1X05 – Second Star to the Right – Act I | X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

1X05 – Second Star to the Right – Act I

1X05 – Second Star to the Right – Act I

It was suggested his presence could upset her again but he would not leave. Deciding that at least keeping his distance was wise, JP watched quietly from down the hall as the doctor finished examining his sister.

Cecilia Reyes was just a bit older than him, a lovely woman with dark skin and braids in her hair. She worked her way through med school the old fashioned way, three jobs while burning the candle at both ends. Now she was helping both humans and mutants alike through her work at low income clinics after spending several years as a premiere ER doctor.

Since usually mutants were unable, or afraid, to go into the hospital, she ended up treating them in the make-shift clinic she had set up in her apartment’s spare room.

“How is she, Cecilia?” JP asked as the woman came down the hall.

“I’ve run all tests I can here and physically, she’s fine,” the woman told him, glancing over at Scott who had taken up position leaning against the kitchen counter, “her invulnerability took the physical force of the blast, the accompanying concussion had a muted effect, this is likely what snapped her out of whatever was causing her violent outburst.”

“JP,” Scott said softly, “if there was any other way…”

“I know,” and he did, in his mind he knew, but a part of him was just a little bit angry at the man, “she was out of control, about ready to wreck the place.”

“Has she ever been prone to outbursts?” the doctor asked, “Mood swings?”

“Nothing as bad as this,” JP shook his head, not wanting to accept the truth staring him in the face, “not before I pulled her from the Department H testing facility outside Quebec.”

“What kind of tests were they doing?” she asked courteously but left no room for him to avoid the question.

“I don’t know all the particulars,” he closed his eyes to both think back and to hide the pain in them, “I didn’t rate high enough so I wasn’t part of the advanced programs, they were ‘classified’.”

“Didn’t rate high enough?” Cecilia questioned, “What kind of ranking system were they using?”

“I didn’t understand it completely and it seemed a bit arbitrary,” JP shook his head, “but she was what they called a Class Five, I was a Class Four,” he let himself have a quick, small smile, “she never let me live that down.”

There was a knock on the door and Cecilia moved to see who was there through the peep hole. Unbolting the lock and unclasping the chain, she let in Jean and Bobby.

“How is she?” Jean asked almost immediately.

“Physically, she’s fine,” Cecilia gave the same answer as before.

“How did everything go on your end?” Scott asked the newcomers.

“Storm should be back at the mansion with the kids by now,” Jean informed him, “they seem to have taken this in stride.”

“Good,” the man nodded, “and the museum?”

“With a little help from Jean,” Bobby pipped in, holding up a black business portfolio, “and a tax deductible donation, the public will be none the wiser.”

JP frowned, he knew the Professor had a ‘cover up’ fund built into the budget, it was inevitable that one of the mutants learning how to use their powers would cause some public damage. However, Jeanne-Marie wasn’t a kid, she had control of her powers, but she didn’t have control of herself.

“Do we know what happened, with Marie?” Jean asked gingerly.

Cecilia and Scott turned to JP, they both knew what happened, or guessed closed enough, but Jeanne-Marie was his sister, his responsibility. He gave a heavy sigh, “Marie has Mutation Induced Dissociative Identity Disorder.”

…

“So, wait,” Kitty scratched her head as she sat on one of the bench seats outside the Professor’s office, “Jeanne-Marie has a split personality?”

“Mutation Induced Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Jean corrected her as she leaned against the opposite wall.

The young girl knitted her brow, “So basically a split personality.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Jean frowned.

“The Professor always warned us that pushing our powers too quickly is dangerous, physically and mentally,” Scott added as he stood off to the side, the whole team sans JP and Storm gathered outside the Professor’s office, even Wolverine came to check up on the situation.

“Yeah,” Bobby added thoughtfully, “he told me once it’s like trying to run a decathlon without any proper training. You’re going to tear tendons, pull muscles, maybe even break bones or stroke out.”

“Exactly,” Scott nodded to the man, “and the trauma of using your mutant abilities without training can cause severe mental disruption, often manifesting as a dissociative disorder.”

“Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Kitty said each word deliberately, “the core conscious can’t handle the pain and enormity of using their powers at full tilt so the mind creates another personality who can, ergo, split personality.”

Jean looked like she was going to open her mouth to argue some point of that but then decided better of it.

“That’s what we think happened with Marie,” Bobby asked no one in particular, “she got pushed too hard in Department H?”

“JP said she’d been acting timid, withdrawn, not like herself,” Scott pointed out, “I guess he was hoping it was some form of PTSD and she just needed time. The Professor will determine if it’s truly MIDID.”

“I can tell you right now,” Logan finally joined the conversation, “if she was selected for an advanced weapons program, they would have pushed her till they broke her, then pushed her till they broke her again, and even farther till there was nothing left to fix.”

…

“Jeanne-Marie,” the Professor gently pulled the girl’s attention away from the window, “you were telling me what happened.”

“Oh, ah,” she said timidly, nothing like the brazen woman who would have surely destroyed half the museum just because she was angry. “I was singing… and I remembered something…”

“What did you remember?” he encouraged her, well aware of JP and Storm standing off to the side.

“I don’t,” she frowned, her hands twitching nervously, “I don’t remember…”

“It’s okay,” the telepath assured her, “you don’t have to remember,” he reached over to his desk to pick up a small length of rebar from the stash they used in training the super strength mutants and passed it over to Jeanne-Marie. “Marie, I’d like you to try to bend this for me.”

“Okay,” she took the metal bar curiously, then with all her strength, her knuckles turning white at the exertion, she attempted what he asked but the bar didn’t bend.

“It’s okay,” he gently took the rebar from her hands and put it back on the desk. As politely as he could he said, “It was just a test, I know you couldn’t have bent it.”

“Yeah,” she gave a soft laugh, “Jean-Paul is the one with the special powers.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Charles could see JP was about to speak up but he didn’t have to stop him, Storm placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. Charles then continued with his verbal questions as he gently poked around in her mind, not going too deep, both out of respect and to keep her from possibly lashing out again. “Marie, do you know where you were two years ago?”

“Of course,” she looked at him as if he was being silly, “I was teaching, at Ecole des Ursulines.”

“That’s a girls school in Quebec City,” JP filled them, it had sounded familiar to Charles but he couldn’t place it. “Marie went there for several years when we were teens, she even thought about becoming… a nun…” his words trailed off.

“I did become a nun,” she looked at her brother as if he was the one who was confused, “remember, I was in the middle of class and you said you needed me come with you.”

Storm kept JP from replying, “Yes, he told us this story, many times,” the regal woman held JP back, “Marie, it’s almost dinner. Would you like to help in the kitchen again?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” she nodded then politely turned to the Professor, “you’ll excuse me?”

“Yes,” he smiled gently at her, “thank you.”

Storm and Marie headed out the side entrance to the office and as soon as the door was closed, JP nearly exploded, “What did they do to her?”

“That, I cannot fathom without more deeply penetrating her mind,” he pointed out as he sent a mental message to Jean, “something I will not do until I must.”

“She never used to be like this,” JP was shaking he head.

The Professor raised a brow, “Like what, Jean-Paul?”

“Meek,” he spoke the word as if he hated it, “I mean, she wasn’t totally brazen like she was at the museum but there was a definite… spark. She was always good, well-mannered, but she spoke her mind when it suited her and liked to have fun. She’d made a horrible nun, she said so herself.”

By the time his tirade had ended, the team had made their way into the room.

“It’s my assumption,” Charles sighed, having seen this before, “that her handlers in Department H pushed her so hard that the brazen side of Marie, all her toughness and grit, became its own person. Her core personality disassociated itself from the weaker, gentler, aspects, probably in an effort to save them.”

“So,” Scott asked as JP stood processing what this meant, “Aurora is a completely distinct and separate personality?”

“I haven’t spoken to Aurora yet,” Charles admitted, “but Jeanne-Marie has rewritten herself. ‘Marie’ doesn’t remember Department H, doesn’t remember ever being a mutant. Instead she’s created a fictional back story to explain any gaps. Aurora is likely the same, a complete personality with her own history and relationships.”

Bobby raised his hand, “Wait, she doesn’t remember being a mutant? How does that work?”

“Well,” the Professor rolled back behind his desk, “like most abilities, once you have control, as Marie does, you can turn them on and off. Even with super-strength which is a matter of muscle and bone structure, a mutant learns not to always grip so hard. Marie has, essentially, forgotten that she has more strength than an average person and has locked her mind off to the possibility of being able to use super strength.”

“What about her invulnerability,” Scott pointed out, “it’s a passive byproduct of her genetic structure. She can’t choose not use it like she can her super strength.”

“I’m not sure,” he thought about it for a second, “and although a few simple tests could answer the question, it may also set Aurora off. Best if we make no assumptions at this time.”

“Why Aurora?” Kitty asked in the silence. “Why is she calling herself that?”

“Aurora was her call sign in Department H,” JP informed her as he started to pace, “Is there anything we can do to help Jeanne-Marie?”

“It will be a slow process,” he sighed, “but through counseling and some telepathic therapy, I believe we have every chance of being able to reintegrate the two personalities, as long as those are the only two. In the meantime, I suggest you treat Jeanne-Marie as Marie, we don’t want to upset that personality.”

“You want us to play into my sister’s fantasy?” he asked incredibly.

“It’s not a fantasy, Jean-Paul,” he corrected that belief, “Marie believes this and nothing you can say or do will make her believe she is not a former school teacher. You would only cause grief which would likely trigger Aurora. Believe me when I say that I have seen this before and she must be handled with care.”

…

A glass shattered on a stone floor followed by a distinctly Australian string of unintelligible curses.

“You okay in there, St John?” Rogue asked casually from her spot in the middle of the sofa, flipping through a motorcycle magazine.

“I’ve been traumatized,” he said as he started to pick the big pieces of glass off the ground to throw into the trash, “this glass just leapt out of the cabinet and attacked, good thing the floor was here to protect me.”

“I hear the toaster put a hit out on you,” she didn’t bother looking away from her reading.

There was a distinctive pause before, “Well, wouldn’t be the first time.”

Quicksilver zipped through and shot up the stairs and banged on Dom’s door, “Meeting, now.”

Their speedy-leader was downstairs before Dom was even able to get his door open. The man casually leaned over the railing, “Mission?”

“Yes,” Pietro nodded and made sure he had everyone’s attention. “We’re heading out in three hours, I got a plane fueling up as we speak.”

“Bother,” Pryo, who hadn’t bothered to get up from the floor, banged his head against the cabinets, “we just got home. You guys stocked the fridge and everything!”

“This is a short mission,” Pietro placated the pyromaniac, “a couple of days in South America and we’re out again.”

“Doing what?” Rogue asked.

“I don’t have all the details yet,” the man admitted with some annoyance, “but we’ll be flying down to Brazil, so pack accordingly.”

“Hardware?” Dom questioned from his perch.

“Ploughman’s Special,” he used their term for basically brining a little of this and a bit of that.

Rogue stood and faced Pietro, “You honestly have no idea what the mission is?”

“Magneto said he’d fill us in when we got there,” he shrugged, “this isn’t the first time he’s done that.”

“I know,” the Southerner tossed her magazine onto the coffee table, “but I think we’d all prefer a bit more prep.”

“You’ve got three hours,” he told her blankly and for a second she thought that maybe he wasn’t telling her everything, “make the most of it,” and he sped off into the work room.

“And I was going to make lamb for supper,” Pyro said forlornly.

…

“I’m sending my best people after it,” Magneto did not sound please as he sat in front of a laptop in one of his many private warehouses, “as requested.”

“Good,” there was a bit of a smirk to the man’s voice coming from the speakers.

“This is busy work,” he barely resisted the urge to scowl, such an action was beneath him, “hardly worth the time of my Acolytes.”

“I could think of much more productive things they could be doing,” the man gave a bit of a laugh, “but a deal… is a deal.”

“Yes,” Magneto replied gravely.

“Aww, cheer up, Erik,” the man on the screen was having entirely too much fun, “once this job is over you won’t even have to think about me for another six months.”

Magneto stared at him for a short, dull, moment, “Are you quite finished?”

“You know where to send it when you have it,” there was a bit of sing song to his voice, “ta ta.”

The screen went black and Magneto slowly closed the laptop, staring down at the smooth black of the case. He took in one even breath… then the laptop went flying across the room to smash against one of the heavy metal pillars holding up the second floor of the warehouse.

Pietro Maximoff appeared after a short wisp of wind, his eyes glancing over to the wrecked remains of the computer but he knew better than to ask.

“The team is ready to depart,” the younger man said crisply.

“Here are the final details,” a USB floated off the table over to Pietro, “it’s little more than a fact finding mission. You and the others should have little difficulty.”

“Of course,” Quicksilver pocketed the drive after a second glance. He went to turn to leave, but stopped, “This is another mission… for him.”

“It is a mission,” Magneto said simply, though there was a gravitas to his voice that dared the younger man to argue.

“The Acolytes, the Brotherhood,” and Pietro did challenge him, “are so much better than this.”

Slowly Magneto tipped his head up to meet the boy eye to eye, “We are the best. The best at protecting our fellow mutants who can’t protect themselves against those would dissect them as a curiosity,” there was a deep timber to his voice and shadows in his eyes, “therefore nothing is beneath us. We do… whatever it takes.”

The younger mutant stood stunned for what was a short moment but for him a long while. He nodded his understanding, a mix of awe and fear in his own eyes. Stepping back, he disappeared much as he appeared, leaving Magneto standing alone in the quiet warehouse.

“Whatever it takes…”

X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

A series of short stories in a fictional X-Men TV Universe.