(AN: My job changed my schedule so I’ll be posting a chapter for both my stories on Sunday from now on)

1rd POV Jessica Jones (X-Mansion) / January 3rd 2006

 Walking out of my room I ignored the curious stares directed at me by the mansion's populace and made my way down towards the mansion’s kitchen. I had arrived at the mansion a little over two weeks ago and still don’t understand why Xavier brought me here. 

I barely interacted with any of the students here but already I can feel the effect I’m having on them. My dark aura so to speak is painfully easy to see and I've stopped bothering to hide the smell of alcohol on my clothes since I’m never really not drinking. Some of the kids flinch whenever I stumble down their hallway drunk and I try my best to avoid those hallways if I can but sometimes I’m too shitfaced to remember.

Besides the initial tour Xavier hasn’t spoken to me, except to give light admonishments for drinking during breakfast. Ororo - the sexy African woman - was rather vocal in her appal at my behaviour although I’ve observed that Ororo’s voice and face often lack emotion compared to the words she uses when arguing with Xavier. 

After learning of her ability to control the weather I’ve hypothesised that her emotions may have a negative impact on the local environment so she tries to keep herself in check. Strangely enough all her arguments with Xavier were around how constantly drowning in alcohol wouldn’t help me recover. It made me feel bad that someone so passionate had to constantly contain themselves out of fear.

It also made me snort in contempt. As if this privileged princess would have any idea of what would be good for me. Alcohol is the only thing keeping me going. Well, that and the fucked up since of self Reaper made for me thats to prideful to go out quietly. Contemplating the effects Reaper had on me makes me down the rest of my beer before walking into the kitchen and going to get more.

Reaching into the freezer to grab a cold one I feel an arm grab onto me and turn to face Logan. Logan is by far the most annoying person in this mansion, he’s aggressive, short, and has possibly the worst sideburns in history. Add onto that the fact he follows me around all day and you get the reason why he and I haven’t had a civilised conversation since my arrival.

“What do you think you're doing bub. That’s my beer. If you want to drink, go buy your own.”

“Oh shove off scruffy I’ll drink whatever beer I want you and your dumb claws won’t stop me.”

Logan growls upon hearing the nickname I gave him a week ago when we had this same argument. “Oh yeah want to put that to the test or you gonna run off like that time.”

“Hah run off. Bitch please, I was trying to be polite and not pick the shit out of my host within a week of being here. It’s called manners. Guess the wolves didn’t teach you that huh scruffy.”

{Shing] {Slit} {grrrr} “Say that again and I’ll pull that pretty little head off your body.”

The second his claws came out my drunken stupor faded immediately as adrenaline began to pump through my veins and I got into a combat stance.

“I’d like to see you try scruff. Your little claws don’t scare me. In case you forgot to read my resume, putting down mutants like us is my speciality.”

“That’s the only thing you and I have in common.” After that final comment Logan relaxed his body slightly and made an exaggerated check of the room acknowledging the crowd we’d both known had been growing around us.

Ohhh how cute. He didn’t want to fight in front of the children. Unfortunately for him I didn’t give a shit. I threw myself at him and watched as he jumped back instinctively raising his hands to protect his chest silently his claws raised from his knuckles showing he’d never fully retracted them in the first place.

Unluckily for him he was severely underestimating my ability. Instead of landing a couple steps away from him after following through with my punch. I instead gilded across the floor and swung around before releasing a kick at his unguarded stomach. 

I engraved his shocked face into my mind as my foot continued towards him at a speed he had no chance of reacting to. But before it could connect a force suddenly overcame my body causing my muscles to tense and my kick to fall short of reaching Logan. The shockwave from my kick hit him though and it sent him back into the countertop behind him denting the surface with his body. My guess was right; whatever his claws are made off runs throughout his whole skeleton.

That information makes the fallout of this little spar worthwhile. Mutants are explosively unpredictable at the best of times. The one thing you learn while hunting them is that you can never know too much about their power. Xavier was a telepath capable of freezing thousands of people like he just did me with ease. Ororo was practically a god controlling the elements as she saw fit. 

Logan though wasn’t anywhere near their level of power. He was a brawler and a damn good one at that. I’d seen him practise hand-to-hand with Ororo a few times and he’s almost unstoppable at close range. Strong healing factor, some kind of alloy for bones, and decades of experience make him the best fighter in this school hands down. Honestly, if he and I fight I’d lose 9 out of 10 times. That’s just how strong he was.

But still…As I waited silently for Charles to give me back my body I contemplated everything I knew about the people of this mansion and came to a conclusion. Discounting Charles, Reaper could tear apart this mansion. Maybe I’m overestimating him but without Charles bullshit telepathy Only Logan and Storm stand any chance of stopping him. He’s too well trained for any of these kids to be able to hurt him short of reality manipulation and time control. 

Logan may have a durable skeleton and great healing factor but Reaper's organic bullets can break into a person and disintegrate their insides. I’ve seen him use it on the worst of the criminals we found in New York city. Child predators, rapists, and child traffickers it’s a bloody, slow, painful, and most importantly loud way of executing a criminal. And it was the most effective of Reaper’s methods. Within 48 hours most of the cities child trafficking rings disbanded and reports on rape and child predators stopped.

And when Reaper hunted them all down anyway…Well let’s say that even if crime returns to NYC those trades will remain dead for a long time to come. 

As for Ororo I know for a fact Reaper’s body even when dispersed can move through hurricane levels of wind so unless she can create a never ending stream of fire Reaper would find a way around her powers fast enough. 

‘While I can understand and sympathise with your need to learn about your environment Ms. Jones. I won’t stand this kind of behaviour in front of the children.’

Xavier’s bald ass rolled into the room pushed from behind by Ororo and I was finally able to control myself again. Looking over towards him and Ororo I was shocked to see Ororo look at me with an actual god forsaken frown on her face and instead of feeling reprimanded like I probably was supposed to I actually smiled upon seeing a trace of real emotion on her face.

Her frown deepened at my smile and I took that for the warning it was and schooled my features before looking at Charles and speaking with obvious annoyance in my tone.

“If you don’t want us to fight then tell Scruffs here to mind his own damn business and not get so butt hurt over losing a little alcohol.” Coming to stand next to me Logan scoffed before firing back with equally as much annoyance.

“Little alcohol? You’ve damn drunk through nearly my entire storage in 2 weeks.”

“Oh piss off, why don’t you take your alcohol and shove it up your…”

“Enough.” Ororo’s voice immediately silenced the room as her eyes now glowing white danced with lightning. Gulping quietly I shifted about nervously trying to stop my body from making this situation any worse for me.

“You two come with us now.” Ororo’s stern glare cut into Logan and I as we both complied with her orders and followed her and Charles out of the kitchen and into Charles' study on the second floor. 

Once we entered Logan and I stood across from his desk as Charles stood in front of us with Ororo to his right still glaring at us but thankfully without her eyes glowing. Gathering himself Charles looked up at us both before taking a deep breath and turning his head slightly to look at Logan.

“Old friend I won’t bore you with my speeches. I'm sure you’ve memorised them by now. However, I must express my disappointment, you’ve made such progress from the beast you were when you arrived here and it hurts me deeply to see you allowing yourself to digress over such childish matters.” Charles' reprimand seemed to have the intended effect as Logan's sideburns seemed to curl in on him slightly giving him a depressed aura. Fucking Pussy I should shave him while he sleeps.

(AN: Just want to clarify this wolverine is still suffering from memory loss so he’s less aggressive then he normally would be in verbal confrontations. Later on he won’t just accept verbal bashing.) 

Charles seemed satisfied with Logan as well and turned to look at me but before he could open his mouth I beat him to it. “Listen baldly, I’m not apologising nor am I giving some bullshit promise to try and be better. I didn’t ask to be brought here, you brought me here and you’ve STILL not explained why so you can take your speeches and…”

“It was here or a prison.” Ororo’s cold tone interrupted my speech and I turned to respond but she bulldozed over my response.

“If Charles hadn’t spoken out and chosen to take you in did you really think you’d be allowed to return to society after everything you’ve done no matter what reason or excuse you gave they’d have thrown you into some cell for the rest of your life all the same.” That…That made a lot more sense then I’d like it to. The government has so far been very passive against mutants but a mutant terrorist. Even if it was under duress there’s no way they’d let me back into the public after everything I did.

Prison is a best case scenario. I'd be lucky if the scientists assigned to me killed me before starting their experiments. My cheeks flushed in shame as I for the first time realised how much of a mess I had been in before this. Which means Charles saved my ass and while I know it was with a clear ulterior motive whatever he wants from me is a thousand times better than whatever had been waiting for me outside that holding cell. And that meant I had to relent, at least a little.

“Fine, I'll watch my behaviour when I’m around the brats but that doesn’t change the main point. Why am I here? You just said you went out of your way to save me. Why? What is it you want from me? If this was all some elaborate setup to sweeten me up before asking me to kill someone for you you could’ve skipped this part. Just give me a name and face plus any guesses to their power and I’ll get it done for you.”

My words seemed to pacify Ororo and Logan seemed to perk up slightly at seeing me be defeated alongside him. Those sideburns were going to disappear by the end of the day no matter what. But Xavier seemed to become more upset at my words.

“ Ms. Jones, you have many more talents than simply being an assassin. I brought you here so that you could teach a special class at my establishment.” Xavier’s words took a minute to process in my mind before I burst out laughing at the very idea. Me? Teach a bunch of brats how to read the alphabet and resight multiplication tables. No way in hell.

“I assure you Ms. Jones, the class I have planned for you will be nothing like you imagine. I had planned to wait a little longer before introducing you to your students but seeing as you're so adamant we can begin now.”

Finished speaking Charles made a gesture to Ororo who again began to steer him out of the room as Charles Reached up to his temple, a sign I’ve learned he uses when he wants those around him to know he’s using his powers. A few minutes later Ororo led us to an elevator that took us down a floor below what the mansion should have according to the blueprint I borrowed on my first day here.

Exiting out of the elevator we entered an underground compound covered in a blue panel with a white led strip along the top and sides that gave it a futuristic sci-fi feel. Walking further Xavier kept suspiciously quiet as we continued walking. He’d lowered his arm but whether he ended his mental conversations or just got tried I wasn’t sure.

Finally, after walking another 50 metres we entered a massive room easily the size of professional football fields and inside were a group of teens. A teen wearing dumbass goggles, a stunning redhead, A tall silver looking guy, a girl who looked way too young to be there and finally a kid who was playing with ice in his hands.

“Ms. Jones I’d like you to meet the new recruits for the X-Men a team of mutants dedicated to helping mutantkind and humanity reach peaceful coexistence.” Ignoring Xavier's melodramatic speech I focused on picking apart his words before looking at the kids again.

The silver one a tank, the boy with ice a mage, the googles probably dps, the redhead based on how she's reacting some kind of telepath so support/comms, and the girl is probably some kind of runner. All in all a balanced blend of powers. So Xavier’s training child shoulders huh? 

“Nope.” Turning around without listening to another word out of Xavier's mouth I decided to say fuck it to keeping my cards hidden and flew straight through the ceiling until I reached the kitchen where I proceeded to steal the rest of Logans alcohol before going to my room and ignoring all my problems.