chapter 65
While Tony was getting acquainted with a master spy, in another corner of the nation, someone else was having a dream.
Inside a specific room at the student dormitories in Charles Xavier's school, a girl was sleeping. From time to time, her face would display a restless expression but she would fail to wake up from her dream as if something was trying to show something to her via her dream.
After struggling for half an hour, she finally woke up with a scream.
"Kyaaaaaa", She took deep breaths to calm her beating heart that was about to escape from her chest. Her whole body was covered in sweat.
The door of her room opened from outside and a girl just a bit older than her walked out looking worried.
"What happened? Are you okay?", She quickly looked around the room only to find no chances in it. She then walked to the bed and sat beside the girl and tried to calm her down by hugging her.
"Calm down. It was just a bad dream. Get a hold on yourself, Jean.", Bella patted her back as she consoled her.
Jean screamed so loudly that everyone on the same floor woke up from their sleep. As they tried to find out what had happened, it created a commotion that woke everyone in the building.
As Bella was in a hurry, she forgot to close the door from which quite a few kids were staring at them, more specifically at Jean.
"What are you looking at? Go back to your rooms. NOW!!", Due to Bella living in an orphanage at the church, she was quite good at controlling kids. Plus, she had prior experience of living as an adult which taught her how to deal with situations like these.
After coming into the school, She quickly established herself as someone not to be messed with and a majority of kids quickly fell in line. It should be noted that her healing abilities also played a part in that as no one wants to mess with a healer. They were so rare that they are practically unheard of. Sure there were a lot of mutants that could heal themselves but to heal another was rare.
As soon as she ordered, older students finally reacted and started to send others to their rooms. While all of this was happening, Teachers finally arrived in front of Jean's room.
Taking the lead was Storm who was closely followed behind by Charles and a recent new addition named Logan.
Storm looked around at the student and became impressed. She nodded at Bella," Good work"
Bella nodded back before giving room for the professors to close in on Jean.
"What happened? I suddenly noticed a massive increase in anxiety coming from your room." Charles spoke in a slow and quiet voice trying to not make her more uneasy.
Logan stared at Jean from the sidelines with a curious face and narrowed eyes. Whatever happened should definitely be worth it to disturb his sleep.
Storm picked up the water jug beside the bed and filled a glass of water before passing it to Jean. Jean looked at her gratefully before gulping it all down. It finally calmed her down enough to answer Charles' question.
"It was a dream. A terrible one.", She said looking down at the blanket.
All the teachers glanced at each other before Charles asked, "Can you describe that dream of yours." Charles did not want to take things likely especially if it happened to someone as peculiar as Jean. Her latent powers were one of the strongest he had seen in his life.
She nodded," I was in the void of the cosmos. Traveling at extreme speeds that massive stars or nebulas kept passing by me as I left them behind. It was then I realised that I am not in my body. I was a massive flame in the shape of a bird.", She tightened her hands on the blanket.
"I felt free. Like before I was imprisoned. I never felt so powerful. It was an indescribable feeling. I just knew that if I wished, Stars would explode into supernovae, black holes would cease to exist from a stare." Her expression distorted into a grimace.
"What happened next?"Charles nudged her to continue.
"For some time, I kept flying without much thought before I stumbled upon a solar system. It had a giant red sun at its Center. Even though I could feel myself in that bird form, I could not control its actions. The flaming bird flew past 3 small planets before reaching just beside the massive red sun."
"There was floating debris of a planet in that place. It looked to be quite massive before it exploded. The bird flew past the debris on a fixed path as if it had a destination in mind."
"Then I saw it."Jean stopped speaking and looked Charles into the eyes.
"What did you see, Jean? I fear that it is not just a dream but a vision. Your powers are trying to tell you something. Now the question is whether it is good or bad.", Charles said with a thoughtful expression.
"In the middle of the debris, there was a large chunk of planet. The bird circled around it. On the chunk, there was a giant throne made up of stone. It was a simple stone throne without any decoration but the being sitting on it was nothing but simple. He looked like a male human but with no eyes and his body was made up of glittering cosmos and some strange encrypted symbols that made no sense but I knew were profound. No matter how long I looked at the symbols, as soon as I looked away, I would forget how they looked. It was impossible to remember them", Jean said.
"He didn't have eyes or a nose but I somehow could tell that he was looking at his legs with a bored but solemn look. Until now, I felt invincible but as the bird orbited around that chunk of space rock, I knew that he was at least as invincible as me. A voice in my heart told me who I am looking at. It was the final Judge and besides his throne, leaning against it was the sword form of his weapon 'Judgment'.", She gulped before continuing.
"As if the objective was accomplished, after orbiting around it once, the bird exited the solar system before it zoomed past in void until it reached our solar system. It did not slow down as it descended on earth. As it entered the atmosphere, it started to shrink and before long it fell like a meteorite and entered my body, that's when the pain started. I felt like I was burnt from inside out before I woke up from my dream with a scream."By then, Jean had already started to cry.
Storm hugged her while Charles and Logan distanced themselves a bit far away to give them space.
"Yeah, being burned is not a good feeling.", Bella muttered with a dark look on her face as she remembered her past experience before she too closed on them and joined the hug.
"Let us excuse ourselves.", Charles said, turning to Logan who nodded back. He was not that dense.
Both closed the door after exiting the room leaving both girls in their female colleague's hands.
"Is everyone alright, professor?", They found that there was a girl waiting outside the room. It was Anna, better known as Rogue.
Anna used to be an outcast but after Bella joined the school, she quickly befriended the girl. As she has strong healing capabilities, she did not have to worry about dying in case of accidentally touching her. Now Bella and Anna were room-mates.
"Yes, dear but I am afraid you need to sleep without your room-mate today."Charles smiled wryly.
Anna stole a peek at Logan before nodding at Charles and returning to her room.
"She has grown quite fond of you.", Charles commented as they both walked in the empty hallway.
"Yeah, i noticed.", Logan grumbling replied back.
"Just keep the age difference between you and her in mind.", Charles quickly added, looking at the front with a blank face.
*cough**cough*
"Why would you mention that?" Logan asked after coughing.
"I wonder why?"Charles replied with a thoughtful face.
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Ancient one walked to her office after doing morning practice sessions with the newest batch of students at Kamar Taj. She tended to do that once in a while just to check on how much they had improved from before.
She opened the door to her office, "Good morning" Only to find Kar-el sitting at the table sipping on hot green tea served by an unknown girl.
It only took a faction of a second for her to reply back, "A good morning indeed." She smiled while walking to the table and taking a seat opposite to Kar-el. The girl quickly served a cup of tea to her too.
"You don't look so surprised. Were you expecting me?", Kar-el asked with interest.
"I did not but after living for so long, it takes a lot more to surprise me.", She replied honestly before carefully glancing at him.
"You have grown a lot since we last met in person. You were already so strong physically and now that you have learnt to harness your mystical side of powers, you have grown more formidable.", If before there was some hope of her defeating him, now that hope looked even bleaker.
"Moving on, what brings you here?", She asked while glancing at the unknown girl.
"She is not of this world.", She said with conviction before narrowing her eyes, "Strange, i can't tell her origin dimension."
"That's because she belongs to me now.", Kar-el simply answered.
Ancient one widened her eyes, "She willingly sold her existence to an abstract entity?" The way she looked at her changed. Now there was pity in it. Knowing abstract beings quite extensively, in her opinion signing a contract with an abstract entity with your existence as a bargaining chip is more so than not worse than selling your soul to a devil.
Abstracts were quite powerful beings. So much so that their very presence or very absence could affect reality in fundamental ways. To sell your existence to them meant that your soul had been freed from the laws of the world. Now the one controlling it was the abstract being you sold it to.
You would serve that being until eternity unless the being decided to let you go.
"She did. I am here because of her. She was quite a skilled magician when I met her. I want you to take her as a student of yours.", Kar-el said, glancing at Charmcaster who in turn bowed to Ancient One respectfully.
"Why don't you teach her yourself? There are not many beings that could rival you in terms of mystical strength?", Ancient one had a sweet smile on her face.
Kar-el shook his head, " I am not fit to be her teacher. Plus, even if I could teach her, she wouldn't be able to use it as only abstract beings are capable of using it."
"Kamar Taj does not treat their students with bias. I cannot give her any special treatment. She can learn here but she has to learn just like the rest of the students.", Ancient One raised an eyebrow at the offer.
"That's not a problem. I have faith in her talent. She would quickly earn the right to personally be taught by you.", Kar-el said while standing up to leave.
Before he left with the portal, he turned to address the charmcaster one last time, "Treat this as a golden opportunity. Not many can have a master as good as her in magic. I believe that you will earn the right to be called her student. Do not make my words turn into falsehood"