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Charles Xavier	It's just about 4pm on a Wednesday at Xavier's School. Halloween decorations are all over the place and some of the kids were even in the foyer when Madelyne arrived. It didn't take her long to get brought in to Charles' office by one of the senior students who helped direct her there. The student had a weird look on her face as she stared at Madelyne too... but she tried to be polite about it and didn't ask any questions. One of the younger students coming out of the Professor's classroom though? They said 'Hi, Miss Grey!' on the way out in a rush. Once inside, Charles had, well, been taken aback. It stammered him to say the least, but he recovered fairly quickly and just introduced himself. He'd welcomed her to his office / classroom and offered her a seat before his desk. He sent for some tea to be brought too before he went about with basic pleasantries, to get some of the essentials out of the way. Throughout it his eyes were locked with Madelyne's own... enraptured by the ... obvious. Once their tea was brought in by the staff assistant, Charles took a moment then to say he was going to call for the Headmistress of the school. The assistant then chimed in to say Jean was just in the other room and that she would go let her know the new arrival was here waiting. There-after, Charles would answer a few questions about the school until Jean arrived. "Oh yes, I have actually lived here since I was a little boy, though I did quite a bit of traveling abraod in my younger years... But, as they say... home is where the heart is." He states with a smile before raising his cup of tea up once more....
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor shifts nervously in the plush seat before Xavier's desk. For most of her remembered life, she was just someone who grew up in a Connetticutt suburb outside the Metropolis city limits. Went to MU, got a degree, and then went to work for the Summers cargo freight business in anchorage. It was a pretty cool life. Ever since she had lost her folks, she had been alone, and not minding that. But, the weirdness started a year ago when she saw *her* on TV - a woman who looked exactly like her. Normally, she would have written it off - in a country of 400 million, some people resemble each other, right? But then, when she started hearing people's thoughts, and when she could extend her wiull like a limb and pick up objects, she knew she needed to take a trip. That's when she e-mailed Xavier.
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor says, "Thank you for taking the time to see me. It seems like you're as surprised and bothered by this as I am. Really, the powers are a side issue. I want to know why your girl Dr Grey looks *just like me*"
Jean Grey	Even with Jean having taken over the day-to-day running of the school, onboarding new students is something her mentor has remained heavily involved in. It makes sense. He found her, and her friends from the so-called 'first class,' bringing them together to begin the experiment that is Xavier's School. It's just something he has an eye (and a mind) for. All of which is to say that Jean doesn't initially think much of the fact that he has such a meeting; if anything, the unusual thing is the call she gets in her office to come by and join him. It's pretty rare that any new prospective mutant student is really a 'two person job.' Still, there's very little Charles could ask of Jean that she wouldn't do for him, and so she's quick to put aside her work and make the little trip across the mansion, from her office on the opposite wing. The Headmistress arrives, smiling and, well, probably quite unprepared for the situation. In part because she's normally pretty strict with herself on not casually mind-reading if the situation doesn't call for it. "You said you had a-" She stops dead in the door and stares at the woman seated across from Charles. "What on-" Earth, she was going to say. And, if this had happened a few months ago, it would end in that confusion. But just weeks ago, she was FAR from Earth, facing an infinity of realities at the center of creation, meeting every version of herself. So where her mortal experience fails her, the Phoenix provides. She KNOWS this woman, somehow. Her, but not her. And for the lady at the desk, it might be a little frightening when that fact becomes apparent. "Madelyne. Your name is Madelyne, right?" Of course, that could just be simply mind-reading, not cosmic awareness. But still!
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor even *sounds* just like Jean, but with a somewhat lower chosen timbre and an entirely different cadence. She turns around, and stares at the woman who looks *just like her*. "Jesus fucking christ." She stands up. "It's... like a special effect." Her expression is dumbfounded.
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor is still staring. "Yes, I'm Madelyne Pryor." She peers at Jean, not quite believing what she's seeing.
Charles Xavier	Charles knows Jean is near before she strides through the door. He watches though and just observes the meeting as it happens. What more can he do? Its not really like telling Jean that there was someone here waiting for her who looked identical to her was going to make it any easier, right? He takes his hands away from the tea cup and places them on the desk. "It would seem we have a bit of a unique situation on our hands." Charles says after the two women see each other. "Jean, why don't you come on in and close the door." He states then before he introduces the women to one another, sharing their names between each other, before he looks to Jean again... the ball in her court now, so to speak...
Jean Grey	Any cosmic clarity aside, the mortal Jean is still rather dumbfounded by the situation, enough that it takes Charles speaking up to sort of snap her from her reverie and back to the real world. "Oh, right. Of course." The door swings shut, fast yet without slamming, without her lifting a hand to do it. Distracted by the situation, her mind works almost on instinct. Which leaves them alone in the office, without any of the students peeking in to see the admittedly very STRANGE scene, et least. "A special effect... probably, that's not far from the truth," she muses then, her own tone taking the comment a lot more seriously, more on face value, than Madelyne even seems to mean it. After all, this stuff is probably pretty shocking to her, but they have half a dozen clones on campus, perhaps close to that many from alternate timelines. It's a weird life. "Well, unless you mean that it's some kind of trick. I'm definitely real. And I can tell that's not make-up or prosthetics." How can she tell? She doesn't explain. "What brought you here exactly, Madelyne? How did you hear about us, find us? And do you mind-" But then she stops herself. Maybe not too much, too weird, all at once.
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor plops back down into the plush leather chair. "I grew up in Metropolis, so Ive been a fan of Big Blue all my life. I follow super hero news - attractive people in tights you know. I saw a close up if *you* on CNN." She looks up the nearby cup of tea she was served. It floats around her head - pretty precise control, for a beginner. "I've always completed people's sentences, but when this happened, I tried focussing. Turns out I got overwhelmed by the thoughts of 20 people in the shipping office. So, I put two and two together, booked some PTO, and flew down from Anchorage." She sighs. "I hope I can get some testing, some training, and find out what the fuck is going on."
Charles Xavier	A door is closed with one's mind. A tea cup is moved with another's. Charles looks from one of them to the other and just sits back in his chair. "Madelyne.. is it alright if I refer to you as such?" He asks kindly before continuing. "We can get tests done on this. We can get to the bottom of what precisely is going on here through traditional means, and through a little less than traditional... if you're so willing." Charles states in a calm, and generally agreeable tone. He looks toward Jean then. "We should let Hank know about this as soon as possible... but also... several of the others before we move about the rest of the school. This... uncanny likeness is bound to cause a bit of a stir, once it becomes known about the hallways." He says before showing a quick and brief smile. "You said you were born and lived... in Metropolis growing up?" He asks next. "Who might your parents have been, if I might ask?"
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor inhales and exhales. "Amanda and Joe Pryor. I grew up in Bakerline. I lost them to a car accident in 2016. I've been alone, since then. And sure - I mean, I can read minds now and lift things like a Jedi from Star Wars. I guess that means a big life change, right?" She steals another glance at Madelyne. "There's gotta be a reasonable explanation for this, right?" She seems to be holding it together, with some difficulty, for the moment.
Jean Grey	Jean watches the small telekinetic display, which perhaps answers part of the question she was hesitant to voice before. That the woman has similar, perhaps identical powers, as well. And it gives her a little more confidence to ask. "Do you mind, Madelyne, if I take a little 'peek' inside your head? I'm sure the experiences you've had with it have been somewhat difficult, telepathy can be frightening when you don't know how to control it, hearing what people are thinking around you, all those voices. But I'll be gentle, and it will be a faster way to catch myself up on your history." Although even as she says 'history,' she winces as Madelyne mentions the car accident. A strange parallel, if perhaps coincidental. "But yes, we have a doctor here, and your next step should probably be to see him. Although..." A slight frown forms. "Charles, I don't think Hank has ever fully been comfortable around me, going back a year or more now, since that incident with Essex." She doesn't call him 'Sinister' in front of the normie! "He had clones of Scott and I, and they helped while he... 'worked' on the others." Experimented. Tortured. But again, she keeps from saying some of the worst in front of their guest. "We don't know if she's related to that, but it might be hard for Hank. Be good to talk to him about it carefully first, maybe have someone else there with him."
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor purses her lips. "I have to admit that I've made people do small little things - like making horny creeps not interested in me." She seems to be weighig Jean's offer back and forth in her mind. She straightens her spine. "Ok, lets do this. I'm already in over my head, and I need to get to the bottom of this. If this means I have to be vulnerable, then let's do it."
Charles Xavier	The information that Madelyne provides with regard to her parents has Charles softly nodding twice, before his gaze goes to Jean. She gets one whole nod herself. "Yes, of course." He says softly to her before he exchanges stares between the two young women again. It's remarkable. But its concerning too, because of everything this school goes through after all. "I'll contact Hank once we're finished here." The Professor notes as he falls silent again for the moment, though he does look to his personal smart phone on the desk beside him to swipe it and bring up Hank's listing upon it... preparing to send out that message... while the two talk.
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor smiles somewhat ruefully. Her smile is brilliant but not at all like Jean's. "To be clear, I don't mind the medical testing. Obviously, I have weird super powers. I just want to be able to live with them. This is kind of like when I cane out bi back in school. Dad thought it was just a 'phase'. So, 'born this way' strikes again.'
Jean Grey	There's a quick smile from Jean as she Madelyne admits to some of those uses of her powers. "I'm not surprised. I know what it's like- and I got my powers when I was barely a teenager. Imagine what it felt like, knowing what men around me were thinking." A shared experience between them, another small link. "And if you stay with us, I can teach you some better control of all of it, better choose what gets in and what doesn't. Alright. So let's try this." After saying that, she steps a little closer to Madelyne, lifts two fingers to her temple, and closes her eyes. The gestures aren't strictly necessary, but they're focusing techniques. Nor does the telepathic contact itself come as anything jarring: it is simply a voice, a presence there, like Madelyne might naturally feel normally in the people around her, except a little more 'present,' more in the forefront. Jean is careful that her contact is clear and open; it's hard for telepaths to trick each other, but still, she makes the effort to be above board. And as she begins walking through Madelyne's thoughts, there is a sense of a shared space between them, a place where the thoughts are real, almost physical. Images of past experiences, her homes in Metropolis and Alaska, her parents. It's a journey walked backward, with Jean perusing the small details in the big picture. Hunting for what may be more apparent to a more trained mind, memories insufficiently grounded, rooted, connected, or showing other signs of artifice and falsehood.
Charles Xavier	For Charles, his efforts in this isn't exactly just bystander. No he watches as Jean connects to the other ... version of her? But his own mind takes a precautionary angle on this process. He reaches out to the perimeter of the school and just focuses on the minds the people on property. Is anything unusual going on around the campus? This is what Charles is interested in. Security. This is an odd situation after all and he worries it could be some measure of a distraction even. His eyes, however, remain on the two of them and after a moment he nods once to Madelyne. "Well, we will do everything we can to make your time here pleasant and comfortable, I assure you."
Madelyne Pryor	As Jean initiates the contact, Jean finds a lifetime of memories that Madelye *thinks* are real - ball games seeing the Metros, a rebellious Goth phase, watching Superman flying over the neighborhood. But as an expert telepath, Jean can tell that they are *constructed*. Examination of her psychic imprint shows that she's only a few years old. Her actual chronological age dates back to the exact moment that she herself had her furtive contact with the Phoenix force. Jean can see, deep and hidden in Madelyne's psyche, that she was held in some sort of stasis tube, and she cried out the same words that Jean herself did when she, Jean, and other hosts were connected by the Phoenix Force to rapidly fade thereafter.
Jean Grey	The psychic investigation is one thing. It is work, effort, but it reaches a conclusion that is in a way only what is expected: for Madelyne to have lived a normal life all this time, without suffering from her emerging powers as most mutants do, as Jean did in her own life, is a suspect story from the get-go. Adult onset of the gene is rare, and for it to play out so differently when the two are otherwise the same is strange. So Jean suspects forgery, looks for forgery, and she finds the tell-tale signs, of memories that are a little too perfect, where a real mind would be full of little doubts, little erorrs, traumas, misrememberings. How to report this, however, is another question. How do you tell someone 'Your entire life is a lie'? Her brow furrows at the thought, and as she withdraws from the other woman's psyche, all she can do is tear down the blocks, leave those doors open behind her, for Madelyne to begin to remember them, to experience her own life. There is also something beyond the psychic communion. Wherever Jean is, the Phoenix is as well, and it sees in Madelyne another part of itself. In that sense, the connection is unmistakable. And when they are fully apart, she draws a breath. "Hank can confirm it properly, but Charles... I don't have any doubts. We must not have found them all, when we raided his facility before. In every physical sense of it, and maybe even in some larger one... she is me."
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor blinks her eyes. "What did you.... oh. Oh. Oh." A pause, and then a sob. "Oh god." Madelyne does not cry out, or scream, but shakes in her seat, staring, her eyes streaming. "Mommy. Daddy. Oh -god-. The Firebird." She holds herself, as her very personhood is called into question. Because of the way Jean left the doors open, she knows its no lie, no trick, no mind control.
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor 's eyes narrow in cold fury. The coffee table in front of the chair shakes - just like when young Jean used to get upset. But the shaking dies down. Madelyne sniffs and is working on breathing. "Someone *created* me, and gave me a fake life, right?" Her eyes dart back and forth between Xavier and Jean.
Charles Xavier	Charles bares witness to the end of the connection. His eyes are on Jean as she relays the results. It is... just as unsettling as he'd imagined. His stare next goes to Madelyne then and he draws in a breath. "You are welcome to stay here, with us, as long as you so desire. I can only imagine how .. challenging this situation is for you now. We can help here. We are experienced in all manner of things, I promise you that this is the best place for you to be right now, under the circumstances...." He tries to offer some solace in the situation at hand for the young woman. His eyes glance back to Jean then, and he nods once to her. "I'll let Doctor McCoy know the situation..." He quietly adds.
Jean Grey	Jean's expression is pained, watching Madelyne react. The truth can be cruel, and she's just been given a horrible dose of it, courtesy of Jean's meddling. It will leave trauma, difficulties even she can only really imagine. Jean has suffered some strange hardships, even danger to her family, but never something quite like this, the idea of them being erased from any kind of existence. "I'm... sorry, I, maybe I should have held it back, but... I have no idea the -right- way to tell someone like that." She laughs bitterly. "And I supposedly have a PhD in this stuff." There's a helplessness to her voice, and briefly, she starts to move forward, as if she might offer some kind fo consolation, but then stops herself. Are they strangers? Or are they sisters? "The person who did it," she uses Maddie's anger as a distraction to change subjects, "well, I don't know if we can be one-hundred percent sure, but I believe we have a good idea. His name is Nathaniel Essex. I suppose you'd call him a supervillain if you're such a fan of watching hero stuff on TV. But he's an expert in mutant genetics and has... done things like this before. /Used/ me, for his work." As for the firebird bit, that's not a topic she can even imagine how to broach. One shattered reality at a time, perhaps.
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor still shakes. Oh god, that *fury*. "I...I have a question for the two of you. This will establish the parameters of how we deal with each other, going forward." A pause. Then, "Am I a real person?"
Charles Xavier	charles quickly types out a message to Hank on his phone with his left hand, almost like he's an expert at texting, which is astounding for a man his age, right? He looks up to Jean just in time to hear that question from Madelyne. "Of course you are, Madelyne." Charles says almost sternly. He turns his chair to the left and starts to move around the desk toward them both. "You are every bit a person as Jean and I are. Flesh and blood, in this room right here, right now. We share a space together, we share memories together now, hence forth and as long as we are together. Building memories is the ... point... of all of this. To build happiness with one another, to build lives, together... there is nothing stopping you from doing these very same things as the rest of us are ever striving toward accomplishing." Charles stops his chair just a few feet away, looking to both of the women now. "You are apart of this school, for as long as you should desire.... But in the time being, I think it best that Jean here takes you to see Doctor McCoy. Just in case. This is a unique situation, as we've noted thus far. So... let us be cautious to the very most stern level, shall we?" He pauses then and looks to Maddie. "Again, you are amongst friends here... we will always help you."
Jean Grey	Maddie's question could be considered one of great philosophical difficulty. ...anywhere but Xavier's. In that sense, she's lucked out. Finally, Jean does take the step of trying to bridge the physical gap between them, reaching tentatively for the other woman's upper arm as she echoes Charles in the affirmative. "Madelyne... yes, absolutely. If Essex did this, made some copy of me against my will- that's his crime. But you're not to blame, and the life he gave you, it's up to you what you do with it. It's going to be strange but, well, you've come to a place where the meaning of family gets very loose. Would you believe you're not even the only clone here?" Not even by a long shot. "You'll have to figure out what exactly you want with that life, and whatever it is, we can help you. And ... well, we'll have more that we have to talk about. A lot more." Clones and Phoenixes and time-displaced children, oh my! Then at last, she nods again at Charles. "I'll talk to Hank, but I really think... well, this is going to take some delicacy. Maybe for now we just let her settle." For her, the tests are meaningless. The Phoenix reigns over life itself. There's no margin of error, here.
Madelyne Pryor	Madelyne Pryor sighs. She doesnt flinch away. <<There's a lot to think about. Right now, I want to crawl away and be alone. I have no idea where any of this is going. Just please help me... make sure to everyone else that *I am not you*. Its not your fault that this Essex chose to base me, on you. Thank you for the offer to stay here. One foot forward, day by day."