Jean wasn't rattled.
Her parents told her all about the shit that the CIA refused to admit they did, especially to mutants; she was prepared for this eventuality.
At least, she thought she was.
They took her down an elevator, under the ground to a place that looked kind of like a military barracks and kind of like a prison cellblock, and put her in one of the cells.
The cells had metal doors, and small barred windows.
Jean wasn't upset.
"Hey, screw? They say the size of a man's dick is inversely proportional to the size of his gun. You must have to use tweezers to jack off."
She had every intention of popping his head like a pumpkin, but she wanted to rag on him, a little, first.
Because she could always rely on her powers, Jean had a tendency to be fearless, quick-tempered and arrogant about both.
But when the flunky in coveralls ignored her , and Jean realized they wouldn't work, she went to plan B.
Jean reached through the bars for the flunky with both arms and began pulling him against the metal door with some well of inner strength born of her sudden fear.
"Let me out! You motherfucker, you let me out, or I'll kill you! I'll kill all of you cocksuckers, you'll see!"
The flunky dropped his gun and began screaming for help, and a big man came, armed with an even bigger gun.
"Fuck you! Go ahead and shoot me, you fascist pig! Fuck the pigs! Fuck the pigs! Attica! Attica!" Jean yelled, defiantly.
Her mother and father had been taking her to demonstrations since she was a babe in arms; Jean knew the drill.
That was when someone yanked Jean away from the door.
"Shut up!" he said, and shoved Jean behind him.
"You want it too, mutie?" the man with the gun asked.
"Let her go. Your buddy's just got a little scratch on his head, and she's just a crazy kid. Be a man about it."
"Yeah well, she's your cellmate, One-Eye. Make sure it doesn't happen again, or you're both in for it."
Both men left.
Finally unmanned, Jean began to cry a little.
The boy who had protected her gave her a hug.
"Hey, don't cry. It's just this place. Whatever it is you can do, it'll come back when we get out of here. It's not so bad, as long as you don't make trouble. Like what you just did? That was bad. Don't worry. They won't hurt you, here. All you have to do is what they tell you. Quietly."
Jean was embarrassed, crying in front of her new comrade, so she sucked it up pretty damn fast.
She turned around.
He was pretty tall, and he had a bandage over his eyes, which freaked Jean out a little, but the boy seemed like a nice kid.
Cute, too.
I hope I can get my pills refilled, here.
Good thing I never leave home without them.
"So, what do they do to you in this place comrade? Torture? Beatings? Rape?" she asked, calmly.
"Your parents are hippies, aren't they?"
"My parents are American patriots, soldiers in the war against fascism and so am I. I'm a mutant. This is the way life is for us. I can take it."
"Relax. I've been a lot been worse places than this. It's not like a prison in South America in the movies. They feed you, here, and they take you to for a shower. We get two hours of outdoor exercise a day, one after lunch, one after dinner , Look, the cell isn't so bad, either. They pay you sixteen bucks a week and there's a commissary where you can buy candy and gum and magazines and smokes. It's in the cafeteria. Even the food's alright, and they give you three pairs of coveralls and wash them every week. On Sunday. All that happens is some army doctor looks at you, and takes blood samples. And they test your powers and make you do psychological tests Nobody beats you. Nobody touches the girls. It's alright."
Jean's mind eased a little bit.
"Sounds like a top secret Weapon X screening program. That makes sense. Creed's Weapon X. Maybe I can get inside, do the mole thing." She muttered.
"What?'
"Never mind. Hey, if there's no torture in this place, what happened to your eyes?"
"I have to keep them covered. It's alright, I can see right through the bandage."
"What do they do?"
"Shoot lasers."
"That sounds like it comes in handy."
"It would be if I could control them. I'm Scott."
"Oh. Hi. I'm Jean. I'm 13. But I'm in the 11th grade."
"Really? I'm 14, and I'm in 9th . But my school, it was pretty lousy. And so was my foster home. This is actually an improvement."
"How?"
Scott shrugged.
"I get food three times a day, and they wash your overalls, and give you new ones when the land ones wear out, they let you sleep through the night and nobody beats you up or screams at you, as long as you don't try to kill them. Look at this cell. It's pretty big. These are real bunk beds. And they let you have books. It's pretty nice table, the chairs aren't bad. We get a radio, too. There's a TV in the cafeteria. That over there, it's the toilet stall. They even have a stall for it, right? It's kind of like being in the army. I try to think of it like that. It's okay. It really is."
Jean looked around the cell/room.
Who are you kidding? You live on Central Park West. You don't know shit about hard knocks, only what you've heard. This Scott kid, he has seen the elephant,. He's institutionalized.
Learn from him.
Do what he does.
Don't freak out.
"Don't sweat it. You seem like you have a real cool head, and you're not afraid of much.. I'll teach you. How are you at getting used to things?"
"Well, they say you can get used to anything. I guess I'm going to find out."
Scott was right.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been.
The cellblock was as clean, neat and orderly, and all the staff appeared to be military personnel, or at least, paramilitary.
They woke you up at the same time, 7AM, every day.
Everybody went to eat meals together, three times a day, and exercise together.
Lights out was the same time every night.
There were 3 & 1/2 hours of tests before lunch, and the same after, and two hours of exercise, a half hour of breakfast and an hour for lunch and dinner, both.
The rest of the time you were in your cell, and it was your own time, and light's out, every night, was at 10:30.
It was kind of like being in the army.
There weren't that many of them.
Ten, in five cells.
Besides Scott, who could shoot laser beams out of his eyes, there was Peter, who was Russian, who could turn himself to steel, and Hank, who despite being, like Jean, incredibly smart, had the size and strength of a gorilla.
They lived in the cell next door.
In the cell across from Scott and Jean's, that's where they kept Warren, who had wings just like an Angel, and Alex, Scott's brother.
Scott hadn't seen his brother, who was Jean's age, in five years, because they had been put in different foster homes, so there was something good that came out of this whole thing.
In the cell beside theirs were Ororo and Emma.
Emma came at the same time Jean did, but they didn't want to put two telepaths into one cell, so they put her in with Scott and Emma in with Ororo, who had the ability to control and create weather and climate.
The last two mutants who had been held were both considerably older than the kids.
Remy was probably about 20 or 21.
He was a Cajun, who was a self-styled gambler and thief who could take a desk of cards and turn them into deadly missiles.
His cellmate, Raven, she was of an indeterminate age, probably one of those mutants who had been around, forever.
They escaped about a month after Jean came.
Remy promised to come back and save them all, personally, but Jean put more stock in Raven.
She lived with the famous mutant activist Erik Lehnsherr , who was, of course, a close friend of Charles Xavier, who was the head of the X-Men and the X-Institute.
When she promised to send help, they believed her.
After the escape Scott suggested to his fellow prisoners that they be extremely servile, docile and obedient, so that their captors would think they were broken.
It was not a suggestion that Jean relished.
In jail, Jean had been reborn as El Grey!, the hard-as-nails political prisoner who made every act a rebellion, and fought The Man all the way.
She picked fights with the guards armed with clubs who patrolled the cafeteria, and withstood the blows of their cudgels to strike out at flabby bellies, unprotected solar plexuses, fleshy throats, and even the occasional elbow to the nose or kick in the balls.
They'd get a straitjacket, and put her a padded solitary cell, and the day she came out, she'd scream and throw her food at lunchtime.
It went without saying that she would not participate in any of the experiments, and no matter how many times she lost meals, exercise privileges, and money, or was thrown into solitary, it only served to make her more violent and defiant.
Jean wore her bruises like badges of honor; when she was in solitary she'd throw herself against the walls and sing "We Shall Overcome" and the Internationale until she was hoarse.
The other prisoners were not quite so intractable, but nobody wanted to cower before their captors.
"What advantage she it give us to capitulate?" she demanded of Scott.
"If they think they've broken us, especially you. It'll be a victory for them. They'll start to relax. And when they start to relax, they'll make a mistake. When they do, we'll use it to our advantage."
Jean hadn't thought of that, and neither had the other prisoners.
They decided to try it.
It worked.
Within two weeks they could all see an appreciable change in the guards' demeanor.
Which gave Jean an idea.
When she was in the company of the doctors and technicians, or of Col. Stryker, himself, she cultivated the personality of a frightened rabbit.
Servile, obedient, docile and terrified.
The exact opposite of what she was.
If she could hide her true colours and then show them in some spectacular fashion, as Creed suggested, she might be able to get into Weapon X, and then work for the freedom of her fellow captives.
Or she might be able to get Stryker off guard and kill him.
Either way, he might relax into thinking she was an idiot, and give something important away.
She even took the extra step of obviously cringing and flinching when Stryker was in the room.
After a month or so of this business, he had her brought to his office.
Jean feigned the very-edge of pants pissing terror.
"Is there some reason you're so frightened of me, little girl?"
She could tell that he liked it, the sick son of a bitch, it made him happy that he had broken her spirit, utterly and that she was apparently incredibly terrified of him.
Had Jean been in possession of her powers, she thought, she would have made him shoot himself with his own gun.
In the guts, so that, just like in the movies, it would take him a few days to die.
"I don't want to die, Colonel Stryker, sir. Please, sir, I'm not a subversive. I know the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Gettysburg Address, and my Mom and Dad are registered voters. I'm sorry I'm a mutant, sir. I can't help it. I was born that way. I'll join the army, if you want me to. I'll use my powers for the greater good of my country. Just don't kill me, sir. I'm so terrified."
And he just chuckled and laughed, oh he was so happy he was rubbing his hands together with glee.
"We're not going to kill you. After the experiment is over, your families and foster families will all be compensated by the government, provided they sign agreements not to disclose, or prosecute. Then you can all go home."
"Really?" Jean asked
Jean forced a bright, but frightened smile.
She really was a little sacred, because his preposterous bullshit made her realize that Creed was wrong about the aim of this facility.
Stryker had lied to Sabretooth, too.
The Colonel wasn't looking to assimilate, he was looking to exterminate.
"Really." Stryker promised.
At lunch, while they all ate, Jean made her report.
As they were talking, they all looked at their plates.
"Well?" Scott asked.
"Stryker lied to Creed. Probably because even he wouldn't hunt down his own kind and turn them over to Adolf Eichmann." Jean said.
"I don't like where this is going." Hank commented.
"He didn't even tell me a good lie. Which means he doesn't have to think of one. And if the government isn't lying to us and kissing our asses, that means only one thing."
"Are you sure about that, Jean?" Scott asked.
"Yeah. That and I was looking around his office and I saw a picture on his desk of Cardinal John. As in the black Pope of the Church of Humanity. The family resemblance was suddenly, well, striking. I'll bet all these people are C of H. After they're done with us, they're going to kill us all. Despite all this paramilitary barracks bullshit."
Emma Frost sobbed, and Jean kicked her under the table.
"Suck it up, comrade! Can that shit! We're mutants. This is what life is like for mutants. Get used to it or hang yourself in your cell so the rest of us have a better chance to escape." Jean snapped.
"Jean!" Scott explained.
"What? Baby, this isn't the Mr. Rogers Fun Time Hour. The shit is coming down. It's up to us whether we bring it on their heads, or they bring it on ours."
"No. She's right. We've got to find a way to get our powers back so we can get the fuck out of here. Because, unless we can figure a way out of her, or Raven shows up with Magneto and Professor X, we're all dead." Emma agreed.
"Well, I'm pretty sure I could kill a whole bunch of these guys with my bare hands. If I had to." Hank said.
"I know I could. You do what you have to do. They want to kill us? We kill them first. That's it." Peter commented, shrugging, fatalistically.
"Preach it, tovasrisch." Jean said.
She smiled at Peter, and raised her fist, and smiling back, he did the same.
"Alright you two, don't start singing the Internationale!" Scott interrupted.
"You can use me as a shield. If I could use my powers." Emma said.
"If we could use our powers we could make their heads explode." Jean said, darkly.
"Or make them all shoot each other." Emma suggested.
"I could flood the place. Or a nice mini-hurricane. Maybe a monster tornado." Ro said
"I could fly us out." Warren added.
"You guys have never seen my plasma pulses. I could make us a nice big hole in this dump." Alex bragged.
"And I could make it bigger. But you're all forgetting, we don't have our powers." Scott finished.
Jean didn't say anything.
She had been spending much of her time, even at night, while Scott was asleep, trying, patiently, again and again to try and get around the block Stryker had set up.
"Hank and I don't need powers. We are both big guys. If the end comes before we get rescued, we overpower a guard each. Take guns. Shoot a few more. Enough for one gun, one mutant. Then we take on all of them. We get out old fashioned way. Shoot them all." Peter suggested.
"I'll do it. Fuck'm. Honky motherfuckers and their godammn Uncle Tom Oreo white man's boot lickin' niggers! Fuck'm all." Ro agreed.
"Preach it, sister!" Jean continued.
"I don't know if I could kill anybody. I'll just handle the flying us out." Warren admitted.
"I don't know if I could kill anybody, either! What's the matter with you all? Are we no better than they are? I can't believe you guys are all so willing to kill these people. They're all human beings, just like us. They have families at home. Kids, like we are." Scott protested.
"If they had kids like us, big brother, they wouldn't be here. Don't be such a goddam goody-goody all the time." Alex protested.
"Shut it, little brother, or I will shut it for you." Scott warned
"I'm with Scott. I'm not a mercenary, I'm just a great big science nerd. I don't want to kill anybody, unless I have to." Hank volunteered.
"Alright, then. We take guns and knock them cold. Just so we get out!" Peter amended his idea.
"I still want to make their heads explode." Jean maintained.
"Or make them shoot themselves. They want to kill all of us. They're with the C of H. The people who probably made you an orphan, Scott. All those C of H terrorists deserve to die. Even the government when they catch them, they always charge them with treason and sentence them to fry in droves." Emma agreed.
"That's right! My father says that one of the good things about the Comedian is that, as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Covert, he doesn't give the C of H any leeway. He orders his agents to terminate all C of H members immediately, and with extreme prejudice. Like the raping, murdering, marauding, burning bomb-throwing vermin they are!" Jean interjected.
"It's out duty as mutants. That's what my father says." Emma added.
"Look, this isn't about politics. We're not going to use deadly force unless we have to. Because we already have an advantage. They think they've broken us. And now, they think that we all think that we're going to go home with money after our patriotic duty is done. They will not expect resistance. Hank, you and Pete will try and overpower the guards. We'll take their guns, just in case. Then we'll make an escape attempt. As soon as we get to a level of this facility where we use our powers, Jean, you and Emma will have to discover the way out. Ro, you can make a diversion. If it rains and storms inside, that will give them all something to think of. Alex, once we find the upper level, you and I make a new door out of here. We can keep the guards busy while the others escape. Warren, you can fly us individually to safety, in the event we can't find any vehicles." Scott ventured.
It was a good plan.
Scott was good with plans.
"What if there are no keys?' Ro asked.
"Me and Scott both know how to hot wire a car." Alex told them.
"I'll go with that plan. We only kill them if we have to." Hank interjected.
"Are we all agreed? Emma? Jean?"
The two telepaths agreed, grudgingly.
"Okay. We wait until the six months Mystique and Gambit promised us about are up. Or until things start to change in our routine. Whichever comes first. I'll let you know when it's go time. Are we agreed?" Scott asked.
Everyone nodded assent.
"Right. Here they come to take our trays. Everybody cringe, and look scared and dumb."
Three more months went by, for a total of five.
In that time, Scott turned 15, and Hank turned 16.
Emma and Jean had privately decided that they were still going to see if they could make one badguy's head explode, and make one shoot himself.
They were both thinking of the same man.
Colonel Stryker.
At first, Jean had to keep her mind off her parents, and her home, because if she thought about them in conjunction with the possibility that she might die, it made her feel like she wanted to cry.
But this was no place for tears.
Scott was right, she got used to it.
What you had to be to get through something like this was hard.
Hard as the diamond skin Emma said she had; hard as the fucking Rock of Gibraltar.
Her mother and father talked about it, and they were hard enough after 15 years of protest, riots and demonstrations to take a little knocking around from the cops and a night or two in jail.
But this was a different kind of hard.
It was the kind of hard you had to be to survive the dungeons of a South American tinhorn dictator, the kind of hard you had to be to survive gulag.
It was the kind of hard she hoped they would never have to become.
Jean got real hard, real fast; she could think about home as much as she wanted to and never felt the urge to give a sniffle or shed a tear.
All she wanted was to get the fuck out of this place, kill all of these motherfuckers and make damn sure that for the rest of her life, she would never, ever, be in a position again where she was the nail and somebody else was the hammer.
Make sure, in fact that no other mutant had to go through what she went through, not one, not ever.
What was it Magneto said?
Never again.
Only cream and bastards rise, and I'm both, she told herself.
Still, Jean couldn't stand being alone, in the dark, with her thoughts.
She and Scott moved their bunks and pushed them together and fixed the blankets and the sheets so it was like one bed.
Nobody ever said anything to them about it.
She felt better, with Scott lying beside her, and she got some sleep, huddled against the crook of his arm, but not much.
Jean often tried to overcome the block on her powers, sometimes to the point where she got horrible headaches and nosebleeds.
Then, she would just lie there, thinking about how they were going to kill her.
A bullet?
Gas?
Electrocution?
Hanging?
Then, she thought about all the things she would never get to do, dying at 13.
She would never even finish high school, let alone go to college.
She would never become a doctor, like she wanted, or drive a car.
Or buy a house or have an apartment, or go to a Who or Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin or Ramones Concert without her parents.
Then she would think about the crazier things she used to like to do, like have a few beers on a week end, or smoke a little of her parents' weed when they were out.
Jean was up smoking and brooding, smoking and brooding, for half the night.
Then Scott would wake up, and he would be concerned and make her come and lie down with him.
Sometimes he'd kiss her, a little.
Jean liked that.
A lot.
Because one of the things she missed the most was fucking.
She often thought about the back of the van with Sabretooth.
Even though Jean believed he didn't realize he was selling her off to her death, she was still going to make him pay.
Not with his life, though.
And not without another round.
Scott, she really liked him, though.
Which bothered her, in a way.
Having strong feelings for Scott complicated things in a way she didn't like.
That and he was so fifties.
And she was pretty sure he was a virgin, but everybody has to start somewhere.
Jean started with trading one of the guards three packs of cigarettes from the commissary for a box of Trojans.
She kept trying to subtly insinuate to Scott that she wanted to do a little more than kiss him, but he never took the hint.
One day, though, he gave her a tiny bit of a loophole, and Jean slipped through it.
"Scott? You awake?"
He yawned, and moved around, a little.
"I am now. What is it, Jean?"
"I heard you telling Hank not to look at me like that, because I'm your girl. You might have told me."
"Well, Jean, I just…I mean, I just thought…"
"That's okay, Scott. I don't mind being your old lady, and you being my old man. I'm cool with that. I'm not into that whole thing where we go steady and own each other, though. That's patriarchal bullshit. But I like you. I'll be your girlfriend."
"Say that again in English."
"I like you. A lot more than I ever liked any other guy. I'll be your girl. But I don't do monogamy. Not only do I think it's bullshit, it's not in my nature. But I'll never put any other guys before you."
"I don't know how I feel about that."
"I don't know, Either, Scott. But if you really want me to be your girl, you'll have to live with it. I could lie o you and say I'll change, but I won't. I love you just the way you are, Mr. Fifties, sweater over your button-down shirt, haircut above your collar National Honor Society Boy Scout. I wouldn't ask you to change. Don't ask me."
"Jean, did you say you loved me?"
"Maybe it's just a jail thing. But yeah, I did. I'm pretty sure I do."
"I loved you almost from the first moment they shoved you into the cell with me. If you can live with me being a Young Republican and Mr. Fifties, I guess I can live with you being a combination of Fidel Castro, Gloria Steinem and Janis Joplin."
Scott laughed a little into the dark, and Jean laughed too.
"I guess it's settled, hen."
"Good. If we ever get out of here, I'll buy you a ring, or something. It'll have to be a cheap ring, But, that's something, right?"
"I don't need a ring, Scott. I need you. You're good enough for me. But, you do know if they kill us, now, we'll never get to do anything with our lives."
"They're not going to kill me. Or you. Or any of us. We have a plan."
"Be realistic, Scott. Do you really want to die a virgin?"
"A WHAT!"
"Don't yell! I'm your girl, Scott. Don't you want to make love to me? I'd rather have that than a ring, any old day. I don't play around just for political reasons, you know. I'll bet I'm just about the horniest chick in New York City…"
"Jean! Don't touch me…there!"
"Aww, c'mon, Scott! If they kill us, you'll never know what it's like. We'll never be together."
"I'll never know? You mean you've done it? But you're almost two years younger than I am!"
"So? I'll show you the ropes. I'll bet you're a fast learner. You're a good kisser. Better than most of the guys I've been with."
Jean nestled against him, and started rubbing his chest.
She slung her leg across both of hi.s
"Jean…"
"C'mon, Scott. You know you want to. Why fight it?"
"Well..what if you get pregnant?"
"I won't. I traded one of the guards three packs of cigarettes for a box of Trojans."
"Jean!"
"What? They're under the mattress."
"You mean , now? Right now? After we've just been talking about it?"
"No. Just…whenever. The next time either of us thinks about it."
Scott laughed, a little nervously.
"I'm thinking about it right now. I don't think I'll be able to stop thinking about it, all night."
"Then kiss me. And whatever happens…we'll go with it."
"Hey, Jean it's my first time. Be gentle with me." Scott joked.
"Fat chance, sugar. You're gonna have to take it like a man." Jean replied.
"Hey! Over here! Open my cell first!"
The man Jean knew had to be the Wolverine gave her a brief look, before running past her cell, first and then the others, clawing the locks off.
Somehow, his famous claws were made of metal, now.
Jean jumped out.
There were guards, firing down at them, and she looked at one of them, thinking the thought she had been thinking for months.
His head blew up.
"We've got out powers back!" Jean exulted.
Another guard had his gun on Wolverine.
"Hey, you! Shoot your buddy instead!" Jean ordered him.
He did it.
She laughed.
"Now, shoo yourself. In the guts."
The guard did that too.
Jean laughed, again.
She picked up one of the dead guards' machine guns, and started firing at the live guards until the gun was out of bullets.
No problem.
"Man, this is so easy I should be ashamed of myself." she chuckled.
Wolverine turned to her, briefly.
Christ, was he a good looking son of a bitch!
What I wouldn't give for fifteen minutes under him, fuck yeah!
"How'd you do that, kid?" he asked
Jean pointed to her temple.
"I can make these assholes do whatever I want."
"Good. Save me some trouble and yourselves some casualties. Don't fuck around with those guns. Juts kill 'em all."
"Jean! Let's make them all shoot each other!" Emma yelled.
She and Pete were hiding the others, deflecting bullets.
"What about Scott's plan?" Jean asked.
"It didn't work! I didn't realize they'd all be trying to machine gun us! Get them to shoot each other's legs." Scott yelled.
"Fuck 'm! I'm with you, Jean! Let's just make their heads blow up!" Emma yelled.
Jean turned back to Wolverine.
He abruptly jumped in front of her, taking heavy machine gun fire to his chest.
"Do it soon, kid! These thirty-aught-six bullets don't feel too good."
"Okay. Emma? You ready?"
"Ready!"
"Concentrate. We'll close our eyes. On three. One…two… three!"
There was a lot of loud popping, and Scott yelling for them to stop, and then the sound of metal guns hitting the metal floor, followed by silence.
Jean opened her eyes.
All the guards were dead, and they grey metal walls were spattered and spotted with blood, brains, and bone.
"Damn, we're good." She marveled
"Hey, kid, you ever think about joining the X-Men?" Wolverine asked.
He looked impressed.
"Every day I was here." She told him.
Quickly, Col. Howlett took charge of the situation.
"Okay, kids. Don't panic. It was either them or you. Trust me. All of these guys were hand-picked C of H killers. If any of you have dead relatives, it might just be one of these men who killed them. And not in a nice way. It was you or them. Now we gotta get you out of here. Which one of you is in charge?"
Scott stepped forward.
"I am, Colonel Howlett."
"You had the right idea, kid. You never use deadly force just for fun. Only if you have to. Don't worry about it, you had to. And I gave the command. It's on me, not you. Now, Charlie's going to be talking to one of the two telepaths in her head. You follow her and lead the rest of your people out of here. Tell him I said not to wait for me. I've got unfinished business. Tell him I'll be back when I can."
Later, Jean would wonder if Professor Logan remembered any of it.
She remembered it all.
Time passed quickly, for all of them.
Jean was reunited with her parents, who were proud of her that she conducted herself with honor and dignity in her time as a political prisoner.
So were Hank and Warren, and Pete sent word to his family in Russia that he had finally reached his destination, safely.
Scott and Alex didn't have any family, and neither did 'Ro.
Scott found out his foster parents sold him for ten thousand dollars, and Ro and Alex, who were both living on the street in New York, were bought from their respective gang leaders.
Hank and Warren and Pete were all kidnapped, like she was by the big, blond man with the fangs.
Victor Creed was a former marine and S.H.I.E.L.D agent turned Weapon X Agent, who was now better known by the name Sabretooth.
He was a victim of Stryker's treachery too, and so were the X-Men.
After a showdown with Stryker, Wolverine went AWOL.
Gambit claimed Logan didn't recognize him; something had happened to make him lose his memory.
Vowing revenge on Stryker and whoever his backers were, Sabretooth left Weapon X and went to find Wolverine, his estranged brother.
Word had it, he did so with the full support of Col. Edward M. Blake, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D Covert, who had, almost a lifetime ago, been PFC Blake under Col Howlett, who became his trusted mentor, and eventually, his friend.
As for the escapees of Stryker's jail, they all ended up attending the X-Institute, together.
The next year or so was pretty busy for Jean.
She remained dedicated to her vow to protect mutants and their rights, and came to see Charles' Xavier's X-Men and the X-Institute as the perfect vehicle for that aim.
Charles worked with her on gaining more control of her powers, and helped her build a mental partition for the portion of them that was actively dangerous.
He called those the Phoenix Force.
But, everything that put fire into Jean couldn't be walled away.
It was probably Phoenix that made her confrontational, and rebellious, and stubborn.
The girl in the leather jacket and the combat boots and the Ramones and Rolling Stones tee shirts who picked up the habit of chain-smoking when she was in Bill Stryker's jail and never gave it up.
She never gave up on any of the lessons she learned there, either.
Life is hard.
So am I.
Better to be the hammer than the nail.
Only cream and bastards rise, and I am both.
She took her superhero name from the man who had, however unwittingly, turned her feet from the path of careless teenage rebellion against whatever you got, and set them on the course to her become a tireless champion of mutant rights.
A soldier for freedom, and against tyranny.
El Grey!
Marvel Girl, Eighth Wonder of the World.
Jean was tough before jail, but after, she was diamond hard.
When Charles told her she couldn't solve her difficulties with other people by psychically attacking them, she started getting into fistfights, until he told her to stop that, too.
However, it was also Phoenix that put the spark in her personality, that made her courageous and curious and voraciously intelligent; determined to be at the top of her class even though she was two years ahead of herself.
The girl who was fascinated by science, who wanted to know why and how everything worked.
The girl who had enough courage for ten mutants; who never backed down from a challenge of any kind, whose razor sharp wit could either entertain or decimate.
They were both Jean, and she was comfortable in her own skin, even if to some of her classmates she seemed mercurial and unpredictable.
But never to Scott.
He always seemed to understand.
Scott was her rock, he was her pillar of strength and he had been since the day she met him in that dark prison cell.
He was her friend, and her lover, and she really did love him, very much.
As much as he loved her.
But, the Jean who went to school dances and the movies with Scott, and spent hours studying in the library was the same Jean who snuck away with Ro to go to parties and concerts in the city; the same Jean who had caused the heads of twenty men to blow up and then laughed.
The same Jean who secretly hit the street almost every in search of fast times and cheap thrills.
She worked hard, it was only fair that she should be able to play hard, too.
The same Jean who's wandering eye led her first to Tony Stark, and then, to Wolverine.
He would be the only man that she and Phoenix both liked.