nohoundsallowed | Back to Oz

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Rachel Grey just appeared at the gates of Xavier's. No fanfare. No call. One minute there was an empty drive. The next there was a redhead in red leather standing there with a bag over her shoulder. She squinted up at the sun to get her bearings.

"Huh. I wasn't quite shooting for here, but this works."

She picked herself telekinetically up and placed herself on the other side of the gate. It was a nice day for a walk. Rachel strolled toward the main house, taking in how the place had changed since she last had been here. Maybe Sara was still around.

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Sara was stretched out on a blanket on the lawn, soaking up the solar rays, like she often did. Her eyes were closed, and she had a pair of earbuds in, but she wasn't quite asleep. Just cat-napping.

A quick, noninvasive scan and Rachel angled her steps toward her little sister. She stopped beside Sara and looked down at her. Then she dropped her bag close to Sara's hip.

A small telekinetic tug and those earbuds popped right out of her ears, too.

"Hullo, squirt."

Sara's eyes popped open. She sat up on the blanket.

"Ray! When did you get back?"

"About five minutes ago." Rachel grinned before sitting down beside Sara. She eyed her younger sister and tried to remember how long since she had been back. Sometimes, after a jump, time didn't seem quite so linear and easy to tell anymore.

"This place still a nuthouse?"

Sara laughed. "What do you think? It might even be worse. Everybody's growing up, getting crazier."

She leaned back on her hands. "Where you been this time? Or when?"

"I think that if I stayed for a bit, I probably won't get nice and relaxing." Rachel chuckled and shook her head. She could imagine worse. Especially since this lot was teenage and very possibly hormonal.

"When. Good guess," she complimented. It was so much easier to talk to Sara than Cyclops. "I've been working on my time travel powers. I want a little refinement before the Chronoguard tries recruiting me."

"Relaxing? Here? As if. Occasionally boring, but never relaxing."

Rachel laughed. "Well, it was a crazy thought. I'll take boring over too eventful anytime."

There was no need to ask if their father was around. There was no other place he would be. Mom was off in space somewhere. Rachel could feel the faint, far off tug from the Phoenix force. It touched someone once and never let go completely.

"So, is the rest of the kiddie crew still here? Or did their parents finally wise up?"

"Well, Becky moved out, until she got kicked out of MIT. Misha's sometimes here, sometimes not. Pretty much everyone else is still here, plus we get a couple new ones every few weeks."

She raised an eyebrow. "Kicked out, huh?"

No, better not offer a guess. It had been a bit since Rachel had been here. Something may have changed. Though it couldn't have been for academics. Of that, she was sure.

"So, how have you been in the middle of all this?" She gestured to the campus around them. There were certainly more students around here.

"I try not to get into the middle." Sara grinned. "I grew up here, I know better."

Well. Some of the time.

"I'm ok, I guess. Dad's been after me about the college thing."

And the Marauders thing...

"Good idea. I usually get dragged into the middle of a lot of things. Not quite as fun as it appears." If Sara was hiding anything, Rachel was oblivious. She did not have a habit of picking at people's minds. Especially her little sister's. Sometimes just talking worked best.

"Mm. What do you want to do?"

"Oh, I would LOVE to go shopping. Or go get a burger at that little place near Grandma and Grandpa Grey's. But I can't. Dad has me confined to the grounds. Becky and Danny too."

Her face got serious.

"Becky got jumped by the Marauders."

Her brow furrowed. "The Marauders?"

There was a bunch of genetic rejects who just needed to drift away. Cyclops' orders seemed reasonable, though the scope was a little larger and smaller than Rachel expected.

"All three of you? The Marauders going after the next line of Summers?"

"That's what Dad and Uncle Alex think. Who knows? Those guys are obsessed with everything Summers. And Grey."

By "those guys" she meant Sinister. But she didn't want to say that name out loud.

"I hope they let up soon. It's not like we're totally helpless, and we can't stay locked up for the rest of our lives."

"And I come back for the fun. What timing I have!" Rachel knew the Marauders themselves had no distinct want for Summers or Grey kids. Their boss, however, would.

She put her hand on Sara's shoulder. "You're definitely not helpless, and you just got some amazing back-up to fly in. Let me talk to Cyclops. See what I can do to help shorten the prison sentence."

Rachel hadn't called Cyclops 'Dad' in a very long time. Even by her own reckoning.

"Thanks, Ray." Sara smiled. "Oh, hey, look what I figured out how to do."

She stood up and stepped away from the blanket, so as not to scorch it. Her control wasn't that great yet. Then she rose several feet into the air on thermal currents.

"Cool, isn't it?"

"Anytime. It's what time-traveled older sisters are for, right?" Then she settled back to watch whatever Sara was going to show her. Both her eyebrows raised as her sister did.

"Now that, is a neat trick," she agreed with a smile. "Can you move around or maintain it with a little push?"

"I'm still working on that part. I can move around a little..."

She demonstrated, drifting a few feet to the right.

"I don't know about staying in place if someone pushed me. Becky didn't kno... uh, I managed to stay up when the gravity was about tripled. But I was going on adrenaline then."

She nodded approvingly. That was pretty good. One should never start out at top speed. That was the way to end up as chunky salsa. Which reminded Rachel she hadn't had any good Mexican food in forever.

"Mm. You know that was the lamest cover ever? But I'm not going to pry into why you and our dearest Becky were having an adrenaline-pumping encounter."

She drew her legs up to sit tailor style. "How about I give you a horizontal push and you try to stay vertical?"

Rachel waited for an assent.

"Ok, push when ready!"

Sara concentrated, trying to raise extra currents behind her.

Rachel reached out with her telekinesis, pressing carefully against Sara to make her float farther away from the blanket. The former Phoenix kept a close eye on her sister to catch her near the ground if there was a tumble.

The last thing she would want to greet Cyclops with was a 'Hi. Long time no see, and I helped Sara break her arm.'

Sara wobbled a little, then tried to push back. She was managing to stay upright, but the grass underneath her was starting to curl and turn brown.

"That's the problem, keeping it up without starting a fire."

"You could try it on a surface that won't ignite," she suggested as she stopped pushing Sara with her tk. Rachel eyed the grass and shrugged. Not like the lawn had ever been torn up by large robots, invading aliens, and reckless teenagers before. Though the two of them could probably do some amusing crop circles sometime.

"Or focus on the not starting a fire part before the mobility. Then again, it took me a few tries not to fling myself around with my telekinesis the first time. I thought hard and fell harder. Needed a very soft cushion to sit on for a day or so."

She smiled.

"Yeah, that might be a start. Trying it over steel, or something. Or maybe there's another way? Different frequency, or something. I've been watching video of Firestar and the Human Torch. I guess he uses heat, but her file doesn't say exactly how she does it."

Rachel scratched her head. Firestar started running around shortly after Ray had joined the X-Men.

"I think she does it with microwaves," she said a little distantly. "Firestar the once Hellion and then New Warrior, right?"

Several lifetimes in different eras sometimes made a jumble of things.

"That's the one. And microwaves are how I'm doing it."

She let herself down.

"But not all microwaves are the same, you know? Some don't heat things up as much."

All in all, having a conversation with her floating sister had not made Rachel even bat an eye.

"We could look into getting into contact with her?" Technically, if Rachel thought about it, she could put a summons in, but this would probably be one of those times to go through the mundane channels. Firestar did have the displeasure of meeting Emma Frost after all. "Maybe have her visit to figure it out."

"That'd be great! It's good to have you back, Ray, even for a little while."

Rachel grinned and got to her feet. She dusted her pants off and picked up a bag. "It's good to be back, actually. I missed my little sister. Who else can make me a Sara Special?"

She gave a wink as she slung her bag over her shoulder.

"I should report in before they set the dogs on me. I'll catch you later after I settle in."

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