[b]Xavier Institute
Upstate New York[/b]

Jean Grey waited as the night sky rained, and offered rumblings of thunder so far in the distance she hardly heard them, seeing little more than flashes of light far in the distance between black clouds and mist over the trees that surrounded the mansion. She stared and took another sip from the Scotch glass with it's weighted bottom. Charles had poured it for her almost forty minutes ago, and brought her out to the balcony outside his study. The mostly glass door leading from the balcony to the study still hung open since Charles left it open on his way out, allowing warm notes of a lonely piano to drift in with the rain and the echoes of thunder from afar. The music would come and go; one of the new students acquainting themselves with the grand piano in the music room, near the back stairs upon the second floor. 

The mansion was quieter, somehow, even with more people in it now. After their first very public conflict, parents of mutant children, and mutant chilren with no parents or guardians that would claim them, had begun making their way to upstate New York. To the large house on the hill, to Charles Xavier and his X-Men. They came because they were scared. They came because they were eager, and every possible reason inbetween. Charles was there to accept them all, while Jean had hidden away with Cerebro in the sub-basement. New students whispered about her, gossiped about the X-Men and the fight that had taken the life of one of their own, and sent Scott Summers running away. 

"You're right. They're there, and then...they are not. Ghosts in my machine."

She never looked up at the open door, only took another, longer, sip of the scotch. She'd told Charles about Cerebro's 'ghosts'--and asked him to verify what she was seeing and feeling from the machine. He had wanted to ask her how she was, he had wanted to talk to her about pain and loss. Jean never gave him the chance. "Opal City, right?"

The man nodded, and carefully made his way around her to the seat next to her own, to the seat he'd been in before running off to double check Cerebro. Back to his own double scotch, plain. Rain and soft spoken piano keys filled the air as Charles grew quiet, thinking, and sipping at his drink. "I've never been to Opal City."

"My mother and I went a few times for Daughters of the American Revolution events. The city always kinda gave me the creeps."

"You should go. You should find out about these ghosts, I think." The look shared between them needed no telepathy to send a message. A message that left him with a chuckle, dry and half-hearted as it was in that moment. His eyes drawn to the glass he held between finger and index finger, swishing the golden liquid within around a bit. "Scott will be okay. You, Jean, will be okay."

"And Warren?" This time there was nothing said in the eyes of either as they stared at one another. Only rain and the lonely piano. 

Xavier broke his gaze off her and let his eyes take in the sky, the night and the rain and the storm so far in the distance, it almost could've been a dream. "...yes, well. I still think it would be good for you to go and see about this. Scott may have ran off, Jean, but just because you've been here--physically--doesn't mean you haven't gone into hiding yourself."

[i]Depression. Loss. I can't...shake the feeling. Every time I smile at a new student--[/i]

[i]--is a mask worn for the new student's benefit, lacking any of the warmth or heart in which they look to you for.[/i]

When her head turned back to him, she found his eyes on her again, and she sighed openly. "Opal City, huh?" 

"Ghosts, yes. Go deal with Cerebro's ghosts, and your own, I think. Bobby and Hank are with Kitty, but--"

Jean threw back the little that remained of her scotch, and interrupted Charles with the heavy sound of her glass hitting the small table between, and hitting it with a touch of emphasis. Charles stared at her, even as she stood. "It's alright. I'll go alone. None of us know Opal City very well, anyway. No, if I need help, I'll look for it there."

"Do you know what you mean to me?"

Jean could've cried, or she could've smiled, as Charles Xavier looked into her eyes and asked her that question with every ounce of his being. [i]He's afraid I won't come back.[/i] After a short pause, she smiled--a ghostly thing, there one heartbeat, gone the next. Carefully she leaned down and kissed her lips into his forehead. "I'll be back."

---

[b]Opal City
Pennsylvania [/b]

There were more clanks and clinks and taps than Jean could follow as she sat herself in the far corner of the Starbucks on 11th and Allison. Every minute or so the entire room would come alive with the humming of the milk steamers, and the cappacinno machines, and the coffee machines, and the mixers, and the blenders, and the cash machine, and on and on and on again. It was a little bit like sitting in the middle of a bee hive; everyone buzzing this way and that, a constant blur of activity as people eager for their fix of caffeine, or chocolate, or just chatter came in and out. 

It was a good place for a telepath to start. At the airport in which she'd flown in, there was little helpful information: most of the airport people were focused on where they were going, what they were doing, or what they might be leaving behind. Jean brought up the cappuccino cup to her red, semi-glossed, lips and appeared to return her attention back to her phone--but her attention wasn't there. Reading your phone was the modern day equivalent of reading a magazine or a newspaper; just something you did in public to make people think you were occupied with the mundane, not spying on anyone.

Not spying on their thoughts, like Jean was. 

She hardly even heard Ella Fitzgerald's "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall" playing in the background of the coffee shop, so caught up was she. Just down the street one way was OCPD's main building, adjacent to that the district courthouse. Go down the street from 11th and Allison in the other direction, and it wasn't even five minutes before you hit City Hall, and Litigator's Lane--a street that was known for it's art deco buildings from the 30s that now housed, mostly, trendy eateries and law offices.

[i]Because those were two things the world needed much more of.[/i] It was a bitter thought, and one quickly pushed aside in order to allow her to re-focus on her spying efforts. Such a location for the coffee shop allowed an interesting array of people coming in and out. She had gotten little and less in her nearly hour stop at the centrally located coffee shop. She'd gotten a few bits of political intrigue, but given Jean's not caring about Opal City politics...it wasn't exactly helpful. The rest of her time she spent warding off suitors. 

A pretty woman, seated alone, reading her phone? Jean found herself looking up at several men to give them chilly, uninviting glances, in order to dissuade them from approaching her like their thoughts indicated they wanted to. One was rather cute, and seemed a good guy just from the quick "look" she got at his immediate thoughts. But she was far too focused, and quickly went back to the hunt. 

It was finally a duo of cops that gave Jean something she couldn't toss aside:

[i]I wish we could look into that kid's murder. Seems wrong, to just punt it.[/i]

But the second cop didn't share the first cop's thoughts on the matter. In fact, in searching the immediate thoughts of the second cop only resulted in something ugly: [i]Stupid fucking monkey. He's probably a mutant. Maybe I could bring up to Sarge we should "check" on the fucking monkey's registration status?[/i] It was interesting, despite the savage tone. So she looked further, using every mind within a mile radius as one computer might use a cloud of computers to augment their processing power and information gathering skills. 

In minutes, Jean had "Detective Chimp", and the good and bad about the character from a thousand various minds. He was an Opal City fixture, seemed a detective capable of making grown men police officers jealous of his skill, and possibly a mutant? It was the best option for help she'd uncovered since her arrival earlier in the morning to the Pennsylvania city. A last sip of her now cooled cappuccino, and Jean was out of her seat and out the door, leaving the hustle and bustle of the coffee shop for the mean streets of Opal City. 

It didn't take her that long to find him. People's minds went bright when they saw this Detective Chimp, allowing Jean an easy trail to follow. A trail that lead her to the mouth of a cave: or, at least, a bar that felt more like a hole in the wall sort of cave to Jean. "Gilly's", the sign read, neon white cursive on an Irish green background. 

She took the seat next to the Chimp, and ignored the index cards on the bar counter before him. "Single Scotch, plain," the barkeep nodded, and thought about warning the pretty redhead about the chimp she had sat next to. Dressed in black high heeled boots, low cut jeans, a navy blue shirt with white horizontal pinstripes, and a black leather jacket that fit her like a glove. It was all designer; the boots and jacket Prada, the jeans and shirt Burberry. Her perfume a hint of rose and lavender, and no more. 

When the right earbud was snatched out of the chimp's right ear, she half expected him to swat at her. Instead, he seemed to Jean to just try to repress anger at another irritating hew-man. Jean tried not to smile. "Jean Grey, Detective; mutant activist and combatant with Charles Xavier." [i]What else[/i], she thought, [i]would I call us X-Men right now?[/i] "I'm getting the feeling you aren't a mutant, like some of the OCPD think you are...just the same I think you can help me. I know you've got a case, so my offer is I'll help you with that case, and in return you help me with what I'm looking into. I'll pay you five times what your current client is paying for your current case."

Her drink arrived, and a bright, radiant smile was unleashed on the barkeep. "Thanks, so much." A quick sip, the departing of the eavesdropping barkeep, and Jean was turning back to her left, to the chimp. "And if you don't do partners, I'll pay you ten times what you're being paid now...and you can just consider me a tag-along. I'm new to the city and I need help. You're my best option right now. You know this city."


[center][b]Night of the Hunters[/b][/center]