NOVEL NEXT Iris and Me
Summers is attempting a powermove here, which wouldn’t fall as flat as it does if he was the one with an advantage.
Chapter 67 : Dawn of a new era (No way)
Chapter 67 : Dawn of a new era (No way)
“English Tea Time” Tea house, Manhattan Mall, Koreatown, Manhattan, New York, 5th of May, 15h12
Gwen and I look at each other before sighing aloud simultaneously.
In the corner of my eyes and safely hiddens behind Iris’ skin, I watch with a certain amount of satisfaction how much Gwen and I’s synchronicity unnerves our audience.
Despite being focused on the major part of Gwen and I’s psychic defenses, Iris still manages to send me a [Snigger, mirth] that sums up my own reactions pretty well.
It’s a little trick that I thought of on the spot.
What is more unnerving than being faced by ‘me’ a second time for the young X-Men after January’s disaster?
Facing me and a second unknown player while displaying as much of an eerie ambiance as the both of us can manage.
As to how we do it?
Easily as it turns out. Our knees, hidden under the table, are touching each other, allowing Gwen and I to communicate telepathically through our accelerated thought streams via close contact and bypassing our psy-shields despite them being raised. It’s just a matter of communicating our moves to each other as we do them and, voilà, the creepy factor is dialed to eleven.
If you want to hold as many aces in your sleeves when you start a conversation with a potentially hostile party, destabilizing them as much as you can is the way to go.
This way, if things sour, they’ll at least be unfocused for the opening move because they’re unsettled.
“That checks it.” I comment offhandedly, “It definitely looks like a date when seen from an outside perspective.”
“If even total strangers think that…” Gwen answers, slightly tilting her head as she looks back toward the five gawking mutants.
I, of course, mirror her.
“...Then our mutual acquaintances are going to have a field day next week.” I end her sentence as naturally as I can.
Which is surprisingly difficult because Gwen, Iris and myself are mentally laughing a lot at the X-Men’s expense.
<“You were right, this is kind of funny.”> Gwen sends me while mentally snickering.
I’m glad she got out of her gloomy and serious mood from earlier.
It’s not like we’re in any sort of danger after all. Worse case scenario I teleport us out on the street if pushes come to shove. I just chose for us to stay because I didn’t want to make a scene, which suddenly appearing in a total stranger’s back in the middle of a street definitely would’ve, and because I made a promise to the Cosmic Prick of Life and Destruction to help his avatar if I ever met her again.
I’m also leery of overusing my suggestions because, while useful, telepathy remains a slippery slope and I’d rather use it against total arses than random strangers. Kindly suggesting the tea house’s previous customers to pay for what they ordered and leave is fine, forcefully making one of Manhattan’s most crowded streets ignore my blatant display of superpowers, less so.
Plus, I’d lose my only opportunity to control the narrative when we finally introduce the team and myself to the public eye.
“Miss Grey, Pride and Rogue, Mister Summers and Wagner, please take a seat if you would.” I say politely while gesturing to the opposite side of the booth, Gwen following suit less than a fifteenth of a second later.
“Hard pass!” Kurt quickly blurts out, shattering the frozen statues impression the group have uniformly harbored so well until now as his eyes shift between us.
The teleporter cannot hide the fact that he’s the jumpiest of them all and really wishes he was anywhere but here.
“I’ll stand too.” Scott gruffly answers as he folds his arms over his torso while leaning on the booth.
Summers is attempting a powermove here, which wouldn’t fall as flat as it does if he was the one with an advantage.
Sadly, he’s not and remains rather delusional about it.
I narrow my eyes minutely under Iris’ face.
Strange.
The three girls look at each other.
Jean’s hesitation shows until Kitty loses the last of her patience and wordlessly shoves Rogue and her on the seat in front of us.
I notice that Rogue is, strategically, the closest to Gwen and I and that she has dropped her gloves.
<“Careful about the girl who looks like an angry panda because of her makeup.”> I point out to Gwen, <“Don’t touch her skin under any pretext.”>
I feel a minute flicker of her attention as she acknowledges my advice.
As Kitty sits herself next to Jean with a huff, I take once again the control of the conversation.
“I admit to being intrigued.” I comment lazily as I slowly stir my cherry blossom tea, “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“Simple courtesy, I’d hope.” Gwen chains.
Jean’s visible confusion at our display finally quietens as she takes a deep breath while closing her eyes.
“Are you Aamon?” She finally asks when she opens her eyes once more and tries to make eye contact with me.
Jokes on her, she can’t!
<“I cannot lie to her.”> I mentally comment to Gwen’s benefit as I start to answer Jean’s query, <“She’s an empath and she’ll know instantly. The best I can do is be evasive when I answer her. I’ll explain things succinctly along the way if I have to but I’d rather wait until this mess is over, Gwennie.”>
<“You’re the maestro right now, I’ll wait.”> She answers back, <“But I expect the full story once we’re done.”>
<“Alright, alright.”> I mentally concede.
Iris’ mental snigger is definitely at my expense this time.
Cheeky Klyntar.
“I did introduce myself to you months ago under that moniker, yes.” I confirm easily.
I’m rewarded with four hanging jaws and Jean’s relatively befuddled expression when she computes that, yes, what I said was true and her suspicion was right.
<“It never gets old.”> I snicker to Gwen’s benefits.
<“Reintroducing yourself to people who knew you before?”> She asks for clarity’s sake.
<“Yup.”> I answer, my tone dripping with mirth, <“Look how close the guy with the shade is to fall on his ass from sheer disbelief, hilarious.”>
Gwen, Iris and I take a moment to appreciate Scott’s bewilderment as it shows on his face.
<“I could do without the second part of the argument that is inevitably coming though.”> I mentally add.
I just already know that someone is going to utter something that will positively annoy me, the pattern is well known by this point.
“How?” Rogue blurts out, her eyes darting between my cleavage, my hands and what she can see of my facial bone structure under my mask, three marks of my femininity that are rather difficult to ignore, “You were a guy last time!”
Should’ve guessed that she would be the one to demonstrate the social grace of an elephant in a china shop.
“I could argue against that statement until your ears fall off, but that’s not really why you’re here, right?” I answer, tilting my head slightly and letting a little of my annoyance drip through my tone, “As to the ‘how’, a magician never explains her tricks to her public.”
As Scott gears himself for a retort for which I’d be hard pressed not to punt him through several walls with my TK, I harshly cut to the chase.
Gwen and I’s eyes narrow in concert as we look at Jean.
“Again, why did you seek us out?” I clip before the ergakinetic can open his mouth.
Scott’s brows furrow but a gesture from his girlfriend shut his mouth.
“Let’s start once more,” The redhead declares while throwing scathing looks to her two loud-mouthed teammates, “I’m Jean Grey, a student at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children, may I inquire as to your names?”
Gwen and I chuckle lightly as we let go of our tea balls, crossing our respectives fingers on the table in front of us.
“I’m afraid that you cannot,” I start, “But we can give you the aliases under which the public will get to know us, I’m Prodigy…”
“...And I’m Weaver, pleased to make your acquaintances.” Gwen ends politely.
“You started your own little villain club, then?” Scott spit, not able to control himself anymore.
If he sees the warning look that Jean is giving him, he apparently doesn’t care.
“Quite the opposite actually, we’re putting together a superheroic team.” I answer back calmly.
You could hear a pin drop after my declaration.
Gwen and Iris are mentally laughing their ass off at the disbelief the young X-Men show once again.
Kitty is suddenly throwing Jean’s some mighty interrogative looks while being all googly eyed, which prompts the empath to sigh.
“No, they, sorry, she is not lying.” The redhead affirms after stumbling on my pronouns.
Hey, close enough. A point for the effort, I haven’t said anything after all.
“What the hell?” Kitty mutters, still not able to compute what she heard.
“Bullshit!” Scott sneers as he starts to gesticulate in Gwen and I’s direction, “He has to…”
That blatant disrespect combined to my previous annoyance at having Gwen and I’s afternoon interrupted tips me over the edge and I don’t really control it when a ‘huff!’ escape me.
Except it’s with that voice and suddenly everyone goes very still around me, all the little levers they normally use to control each of their actions suddenly not responding as all the women, virtues and sins of the world turn their respective attention toward the five mutants and find them lacking.
<“Sorry Gwennie,”> I mentally tell the blond, picturing her a wince, <“Kinda lost it here.”>
Turns out that while Iris is now totally immune to my voice even when we’re not in a Battleform since she imprinted the ability, my teammates cannot share that benefit.
The various tests we’ve gone through to establish that fact had not been very fun but it was essential to understand how it worked. My voice when I use it has to be filtered either through a telekinetic filter, and I cannot even begin to explain how annoying it was to find the proper frequencies to eliminate nor how mind-bogglingly difficult it is to do in a pinch, or through a good old speaker for my teammates to evade its effect.
Case in point, since I used it without meaning to, Gwen is also paralized.
<“It’s fine, it was only extremely disturbing the twenty or so first times.”> She mentally snarks back, <“Now it’s only just terribly discomforting.”>
<“Let me buy you another sundae afterward to make it up to you?”> I try, <“I noticed you were particularly taken by the mango flavored one.”>
<“Deal.”> She answers instantly, <“If I didn’t know any better though, I’d thought you were trying to fatten me.”>
Her tone is so playful that I can’t help a mental laugh to escape me.
<“Nah, Gwennie, you’re perfect as you are.”>
I feel her mind stutter at that.
After spending, relatively, half a minute bantering with my favorite spider girl on Earth in the confines of our accelerated minds, I turn back my attention towards the gaggle of mutants.
“I could pretend that I’m sorry, but I’m not.” I open with.
It’s apparently everyone’s cue to breathe again and for the rather skittish Diablo to teleport away in fright and Scott’s right hand to shoot to his glasses.
Iris, still disguising my face, pretends in my stead that I’m not amused when I notice how much his hand shakes.
Gwen and I’s previous eerie display now forgotten because I’m definitely not in the mood for it anymore, I carry on.
“Now, consider that little incident as a… Demonstration of what could happen if you chose to annoy me again, because, make no mistakes, you did just, in fact, annoy me.” I continue evenly while slowly drumming my fingers on the table, “I will now ask you one last time for the sake of, if not demonstrating at least showing, proper manners : why did you seek me?”
“It was my idea!” Jean blurts out, “The others didn’t want to come with me when I thought I recognized your psy-shields!”
I halt the drumming of my fingers while Iris mock-arch an interrogative eyebrow at the redhead.
“I…” She starts, halting herself to take a deep breath to steel her mind, “I need answers. Badly. The Prof’ keeps being evasive when I ask him about the Phoenix and has only made a token effort to train me since January.”
Her green eyes radiate distress when she looks at me.
“Except Scott because he wanted to arrest you, who will now keep his mouth shut if he knows what’s truly good for him,” She carries on while spearing her, sort of assholish, boyfriend with the most scathing look that I’ve ever seen, “The others argued against it.”
A beat passes and I resume my finger-drumming.
“Two questions.” I ask while raising two fingers with my free hand.
“What gave me away?” I ask a little curiously.
Jean looks at me askance before realizing what I meant.
“I didn’t meet a lot of disciplined minds aside from the ones of the X-Men or the Brotherhood, but you’re the only one I met with a two-fold shield.” She answers honestly.
“Guess we’re not as inconspicuous as we thought.” I mentally comment to Iris.
“[Agreement, observation] : You already suspected it when she probed you, blood-sister.” She points out.
“It never hurts to have a proper confirmation.” I answer her distractedly.
“And what made you think I’d have the answers you seek?” I asked the redhead, ending my mental talk.
“I don’t know,” Jean hesitates, “But I think you won’t pretend to have some if you don’t. You never lied to us back in January.”
I chuckle at that, internally taking note of her politely worded attack on Xavier.
<“The X-Men seem to have had some internal battles after I left.”> I confide in Gwen.
<“What brought that on?”> She asks curiously.
<“Their mentor is a man with an agenda who only trust himself.”> I answer.
<“And what? You exposed him?”> The blond carry on.
<“Sort of.”> I admit, <“Every house of cards eventually crumbles one day, it was bound to happen at some point.”>
As the silence stretches painfully for the young mutants, I halt my finger-drumming once more.
“You’re right, I may have some answers.” I easily admit to Jean, “In fact, I even met your patron.”
“No way.” Kitty and Rogue mouth out slowly.
I have to refrain myself from chuckling at that. Sounds like the two of them became fast friends once they got over their own problems with their powers.
“What was it like?” The redhead asks breathlessly, Scott tensing in apprehension, his previous lazy disdain forgotten.
“Like walking on the edge of a precipice.” I answer drily, “The Phoenix is a cosmic power who can kill you by simply looking too hard in your direction, after all.”
I lightly sigh as Jean internalizes my explanation.
Time to hold a promise I guess.
“To be totally honest with you, Jean,” I carry on, my tone barely managing to hide my annoyance at the memory, “He asked me to give you a hand if we ever crossed paths again.”
Her eyes widen at my admission.
“So, are you interested?” I ask mildly the future avatar of the phoenix force.
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