Jaylah Book One

"Why are we hiking through the forests of Missouri?" Eric Lensheer asks the man in front of him, Charles Xavier. 

"Because there is another mutant here." Charles answeres his friend in a British accent. Both of them are mutants, enhanced humans, with different powers. 

Eric grumbled but they continue to walk on, till Charles suddenly stops. "She should be here," he says and looks around, confused.

Eric looks around and then feels something, it's like something is trying to pull him to it. He looks at the ground and lifts his hand. First, nothing happens, then a metal door starts to open.

The two men look at each other and shrug. They are about to walk in but someone sticks what looks to be a rifle out of the whole. 

"Don't move." a woman's voice with a thick accent sounds out of the underground metal contraption.

"We are not here to harm you," Charles answers, lifting his hands into the air slightly. "We need your help."

The woman climbs out of the ground and they can see what she looks like. Her skin is completely white, as is her hair which is pulled in a ponytail. On her face are different black markings that all start at her hairline, one thick one in the middle reaches till in between her eyebrows, that have a strange oval shape, it meets with two other stripes that are more to the side of her head. On the outer sides of her face, there are each one more stripe which go down to her jaw. Her eyes are a mixture of yellow and orange and have a black stripe going through it.

The "riffle" turns out to be a staff although the tip looks as if it could be used as riffle. 

Both men stare at her. "with watch do you need my help?" the woman asks and says another word which neither of them can understand but their pretty sure it's an insult.

"We need your help in stopping a powerful mutant from starting world war three," Eric tells her. 

"World War three?" The Woman asks. 

Both men look at each other. "He wants to start a war between Mutants and Humans, Jaylah," Charles explains her.

"How do you know my name?" The woman, Jaylah asks.

"I can read minds," Charles tells her and carefully pushes down the staff, which she's holding into his face. She raises it again.

Then she seems to change her mind and holds it in Eric's face instead. "And you? You have door opening powers?" She asks, nodding to the open metal door beside them.

"No. I control Metal." He tells her and uses his power to raise her staff in the air. There is a blue and white shimmer around Jaylah, then it looks like one of those tv's when they get turned off and the picture get's smaller before it turns into a thin line and then she's gone.

In less than a second, she's up in the air, grabs her staff and with the same blue and white light she disappears again. 

Jaylah climbs out of the whole once again but left her staff behind. She crosses her arms in front of her chest. 

"Impressive," Charles says and walks around her. "This here too, by the way." 

"What do you mean?" Eric asks the mind reader.

Charles motions at Jaylah. "This isn't her. It doesn't have any brain activity. It's just an illusion she created."

Jaylah nods. "Yes, I don't trust the metal bender." she motions to Eric. 

Eric rolls his eyes. "But you trust him although he could get into your mind and-" "Eric!" Charles cuts him off. "So will you help us or not?"

She looks at both of them for a moment. "Under one condition." She tells them. They wait. "Nobody gets to tell me what to do and I can leave whenever I want," She says. 

Both of the men are silently for a moment till Charles nods slowly. "Okay." He says. Eric seems to have something against it but he doesn't say anything.

Jaylah sits in a room full of people she doesn't know. Eric and Charles left and she stayed with the other people although she doesn't trust them.

"We should think of code names." A blond girl named Raven says. "We're government agents now, we should have secret code names. I want to be called Mystique."

"Damn! I wanted to be called Mystique." Sean, a redhead in the armchair next to her says.

Raven laughs. "Well, though. I called it." She says and with a shimmer of blue scales, she changes her appearance to Sean's which makes most of them jump up. With his voice she continues, "And I'm way more mysterious than you."

"Whoa." One of the boys says and they start to clap, as Raven changes back to her blonde self.

"Darwin. What about you?" She asks. A guy in a blue shirt, sitting on one of the sofas answers. "Well, "Darwin" is already a nickname, and you know, it sort of fits. Adapt to survive and all."

"Check this out." He says, standing up. 

He walks over to a fish tank and sticks his head in. Gills form at the side of his head. he opens his mouth and turns his head to grin at the rest of the people.

As he takes his head out again and shakes it a little to get dry, the group of people once again starts clapping. "That was incredible." The blond to the right of Jaylah says. 

"Thank you. What about you?" Darwin says pointing at Jaylah.

"Jaylah." is all she says. "Isn't that your name?" Raven asks. 

"No, my name is," She says something that seems to start with 'Ava' but then continues with weird sounds that neither of them new could be in a name. "Jaylah is the name my sister gave me when we were little," Jaylah adds. 

"Okay, Ava, what can you do," Alex, the blond next to her,  asks. She blinks and in the next second, a copy of her stands on the other hand of the room. The blue and white light surrounds her again and suddenly she stands next to her illusion.

The others clap again and with a flash of light she sits back in her armchair and the illusion is gone. "Why are you white?" Sean asks and Raven glares at him. 

"Why are you pink and squishy?" Ava replies. The others laugh while  Sean looks down. "What should we call you?" Hank, a brown-haired guy with glasses,  asks the redhead as the laughing stops.

"I'm going to be..." he starts leaning over his legs "Banshee."

"Why do you want to be named after a wailing spirit?" Hank asks.

"You might want to cover your ears," Sean says and gets up. Everyone slowly does as told as he starts to bend down in front of the half-full glasses on the table in front of them.

He takes a big breath and sends out a high pitched sound but instead of hitting the glasses, it hit's the room's window, which shatters. The group laughs again as Sean points to a dark-haired woman. "You turn"

She stands up. "My uh- My stage name is Angel," she says, pulling off her leather jacket. Sean whistles as she turns around. The tattoos on her back which look like dragonfly wings turn to actual wings. "It kind of fits," Angel says.

"You can fly?" Ava asks in her strange accent.

"Uh-huh. And..." She spits out a firey ball which lands outside on the head of a statue." They all laugh again.

"What's your name?" Ange asks Hank as she put on her leather Jacket again.

"How about Bigfoot?" Alex asks and then starts to drink from a bottle of coke.

 Raven glares at him. "You know what they say about guys with big feet. And yours are kind of small." She says looking at Alex's feet.

"Okay, now," Alex says as the group, once again, starts laughing. Hank smiles at Raven. 

"Alex, what is your gift? What can you do?" Darwin asks the blond.

"It's not...I just can't do it. I can't do it in here."

"Can you do it out there?" Darwin asks. Alex hesitates, so Jayle grabs his arm and in less than a second, Alex is standing outside. Jaylah gins and teleports back into her armchair. 

"Alex! Alex! Alex!" The group chants and stands up to walk to the window. 

Alex glares at Ava and then rolls his eyes. "Get down when I tell you." He says to the group. He positions himself in front of the statue and tells the group to get back.

They get back for a moment but the return to their previous point. Alex looks at them annoyed. "Get back!" he tells them with a hand gesture but they ignore him.

"Whatever," he says and red rings appear around him. He swings his hips and the rings fly off of him in all directions. One hits the statue and cuts it in half.

The group cheers.