Emilia widened her eyes, she felt the change in their Link, now it couldn't be broken without also breaking one of their minds.

She was still shaking from Jean suddenly collapsing.

 

She was panicking. She didn't even know when she started crying but now Jean was gently wiping the tears off her cheeks while still hugging her. She thought she mistakenly killed the only person she found in this new world that she could trust.

 

She took a shaky breath, Jean was alive.

 

"How are you?" Emilia asked shakily, looking up at Jean.

 

Jean's emerald green eyes met Emilia's pale green ones. Only a few centimetres keep their noses from touching.

 

Jean smiled brilliantly, "I feel amazing," she also shared her experience with Emilia over their link.

 

"Can you still use your powers?" Emilia asked, "Be careful, they might have gotten much stronger."

 

Emilia saw the redhead turn her gaze on a chair, it promptly started levitating. Luckily Jean stopped it from crashing into the ceiling as she made the same mistake Emilia had with the lamp.

 

Even as it was levitating the chair started creaking and twisting. Jean hurriedly dropped it and it was miraculously still in one piece.

 

Emilia let go of the girl with a final squeeze, "It's fine, you can learn to control it with time," she said while smiling consolingly.

 

"It's just so easy, I barely had to focus for that. Before I could have lifted the chair," Jean said, "I always thought I only had a talent for Empathy and the rest were just add-ons to it."

 

Emilia just shook her head, "Well you aren't untalented, you might be the strongest Psychic on the planet."

 

"Psychic?" Jean asked questioningly.

 

"You know, those with mental powers. Telepathy, Telekinesis, Empathy and the rest," Emilia answered, unsure if the term was even used on this earth.

 

"You can do all that too right?" Jean again.

 

"Yeah, but I'm far weaker than you, in exchange it is far easier to control my powers, I think," Emilia said, uncertainty bleeding into her tone by the end of the sentence.

 

"Well you might be right about that," said the redhead, with a slight flinch.

 

Emilia was suddenly privy to all the stuff Jean sensed with her psychic field. She flinched at it too.

 

"I, um, can help you train it if you want?" Emilia asked, once again nervous. She knew Jean trusted her but she was unsure if she would ask her about mutant stuff instead of the Professor.

 

"Thanks, I would like that," she answered with a smile, her feelings on the matter made clear through their link.

 

Emilia was surprised to find out that the girl not only shared her concerns about the professor but also agreed with her on him being responsible for the seal.

 

"Would you like to continue our date?" Emilia asked, changing the subject. She felt a bit of time to consider things and relax would do Jean good right now.

 

As an answer, Jean intertwined their fingers and said, "Let's go, you said you had another place in mind for today?"

 

Emilia was surprised to find the ginger more energetic and emotional than before, though it was probably the side effect of not having knots on her mind. This was the real Jean, not the previously reserved, girl with subdued emotions and a serious apathy towards most things. Not that she minded, she enjoyed the fresh and pure emotions emanating from her date.

 

"Yeah, there is a place called the High Line around here, it's an elevated park. You can see most of this part of the city from there." Emilia said, now mostly sure her date would enjoy the view of the city and looking at its Architecture.

 

Her thoughts were right as Jean smiled brilliantly at her, "Sounds good, but you will have to elaborate on 'the rest' you mentioned before" she said, saying the second part with equal part insistence and excitement.

 

"Sure, oh wait a second..." Emilia turned her gaze back at the messed up table, she quickly fixed it up with a bit of telekinesis. The chair would probably break under the next person that sat on it but that was that. She left the charge on the table in cash with a hefty tip for the damages."Alright lets go."

 

"You have really good control," Jean complimented, with a bit of longing and jealousy underneath.

 

"We will get you there too," she said, with a squeeze of her hand.

 

Soon enough they were walking on the High Line looking around the panoramic view of Chelsea.

 

"You still feel the same about Architecture?" Emilia asked.

 

"...Hmm I think I do, I liked to draw even before I became a mutant," Jean said, tearing up a bit. It seemed the girl wasn't used to her emotions feeling this raw and intense.

 

Emilia just squeezed her hand again, unsure of how she could comfort the other girl. She heard sometimes being there was enough, so she did just that.

 

Jean cleaned her eyes with a tissue, "Sorry," she mumbled.

 

"It's alright, want to sit down for a bit?" Emilia asked, motioning to a bench overlooking the streets under them.

 

Jean just smiled and nodded.

 

"So, Emi what do you want to do in the future, we mostly only talked about me so far?" Jean asked, curiosity evident in her tone.

 

Emilia blushed a bit at the nickname but cleared her throat, reapplying the notice-me-not aura around them.

 

"I lost everything when I became a mutant," she said, swallowing before continuing," so I had to reinvent myself here," she said motioning around her.

 

"I went to university in Vienna you know? when I found myself in an alley in New York, with my powers there was no record of me anywhere, "Emilia said truthfully, she emitted some facts from the story but the base was the truth. Claiming to Jean that she was probably in a different Multiverse altogether from her own would be weird. So she stuck to the facts she was sure of.

 

"I couldn't reach my parent's numbers, the university claimed I never attended it, articles I have remembered being written about me or my mother didn't exist," she said, devolving into a rant. By the end, she was feeling the desperation she felt on the first few days she arrived here. With nobody and nothing to rely on, in a world that actively worked to kill its inhabitants.

 

A hand sneaked over her back and pulled her into a hug. Emilia felt the emotions she kept strictly locked up since she came her break out of her and she started sobbing as Jean patted her head and back consolingly.

 

She didn't say anything, she didn't have to. The feeling of comfort and understanding with a blooming feeling of affection behind it streamed into her mind through their mental link. It only made Emilia cry harder, feeling like she was cared for for the first time in months. Even before arriving here the only one she had a relationship anywhere close to this was her sister and even with her they had drifted apart in the previous years.

 

As Emilia was calming down she also channelled her emotions through their link.

 

It made the ginger beauty squeeze her harder.

 

"Thank You, " Emilia said, looking straight into those entrancing green orbs that shined with affection.

 

Emilia glanced at the pink lips smiling at her, then back at the now mischievous eyes.

 

Suddenly the hand hugging her back sneaked up and held the back of Emilia's head and pulled her forwards.

 

Emilia only realized what was happening as she felt her lips touch Jean's.

 

She closed her eyes as they openly channelled their affection through the link.

 

Emilia was lost in the sensations of Jean's lips ans and tongue tasting her own and their hands pulling the other as close as they could.

But as Fate likes to play cruel games on mortals, their moment was interrupted.

 

Emilia couldn't have reacted in time if it wasn't for her separate mind streams still keeping their vigilance even if the main mind was enveloped in mushy pink clouds.

 

The first to react was the sensing sub-mind, a small object was travelling straight towards them at a barely visible speed.

 

The second was the reactive sub-mind, it subverted the trajectory of the object even before Emilia realized she was in danger.

 

The projectile hit a nearby walker-by, who promptly collapsed backwards.

 

Emilia now alerted quickly separated herself from Jean, having also explained the situation through their link. Luckily conversing with thoughts was far faster than talking out loud and far more clear.

 

Emilia glanced at the collapsed man, examining him through her senses while setting up a spinning telekinetic barrier around her and Jean.

 

The projectile turned out to be a tranquillizer dart, and the man seemed to still be alive if barely.

 

She dismissed the man and returned her attention to finding their attacker but she came up blank.

 

She couldn't sense any malicious aura or thought about attacking them.

 

*Jean I can't find anything, can you set up a stronger shield?*

 

*Sure,* came the answer as a rigid cube of psychic energy snapped into existence around them.

 

Emilia would have bet even rocket launchers couldn't get through it.

 

After turning her whole attention to searching she found something.

 

More accurately, the lack of something.

 

She couldn't feel anything in a small area. It was the shape of an orb, about the diameter of a grown man.

 

It was also moving away from them. *They are escaping,* Emilia sent. She wanted to know what was going on but she couldn't catch their attacker with how fast they were moving across rooftops.

 

But the answer she got from Jean surprised her, * Show me,* she urged.

 

Emilia obliged, sharing the location of the mysterious orb in real-time through their link.

 

Jean closed her eyes as she seemed to focus. The next thing Emilia noticed was the orb seemingly starting to shrink before finally collapsing and revealing a black-clothed man under it in tactical gear.

 

Emilia still couldn't sense the mind of the attacker but her empathy finally registered his aura. And so did her psychic field.

 

The man suddenly went rigid, as if his whole body was suddenly held down. He started to float.

 

In an aura which was previously dominated by calmness now urgency and desperation reigned supreme.

 

When the majority was overcome by resolution Emili gasped, *He wants to kill himself*

 

She intervened, the man tried to work his jaw, snapping one of his back teeth. Unfortunately Jean didn't hold his mouth open so Emilia barely contained the escaping fluid in time. She forced the man's mouth rigidly open and tossed the captured poison to the ground.

 

Jean showed she was a bit shaken by the attempted suicide but she quickened the pace at which she pulled the man.

 

Emilia meanwhile continued to force his body as rigid as she could to prevent another suicide attempt.

 

She also made a sub-mind to scour her psychic field for any other phenomena similar to the orb.

 

"We should leave," Emilia said quietly, glancing at the unconscious man behind them and the assassin floating in front of her in a star pose.

 

"Yeah," Jean agreed.

 

Emilia searched for any security camera that could have seen the fight, that would have created a few problems but it seems, fate took pity on them for once and there was none.

 

They quickly made their way to an abandoned warehouse basement while Emilia made sure nobody remembered seeing them or the floating man.

 

Jean forced all entrances shut with a crude telekinetic push.

 

Emilia considered how to make sure the man wouldn't escape or try anything else.

 

She considered if what she planned was too cruel but thought back on this man trying to kidnap them. Even more damningly, if she didn't change the trajectory of the tranquilizer dart wouldn't it have hit Jean instead of her?

 

That decided it, with a snap that made the man let out a soul-shaking scream his spine snapped. A thin film of psychic barrier covered the room, stopping the scream from reaching the outside.

 

She was careful though, only doing enough damage so he would be paralyzed from the neck down.

 

"You can release him now," Emilia said.

 

She glanced at Jean, feeling the girl's conflicting emotions about what she has done.

 

*Are you alright with me trying to get any information out of him that I can?* Emilia inquired.

 

Jean swallowed and steeled her expression. Nodding.

 

Emilia sensed there was a history behind the kindhearted girl agreeing to torture even if the man was an assassin.

 

Emilia smiled cruelly at the paralyzed man, "Let's get started."