Chapter 26: Girl from the Edge of Tomorrow Part Two.

Chapter 26: Girl from the Edge of Tomorrow Part Two.

If Harry could have only lifted his arm, they would have had a chance to reverse the Vertigo effect and send it back at them. There was a moment where the entire team was down on the ground sick to their stomach, as these Marauders stood around and laughed with gleeful joy at the damage that they had caused. They had a type of sadistic fury that had been unmatched by anyone that they had ever seen.

The Marauders staggered by some force that surprised and caught Harry off guard, but he was not going to be one that looked a gift horse in the mouth. Especially since that force allowed Harry to gain control of his wits and lead the team.

"NOW!" Harry yelled when he reversed the attacks which came back at the Marauders who staggered. A second attempt of the vertigo effect did not work on Harry, now that his magic analyzed the powers. He shielded the rest of his team from the effects the best he could, before he turned around. "Cyclops, blast that beam."

Scott felt very annoyed at being ordered but then he realized that was a good idea. With a well placed optic blast, he cracked the beam and caused it to topple on top of Blockbuster who was staggered.

Harpoon sent a super charged spear at Kitty but true to former she went intangible and the spear went through her before it blew up the wall on the other side. This distraction allowed Kurt to go behind Harpoon, grab his stash, and teleport his entire arsenal away from him. Harpoon was taken down by a telekinetic blast from Jean.

"Don't stop, keep it up!" Harry yelled as Arclight shook the ground, which Harry noticed she had a far greater grip on her powers than Avalanche did. It was obvious that she had a few more years to fine tune them, that much was for sure, and the ground rattled and the windows busted.

'Jean, mental attack,' Harry projected to his teammate.

"Right," Jean managed as she nailed Arclight with a psychic blast but suddenly she was taken down by Vertigo once again.

Rogue adjusted the slider on her wristband and grabbed Vertigo around the head, before she removed a glove and placed a hand on the side of her face. Vertigo dropped to her knees as Rogue felt an overwhelming dizziness to her. The ringing in her ears was intense so much so that it made Rogue feel sick to her stomach.

"Ah, I think the little vampire bit off a bit too much, Riptide taunted as Rogue screamed out loud when her head felt like it was splitting in two. Harry tried to aim a blasting spell at Riptide but he spun out of the way.

Super speed and now he flung several pieces of razor sharp metal, which was not a good combination. With several quick wrist flicks, Harry had transfigured the metal into harmless feathers before Rachel rolled in and psychically curb stomped Riptide to take him out of the action.

Rogue's eyes glazed over in the back of her head and Blockbuster used this as an advantage to knock her down to the side. A thunderous punch connected to her but that was the last punch he delivered when Blockbuster had been lifted up into the ground with a banishing spell and flew through a glass display. Several thousand pieces of broken glass cut and sliced through him.

The X-Men had took a moment to recover from this battle, as they felt nauseous from the vertigo at this moment. Harry rubbed the side of his temples and took a deep breath when he turned to the other members of the X-Men team. They felt the ravages of what was an intense battle.

"We got them," Harry told them before he helped Rogue up who shook her head. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, those powers were a bit more than I could handle," Rogue answered as she wondered why she had bitten off a bit more than she could chew. "Bracelet worked like a charm, no pun intended."

"Now what do we do with this trash?" Kitty asked when she looked down at the downed Marauders who had been taken out.

"We finish them off so then can never hurt anyone again," Rachel responded after a brief pause and this got her the evil eye from one Scott Summers. "These are monsters who would kill people without blinking, there's only one way to take care of them for good."

The future had hardened Rachel, it was either kill or be killed in that time. Rachel had known which one she preferred but there was a pause when Scott shook his head. Little did he know that he was looking in the face of his daughter, but she would not be enlightening him or Jean on that fact any time soon.

"We don't do that, that's not the way things should be done," Scott replied when Rachel just wanted to face palm.

"Wow, a dick and a pussy, how did you manage that one?" Rachael asked but Jean just stepped in between the two of them. Rachel mused that this was not the first time something like this happened, but again she would not be informing them of that.

Rachel had to keep her secrets after all.

"Enough, it's not like they're going…we can't just let them go and if we turn them into the government, they'll escape," Jean responded as she tried to wrap her head around everything, when she realized that there were no real answers.

Harry was the one who had come up with a solution when he saw Harpoon was the only one who was still breathing. It was an oversight that Harry was glad he made, because they needed information. Harry turned his head when he looked at Jean.

"Scan him," Harry said to Jean who nodded when she tried to dig into the mind of the downed enemy but frowned. This frown did not go unnoticed by Harry who turned to face Jean before he spoke in a calm voice."Is there a problem?"

"Sorry, I can't seem to get in his mind," Jean responded but it was Rachel who took a step up and faced Harpoon.

With a vicious shove, she entered Harpoon's mind. The way she entered his mind might be considered borderline unethical but at this point all rules were out of the window. Rachel pulled out and nearly staggered from the effort. Harry sped in and caught her. Oddly enough, she found some degree of comfort in his arms.

Rachel took a moment to collect her thoughts and focused her mind.

"What did you find out?" Jean asked Rachel but Rachel took a moment to recover.

"Harpoon and the rest of them are working for a scientist name Mister Sinister," Rachel responded when she looked at them. This name seemed to be new to the X-Men, so Rachel decided to give them more information. "You better asked Xavier what the name Nathaniel Essex means to him and why he's a menace."

"How do you know these things?" Scott asked when his eyes snapped towards her.

Rachel sighed deeply, he was always demanding of certain things about her, even when she was grown up.

"I have my ways," Rachel responded and this question caused Scott to open his mouth but Jean side stepped him.

"We better talk to the Professor about this Essex guy at any rate," Jean responded as she tried to pacify the situation before things got ugly.

For some reason, she figured Rachel had an ax to grind with Scott, although she had no idea why.

"Who is Nathaniel Essex?"

Professor Xavier had been asked that question but it was not one that he was prepared to really answer. At least it was not one that he was prepared to answer this soon in the game yet he felt this day was coming. After the report his X-Men had given him, it was a question that he needed to answer to enlighten his students, given that they ran into Essex's minions.

"Essex is a scientist who has been around for longer than even I have been alive," Xavier explained to the team who had their full eyes on them. "The most reliable accounts was that he was alive since the days of Victorian England and perhaps before them. His scheme at first was to pick up prostitutes off of the side of road to experiment on them. They were found dead days later, with weird deformities."

Harry was afraid that it would be something utterly messed up along these lines when he took a moment to step back and recoup from everything.

"So he was like some Jack the Ripper type or something?" Kitty asked the obvious question. Xavier seemed to eye Kitty for a brief moment before he had spoken his piece.

"He was Jack the Ripper."

That was a statement that had turned a few heads but Harry picked up the fact that Xavier seemed rather worried about what Sinister could mean. Magneto was one game, but Sinister was an entirely other game entirely. This Sinister seemed to be far more dangerous than anything Harry had ever faced, except for maybe Voldemort at his worst, but Harry wondered if he had even truly fought Voldemort at his worst.

The fact of the matter was that Harry braced himself for the worst, even though he had the confidence in himself and in his team that they would seize the day. He exchanged a tense expression with Kitty, Rogue, and to a lesser extent Kurt, but all of them were mulling over the possibilities of what this Minister Sister could bring.

"So, do we have any kind of plan?" Kurt asked when he broke the silence.

It was Harry who had chimed in response for Scott could even collect his thoughts. "We need to find out much more about Sinister, as I'm certain that even he is only a legend and an enigma to the Professor as well."

"You would assume correctly," Xavier agreed as he knew that there was so much about Sinister that he did not know. "I fear that you're going to see a battle that is far worse than any of you have ever imagined. Today, you were fortunate that the Marauders did not destroy you."

Harry had to agree even if the other members of the X-Men did not seem to be rather skeptical. All it took was one slip of themselves, just one time where they had not been able to fight at their full abilities, and it was all over. Harry even wondered if there was some divine intervention that allowed the X-Men to turn the tides.

"We beat them, though," Kurt answered as he tried to put a cheerful spin on this which Harry had shut down right away.

"Did we Kurt, did we?"

That was a question that none of them were going to answer, because it might turn out that none of them would like the answer to that. The fact of the matter was that they had gotten extremely fortunate with today's battle. Had things panned out just a bit differently, well they would not be able to have this conversation presently? The X-Men took a moment in solace to think how things could have gone rather poorly had they been a bit less on the ball.

"Today was a bad hand, but we came through in the end," Scott answered as he looked at Harry. There was a tense moment before Harry responded with a slight sigh.

"Came through, but we came this close to suffering a humiliating defeat," Harry replied back at him, as he tried to think things through. "These aren't children who are cobbled together in some kind of ragtag army, these are hardened men and women who would have killed us had they not underestimated us."

"The Marauders are gone, we might have been a bit rough of them," Jean added at this point but it was Xavier who just remained thoughtful for several seconds.

The fact of the matter was that Xavier avoided dealing a fatal blow to an enemy when he could have helped it as it was something that had gone against his moral fiber. His mission had been one of peace but there were doubts and some darkness that clouded his mind. Even Charles Xavier had his moments where he knew that with his powers, he could force peace between humans and mutants.

Yet it was the ethical implications of the matter that had prevented him from pulling the trigger, they would earn that trust. The day rapidly approached where mutants would have to step back into the light and face the world at large. Once that day came, Xavier hoped for an everlasting peace.

"I do hope that there was no other way," Xavier remarked in a crisp voice.

The members of the X-Men all looked at each other tensely, with all of them having their own individual interpretations about whether or not that there was no other way. It was Harry who had spoken up right now.

"No, there's no other way, but I do wonder if this is going to be the end," Harry said but it was Rachel who had spoken up.

"It won't be, not until Sinister is in the ground himself, and even then, it might only be beginning."

Some members of the X-Men looked rather suspicious at her cryptic words, and Harry had pieced together that Rachel was most certainly not from around here. There were certain subtle clues that he picked up in her body language, clues that most would miss if it had not been for Harry's powers.

Yet, it would be her story to tell when she felt the need to tell it so Harry would keep his mouth shut. No doubt that when the time came, Rachel would inform them but he was not one to judge. There were certain things that Harry had still kept from mostly everyone, as people had a right to their secrets and privacy.

That was Harry's story and he was sticking to it.

Mystique folded her hands over the table when she peered out into the lab to wait for Sinister to return. So far, she had thought that for such a great master manipulator, he had turned into an abject disappointment. As of yet, she had been unimpressed with his results as it seemed evident by now that the broken bodies of the X-Men were not to be brought back, or her two children were not going to return to her right yet.

"A failure?" Mystique asked when she saw Sinister enter the lab and walk over towards her. The demented Darwinist stopped and paused before he looked hard at Mystique, his eyes burned into her. "For someone who has failed, you seem to be rather calm and collected by this situation."

"Patience, my dear Raven, I have not failed yet, even if I have not succeeded," Sinister said when he looked at Mystique. There was a long moment where Sinister appeared to calculate something in his head. These long, awkward silences bothered Mystique to a huge degree and annoyance crossed her face.

Then there was more science as Sinister walked over towards a set of computers. With another movement, Sinister tapped into the system and appeared to check something. What he was checking, Mystique had no clear idea about, this was not part of the plan. Rather she tapped her fingers and drummed them off of the table as she grew more and more annoyed. Information was something that she needed and patience was something that was a virtue that Mystique did not master.

"The Marauders have been destroyed," Sinister stated in the most calm voice possible, if he was discussing the weather.

Mystique's eyes widened for a brief second as a frown curled over her face and she turned to Sinister.

"And how is that not considered a failure?" Mystique asked, to be honest, that baffled her and the expression that was on her face just showed how baffled that she was. Sinister's expression never wavered from the malicious grin that he had and Mystique shivered for a long time before he responded.

"It is elementary, they were weak, defective, therefore they were destroyed," Sinister said as if he was guiding a Kindergartener through the element of one plus one equals two. "I have their DNA, I can learn from the mistakes and rebuild them, replicate them, make them stronger. Those five might be gone but there will be many more."

Sinister could clone the Marauders an infinite number of times, and in fact he had in the past when he needed to. There was no such thing as death as it regarded his experiments; in fact it was merely a speed bump as opposed to a barrier. It would fine tune the process and each time he would get stronger minions.

"I have acquired a visual scan of everything that my Marauders have seen when they fought the X-Men, a detailed scan of their powers, their strengths, and their weaknesses, a genetic map to their DNA," Sinister said when he turned to Mystique who nodded. "With that, I can devise a way to defeat them."

Sinister turned around without another word to leave Mystique alone and walked over to receive the transmission.

"And what if one of the X-Men find the chip and use it to track you back here?"

"Not a problem," Sinister responded as he turned around to briefly look at Mystique. "The chip will not register an outgoing signal, it will short circuit if anyone tries to tamper with it. I have planned for these things, give me a minimal amount of credit."

Mystique had no idea whether or not she would give Sinister any credit at all, but she had to trust him if she wanted to achieve her goals. So far, Sinister was all talk and Mystique had seen very few results. What was he waiting for, that was what Mystique wanted to know? It was much like Magneto all over again, except that Sinister was far more sadistic that the Master of Magnetism was.

Sinister's eyes remained on the scans of each and every individual member of the X-Men, when he had new genetic scans, he felt like a kid on Christmas morning. It was potential new DNA that he could play around with, mold, and study, to see what made it tick. Perhaps if the subjects were powerful enough, he could capture them and do some experimentation on them for the instance.

He noticed that his Marauders were in the custody of SHIELD at this moment, likely they were the ones who had picked up the bodies. Fury and his lackeys could study it until the cows came home, there was no way they could figure out what inherent secrets that DNA had contained.

Then Sinister noticed another intriguing quality about the DNA that belonged to the mutant designated Arcane. A detail that made him wonder if this Arcane was really a mutant or something else entirely. Something else that was far beyond the comprehension of Sinister or anyone else but never the less, Sinister remained transfixed with his eyes glued on the computer screen.

The DNA analysis was incomplete, with over three fourths of it reading as inconclusive. No genetic mapping could read this DNA and Sinister had learned more about genetics than any other human on Earth.

He was not human, he was not mutant, Sinister did wonder what he was, there was nothing close to it. Sinister felt his curiosity heightened as he knew that he would have to get closer and closer to determine what made this Arcane tick. For the first time in years, Sinister's scientific curiosity bubbled and grew. He was giddy as a schoolgirl.

Sinister would have to play this casually, as he made a plan, this was not over, as the X-Men likely discovered. No this was far from over; in fact it just had begun.

He continued to move around the area of his lab, with several other experiments that were outgoing. One of pods contained a small purple dragon that Sinister acquired, he felt the need to study its genetic makeup for where it was nothing like he ever saw on Earth.

The second pod contained a man held in stasis with dark hair. This man fell out of the sky, barely breathing, and seemed to have come from nowhere. Sinister found out that this man had a DNA sequence that was quite similar to the subject known as Arcane, although there were other differences.

Sinister thought that this was a serious project that he needed to undertake to further understand what was on the line.

"This situation is far worse than we thought."

Black Widow finished giving her report to Nick Fury who looked rather grim when she had finished speaking. There were any number of worse case scenarios that went through the mind of the SHIELD commander before he had sent out his agent for the mission. Be that as it may, this scenario was far worse case than he had ever imagined as he shook his head to clear the cobwebs. Things were about to get rather tense.

Fury turned around to peer out into the city below when he remembered the battles that he had weathered over the years, storms that many people would shield themselves away from. Yet, Fury was someone who did not back down easily, he was hardened beyond everything that he had ever battled. It was getting near the time where he was going to have to step things up, the world was getting to be a more dangerous place.

"Essex," Black Widow chimed in as she spoke to Fury, her eyes on him as she understood that her boss was a bit agitated with everything that was going on. "How much of a problem are we going to have to deal with?"

Fury contemplated the problem from every single angle and there were many angles that he could comprehend it from. He took a moment to consider everything before his one eye snapped to the face of Black Widow. She felt like Fury was staring into her very soul and most would be uneasy with the look that was in Fury's eye. However, Widow had been more to use with receiving that particular look.

"As of right now, continue to keep an eye on the situation and hope that Essex crawls out of his hole. We have his men in security, what's left of them anyway, and we can study from them, learn from them all. Rest assure, SHIELD will get to the bottom of this. And you are certain that you were not seen?"

Black Widow was prompt to respond in a crisp and confident voice. "No, Commander Fury, I was not seen, even if I gave them a subtle hand. None of them noticed it but the widow sting broke up Vertigo's control. This allowed Arcane to jump in and take further control. None of them were the wiser."

Fury was confident of the Widow's abilities but he needed to make sure.

'As long as you were not seen," Fury answered when he looked at the Black Widow. One agent had already been caught by this Arcane and had forced them to step back in the situation. Black Widow just nodded more crisply than ever before. "Today, we've taken a step forward, but there are many steps we're going to take."

Black Widow nodded when she looked towards Fury and turned her back on him without another word. She had an observation to continue as she left Fury alone. She was intrigued with her observation of the X-Men but the group of them were rather amateurish. Widow noted a misprint in the official SHIELD records as well.

Her observation indicated that Arcane seemed to be the leader of the X-Men, as opposed to this Cyclops. Perhaps the Black Widow did not see everything properly, but Natasha prided herself on her observational skills, for they were the make of a good spy, at least that's what her training panned out.

Widow walked off to continue the observation of the X-Men but Fury warned her about Arcane and his ability to sense deception. A discreet distance would be required but she was not going to even allow herself to be seen by Mr. Potter. Perhaps it would be Natasha who would be doing the seeing and she planned to make many notes when she carefully observed Harry Potter's every waking moment.

Fury contemplated the pickle that he was in when Essex had returned and knew that if anyone would be interested in the gems, it would be this particular man. The grizzled government agent read the files on Essex that had been collected but doubted very much that they scratched the surface. The few hints indicated that the man was twisted, sadistic, and obsessed. That was a combination that rarely bared anything but problems.

Speaking of problems, the X-Men presented another problem as Fury knew that the mysterious traveler had found her way under the care of the X-Men. Much like Harry Potter all of those very months about, Xavier seemed to be inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt. Fury disagreed with this philosophy, having been burned up the ass more than one time in the past.

The X-Men could wait, Essex was a huge problem, and also the increased HYDRA activity presented more problems from Fury than there were solutions. Fury shook his head when he tapped into the system files to see if he can get any more details about Sinister. Not to mention if he would be able to locate a detail or two about the gems which had eluded him so far.

His mind traveled to an old friend of his from the days of the war, who currently lied in stasis when the formula that made him the super soldier he was damaged his body. There was one added element that was needed to stabilize the formula in him and he might be able to wake up Captain America. The gems could be that element.

Fury thought time ran short though, for there were people who demanded the plug be pulled on Captain America for eating tax payer's money. People these days didn't appreciate heroes like they had in the past.

Leading the charge was the current Secretary of Defense, Dell Rusk, who said that Captain America's time was at an end and they should look forward to the future, and not the past.

Fury worked tirelessly to try and find a cure, with some help from Tony Stark and his resources. Stark and Fury butted heads over the years but they could work together for a common cause. Stark constantly pointed out that he only did this for Captain America, who was an old friend of Howard Stark, Tony's father.

Rachel sat in the study of the Xavier Institute with her hands folded across her lap with a tense expression on her face. Charles Xavier offered her a spot to stay and while she did not know the man due to him dying before her time, she did hear stories about him. He was a man who strongly believed in a dream, a dream that he eventually died for at the hands of Bastion. The mutant race had splintered after that night, and then the humans had taken steps to control the mutant population.

Then there was a moment where those machines turned on humans due to the fact that they perceived that mutants had evolved from humans. Therefore, humans must be destroyed to prevent the mutant academic to spread, that was a logic that was twisted, but in many ways unfortunately accurate. Living in a bad future with there was no tomorrow allowed Rachel to develop a nice and cynical attitude.

She barely saw Jean show up at that moment. This was the woman who was her mother, at least who could be her mother, but there were just so many things that could change due to her presence in the past. Rachel had escaped the future but what she would build here would remain to be seen in the next few days.

"Hey, Rachel," Jean said as Rachel's eyes snapped towards her mother's face, she was so young, innocent, before everything that happened. Jean was a reflection of a happier time and Rachel nearly was brought to tears when she thought about some of the things that happened to her. "I understand it might be tough for you here, but just get the Institute a chance."

'Tougher for me than you can ever imagine,' Rachel thought, she must have been mental to go back in time, mental but now the genie was out of the bottle and there was no going back, not at all.

Jean offered a smile that Rachel could not help but trust, but if she could not trust her mother, than who could she trust? Of course, this Jean was not technically her mother yet, but that was beside the point. This entire time travel thing had made Rachel's head spin a fair bit and she had to hold back her depression when she saw people that were dead in her timeline.

A timeline where she would refuse to allow happen, even if it erased her from future. One life to save the millions and millions around the world, that was more than a fair trade if she said so.

"I'll try," Rachel responded as her eyes met Jean's, but she sensed a few thoughts coming off of them. Jean was still not refined with her telepathy right now, something that worried Rachel a little bit as there were dark doors in her mind that should never be opened. The Phoenix Force within could be twisted if Jean did not learn how to embrace it properly, but Xavier had taken steps to suppress it. "If there's something that you want to say Jean, say it, please."

Jean decided to throw all caution to the wind and say something before she lost her nerve.

"What's your problem with Scott?"

"Nothing's a problem, I don't know where you get that," Rachel said in an evasive voice.

If Jean found anything dubious about that, she did not say anything, but the truth was that Rachel had a whole lot against Scott Summers. She supposed that Scott's attitude in the future was a consequence to being groomed to be the golden boy and being treated like the sun shined out of his ass by Xavier.

There was the entire situation with Emma Frost where she convinced Scott that she changed and had seduced him away from Jean. She also seduced the secrets of the X-Men to the Hellfire Club and allowed them to deal a crushing blow. Emma did have some decency in her to stop Shaw from killing the X-Men but the fact was that Rachel never looked at Scott in the same light again when she found out this happened.

There were many other incidents like that, and Rachel was not going to even get into the entire Madelyn Pryor mess. That brought her back to Sinister and how he had manipulated the situation to create his ultimate mutant weapon, her half-brother, for lack of a better term. Rachel knew that he had went even further in the future, although she shuddered to think what the world was about.

Rachel was fully aware that Jean was staring at her for a long time. Jean realized that Rachel realized that she was staring before she hastily cleared her throat.

"We do look alike you know," Jean said in what she hoped was a nonchalant voice. "Are we related?"

"Well if you go back far enough, everyone in the world is related," Rachel said when she looked at Jean.

"Not everyone," Jean replied when she looked at Rachel. "Harry isn't, he's from…an alternate timeline."

That did explain why Rachel had not heard of Harry Potter or Arcane, at least in part. Perhaps he had found a way home, had been forced back home by forces from his own dimension against his will, or he had been erased from history between now and her future. There was any number of possibilities that Rachel considered. Or perhaps the fact that she went back caused a tear in space-time for Arcane to arrive here.

She supposed the best thing was to just take the plunge and talk to Harry, to figure out where his head was. The fact the archives lacked any information regarding him made him all that more of an intriguing study.

Kitty, Rogue, and Harry lounged in a living room after the events of today and they took a moment to mull over everything that happened in their mind. Kitty decided to sum up everything with a few words.

"What a day."

That was something that all three of them could agree about as Rogue's face contorted into a smile when she rested her head against Harry's shoulder.

"It wasn't that bad for you, I felt like my eardrums were going to burst when I got that woman's powers," Rogue replied with a sigh as she looked at Kitty.

"Yeah, true, but I nearly got a super charged harpoon through into my gut," Kitty answered with a sigh.

"You can go intangible though," Rogue argued with a smile directed towards Kitty but Kitty just shook her head.

"Yeah, that's really great, unless they get you from behind before I can see them and go intangible," Kitty commented in a light voice as she shook her head and ran her hands through her hair. She felt Harry's arm tighten around her. "Intangibility does not mean that I have eyes in the back of your head."

"You did great," Harry responded when he cupped Kitty's face in his hands before he leaned forward and gave her a slight kiss. Kitty returned the kiss with the two of them getting into it. Harry paused and grabbed Rogue before he did the same to her. Rogue melted into Harry's arms from the kiss. "Love you both."

The two girls smiled as Harry sat there but Rachel stood in the doorway with a curious expression on her face, she had seen that show. She just shook her head with a shadow of smile, but there was a curious thought that had gone through her head. There was a moment where all parties looked at each other before it was Harry who had spoken up.

"What can I do for you Rachel?" Harry asked her and Rachel took a moment to look at Kitty and Rogue. Harry got the implied meaning of the expression in her eyes, so he turned to Kitty and Rogue. "I think she wants to talk to me alone, so do you two ladies mind…"

"Not at all," Kitty said but Rogue was a bit suspicious at Rachel with her eyes on her.

"We'll be outside this door if you need anything," Rogue offered when the pair of them had left.

This left Rachel and Harry alone to stare at each other. The two of them shared a moment where the silence was awkward, both interested in finding out more about the other, but neither wanting to say the first word. Harry knew that things could get really awkward, really quick so he was able to break the silence.

"Rachel, how good is your telepathy?" Harry asked suddenly out of the blue and Rachel just looked at him, rather confused. "I mean, how long have you been doing it?"

Rachel responded with a curious raised eyebrow. "Six years, seven years since I came into my mutant powers."

"So you've known that you were a mutant and practiced your telepathy longer than Jean has," Harry offered which Rachel confirmed with a nod. "There was something in my mind, I'm sorting a lot of it out, but there are parts of it that I can't figure out."

This little statement confused Rachel so she leaned forward to face Harry and hoped that she would get some clarification. Harry sensed the confusion and decided to elaborate further on the problem that he had been having.

"There might be foreign memories in my mind, in fact there are, based on something that happened when I was a child."

"You mean, you're experiencing some kind of past life?" Rachel asked in clarification.

"Something along those lines, yes," Harry offered with a shrug and smile.

Rachel and Harry stared at each over for a moment before the dark haired wizard mutant hybrid cut in with a request. He decided to spit this one out, feeling that someone who could help him, that he might be able to trust to be discreet given that she needed him to be discreet about what he figured out, had fallen into his lab.

"So how about it, could you help me sort out those memories?"

"You don't want Xavier to know about them, do you?" Rachel asked Harry and Harry responded with a nod. She peered into his mind, he seemed to have some form of telepathy, although it was far different than anything she had ever experienced. Another telepath forcefully rammed into it and caused damage to his natural defenses with a psychic equivalent of a heavy battering ram.

Perhaps she could help Harry achieve his full potential and gain a valuable ally, someone that she could trust. Providing Harry would believe her, but by helping him with this, Rachel would cement how trustworthy she is.

"Alright, I'll help you," Rachel responded with a nod.

"Let's start tomorrow," Harry answered with Rachel giving a nod and a smile.

"It's a date," Rachel fired back before she realized what she was said but kept her face neutral to hide any other hints to what she was thinking.