Chapter 109 – Gossip

[A/N: Hey guys, I am back!

Sorry for my long abscene, I have a rather turbulent few weeks behind me. I was sick for a good part of them and constantly on the road. Even now, I am just waiting for my flight to board.

Thankfully, I will be settling down for a few weeks come tomorrow and I plan to update much more regularly then, so that you won't have to wait so long for some content.

Anyway, enjoy the story!]

[2009 – September]

My locker wasn't too far away from Jean's, and after I placed a few of my textbooks inside it and Jean glued a picture of both of us on the inside of the locker door while smiling shyly, we made our way to her locker.

Though the moment we turned the corner to the corridor where her locker was, I noticed her tense up for a moment, her gaze directed at a teenage boy leaning against some lockers with two other guys by his side.

All three of them seemed fairly athletic while the one leaning against the lockers had blonde hair and a crew cut, the smirk on his face rather annoying while he joked with the other two, making fun of some of the other students walking by.

It didn't take a genius to guess that he had to be Duncan, and judging by the frown that appeared on his face the moment he laid eyes on Jean and saw her holding hands with me, I knew that trouble was ahead.

I heard Jean sigh lightly as she pulled me forward, not intending to avoid the guy, which caused me to smile lightly.

"Could you please move away from my locker, Duncan?", Jean asked directly, looking at the blonde jock with a frown, her displeasure rather clear in the tone of her voice and her demeanor.

It was obvious that the guy wasn't blocking the locker behind him at random but had instead waited here intentionally for Jean, which caused something dark to rise up in my heart, urging me to draw blood and inflict pain on the guy.

Though I restrained myself for the moment, as I did not want to cause too great a scene on my first day here.

Not acting on Jean's request, a dark look appeared on his face as he looked at me, growing hate and swelling anger in his eyes before he turned back to Jean and said while ignoring my presence.

"Jean, you look sexy as ever!", Duncan called out, not knowing how close to death this simple comment brought him, "How about going to the movies after school? I'm sure you missed me after so many days apart, let's make up for the lost time."

While speaking, Duncan approached and I saw him raise his hand as if he wanted to touch her cheek. Feeling the urge to kill the guy nearly overwhelm me, I acted before Jean could even answer.

Stepping in between them, I looked into the eyes of the one who dared to make advances on what belonged to me, murder and bloodlust burning in my gaze as I felt my eyes change shape and colour.

The ambient psionic energy bowed to my wrath as it assaulted the blonde before me, locking his body in place as he was forced to look into my blood-red glowing slitted eyes. I saw the fear and horror that suddenly appeared in his dirty blue eyes but I didn't let up and forced my desire to kill into his mind.

I drowned his mind with my desire to rip him apart limb by limb, to crush his whole body until he was nothing more than a pile of bloody meat and broken bones. Pure malevolence assaulted his mind until I nearly felt his mental barriers collapse under the force of my will.

Reining in my darker emotions and letting go of my hold of the surrounding psionic energy and the guy's body, Duncan staggered backward while screaming in fright, a dark spot appearing at his crotch. He fell to his ass as his cronies just froze for a moment before they called out to him.

Duncan though wasn't in the right state of mind to explain what he had seen and experienced just now, as he just crawled away several feet before he managed to rise to his feet and run, the other two following behind in trepidation and confusion.

Nobody had seen what had just happened, as I had erected an ethereal shield that prevented others from noticing anything strange, not to mention that this small stare-off hadn't lasted more than two seconds.

It just seemed a bit longer to me, as my mind was far stronger than a normal human's which slowed my perception of time.

What I had done to Duncan though was a very crude version of psionic-energy-based telepathy. Emma had been teaching me to make use of it for the last few weeks, and while I couldn't use it for battle, intimidating a stalker was easy enough.

It was very likely that he wouldn't recover from such a traumatic experience in a short period of time, maybe even never, though I didn't care.

"Elijah, you- … ", Jean started as she reacted to what I had just done, looking at me with a bit of mixture of emotions, amongst them affection, blame, and helplessness. Sighing, she continued: "You shouldn't have done that."

Cradling her cheek, I stole myself a kiss, ignoring the whispering and the looks were thrown our way.

"Maybe.", I replied quietly after moving back a bit, something dark and deadly flashing in my eyes, "But he is lucky to be alive after what he just tried."

Placing her own hand above mine for a moment, Jean shook her head, a loving look in her eyes: "No. That's not you."

Grabbing my hand, she pulled me to her locker where she finally had the chance to store away a few of her textbooks before, for the second time this morning, gluing a picture of us both on the inside of a locker door.

I didn't say anything to refute her words and just watched over her with soft shadowed eyes, even though I knew that she might be wrong in her assessment.

…

A few minutes later, we finally met up with Laura, Ellie, Yukio, and Pietro at a corner of the schoolyard. Yukio's greeting was as energetic as ever, and I could only throw a sympathetic look at Ellie, who still seemed half asleep.

Pietro didn't seem to have a problem with Yukio's energy level despite the early hour, though that wasn't really a surprise considering that he was always a bit squirrelly himself, looking ready to do a quick sprint around the city.

We came across Scott and Rogue on our way here, though apart from a dark look from him and a complex look of guilt from her, there was no other exchange. I could only guess that the Professor had talked to them, which might have had a rather limited effect on Scott.

Kurt wasn't around, as was no one else from the X-Mansion who could easily be recognized as a mutant. Still, it made sense as no one at school knew that we were mutants. This was different than what I remembered from the comics, though admittedly my knowledge was rather blurry when it came to such details.

Everyone just thought of the guys from Xavier's mansion as specially enrolled students that attended a boarding school, where only a few special subjects were taught. So for the other subjects they had to attend this school.

While the existence of mutants was widely acknowledged, discrimination was almost omnipresent, so it wasn't that surprising that our true nature had to be hidden in favor of a 'normal' school life.

Somehow, Yukio had also managed to already catch wind of what had transpired between Duncan and me through one of the many text chains she was part of. The fact that Duncan had wet himself after just a look at me, had already spread through the school.

She and Pietro didn't hold back as they made fun of the guy, while even Ellie pitched in and giggled at the blonde jock's expense.

On that note, Yukio also told us that everyone also knew that Jean was now in a relationship and the fact that we had both starred as models for Black Snow together. Though I had the sneaking suspicion that Yukio might have been the one to spread this news.

She didn't admit it of course, but the mischievous glint in her eyes told me all that I needed to know. Yukio was a gossip queen through and through. Sadly, she was too adorable and I couldn't bring myself to stay mad at her.

The first day at school and I was already at the tip of everyone's tongue, I couldn't stop the wry smile that spread on my lips as I thought about that.