Chapter 8
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"For fucks sake leave me alone already!" muttered Emilia as she barely held herself back from screaming it out, alas her neighbours wouldn't take kindly to that. *I am most definitely still not here, go away, I don't exist, my mind is like the mist, fleeting and elusive, I'm not here, I don't exist* she repeated in her mind for the millionth time in the last few days, once again feeling the psychic feelers flailing around. *Didn't that old bag of bones need to sleep, or eat? He should be admitted into a nursing home, overworking himself like this* she wondered while she kept evading and deflecting the annoying probes with a fraction of her attention. Day by then her ability to multitask had been growing, and so did her range and psychic power. Most importantly her mental senses seemed to get clearer and clearer. Her control didn't improve, she found. That was a weird aspect of her powers, she didn't get massively more dexterous in controlling her psychic powers, she only learned to control them better with time. It didn't seem to have a hard upper limit. It only depended on the depth of her perception, while the amount she could control depended on her overall power. Her power seemed to stem from a type of psychic energy that coursed through both her mind and body, she felt it flow through her. Her appetite didn't decrease along the way, quite the contrary. She seemed to regenerate this energy mostly from her internal energy. She didn't know its official name but she felt it would either be 'life energy' or 'chi' if this was a comic so she stuck with the prior. She never liked cultivation novels so she didn't want Chi to be a thing she thought of often. She shuddered, what if she got reincarnated into one of those dumb cultivation novels? She wasn't an earthshaking beauty but she still took pride in her looks, wouldn't the first thing she heard there be, "Rejoice lowly mortal, this Young Master has allowed your worthless self to become his 99th concubine." Ewwww, Mad Titans and Evil Gods weren't that bad, she decided. "But damn you are almost as annoying as that would be Professor, fuck off already, " she said, mostly to herself. She was at the edge of blowing her fuse if he didn't stop this shit soon. Luckily she got finished her business with all government agencies already, it would have been hard expanding her senses to cover buildings while also hiding from the Cerebro-enhanced Xavier. Something had to change. She couldn't keep doing this, she was woken up in the middle of the night, interrupted while walking on the street. Wasn't this similar to a type of mental torture where they would repeatedly interrupt the sleep of a prisoner? She didn't know if even fleeing the city would free her from Xavier's hounding. She would have to be patient, he has to have more important things to do than this, he was spending 16 hours a day sitting strapped to a machine, scanning every human near New York. She thought about ways to passively hide her from this or block out other telepath's nasty probes from her mind. Unfortunately for her, they were all either unfeasible or had extreme side effects. Putting on a helmet like a magneto would keep out any telepaths, unfortunately, it would also keep her in. All of her newfound sense and powers were cut suppressed and forced into a small helmet. She didn't even want to imagine how suffocating that would feel. She loved her powers, she realized over the last few weeks. This sense of power, of getting better at using it, at all of its future possibilities. She wouldn't give it up for anything. Computer Sciences were fun and all and so was programming but this was far MORE. Maybe she would get back to her more artistic hobbies in the future, that sounded good. Into the 'to-do' list it went. After another thirty minutes of playing 'whack-a-mole' with psychic probes, they finally retreated. Emilia promptly slumped into her bed, and once again thought about what she could do about this state of affairs but came up empty as so many times before. Her only option in this battle was attrition, she often got furious while these attacks lasted but she wasn't getting tired. Neither mentally nor physically, sure she was irritated but she could keep evading good old Charles for however long it took for him to give up. As days passed she didn't feel mental exhaustion set in from sleep deprivation, her body was also fairly energetic still considering she slept for a whole 10 hours in the past three days combined. She dearly wished for Charles not to have similar mental enhancements, or that they would be less effective in his advanced age at least. She would keep doing this for as long as she could, that was all she could do now. The only person she knew of that managed to hide from Xavier's detections was Raven, and she perfectly replicated a normal human with her powers to do it. The professor couldn't follow her if she switched between forms and never had the glaring identifying mark that was the X-gene. That was not a viable option for her. She decided to get as much sleep as she could before the Prof got back to it. She passed out the moment she closed her eyes, still in her normal clothes. Emilia awoke to the first rays of the sun glaring at her face, she felt strangely refreshed. She suspiciously looked around her empty room both with her five senses and her psychic sixth, or was it seventh? There was nothing suspicious around or in her building. Which in itself was suspicious, where were the annoying probes and psychic feelers trying to invade her mind? A giant smile broke out on her face as she made sure there wasn't any SHIELD or X-Men attack team in her vicinity. The annoying old man might have finally given up on finding her. Well at least for now. She should get to doing stuff from her list, now she had a driver's licence a bank account with a credit card and official personal identifications. What is a 21-year-old girl to do with her life? She would consider getting a normal job but that would be a waste of time, she could get however much money she needed. She would need a reason to travel around the world, she wanted some of the fancy materials and artefacts that could be found on Earth in the movies. Maybe a travelling journalist, or a painter? Well, not that painters made enough money nowadays to make up for her stolen amount. For now, she wanted to eat and walk around central park, maybe she should get out of this city. She always liked nature and central park was the only place she could go to see some close by. She found herself once again on a bench, eating a croissant and trying to destress. People were running on a track, exercising and playing sports games in front of her. Her attention was more focused on the leaves waving at her in the soft afternoon wind, it could always calm her down and take her mind off of her problems. "You mind if I sit down here?" asked a soft voice from beside her, she didn't remove her attention from the trees, "Sure," she answered absently and felt the bench shift a little as the other person sat down. "Do you come here often?" the person beside her asked, to which she replied absently again, "Yeah, I enjoy watching the trees here." She forced her head away from the said scene to look at the girl beside her and suppressed her urge to scream or fall off of the bench upon what she saw. She was a beautiful girl probably the same age as her, with vibrant ginger hair and green eyes, combined with a face fit for a goddess. But it wasn't what she sensed with her five ordinary senses was the thing that freaked her out, it was how the girl felt to her psychic sense. She was massive but also suppressed, it was like the monster that was the Cerebro-enhanced Xavier was condensed down and sealed into the mind of this girl. While her attempt at not making a fool of herself was successful her astonishment and shock were still quite clear on her face. Not that the other girl needed to see her facial expressions to feel her emotions. "I'm Jean, may I ask your name?" asked the girl,—no, Jean—gently. "Emilia," she said quietly, trying to focus on her visual senses, not her psychic ones. Still, she also felt the emotions rolling off of the other girl. There was a sense of wonder and curiosity but hidden beneath it all was a giant well of loneliness and sadness. She was also sure of who this girl was by now, Jean Grey, probably the strongest natural telepath on the planet, maybe even beyond it. "Um, I know it's weird to ask this to a stranger but could I invite you to a meal or something?" Jean asked, a bit pleadingly. Emilia tried to listen to her logical mind, to leave as soon as she could, this girl was a catalyst to many disasters in the Marvel movies and comics, and she really shouldn't get involved with her. But her own near desperate need for social interaction combined with the fearful hope she felt from Jean won out before her logical side could gain a foothold, *A meal couldn't hurt* she thought. "Sure, " she said, a genuine smile gracing her lips. "Oh, great, should we exchange numbers? Or is now fine for you?" asked the now elated girl. "We can, but now is also fine for me," said Emilia, taking out her brick-shaped phone. Stark could invent a smartphone already instead of rockets. They quickly added each other's numbers to their phone before Jean spoke up again, intent on leading the conversation, " I know a great French place only a block away from here, is it okay with you?" "Yeah, I haven't had French food in weeks," she answered, standing from the bench, "lead the way," she said while feeling like the interaction made her smile more than the events of the last three weeks combined. It didn't hurt that Jean was like her type came to life but was better than she could have imagined. Her heart rate accelerated a bit as she stole a glance at the other girl, she was half a head taller than Emilia so she had to look up a bit as they walked side-by-side. Emilia was below average in height, probably around 160cm so Jean would be around 170, about average for girls their age. Her logical side once again tried to rebel, getting a crush on Jean would exponentially increase her chances of ending up in shitty situations. Unluckily it had to contend with her emotional side which quickly overwhelmed any logical reasoning it may have had. "Why did you come to the park today?" asked Emilia, trying to break the silence and advance the conversation for once. "Jogging I guess, I like to run with trees and a bit of nature around me when I have the time," said Jean, motioning to her side bag with her head, probably containing her training clothes as she was now wearing denim Jeans and Jacket with a simple white shirt bellow. Emilia refrained from making a very bad joke about that while suppressing her urge to check out the legs of the other girl, "I just come here because it's the closest place with any nature around, I should probably start some physical exercise too," she said, she wasn't ever very athletic but maybe she could change that now, plus looking fitter suddenly jumped up in importance on her 'to-do' list. They made their way to the restaurant while making small talk, Emilia finally felt her stacked-up stress and nervousness drain away slowly. Jean looked at the girl on the other side of the table, cautiously sipping on her latte. She didn't know why she felt like she needed to get to know her. She had guesses but it felt like she was getting guidance, or maybe it was an instinct. Did mutants get those? The Professor never mentioned them. She knew the girl had telepathic powers like her, they weren't anywhere near the professor but she seemed natural at using them. She was a bit jealous of that fact, she could never control her powers. She also seemed to have empathy like her, now that was something no one else had besides her. Maybe that was the reason she felt so drawn to her, they could both freely feel the other's emotions. Others always felt creeped out when she told them she felt their emotions or hears their thoughts, they tried to be understanding but they simply either didn't understand her problems or didn't even try to. Suddenly she felt a weak telepathic field spread out from Emilia, it spread over the whole restaurant. She didn't know what it did but the smaller girl interrupted her thoughts while putting on an unreasonably cute serious face, "Now we can speak freely, please tell me Jean why did you invite me here?" she asked, Jean glanced at the people around them and felt their thoughts, none of them registered anything the girl has said. She somehow made them ignore their conversation. "I already told you I just wanted to get to know you," Jean answered a bit defensively, but she didn't feel offended. She felt Emilia's fear and determination as if it was her own. She didn't know why she needed so much determination to ask her this, or what she feared this much. The girl stared at her, almost glaring, she didn't know what answer she wanted to hear so she answered honestly, she didn't want to ruin her chances because of whatever this was, "When I saw you sitting in the park I felt like I had to get to know you, it felt like a fate was guiding me to you. I just knew I had to do it," as she finished she realized that her honesty might have had a different effect than intended, considering Emilia was blushing intensely as she finished. She wanted to clarify until her empathy once again let her feel what Emilia felt, it shocked her slightly, the other girl was so elated and then she got another glimpse into deeper emotions. Overwhelming loneliness, she felt like she was alone in the whole world with nothing and nobody at her side while the world was furiously heading towards the apocalypse. Jean was stunned, she thought she felt alone after her parents abandoned her but she still had friends, she still had her legs on the ground with a future ahead of her. Not this girl in front of her. Coughing a little, seemingly trying to cover her still crimson cheeks Emilia spoke up, "Okay, I'm sorry I asked you like that, I thought...I don't know what I thought, it might just be my paranoia." Jean understood that, how could she not understand as a mutant herself? Her lack of paranoia almost landed her in a government lab. She reached over the table, putting her hand on the other girl's arm while trying her hardest to project understanding through her empathy. She stiffened first but slowly calmed down and her hands gave way to a shy smile as she spoke, "Thank you," quietly. Those two words also carried deep emotions behind them, Jean didn't even need her powers to understand them, "No problem," she replied. She felt a bit of disappointment radiate from the girl but she didn't otherwise show it on her face. By now Jean realized that the black-haired girl was starving for any type of affection, she also felt isolated in Xavier's mansion so she asked the girl, "It is getting late and I need to get back in time but I would be happy if we could keep in touch, maybe repeat this some other time?" she asked, not that she wasn't sure of the other girls to answer. "I would be happy to," she said, "next time maybe I will search for a place instead." Jean stood and extended her hand to Emilia, acting as a gentle lady should to her partner. She was surprised to feel delighted at Emilia's face once again gaining a reddish tint. The smaller girl gave off a wave of nervousness and hope before looking Jean in the eyes and asking quietly, "Did this count as a date?" Jean would have been stumped at that answer before, not considering herself interested in women. "First of many I hope," she answered smoothly, even surprising herself. "Okay...I will write to you later, I guess?" Emilia said, showing her obvious inexperience with this kind of interaction. "I will keep in touch too..."Jean turned to Emilia as the restaurant door closed behind them,"...Goodbye for now." "Goodbye Jean," she said, her smile never leaving her face since before.
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"For fucks sake leave me alone already!" muttered Emilia as she barely held herself back from screaming it out, alas her neighbours wouldn't take kindly to that. *I am most definitely still not here, go away, I don't exist, my mind is like the mist, fleeting and elusive, I'm not here, I don't exist* she repeated in her mind for the millionth time in the last few days, once again feeling the psychic feelers flailing around. *Didn't that old bag of bones need to sleep, or eat? He should be admitted into a nursing home, overworking himself like this* she wondered while she kept evading and deflecting the annoying probes with a fraction of her attention. Day by then her ability to multitask had been growing, and so did her range and psychic power. Most importantly her mental senses seemed to get clearer and clearer. Her control didn't improve, she found. That was a weird aspect of her powers, she didn't get massively more dexterous in controlling her psychic powers, she only learned to control them better with time. It didn't seem to have a hard upper limit. It only depended on the depth of her perception, while the amount she could control depended on her overall power. Her power seemed to stem from a type of psychic energy that coursed through both her mind and body, she felt it flow through her. Her appetite didn't decrease along the way, quite the contrary. She seemed to regenerate this energy mostly from her internal energy. She didn't know its official name but she felt it would either be 'life energy' or 'chi' if this was a comic so she stuck with the prior. She never liked cultivation novels so she didn't want Chi to be a thing she thought of often. She shuddered, what if she got reincarnated into one of those dumb cultivation novels? She wasn't an earthshaking beauty but she still took pride in her looks, wouldn't the first thing she heard there be, "Rejoice lowly mortal, this Young Master has allowed your worthless self to become his 99th concubine." Ewwww, Mad Titans and Evil Gods weren't that bad, she decided. "But damn you are almost as annoying as that would be Professor, fuck off already, " she said, mostly to herself. She was at the edge of blowing her fuse if he didn't stop this shit soon. Luckily she got finished her business with all government agencies already, it would have been hard expanding her senses to cover buildings while also hiding from the Cerebro-enhanced Xavier. Something had to change. She couldn't keep doing this, she was woken up in the middle of the night, interrupted while walking on the street. Wasn't this similar to a type of mental torture where they would repeatedly interrupt the sleep of a prisoner? She didn't know if even fleeing the city would free her from Xavier's hounding. She would have to be patient, he has to have more important things to do than this, he was spending 16 hours a day sitting strapped to a machine, scanning every human near New York. She thought about ways to passively hide her from this or block out other telepath's nasty probes from her mind. Unfortunately for her, they were all either unfeasible or had extreme side effects. Putting on a helmet like a magneto would keep out any telepaths, unfortunately, it would also keep her in. All of her newfound sense and powers were cut suppressed and forced into a small helmet. She didn't even want to imagine how suffocating that would feel. She loved her powers, she realized over the last few weeks. This sense of power, of getting better at using it, at all of its future possibilities. She wouldn't give it up for anything. Computer Sciences were fun and all and so was programming but this was far MORE. Maybe she would get back to her more artistic hobbies in the future, that sounded good. Into the 'to-do' list it went. After another thirty minutes of playing 'whack-a-mole' with psychic probes, they finally retreated. Emilia promptly slumped into her bed, and once again thought about what she could do about this state of affairs but came up empty as so many times before. Her only option in this battle was attrition, she often got furious while these attacks lasted but she wasn't getting tired. Neither mentally nor physically, sure she was irritated but she could keep evading good old Charles for however long it took for him to give up. As days passed she didn't feel mental exhaustion set in from sleep deprivation, her body was also fairly energetic still considering she slept for a whole 10 hours in the past three days combined. She dearly wished for Charles not to have similar mental enhancements, or that they would be less effective in his advanced age at least. She would keep doing this for as long as she could, that was all she could do now. The only person she knew of that managed to hide from Xavier's detections was Raven, and she perfectly replicated a normal human with her powers to do it. The professor couldn't follow her if she switched between forms and never had the glaring identifying mark that was the X-gene. That was not a viable option for her. She decided to get as much sleep as she could before the Prof got back to it. She passed out the moment she closed her eyes, still in her normal clothes. Emilia awoke to the first rays of the sun glaring at her face, she felt strangely refreshed. She suspiciously looked around her empty room both with her five senses and her psychic sixth, or was it seventh? There was nothing suspicious around or in her building. Which in itself was suspicious, where were the annoying probes and psychic feelers trying to invade her mind? A giant smile broke out on her face as she made sure there wasn't any SHIELD or X-Men attack team in her vicinity. The annoying old man might have finally given up on finding her. Well at least for now. She should get to doing stuff from her list, now she had a driver's licence a bank account with a credit card and official personal identifications. What is a 21-year-old girl to do with her life? She would consider getting a normal job but that would be a waste of time, she could get however much money she needed. She would need a reason to travel around the world, she wanted some of the fancy materials and artefacts that could be found on Earth in the movies. Maybe a travelling journalist, or a painter? Well, not that painters made enough money nowadays to make up for her stolen amount. For now, she wanted to eat and walk around central park, maybe she should get out of this city. She always liked nature and central park was the only place she could go to see some close by. She found herself once again on a bench, eating a croissant and trying to destress. People were running on a track, exercising and playing sports games in front of her. Her attention was more focused on the leaves waving at her in the soft afternoon wind, it could always calm her down and take her mind off of her problems. "You mind if I sit down here?" asked a soft voice from beside her, she didn't remove her attention from the trees, "Sure," she answered absently and felt the bench shift a little as the other person sat down. "Do you come here often?" the person beside her asked, to which she replied absently again, "Yeah, I enjoy watching the trees here." She forced her head away from the said scene to look at the girl beside her and suppressed her urge to scream or fall off of the bench upon what she saw. She was a beautiful girl probably the same age as her, with vibrant ginger hair and green eyes, combined with a face fit for a goddess. But it wasn't what she sensed with her five ordinary senses was the thing that freaked her out, it was how the girl felt to her psychic sense. She was massive but also suppressed, it was like the monster that was the Cerebro-enhanced Xavier was condensed down and sealed into the mind of this girl. While her attempt at not making a fool of herself was successful her astonishment and shock were still quite clear on her face. Not that the other girl needed to see her facial expressions to feel her emotions. "I'm Jean, may I ask your name?" asked the girl,—no, Jean—gently. "Emilia," she said quietly, trying to focus on her visual senses, not her psychic ones. Still, she also felt the emotions rolling off of the other girl. There was a sense of wonder and curiosity but hidden beneath it all was a giant well of loneliness and sadness. She was also sure of who this girl was by now, Jean Grey, probably the strongest natural telepath on the planet, maybe even beyond it. "Um, I know it's weird to ask this to a stranger but could I invite you to a meal or something?" Jean asked, a bit pleadingly. Emilia tried to listen to her logical mind, to leave as soon as she could, this girl was a catalyst to many disasters in the Marvel movies and comics, and she really shouldn't get involved with her. But her own near desperate need for social interaction combined with the fearful hope she felt from Jean won out before her logical side could gain a foothold, *A meal couldn't hurt* she thought. "Sure, " she said, a genuine smile gracing her lips. "Oh, great, should we exchange numbers? Or is now fine for you?" asked the now elated girl. "We can, but now is also fine for me," said Emilia, taking out her brick-shaped phone. Stark could invent a smartphone already instead of rockets. They quickly added each other's numbers to their phone before Jean spoke up again, intent on leading the conversation, " I know a great French place only a block away from here, is it okay with you?" "Yeah, I haven't had French food in weeks," she answered, standing from the bench, "lead the way," she said while feeling like the interaction made her smile more than the events of the last three weeks combined. It didn't hurt that Jean was like her type came to life but was better than she could have imagined. Her heart rate accelerated a bit as she stole a glance at the other girl, she was half a head taller than Emilia so she had to look up a bit as they walked side-by-side. Emilia was below average in height, probably around 160cm so Jean would be around 170, about average for girls their age. Her logical side once again tried to rebel, getting a crush on Jean would exponentially increase her chances of ending up in shitty situations. Unluckily it had to contend with her emotional side which quickly overwhelmed any logical reasoning it may have had. "Why did you come to the park today?" asked Emilia, trying to break the silence and advance the conversation for once. "Jogging I guess, I like to run with trees and a bit of nature around me when I have the time," said Jean, motioning to her side bag with her head, probably containing her training clothes as she was now wearing denim Jeans and Jacket with a simple white shirt bellow. Emilia refrained from making a very bad joke about that while suppressing her urge to check out the legs of the other girl, "I just come here because it's the closest place with any nature around, I should probably start some physical exercise too," she said, she wasn't ever very athletic but maybe she could change that now, plus looking fitter suddenly jumped up in importance on her 'to-do' list. They made their way to the restaurant while making small talk, Emilia finally felt her stacked-up stress and nervousness drain away slowly. Jean looked at the girl on the other side of the table, cautiously sipping on her latte. She didn't know why she felt like she needed to get to know her. She had guesses but it felt like she was getting guidance, or maybe it was an instinct. Did mutants get those? The Professor never mentioned them. She knew the girl had telepathic powers like her, they weren't anywhere near the professor but she seemed natural at using them. She was a bit jealous of that fact, she could never control her powers. She also seemed to have empathy like her, now that was something no one else had besides her. Maybe that was the reason she felt so drawn to her, they could both freely feel the other's emotions. Others always felt creeped out when she told them she felt their emotions or hears their thoughts, they tried to be understanding but they simply either didn't understand her problems or didn't even try to. Suddenly she felt a weak telepathic field spread out from Emilia, it spread over the whole restaurant. She didn't know what it did but the smaller girl interrupted her thoughts while putting on an unreasonably cute serious face, "Now we can speak freely, please tell me Jean why did you invite me here?" she asked, Jean glanced at the people around them and felt their thoughts, none of them registered anything the girl has said. She somehow made them ignore their conversation. "I already told you I just wanted to get to know you," Jean answered a bit defensively, but she didn't feel offended. She felt Emilia's fear and determination as if it was her own. She didn't know why she needed so much determination to ask her this, or what she feared this much. The girl stared at her, almost glaring, she didn't know what answer she wanted to hear so she answered honestly, she didn't want to ruin her chances because of whatever this was, "When I saw you sitting in the park I felt like I had to get to know you, it felt like a fate was guiding me to you. I just knew I had to do it," as she finished she realized that her honesty might have had a different effect than intended, considering Emilia was blushing intensely as she finished. She wanted to clarify until her empathy once again let her feel what Emilia felt, it shocked her slightly, the other girl was so elated and then she got another glimpse into deeper emotions. Overwhelming loneliness, she felt like she was alone in the whole world with nothing and nobody at her side while the world was furiously heading towards the apocalypse. Jean was stunned, she thought she felt alone after her parents abandoned her but she still had friends, she still had her legs on the ground with a future ahead of her. Not this girl in front of her. Coughing a little, seemingly trying to cover her still crimson cheeks Emilia spoke up, "Okay, I'm sorry I asked you like that, I thought...I don't know what I thought, it might just be my paranoia." Jean understood that, how could she not understand as a mutant herself? Her lack of paranoia almost landed her in a government lab. She reached over the table, putting her hand on the other girl's arm while trying her hardest to project understanding through her empathy. She stiffened first but slowly calmed down and her hands gave way to a shy smile as she spoke, "Thank you," quietly. Those two words also carried deep emotions behind them, Jean didn't even need her powers to understand them, "No problem," she replied. She felt a bit of disappointment radiate from the girl but she didn't otherwise show it on her face. By now Jean realized that the black-haired girl was starving for any type of affection, she also felt isolated in Xavier's mansion so she asked the girl, "It is getting late and I need to get back in time but I would be happy if we could keep in touch, maybe repeat this some other time?" she asked, not that she wasn't sure of the other girls to answer. "I would be happy to," she said, "next time maybe I will search for a place instead." Jean stood and extended her hand to Emilia, acting as a gentle lady should to her partner. She was surprised to feel delighted at Emilia's face once again gaining a reddish tint. The smaller girl gave off a wave of nervousness and hope before looking Jean in the eyes and asking quietly, "Did this count as a date?" Jean would have been stumped at that answer before, not considering herself interested in women. "First of many I hope," she answered smoothly, even surprising herself. "Okay...I will write to you later, I guess?" Emilia said, showing her obvious inexperience with this kind of interaction. "I will keep in touch too..."Jean turned to Emilia as the restaurant door closed behind them,"...Goodbye for now." "Goodbye Jean," she said, her smile never leaving her face since before.
"For fucks sake leave me alone already!" muttered Emilia as she barely held herself back from screaming it out, alas her neighbours wouldn't take kindly to that. *I am most definitely still not here, go away, I don't exist, my mind is like the mist, fleeting and elusive, I'm not here, I don't exist* she repeated in her mind for the millionth time in the last few days, once again feeling the psychic feelers flailing around. *Didn't that old bag of bones need to sleep, or eat? He should be admitted into a nursing home, overworking himself like this* she wondered while she kept evading and deflecting the annoying probes with a fraction of her attention. Day by then her ability to multitask had been growing, and so did her range and psychic power. Most importantly her mental senses seemed to get clearer and clearer. Her control didn't improve, she found. That was a weird aspect of her powers, she didn't get massively more dexterous in controlling her psychic powers, she only learned to control them better with time. It didn't seem to have a hard upper limit. It only depended on the depth of her perception, while the amount she could control depended on her overall power. Her power seemed to stem from a type of psychic energy that coursed through both her mind and body, she felt it flow through her. Her appetite didn't decrease along the way, quite the contrary. She seemed to regenerate this energy mostly from her internal energy. She didn't know its official name but she felt it would either be 'life energy' or 'chi' if this was a comic so she stuck with the prior. She never liked cultivation novels so she didn't want Chi to be a thing she thought of often. She shuddered, what if she got reincarnated into one of those dumb cultivation novels? She wasn't an earthshaking beauty but she still took pride in her looks, wouldn't the first thing she heard there be, "Rejoice lowly mortal, this Young Master has allowed your worthless self to become his 99th concubine." Ewwww, Mad Titans and Evil Gods weren't that bad, she decided. "But damn you are almost as annoying as that would be Professor, fuck off already, " she said, mostly to herself. She was at the edge of blowing her fuse if he didn't stop this shit soon. Luckily she got finished her business with all government agencies already, it would have been hard expanding her senses to cover buildings while also hiding from the Cerebro-enhanced Xavier. Something had to change. She couldn't keep doing this, she was woken up in the middle of the night, interrupted while walking on the street. Wasn't this similar to a type of mental torture where they would repeatedly interrupt the sleep of a prisoner? She didn't know if even fleeing the city would free her from Xavier's hounding. She would have to be patient, he has to have more important things to do than this, he was spending 16 hours a day sitting strapped to a machine, scanning every human near New York. She thought about ways to passively hide her from this or block out other telepath's nasty probes from her mind. Unfortunately for her, they were all either unfeasible or had extreme side effects. Putting on a helmet like a magneto would keep out any telepaths, unfortunately, it would also keep her in. All of her newfound sense and powers were cut suppressed and forced into a small helmet. She didn't even want to imagine how suffocating that would feel. She loved her powers, she realized over the last few weeks. This sense of power, of getting better at using it, at all of its future possibilities. She wouldn't give it up for anything. Computer Sciences were fun and all and so was programming but this was far MORE. Maybe she would get back to her more artistic hobbies in the future, that sounded good. Into the 'to-do' list it went. After another thirty minutes of playing 'whack-a-mole' with psychic probes, they finally retreated. Emilia promptly slumped into her bed, and once again thought about what she could do about this state of affairs but came up empty as so many times before. Her only option in this battle was attrition, she often got furious while these attacks lasted but she wasn't getting tired. Neither mentally nor physically, sure she was irritated but she could keep evading good old Charles for however long it took for him to give up. As days passed she didn't feel mental exhaustion set in from sleep deprivation, her body was also fairly energetic still considering she slept for a whole 10 hours in the past three days combined. She dearly wished for Charles not to have similar mental enhancements, or that they would be less effective in his advanced age at least. She would keep doing this for as long as she could, that was all she could do now. The only person she knew of that managed to hide from Xavier's detections was Raven, and she perfectly replicated a normal human with her powers to do it. The professor couldn't follow her if she switched between forms and never had the glaring identifying mark that was the X-gene. That was not a viable option for her. She decided to get as much sleep as she could before the Prof got back to it. She passed out the moment she closed her eyes, still in her normal clothes. Emilia awoke to the first rays of the sun glaring at her face, she felt strangely refreshed. She suspiciously looked around her empty room both with her five senses and her psychic sixth, or was it seventh? There was nothing suspicious around or in her building. Which in itself was suspicious, where were the annoying probes and psychic feelers trying to invade her mind? A giant smile broke out on her face as she made sure there wasn't any SHIELD or X-Men attack team in her vicinity. The annoying old man might have finally given up on finding her. Well at least for now. She should get to doing stuff from her list, now she had a driver's licence a bank account with a credit card and official personal identifications. What is a 21-year-old girl to do with her life? She would consider getting a normal job but that would be a waste of time, she could get however much money she needed. She would need a reason to travel around the world, she wanted some of the fancy materials and artefacts that could be found on Earth in the movies. Maybe a travelling journalist, or a painter? Well, not that painters made enough money nowadays to make up for her stolen amount. For now, she wanted to eat and walk around central park, maybe she should get out of this city. She always liked nature and central park was the only place she could go to see some close by. She found herself once again on a bench, eating a croissant and trying to destress. People were running on a track, exercising and playing sports games in front of her. Her attention was more focused on the leaves waving at her in the soft afternoon wind, it could always calm her down and take her mind off of her problems. "You mind if I sit down here?" asked a soft voice from beside her, she didn't remove her attention from the trees, "Sure," she answered absently and felt the bench shift a little as the other person sat down. "Do you come here often?" the person beside her asked, to which she replied absently again, "Yeah, I enjoy watching the trees here." She forced her head away from the said scene to look at the girl beside her and suppressed her urge to scream or fall off of the bench upon what she saw. She was a beautiful girl probably the same age as her, with vibrant ginger hair and green eyes, combined with a face fit for a goddess. But it wasn't what she sensed with her five ordinary senses was the thing that freaked her out, it was how the girl felt to her psychic sense. She was massive but also suppressed, it was like the monster that was the Cerebro-enhanced Xavier was condensed down and sealed into the mind of this girl. While her attempt at not making a fool of herself was successful her astonishment and shock were still quite clear on her face. Not that the other girl needed to see her facial expressions to feel her emotions. "I'm Jean, may I ask your name?" asked the girl,no, Jeangently. "Emilia," she said quietly, trying to focus on her visual senses, not her psychic ones. Still, she also felt the emotions rolling off of the other girl. There was a sense of wonder and curiosity but hidden beneath it all was a giant well of loneliness and sadness. She was also sure of who this girl was by now, Jean Grey, probably the strongest natural telepath on the planet, maybe even beyond it. "Um, I know it's weird to ask this to a stranger but could I invite you to a meal or something?" Jean asked, a bit pleadingly. Emilia tried to listen to her logical mind, to leave as soon as she could, this girl was a catalyst to many disasters in the Marvel movies and comics, and she really shouldn't get involved with her. But her own near desperate need for social interaction combined with the fearful hope she felt from Jean won out before her logical side could gain a foothold, *A meal couldn't hurt* she thought. "Sure, " she said, a genuine smile gracing her lips. "Oh, great, should we exchange numbers? Or is now fine for you?" asked the now elated girl. "We can, but now is also fine for me," said Emilia, taking out her brick-shaped phone. Stark could invent a smartphone already instead of rockets. They quickly added each other's numbers to their phone before Jean spoke up again, intent on leading the conversation, " I know a great French place only a block away from here, is it okay with you?" "Yeah, I haven't had French food in weeks," she answered, standing from the bench, "lead the way," she said while feeling like the interaction made her smile more than the events of the last three weeks combined. It didn't hurt that Jean was like her type came to life but was better than she could have imagined. Her heart rate accelerated a bit as she stole a glance at the other girl, she was half a head taller than Emilia so she had to look up a bit as they walked side-by-side. Emilia was below average in height, probably around 160cm so Jean would be around 170, about average for girls their age. Her logical side once again tried to rebel, getting a crush on Jean would exponentially increase her chances of ending up in shitty situations. Unluckily it had to contend with her emotional side which quickly overwhelmed any logical reasoning it may have had. "Why did you come to the park today?" asked Emilia, trying to break the silence and advance the conversation for once. "Jogging I guess, I like to run with trees and a bit of nature around me when I have the time," said Jean, motioning to her side bag with her head, probably containing her training clothes as she was now wearing denim Jeans and Jacket with a simple white shirt bellow. Emilia refrained from making a very bad joke about that while suppressing her urge to check out the legs of the other girl, "I just come here because it's the closest place with any nature around, I should probably start some physical exercise too," she said, she wasn't ever very athletic but maybe she could change that now, plus looking fitter suddenly jumped up in importance on her 'to-do' list. They made their way to the restaurant while making small talk, Emilia finally felt her stacked-up stress and nervousness drain away slowly. Jean looked at the girl on the other side of the table, cautiously sipping on her latte. She didn't know why she felt like she needed to get to know her. She had guesses but it felt like she was getting guidance, or maybe it was an instinct. Did mutants get those? The Professor never mentioned them. She knew the girl had telepathic powers like her, they weren't anywhere near the professor but she seemed natural at using them. She was a bit jealous of that fact, she could never control her powers. She also seemed to have empathy like her, now that was something no one else had besides her. Maybe that was the reason she felt so drawn to her, they could both freely feel the other's emotions. Others always felt creeped out when she told them she felt their emotions or hears their thoughts, they tried to be understanding but they simply either didn't understand her problems or didn't even try to. Suddenly she felt a weak telepathic field spread out from Emilia, it spread over the whole restaurant. She didn't know what it did but the smaller girl interrupted her thoughts while putting on an unreasonably cute serious face, "Now we can speak freely, please tell me Jean why did you invite me here?" she asked, Jean glanced at the people around them and felt their thoughts, none of them registered anything the girl has said. She somehow made them ignore their conversation. "I already told you I just wanted to get to know you," Jean answered a bit defensively, but she didn't feel offended. She felt Emilia's fear and determination as if it was her own. She didn't know why she needed so much determination to ask her this, or what she feared this much. The girl stared at her, almost glaring, she didn't know what answer she wanted to hear so she answered honestly, she didn't want to ruin her chances because of whatever this was, "When I saw you sitting in the park I felt like I had to get to know you, it felt like a fate was guiding me to you. I just knew I had to do it," as she finished she realized that her honesty might have had a different effect than intended, considering Emilia was blushing intensely as she finished. She wanted to clarify until her empathy once again let her feel what Emilia felt, it shocked her slightly, the other girl was so elated and then she got another glimpse into deeper emotions. Overwhelming loneliness, she felt like she was alone in the whole world with nothing and nobody at her side while the world was furiously heading towards the apocalypse. Jean was stunned, she thought she felt alone after her parents abandoned her but she still had friends, she still had her legs on the ground with a future ahead of her. Not this girl in front of her. Coughing a little, seemingly trying to cover her still crimson cheeks Emilia spoke up, "Okay, I'm sorry I asked you like that, I thought...I don't know what I thought, it might just be my paranoia." Jean understood that, how could she not understand as a mutant herself? Her lack of paranoia almost landed her in a government lab. She reached over the table, putting her hand on the other girl's arm while trying her hardest to project understanding through her empathy. She stiffened first but slowly calmed down and her hands gave way to a shy smile as she spoke, "Thank you," quietly. Those two words also carried deep emotions behind them, Jean didn't even need her powers to understand them, "No problem," she replied. She felt a bit of disappointment radiate from the girl but she didn't otherwise show it on her face. By now Jean realized that the black-haired girl was starving for any type of affection, she also felt isolated in Xavier's mansion so she asked the girl, "It is getting late and I need to get back in time but I would be happy if we could keep in touch, maybe repeat this some other time?" she asked, not that she wasn't sure of the other girls to answer. "I would be happy to," she said, "next time maybe I will search for a place instead." Jean stood and extended her hand to Emilia, acting as a gentle lady should to her partner. She was surprised to feel delighted at Emilia's face once again gaining a reddish tint. The smaller girl gave off a wave of nervousness and hope before looking Jean in the eyes and asking quietly, "Did this count as a date?" Jean would have been stumped at that answer before, not considering herself interested in women. "First of many I hope," she answered smoothly, even surprising herself. "Okay...I will write to you later, I guess?" Emilia said, showing her obvious inexperience with this kind of interaction. "I will keep in touch too..."Jean turned to Emilia as the restaurant door closed behind them,"...Goodbye for now." "Goodbye Jean," she said, her smile never leaving her face since before.
