“Jean!”

She spun around instantly, promptly yelled out, “Scott!”, and raced over to where he was standing.

Oh, I certainly wasn’t going to come here without bringing along the X-Crew, although they’d all been here before visiting Jean, and so I’d let Scott, Hank, and Bobby head out to do their thing while I took my tour.

I glanced sidelong at Emma Frost and the Cuckoos, who were all watching as Jean Grey ran into the arms of Scott Summers.

No kissing, but hugging, and the touching of foreheads together. It was a gesture of intimacy only another telepath could truly appreciate as they watched her expression resolve into satisfied bliss.

Huh. I met Kwannon’s eyes, and she glanced knowingly at Emma.

Oh. Emma Frost was completely smitten by Kwannon, but Kwannon was with Headmistress Cassandra herself. Powerful as she might be, she didn’t hold a candle to the Headmistress, and she knew it. There was quite an element of self-control on Emma’s part in their relationship.

Emma wasn’t looking at Jean Grey. She was looking at Scott Summers, hyper-disciplined sot that he was. She wanted one of those focused minds for her own.

I was going to have to have Felicia swing on by here. That should be amusing.

--------

Scott manifesting his massive silver mindblade was definitely a show, and Bobby’s golden staff was as strong as Jean’s and Emma’s swords... said fact not giving the White Queen any more confidence about the matter. Hank had by far the most elegant silver knife they’d ever seen, the blade not growing larger even though it totally could.

Most of the others had varieties of swords and knives, with Forsaken Core users employing mindclaws, and a scattering of other weapons. One fellow with nigh-invulnerable skin actually manifested a white mindshield straight off, which was pretty impressive.

Kwannon had laid down a Mercy effect on the whole field, which showed how seriously this matter was being taken. It wouldn’t stop the pain, but it would stop any kind of permanent wounds and death, and healing would rapidly take care of any residual bruising.

This was a combat class, meant to prepare the students for a world where they might have to fight, and the choice would not be theirs when it was time. They had the choice to go out and put themselves in positions where they might have to fight, but sometimes, the choice would not be theirs.

Despite the fact that real pain was associated with Kwannon’s classes, they were basically always full. I understood the general opinion was that if you couldn’t handle a class under Kwannon, why were you even bothering to learn to use a mindblade at all?

Her katana was hard gold, both warm and burning at the same time, surrounded with particle effects of violet and purple that often swirled into butterfly-like effects. There was no doubt from anyone there when it came out that it absolutely dominated every other mindblade there.

Different mindblades had different styles, but Kwannon was fully capable of manifesting telepathy with a mindblade out, and had no problem instructing groups of people in similar styles, monitoring all of them for deviation from the forms... and if they were stubborn and continued to make mistakes, punishing them by advising their opponents during the sparring period. Getting told you’re overextending, and then getting a mindknife in the kidneys because you’re overextending were two different things.

Mindblade combat was a martial art unto itself as it advanced, because it was possible to change the length and form of your weapon if you were an expert. Scott’s big sword could shrink down to the size of a dagger or even his fist if needed, turning it from a long reach melee weapon into a close-quarters combat tool. True mindblade masters could manifest bows, whips, flails, chains, spears, and indeed, mutant kids with lesser or debilitating Talents often went heavily into mindblade mastery to make up for their weakness in other areas.

Stat reqs were still a thing, after all, and the Melee, Scout, and Monk trees were the best for giving out Stat points if you pursued them. Not everybody had great Talents, after all, and if your only good Stat was Strength, then you going Psy Warrior or Melee was pretty much a given.

I watched it all patiently, taking in the enthusiasts, the determined, the resigned, and the unwilling, all of them being subtly nudged this way and that, and despite themselves appreciating the fact that they were getting better at this, especially when they were paired against the more advanced students helping Kwannon out in the sparring.

Naturally those advanced students got to spar with Kwannon, which were much better fights. She indulged them all, but it was plain she was far beyond them, and had no difficulty holding them at bay or pressing them back. She let them try their best tricks, showed them the counters and blocks to said tricks, and showed them new ones, all with some telepathic weight behind them so they wouldn’t forget easily.

“Dr. Ouilette!” she called out with a smile as the class was winding down and the sweaty students were dispersing. A pulse of Healing magic had gone through them all, taking away the worst of the aches and pains, leaving some as reminders to get better. Most of them were smiling despite themselves, relieved there was some improvement, and there was a point to this sort of thing.

I got up, palming Function, and glided down and across the field on sparkfoot.

The consensus around the room had rapidly reached the fact that I was probably Dynamo, but there weren’t very many pics of me in my shorter form, so it was hard to tell, and I wasn’t in uniform. The fact that my name was on the Baxter Foundation and all the X-kids knew me was pretty much a safe bet, as Dynamo was known to work there... and when some of them tried to take my picture, they got nothing.

“We have something of a treat for you today. Dr. Ouilette is an alchemist and master of Pact Magic, which includes the manifestation of an Eldritch Blade. Some of you may have seen such things in the past, and you can go looking for them after class,” cell phones were very hastily put away as she noticed ALL of them at once, thank you, “but this should be something of a wake-up call for you.”

The attentive people noticed that Jean, Bobby, and Hank put on dark glasses, and Scott manifested Viz to shield his eyes.

Function flickered out to full length, and the spear point extended from the end.

There was a pop as the default Shocking enchantment lit up around it. Nothing special, just making sure everyone recognized that it was there.

Then I dropped my Eldritch Blade, i.e., my Wrath, on top of it.

12d6 of bioelectrical fun flared to life in a confined space, crackling and seething with constrained power in a confined area. It was also pretty damn bright, and the students had to quickly shield their eyes.

Then I added my Lightning Reserve on top of it for another +9d6, +1d6 ‘cause I was standing on the ground.

Function was now fully outshining the sun and creating his own shadows. The seething noise was somehow subdued and pulsing, more like thunderous heartbeats ready to release.

Soul magic from my hands. +6d6.

Delimited Shocking Grasp from my Air Elemental Command Ring. Yeah, I did that. +10d6.

+38d6 of lightning damage was blazing so bright they could see their bones inside their hands.

I pursed my lips, blew a Note, and harmonized the different lightning types.

With a SNAP, they blew into a superconductive field around Function, humming with an ominous, underscored power, only the occasional snap and crackle escaping the energy built up there.

A bunch of pale-faced kids put down their hands, staring a bit ashen-faced at me as I stood there, holding Function off to the side at full extension without effort.

“This is my default setting for use of Wrath,” I informed them all calmly, not bothering to raise my Voice, since I didn’t have to. “I can naturally boost this in several more ways, but this is what I default to. Among other things, this is also the level of retaliation I can employ when using Hostile Mind to defend myself against telepathic intrusions.”

Phoebe looked at that, at just how much power I had not hit her with, and straight up fainted right where she sat. Emma Frost barely caught her and kept her upright in her seat, staring at the harmonized power that wreathed the Spear point of Function for a foot in every direction.

She was more than adept enough to tell what kind of mind was required to impose discipline on that level of energy. Kwannon didn’t use the Sublime Chord, being focused on Psi and Magic as well as her combat skills, not the Heartsong, so the White Queen wasn’t familiar with that Note I’d murmured, but she was definitely smart enough to feel the power in it.

Kwannon manifested a faint violet field of force. Without a word, I chopped into it.

The crack as the discharge blew was all the more ominous for shaking everything without being overly loud. The experienced realized it was because all of the sound had gone into Kwannon’s field, which had a huge gouge in it, and flaring white cracks extending all through it.

I withdrew Function effortlessly, and there was a snap and a hum as the field of lightning reformed instantly.

The second hit effectively tore the field open, although it didn’t destroy it. The gap in front of me was totally big enough to get past or launch an attack through, and crawling trails of lightning were spread through the entire thing in fracture lines.

One more blow, and the force field exploded, shattering into force shards that decayed into nothingness.

The kids didn’t know exactly how tough that shield was, but they knew they might be able to tink it if they really tried. I had blown the thing completely apart with three swings, and without making any special efforts to do so.

I could have used Argent Savancy to take it down in one hit, but that would have been cheating.

“So, a lesson to you all,” Kwannon smiled, completely undeterred by the display. “Psionic powers and mutant gifts can be strong, but that does not mean that other Traditions and sources of self-improvement are weak. We teach ONE of the many paths to the Eternal here. Do not delude yourselves into thinking it is the best. It is merely one, and while it may be the best for you, for others it is a dead-end road they will avoid, and like you, find the way that is best for them.

“That is all for today!” She waved them off, leaving them to digest the fact that maybe they weren’t quite at the top of the world as yet, and even Emma and her cohort didn’t bother us further, opting to leave silently and not create any more scenes.

---

Jean headed off with the X-boys, leaving Kwannon and I to wander off on our own.

“That was a surprise with Emma. How long have the Cuckoos been here?” I asked her.

“Just a few months. They were actually slipped in here separately, supposedly from different families in the New England area, innocent girls caught up in the mutant hysteria movement. There’s just enough difference in their ages and appearances to make it seem they aren’t clones, and even some blatant differences in the standard gene markers, and they’ve Aural differences, especially the fifth one...” She sighed and shook her head. “I was the one sent to make sure whoever was Vat-churning out high Talent telepaths died. Jean went with me.”

There was a hard look in her eyes. “A thousand Vatted high-end telepathic Talents, programmed and brainwashed. Do I even want to know?”

“The Phoenix manifested and burned them all.”