Chapter Two – From the Top

Most private schools take great pains to advertise their presence. They set great store by their achievements, only if those same achievements can be communicated to parents of potential pupils. For a private school, pupils mean, metaphorically, life. Or, to put it more literally, pupils mean cash. But, in Westchester County, New York, the Xavier Institute took great pains to remain inconspicuous. Not that it had any problems attracting students: as the only school in the world catering to its own special kind of students, Xavier Institute had no competitors. No one else wanted its kind of students. Those students were mutants.

In the gardens behind the school's main building there was a large natural lake. Its waters were crystal clear despite the pollution haze that hung over nearby New York. As countless previous students of the institute could testify, what was the point of being a mutant if you could not use the powers that set you apart from normal humans to create your own private slice of heaven. A gravel path led away from the lake towards the neighbouring woods. After some distance it branched, leading to a secluded patch of lawn sheltered by wooden trellises overgrown with ivy. At the centre of the patch was a grave.

Katherine Pryde knelt in front of the headstone, tracing the inscription with her fingers. The bouquet of lilies she had brought with her lay reverently on the grave. The moistness of her eyes made it difficult for Kate to read the words, but she already knew what they said. Professor Charles Francis Xavier. For many years he had been her mentor, her guiding light. Sure, they had had their differences, he was a bald academic in a wheelchair and she was a stroppy teenager, but Charles had guided Kate through a crisis point in her life and given her purpose and direction. The purpose still remained though that direction was about to change.

'Would you be proud of what I'm about to do, Professor,' Kate asked the figure six feet beneath her. 'Am I continuing the dream or breaking your trust? Things have changed so much recently. Nothing's clear anymore. We need you now more than ever, but we have to continue the fight alone.'

She stretched out her fingers to the grave once more. To an observer it might have appeared that the young woman was attempting to reach out and touch the grave's occupant, but had that really been Kate's intent, several feet of soil would have provided no barrier. There was a second inscription beneath the name: a quote, from the Professor himself. 'Any dream worth having is a dream worth dying for.' It was Xavier's dream that Kate aimed to continue, his vision of peaceful coexistence between mutants and normal humans. The dream seemed no closer to being fulfilled now than it had back in the twilight of the twentieth century, but Xavier had taught Kate to believe, to hope, and hope was not something Kate would give up easily. To defend his dream Xavier had created this school and the mutants he trained became the superhuman team known to the world as the X-Men. Kate Pryde, then called Kitty and code-named Sprite, had been a member of what Xavier had referred to as his second generation of X-Men after four of the original five left the team. Now Kate aimed to forge a new generation of her own.

Scott Summers stood at the window of the study and watched as Kate made her way slowly back to the house. She's changed, he thought. His mind drifted back to the bubbly, effervescent fourteen year-old he had first brought back to the mansion. Now he looked at the older, wiser woman who seemed set to take his place. And good luck to her. She carried herself with more confidence these days and it made her seem taller somehow. Her chestnut locks had been cut shorter and pulled harshly back. It made her look stronger, but to Scott's mind, the arrangement, though striking, made her seem less attractive than she had been all those years ago.

'And what do you think you're doing looking at younger women behind my back.' The voice, bubbling like a mountain spring was ornamented by gentle laughter. It belonged to Scott's wife.

'As if I could keep any secrets from a telepath,' Scott replied, turning to face Jean.

'Too true, but if I ever catch you trying...' Jean left the non-existent threat hanging between them, before blowing it away with a kiss directed at her husband. Scott had aged well, his face was weathered and his hair greyed, but it leant him a dignity that had always seemed appropriate to his personality. His eyes were hidden behind ruby-coloured glasses. To strangers, the glasses labelled him as old-fashioned, especially since corrective surgery was so cheap and commonplace these days. The glasses wear not to correct Scott's eyesight, however. Instead, they held back beams of deadly concussive force that blasted uncontrollably from his open eyes. Scott was cursed with a mutant power he could scarcely keep in check, but to his mind he was the luckiest man alive. He was married to Jean.

Jean Grey Summers was the most beautiful woman in the world, as Scott would happily announce to anyone within earshot. She was perhaps a little plumper than she had been in her youth, but it could not detract from her good looks, enhanced by mischievous, sparkling green eyes and flame red hair. Her personality was as glowing as her appearance, vivaciousness tempered by her generosity and caring. Scott still could not believe that she had agreed to marry him so many years ago.

'Jean,' he asked, 'are we doing the right thing?'

'Which "thing" are we talking about?' Jean perched on the edge of the desk. Scott suppressed a smile at the thought of the Professor's reaction if he could see her now.

He frowned at her. 'I'm serious, Scott,' Jean continued. 'If you're talking about our retirement then I don't see that we have much choice.'

Scott Summers nodded reluctantly. Age had dulled both their reflexes. To a telepath that was merely inconvenient, but with his powers it could easily be fatal. Or worse. On his last mission as Cyclops he had almost destroyed a bus filled with school kids. Even superheroes, it seemed, could not go on forever.

Jean was still speaking. 'But if you mean are we right to help Kitty –,'

'Kate,' Scott corrected automatically. 'She prefers being called Kate these days.' It was Jean's turn to frown.

'But if you mean are we right to help Kitty,' Jean repeated, 'then I honestly don't know, Scott.'

Scott turned back to the window, his face hardened into an impassive mask that hid his doubts from most observers. But not his wife. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. 'I do know that whatever else happens, we have to try.'

Scott met her gaze. 'I know, Jean, but I just wish Charles were here to tell me the same. I don't know if I can replace him.'

'Oh, Scott,' Jean sighed, 'you worry too much. You try to take everyone's responsibilities upon yourself. It's one of the things I've always loved about you. But we're not looking for you to be the Professor.'

An emperor butterfly settled on the window and Jean paused a moment watching it rest briefly before continuing its crazily twisting flight-path. It reminded her of her husband, always on the move, always in action, never pausing longer than he had to. So long as there were problems in the world Scott would be trying to solve them. That was why Jean knew that they had to play a part in Kate's project. Scott would not have it any other way.

'I remember a conversation I had with Ororo shortly after we moved back into the mansion,' Jean eventually continued, smiling as she remember her best friend and Scott's co-leader of the X-Men. 'We were discussing the Professor and we decided that the best way to describe him was as Merlin. He was our advisor and teacher. Kate doesn't need a teacher anymore, she's already proven herself.'

'True,' Scott agreed. In many ways, Kitty Pryde had been the most capable of all the X-Men, her mutant power to move through solid objects paling into insignificance compared to her other talents. She was a veritable genius, with a particular talent for computers. She had also trained as both ninja and samurai under Wolverine's tutelage, besting her mentor on more than one occasion. 'But what of the others?'

'They'll be fine. Times have changed and Merlin's gone. We'll just have to get by without him.' Jean shook her head at her husband's obstinacy. She loved that about him as well. 'But there's more to the analogy. At the time we wondered who represented Arthur. I think we both know the answer to that now, don't we?'

Scott seemed to glow beneath his wife's compliment, which had taken him completely aback, but he still was not satisfied. 'Camelot only lasted as long as Arthur did himself,' he said.

'Rubbish,' Jean replied. 'Arthur's spirit lives on and you know that as well as I do. You, more than anyone else, are the heart and soul of the X-Men and if Charles were here he'd tell you that himself. If Kitty's going to take your place then she's going to need your support and guidance. But most of all, she needs you to be a friend, not a mentor.'

Scott kissed his wife's forehead. 'I know, I just wanted to hear you say it.'

There was a cough from the doorway. 'Hi Mom, Hi Dad, hope I'm not interrupting anything.'

'Hi, Annie, come on in,' Jean called out.

Annie Sara Summers, just turned thirteen, was remarkably tall, taller even than her father, and had a slim figure that enhanced the effect, model thin, but brimming with life and vitality. She had her mother's hair, but pulled hers back in a long ponytail, held in place by a large clasp at the base of her neck. Like her father, she also wore glasses, but hers were an impenetrable black and worn for a different reason. Annie had a friendly, outgoing nature, but there was something about her, some aura, that seemed to make other people nervous. Only Scott and Jean were immune. That's because we're her parents, Jean thought.

'Can't stop, Mom, I promised to help Kate get the computer's back on line,' Annie replied, leaning on the doorjamb. 'I just wanted to let you know that one of the guests has arrived.'

'Which one,' Scott asked.

Annie smiled. 'A charming woman by the name of Jubilation Lee.'

Jean grinned.

Scott groaned.

Little Jubilee was not quite so little anymore. In terms purely of height she was just as small as she ever had been, but she had grown in stature over the intervening years. It was a confidence thing, she suspected, when she deigned to think about it at all, which admittedly was not very often. She had always tried to act big, but, until recently, that had always been an act to cover up her feeling of inadequacy. After all, shooting fireworks was a pretty lame power. She had always been the baby of the X-Men, always consigned to the sidelines during the most important events. Compared to your Wolverines and your Storms, even your Icemen, what use was she? When she had moved to Generation X, the second Xavier institute, she had hoped things would improve. With her experience, she thought that she might even get to lead this new team. Once again, however, she found herself surrounded by superiors and confined to second-string status. Being the youngest member probably did not help either.

Recently, circumstances had changed. Technically, though, Jubilation suspected that the troubles had really started three years ago when Sean Cassidy, co-head with Emma Frost, had suffered a fatal heart attack. Emma, never the most stable person in Jubilee's opinion, had become a veritable recluse, hardly ever leaving her office, and the fabric of the school began to disintegrate. Classes became sporadic at best and the super-team's public appearances were practically non-existent. The end seemed inevitable, hanging above like the Sword of Damocles itself. At least, that was what Jono had said. Then came the blow that finally severed the cord. Emma Frost suffered a nervous breakdown and reverted back to her persona as White Queen of the Hellfire Club. She tried unsuccessfully to destroy the students there and then, but the act was enough to doom the school forever. One by one, the students began to leave. Within four months the school was practically deserted. Those few that remained, Jubilee among them, did so primarily because they had nowhere else to go.

Jubilee had never believed in God. She believed in some form of heaven (it helped her sleep better at night to think that there was somewhere better than this), but she had never believed in any form of omnipotent being watching over his (or her) children. To Jubilee, what happened next confirmed her belief more than ever before. A god would have stopped with Emma's breakdown; the universe was not through punishing them yet.

Somehow, the Friends of Humanity learned of the school's true purpose, what 'gifted children' really meant. The FOH had been viciously anti-mutant for years, first under the late Graydon Creed, human son of the mutants Mystique and Sabretooth, and later under a succession of increasingly brutal, increasingly fanatic figureheads. Its displays of violence seemed to increase exponentially. Back in the sixties and seventies, the group had confined itself to rallies and protest marches. Now, it seemed to delight in the death of mutants, spreading its hate campaign through violence and torture. The more pain they inflicted, the better they liked it. Now they intended to burn the Xavier Institute to the ground, the students as well as the building.

At first, Jubilee was unconcerned. They had tried a similar stunt many years before, though they were then being influenced by the terrorist organisation called Hydra. The team had had to rush to Italy at the time, a small matter involving a plague carrying severed head, but when they got back the incident appeared to have been forgotten about. This time, however, they were better armed and the school had fewer defenders. When mortar fire had brought the roof down, Jubilation had found herself taking charge, leading a haphazard flight from the grounds. The survivors would later admit that it was only by Jubilee's quick thinking that they had escaped alive. Finally, Jubilee felt that she had achieved something. Some are born great, she mused, some aspire to greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them. If only the price had not been so damn high. Everett Thomas and Leech never emerged from the shattered husk of a building.

Jubilee had returned to the streets. Orphaned as a child, Jubilee knew how to survive with only her wits to aid her. Embittered by her experiences, Jubilation simply aimed to survive, to hide herself from view and try to pretend that nothing had happened. On the streets, grief could get you killed just as easily as being born a mutant freak. Still, some of the old Jubilee must have remained. Maybe it was Everett's influence, maybe she had always been this way, but it seemed that there was a heroic spirit within her that just refused to lie down and die. For the past six months she had been dispensing her own personalised brand of vigilante justice to those who preyed upon the homeless. Then Kate had contacted her. She did not know if the woman's plan would work, in fact, after what happened at the school, she severely doubted it would, but she felt she owed it to Everett, and the rest, to at least give it a try. Who knew, maybe there was life in the X-Men yet?

Scott Summers stood in the doorway trying to summon up the courage to go in. Jubilee had her back to him; she was crouched on the sofa with her knees tucked under her chin. The TV was directly in front of her, but its screen was dead and black. She looked as much like a child as she had when he had first met her, travelling the world in the company of Wolverine and Psylocke. Even now, it still seemed an odd teaming: the violent and volatile near savage, the silent and deadly ninja-telepath and the juvenile firecracker. But Wolverine had trusted her implicitly and Scott had known Logan long enough to learn that his trust was not given lightly.

Looking at her now, Scott was forced to revise his opinion. Then she had acted with a brash confidence, a cockiness he had found immediately abrasive. Here she seemed vulnerable and alone. Something had changed within her, he knew. She had always been the insecure child, but she had concealed it with brashness. Now something had stripped that arrogance away, revealing the frightened child that still hid beneath. Scott suspected that she was already building walls to hide it again.

He was unsure how to approach her. He and Jubilee had never really got on. She was the undisciplined joker, the frivolous wild card who ignored orders and undermined authority. Scott was the voice of that authority. He had had the same trouble with Bobby Drake, the Iceman, but he had watched Bobby mature and learn to take responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Bobby was now one of his closest friends. Scott had not been there to see Jubilee mature. He knew she had, it was inevitable, but they had never had a chance to heal the rift that separated them. He was the authority responsible for keeping Jubilee in line; she was the rebel dedicated to flouting that authority. Over time they had attained a mutual respect for one another, they even enjoyed working together, but true friendship was a relationship that had always eluded them. Maybe Jean's right, Scott thought. Maybe I have been trying to play mentor for too long.

He saw her reaching for an apple from a nearby fruit bowl. 'There's some ice-cream in the fridge if you'd prefer it,' he said aloud. 'I seem to remember you were big on Ben & Jerry's.'

'Yeah, well, people change,' she commented, turning to scrutinise him. She was right, Scott thought immediately, she had changed. She was a lot thinner than Scott remembered and he found himself wondering if she had been eating properly. Her hair was different, too, with a long fringe that almost concealed one eye. He also noticed an accumulation of dirt beneath her fingernails, but decided not to comment.

'You've grown,' he finally replied, desperately looking for something more meaningful to say.

'Puberty does that, you know,' Jubilee drawled sarcastically, before taking a bite out of her apple.

'You wouldn't remember Penance, would you?' Jubilee continued. Scott was shocked to detect more than a trace of bitterness in her voice. 'You were too busy saving the world to keep an eye on the children. Penance loved apples.'

'She was the girl you rescued from Emplate,' Scott said in an attempt to bridge the ever-widening void. Emplate had been a vampire that fed on mutant DNA. Penance had been his sole sustenance for years and when she was first rescued she had been terrified. It was several years before she uttered a single word to another living being.

'Jono calmed her down when she first appeared,' Jubilee continued as if she had not heard Scott. 'They used to spend a lot of time together in the Biosphere and he found that offering her an apple used to get her to come down from her tree. After my first field trip I brought her back a bag of apples. It was a totally weird thing for me to do, you know, but I just wanted to try and do something to make her happy. Do you understand that? She'd suffered so much, I just wanted to let her know that someone cared.'

'I understand,' Scott consoled. His hands hovered over her shoulders, but he was not sure how she would react to physical contact.

'Shortly after that she relapsed into a coma.' Jubilee's voice was dry and raw and tears flowed freely down her cheeks. 'I never left her bedside. I couldn't. I don't know why, I just couldn't. Even when someone tried to kill Sean I hardly noticed. I just wanted to stay with Penance, to let her know that someone was watching over her.'

'Jubilee,' Scott said slowly, 'what happened to Penance?'

'I remember Mondo telling me that she was going to be okay. I snapped at him, wanted to know what he knew that our high-tech gleaming gadgets in the most advanced infirmary this side of Shi'ar space couldn't tell us. It didn't even faze him. Nothing fazed Mondo, the big lunk. He just told me that where he came from having a friend watching out for you was worth far more than any complicated, advanced medical technique. Fat lot of good it did Penny in the end.'

Scott finally grasped Jubilee's shoulders. 'Jubilee, what happened to her?'

'She died, okay,' Jubilee shouted. 'A bunch of flatscan humans shot her down like a dog.'

Jubilee ran from the room.