One year after the events of X-Men: Apocalypse
“Come on, concentrate. It’s like you are not even trying.” Scott said to Jean after winning the third chess game in a row.
Scott was sitting in a chair, Jean in a sofa and a chessboard between them. Storm and Kurt were doing homeworks far in the hall. Jubilee and Peter were sleeping in their chairs.
“That’s because I’m not. This is boring. Why can’t we play baseball or something ?” Jean asked.
“Because it’s raining heavily outside?”
“Ororo can make it sunny.”
“No I can’t.” Ororo Munro aka Storm said from the sofa, without looking up from the maths homework she was doing. She was annoyed. She was trying to solve the three problems since the morning but was still unsuccessful. Not because she wasn’t intelligent. But because she only had basic education before coming to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. That was like throwing a fourth grader directly to tenth grade.
Even so she was catching quick and was much better than Kurt, who was sitting opposite her and doing his history homework, maths and science completely undone.
“You can. You just won’t.” Jean complained.
“I won’t because nature is not my personal playground.” Professor had taught her that. Just because she could control the weather did not mean she should do it for every little thing that bothered her. Nature needed to be respected.
“Since when did you become teacher’s pet? One Scott Summers is enough.” Jean said.
“Shut up.” Storm retorted.
“Both of you shut up. I’m trying to do some work here.” Kurt Wagner aka Nightcrawler said, his head bend over on the books.
“You are on the same page for the last half hour.” Storm said.
The noise made Jubilee and Peter to wake up.
“Damn you! Can’t you let me sleep?” Jubilee said, rubbing her eyes.
“It’s almost 2 pm. This is no time to sleep.” Scott said monotonously.
Jubilee frowned but didn’t say anything.
“I’m hungry.” Peter declared ignoring everyone.
Everyone ignored him.
“Why don’t you play with the professor?”
“Because he is not here?”
Professor, Hank and Raven, all three of them were gone to recruit some students and had made Scott in charge. At least that’s what they told him. But he knew that they were gone to save some mutants from whoever and whatever doing them harm. He wanted to go with them or wanted to lead his team to the rescue. But they still treated him like a child. ‘You are not ready. Your team is not ready.’ The words still rung in his ears.
“I’m sure he can make a psychic connection.”
“I’m sure he has better things to do. Okay, if you don’t want to play this then we can all go to danger room and practice.”
This was met with a loud and lazy “NOOOO!!” from everybody.
After a few moments Jean said “Okay. I know how to make this exiting. We’ll make a bet.”
“A bet? I’m in.” Peter said standing up and coming closer to Jean and Scott.
“What do you mean?” asked Jean.
“Meaning I’ll help you win against Scott.”
Suddenly an energy blast occurred in front of Scott.
Jean nearly fell from the sofa. Storm and Kurt both jumped. Only Peter and Scott were unmoved.
“Damn it! You didn’t move an inch.” Jubilee said to Scott. Clearly she wanted to scare him.
Scott just shrugged. He knew she was going to do something like that. He knew the second he had made that sleeping comment and saw the frown on her face. From that moment on his eyes were on her. He saw how slowly she came near him without Jean noticing a thing or anyone else for that matter. She was good at that. Hiding and moving without anyone noticing. Also good at pranks and scarring the hell out of people with her energy blasts. Peter wasn’t scared because he saw everything in slow motion. Scott had asked him,"All the time?" Peter had answered,"No, not all the time. It's... complicated." Scott hadn't ask more, because he knew Peter wouldn't be able to explain anything and confuse him even more.
“I’m in by the way.” Jubilee said.
“Me too!” Storm and Kurt both said together as they came near Jean and sat beside her.
“You are all going play against me?” Scott asked.
“Yes.” came the reply.
“Together?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. If I win we practice in danger room twice a day, everyday. No exceptions, no excuses.”
“Deal. But if we win everyone gets what they want. For me, I want you to pay for every pizza I order for the whole month.” Peter said.
Scott had predicted Peter would want something like that.
“You do both mine and Kurt’s homework for the next two weeks.” Storm said. This would make both of them very happy. Today was a holiday and still they had to do homework because only they were behind.
“I want to ride your bike.” Jubilee said.
Scott would have let her ride it if she had just asked. Scott had inherited all the money and properties of his brother after his death. This included a sports bike and a sports car.
“I want you to kiss me in front of the whole school.” Jean said.
That made all the thoughts in Scott’s head to vanish. He just looked at Jean completely frozen. Everyone looked from Jean to Scott. Jean’s face was completely expressionless.
Then suddenly, everyone started to laugh except for Jean and Scott.
“Wait. Why would you want to kiss Scott? Is he your boyfriend or something?” Kurt said mockingly.
Kurt had never seen them kissing. Even though Jean and Scott had started dating six months ago. This was due to the fact that Scott was very shy about public displays of affection. So he started mocking them for it. Some of his jokes were good, some lame. This was one of the lame.
“So Mr. Summers, deal or not?” Jean said ignoring Kurt’s comment.
“Deal.” Scott said after his shock was over. He had them right where he wanted.
“So let’s begin.” Storm said starting to rearrange the chess pieces.
The game started. And everyone was giving Jean suggestions. If you can call shouting loudly suggestions. “Move the rook there.” “The rook? She should be moving the knight.” “Not there! There.” Jean was discussing and shouting at the same time and soon forgot who was telling what. Scott even let them undo a few moves. He was calm. Really calm.
The game was in the last stages when everyone on Jean’s team started slowly realising that they were never going to win in a million years. The noise slowly started to die down and in the end no one was speaking anything and Jean made her moves however she wanted.
It was then that Scott started speaking.
“You thought you were going to team up against me. That five against one were very good chances.” He made his move.
“Well, let me tell you something. This is a game of strategy. And only one person should make strategy.” Jean made her move silently.
“You lost the second you thought that more persons would give you an advantage.” Jean made the only move that was possible.
Scott moved his knight and said “Checkmate.”
Jean flashed her eyes. She didn’t say anything, but Scott could see that she was very angry. Which he thought was normal, he knew that Jean was a bit of short tempered. But then he saw her eyes, her eyes that didn’t look quite… human.
The End?