No Pryor Convictions: Hi, You're a Mutant

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Doug and Wade take Maddie back to the Snow Valley offices, and call a pair of people who can understand what's going on with her, and tell her about Xavier's.


After Doug and Wade had gotten Madelyne to go with them, Doug had pulled out his phone and called the mansion, specifically looking for Jean. The pair of men and the young girl made their way to the Snow Valley Centre offices, and Doug hoped that Dr. Grey-Summers wouldn't be too long getting into the city. In the meantime, he ordered a pizza in an attempt to break the ice a bit and put Madelyne at least a little bit at ease.

Wade rubbed at the bruise on his forearm where the girl had bitten him as he leaned back against the wall near the door, shoulders braced. "Jesus, kid - you've got a mouth on you that's practically like a steel trap." Hopefully the pizza would get there soon. He was hungry and he wanted something with lots of peppers and sausage.

"You might want to get that looked at," Maddie quipped as she spun around in a spinning wheely chair. Bad guys didn't have this nice of digs. They drove white windowless vans and fed you candy, not pizza; everyone knew that. Still, she was anxious to get back to her parents. "I haven't had my rabies shot. And ever since that moose bit me, I've been feeling a little off. Like foaming at the mouth off."

Doug snickered. "Do you want to tell her about Daisy, or me, Wade?" he asked with a smirk. The buzzer sounded before Wade could answer, and Doug went to check who it was. Pizza, or Jean?

Jean slipped off gloves as she walked in, taking in the guys, and girl, at the table. "Sorry I'm late. Everyone seemed to be trying to leave to go home from Thanksgiving all at at the same time," she said as she took a seat in one of the chairs.

"I'm Jean," she said, giving the girl a smile. "You must be Madelyne."

A lanky man bearing a pizza box appeared in the doorway, where he nodded at Doug. "David Haller," he said. He brandished the box as the younger man closed the door behind them. "We met a delivery guy on the doorstep. Either this is yours, or I just paid for someone else's pizza."

The chair stopped spinning as Maddie stared at the two newcomers. "Uhhhh. Who are you," she asked, scrunching up her face in confusion. "If this is an intervention, I swear I'm good. I really don't plan on robbing any more banks ever."

Jean laughed. "Don't worry, it's not an intervention. We're actually part of a school. For the the gifted. In this case those with extraordinary gifts such as yours. We teach people such as yourself how to use their abilities."

Surreptitiously, Wade relieved Haller of the pizza, gave the man a wide smile, and then sat it on the table in front of Madelyne. "Multitask, kid - eat and listen to Doc Jean and Haller." He'd never actually met the younger mutant but he gave the man a salute nonetheless. "They're good people. And if you eat, I can eat. That bite you gave me isn't going to heal up on its own." Well, it might, but protein intake would help it along a bit.

She gave Wade a wide-eyed innocent look, as if to say "who me?" and took a big bite of the pizza in front of her. And since her mouth was too full of pizza to talk, and her mother always taught her not to talk with her mouth full, Maddie nodded to the newcomers and motioned for them to continue.

Jim nodded at Wade and lowered himself into another chair. "Doug said you might have some kind of psychic ability -- getting into other people's heads, sometimes other things, too." He gestured to his coworker. "Dr. Grey-Summers and I also have that power. Do you hear things people aren't saying? Or feel things about people, but not know how?"

Maddie took another bite of pizza, chewing slowly as to delay having to answer as long as possible. How did one answer questions like those? It was basically like asking if she was crazy. And Maddie knew she wasn't crazy. Everyone had those moments where they thought they heard things that no one else did, or preemptively answered questions. It was just dumb luck, not some sort of psychic power. "No, not really," she shrugged. "Sorry to disappoint you. I'm just an ordinary teenage girl."

There was the possibility that she hadn't consciously used her powers, and thus wasn't aware of her status as a mutant. "Ordinary teenage girls can't push their thoughts at people when they want them to let her go and go away. Which is what you did," he told her, trying his best to soften the blow. "Besides, the guy who brought you to the bank has been using mutant kids as patsies. So, whether you knew it or not, you must have used your powers where he could see you."

Jean smiled. "You're not crazy," she assured her.

"Many of us think we are at first...the psychics anyway. After all, hearing voices in ones head isn't exactly the mark of a sane person. But in this instance...it's different," she said.

She tilted her head, leaning in a bit closer. ~And you're not the only one with gifts.~ It was a favorite phrase of Charles' to be sure, one she'd borrowed from him for certain occasions such as these.

Wordlessly, Jim reached over to retrieve an empty mug that was sitting on the table. He took a moment to test its weight, then tossed it at the far wall.

A split-second before impact the thin man clenched his fist. The mug froze mere inches from the wall, quivering slightly, and then slowly drifted back to the table. The psi opened his hand again, and the mug landed on the tabletop with a light tmp.

Haller turned back to Maddie, his grey eyes darkening back to blue and brown. "It's true that psionic powers can feel a little like going crazy at first," Jim said with a half-smile, "but they don't usually require therapy, just instructors. And we have a lot of those."

This was just way too much for Maddie to handle. Between the lack of sleep, the anxiety of being caught robbing a bank, and that jerkface breaking her cell phone, the teenage girl was more of a wreck than normal. Now to top it all off, there were people talking in her mind and controlling flying coffee mugs, and apparently she was one of them. She hung her head, eyes closed, and clutched her hair for lack of anything better to hang on to.

None of this made any sense. And the more she pondered her situation, the less sense it made.

~I want to go home.~

Figuring a demonstration of his gimpy mutation probably wouldn't make Maddie feel any better, Wade reached over and tugged on a lock of coppery hair. "Hey, take a breath, kid. Like I said, they're good people."

Doug had a brief urge to make a joke about some of them being better than others, but the girl had pretty clearly had her fill of shocks for the evening, and then some. "Xavier's is a good place. You can learn more about the things you can do, and it's probably the safest place you can be on the off chance Avalanche should get out of custody and come looking for you." Well, he supposed that wasn't the most comforting thought. "Would you like to call your parents?"

Maddie nodded, head still hidden. "He broke my phone," she explained wearily. "My parents are probably worried sick about me."

"You can use mine," Jim said, extracting his cell from his pocket. He handed it over. "Let them know you're okay first. That's the most important thing. Then we can figure out somewhere to meet them so we can talk more." He was unsure how much Doug and Wade wanted to be involved in the explanation, but he hoped at least one of them would come along; Maddie was tired and stressed, and he didn't want to just take her away from the two people she already knew.

"I know it's a lot to get used to. Especially after all you've been through. We'll be glad to answer any questions you or they want to ask," Jean said, a soft smile still on her face. She saw a little bit of herself in the girl, coincidental similarities notwithstanding.

Still, it was good for her to be hesitant, to not immediately decide to go with them. It showed she thought things through and was mindful of her surroundings. She had been, after all, just recently in the company of one of their more colorful enemies. It made sense for her to be weary.

Wade patted Maddie's shoulder, not really sure what else he could do. It looked like, despite the pizza and everything else, they'd managed to overwhelm her. There wasn't much he could say, so he didn't bother with platitudes or empty words. He just decided he'd stick by her until they got to her parents. It was the least he could do, after tossing her over his shoulder and absconding with her.

Doug remembered his first exposure to Xavier's and the possibility that he might be a mutant. It had been overwhelming, and he hadn't even had the stress of almost going down for grand larceny the way Maddie had. He felt a brief stab of loneliness in thinking about his own family, which he quickly pushed down, and resolved to help Maddie however he could.

"We're ready whenever you are," he told the girl with a reassuring smile.