“Scott! Hank! Bobby! Dyna!” a new voice called out, and Jean Grey dashed into the room, zipping up to our table. She had on a light coat so the Phoenix costume didn’t catch too much attention, and flitted right up and sat down as easily as if she’d never left.
“Jean!” everyone greeted her happily. There was a short blizzard of question-and-answer sessions about who had been doing what and how since she’d left for the Cynosure and advanced lessons.
The Spiders were finishing out some late challenges with a bunch of the others we’d come with, but they’d start coming in soon. It was mostly non-combatants who were here early.
“You’re looking distracted, Dyna. Too many knocks to the head already?” Bobby half-laughed, and then had to explain to Jean what I’d really been up to, which also explained why I was half a head taller than usual.
“No.” My eyes turned on Cyclops for a moment, and then I bent to the instructions on the holo-table, used Dealer’s authority to get into the business applications with aplomb, and instituted a general genetic scan.
It was basically a necessity for any restaurant that served multiple species, as they had to know who could handle the food and drinks they served. The database on the Colosseum was very robust, but genetic scanning was so routine it wasn’t even considered invasive in a techno society. If you didn’t want to be scanned, you could just buy a Cloak of some kind and stop it.
Everyone at the table watched as the scan swept the room, and the alien signatures and races stood out among the mutant, mutate, and normal humans here.
Well, one normal human. Corsair.
I flicked a subsection that went looking for matches, there was a flicker, and relationship matches popped up.
The Guthries were a no-brainer, naturally. The strong tie between Scott and his brother Alex was also obvious... less so the match with the man having the teenagers hanging on every word of his tale.
I didn’t blink when Quicksilver and Wanda popped up... and so did Lorna Dane. Hank did an “Oh my stars and garters!” double-take, however.
“Dammit, I thought his ears looked familiar,” I murmured, as Scott’s jaw dropped in shock.
“What, he’s my, that’s impossible!” Scott’s voice began to rise as he did, and I dragged him back down.
“Down, boy. Think it through. How long has it been?” He started to reply. “Right, he won’t recognize you. He probably thinks you’re dead. He’s made no mention of his wife, so it’s totally probable your mother is dead.
“Given his tale, he ended up in Shi’ar space. If the Shi’ar were on Earth, it probably had something to do with the Phoenix.” I gave Jean a look, and her eyes narrowed, head turning towards where the Imperial Guard were camped outside. “You probably need to go into the High Guard database, but one thing the Shi’ar are known to have is a very, very cold relationship with the Phoenix. I believe they tried to enslave it or its avatars one time in the past, and in repayment, the Phoenix regularly empowers hosts with very rebellious tendencies in their Empire, causing a great deal of havoc.”
“Is that so?” Jean’s voice was quite cool, while Scott couldn’t keep his eyes off the man at the front of the room.
“Yes. If they weren’t literally a galaxy away, we’d probably have been invaded by the Shi’ar because of the Phoenix.” I hid the gene-scan results for a moment. “Scott, go get your brother. Hank, Bobby, a moment of privacy. Why don’t you get those three all at the same table and break the news, Hank?”
“A serendipitous event in the making,” McCoy agreed, nodding at Bobby.
A minute later, as the confused Alex sat down, I raised my Voice, “Hey, Corsair, hate to interrupt your taming of the Glym’gamar Nebula, but we’ve got some business to discuss with you. Master Raza, why don’t you take up with the tale, with somewhat closer to the real number of enemies?”
The cyborg smiled thinly at my words, getting to his feet as Corsair trailed off, read the mood, and apologized to his complaining audience effusively as he rose to his feet and made his thigh-booted swashbuckler’s swaggering way over to us.
He sat down next to me with a confident grin and his goblet in hand. The booze from the cheap eatery was easy and went down that way, but it was Terran-made, and was both familiar to the human tourists on board and getting a following from some of the aliens. “Dynamo, is it? You’re getting some serious media attention for your fights out there, girl!” he complimented me. “I’ve made me some nice money wagering on you, especially against that Juggernaut fellow. Ho-ho, bringing out a force field breaker against him. Ingenious!” he grinned in satisfaction.
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“Thank you, Captain. Or rather, should I say, Major Christopher Summers, United States Air Force, missing and presumed dead?”
His personal goblet froze halfway to his mouth, and his carefree mood vanished on the instant. His dark brown eyes pinned me as he set the goblet down warily, freeing up his hands for use. “And how would you come about knowing that, girl?” he asked in a dangerously level voice, clearly ready for trouble.
“Recognized your ears from an old photo.”
The look on his face was almost comical as his jaw worked a moment, processing that rather startling observation. “And why, praytell, would you know me from a photo?” he finally asked, losing some of the danger-vibe for the sheer novelty of being recognized by his ears.
I inclined my head, and he turned to see a locket being held out to him from across the table, and the two young men there staring at him.
Very slowly, his eyes drifting between them, the family resemblance there, and, if he hadn’t had such a roguish beard and mustache, from his mirror, he reached out and took the locket, eyes moving down to stare at it in recognition.
He flipped it open, and his entire posture sagged as he stared at the picture of himself and the woman there with the two young boys. “My sweet Katherine,” he murmured, his voice breaking as he drew in a ragged breath. He clutched it tighter and closed his eyes, fighting back the tears as his memories overwhelmed him.
When he finally opened them, it was to stare at the two silent boys across the table, who were still staring at him in shock and wonder, despite themselves. “Scott? Alex?” Corsair managed to get out hesitantly, a look in his eyes of total despair somehow managing to find a light in the darkness.
“Dad!” Scott blurted out, unable to hold himself back, and dragged his little brother over as the three men came together in a big hug, complete with manly tears and squeezing and inarticulate words about years passed and thoughts all were dead.
I gave Jean a look, and she hastily flicked away some of her own tears with TK, averting her eyes and blushing at being caught out.
If there was something of a matching trio of shouts from another table nearby, where Wanda and Pietro Maximoff were looking at the green-haired young woman who also had magnetic powers, well, it was all going along the not-angsty path of revelations.
At last, he grew tired of clapping the backs of his boys, and they separated. He didn’t bother to wipe away his tears, instead summoning out a flask of something strong, pouring it into the goblet he first emptied, and then bringing out two more goblets for his boys. “To my sons!” he told them, and they all clinked and drank with gusto, the young men promptly breaking out into coughing fits at the richness of the alien wine.
A smile on his face threatening to break it, Corsair turned to Jean and I. He eyed me shrewdly, then Jean. “You’re the sharp eyes what noticed this, so who is the lovely young lady, and why is she here?” he asked directly, sensing something big.
I held up my hand before Cyclops could blurt it out. “Corsair, this is Jean Grey, the new Avatar of the Phoenix Force.”
His grin kind of cracked and fell apart as alarm warred with interest in his eyes. He turned to look back at the Shi’ar princess commiserating with Charles Xavier, then glanced in the direction of the Imperial Guard parked outside. “Well, isn’t this all kinds of convenient coincidence come to bear,” he mumbled. “Lass, I’m not sure who is in more danger, you or me!” he half-smiled, and drew a shrewd look between Scott and her. “I’ve a feeling you know my boy here?” he asked slyly.
“We’ve been students together for several years!” Scott blurted out quickly, and even I had to chuckle at that.
“Students... together with the Phoenix?” Corsair asked archly, missing nothing as Jean blushed.
“Your eldest son is the single most powerful projecting ergakinetic on the planet,” I supplied helpfully. “Alex is an absorber and redirector of energies of similar scale and potential, almost a walking nuclear bomb once he’s got enough power built up. Totally peers of the Avatar of the Phoenix.”
“Well!” His eyes were a little wide as he digested that. “My boys are super-powered hero-types?” he had to ask, and his voice dimmed slightly even as they nodded. “Well, then, I’ll tell you both that you’ve a little brother, then,” he said somberly. “His name is Gabriel, and he was born in the very throne room of the Shi’ar emperor as your mother died. It seems that there is some sort of law that anyone born in the throne room before their emperor is part of the imperial family. He was taken away and I’ve not seen him since.”
Both of the boys tensed up instantly on hearing that news. “What?” Scott blurted out, unable to stop his anger from rising.
“’tis a long and grim story, and I’ll tell it now if you’ve the time and patience to hear it.”
“He most definitely does,” I warned Scott, who calmed himself down immediately. Corsair glanced at Jean significantly.
“Mind you, some of this I learned after the fact, young lady, but the only reason the Shi’ar would be here, a million light-years from their home, is the Force you draw upon. How and why they chose my family is one of those sad twists of Fate that have no explanation or reason beyond them.
“So, let me go over that day, and something of what happened afterwards...”
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Corsair had just finished completing his tale of capture by, enslavement to, rebellion against, liberation from, and ongoing resistance to the Shi’ar when the table beeped. We all looked down at it, wondering what was going on.
I brought up the recessed genetic scan.
Guthries. Lensherrs. Summers...?
Why was there a fourth Summer bloodline popping up in the front of the restaurant?
All three of them gasped. “Is that... Gabriel? Here?” Corsair demanded, glancing at his sons. “He’d be younger than Alex by near two years...”
I got to my feet. “Corsair, I’m not a big believer in angsty moments and hiding information. Why don’t we go see? Jean, hold the table for us, if you would. Wait, the girls are on the way. Save it for them, we’ll get a new one.”
“Shouldn’t this be family business?” Corsair broke in suddenly.
“No. I’m totally intruding, yes, but none of you three are in shape to make clear-headed decisions right now, and I am.” I was also taller than he was at the moment, so I looked down at him. “Also, I have a lot more pull on this ship than you do, Captain. Allow me to make use of it.”
He forced a smile. “Why then, after you!” he agreed with a flamboyant gesture, and I led the three Summers men out of the back room.