Chapter 3
Pure rage coursed through her veins as she shut down the projection and ran for the door. Her face was red and she was clenching and unclenching her fists trying her best to not take her anger out on a helpless science experiment or smash every piece of metal in that lab. She wanted to scream, but what came instead were tears. She wanted to rip through the door and go yell at the professor and ask him why he was still hiding it from her. However, another thought stopped her in her tracks.. All those years ago, Magneto abandoned her. Both of her parents abandoned her and gave her to a lab where human experiments were done on innocent children. They gave her to monsters. How could they have let that happen? How could they do that to her? They let her endure all of that pain and for what? So she could agonize over every single detail of her life and be afraid that people would hurt her the way they did? What kind of cruel people gave up their own daughter for science especially when Magneto had two other children around the same age?
She looked ahead at the door, tears still streaming out of her eyes and only one thing on her mind. She had to destroy him before anything got any worse. Before more innocent were killed at the hands of monsters.
“Kurt, I need you to take me to Magneto,” she said to Kurt as she turned around to look at him. Her chest was rising and falling rapidly with her heaving breaths due to her unbridled rage.
“What?” Kurt asked, frightened. Her eyes were glassy and the irises looked clear from the tears and the anger. “No! Do you know what Magneto would do to you if you tried to face him right now? He would tear you limb from limb! There would be nothing of you left!”
“I don’t care!” she screamed. “H-he abandoned me to that lab where I could have been killed! How could he do that to me? His own daughter? I was just a kid!” Great heaving sobs came out of Jade as she bent her head to meet her hands. She covered her eyes with her hands and pressed hard, trying to stop the tears, but she couldn’t. She was just so hurt. How could he have done that, she kept thinking.
Before Kurt was terrified that something would happen to Jade if he went through with her request, but something in him changed. His face hardened and a new anger on Jade’s behalf grew in him. The way she looked right now made him think of his own family quarrels and how painful it was to not be able to ask them about everything. He knew she needed to face…someone. Whether it be Wanda or Pietro or Magneto. She had to confront her family with what she found out. He could see it clearly in the way her screams sounded so hoarse and the tears that streamed out of her eyes. He didn’t get the chance to ask Mystique about what she knew. Perhaps doing this for her would give him some sort of sick justice. Besides, anyone who hurt Jade might as well have hurt him too.
“I’ll tell you what,” Kurt said and took Jade by the shoulders. Jade looked up to him, tears staining her face. “We’re going to confront someone. It may not be Magneto. But we’re going to confront someone. I know just the people. You deserve this revenge and I’ll help you get it. Do you have your suit with you?” Jade nodded. She actually put it on under her clothing today just in case. “Great, put it on and we’ll be off,” Kurt said. “They’re not getting away with this!”
Further down the hall from the lab, professor Xavier, Jean, and Storm were side by side on their way to the place where Kurt and Jade were. They had noticed the disturbance in the cameras outside the lab and came to check it out. Xavier moved, concern deep in his eyes. If any of the students managed to get in there unsupervised, it could be catastrophic not only for their physical health but their mental health as well. There are things in there that none of the students should know about. He would have to put strengthening security on his list of things to think about.
“I’m telling you, it must be Jade,” Jean said. “Only she’s powerful enough to short out the cameras as well as other electronic devices in the area. My phone started to glitch as soon as the cameras did.”
“Now, let’s not jump to conclusions,” professor Xavier said. “There should be no reason Jade or anyone else for that matter should be in that lab. It’s too dangerous.”
“Our students are not stupid, Charles,” Storm said. “If the information they’re looking for is tempting enough, they will find a way to get to it.”
Storm was right, the professor thought. The old saying goes ‘if there’s a will there’s a way’ but professor Xavier wondered what could have brought his students to sneak around a place that was off limits. They knew better than to try anything like that. The answer to that question drove him mad and it also scared him at the same time. When they finally got to the door, everything was in working order. The cameras were back on, the keypad was intact, the eye identification was working, and there was no damage to anything around the door. However, that didn’t mean that they didn’t get in. Jade was perfectly capable of shorting out the cameras for a little while and messing with the lock until she got her way in.
The cameras quickly recognized all three of them and allowed them access to the door. When Charles put his key code in and tried the manual lock, he was surprised to see that it was not all the way unlocked. However, he somehow knew she didn’t stop just because she couldn’t get in. If she wanted to, she would have been able to undo the whole lock. She must have been stopped by someone and then she convinced them to help her into the lab. Professor Xavier could think of one other person who would be able to get into the lab without touching the lock and who would have been able to sympathize enough with Jade’s thirst for information to do it. He took a deep sigh before he used a key he had to undo the lock. He hoped whatever they were looking for didn’t cause them too much damage.
Once the door was opened, all three of them spread out and looked around. Jean looked at the writing on the wipe boards to make sure all the information was there. Storm looked at the chemicals to make sure nothing too explosive was created. And professor Xavier was drawn straight to the center of all of it, the computer. It was the one that held all of the scientific data they found and all the research they did. As suspected, it was the thing whoever came in here was looking for. One of the buttons for the computer was flashing, telling that it was still on to some capacity and whoever looked at it only managed to turn off the projection but not erase what they were looking for. He reached his hand for the button, but hesitated ever so slightly. Fear was something he rarely came across, but this was one thing that scared him most. So much information in one little computer and in the wrong hands it could be dangerous.
He turned on the projection and gasped. Scans of Jade, Magneto, Wanda, and Pietro were shown to him as it slowly lit up. A comparison between the three was run, showing their connection to each other and identifying them as biological family. This was when he knew it was Jade. She wanted to find out who her biological family was and evidently she found it. The fact that they were not still here, because he knew Kurt had a part in helping her into the lab, meant that they were out somewhere looking for a fight. They could be getting into trouble at this very moment and they were just sitting there idle. “Jean, Storm we’ve got a big problem,” he said, beckoning both ladies over to him. Jean and Storm looked at the screen and gasped. It was the first time they were seeing this information, but that’s not what made them fearful. The fact that Jade was gone and this information was still up is what caused them to panic.
“No way,” Jean said. “Magneto is Jade’s father?”
“Yes,” professor Xavier said. “We were trying to figure out a way to tell her so we could avoid causing her pain like we did Kurt. Evidently she figured it out on her own. But how? I haven’t told anyone.”
Jean shifted uncomfortably in her spot for a moment before she spoke again. “I know how,” she said. “Jade confessed to me one day that she can also read people’s minds without being detected. You must have been thinking about it around her and she was reading your mind.”
Professor Xavier’s eyes grew wide at this information. He never suspected Jade to have telepathic powers. He always thought enhanced metal manipulation was her only power. The lab she was brought up in must have enhanced her mental abilities to a point to where she could also read minds. Never mind that. They had to act quickly now if they wanted to save both her and Kurt.
“She’s gone after him,” professor Xavier said. “If not him, then someone - rather - two someones.”
“You don’t think she’s taken Kurt and gone after Wanda and Pietro, do you?” Jean asked.
“That’s exactly what I think,” professor Xavier said. “We have to get to them before anyone gets hurt.”