Shift

It was a beautiful morning two weeks later when Stella came to the mansion to help install the device. The other X-men were still dubious about Stella's trustworthiness, but with the Brotherhood on the move again, they couldn't afford to pass up any opportunity to strengthen their defenses. So they sent the students outside to keep curious eyes away from where they were working and used the excuse of a routine security upgrade to avoid raising alarm, remembering well what had happened the last time the mansion had been attacked. If the students learned how anxious their professors really were, especially with the pro-mutant legislation Congress was attempting to pass, they might never settle down by finals week. The last thing they needed was nervous parents withdrawing their children from the school or someone like Quentin Quire to use the unrest as an excuse to attempt another coup.

Wolverine's defense training class was practicing camouflage and ambush techniques in the woods. Sophie and Eva were partnered together again, trying to stay hidden as much as possible. Logan had promised a free pass to the last group to get caught, and those were a rare currency in his class. The girls picked a spot close enough to the mansion that they were still in shouting range if need be, but far enough that they figured no one would bother looking for them in their chosen hiding spot, a tiny rock overhang near the stream. Eva pulled a few bushes in front of them and they crouched down, keeping a sharp eye out for any sign of the unfortunate souls Logan had found first and designated as 'it'.

They hadn't spoken in over half an hour, picking at the grass and dirt around them and watching the clouds roll overhead. Suddenly Sophie felt her head start spinning rapidly. She could feel the presence in her mind becoming even more active, but she couldn't control the flood of emotions that quickly overwhelmed her. Disoriented, she slumped over as her senses began to blur together and her mind grew even foggier. She could feel Eva's panicky shaking of her shoulder, trying to get her to sit up, but she couldn't move or respond. Frightened, Eva quickly blew on her emergency whistle, alerting Logan that there was a problem.

Hearing the shrill whistle, Logan rushed to the girls, finding Sophie shaking on the ground and Eva visibly freaked out. Cursing under his breath, he blew his own whistle to bring class to an abrupt end. Picking Sophie up, he quickly brought both girls to the infirmary where Dr. McCoy took one look at the half-unconscious girl and summoned Professor Xavier. Sophie was showing signs of a psychic attack.

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The Professor carefully probed Sophie's mind, but came up with more questions than answers. Sophie had been perfectly fine until about ten minutes earlier. She had no medical history of such incidents, she wasn't particularly stressed, her ability appeared to be under control, and he didn't see much of a reason for someone to target just her when no other empath or psychic appeared to be at all affected. The more he thought about it, the more perplexed he became. Then Eva volunteered something then only deepened the mystery.

"She told me she has this thing in her head, like another person, that she can feel all the time even when she's alone. Do you think that could have anything to do with it?"

The adults all stared at her. Sure, Sophie's medical record had stated that she had at one point been treated for apparent delusions, but they assumed that was only a misinformed psychiatrist confusing her ability with mental instability. Nothing she had ever said or done had suggested otherwise, and as Charles didn't make a practice of reading his student's minds without just cause, he had no reason to suspect that anything was amiss. He didn't think she really was crazy, of course, but what could this strange presence possibly be, if not another part of her ability?

Sophie slept for several hours in the cool darkness of the med-lab, the strain of the overwhelming emotions exhausting her. She not rest peacefully, however. Her dreams were wrought with horrible visions of being watched, hunted down and having something terrible done to her mind until she finally woke up, screaming.

As much as she wanted to brush it off as a ghastly nightmare, something about the images she had seen seemed familiar to her somehow, like she was remembering something she had forgotten long ago. She sat on the cot in the dark for a while, wondering about the dream, until a strange and uneasy thought realization came to her. She gasped when she made the connection between what happened to her earlier, the presence in her head, and her creepy dream. Sophie practically flew to her room, scared to the core, but knowing she would never sleep until she finally solved this mystery which grew even more bizarre by the minute.

Because now she knew it wasn't her in her dream at all. It was her sister, the one she had lost so many years before. And she was still alive.