Strangers in a Familiar Place (Pyro)

[pyro2]

Pyro frowned. "Nahhh..." He wasn't that desperate. Actually, so far he had avoided any kind of contact to his old teachers here. And they had done the same, obviously. Jean was the first he talked to. And it felt a bit less awkward than he had expected. Maybe because she had been on their side for a while, somehow. Plus, it seemed she had told him what the situation was with this mysterious threat. All they could do was prepare and wait.

Her words about being tempted by him while at school, led to a big grin on his face. "Really? I've done something right then! You don't happen to remember what it was that nearly crushed your resolve...?" He had to admit that there had been some fun times here, occasionally. Mostly connected to breaking the rules, though. And trying to coax Bobby into doing pranks with him. Which sometimes had even worked.

Then the mood quickly got more serious, when it came to her other state. "I thought as much." He kept looking at her curiously. "My theory, if you wanna hear it, was that your'e some kind of demon from the underworld", he said lightheartedly, trying to lighten her up a bit. "That or an alien."

[jean]

She couldn't resist the grin he gave her so Jean returned it with one of her own. Then she shook her head, still smiling. “Oh, no, I'm not going to give you that ammunition. That will continue to remain my little secret although you can have fun pondering just which things it was,” she told him, laughter in her voice.

Yes, she remembered nearly everything the young man had ever done to her. She was a telepath and being so, Jean didn't forget anything she had seen, read, heard or done. The only times there were any breaks in her memories were when she was unconscious or “dead”, as had happened twice so far. So yes, she knew exactly what he'd done to make her almost, almost, lose her temper in the past.

Jean almost laughed out loud when he told her his theories for her other “state”. Weirdly, that was twice in as many days that someone had mentioned demons to her. Was that a sign of things to come or merely coincidence. Unfortunately, she'd seen too much and lived too long to believe in coincidence. “Demon, huh? That would be interesting. Maybe I'm just borrowing this face to trick you all into believing I'm Jean and then, when you least expect it, strike?” she asked him, a smile returning to her face.

“The alien concept, though, is much closer to the truth. Although I'm not the alien, the Phoenix, apparently, is. Or, that's how it was explained to me. I'm still trying to figure it all out, work it out in my head so that it makes some sense but it's not easy,” she did admit to him, which was more then she was originally planning on doing.

[pyro2]

"Pity...", John said, pretending to be sad over her reluctance of sharing her innermost thoughts about the matter of his mischievous deeds. But the smirk never left his face. One of his favourite pasttimes had been to sneak out after the official bedtime hours to go for a smoke, and frequently the teacher in charge had been Jean. Bobby had usually argued that it wasn't even worth trying to get by her since she was a telepath and would obviously have to notice him, but he still tried and managed to get by her more than just a few times. His successful track record even made Bobby join him a couple of times. Funny how much nostalgia these memories triggered... oh well.

As he had hoped, his 'theories' made her laugh, the first time she wasn't all doom and gloom when it came to this topic. "Actually, I constantly expect it... see, this is the good thing about my past at the school. It was the same then. I always expected you to show up and bust me..." He smiled. "Well, less lethal, of course."

Actually, he neither believed in demons, nor aliens, so he looked slightly puzzled when the alien theory hit a nerve. "Phoenix?" he asked, not really knowing what to make of that. He hadn't been close enough to the whole story to have heard about the Phoenix. "So, some alien is inside you or what?" He sounded skeptical.

[jean]

If John had really thought that she wasn't aware of the times he'd sneaked out, he was completely deluding himself. As much as she ran a tight ship in the classroom, Jean had always been a bit more lenient then Scott ever would be, outside the classroom. She had always been aware of nearly everything that happened around her, especially where the students were concerned. In many ways, she couldn't help but be and while rules are made to be followed, allowing him and Bobby to sneak out for a smoke now and then wasn't going to hurt anyone. Well, it would eventually hurt John because he was introducing a possible carcinogen into his body but he'd heard that lecture enough. She wasn't going to compound it.

As it was, there were simply nights she'd been too...occupied to really care too much if he sneaked out for a smoke.

"Well, if you are always expecting the worst, I hope you are pleasantly surprised when it doesn't happen," she replied to him, still smiling as she thought about it. As much as she'd never really believed in aliens before, she also didn't believe in demons. They were creatures of myth although Wanda was trolling the school, trying her hardest to make people believe in things like imps. Not quite the same but pretty close in her opinion.

She shrugged a little at him and looked rather embarrassed to be admitting any of it. It sounded fantastical and in some ways, it was. When she thought about it, all she could think of were things like body snatchers and other horrors that Hollywood had created to scare audiences. Unfortunately, what had happened to her, wasn't too far off from being body snatched.

"Yeah, apparently it has a name and it's Phoenix. Look, whether its alien, another mutant or whatever, it's real and apparently what I did at Alkali Lake triggered it because I didn't have this...insane amount of power before," she told him, suddenly feeling much too old for all of this nonsense. Unfortunately, it wasn't nonsense, it was her life and she was going to have to deal with it one way or another. "I did some research on the history of Phoenix's and it appears there is some connection to its arrival and telepaths, even back thousands of years. Or so hieroglyphs will have us believe. The trick is learning how to live with it so that it doesn't take over completely as it did before."

In an odd way, this conversation was becoming a bit therapeutic for the redhead. No one else wanted to talk to her about it. Cable was more interested in dropping little hints about the future then moving on. Scott wanted to just forget about it all. Logan was just being a bastard lately. Even the Professor had simply wanted her to drop back into her old role at the school without so much as a 'wanna talk about it?'. Lorna still would have nothing to do with her based on what she'd done before. To have Pyro, of all people in the world, actually ask her real questions, was rather surreal. Maybe the boy really was finally growing up. Although she'd never say that out loud. It'd scare him away for sure.

[pyro2]

John contemplated her words and smiled back. "Actually, yeah... specially considering that expecting the worst has otherwise been a pretty good strategy for me - because it was usually what happened." That wasn't entirely true but lately... The Alcatratz desaster, losing against Bobby, now having to be back here... He wasn't exactly in a brillant streak of good luck. Course it could always get worse: Jean might suddenly lose control and vaporize him.

His former teacher seemed a bit reluctant and embarassed to talk about the whole affair but offered some information after all. John stared at her, frowning and surprised. So basically an alien life form had possessed her and had managed to control her, infusing her with even more supernatural powers than she already had. "Hieroglyphs...", Pyro murmured. This thing was really old then. "Mhh, and you've learned that trick now?" He still sounded skeptical. "From whom?" He scratched his head absentmindedly. "Also... this Phoenix, if it's that old, there would have to be other incidents of its appearance, no?"

He could only imagine what that kind of power display would have done to people who weren't used to mutant powers being around. For regular humans a few centuries back, a creature like this would have to have the appearance of a God. Hell, even his own powers would probably trigger that idea... He smiled at that thought. At the same time he really wasn't aware that his conversation was so special to Jean. He just asked out of curiosity and because the more he knew, the better he was able to maneuver this treacherous path of reunification between the groups. But he naturally assumed that she had had this conversation with both Scott and Logan and of course Xavier. He actually thought, she might be bored to have to tell all that again. "So... it's there with you now? You just keep it in check?"