Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Hidden in the tundra north of the Canadian Rockies, deep underground in a structure of steel and glass, a woman was giving birth. The screams echoed through the facility as doctors scurried around her, each desperately worried about the wriggling infant that was wailing its way out of her womb.
 A man stood back from the surgical table, sweat beading on his forehead. His sandy hair was swept behind his ears, and he had to keep removing his glasses to wipe the moisture from the lenses. Metallic sliding doors opened behind him with a pneumatic screech, and he was approached by another man, bald, tall, a grey beard covering the lower portion of his face. "Ah, sir, there you are," the first man said, fear and anxiety palpable in his voice. "She's, ah, in labour."
 "I can see that," replied his compatriot. "Is the child safe?"
 "From what we can tell," the first man stuttered. "But please, Mr Sutter, you have to understand that even though it's ok now doesn't mean it won't-"
 "I know," Sutter barked. "Haemophilia, arthritis, a weakened immune system. I'm familiar with the father's illnesses." He turned to look at his companion. "Listen to me closely, Henry. You are going to do everything in your power to help it overcome those issues, do I make myself clear?"
 Henry took a step back. "Sir, I understand that you're desperate, but it isn't that simple! There are ways to force out mutations, but none of them are easy, or guaranteed to work! They're as like to kill it as to empower it!"
 "I don't care, Henry," Sutter growled. The woman had ceased her screaming now. Instead, she panted, looking down at the child that a doctor was looking over critically. "That thing is worth millions, and with the correct guidance it could make us billions more. I shall repeat, do I make myself clear?"
 Henry gulped. "Yes, sir," he mumbled. The woman on the bed was reaching for her child, and the doctor reluctantly passed it to her. Sutter smiled to himself and left, and Henry hurried to the woman's side.
 "So?" He asked sharply, trying to regain some composure. "The birth was successful. Sarah, if you could please give the asset to a guard? We don't have a moment to lose."
 Sarah Kinney shrank back, clutching the baby closer to her chest. "One moment," she snapped tersely. "I'd like some time with her first."
 Henry stared at her for a moment, then placed his head in his hands and groaned. "You said bearing the subject yourself wouldn't be an issue," he said hollowly.
 "It won't," Sarah quickly assured him. "I'd just like to spend a little longer with her before… we start work."
 Henry paused. "Her?"
 "Yes. I told you, some DNA was damaged. I had to supplement it with my own." She looked down at the infant, which was still screaming bloody murder.
 "You mean you potentially compromised its entire genome?" Henry asked, aghast.
 "No," Sarah snapped. "She'll function perfectly. Just wait."
 Henry held his hands out, and Sarah reluctantly handed over the baby. "Well," he said, filled with sudden regret as his hands were coated in amniotic fluid. "I suppose that will have to do." He looked down at the weapon. "Isn't that right, X-23?"

Chapter Text

Eight years later.
Sarah sat cross legged in the glass cell, as much a prisoner as the silent girl beside her. X-23 was calm today. She was curled up beside Sarah, who was holding a copy of 'The Art of War', by Sun Tzu, which she was pretending to read to the little girl. Inside, she had hidden a few pages of paper, on which she had printed the fairy tale 'Pinnochio'. X-23 was listening, head resting on Sarah's shoulder and making happy noises along to the story. It didn't matter that she didn't know what a cricket was, and had probably never seen anything made of wood. Pinnochio was her favourite. She had enjoyed Rapunzel, and even smiled at Little Red Riding Hood, but Pinnochio was always her favourite. Sarah could tell. It didn't matter that she only heard her vocalise words once or twice a day, she could always tell. Occasionally, a guard would patrol past the cell, and Sarah would make X-23 sit up and look alert while Sarah read aloud something profound sounding from the book underneath.
 Sarah patted X-23's hair. She had, after much begging and pleading, convinced Sutter to allow her to cut it herself, and now it hung loose around her shoulders instead of being cropped close to her head, as her previous barber had insisted on cutting it. On days when most of the guards were off sick, or on Christmas, Sarah would sneak hair clips and bands into the cell, and do X-23's hair up in a bun and show her in the mirror. She liked the days when Sarah did that. Once, Sarah had managed to sneak her phone in, and X-23 had spent an afternoon wide eyed and gawking with earphones plugged in as she made her way through Queen's entire discography. Sutter had nearly found out about that one, and Sarah had had to throw her phone away to keep the transgression covered up. X-23 had once asked why she didn't try to sneak things in more, and Sarah, unable to lie and unwilling to tell the truth, had just broken down into tears and hugged her until they were both crying, and Sarah was escorted out.
 She reached the end of the story and put down the book. "It's a big day," she whispered. X-23 looked at her blankly. Sarah smiled, then lost heart and stopped smiling. "I won't lie to you, Twenty-Three... it's going to hurt."
 X-23 blinked in surprise, and cocked her head. "I don't want them to do it. But they're going to hurt you. To make you...better." She patted her hair again. "You know how you have to go to the doctor whenever you cut yourself? And it hurts when you bend your back too much?" X-23 nodded. "Well, you won't have to worry about any of that anymore." Sarah wiped a tear from her eye. "Be strong for me, ok?"
 X-23 blinked again. "Will they take you away?" She said in her tiny, frail voice.
 Sarah vehometly shook her head. "No. No, Twenty-Three, I wouldn't let them." The girl smiled, and hugged her. Sarah tried not to cry.
 Just then, there was a hard rapping at the door. "Kinney!" Sutter's angry voice bellowed. "It's time!"
 "Alright!" Sarah yelled.
 "Be strong, Twenty-Three," she whispered. "Make me proud." She stood up, and opened the cell door. An armed guard rushed in, grabbed the little girl roughly by the shoulders, and X-23 was frog marched away into the next terrible stage of her life.

Sarah watched from behind the one way glass on the wall of the sterile white operating theatre as X-23 was loaded into a horrible metallic tube that she knew Henry Callahan had designed specifically for this purpose. The girl looked pale and frightened, just like she always did when being handled by the guards. The tube was sealed around her, and X-23's terrified face became visible from the small glass window that afforded her her only view outside the metal contraption. A elderly Japanese man stood beside Sarah, a sad look in his eyes. "I had hoped to save her before now," he said sadly, watching the spectacle unfold. "Have the Hand eradicate any sign of this awful place, and get you and her to her father. But alas, I failed. The Hand will not speak to me."
 Sarah sighed glumly. "It's too much," she murmured. "She's eight. She should be playing with toys and wearing sparkly clothes with unicorns and rainbows on them." She turned to the man. Muramoto Toyoharu was X-23's martial arts instructor, and the only person besides Sarah who routinely showed the girl any kindness. He was less of a prisoner than Sarah was, but hadn't been back to Japan in four years, and hadn't seen his family in longer. He acknowledged the pointlessness of trying to teach an arthritic eight year old martial arts, and had spent more time trying to teach her Japanese than fighting. To both his and Sarah's astonishment, this had worked, and despite Sutter's best efforts to keep X-23 as mute as possible the girl had grown up bilingual. Fascinated by this development, Sarah had managed to sneak X-23 a French dictionary and guide to grammar, and by the time she was six was speaking three languages. This had been harder to hide from Sutter, who had yelled at Sarah for two hours after X-23 had called him 'un branleur' one day. Sarah had been extremely proud.
 "What exactly does the cylinder do?" Muramoto asked. "And do I want to know the answer?"
 "It filters out oxygen," Sarah said blankly. "And at the same time increases air pressure and temperature." She shrugged. "It tortures her."
 "Jaakuna yarō," Muramoto spat. "The poor girl."
 Sarah looked away as the screaming started. Loud, pained, resentful screams filled the room, occasionally mixed in with pleas for it to stop. Sarah bit her lip as the tears rolled freely down her cheeks. It's her birthday, she thought. Would a cake be too much to ask?
 The minutes she stood like that dragged by, X-23's screaming echoing over loudspeaker and pounding its way into Sarah's skull. It was shrill and tortured and empty, and she could sometimes hear her own name in the wailing, begging for her or Muramoto to save her. Sometimes she would glance at the door, but the guards all carried guns, and she had been ordered on pain of death not to interfere.
 When the screams stopped, they did so gradually. The volume faded, reducing itself to plaintive sobs. A hiss of escaping gas emanated from the cylinder, and Sarah looked up in time to see X-23 stumble out onto the floor, gasping for air and coated in sweat. Henry Callahan hurried toward the door, but paused as he caught Sarah glaring at him through tear reddened eyes. "Do you see now?" She growled. "Do you finally understand what you're doing to her? That she's just a child, and that you'll have nothing left if you carry on like this?"
 Muramoto placed a hand on Sarah's shoulder. "Sarah," he said softly. "Pick your battles."
 Henry shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, biting his lip. "You know," he said sheepishly. "She shouldn't have been able to survive that. It worked."
 Sarah's blood turned ice cold. She looked sharply up at X-23, lying gasping on the steel floor. She saw her look up and the nearest guard, whose rifle was trained on her brow. She saw something she had never seen before in X-23's deep green eyes. Something fierce.
 ' Snikt'.
 Two bone blades broke the skin of X-23's right knuckles. She moved fluidly, more fluidly than she ever had with Muramoto, and in one swift motion the claws were buried in the thigh of the guard before her. He screamed, unthinking releasing a volley of rounds into X-23's torso. She fell away, eyes wide, staring at the red splatter on her white hospital gown. Sarah screamed then, and ignoring the guards sprinted into the chamber. She rolled X-23 over and ripped open the front of the gown, eyes foggy with tears and throat clogged as she saw the bullet wounds.
  'Plink' .
 A lump of lead was expelled from X-23's stomach. Then another. And another. Sarah blinked back her tears, and watched, astonished, and the red holes in X-23's belly and chest began to close of their own accord. The bone claws retracted into her hands, and the wounds they left in her knuckles slid shut almost immediately. "Oh," Sarah breathed. "Oh, my sweet girl." She turned back to the guard, blood still pouring out of his leg. "Twenty-Three, what have you done?"

Four months later.
X-23 sat alone in her cell, meditating. Sarah watched her from outside, trying to make out her face from behind the veil of hair that she had pulled in front of it. The girl had changed since her experience in the cylinder. Her training with Muramoto had picked up the pace rapidly, and she had already mastered six of the martial arts that she had beforehand taken months to learn even the basics of, to the point at which Muramoto was unable to best her at any of them. She had become quieter too. Sarah would sometimes go into her cell only for X-23 to just shake her head, and Sarah to leave again, feeling dejected. One day when she had been in a more open mood, and the guards had been particularly lazy, she had confided in Sarah that everything was louder, smellier, and brighter now, and that it scared her. Sarah had tried to explain that this was because her senses had been heightened by her mutations, but X-23 was still too young to understand what that meant.
 Sutter had brought in a firearms instructor, an ex-military man with no sense of humour and a bad temper. He had shouted at X-23 for half an hour before handing her a pistol, with which she had demonstrated immense skill right from the word go. X-23 was already a better marksman than any of the facility's security detail. Sarah and Muramoto had never got on with the instructor, and many angry glances had been exchanged between them as X-23 had been taken to and from her training.
 But the instructor was nothing compared to Kimura. Not long after X-23's mutations had been forced to surface early, the doctor's had dragged her away, kicking and screaming, and strapped her to a surgical table. There, they had ripped open her arms and feet, and tore her claws out of her. She had lain on the table, stricken and screaming, while the surgeons and engineers carefully produced replicas made of adamantium, cutting edges sharpened to points so delicate that if they had been made of anything else they would have snapped under the slightest strain. They tore her arms and feet open again, pulled out and discarded the bone claws that had grown to replace those that had already been removed, and replaced them with the adamantium blades. The skin had closed over the top, and when X-23 unsheathed her claws in anger, it was adamantium that had broken the skin.
 X-23's handlers quickly realised how much of a mistake this had been when they discovered that strikes that ordinarily wouldn't have pierced their body armour were suddenly causing fatal bleeding, and the facility had scrambled to find a solution. They found it in Kimura Al-Jamil, an ex-SHIELD agent on trial for murder. They had kidnapped her from her cell and explained what they needed to do to her, and what they needed her to do. She had accepted, and been given a fake name and identity. The facility had somehow discovered a method of making a person's skin totally impenetrable, and soon Kimura had replaced all of X-23's handlers. All, that is, except for Sarah, who was still required to keep X-23 calm.
 Kimura was a nightmare. She was a bully, and beat X-23 almost constantly, never needing to fear reprimandation due to X-23's healing factor. She had threatened Sarah and Muramoto on numerous occasions, and once knocked out several of X-23's teeth in full view of both of them "by way of punishing the little brat". Sarah had appealed to Sutter eight times now to have Kimura removed from the program, and been met with stony silence each time.
 Sarah tapped the glass. X-23 glanced up at her, and nodded for her to come in. Relieved, Sarah pushed inside and sat down on the floor opposite her. "Can I touch you?" She whispered. X-23 nodded. Sarah pulled a plastic comb from her pocket, and gently started to run it through X-23's hair. It could get in such a mess during her sessions with Muramoto. X-23 smiled faintly. Sarah smiled back. "How are you feeling?"
 X-23 shrugged. Sarah nodded. "I see. Do you want me to read to you?" X-23 nodded vigorously. "Alright," Sarah laughed. She reached into her bag and retrieved the book, and read to the girl, who closed her eyes, occasionally smiling or frowning as the story progressed. Sutter was no longer interested in the content of what Sarah read her, only that they met their quota of contact time each week. Now that X-23 was almost ready for use in combat operations, he was accelerating the timeline at which they were working. Sarah had requested that he leave it be, but had as usual been ignored.
 Sarah had not been reading long when a loud rapping at the glass of the cell caught her attention. She glanced up, annoyed, to see Henry Callahan squinting through the window. "Hang on," she said the X-23, and stood up to face him, arms folded. "Yes, Callahan?"
 "What are you reading?" He asked.
 She showed him the book that she had stashed a few chapters of Harry Potter into. A biography of Julius Caesar. "I'm teaching her about military strategy. Why?"
 "It didn't sound like military strategy," Callahan retorted, more sharply than Sarah thought was strictly necessary.
 "What else would it be?" Sarah asked, exasperated. Eight years of being cooped up underground with this man had worn on her a long time ago. "And why is it any of your business? You're not a handler. Now shoo. She's getting restless." This much was true, X-23 was rocking back and forth, glaring at Callahan through the glass. He gulped, and hurried on his way.
 "I don't like him," the child said sullenly. It was a sentiment she had expressed many times, and one that Sarah wholeheartedly agreed with.
 "Neither do I," she sighed, sitting back down and going back to the story.
 "Sarah?"
 She looked up, surprised. X-23 didn't call people by name much. "Yes, Twenty-Three?"
 "Sometimes in the books there are people who have pets, and they keep them in cages and play with them." Sarah felt her heart sink. She had known that this was inevitable. "Am I your pet?"
 "No." Sarah closed the book. She leaned closer to her. "Listen to me, Twenty-Three. You are no one's pet. You are no one's slave. Ok? You don't have to do what they tell you. You're a real person, a real girl. You're... you're my daughter." She pulled her in and hugged her. X-23 flailed for a moment, but leaned into the embrace and returned the hug. "And I love you. And I promise that I'll find a way to get you out of here, alright?"
 X-23 nodded against her shoulder and said, in the tiniest voice, "Thank you".
 Sarah pulled away from her and adjusted the bun of her hair. She adjusted her child's black hair, allowing it to cascade down her back, and looked deep into those dark eyes. That was a feature that came from her. X-23 looked overwhelmingly like her father, but she had Sarah's eyes. "Remember. They can't control you if you don't want them to."

"Afternoon, Kinney."
 Sarah closed her eyes and pursed her lips. She put down the kettle and mug, and turned to face the owner of the voice. In the kitchen door stood Kimura, arms crossed, an arrogant grin plastered across her face. "Kimura," she said, trying not to let her dispassion for the woman show too plainly. "Would you like some coffee?"
 Kimura made her way into the room, languidly taking in the kitchen's interior as she did. Sarah watched her warily. "You know, Kinney," she continued. "I always did wonder about you." She continued stalking the room, occasionally glancing at Sarah as she spoke. "Your role here makes no sense. You clearly despise everybody here. You hate what has happened to your little pet. And yet...you volunteered to be X-23's surrogate. Why would a sane individual ever do such a ridiculous thing?"
 Sarah sipped at her coffee, glared at Kimura, and headed for the door, only to have her escape blocked. Kimura raised an eyebrow, smirk still plastered across her face. If it weren't for the fact that she could probably kill her from where she stood in under a second, Sarah would probably have slapped her, but thought better of it. "I take it you hadn't heard of me before coming here, then?" She asked cooly.
 "No." Kimura frowned. "Why? Are you famous?"
 "In certain circles," Sarah affirmed. "I was on the front cover of Time Magazine once." Kimura cocked her head, unable to hide her interest. "I'm a scientist, or at least I was. A geneticist. I predicted the existence of the X-gene two years before Department K released evidence of its existence to the civilian population, and five years before the first confirmed reports of mutants."
 Kimura leaned back, threatening posture gone. "How the hell did you end up here?" She asked. "Sounds like you had a nice cushy career all lined up for you."
 Sarah laughed hollowly. "I was contacted," she continued. "Offered exactly that. A nice cushy job, and in my home country. I arrived, and learned all about this place." She gestured randomly. "I learned about the previous Weapon X models. That the Weapon X program was having difficulty with their newer model. I…" She broke off and rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I wanted to know more. About the project. So I stayed, and when I had fixed the genetic code of the new clone they fired me on the spot. So I suggested that I be the surrogate and a handler, and they agreed to that." She took another sip of coffee. "And while I was pregnant, of course, I learned exactly what they were going to do with her."
 Kimura laughed. "What, did you think they were going to be making a superhero?" She cackled.
 "Yes. The Weapon X program is a derivation of the Weapon Plus program. The one that made Captain America." She shook her head. "By that point, it was too late. X-23 was a success." She paused, and took a large gulp of coffee while Kimura prepared to gloat. "I did find out that her father was still alive, though."
 As Kimura's face turned from triumphant, to confused, to suddenly fearful, Sarah pushed past her and back towards X-23's cell. She whirled. "She killed Muramoto!" She shouted. Sarah froze. She turned around herself.
 "What did you say?"
 "They tested something new this morning. A chemical or something, I don't know. Makes her mad enough to kill anyone." She burst out laughing again, seeing Sarah's horrified face. "Oh, yeah. Your precious little pet is a murderer."

Sarah ran through the facility, footsteps echoing loudly through the dingy metal corridors. Her ears were ringing. She could taste bile. Kimura was messing with her. She had to be. There was no way that X-23 could have done that. She still had things to learn from Muramoto. Sutter wouldn't do this, not now. He was still an asset to them.
 She screeched to a halt in the dojo, and her eyes widened in total shock. X-23 knelt in the middle of the floor, adamantium claws unsheathed, in a growing pool of blood. Before her lay Muramoto, flat on his back, blood leaking from an open wound in his side and quite dead.
 "X-23?" Sarah called. The girl looked up at her, eyes wild and afraid. "Oh, my god… come here Twenty-Three."
 X-23 ran to her, panting ragged breaths. Sarah threw her arms around her, feeling her erratic heartbeat. "I'm sorry," X-23 gasped. "I was so angry-"
 "I know," Sarah said soothingly. "I know. We're going to leave now. I'm taking you back to your cell, ok? Try to stay calm for me. It's alright, Twenty-Three. It's ok."
 X-23 shook her head, still buried in Sarah's shoulder. "They made me do it anyway," she whined. "They made me do it anyway. They made me do it anyway."
 "Hush." Sarah stood up, taking her by the hand and pulling her towards the cell. "Don't worry about that. It's alright, Twenty-Three. It's alright. We'll be ok, I promise. We'll be ok."

One year later.
Arthur Morrison, born in Austin Texas, had reached his peak. He was, despite all odds, favoured in the running for the President of the United States of America. People were flying his merchandise outside their windows, and the country was abuzz with excitement over the upcoming election. Today, a crowd had gathered in Washington DC to listen as Arthur read aloud a prepared speech, swelled on pride and the nation's approval. The sun shone brightly, a light breeze blew, and birds were singing in the trees. A few banners amidst the throng voiced dissent, but they were easily ignored amongst the droves of supporters.
 A few children were gathered towards the end of the prepared stage, most of whom were suffering from some life threatening illness or another. Arthur's PR team had thought it a good idea to show Arthur speaking to them for a few seconds to impress the crowds, and as he walked up onto stage, beaming and waving to the spectators, Arthur bent down and exchanged a few words with each of them. The closest to the stage, a girl wearing thick glasses and sporting black hair tied in pigtails, looked up at him plaintively. A little awkwardly, he patted her head. "How are you lass?" He asked, not knowing exactly what to say. Behind the glasses, X-23 blinked, and buried her claws in Arthur's chest.
 Nobody reacted until the girl was off the scene. People searched for her to no avail, important people in important looking suits made important sounding speeches about terrorism, and Captain America filed a document in his desk under the tab 'Weapon X'.

Sarah was at her wits' end. She had kicked and screamed through every stage of the preparation process, she had tried to convince X-23 to run, and she had done her best to sabotage communications to and from the facility. It had done little practical good, but helped her conscience.
 Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of New York crime, had found Sutter's delicately encrypted advertisement. He had been intrigued by its content, and for a large sum of money purchased the facility's services. Within the week, Arthur Morrison was dead, and Sutter's bank account was significantly fatter.
 Sarah and X-23 were alone in the cell. Since Muramoto's death, X-23 was the only person Sarah could bear to be around. Today, the girl was utterly silent, rocking slightly and staring into the middle distance. They hadn't even bothered to remove the bomb collar when she had returned from the assassination, and the LED on its side winked mockingly at Sarah, who staunchly ignored it.
 Sarah hadn't brought a book, or any hair supplies, or anything else today. She was just sitting with X-23, arms folded, murder in her eyes. X-23 continued to rock. Her hair was still in pigtails. Wordlessly, Sarah reached over and started to undo them. X-23 flinched initially at the contact, but gave no further resistance.
 "Sorry," she muttered.
 Sarah sighed. "It's ok," she said wearily. "I'm not mad. This wasn't your choice."
 "What if they make me do it again?"
 Sarah shrugged. "We'll see about that when it happens, Twenty-Three."

In the next five years, X-23 killed ninety-six people. Some, like Morrison, were politicians. Some were mobsters. A sparing few, for whom an extortionate sum was always demanded, were superheroes. The facility was well concealed enough that none of the police departments or intelligence agencies searching high and low for the source of the killings were able to locate it.
 By the time of X-23's thirteenth birthday, she was the source of a great deal of news coverage, paranoia, and contempt. SHIELD issued a statement, reassuring the public that they were doing everything in their power to locate the killer, even though all their leads had gone cold. Security at public events was tripled.
 Sutter and Henry Callahan were soon rolling in money. Sarah had politely declined the blood money, and her share had gone to Kimura.

Sarah was sitting at her desk, numbly filling out some paperwork. She was drained, and had heavy bags under her eyes. Her pen ran out of ink, and she stated at it blankly for a few seconds before picking up a second one. Her contact time with X-23 had been reduced significantly, and the sessions she now had with her were quieter and more filled with tears. It was very clear that X-23 didn't want to be doing what she was made to. She had never said as much, but she would curl up in a little ball and cry once every assignment was up.
 Sarah finished her paperwork and sat back in her chair, too tired to do anything else. She was drained. She had tried to help X-23, and for her efforts she had been beaten back and made totally alone.
 A knock on her door. "Come in," she called, eyes not moving. Sutter strode in, immaculate in his new suit, beaming ear to ear.
 "Kinney," he drawled. 
 "Sutter," she growled.
 He took the seat opposite her. "Listen, Sarah," he said, hands folded in his lap. "You've been an extremely useful asset throughout this entire project, and we're all very grateful for your assistance in all matters you've attended to." He sighed deeply. “However, Sarah, with the current progression of this project, and our plans for the near future, we believe that your input is no longer required.”
 Sarah sat back, stunned. “I’m sorry?” She asked, voice low.
 “We don’t need you anymore, Sarah. You are being made redundant.”
 “But-” Sarah blinked slowly. “Don’t you need my help? To keep X-23 happy and contained?”
 Sutter smiled without humour. “X-23 is also no longer required. We’re making more clones. X-24 through X-35, and we’ve found others willing to act as surrogates and handlers, with fewer rebellious tendencies than you have exhibited. X-23 is to be terminated via carbonite bullet a week tomorrow.” He gave her the same empty smile. “I’m deeply sorry about all this.”
 He waited for Sarah to make a response, and when she didn’t simply shrugged and left. Sarah stared at the door for several seconds. Then, quietly and passionately, she started to cry.
 It was at this point that Sarah decided that she had really had enough. She had given thirteen years of her life to care for X-23, and they were just throwing both of them away like so much garbage.
 So, rage filling her, Sarah hatched her plan. The Weapon X facility contained a large quantity of explosives, and Sarah had discovered over the thirteen years that they were not kept track of as well as Sutter might like. She had also found that a number of the guards were themselves gamma level mutants, and Sarah for a fact knew that all mutants shared a strong allergy to peanuts. Not to mention that they all drank a sizable quantity of coffee each day, and it would be absolutely no issue for Sarah to sneak some peanut oil into their mugs.
 All this discovered and accounted for, Sarah initiated her plans.

X-23 looked up as Sarah walked into her cell. She managed a weak smile, and Sarah gave her one back. She was bored. Come to think of it, she was always bored, but now more than ever. It had been many weeks since she had been made to do any missions or exercises, and her restlessness was growing. Sarah checked behind her shoulder for something, then winked at X-23. She crouched, and spent several seconds whispering into her ear. X-23’s eyes widened. She gasped. Finally, she nodded.
 Leaving the cell, Sarah was met with Callahan. Noticing her, he grinned and stepped forward. “One last chat with your little pet, huh?” He gloated. “God, I’m glad I’m not you.”
 “Shut up,” Sarah growled, trying to push past him.
 To her horror, Callahan blocked her way, still grinning. “Too squeamish to watch them do it, huh?”
 Sarah glared at him. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to be there. To pass moral judgement on every piece of shit in this bunker, if nothing else.”
 “Aw,” Callahan smirked. He reached up and fondled a lock of her hair, only to have her pull away from him in disgust.
 “You’re revolting,” she spat, and shoved him aside as she stormed to the exit. Callahan laughed.
 “We’ll see who gets the last laugh, Kinney!” He cackled. “We’ll see!”
 Sarah gritted her teeth and carried on. She checked her watch, heart already beginning to pound. She checked her pockets and made sure that everything was where it was supposed to be. She took the elevator back to the surface, something she had been doing with reduced frequency of late, for what she hoped would be the final time.

Three hours later.
Someone tapped on the glass of the cell. X-23 looked up blankly to see Callahan looking in. She bared her teeth at him. Of all of them, he was her least favourite. Some of them simply beat her, but it was Callahan who stabbed her and ripped her open and experimented on her and laughed and laughed as he did it and called her freak all the while. She balled a fist at her side.
 Outside, Callahan had lost interest and was talking to someone who she couldn’t see. She sniffed the air, and smelled one of the guards. All the mutant ones, the really dangerous ones, were absent today. That was good. She didn’t want this to be difficult, either her or Sarah.
 The latch to the door was undone. A guard walked in, carrying a rifle, accompanied by Callahan. “X-23,” he said, voice empty and sickly sweet. “We need to perform a checkup on you. Could you come with us, please?” X-23 glared at him and nodded. “Wonderful. This way.”
 He turned his back. X-23 got up. The guard beckoned. X-23 unsheathed her claws. The guard’s eyes widened. He raised his rifle. X-23 shot forward, and buried her claws in his chest. He gurgled and dropped down. Callahan whirled. X-23 moved again, and slashed his hamstrings. He dropped onto the floor face first, smashing his nose. X-23 checked the corridor, and finding no one present crouched down by Callahan, observing him. He looked up at her, fear plain on his face. “Twenty-Three?” He stammered. “Please, I was only-”
 X-23 retracted her claws and punched him squarely on the already ruined nose. He sobbed in agony, and X-23 felt not a shred of pity.
 She stood up and kicked him in the belly. He exhaled sharply, and she kicked him again, breaking a rib. She kicked and kicked and kicked, until he was crying and begging. “You’re a freak,” she said with spite, spitting on him. She unsheathed her foot claw, and placed it on his temple.
 “Please,” he begged.
 “No.” She pushed down, and he didn’t beg anymore.
 She bent down and took his watch from his wrist, strapping it onto her own, and took off running. She encountered another guard, who managed to shout a word of surprise before she silenced him with a claw through his gullet. She checked the watch. Sarah had given her fifteen minutes after they came into her cell until the explosives went off, which she had already used four of. Ideally, she be out five before the detonation. Fortunately, Sutter’s office was on the way out.
 For the first time in her life, she was filled with a sense of elation. When Sarah, her mother had promised to get her away from here, she hadn’t believed it, but now here she was, about to break free, about to-
 An alarm sounded. The lights went out. Doors began slamming all around her. She whirled, eyes wide. Someone must have found the corpses. She started running again, finding that the door at the end of the corridor was deadlocked shut. She unsheathed her claws and cut her way through it, but she was wasting too much time already. She ran past several guards, killing each as she came to them, panting as she was overwhelmed by terror and adrenaline. She rounded a corridor and saw the elevator, standing open. She ran, slamming into its back wall, gasping for breath. She looked around, and jammed the button that her mother had told her to with her thumb.
 As the doors closed, she heard heavy footfalls. “Wait!” A voice boomed. She looked up in surprise, and Sutter burst into the elevator, entirely out of breath. He looked over at her, and his face turned to horror. She cocked her head, and killed him as painfully as she knew how.
 The elevator rolled on upward, and X-23 started to smile. She checked the watch, and her eyes widened. Panicked, she found a foothold on one of the walls, and cut a hole in the roof of the elevator large enough to crawl through. She pulled herself out and steadied herself on the rising roof. She waited, heart pounding, and when she heard the detonation behind her she launched herself upwards, catching the very bottom of the elevator door. She hauled herself up, gasping at the fresh air. In the snow before her was Sarah, who was practically weeping with relief.
 The blast reached X-23, and she was violently flung from the shaft, landing at Sarah’s feet. The pain was exquisite, but one thing shot through it. A scent. One she had smelled many times before. It was on Sarah, and panic and rage overcame her, and she unsheathed her claws, and swung at Sarah, teeth bared, snarling, and a strong hand grabbed her wrist and pushed her back down.
 She writhed for a few seconds, gnashing her teeth, howling and screaming. She roared, trying to break free, but the grip was strong. She could hear Sarah screaming, and she focused on those screams and pulled herself out of the rage.
 She looked up, to see the old army man who had taught her to shoot. She blinked. “I’m going to kill you,” she told him calmly.
 He laughed, and a twinkle she hadn’t seen before was in his eye. “I wouldn’t recommend that,” he chuckled. “My name is Shatterstar. I work with your father.”
 X-23 froze. “My dad?”
“Yes. His name is Logan, and he’s very much looking forward to meeting you.” He pulled her to her feet. “I have a jeep. We need to move, quickly.” He turned to Sarah, who was writhing in the snow, which was red with her blood. He bent down and pulled her up too, and X-23 gasped to see two deep gashes across her face.
 “Mom…” she whispered. “I’m so-”
 Sarah looked up at her, and seemed to calm down. “Laura,” she said, voice brimming with happiness. “We’re alive.”
 X-23 frowned. “Who is Laura?”
 Sarah smiled. “You are, Laura. That’s your name.”
 Laura thought about this for a moment, and nodded. “Laura,” she said. “I am Laura.” A bullet tore past her.
 “Oh, shit,” Shatterstar muttered. “We have to go.” He picked up Sarah, who yelled in surprise, and took off running, Laura following. For the first time, she took in her surroundings. All around her was a thick blanket of snow, and in the direction they ran stood a forest of pine trees, blowing in the breeze. A road cut through the forest, at the end of which stood a jeep.
 Shatterstar reached the jeep and bundled into the driver’s seat, Sarah taking the passenger seat. Laura climbed into the back, and the jeep lurched forward. Behind them were the sounds of pursuit. Guns fired, dogs barked, and with a lurch Laura recognised Kimura’s voice shouting orders.
 “Who are you?” Sarah asked, addressing Shatterstar.
 “A mutant,” he replied. “I work with Logan.”
 “But how did you know what was going on here?”
 Shatterstar sucked in air through his teeth. “That is a very long story, and one that I don’t think I quite have the authority to tell. Besides-” He was cut off as a bullet tore through his head. Sarah screamed, and Laura jumped in shock. The jeep skidded to a halt and almost toppled over. The sounds of chase drew closer.
 “No…” Sarah moaned, burying her head in her hands. “Not after all this…”
 Laura turned around and looked in fear out the rear window. She saw other jeeps nearing, heard Kimura laughing, and then…
 Something dropped from the sky. They were a person, so far as she could tell, and made entirely from metal, wearing a padded blue and yellow outfit. They were clearly a man, and utterly huge. Laura blinked in surprise. The other jeeps screeched to a halt. “Now,” said the man. His accent was Russian, and he did not sound pleased. “You’re probably wondering what exactly is going on here.” A round of gunfire echoed out, and Laura watched, wide eyed, as it sparked off the man’s head. “Well, looks like you’ll never find out.”
 He strode forward at pace, quickly catching up to the nearest jeep. Laura’s eyes widened as he effortlessly picked it up and hurled it at another, before barrelling through the rest, smashing and tearing, quite unhindered by the rain of gunfire that peppered him.
 Soon, the jeeps were in full retreat, Kimura shouting orders in a noticeably higher tone than before. The man dusted off his hands with an audible clanging sound, and strolled back to where Laura and Sarah hid in their own jeep. As he did, his skin seemed to shimmer as he morphed from metal to flesh and bone. He had close shaven brown hair, bright blue eyes, and kindly features. He peered in, and was visibly saddened by the sight of Shatterstar’s dead body.
 He looked up and smiled at Sarah and Laura. “He was a good man,” he said sadly. “A shame that that had to happen.”
 “Who are you?” Sarah asked, voice quavering.
 “I’m sorry, that was very rude of me," the man spluttered. "Where are my manners? My name is Piotr Rasputin, or Colossus if that’s a bit of a mouthful.” He opened the doors, and Laura and Sarah stepped out, watching the receding jeeps with fear. “I work for an organisation called the X-Men. You won’t have heard of us.”
 He clapped his hands, and a metal box descended from the sky, attached to the end of a length of steel cable. It touched down, revealing itself to be about the same size as the elevator that Laura had just escaped from. It’s doors swung open, and Piotr gestured. “Please. The boss is eager to meet both of you.” He examined Sarah’s wounds. “And we will also need to look at those.” Laura wearily stepped into the second elevator, and soon found it rising. All three were silent for the ride up, until the box slotted into the hull of an aircraft that Laura didn’t remember seeing from the ground, and opening out into the jet’s interior, where they were greeted by a girl, only the same age as Laura herself, with dark brown hair and eyes, and somewhat angular features. Further towards the front of the plane another woman stood up, also with brown hair, and herself probably a little older than Sarah. “That’s the boss,” Piotr whispered.
 The girl stuck her hand out. “Hi,” she said brightly. “I’m Kitty. Are you Laura?”
 Laura was taken aback, but nodded and stared at the hand. “Oh,” said Sarah. “Laura, you’re meant to shake it. And how do you-”
“I believe that I can answer that, Doctor Kinney,” called the other woman. She was Scottish, Sarah noted. She strode forward. “Kitty, Laura, why don’t you two get to know each other a bit? Piotr, start piloting the plane back to Muir Island. I’ll speak to Doctor Kinney. I’m sure she has a lot of questions.”
 Sarah watched warily as Piotr walked forward to the controls and Kitty led Laura to a small table, where she started trying to get to know her to very little avail. The woman approached Sarah, who shrunk back from her a little. “You’ll have to understand that I’m not much for trusting people these days,” she said cautiously.
 The woman laughed. “Me neither. Come with me, there’s a back room where we can chat.”
 She led Sarah to a small but comfortable room, occupied by a few chairs and a circular table. Sarah sat down, still unsure of what to say or do, and the woman took the seat opposite her. “Well,” she said. “First of all, my name is Moira X.”
 “X?” Sarah asked quizzically.
 “Just X.” She grimaced. "Look, everything must seem very confusing. Today has been wearing on you. You should rest."
 Sarah shook her head. "No. I want answers. How do you know everything already? When we were leaving? Laura's name? How did you implant Shatterstar in the program?"
 Moira sat back, pursing her lips. "Ok. Well, it's a long story, but we have a long flight."

Chapter Text

Long ago, in a small village in the Scottish Highlands, a little girl was born. Her name was Moira, and she was the apple of her parents' eyes. She grew up in that country as most girls did, with laughter and cheer and plenty of friends. She played in the brooks and tarns, and knew all the names of the flowers and tors that surrounded her. One day, when she was twelve, Moira grew gravely sick, and her parents and the doctor feared terribly for her. However, to their relief and perplexment, she woke up the next day as well as she had ever been, and was immediately back to her life.
 Moira graduated school at the top of her class, and married her boyfriend. Her teachers said it was a shame that such a bright girl wouldn't go to university, but Moira didn't care, and soon she and her husband had three beautiful children all of their own, who themselves ran and played and laughed on their little farm. As Moira grew older, her own children eventually left home, to be married or in one case take on an apprenticeship in London. They all came to visit very often, and it wasn't long before Moira's seven grandchildren were playing with the toys that her own children had once forgotten.
 Moira was growing old by this time, and she and her husband decided to take a holiday to America, to see a little of the world before they no longer had the will or the means. Not long after they returned from their trip, Moira complained of an astute pain in her gut, and a much younger doctor was sad to inform her that she had a tumor growing in her intestines. Moira died not much later, surrounded by her family and friends, happy at a life well lived, at the age of eighty-six.
 At the instant that her brain activity ceased, the universe hiccuped, and slipped back roughly eighty-six years and nine months.
 In her second life, Moira was conceived in her mother's womb remembering in exact detail every moment of her first life. The foetus was confused, astonished, and most of all scared, and spent the next nine months trying desperately to work out exactly what was happening to her. She was born, exactly as she had been before, perfectly healthy and without issue, and screaming in confusion as much as in a need for air.
 She decided not to let on to anyone what had happened, afraid of the village's overzealous preacher, and instead set her mind to working things out for herself. Her parents quickly began to notice that she was different. She walked, talked, and read much earlier than any of her peers, as of course these were all things that Moira already knew how to do. She was called a genius and a prodigy, and found herself being pushed towards the sciences. She did not complain about this, as to her this seemed the best way to figure out her situation. She met her husband from her first life, but in knowing every flaw, every vice, and every imperfection that he held and would always hold, she paid him no mind, bending every effort towards a place at Oxford University.
 To her relief, her efforts bore fruit, and on her second graduation from school Moira’s teachers and parents were practically weeping tears of joy over her place at the esteemed university. Moira studied physics, as much as she could, trying to find any possible answer to the conundrum of her continued existence. To her dismay, in none of her studies did she find the answers she sought, despite the multiple PhDs that she acquired over the course of her studies.
 Disheartened, Moira resigned herself to a life of teaching, trying desperately to produce a life worth living from the existence of perpetual study that she had built for herself. She entered into a hasty and toxic marriage, exited it equally hastily, and turned to drink to slake the existential melancholy that she found herself wallowing in.
 Then, one day after her teaching was done, she returned to her apartment and switched on her television. She was immediately gripped by the content of the news program that came on, as it showed the face of a man she vaguely remembered seeing on campus from her days as a student. A man named Charles Xavier. He revealed to the world that he was a mutant, an individual who had through random genetic mutation gained certain supernatural abilities. Moira, entranced and excited by an occurrence that in her first life had gone almost entirely unnoticed, booked a one way ticket on the next plane to Philadelphia, which went down over the Atlantic with no survivors.
 In her third life, Moira took a similar approach to things, not to mention a sigh of relief that she was born again. Already knowing everything there was to know about physics, she studied biology at Oxford, the course that she knew Xavier had taken. She met him, and they quickly became close friends. She pressed him on the subject of potential for mutations such as those which they both harboured, and he did confide to her that he had suspicions of something similar. To her disappointment, he never read her mind to observe what she already knew about the subject, and she quickly exited his orbit after observing what she believed to be his thinly veiled god complex.
 Instead of following Xavier, Moira left for a laboratory in Norway, where she put forward her theories of mutation to the scientists already working there. They were sceptical, but Moira more than met the lab’s requirements for hire, and her ideas were published in a section of their journal. Interest picked up when Charles Xavier and Sarah Kinney published their own theories, despite accusations from Xavier that Moira had plagiarised his ideas. Moira exchanged a series of letters with Kinney, whose theories went above and beyond anything that she or Xavier had speculated over in their university years. Two years later, when SHIELD’s Department K released evidence of mutant existence to the public, they were overjoyed, despite Xavier receiving most of the credit due to coming out as a mutant almost as soon as they did so. When reports of other mutants filtered in from the public, Xavier was yet further lauded with praise, although Moira and Sarah were well congratulated among their own peers. They gradually stopped mailing each other, and eventually Moira heard that Sarah had become a recluse, working on a project that she refused to share details of. Moira was saddened, but got back to her own work with her friends.
 Experimentation on her own tissue samples was enough to confirm that she was herself a mutant, and she commenced work on a way to potentially rid a person of mutation, seeing the startling level of prejudice that humans expressed to mutants almost as soon as knowledge of mutation became widespread. This didn’t aid her standing amongst other mutants, but as far as she saw it, this was for their own good. Or so she thought.

Moira groggily opened her eyes. She could hear a crackling, as of fire, and flickering shadows danced over the wall of the lab. She was bound by thick ropes, and she lay in a puddle of her own blood and broken glass. She looked up, to see a woman peering down at her. She blinked. They were clad entirely in black and wore a golden face mask, showing an amused expression. Behind the mask, lips moved. “You’re awake,” she said.
 “Who the fuck are you?” Moira hissed, wriggling and trying to break free of her ties.
 “Don’t you recognise me, dear?” The woman asked.
 Recollection dawned on Moira. She had seen this woman on the TV once. She was a mutant and a terrorist, going by the alias of Destiny. “You’re that mutant supremacist,” she said through a mouthful of blood. She spat it out. “I figured one of your lot would find me at some point.”
 Destiny stared at her through that unshifting mask. “And you were right.” She bent down, examining Moira more closely. “Do you know what my mutant power is, Moira?”
 “Predicting the future,” Moira replied. It was a guess, but clearly a good one, as Destiny nodded.
 “Very good. Do you know something else strange, Moira?”
 “I know lots of very strange things,” she said, trying to shrug. The bonds restrained her.
 “I’m sure. I can’t see you, Moira.” Moira blinked in surprise. “You are entirely invisible to me. I can see the effects that you have, they burn themselves into my irises like the sun. But in their center is a person shaped hole. That’s you, Moira.”
 Moira almost laughed. “What did you do with Johan?” She asked with venom.
 “Your lab assistant? He’s dead. We didn’t find him as interesting as we are very much finding you.” She fumbled at Moira’s face a little before grabbing onto her chin and pulling them eye to eye. “What are you, Moira?”
 “A mutant.” There didn’t seem to be any point in lying at this point. “And my mutant power, Destiny, is changing the course of history.”
 Destiny cocked her head. “How?”
 “This is my third life. I’m born in the same place, at the same time, to the same people, every time.” She grinned. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
 Destiny stood up, dropping Moira back to the floor. “Very interesting,” she murmured. “But not true.” She turned her back to Moira, and Moira for the first time saw the crowd of people who Destiny now faced. “If you continue along this path, you will always run into me. We will always come for you and this cure of yours, and we will always kill you for it. You will run headlong into our arms, and you will die. And if we don’t get you, the humans will.” She turned back to Moira. “Besides, one wrong step during your childhood, one scrape too many, and you may die before your mutation ever manifests. And you will be dead for good.” She gestured with her head. “Pyro, kill her. Slowly.”
 A man stepped forward from the crowd. Flames licked from his hands, and when he stretched them out they engulfed Moira, who screamed in pain and horror and terror.

In her fourth life, Moira decided to give Charles Xavier another try. This time studying anthropology, she approached him at Oxford and quickly entered his good graces. This time seeing past the flaws and failings, and gently guiding him away from them, she eventually allowed him to read her mind, showing him her three previous lives and the things she already understood, and it radicalised him. He came to love her, and she him, and stuck by his side for the foundation of the X-Men, through persecution, through good and ill. She helped him to spread his message of peace and coexistence, which he now clung to almost religiously, she helped the X-Men grow to the greatest superhero group on Earth, and was convinced for a time that she had beaten Destiny’s warning. She stood upon a grateful world, in which humans and mutants for the most part lived in peace.
 It was then that the sentinels emerged. They were human made machines, robots with the sole purpose of eradicating mutants wherever they appeared. Moira died in a rain of fire as the sentinels wiped out Charles’s school, desperately trying to shield him with her body.
 In her fifth life, Moira decided to arm herself. As a child, she wrote a letter to Doctor Strange, explaining her situation and desire to meet with and learn from him. He soon arrived in her village, and Moira’s parents were delighted that the strange American man had realised such potential in their daughter. She went to his Sanctum Sanctorum in New York, where she learned every secret of the arcane that she could find hidden in the Sanctum’s recesses. When Charles Xavier visited one day, she quietly ignored him, and continued studying. Strange learned to work around her, understanding that Moira intended to spend every possible moment of this life learning magic, and she was an exceptionally fast learner.
 When Bolivar Trask revealed his sentinels, much earlier than he had in her fourth life, the public was astonished when they immediately sought out the Sanctum Sanctorum, tore Moira out of it, and burned her alive.
 In her sixth life, Moira had a holiday. She lived a comfortable life as a professor of psychology and philosophy at Oxford. She married a man named Joseph MacTaggart, who she loved very much, and for the first time since her second death missed the time that she had been a simple farmer’s wife, just a little. When the sentinels came, she used magic to make Joseph forget her, and went out to meet her death with open arms.
 Moira spent the entirety of her seventh life hunting the Trask bloodline. One by one, each member of Bolivar Trask’s family died in bizarre and mysterious circumstances. This received a great deal of media coverage, as the Trasks were an affluent breed, but the searching of secret services and police departments turned up nothing. Doctor Strange did find Moira, however, and after a duel of magic she defeated him and sent him home to his Sanctum, before retreating into the wilderness, mutants finally safe.
 The sentinels emerged anyway. She found and fought them, in an AI controlled factory beneath the French Alps. She realised then that to try and stop the AI was pointless. It was something more than a computer program, and more like a meme that took root in anything that would receive it, be it Bolivar Trask’s mind or an abandoned factory complex. Moira died frustrated and angry, and with a hunger for vengeance.
 In her eighth life, Moira took an entirely different approach. She went to Oxford, studying chemistry, and ignoring Charles Xavier. She spent much of her life hidden away with Joseph, and when the time was right left him, with an empty promise to return, and went to the mutant super-terrorist Magneto, visiting him where he sat sequestered in Asteroid M, his hidden satellite, and revealed what she knew to him. He listened quietly, and it radicalised him.
 Magneto gathered a great army of mutants to him, some who would otherwise have become X-Men, and attempted, for the first time in any of Moira’s lives, a total domination of humanity. Armies fell, nations bent the knee, mutants were set free. Moira again dared to believe that it could have worked. As she wove spells and magic to keep humanity chained, she heard songs of resistance and freedom, and Moira and Magneto turned to see the Avengers. They fought them for decades, but were ultimately overcome. Tony Stark executed Moira on public television, and she died with another option in her mind.
In her ninth life, Moira went to Apocalypse, the mutant immortal who had walked the Earth since the fall of Babel, and the champion of the survival of the fittest. They gathered a greater army than even Magneto had managed, and began the systematic extermination of humanity. Humanity fought back, and the sentinels were released earlier than ever before. The machines adapted and learned quickly, soon attaining sentience and approaching technological singularity, and Moira began to despair as the mutants were beaten back further and further. The sentinels subjugated humans, who began ascending to machinehood themselves. Soon, the destruction of mutants was only a secondary objective to the machines, as they ever approached their final ascent to singularity.

Moira stood upon the rubble of the mutant capitol Tyr, the sky red above her. Tears streamed down her face. A corpse lay at her feet, a nameless mutant who had died in fire and ash. Their skin had been burned away completely, and their skull showed through underneath. Behind her, Apocalypse let out a furious bellow, slamming his hands together. “Is there no way for us to live?” He roared. “Must we die like this forever?”
 Moira did not respond. She stared down at the mutant’s corpse, rage burning in her belly. She and Apocalypse had built the city and the mutant nation surrounding it from nothing, and it lay in ruin and disappointment at their feet. A drone whirred above her head, and her hand instinctively struck upwards and took it out of the sky with a burst of magical force. She remembered Charles, and Sarah, and Joseph, and even Magneto. She had left them all in each of her lives, and her last ditch effort for mutant lives had been crushed under her feet. She clenched her fist, feeling her nails biting into the flesh of her palm. “Apocalypse!” She called.
 “What, Moira?” He returned. To her astonishment, tears were in his voice. “We weren’t the fittest. We didn’t survive. We are doomed , Moira!”
 Moira turned to him. His hulking form was hunched over, holding the still corpse of Xorn, the Horseman of Death. “But we aren’t all dead yet,” she said, voice full of simmering rage. “One last attack. One last bomb against Nimrod. I’m going out with a bang if I have to go out at all.”
 Apocalypse stood. He placed Xorn’s body at his feet. “One last fight,” he snarled. “Very well. Let us go.” He approached Moira, who held out her arms. She carved magical runes into the air, and as Apocalypse approached her she shifted space, and they were deposited into the vast steel cathedral of Nimrod the Lesser. Bright lights turned on them, the machines rounding to face them, plasma cannons outstretched, eyes flaring. Some towered, as tall as skyscrapers, while others swarmed like flies around them. A wall of force was thrown up by the cathedral’s defence systems, encircling Moira and Apocalypse. Three iterations of Nimrod the Lesser approached, each as large as Apocalypse, each showing amusement on its synthetic face.
 “You arrive,” it chuckled. “Soon to be the last organic beings on this planet.” It clapped its enormous polymer hands together. “This is excellent. ”
 Apocalypse released a wordless roar and slammed his fist into the wall of force. It failed, and his eyes flared and released a beam of bright energy that the Nimrod iteration he fired it toward simply shrugged off. Nano-sentinels burrowed out of the floor, encircling the mutants. Moira clapped her hands, creating a ring of arcane fire. The nano-sentinels shrunk back from it, but Nimrod strode forward, still grinning. Apocalypse swung a fist, knocking one back, but another came for him from behind, and soon two had him by the arms while the third slammed against the bubble of force that Moira was barely able to contain herself within. It turned away from her, and wordlessly released a blast of plasma from its cannon, which obliterated Apocalypse’s until now immortal body. The apocryphal mutant slumped to the floor, charred and dead. Moira released the bubble, eyes trained on Nimrod, fury filling her veins.
 “That’s right,” Nimrod giggled, insultingly jovially. “Just die for me like a good girl.”
 “No,” Moira spat, and with one of the only spells that Doctor Strange had told her never to use summoned a singularity.
 There was an undetermined period of nothingness, and then Moira opened her foetal eyes for the first time in her tenth life. Fury filled her embryo form, and a new idea occurred to her in that fury. A new concept entirely. And it radicalised her.

A man sat in a corner of a musty Canadian bar. The wooden walls were covered in paintings and hunting trophies, not to mention a healthy coat of dust. A small television set was blaring over the bar, where the barman was serving the only two other patrons present. The man was nursing a beer, and had almost entirely given up on life. He sighed to himself, and took a swig.
 A woman took the seat opposite him at the table. She was pretty enough, with shoulder length brown hair and sparkling eyes, but the man wasn’t in the mood.
 “Not happening,” he grunted. “I’m broke.”
 “I’m not interested in a drink, Logan,” she replied. Logan froze. His eyes tracked up to her, and his nostrils flared.
 “Who are you?” He snarled. “If you’re Weapon X, you aren’t getting outta here alive, bub.” He maintained furious eye contact, and she sighed.
 “I’m not with Weapon X,” she told him. “But I would like to offer you a job.” She pointed up at the TV, which was displaying a horse race. “The barman does some bookkeeping on the side. Bet something on Loving Hoops.”
 Logan raised an eyebrow. “You think I’m stupid? It’s thirteen to one on that horse.” The woman sighed.
 “Barman!” She shouted. “Ten bucks on Loving Hoops!” He noticed as the bartender nodded to her that she was Scottish. He took another swig of beer, and watched the TV with interest. After a minute had passed, his eyes widened in astonishment, and the bartender unhappily shuffled over with one hundred and thirty dollars.
 “Ok,” he conceded. “I’m interested. What the hell was that?”
 The woman smiled, and stuck out her hand. “Logan, my name is Moira X. How would you like to be my bodyguard?”

Chapter Text

Sarah blinked. “I…” she started, before petering out and blinking again. “That is… rather difficult to believe.”
 Moira nodded. “That’s the response I usually get. When we get to base, I’ll get one of our telepaths to link our minds so that I can show you.” She reached across the table, and took Sarah’s hand. “In every other life, Laura kills you when she detects the trigger scent that Callahan placed on you. Shatterstar gave his life for you. It’s not a sacrifice I wanted to have to make, but the past is the past. Except when it’s my future. I’m just glad to have my friend back.”
 Sarah withdrew her hand. “I… thank you, Mrs X. But I don’t know you yet.” She managed a weak smile. “I’m sure I will, though.” She stood up and went to the window. The Atlantic sprawled below them, a dark mass beneath the endless night sky. “Where are we going?”
 Moira stood up too, walking to her. “Somewhere safe. Where we can help Laura live a little of her childhood.” She looked at Sarah. “You need to sleep. Go on, there are bunks in the back. This jet uses stealth tech that hasn’t officially been invented yet, you and Laura will be safe.”
 “I… thank you,” Sarah said. She made her way out of the conference room towards the back of the plane. Laura had curled up in the seat she had sat down in. The girl called Kitty slept beside her, and Moira noticed a solved Rubik’s cube in her lap. Another lay in Laura’s, albeit shuffled seemingly at random. The man called Piotr waved to her from the pilot’s seat, and she wearily waved back. She spotted the bunks at the rear of the plane, and fell onto one, where she quickly and quietly dozed off, dreams churning with the events and revelations of the previous day.
 Moira took the seat besides Piotr and strapped herself in. “How did she take it?” He asked.
 Moira shrugged. “As well as I could have expected. She seemed fairly open. After all, she predicted more about mutation than Charles ever did. I’m not sure if she ever imagined me , though.”
 “She’ll understand,” Piotr assured her. “We’re just coming up to Iceland. You want to stop and get supplies?”
 Moira shook her head. “No point. We’re well stocked enough at home.” She threw back her head. “Radio ahead. Tell Scott to keep the launchpad clear, and make sure Logan’s in presentable shape.”
 “Ororo would never let him get away with being scruffy on a day like this,” Piotr chuckled. “I’ll make sure they know.”
 “Thanks,” Moira grunted, closing her eyes and drifting off as Piotr started up the radio. She smiled as she slept. She was on the right path.

Piotr Rasputin, “Colossus”
Country of origin: Russia.
Mutation: Organo-metallic form, displaying extreme strength and durability.
Power class: Alpha

Muir Island was experiencing an unexpected bout of sunshine. The puffins wheeled and soared above the cliffs, screamed at and bombarded by seagulls, while deer scampered through the long grasses. Logan strutted out over the moorland, Ororo dragging Jimmy beside him. Scott was standing on the launchpad, holding a set of landing indicators, and waving them at the heli-jet that was descending from the sky. He nodded to Logan as he approached, who waved back. The heli-jet touched down as Logan arrived on the circle of tarmac. He gulped, and made sure his collar was straight.
 “Is that a shirt, Logan?” Scott asked with a grin.
 “Shut up, Summers,” Logan growled back. “It looks fine. Right?”
 “It’s great,” Scott assured him. “I trust we have you to thank for this weather, Storm?”
 “I had a hand in things,” she said with a coy smile. “Besides, the poor thing’s been cooped up underground her whole life, and I thought the least I could do was to make a good impression.”
 “I don’t get it,” Jimmy sulked. “There’s new people all the time. Why do I have to be here?”
 Logan bent down to his son’s level. “I told you, James,” he said, trying to keep the exasperation out of his voice. “Laura is your sister. I wanted you to be here when she gets off the plane.”
 “Can I go inside, mom?” Jimmy whined to Ororo. “Please?”
 “Once you’ve shaken her hand and said hello like a good boy, you can do whatever you want,” she chided. “But you have to do your schoolwork.”
 “Fine,” Jimmy said, screwing up his tiny face in rage. Ororo and Logan exchanged tired glances, and the helijet’s boarding ramp descended with a hiss. Logan straightened up, and self consciously adjusted his cuffs. A number of figures descended the ramp. Kitty came first, running down to Logan and Ororo with mirth in her eyes.
 “Hi!” She hissed in a bad stage whisper. “She’s funny. Like weird funny. It’s kind of cool though. I like her.”
 “Hush,” Ororo told her. “She has Logan’s ears, she can hear you.” Kitty’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth.
 Logan stepped forward. A young girl was descending to ramp, wearing a tattered black jumpsuit and looking around with a mix of apprehension and excitement. She caught sight of Logan, and her eyes widened. She cautiously approached him, followed and guided by a woman in an equally tattered lab coat. He bent down. “Laura?” He asked quietly.
 She extended a hand, running the tips of her fingers over the hair of his sideburns. “Logan…” she breathed. “Dad.” He felt his heart lurch.
 “Yeah,” he said softly. Slowly, trying not to arouse fright in her, he brought his hand up, unsheathing his claws. She brought hers up and did the same. “Hot damn,” he breathed. “Oh, you poor little thing…” He hugged her. For a moment she flailed, clearly not used to the gesture, but swiftly grew accustomed and hugged back. “I’m gonna kill those bastards,” he swore, squeezing her tight. “What they did to us should never-”
 “Logan!” Ororo exclaimed. He looked up to see her covering Jimmy’s ears with her hands. “There are children present!”
 “Oh…” he muttered. “Kids. Right. Sorry.” He looked back at Laura, who was frowning up at him with what seemed to be amusement. He looked at the woman standing behind her. “Hi,” he said, sticking his hand out. “I’m, uh. I’m Logan.”
 “Sarah,” she replied, taking the hand. “You already know all about Laura.”
 “Aye. Oh, this is my wife, Ororo. And that’s Jimmy, my son. Jimmy, come and shake Laura’s hand now. And Sarah’s, come on. They’ve had a very long journey.”
 Jimmy sulkily stepped up to Laura, shook her hand and muttered a hello, then repeated the overly hasty process with Sarah, before making a break for it and sprinting through the long grass back to the village. “Sorry about that,” Ororo sighed. “He’s only nine.” She reached down and placed a hand on Laura’s shoulder. “It’s wonderful to meet you, my dear.”
 Laura was entranced. “You have pretty eyes,” she said softly.
 “I know, right!” Kitty burst out from behind Logan, almost giving him a heart attack. “And they change colour when she uses her powers and they glow in the dark sometimes!”
 “Thank you, Kitty,” Moira called. “Sarah, Laura, this is Scott.”
 Scott waved. “Hi. I’m Scott Summers. Cyclops. Leader of the X-Men.”
 Sarah waved back. “What’s with…”
 “The shades?” Scott tapped his red lensed glasses. “My mutation can be a little, ah, destructive? Hard to control? Anyway, the shades keep it back.”
 Sarah nodded, clearly not reassured. “Ah.”
 “So, uh,” Logan said. “Where’s Shatterstar?”

Ororo Munroe, “Storm”
Country of origin: Morocco.
Mutation: Control over the four “traditional” elements, including basic temperature manipulation. Affects control over weather.
Power class: Omega.

Muir Island had been Logan’s idea. In the early days, when it had just been him and Moira, rushing around the world and searching for proto-mutants, she had made sure to stress to him the importance of finding somewhere out of the way to serve as a bastion. Logan had remembered a place that he had managed to evade Weapon X for three years before becoming fed up with the weather and leaving for less soggy fields. Moira had been interested in the prospect of being able to remain in her own country, and had teleported them there immediately.
 Magic had aided them considerably, as Moira had been able to manipulate the outcomes of several games of chance that had ultimately got both her and Logan kicked out of Vegas with more money than they would in other circumstances known what to do with. Moira had contacted several construction agencies, and soon a village had been built on the island. At the time, only two houses had been inhabited, and Logan had felt a little disquieted by the ghost town that they had constructed.
 Now, the village was almost full to capacity, and Moira was contemplating building more. Moira had also constructed an underground complex just below the island’s surface, covered for by the considerable wealth of Emma Frost and Warren Worthington, two additions to the village’s population. The complex was where Logan went to get debriefed, the jets resided, and the training rooms were located. It contained a number of other facilities which Logan didn’t even pretend to understand, but which Moira spent a lot of time in.
 Laura was clearly enthralled by the island. Her head was spinning between each new thing she saw, while Kitty chattily explained them all to her. Occasionally, an adult would have to step in and get her to rein in a bit when the torrent of information looked like it was in danger of swamping Laura, who was desperately trying to keep up and failing miserably.
 Kitty was a relatively new addition herself, having been fetched by Jean only seven months prior following a call from her distressed mother, but the girl had slotted in with the other kids immediately, and had already demonstrated extreme intelligence beyond what even Moira had experience with. She was keeping a very close eye on Kitty.
 “Of course, there’s the question of where you’ll be staying,” Moira butted in as Kitty started up on a ramble about the island’s native animals. “I have prepared a house on the outskirts of the village, should you wish to stay there.”
 “Alternatively, we have spare rooms at home,” Ororo said. “You wouldn’t be a burden at all, we’ve got more than enough room. We’re right in the middle of the village, so you’d be nearby to everyone, we can introduce you.”
 Sarah’s head was spinning, but she didn’t want to be alone tonight. “We’ll stay with you,” she said. “For as long as we need to. Thank you, Ororo.”
 Ororo smiled and nodded. “That’s quite alright. Jimmy won’t be too much of an issue, we promise.”
 The village was coming into sight now. Despite only having been built thirty or so years ago, it was quite picturesque. Ivy grew on the houses, smoke rose from the chimneys of several houses, the air was fresh, and the sounds of life emanated from the buildings. Sarah felt herself smiling weakly. A hope blossomed in her chest. It was over. The nightmare was done, and she and Laura were finally free. As they crossed the threshold of the village, she collapsed to her knees, and started to sob.

Moira sat before her council, hands clasped somberly. “Shatterstar was a good mutant,” she said softly. “His passing has marked us all.”
 The five people sitting before her bowed their heads.
 “Aye,” Logan sighed.
 “He was a good man,” Scott said gruffly.
 “A true brother in arms,” Xorn grunted.
 “A man of excellent humour,” Emma remarked.
 Sage said nothing.
 “But he didn’t die for nothing,” Moira continued. “Sarah and Laura Kinney are safe. Your eldest child is free, Wolverine.” Logan cracked a grin.
 “How is she, by the way?” Emma asked. “Settled yet?”
 Logan wrinkled his nose. “Nah. I spoke to Sarah, she said to give it a few years. But she’s wonderful. I’m taking her out to the beach tomorrow, just me and her. Gonna try and get to know her a little better.”
 “On your behalf, I am so very pleased,” Xorn chuckled in his hollow voice. His helmet never let on any emotion, but in the dim lights of the council chamber, there seemed to be some mirth in the blue light of the eye holes. “And of course, we cannot forget. There is soon to be a baby in the Summers household.”
 Scott turned red as all eyes turned to him. “It’s a boy,” he said quietly, staring down at the table. “We were thinking of naming him Nathan Christopher. After my dad.”
 Solemn nods were exchanged all around the table. Moira cleared her throat. “Anyway,” she continued. “Now is the time to turn our attention to our next mission. It’s another long game, I’m afraid.” She pushed the button on the desk beside her, and a flickering image of an armoured figure was projected into the air above the table. The council shared a gasp. Moira pursed her lips. “Hence it being a long game. Magneto is no idle threat, and I believe him to have fully mastered his Omega-Class abilities. However, he isn’t invincible.”
 “What do you propose?” Emma asked, leaning back in her seat.
 “Lure him out,” Sage interrupted, before Moira had a chance to speak. She turned to Moira. “He’s utterly assured in his own power, and that may be his downfall.”
“Sage is as accurate as ever,” Moira said, nodding to her. “It will require us to reveal ourselves. How does everybody feel about becoming superheroes?”

Emma Frost
Country of origin: United States of America (New England).
Mutation (primary): Psionics (telepathy).
Mutation (secondary): Organo-crystalline form, demonstrating extreme durability.
Power class (primary): Omega.
Power class (secondary): Alpha.

Chapter Text

Six years later.
“Laura!”
 A fist was hammering at her bedroom door. She groaned and buried her face in the pillow. “Go away!” She complained. “Ten minutes!”
 “Young lady, you have a guest,” Logan’s voice cut through her drowsy brain.
 Laura sat bolt upright in bed. “Kitty?” She called.
 A head materialised through the closed door, and Kitty stepped through. “Hi!” She said brightly. “You want to get dressed?”
 Laura was already pulling clothes on. “What happened?” She asked. “I thought you were booked on the Young Heroes program for the next three months?”
 Kitty shrugged. “Wasn’t my speed,” she said. “Anyway! You get a boyfriend while I was gone?”
 Laura scoffed. “You kidding? With my options?”
 “Oh, I don’t know. You could have drunkenly made out with someone and in the heat of the moment sparked a whirlwind romance.”
 Laura raised an eyebrow. “Ok, let’s review,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Alex cares more about the gym than he does about… anything else. Bobby is absolutely smitten for you.”
 “He is not!” Kitty exclaimed. “Besides, how would you know?”
 “Even I can see that, Kitty, you’re only trying to deny it. Kurt’s dating Rachel, and has been forever. Sam has the brains of a mouse, Jean-Paul and Chris are both gay and sort of unofficially dating. Jamie is way too in love with himself, and Armando wouldn’t know flirting if it knocked his house down and forced him to adapt to being squished flat.”
 Kitty nodded. “I concede. Is Bobby really crushing on me?”
 Laura put her head in her hands, now fully dressed. “I’m going to wash in the sea,” she said with a sigh. “You can come if you want.”
 “Isn’t that cold?”
 Laura shrugged. “Depends how tough you are.” She flexed, and Kitty winced.
 “How much time do you spend in the gym again?” She asked.
 “An hour or two a day.” She grinned. “Healing factors, sis.”
 “Yeah, no kidding,” Kitty muttered, following Laura out of the room and passing Logan, Ororo, and Sarah at the breakfast table. “Hello Dr Kinney! Mrs Munroe! Logan!”
 “Laura!” Logan called as they went past. “You not gonna have breakfast?”
 Laura shrugged. “I’ll be back. Save me some toast and jam. Ok bye!”
 They hurried out the door, slamming it shut behind them and laughing all the way down to the beach, where Laura pulled her outer layer of clothing off and dived into the frigid water. Kitty winced for the second time that day. “You sure you’re not interested?” Laura called. Kitty took a step away from the water’s edge. “Your loss.”

Upon his orbital citadel, Magneto observed as Scott Summers and Emma Frost gave an address before the Supreme Court, observed by photographers and reporters. Their message was one of peace, one of coexistence. “This will not do,” he growled. “These X-Men have become rather a problem.”
 In the shadows behind him, Destiny stepped forward. “It is hard to see their futures,” she told him. “It is as though something I do not comprehend is cloaking them.”
 “How unfortunate,” Magneto growled. “How do we fare?”
 “Summers and Frost cut us off at all turns,” Destiny said. “Some of them are far too powerful. We believe that the masked individual known as Xorn has Omega-Class abilities of comparable power to your own, though he has not fully realised them yet. Why such an individual would choose to aid humanity is simply… beyond me.”
 Magneto rapped his fingers on the arm of his seat. “Do you have any information about their movements in the near future?” He asked.
 “None on the X-Men themselves. However, it is indicated that one or more of the children they harbour will be present at a nightclub in Edinburgh in four days time.”
 Magneto smiled wickedly. “Good,” he ruminated. “An excellent turn of events.”
 “What do you wish to do?” Destiny asked.
 “Do we know which child?”
 “It is indicated that it is to be the Wolverine’s brat.”
 Magneto’s smile widened. “Perfect,” he chuckled. “I know just the thing.”

Katherine Pryde
Country of origin: United States of America (New York).
Mutation (primary): Intangibility.
Mutation (possible secondary): Superhuman intellect.
Power class (primary): Alpha.
Power class (possible secondary): Gamma.

“Mr Summers, it is a true honour to meet you,” the President of the United States of America said, shaking Scott’s hand and smiling warmly. “And you must be the delightful Mz Frost.” She turned to Emma and shook her hand. “It is a true honour to have you both in the White House.”
 “Let us assure you, Madam President,” Emma said cordially. “The honour is entirely ours.”
 Scott looked up at the White House. It was an impressive arrangement, even in his red tinted vision. The security detail accompanying the President eyed him nervously, and he gave them what he hoped was a reassuring smile. He had left the safety of his visor on, but he was sure they had seen him in action, and they had every right to be concerned. Emma was chatting to the President now, and they were led into the lushly carpeted and exquisitely decorated interior of the White House. Even Emma, the queen of style, widened her eyes in shock.
 If Moira would only take pointers from time to time, I could have the entire village decked out like this, she thought to Scott.
 The word ‘rustic’ doesn’t really come into your vocabulary, does it? He returned, amused.
 Emma sniffed haughtily. Does the fact that my house is the only bastion of civilisation on the entirety of Muir Island not bother you at all, Scott?
 On task, people, a new mind broke through. Scott smiled.
 Sorry, he told his wife. You should see this place, though.
 I’m busy enough keeping you two safe, Jean said. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to keep the anti-air weaponry from firing on Ororo?
 She’s exaggerating, Ororo butted in. I’m absolutely fine up here.
 You’re welcome, Jean grumbled.
 By this point, Scott and Emma had both stopped listening. Emma was back to exchanging pleasant small talk with the President, while Scott checked his HUD, following the A-Team’s progress. Logan and Remy, while somewhat lacking in ability to cordially get along, made an extremely effective field team, and were making reasonable progress. Scott pursed his lips, relaying this information to Jean, as the reached a lavishly decked dining table, where both he and Emma gasped in feigned astonishment. They had been prepped extensively on what to expect at the table by Hank McCoy, resident X-Men physicist and foodie. Any changes in the menu were to be treated with extreme caution. Fortunately, all the food was as Hank had described, and Scott and Emma were soon being treated to the finest cuisine that America could by. The few reporters who had been allowed snapped away with their cameras, while Scott prayed silently that Logan and Remy had made it past the difficult defence systems without issue. Sage was always spot on with these things, but even so it was difficult not to worry.
 Halfway through the first course, a secret serviceman strolled into the room, and whispered something into the President’s ear. Her eyes widened, and she turned to Scott and Emma. Scott steeled himself for the worst, and Emma’s eyes narrowed in the way they did when she was working on the defences of a particularly well defended mind, but the President was beaming. “Well,” she said. “We seem to have an unexpected guest.”
 The secret service were now pulling up another chair and setting a fourth place at the table. Scott turned to the door, and his eyes widened behind the ruby red visor. Captain America strode through the door, a grin plastered across his chiseled face. “Madam President, Mr Summers, Mz Frost,” he greeted them. “I’m sorry for not giving more notice, I was attending to some important business and wasn’t sure when I would be finished.”
 “Captain Steve Rogers,” Scott said, standing up and extending a hand. “What a pleasure it is to make your acquaintance.”
 “The pleasure is all mine, Mr Summers. May I call you Scott?” He took the hand as Scott nodded. “And you must be the delightful Emma Frost.”
 “That would be me,” Emma said, smiling her radiant smile and taking Rogers’ hand. I’m going through his thoughts, she relayed to Scott. He seems to be mostly harmless, but it’s difficult to tell with this one.
 Rogers sat, and a plate was hurried to him. He leaned forward. “So,” he said, cutting at his meat. “You guys. Your whole message, peace and co-existence and all. Love it. You’re really showing up that Magneto guy, hey?”
 “We’re trying,” Emma chuckled. “Fortunately, we have some great strategists on the team.”
 “That’s wonderful. Say, this team of yours. It’s quite extensive, right? How did you guys come about, anyway?”
 “Oh, it’s a very long story,” said Scott, waving a hand. “And a complicated one, at that.”
 Rogers narrowed his eyes, but sat back. “Understandable,” he said. “So, I was thinking about the X-Men recently, and you know if you ever had any candidates for Avengers among your ranks, we’d be more than happy to accommodate.”
 Scott checked Logan and Remy’s progress while Emma kept Rogers and the President entertained. They had reached the vault now, and the object located within. A message from Logan popped up on his visor. ‘Trouble. Need backup.’
 Jean, Scott thought. Logan and Remy need assistance in the heist. They didn’t say what sort.
 Understood, she replied. I’m sending Hank.
 Thank you. A message popped up on the visor, an image of Hank’s furry blue face. He crossed his fingers, and returned to the conversation.

Logan dumped the tablet onto the table of the council chamber. Moira leaned over it, inspecting it closely. “It’s the one,” she murmured. “The one we need.”
 The tablet was easily centuries old. It was polished sandstone, covered in an ancient system of writing. Logan folded his arms. “You gonna tell us what it is yet?” He asked.
 Moira nodded. “There is another threat to our mission, one I haven’t yet discussed.” She looked up at Remy and Hank, both of whom were equally as intrigued by the stone writing. Hank was a large man, somewhat ape like in appearance, his whole body covered in a thick coat of blue fur. Remy was shorter, long brown hair tied back by a bandana, a layer of stubble framing his quizzically pursed lips. His eyes were red. Moira continued, “He is an ancient mutant, the first that I have ever heard of. His name is En Sabbah Nur, but he has taken on the moniker of Apocalypse.” Remy let out a barely audible cry. Moira looked up. “Familiar to you, Gambit?”
 “I, uh, I don’t think so,” he replied hastily in his cajun twang. “I need to go.” He turned, and hastily left the room, coat flapping at his heels. Moira pursed her lips. Remy and Sage had never revealed where they had come from before the X-Men, and they were the only two people on the team whose powers naturally shielded them against telepathic intrusion.
 “He’s hiding something,” Hank said.
 “That much is obvious,” Moira said. “Apocalypse never mentioned anything about him, though. What’s he up to?”

Remy LeBeau, “Gambit”
Country of origin: United States of America (Louisiana).
Mutation: Kinetic charge.
Power class: Alpha.

There were eight of them. They weren’t officially called anything, but they were clearly a group. Those of them who had parents or siblings had learned to trust them to take care of each other, and more importantly not to try and keep them apart. Certain members of Moira’s council, behind closed doors, called them the X-Men of the future. The other kids didn’t envy them as such, because they were the ones who were the most broken, who had been cast out and mocked by the world the worst. That, to Laura’s mind, was what made them so close. Currently, they were lounging on the beach under the clouded sky, catching up and making aimless small talk.
 Laura was the unofficial leader. She had the smartest ideas, and having the most pull with the council would usually be the one to get them out of trouble. Kitty Pryde, the genius girl with the fast mouth was the one had roped them all together. Then there was Rachel Grey, Jean Grey’s little sister, with intense eyes, short red hair, and red markings around the sides of her face, usually the one to get them into trouble, argumentative and fierce. Her boyfriend, Kurt Wagner, was almost nothing like her. He was quiet and reserved, German, had blue skin and hair, too few fingers, a snaking tail, and an aversion to conflict and violence. Bobby Drake was the mediator of the group, never quite taking anything seriously, always finding the joke, desperately trying to keep things together when the going got rough. Elizabeth Braddock was widely regarded to be the only person among them with a brain on her shoulders, possibly because her foster parents in England hadn’t had any of their own, having decided to adopt her from an orphanage in Japan while they were on holiday. Beth didn’t understand why they had done this, because they hadn’t loved her, and had promptly thrown her back out of their house once her mutation manifested. Her girlfriend, Marian Carlyle, was the quietest amongst them, even in a group of quiet people. Her long dark hair, struck through with white at the front, was tied in a ponytail that she had been growing for years. Marian’s mutation meant that she couldn’t make skin to skin contact with other people, which had lead to her being reserved and sparing with emotion. The final member was Alex Summers, Scott’s younger brother. Alex spent most of his time at the gym, and was on the best terms of any of them with the other kids. He was viewed by most to be the second in command, and he and Laura made an excellent group for planning what certain older residents of Muir Island had come to call “all that bullshit.”
 Currently, the eight of them were lounging on the beach, idly chatting. Bobby, sitting on a rock, was ruminating on his standing with the council. “Does Logan like me?” He asked. “I mean, I get the impression he really makes it obvious when he doesn’t like someone.”
 Laura shrugged, leaning against the cliff edge next to Kitty, who was trying to assemble something with a lot of wires protruding from it. “Dad doesn’t talk to me much about you lot. I think he likes most of you.”
 “He hasn’t ever said anything specific?” Bobby asked, sounding disappointed.
 Laura shrugged. “He hasn’t expressed opinions about any of you. He’s said that the council does discuss us sometimes.”
 “As a group?” Rachel asked, sitting up and disrupting Kurt, who had been resting his head on her shoulder. He have her an irritated glance, and she momentarily zoned out in the way that Laura had learned meant she was telepathically communicating.
 Laura shrugged. “He didn’t say.” She kicked at some shingle, sending a small avalanche crashing into the sea.
 “What if we became X-Men?” Alex asked. “We’re all fairly powerful. They’d let us. Once we were old enough.”
 “It’s not as if I have any other skills,” Laura snorted.
 “That is entirely false!” Beth called from the other side of Bobby’s rock. “You’re the most musically talented person on this island!”
 “Big fish, small pond,” Laura muttered.
 “No for real,” Kurt said. “You could be a singer or something.”
 “And reveal myself to Kimura? Not happening.”
 The group lapsed into awkward silence, looking at each other but not at Laura, until the silence was broken by Marian. “We could always kill Kimura,” she said quietly.
 Laura laughed. “I’d love to, but I couldn’t find her any more easily than she can find me,” she sighed.
 “You can’t stay cooped up on the island forever,” Kurt said. “You’ll miss out on life.”
 “I went to France with the family last summer,” Laura muttered.
 “For a week long holiday,” Kurt shot back. “You need to get out. Properly. Look, we can ask the council for a weekend trip to Edinburgh. There’s eight of us. Rachel and Beth can crush people with their minds. We’ll be fine.”
 “Just to clarify, I’ve never crushed anyone with my mind,” Beth pointed out. “And nor do I plan to. Unless it’s anyone who did anything to you at Weapon X, Laura, in which case, in fairness, they’re as good as dead.”
 Laura kicked at a few stones. “I mean,” she sighed. “Fine. I can go to Edinburgh for a weekend.” She looked up at the sky, and said a silent prayer to anything god shaped that might happen to be listening.
 “Right,” Bobby said, slapping his knees. “They’ll be serving supper soon. Who’s hungry?”

“You really don’t look good,” Beth said, as Laura stared into the middle distance, occasionally bothering to take a bite of her food.
 “I’m fine,” she muttered. Beth crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
 “You aren’t. Come on, what’s on your mind?”
 Laura poked at her potatoes with her fork. “What Kurt said,” she said quietly. “About leaving the island. The fact that Kimura’s still hunting me.”
 Beth nodded. Marian leaned forward. It was just the three of them at the table, the others having all returned home or into the moorland to drink. “You know,” she said, softly and quietly. “If they came for you, we’d stop them.”
 Laura shook her head. “The sentiments earlier were nice,” she said with a hefty sigh. “But you haven’t seen them in action. I know you’re powerful, Beth. But Kimura is something else. She’d never come near you.”
 Beth reached out and patted Laura’s hand. “And I’d never let her out of my sight if she could be near us. And it isn’t like we’re the only ones you’ve got. Storm and your dad would do anything to protect you.”
 Laura pushed her bowl away. “I’m not hungry,” she muttered. “I need a drink.”
 “I have beer in my room,” Beth said with a smile. “Let’s go get some, yeah?”
 “Yeah,” Laura sighed. She looked down at her bowl. A tear started to roll down her nose. Beth reached out and gripped her shoulder.
 “Hey! Hey, it’s alright!” She gently shook Laura while Marian sat back, not sure of what to do. “Laura? Laura, come on. We’re going to my room.” She stood up, pulling Laura to her feet. “It’s ok, it’s alright. It can’t be that bad. Come on, Marian.”
 Marian nodded, and followed as Beth led Laura out of the canteen, up through the stairway of the little building that the kids occupied. She pushed her own door open, into her own space. The walls were plastered with posters for old music that neither Laura or Marian would have heard of were it not for Beth, every surface well polished and decorated with photos of the eight of them, random nicknacks from around the world that she had collected when she had had parents rich enough to fund such expeditions. Her wardrobes were filled with the latest fashion, and her bed was large and comfy. She sat Laura down on the bed and crouched in front of her, while Marian closed and quietly locked the door behind them. “Laura,” Beth whispered. “What’s the matter?”
 Laura shook her head. Beth patted her knee. “Come on, now,” she said, a spark of mirth entering her eye. “Something’s up. You can talk to us, Laura.”
 “We’re trustworthy,” Marian assured her.
 Laura laughed a hollow laugh. “It’s just…” she started, before considering and continuing. “Nothing in my life has been…”
 “Normal?” Beth supplied.
 “Yeah. I’m made from cloned genetic material. My mother was allowed to care for me because it was her job. I was killing people before I learned how to drive. Everything in my life now revolves around…” She threw up her hands in frustration. “Staying hidden. Dad’s already trying to breach the subject of me joining the X-Men, like there’s nothing else I’d want to do with my life. Yeah, sure, Beth. I’d love to be a musician. I’d love to be able to do concerts and talk to fans and make records without having to look over my shoulder every five seconds. But I can’t have that life.”
 “I’d buy your records,” Marian said, but was silenced by a glance and a finger to the lips from Beth.
 “Laura,” Beth said softly. “One day, you’ll be ok. Marian, there’s beer in the wardrobe.” While her girlfriend rushed for the alcohol, she continued consoling Laura. “Kinney, you’re something special. It’s obvious. Logan is proud of you, has always been proud of you, in a way he’s never been of your brother.”
 “He doesn’t spend enough time with Jimmy,” Laura muttered.
 “Maybe not, but that’s not what’s important right now. Laura, whether or not you’re destined to be the leader of the X-Men, or the best punk rocker who ever lived, or anything else, there are people who will be proud of you.” Marian handed them a beer each. “Thanks sweetheart. Laura, look at me.” Laura looked up, eyes puffy. “We’re proud of you. All of us. Logan and Sarah too.”
 Laura nodded, taking a swig of beer. “What do you think I’ll be?”
 “Oh, my opinion doesn’t count for much.”
 “It does to me.”
 Beth took a shaky breath. “Laura Kinney, you’re going to go far. Very far.”
 “Hit ‘em right between the eyes, kid,” Marian whispered. Laura laughed through the tears.
 “We’re going to get that trip to Edinburgh,” Beth assured her. “And it’s going to be great.”

Elizabeth Braddock
Country of origin: Japan/United Kingdom.
Mutation: Psionics (telepathy, telekinesis).
Power class: Alpha, Alpha.

Moira held the tablet to the light, carefully inspecting the sigils that covered its surface. She had learned to read Sumerian cuneiform during her anthropological studies at Oxford. She scratched a pen across a sheet of paper. She highly doubted the American government had understood what they had had in their possession, and that was fortunate. If they had known, the emergence of the sentinels would likely have come some time before she had ever experienced it.
 She had seen the tablet before, in her ninth life. Apocalypse had retrieved it from the ruins of the White House after their first crushing victory against the humans. He had seemed afraid of it, and destroyed it immediately. Moira postulated that it detailed some way to harm him discovered by the ancient Sumerians. So far, it described a power of immense proportion, one which had allegedly once done battle with Apocalypse and driven him into hiding for many centuries.
 “Still working?” Someone asked. Moira turned to see Sarah watching her from the doorway.
 “Aye,” she replied. “I think I’m close to a breakthrough. The Sumerians knew of... something which could pose a serious threat to Apocalypse.”
 Sarah sidled into the room, peering at the tablet. “How did he die in your past life again?” She asked.
 Moira shook her head. “He was killed by the machine singularity. We couldn’t achieve the technology they used to do that to him in a hundred years, and by then it would be too late.”
 Sarah sat down and turned the tablet over in her hands. “What did you say his real name is?”
 “En Sabbah Nur. In a language that has fallen out of all memory, it means ‘The First One’.”
 “The first what?”
 “Mutant. Apocalypse has access to abilities that don’t stem from his mutations, though. Some kind of alien magic I could never identify surged through him.”
 Sarah handed back the stone, and Moira continued her transcription. They sat in silence for a time, Sarah idly playing a game on her phone while Moira worked with pursed lips and sweat beading on her brow as the stone became more eroded as the writing progressed. “I’m getting there,” she muttered. “Just one more line…”
 Sarah leaned over the paper with interest as Moira’s pen came to a halt just before she wrote the final word. Sarah looked up, to see the look of horror across Moira’s face.   “Moira?” She asked. “What’s up?”
 “I…” Moira started, shaking her head. She put her pen back to the paper, and scrawled the final word, which the Sumerian writer had imprinted deeper into the tablet, almost as though to give it special emphasis. She sat back and stared at it. “This is a complication,” she said grimly. Sarah looked at the word, not quite understanding.
 “What does it mean?” She asked softly. Moira looked over at her.
 “Well,” she said. “It all started in my fourth life, with Jean Grey.”

Jean Grey, wife to Scott Summers, sister to Rachel Grey, mother to Nathan Christopher Summers-Grey, was hovering a little above the roof of their house, meditating upon Muir Island. Her mind reached out across the expanse of moorland and beach, while the rain parted around her, keeping her dry and warm. She spoke to the rabbits, the deer, the gulls, and the terns. Her mind probed into the waters around the island, where otters and dolphins chased salmon through the thrashing grey waters. A smile played across her face. She felt Laura, pacing her bedroom with fear and confusion in her heart. She felt Piotr and Hank, hastily pulling tarpaulins over sensitive equipment as the storm grew more intense and the rain pummeled them like arrows. She gave them a telekinetic helping hand, for which she was thanked before they turned and rushed inside. She felt Dr Reyes in the sick bay with Kitty, who had been outside and caught a cold. She almost felt Sage, sitting before the island’s vastly complex computer network, but the woman’s mind was impenetrable, and she sensed only its presence. She took a deep sigh, focusing her mind. There was something else, something she had felt on occasion, something she desired to feel again. She angled her face upwards, searching for it amongst the cosmos.
 Out of the gulfs of space between the stars, in a voice of crackling energy and brilliant radiance spoke. She felt warmth spread her body as it coursed through her, and giggled as it observed her.
 Jean Grey, came the cosmic tone. You have not entirely forgotten me.
 That would be difficult, Jean replied.
 Indeed, the being said. What did you wish from me, Jean Grey?
 Nothing, Jean thought. I just wanted to know if I could still contact you.
 I’m always listening, the presence told her.
 It has been so long… Jean thought. I had begun to believe that I imagined you.
 Jean Grey, the entity’s resonant voice chuckled. Nothing in your world could ever imagine anything like me. The presence faded, retreating back into the vastness of empty space from where it had emerged.
 Jean let out a shaky breath, and opened her eyes. An afterimage seemed to linger in her vision for a moment, a rising flame imprinted over the world, but she blinked and it was gone.
 “Jean!” She heard someone calling. “Supper!”
 “Coming, Scott!” She called back, hopping off the roof, the being from beyond the Earth for a moment forgotten.

On the floor of her room, Beth tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable on the camping mattress. On the bed, Marian slept soundly, untroubled. Beth buried her face in the pillow, growling in frustration. She held her eyes close shut, trying desperately to drift off, but the sounds of the storm outside didn’t soothe her in the way that they usually did.
 When it didn’t work, she threw the blanket off the mattress and stood up quietly, trying not to disturb Marian, and made her way out into the corridor. Across from her room was Dani’s, a Cherokee girl and another psychic. Beth concentrated for a second, practicing her telepathy. Not detecting a waking mind in Dani’s room, she turned to the stairway and made her way down to the canteen. Outside the floor to ceiling windows, rain torrented around the building. She walked over to them and reached out, telekinetically parting the rain in the way she had seen Jean Grey do before.
 “Neat trick,” someone said. Beth shrieked and whirled, heart pounding, only to see Bobby at a table, drinking a can of soda.
 “Jesus Christ, Drake,” she breathed. “You scared the shit out of me.”
 “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Can’t sleep?”
 “No,” she said, taking the seat opposite him. “Can I have some soda?” He reached under the table and passed her a can, freshly chilled. “Thanks.”
 “What Alex said earlier,” Bobby said. “About us becoming X-Men. All being fairly powerful.” He ran his finger across the tabletop, leaving a dusting of frost in its wake. “He didn’t mean me, right?”
 Beth shrugged. “I think you’re probably quite powerful,” she said. “You just don’t quite know how to use your abilities yet.”
 “Maybe. Unlike you and Rachel, I don’t have people who can teach me to use them.” He sighed.
 Beth cocked her head. “I’ve just had to get Laura through some existential dread, don’t tell me I’m going to have to do the same to you now,” she said. “What’s the matter, Bob?”
 “I don’t know.” He curled up in his seat. “Moira and the X-Men talk up a big game about us being better than humans somehow, but…” He left a handprint in frost on the table. “Not all of us are. Touching me for too long hurts, Beth. I really like Kitty. She’s great. But I couldn’t ever be with her, not…” He looked up suddenly in shock, remembering who he was talking to. “Oh my god, Beth, I’m sorry.”
 She shook her head and gave him a small smile. “It’s ok. Marian and I have come to terms with it.” She took Bobby’s wrist, and splayed her hand against his, before pulling away as the cold began to burn. “I’m sure you and Kitty, or whoever, could figure something out.”
 “Thanks, mom,” Bobby grumbled, and Beth laughed aloud. “Anyway, we’re not going to get to sleep at this rate. You wanna go play some games?”
 Beth nodded. “That’s not a bad idea,” she smiled. As they made their way to the games room she continued, “God above, do you know how difficult it is to be mum to all seven of you? My children are all broken inside and dating each other.”
 “And you, in Marian’s case,” Bobby pointed out.
 “Hmm, don’t like this analogy anymore.”

Robert Drake
Country of origin: United States of America (New York).
Mutation (primary): Energy destruction.
Mutation (secondary): ???
Mutation (tertiary): ???
Power class (primary): Omega.
Power class (secondary): Omega.
Power class (tertiary): Omega.

“You want a weekend off the island?” Logan asked incredulously. “Despite how dangerous you know it is?”
 “Please, dad,” Laura pleaded. “I’m going to be with the others.”
 Logan narrowed his eyes. “I wouldn’t call any of them but you combat ready,” he said. It was just the two of them in the kitchen, the lights inside making it feel cozy despite the grey drizzle outside the window.
 “Beth’s responsible,” Laura argued.
 “The rest of them are not. Look, Laura, I want you to go. Trust me, nobody deserves it more than you.
 “But?” She asked, tapping her foot.
 Logan sighed. “I made promises. To Sarah. To Moira. To myself. Not to let you fall into Kimura's hands again.”
 “I'm in my own hands,” Laura growled. “I don't need to be condescended to and coddled.”
 Logan stood up and leaned on the counter, grinding his teeth. “Fine. You can go. But I'm coming with you. No, Laura, I am. I won't stay too close, don't worry. But if things go bad, which I'll concede is extremely unlikely, I'll step in and the trip is over. Got it?”
 Laura beamed. “Thanks Dad,” she said.
 “Yeah, yeah, don't mention it.”

Marian groggily opened her eyes and glanced around Beth’s bedroom. She felt serene here, and the world seemed so separate from her; wrapped in blankets and secure from the cold and dreary weather that was Muir Island’s norm. The sky outside was still grey from last night’s storm, and the small yellow light the lamp emitted as she switched it on did little to brighten the room up, instead casting a small circle of light over the bed. Marian looked down at the floor, where Beth lay on the camping mattress, snoring. Her purple hair was half covering her face, a few strands waving back and forth with each breath, her eyes closed and lips slightly parted to allow the snores to ring around the room. Marian stifled a laugh at the sight, not really knowing why. She looked back out at the sky and the drizzle of rain that it poured down upon Muir Island. Across the street was the village shop, little yellow lights showing in the windows as Mrs Paige Guthrie set up shop for the day. She and Beth had only yesterday spent most of their allowance on a new pair of gloves there, a perfect fit for Marian, which they had excitedly shown off to the others down at the beach. The gloves were on the bedside table now, soft and comforting in their presence. Marian pulled them on, admiring the pleasant shade of cream that contrasted with her pale skin. She pulled Beth’s bedside clock towards her and swore silently upon seeing the time.
 Silently, she slipped out of bed, hastily pulling the sheets back up to the pillow, gingerly stepped over Beth to get to her clothes, making sure to avoid accidentally brushing against her, and tried to open the cupboard without it creaking, a task at which she was surprisingly successful. She pulled them on slowly, trying not to wake the sleeper at her feet. Beth stirred anyway, cracking her eyes open a hair. “What’s the time?” She mumbled.
 “Nine,” Marian whispered. “I’m going to the gym.”
 “Ok,” Beth yawned, pushing herself to a sitting position. “You gonna be back in?”
 Marian shook her head. “No. Is that alright?”
 “It’s fine,” Beth said through another yawn. “See you later sweetheart.”
 Marian smiled awkwardly, pulling on her jacket over the gym clothes. “See you around, honey,” she whispered back, and pushed the door open into the silent corridor. She pulled the jacket tighter around her, shivering slightly at the sudden cold. Unlike the rooms, the corridors of the dorm building were poorly heated, with uncarpeted floors and paint that was starting to peel. She remembered Beth asking Emma Frost about it a few weeks ago, which had resulted in a fairly boring lecture about how tight Emma was on funds these days, and that the X-Men had more important projects than refurbishing the less important areas of the dorm building. Upon being shown the state of the corridors, however, she had curled her lip and promised that she would make an attempt to get them fixed up. So far, nothing had come of it.
 Marian tiptoed to the stairwell, peering four stories down to the concrete ground floor. A wicked thought occurred to her, and she glanced around her, grinning. No one in sight. She stepped up to the railing, took a deep breath, and vaulted over. The rush of wind through her ponytail. A sudden weightlessness in her stomach. She hit the floor, bracing her legs and slamming her palm into the concrete as she came down. The floor audibly cracked.
 She straightened up, startled and staring at the cracks in the floor. “Marian!” A voice yelled from out of sight. “That you?”
 Marian sprinted. She rushed through the corridors, whipping around the tight turns, and was out the door in seconds and pounding down the road toward the gym, rain forming dew in her hair as it whipped around behind her. Panting, she checked her modified fitbit, and grinned as she passed thirty miles per hour. She leapt and whirled, making almost impossible turns around sharp bends, jumping clear over bushes and railings, the only thoughts in her head the road beneath her feet and her destination, almost all the way on the other side of town.
 She skidded to a halt outside the gym, dripping with rainwater and panting for breath. Laura was waiting under a glass shelter that jutted out from above the door, wearing a grin and also dressed to work out. Noticing the smile, Marian cocked her head.
 “Dad says we can do the trip,” she explained. “As long as he’s there too.” She raised her hand, and Marian high-fived her. They turned and made their way in. “What were you thinking of doing today?”
 Marian shrugged. “Was gonna start at half a tonne and go from there. You?”
 Laura, who had almost choked at the word ‘tonne’, blinked and shook her head. “Uh. I was just gonna do some stuff on the rowing machines. You do you, though.”

Marian Carlyle
Country of origin: United States of America (Alabama).
Mutation (primary): Skin to skin incapacitation/memory and ability absorption.
Mutation (secondary): Superhuman strength, reflexes, and durability.
Power class (primary): Beta.
Power class (secondary): Gamma.

“Laura, uh, convinced me to let her and her friends off the island for a weekend, on the condition that I go with them,” Logan explained. The council looked to each other wordlessly.
 “I see no issue in this,” Sage said with a shrug. “If you are with them, they will be perfectly safe.”
 Moira cleared her throat. “I would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we are currently in a period of extremely high tension,” she said tersely. “Having one of our most effective covert agents and fighters off the island, not to mention having to watch over the eight most difficult children on the island, is going to be a major thorn in our side.”
 “Surely we can put things on hold, just for a weekend?” Scott asked. Moira shook her head.
 “Magneto is searching for us as we speak. We cannot afford to lapse in vigilance.”
 “If I may,” Xorn interjected in his hollow voice, hands clasped before him. “It occurs to me that these children, in particular Laura Kinney, may only be as troublesome as they have been observed to be because they are bored on this island.” Hearing no arguments, he continued. “A change of scenery is exactly what they need. Moira is correct in that it comes at a most inopportune time, but we must make sure to keep care of our own as well as watch our borders, even at a time such as this.” He turned his helmeted head to Moira, and the blue glow in the eye sockets seemed to flare. “That is, after all, our mission.”
 Moira pursed her lips. “If this goes south, it’s on you, Logan,” she said. “And you’re taking Gambit.”
 “What?” Logan exclaimed. “Why?”
 “Remy is adept at dealing with children,” Sage said with a shrug. “He is also closer to their age than you.”
 “I’m a hundred and fifty years old!” Logan complained.
 “I think that was her point,” Emma said, clearly amused. “Besides, Logan, you don’t think you’ll be able to watch all eight of them by yourself?”
 “And Gambit’s any more responsible than any of them?” Logan snorted.
 “Under orders, he can be extremely disciplined,” said Scott. “And you work well with him.”
 Logan sighed, folding his arms. “Why can’t it be Hank or Warren?” He asked, surly.
 “I need Hank here to help me with a certain issue,” Moira informed him.
 “And Warren and I need to go over some plans to redecorate in the dorm building,” Emma chipped in. She frowned. “Moira, what do you mean, a certain issue?”
 Moira sighed again. “Except for Scott, I assume you all remember Operation Phoenix Killer?” A hush fell over the table. Even Scott, who had still been living in Alaska at the time and hadn’t taken part in the mission, fell quiet. Moira nodded. “Exactly. Our lives are becoming increasingly complicated.”

The Grey-Summers house was sunnily decorated. The wallpaper was various shades of yellow, as was most of the furniture. Jean had put a lot of thought into this after Nathan Christopher had been born, and the result was a perpetuating atmosphere of cheer.  Rachel, at the time in her goth phase, had complained about this, but by now was perfectly happy with the arrangement. The goth had never entirely left her, and her heavy leather jacket was decked with spikes and chains, but she didn’t insist on her hair covering her face anymore.
 “Logan tells me that you’re going to Edinburgh for the weekend,” Scott mentioned over lunch. Rachel and Alex nodded, mouths too crammed full of food to speak. Scott scowled. “You know,” he said. “It would be nice if we could sit down and have a proper family meal in this house. Rather than you two shoveling as much food down your throats as possible because you want to be somewhere else.”
 Rachel and Alex gave each other guilty looks, chewed for a few seconds, swallowed, and then in unison said, “Sorry.”
 “It’s ok,” Jean assured them, throwing Scott a quick wordless glance. She had been trying to feed Nathan a spoonful of yogurt, but the five year old clearly had other ideas, and had both his eyes and his mouth squeezed shut, but had finally conceded defeat and put the spoon down. “Scott and I would be lying if we said we would do differently.”
 Scott huffed, and Jean sighed at her husband. “He has a point, though. It feels like we hardly speak to you anymore.”
 “It’s just…” Alex began, searching for words. “We aren’t your kids, and it can sometimes feel like…”
 “Maybe you’re not, but mom and dad entrusted me to take care of you,” Scott interrupted. “And Jean’s parents would have done the same for you if they could have, Rachel.”
 “You don’t know that!” Rachel exclaimed.
 “No, but I do,” Jean said firmly. “But I understand. You’re not kids anymore, and we’re not your parents. You’d rather be out with friends.”
 Scott continued scowling, but didn’t argue. “Anyway,” he carried on. “Edinburgh?”
 “Sure,” Rachel said, still glaring daggers at Scott when he wasn’t looking. “We needed to get Laura off the island for a bit. She’s bored out of her mind here.”
 “Laura! Kitty!” Nathan exclaimed. Jean, seeing the opportunity, forced a spoonful of yogurt into his mouth.
 “Uh, yeah, Laura,” Rachel continued. Laura and Kitty had occasionally babysat for Nathan when he had been younger. “Anyway, apparently she managed to get that past Logan.”
 “Good for her,” Scott said, smiling. “Poor girl hasn’t had much childhood.” A dark expression crossed his face, but he shook himself out of it. “Well, we’ll help you pack later.”
 “Thanks,” Alex said. He prodded his food with his fork. “And sorry.”
 “It’s fine,” Scott conceded. “But… just don’t leave us behind, ok?”

Alexander Summers
Country of origin: United States of America (Alaska).
Mutation: Passive absorption of ambient electromagnetic radiation and redirection as plasma.
Power class: Alpha.

The rest of the week passed slowly and with much rain, and by its end Laura was entirely fed up and more desperate than ever for the trip. Her room, usually highly ordered and generally bare, now had clothes strewn about it, and Sarah regularly had to come in to help her figure out what she should wear, which usually consisted of frantically texting Ororo for her expert fashion advice, which was usually met with horror at Laura’s spartan and frankly boring wardrobe.
 “You still have the t-shirt with the rainbow and unicorn on it,” she said, holding it up the day before Laura was due to leave. “Do you really still need this?”
 “Of course,” Laura snapped, snatching it. “It’s important to me. For emotional reasons.”
 “I see.” Sarah placed it in the suitcase. “And these jeans are torn to shreds.”
 “They came like that,” Laura shrugged, leaning down from where she perched on the bed to examine them. “Rachel bought them for my birthday. They’re fashionable.”
 Sarah snorted. “Well, if you say so. My, Laura, look at how you’ve grown.”
 Laura cocked her head and frowned. “Have I? These all still fit.”
 Sarah chuckled and shook her head. “I don’t mean that,” she said. “Look at you. Five years ago, you’d never have worn jeans for practicality’s sake. And now you’re defending them.”
 “They’re from Rachel,” she said sullenly, folding them and placing them on top of the t-shirt. “They’re important. For emotional reasons.”
 Sarah smiled and turned her face away. A tear ran down her nose, and she sniffed. “You’ve grown a lot, Laura,” she said softly. “We’re very proud. Me and Logan and Ororo. You’ve done well.”
 “Thank… you,” Laura replied slowly, starting to understand what Sarah meant. “I’m… a different person now.”
 “Yes,” Sarah said, holding back more tears. “You truly are.”
 She opened her mouth, trying to think of something else to say, but Kitty suddenly poked her head around the door. “Hi!” She said brightly. “Hello, Mrs Kinney. Laura, do you want to come choose your hotel room?”
 Laura’s ears pricked up. “We get separate rooms?” She asked.
 “Well, kind of. We’re rooming together. I’m letting you choose though, because the trip’s for you, and, uh, I’ll forget if I choose on my own.”
 “Sure!” Laura said, getting up from the bed. “See you for dinner, mom?”
 “See you at dinner,” Sarah said warmly. “Good to see you, Kitty.”
 “You too Mrs Kinney!” Kitty called as she and Laura rushed off through the house. Sarah smiled as they left, and wiped the tears from her eyes.
 “Your mom looked sad,” Kitty mentioned as she and Laura walked down to road toward the dorm building.
 “Did she?” Laura sounded confused. “Oh. I’m still bad at- at reading people. Maybe I haven’t changed that much.”
 “That’s bull,” Kitty snorted. “I mean, it’s not like you wake up in the middle of the night screaming anymore.”

 Laura winced. “That’s… Kitty, please do not make light of my PTSD.”

 An immediate pang of regret smacked Kitty in the gut. “Oh,” she said. “Um. Right.” They both paused. “Sorry?”

 Laura glared. “That’s it?”

 “I don’t-”

 “Fuck it, nevermind. Yeah. Ok. Thanks.” Laura strode on ahead of her.

 “Wait!” Kitty called. “I’m sorry, Laura, can we just pretend that-”

 Laura was by now too far ahead of her for her to reasonably be able to catch up. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath, knowing Laura would hear. “Good. Well done, Kitty Pryde. Never fucking think before you speak.”

 In truth, Kitty was feeling more than a little confused. She had thought before she’d spoken. Laura didn’t wake up to screaming fits anymore, she was mentally far more stable, and there had been nothing resembling a panic attack out of the blue in years. She stood still, watching Laura vanish into the dorm building ahead of her. She gradually walked up, counted to ten, and pushed inside.

 Beth stood before her, steely eyed and with arms crossed. “What did you do?”

 “Sorry,” Kitty mumbled.

 “I’m not the one to apologise to,” Beth said tersely. “I just want to know what happened.”

 Kitty scuffed at the floor with the toe of her shoe. “I just said something,” she muttered. “Mentioned that she used to have nightmares and wake up screaming. Wasn’t making light of it.”

 Beth raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

 “Yeah!” Kitty looked Beth in the eye. “That was it!”

 Beth pursed her lips. “Permission to read your mind? Laura said no.” Kitty nodded, and a moment later felt a sensation like being very thoroughly examined while nude. She tried to hide her discomfort but Beth clearly noticed.

 “Won’t take long,” she said soothingly. “I can already tell that you’re telling the truth.” The sensation stopped.

 “See?” Kitty asked.

 “I do.” Beth pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let me talk to Laura. This is on her as much as it is on you.”

 “Thanks,” Kitty grunted. She rocked back and forth uncomfortably, and Beth gestured for her to follow. “Come on, it’ll be fine.”

 Kitty followed her into the common room where the others were arranged, most of them sheepishly watching Laura, who was seated on the couch at the far end of the room. Kitty fell into a bean bag as Beth approached Laura, taking her shoulder and whispering to her. To her barest amusement, Bobby dragged his own bean bag over and flopped next to her.

 “Hi,” he whispered. “I know it wasn’t your fault.”

 Kitty sucked in air through her teeth. “It was though,” she sighed. “I know to watch what I say around Laura.” She looked sideways at him from behind the veil that her hair had formed before her face. “I want to help her, it’s just… I don’t know, it’s just…”

 “There’s so much to help with.”

 “Sure. Yeah. I always underestimate how broken she is, and then something like this happens, or she vanishes for days at a time, or gives everyone the silent treatment, or… I don’t know, remember the time she tried to remove her own claws?”

 Bobby shuddered. “So much blood,” he muttered. “But what can we do? Beth and Rachel can’t get into her head. She’s seen horrible things… done horrible things.”

 “She had no choice,” Kitty snapped. “The poor thing couldn’t have said no if she’d wanted to.”

 “Hey, I wasn’t-” Bobby started, but as he trailed off Beth marched up to them, Laura in tow.

 “Come on,” Beth said with a sigh. “Let’s sort this out, you two.” She led them both into the cafeteria, where a few younger kids - Kitty was pretty sure all younger than thirteen - were sitting around eating. Beth shooed them off. “Ok,” she said once they were gone. “Kitty. You first.”

 Kitty met Laura’s eyes, looking guilty. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I didn’t realise that was such a raw subject. I’ll be better, in the future. To you.” Laura gave a small, appreciative smile. “You’re my best friend, Laura,” she continued. “I wouldn’t hurt you like that if it wasn’t an accident. I’m sorry.”

 “It’s ok,” Laura said quietly. “I overreacted. It… wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help it. But you had no idea that what you said was a problem. It wasn’t your fault either.”

 Kitty felt a huge pang of guilt. “Oh, god, Laura, I’m so sorry…”

 “It’s ok, Kitty.” Laura reached across the table and hugged her awkwardly. “I know you won’t do it again.” Kitty noticed that Beth had quietly got up and walked back into the common room. “And anyway, you’re kind of an idiot. We all know this.”

 Kitty wrinkled her nose. “It isn’t funny, Laura.”
 “Don’t I know it. Come on, Beth probably wants to fuss over me and ask me a bunch of unnecessarily probing questions.”
 “I heard that!” Beth yelled from the lounge.
 “You’ve upset mom,” Kitty joked.
  And that! A voice rang through her head. Kitty winced at the sudden mental intensity.
 “You need to work on that,” she said, rubbing her head as the momentary headache subsided and Laura dragged her back to the lounge. “Rachel can do it without giving me an aneurysm.”
 “Rachel also regularly talks telepathically at home,” Beth sulked.
 “Maybe I’m just better than you,” Rachel suggested, a half smirk across her face.
 “You’re a pain in the ass is what you are.”
 “Not contesting that fact.”

Rachel Grey
Country of origin: United States of America (Nebraska).
Mutation: Psionics (telepathy, telekinesis).
Power class: Alpha, Omega.

“I don’t like flying,” said Laura sullenly, hunkering down in her seat. Logan looked over at her quizzically.
“How many times have you been on a plane, anyway?” He asked. “Three?”
 Laura nodded. She didn’t look at him, as that would involve seeing the window on the other side of him, and that would involve looking down. Laura hatedflying. The X-Men’s jets weren’t the height of luxury, designed for speed and efficiency over comfort, and were all hard metal and glass, which reminded her a little too much of her time before. The other kids were all perfectly happily seated and buckled in as Remy chatted to them from the pilot’s seat, but Laura was tucked up in a ball, wearing a pout and rocking back and forth slightly. Logan patted her on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” he assured her. “There are bags if you feel like being sick. I need to go help Remy with the controls. You gonna be ok?”
 “Fine,” she muttered.
 Logan gave her an encouraging smile and made his way to the front of the plane. “Gambit,” he grunted.
 “Wolverine,” Remy replied curtly as Logan sat down and strapped himself in. “I’ve radioed the airport. They’re expecting us.”
 “Good.” Logan started flicking switches. “This is your captain speaking. Please make sure you’re strapped in and prepared for takeoff.” He waved at Hank out of the cockpit, who gave him a thumbs up. The jet shuddered and began to ascend. The roof of the hangar split open above them, revealing blue sky and fluffy white clouds. The engines juddered to life and took over as the platform the jet rested upon came to a stop. They ascended above the face of Muir Island. On the grass below, Ororo and Scott waved up at them. The rippling sea spread out on all sides, shimmering in the morning light. The village perched at the island’s northern reach, a few plumes of smoke rising from chimneys. Logan sighed, a smile crossing his face at the wonder spread out below him as the jet began to move. “Never gets old,” he said under his breath. He turned back to look at the kids, who were leaning back in their seats at the sudden acceleration. Laura had turned very pale and was panting, eyes wide. Kitty seemed to have noticed and was gently speaking to her, Laura occasionally nodding. Logan turned back to the controls. Remy was leaning back in his seat, eyes closed and wearing a contented smile. Following his lead, Logan got comfortable and took a nap.

“Room keys!” Logan called. “Come get ‘em!” He jangled the keyring that the motel’s greeter had flusteredly handed him before stepping well out of sight after seeing a gaggle of mutant children approaching from across the street.
 Logan admitted that he hadn’t picked the best part of town. It wasn’t by any means run down, but there were plenty of back alleys and shifty looking people standing at their edges giving him the stink eye. He was sure the kids wouldn’t be dumb enough to try and pick a fight with anyone, but he’d also once watched Hank chase Kurt halfway around Muir Island after the boy had stolen a sealed jar of highly concentrated acid from McCoy’s lab.
 He handed Kurt the key to his and Bobby’s room. “I’ll be round in a bit to make sure you’re behaving yourselves,” he told the kids, who he wasn’t entirely sure were listening to him. “Once I’m certain this place is secure, you can all do what you want.”
 He was met with a crowd of nodded heads and general assent, which quickly dispersed upstairs. Logan watched them go, and once he was certain they were out of sight stepped outside and lit up a cigar. Remy was already waiting for him. “Found anything?” He grunted.
 “Nah. Checked all over this place, there’s almost nothing even remotely dangerous in the whole building.”
 Logan nodded. “Good. Radio Moira, put her mind at ease. I’ll take first watch tonight.”

Laura pressed her face to the grimy glass of the bedroom window, mouth half opened in wonder as she took in the skyline. “You ok?” Kitty asked, crouching beside her.
 Laura nodded. “Yeah. I’m good. Never been in a city before.”
 “Ha!” Kitty laughed. “You should see New York! It’s bigger, and better, and probably dirtier but honestly you don’t notice that after a while.” She flopped on her bed, humming to herself. “I found a place we can go later. A nightclub not too far away. Everyone seems down.”
 Laura nodded absently. “Hmm. Yeah. For dancing and things?”
 “Yeah, a bit like that,” Kitty nodded. “I think you’d be good at dancing. You’re quite good at moving around quickly and quietly and stuff.”
 “I suppose we’ll find out later.” She half smiled to herself. “This is good. I’m enjoying this.”
 “Good!” Kitty said with a grin. “I’m sure everything’s going to be fine. We’ll be great at this. You’re gonna love it so much.”

One and a half hours later.
Laura stood at the centre of the nightclub, stunned. Bright lights in many colours flashed above her head, loud music pumped out of huge speakers, and all around her people danced, spun, laughed, and twirled. She was suddenly having very different thoughts about coming here, her belly churning with apprehension and sudden panic. Her already heightened senses seemed to be assaulted on all sides, and the crush of people ensnaring her was becoming more than a little uncomfortable.
 She looked helplessly around for her friends. Kurt and Rachel had snuck off to make out in the bathroom as soon as they were sure they weren’t being watched. Alex was in the middle of the dancefloor, furiously stamping his feet and twisting his body. Marian and Beth were off to the side, slow dancing in spite of the pace of the music, quite oblivious to everything around them. To Laura’s relief, Bobby and Kitty were still beside her, each giving her worried looks.
 “Laura?” Kitty’s voice cut through her daze, jolting her back to reality. “You don’t look so good.”
 “I’m… fine.” Laura shook her head. “You two go dance, or whatever. I need to clear my head.”
 “You sure?” Bobby asked. “We can come with.”
 “I’m fine,” Laura assured him. “Go on, I’ll join you later.”
 Kitty and Bobby exchanged concerned expressions, but seemed to decide that it was best to leave her to it. “Ok,” Kitty conceded. “But come to us if there’s trouble, ok?”
 “Sure.” Laura smiled nervously. “I’ll be fine.”
 She pushed her way through the sea of people she didn’t know, trying not to think about it too much. She smiled to Beth as she passed her, receiving a puzzled frown in response, but she didn’t try to talk.
 Laura settled herself at a fairly nondescript patch of wall at the opposite end of the club to the bar, leaning back and folding her arms. She smiled wanly, watching her friends. Kitty and Bobby had joined Alex now, close together, but not too close occasionally making accidental eye contact and looking away, embarrassed. It was almost comical, but watching made Laura feel like an intruder, so she turned her head away and scanned the other people in the crowd. For the most part, they were fairly uninteresting. A few showed symptoms of extreme intoxication, who were amusing to observe for a short time. A handful were clearly high, and Laura made a small game out of trying to guess exactly what it was they were jacked up on. These people quickly lost her interest, however, after she took note of a boy. He was slouched a few meters away from her, on the same length of wall, and very deliberately trying not to look at her. She appraised him out of the corner of her eye, taking interest. She guessed he was about her own age, perhaps a year or so younger, and to her eyes quite pretty. He was short, maybe a little shorter than her, and despite his brown skin had a shock of long silver-white hair. She cocked her head, remembering what Kitty had said about finding a boyfriend. What the hell, she thought to herself. You’re never going to see him again after this. On the dancefloor, she saw Beth’s head whip around to face her, eyebrow raised. Laura made a rude gesture at her, and awkwardly sidled up to the boy. He was even better looking up close, with high cheekbones, a well defined jaw, and hazel eyes that he kept trained on the floor as she approached.
 Laura cleared her throat, not sure what to say or do. “Uhm. Hi.”
 The boy turned to face her, smiling as awkwardly as she felt. “Hi?”
 Laura stuck out her hand. “I’m Laura,” she said. “Uh. Nice to meet you?”
 The boy took the hand, looking a little perplexed. “I’m Pietro,” he said. Laura noted that his accent wasn’t Scottish, nor would she expect it to be with a name like ‘Pietro’, but after a moment’s deliberation decided to leave this fact alone. They were both silent for a second. “So…” he said after things became too awkward. “I saw you were with them?” He pointed to Alex, Bobby, and Kitty, all of whom did a bad job of hiding the fact that they’d been staring at the two of them only a moment previously.
 “Oh, yeah,” Laura said quickly. “They’re my friends. The blond one is Alex. The other two are Bobby and Kitty.” She paused. “Are you with anyone?”
 “I have… some people with me,” Pietro said.
 “That sounds mysterious,” Laura replied, voice still fast and shaky but growing used to talking to the stranger.
 “Oh, sorry,” Pietro said. He glanced up at her, making brief eye contact. They both glanced away immediately, too awkward to maintain the look. “They’re all in the toilets right now. I’ll show you them when they come out.” Another awkward pause. “So… uhm. What’s an American girl doing here?”
 “Canadian,” Laura corrected gently. “I don’t get out much. My friends and me, we live in a small village. Not a lot of excitement. We thought it would be nice to take a trip, now that we can go places on our own.”
 “Oh. Right.” Pietro started tapping his foot. Laura sniffed the air, trying to read his hormones as best she could. It was a difficult feat, which even Logan, who had long ago mastered it, advised against for its inaccuracy. She frowned. Pietro was if anything getting more anxious as they chatted, and now that she was paying attention she did see sweat beading on his brow as his eyes darted to and fro across the room.
 “Pietro,” she said gently. “If you’d rather not talk-”
 “No, no!” Pietro exclaimed. “I don’t mind that at all. It’s just, ah…” He wrung his hands. “Fuck, I can’t do this. You have to get out of here. It isn’t safe. My father, he-”
 As Pietro spoke, the lights and music cut out. Laura whirled to him, eyes flaring. Her fist swung out, ready to knock him down, but in a split second he reacted, catching the hand and ducking undr the arm. “You’re a mutant,” Laura snarled. The awkward tone and casual demeanor were gone. Laura was in her element now. She knew how to deal with this. “Who’s your father? What’s going on?”
 A scream went up around the club as the doors were flung open and the rattle of gunfire replaced the music, equally loud but twice as shocking. “I’m sorry,” Pietro said. There was genuine sadness in his voice. “I don’t want this either. I’m so-”
 “Later,” Laura snapped as dark figures rushed into the club, barking orders and forcing people onto the ground, guns tracking over the terrified people. Laura gritted her teeth.  Rachel, she thought. Talk to Kitty and Kurt. Get yourselves out of here, and then get Logan and Remy.
  I won’t leave you here, Rachel shot back.
  You aren’t getting a choice. I can deal with this situation fine by myself.
 Silence from Rachel, and then Laura saw Kitty grab Bobby and Alex’s hands as the three sunk into the floor. The room filled with purple smoke and the reek of brimstone, and a moment later Beth and Marian had vanished as well. Laura hunkered down, close to the wall, and began trying to sneak round the edge of the club. A flashlight caught her in its beam, and she swore as the man holding it barked, “On your feet! Show me your face!” at her.
 Laura straightened up, staring straight into the spot she guessed the man’s eyes were behind the flashlight glare. Another figure turned to face her, and the bottom dropped out of Laura’s stomach as she saw their face. “Oh, X-23,” Kimura drawled. “It has been such a very long time.”
 Several things happened at once. First, Pietro, almost too fast for the eye to catch, rushed up to the man training his flashlight on Laura and knocked him to the ground. Next, there was a loud ‘BAMF’ , followed by a plume of smoke, as Logan and Remy appeared in the centre of the room, one with claws unsheathed, the other holding a deck of playing cards. Thirdly, Kimura raised a gun and shot Laura squarely between the eyes.

Laura gradually became aware of a low rumbling sound. She felt her head lolling on her shoulder, and through her bleary eyes flashes of light across the inside of a large metal box. She gritted her teeth and shook her head, trying to return to her senses. Club. Kimura. Bullet.
 Her eyes snapped wide open and she tried to leap to her feet, only to be restrained by a chain tied to her ankle. She landed flat on her face, breaking her nose, and swore under her breath. She looked up again, taking stock of her situation. The light was coming from a metal grill at the top of one of the box’s walls. The rumble, upon closer inspection, was traffic. She was on the road. Her vision panned back down to the floor, and her nostrils flared at the sight of the person tied up on the other side of the cell.
 “You alright?” They asked cautiously.
 Laura growled. “Worse for seeing you,” she said sharply. “Pietro. That actually your name?” He nodded. “What are you doing here?”
 He shrugged. “I tried to help you. Which broke the contract my father had with Kimura. I’d just been there to tell them when they could come in and get you. I was given over to her in recompense.”
 Laura paused, reevaluating. “Ah.” She sat back up, tucking her knees up to her chin. Her arms were bound behind her back, making it difficult to get comfortable, but she managed to find a position that wasn’t entirely painful. “Who’s your father? Magneto?”
 Pietro bit his lip. “Yeah, actually.”
 Laura leaned forward, frowning. “And he just let Weapon X have you? You do mean he’s your real dad right?” Pietro gave her a small nod. “Fuck. I’m… sorry about that.”
 “I…” Pietro looked down and buried his face in his knees. “I don’t know why he hates me so much. He’s fine to my sisters. I just…”
 “I understand,” Laura said softly. “Most of the people who raised me were… not kind.” She drummed her heels on the floor. “What happened? In the club?”
 “They shot you. The X-Men who were there tried to get to you, but Kimura reached you first. Then she radioed my father...and here we are.”
 “Right.”
 There was silence for a while. Laura leaned back, squeezing her eyes closed and trying to will her headache into non existence. Pietro started humming to himself. Laura let him. It was best for him to have some form of escape before Kimura beat it out of him.
 It was over an hour before they stopped moving. The sounds of other traffic had faded long ago. Laura looked up, watching as one wall of the box split open down the middle, shining a ray of faded sunshine into the interior. A woman stepped up, framed against the clouded sky, wearing a wide grin upon her face. A gun at her belt. Wearing a Weapon X jumpsuit. “X-23,” Kimura grinned. “I’ve been waiting for this for so long.”
 “The X-Men will find you,” Laura informed her. “And when they do, you will die a tragic and pitiful death, begging on your knees.”
 “Still so rude!” Kimura exclaimed. “That won’t do. I’ll have to make sure you don’t carry on like that.” She turned back towards the outside. “Get them out. We can start here. Mind the girl’s hands and feet, and the boy is faster than he looks.”
 She jumped back down from the van, and Laura and Pietro were quickly bungled out of the van and onto a dirt path. Laura managed a quick glimpse of towering hills and a small river, caught the scent of wildflowers and clear air, but a sack was pulled over her head and she was soon being dragged over the dirt by callous hands. She could hear Pietro kicking and yelling, but Laura didn’t bother. She heard a metal door being pulled open, and the hood was ripped off her head before she was dropped down a hole into a new cell, lightless save what little filtered in from the hatch she had been dropped through. The light was briefly obscured as Pietro was thrown in after her. He landed on top of her with a heavy thud, knocking the wind out of both of them. The hatch slammed shut, leaving them alone in the dark. Somewhere above her, Laura heard Kimura laughing, but the sound soon faded.
 Pietro rolled himself off her. “Sorry,” he muttered.
 “It’s fine,” she sighed. Her eyes were adjusting to the dark quickly, and after a few seconds she was just about able to make out Pietro’s form in the darkness. “Hold on. Turn around.”
 He paused. “Why?”
 “I’m going to cut your handcuffs.”
 He started shuffling his body around. “Can you see?”
 “I have enhanced senses. Tertiary mutation.” She unsheathed the claw of her left foot, and carefully severed the rope connecting his hands.
 “Thanks.” He massaged his wrists. “Do you want me to help with yours?”
 “If you can, yes. It will require you to break my leg.”
 “Oh.”
 “It really isn’t as hard as you’d think, and it won’t last. I’ll walk you through it.”
 After about a quarter of an hour of extreme contortion, Laura managed to hook her foot claw around the rope binding her wrists, and soon had the bindings free from both her own and Pietro’s arms. She lay down on her back, letting her leg heal.
 “What now?” Pietro asked. “How do we get out?”
 “Wait for the X-Men,” Laura grunted. “Don’t be under any illusions, they were expecting us to remove the cuffs.”
 “Oh.”
 “In the meantime, try to get some sleep. Kimura isn’t what you’d call accommodating. You’ll want as much rest as you can get.”
 Pietro settled down a few meters away from her. “I’m sorry about what they did to you,” he sighed.
 “It’s ancient history,” Laura said. She gazed up to where the light shone through the cracks at the edge of the hatch above them. “I’m sorry that Magneto has to be your dad.”
 “Yeah.” She heard him roll away from her. “So am I.”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” Moira seethed. She was the only member of the council currently standing, leaning forward over the table, eyes trained on Logan. “Anything at all?”
 “No.” Logan kept his head bowed. His hands were folded in his lap. “Other than that it was my own fault.”
 “Damn fucking straight,” Moira snarled. “I told you it was a mistake. I told you the benefits wouldn’t outway the risks. And now we have lost Laura, your own child, and we don’t yet know how to find her.”
 “We’re working on it though, right?” Logan looked up. There was a glint in his eye, something Moira had not seen in many years. A white hot rage, the rage of a cornered animal. She faltered. It had been so long since she had seen Logan like this. Furious at the world, both within and without. She straightened up.
 “We have a lead,” she confirmed. “The other child you sighted at the club. I met him in several of my previous lives. His name is Pietro Maximoff. He’s Magneto’s son.”
 “Magneto is likely working in tandem with Weapon X to some extent,” reasoned Sage. “If we find Magneto, he can lead us to Laura Kinney.”
 Moira nodded. “Exactly. Fortunately, I believe that we are nearing a breakthrough with regards to Magneto’s location.” She sat back down. “And this time, I’m going to finish the job.”

Chapter Text

Three and a half months later.
“Fracture her skull.”
 “No.”
 Kimura smacked Pietro over the head with a police baton. He dropped to the ground, and Laura stumbled forward from where she stood at the opposite end of the shooting range, only to drop to the ground with a cry as her right kneecap was shot out. “Down,” Kimura snarled. “X-24, fracture X-23’s skull.” Pietro looked up at her with red eyes. She held his pitiful gaze, curling her lip. “X-24,” she said, voice low and menacing. “Fracture X-23’s skull.” Pietro continued to stare at her in defiance for a moment, but the crack of the baton against his neck was enough to put him down. Weeping, he nodded.
 “I’m sorry,” he murmured to Laura. She smiled wanly, and in less than a second he brought his fist down onto her head with a sickening crack.
 Kimura smirked. “Good boy. I think you’re coming along nicely, X-24.”
 Pietro glared at her, before passing out from his own head injury.

Seven people sat around a dinner table as the rain outside beat against the windows. There was occasional chatter, but it was only punctuation in the thick silence that hung over them. Bobby was usually the one to start it, trying to sound cheerful. Beth or Alex would be the one to join in, trying to rope the others into the discussion. The others might answer a question, even say a full sentence, but were otherwise unspeaking. Throughout the meal, Marian’s lips moved only to accommodate her food and drink. Kurt and Rachel laughed at jokes before catching themselves and returning to a state of quiet. Kitty was uncharacteristically silent. This had been the arrangement for months, and all seven were becoming sick of it.
 “Fine,” said Bobby in exasperation, after yet another joke had fallen flat. “I’ll come out and fucking say it. We’re all blaming ourselves.”
 “Obviously I’m blaming myself,” snapped Rachel. “If I’d ignored what she’d told me to do, I could have stopped them. She’d be here, instead of rotting in some cell somewhere.”
 “You can’t take all the blame,” Beth said gently.
 “Why the fuck not? It’s my fault.” Rachel jerked her head, and her plate shot into the air before coming to an abrupt stop, food frozen half way through dropping to the table. “I’m a fucking Omega-Class mutant, and I stood by and let that shit happen to her.”
 “And imagine if Weapon X had got their hands on you,” Bobby argued. “Imagine if it were you rotting in that cell. If they had an Omega of their own.”
 “And imagine if they’d got their hands on none of us!” Rachel snarled.
 “You weren’t the reason!” Bobby yelled, standing up. “Laura made the decision she did for a reason, and if Logan and Remy couldn’t have dealt with it, then there’s no way-”
 Rachel pushed herself to her feet and stuck her hand out. Bobby was flung backwards, impacting the wall with a thud and remaining pinned there. Rachel continued rising, levitating off the ground. “Do you have any idea, Drake?” She roared. The other kids in the dining hall had taken notice now and were staring at Rachel, agog. “Do you have any fucking clue what it’s like to be able to do things like this and be completely helpless to help the people who matter to you the most?”
 “Rachel!” Alex and Beth exclaimed in unison, getting to their feet. Kurt was standing too. His hand was on Rachel’s shoulder as he desperately tried to calm her down, but to no avail. Kitty and Marian were on her feet now, not sure what to do with themselves.
 “Get off… me…” Bobby gasped. A chill had filled the room, and Rachel looked down at her hand to see frost forming on her fingers. She yelped and dropped Bobby, who gasped as he crashed to the floor, trying to get his breath back. Rachel had her hand in her armpit, face screwed up in pain as feeling slowly returned to her digits. Her plate and food had crashed to the table, and her eyes were trained on Bobby as Kitty checked him for injuries.
 “I’m going,” she muttered.
 “You gonna tell Jean?” Alex asked.
 Rachel snorted and shook her head. “And you’d all do well not to, either.” She stormed out, head held high.
 “You gonna let her get away with that?” Beth hissed. Alex shrugged.
 “I doubt it would make a whole lot of difference either way,” he said wearily. “We’re all pissed and stressed. And she has a point.”
 “Don’t let her hear you say that,” Beth huffed. “Fine. I’ll try and get her to apologise.” She looked over at Bobby. “You ok, Bob?” She called.
 “I’m… fine.” Bobby was staring down at his hand, over which had formed a thick layer of ice. As he moved his fingers, a crackling sound accompanied the movement as the ice snapped and reshaped to accommodate the digits. “What the hell is up with this?”

Kurt Wagner
Country of origin: Germany.
Mutation (primary): Point to point interdimensional teleportation.
Mutation (secondary): Highly athletic physical form, prehensile tail, ability to stick to surfaces.
Power class (primary): Alpha.
Power class (secondary): Gamma.

Beneath Muir Island, a vast sphere of metal and glass pulsed with electrical energy. Arcs of bright lightning leapt between the aluminium plates. Before they could ever reach the platform at the sphere’s centre, they were grounded to a series of carbon rods that ringed the two people that stood upon it.
 “How close are we?” Logan asked. Emma shook her head, eyes closed.
 “It is immensely difficult to tell,” she murmured. “He has found a way to scatter his psionic signature.” She wearily removed the Cerebro headset. “He could be in any of twelve locations around the globe. Or perhaps even none of them.” Logan grumbled under his breath, and Emma turned to him, pity in her eyes. “We’re close, Logan. And once we find him, I promise I will lead you to Kimura.”
 “Every second that goes by, she could be being beaten!” Logan said, exasperated. “Please, is twelve the best you can do?”
 “I’m sorry, Logan.”
 “Shit, it ain’t your fault. I’m headed out. Gotta find something to take all this out on.”
 “Don’t worry,” Emma reiterated. “When we find them, I shall personally see to Kimura’s lobotomization.”
 Logan smiled slightly, as though his facial muscles didn’t really know what to do with themselves. “Alright.” He turned and left the Cerebro unit, hands still stuffed into his pockets.
 They were close to Magneto now, and everyone could feel it. Obtaining his psionic signature had been the difficult part, but Moira had eventually been able to track down a telepath going by the moniker of Mesmero. Emma had none too gently ripped the information from the man’s mind, leaving him something of a broken wreck, who now lay in a cell in the lower layers of the skunkworks, spending most of his time in the fetal position and whimpering to himself. A new complication had arisen, and Emma had spent many hours in Cerebro only to pinpoint twelve locations in the world that Magneto could be, and even she wasn’t sure of that.
 Sighing, Logan left the skunkworks for a walk. The moors had become boggier since winter had begun, meaning that nobody else was likely to be out on them. As far as Logan was concerned, this was perfect.
 Hours went by as Logan trudged through the long grasses by himself, occasionally buffeted by strong wind and drenched by passing showers. His thoughts rested on Laura, as much as he didn’t want them to. Sometimes, he would pass a spot where they had picniced together or spent an afternoon, and he would stop for a time, lost in contemplation. Sometimes he would lean against one of the sparse trees that the island’s harsh climate only just allowed and stare into the middle distance, or crouch at the precipice of a cliff and silently gaze into the thrashing water below.
 “Wandering again?” A voice above him asked.
 “Aye,” he grunted in response.
 The wind whistled, and Ororo settled herself on the clifftop beside him. “You know moping around like this won’t bring her back?” She said softly. Logan nodded. “It seems to me that you need to come in from the cold. Blaming yourself helps nobody.”
 “Won’t it?”
 “You aren’t the only one. Jean tells me that the others, her friends, are being just as hard on themselves as you.”
 “Jean tell you where to find me, too?”
 “As a matter of fact, she did. Logan, please. I won’t let you stay here when we’re perfectly happy to help you.”
 “Hmph.”
 “ Logan. ”
 “Fine. I just don’t want to talk.”
 Ororo smiled. “Then we won’t have to. Come, now.”

“I’m sorry,” Rachel muttered. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”
 “I’m sorry for goading you,” replied Bobby
 They awkwardly stared at each other’s feet for a couple of seconds, before Beth cleared her throat. “Better?” She asked.
 “Sure,” they both grunted. Outside, the rain was just beginning to clear up, and Rachel looked out her window, lips pursed.
 “Bobby,” she asked. “I only narrowly avoided frostbite just earlier.”
 “Sorry,” he mumbled.
 “Don’t apologise.” Rachel turned back to him, a gleam in her eye. “Your mutation is finally coming into itself.” She reached out, offering him her hand. Beth raised her eyebrow, interested. Bobby gingerly placed his fingers on Rachel’s hand, and she smiled triumphantly. “You’re not cold anymore.”
 Bobby snatched his hand back. “What?” Beth stumbled forward and placed her hand on his upper arm.
 “My god,” she exclaimed under her breath.
 “What does this mean, though?” Bobby babbled. “Am I not a mutant anymore? Will it come back?”
 “How are we supposed to know?” Rachel shrugged. “If I were you I’d talk to Moira. She’ll know more about...you.”

Moira gave Bobby a smile not dissimilar to that which Rachel had given him just half an hour previously. “You’re Omega-Class,” she informed him. “But control and mastery of your full abilities always occurs fairly late.”
 “Told you,” Beth said smugly from behind him, only to be shushed by Moira.
 “Robert,” she continued.
 “Bobby,” Bobby mumbled in correction.
 “Of course, Bobby. My apologies. Bobby, are you aware of what it means to be Omega-Class?”
 “I think it’s been explained to me before… but I can’t exactly remember,” Bobby stammered.
 “Well, then, let’s give you a refresher.” Moira leaned back in her chair. “There are six mutant power classes. The simplest is Gamma-Class, into which our friends Mr Worthington and Dr McCoy fall. The mutant has some description of upgrade to their human body. Your friend Mr Wagner’s tail and ability to grip to surfaces are an example, as is your friend Ms Carlyle’s extreme strength.”
 “She can pick up the bed when she feels the need,” Beth whispered, receiving an exasperated sigh from Moira.
 “ Anyway . On the subject of your friend Ms Carlyle, the next step is Beta-Class. A Beta-Class ability is one which is not clearly caused by the mutant’s body, but over which the mutant themself has no control. Ms Carlyle’s ability to incapacitate and absorb power with only a touch is a wonderful example, but Mr Summer’s optic blasts are another, as is Mr Howlett’s healing factor. Or Ms Kinney’s.”
 This time, Beth made no attempt to interrupt. Moira pursed her lips. “Don’t worry, either of you. We’ll save her. But we have more to discuss. An Alpha-Class mutation is a Beta mutation over which the mutant has control. Most of the island falls into this class. And, finally, Omega-Class. An Omega-Class ability is simply an Alpha-Class ability on which there is no upper ceiling. If so inclined, Mrs Frost could make contact with any mind in the universe. Mrs Munroe could cause weather events which have never been seen on this planet. You, Mr Drake, could reduce the temperature of any object to absolute zero in nanoseconds. And that isn’t even touching upon your secondary and tertiary mutations.”
 Bobby’s eyes had glazed over. “Should I… do that?”
 “It is not advised. Listen, Bobby. I am going to ask Mrs Munroe to give you some tutelage in controlling your mutation. It is not entirely dissimilar to hers, and I believe that she could have some genuine help for you. For now though, you are both dismissed.”
 Beth paused as they turned to leave. “Hang on,” she said. “You said there were six power classes. That was only four.”
 Moira smiled, but it was not a smile which filled Beth with joy. “I may teach you about those some other time. For now, those four fit all but two of the mutants that I have ever encountered.”
 Beth nodded, and followed Bobby back to the surface.

“Pietro?”
 Pietro groggily cracked open his eyes to the dark of the cell, and the rough shape of a face looming over him. “Eugh,” he grunted. “Laura?”
 “It’s me.” She leaned back, letting him get up. He had a splitting headache, the pain worse than anything he had felt in his life.
 “Why does my head hurt so much?” He asked, sitting up. He reached up, and felt his hair, matted with dried blood. “Ah.”
 “That’s mostly my blood. According to my dad it can heal other people’s injuries if applied right. Generally that means through a syringe, but I didn’t have any other choice, so I just poured it directly onto the wound. And some into your mouth because I was panicking.”
 Pietro tasted the iron for the first time. “What happened?” He croaked.
 “Kimura hit you real bad. I think you would have died if it weren’t for me.”
 “Thank you, then.”
 “Don’t mention it.”
 He slumped against the cell wall. Laura sat back on her haunches. He could make out details now; blood stained her face, and dark rings were under her eyes. “When do you think the X-Men are getting here?” He wondered.
 Laura shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t remember how long it’s been. I just want… I just want to see my friends.”
 “Don’t I count?”
 Laura laughed, almost hysterically. Upon catching Pietro’s pained expression, however, she stopped. “I’m… sorry. It’s just been such a long time since anything has been funny. You are my friend, Pietro, especially after all that you and I have experienced together.”
 “It’s ok. I get it.” He shivered. “It’s so much colder.”
 “Must be getting to winter then,” Laura mused. “They should give you a blanket.”
 “Do you think they will?”
 “No. You have me, though.”
 “My knight in shining armour.”
 Laura smiled in the darkness. “Come here, little damsel.”
 “Oh, if you’re going to start bringing up the fact that you’re taller than me-”
 Laura flowed across the space between them, tackling Pietro to the floor and causing him to burst out with laughter. She knew he could have dodged her if he had wanted to, and was surprised to find herself glad that he hadn’t. She wrapped her strong arms around him and rolled him onto his side, pressing him to her torso. “Hush now, little damsel,” she whispered. “We’re both sleepy.”
 He nuzzled her hair, and she smiled as he sighed in happiness. “Laura…” he breathed. “I think I…” He trailed off. “I mean to say that-” “I love you too.” She was as surprised as he was to hear herself say it, but the relief it brought her was exquisite.
 Pietro released a shaky breath. “I love you,” he murmured. Laura squeezed him tighter.

 “God, I wish we could… y'know,” she told him, tenderly placing a kiss on his tear streaked cheek.

 “Why can't we?” He teased, stroking her dirty hair.

 “I’m tired and filthy and not in the mood and who knows what they’d do? I don’t want them to… I don’t know, flood this place with sarin because we got frisky.” “Fair enough.” He sighed, heart bursting with melancholy and joy. “I suppose this is enough.” He paused. “My dad won’t approve.”
 “Nor will mine,” Laura sighed. “But we’re beyond their opinions now. When we get out of here, you’re going to meet Kitty and Beth and Alex and Rachel and Bobby and Marian and Kurt and they’re going to like you and it’s going to be great.”
 He kissed her cheek, making her giggle a little. “I wish you could meet my sisters,” he said glumly. “But my father would never let them out of his sight.”
 “We’ll find a way around,” Laura said, tenderly squeezing him. “I always do. Time to sleep, babe.”
 “Goodnight, my dear.”
 “Hmm.”

The gym echoed loudly with the sound of Marian breaking things. A dumbell, bent out of shape, smashed into the wall as Beth gingerly stepped into the side room set aside for Marian’s personal use. “Hey, babe?” She asked sheepishly. “You wanna talk about it?”
 “Not pressingly,” Marian grunted, smacking a training dummy over the head with an enormous lump of lead. A face had been haphazardly scrawled onto the dummy’s now deformed and broken head, and in large, angry letters proclaimed the word ‘Kimura’ across its chest. “Fine. Maybe a bit.” Beth took a seat on a bench as Marian kicked at the dummy, sending it smashing into the wall. “Never, not in my whole damn life, have I felt this much hate for anything. Not even my parents. Not even my town’s pastor.”
 “That’s… quite a lot then.”
 “It really is.” Marian sighed, wandering over to a punching bag and halfheartedly smacking it off its supports. “I want to kill her.”
 “So do I,” Beth said quietly. “Is it just Laura, or because of what Rachel was talking about earlier? Because you knew you could have stopped it?”
 Marian sighed. “Yeah. I could have.”
 “Sweetheart, you don’t-”
 “I do, Beth!” She roared. “When I was a kid, when Ororo came to my town to take me away, I was shot. Like five times. I’m bulletproof. Fucking bulletproof , Beth. But I got scared, and I froze, because when I saw them with the guns I was that terrified little fourteen year old again, whose own parents were trying to burn her alive at the stake, like a fucking witch. Because I was too weak to save my friend.” She slumped, allowing tears to run down her face. “I let them take her.”
 “It isn’t just on you, Marian.”
 “I know that!” She screamed, catching Beth off guard. “Here. If you won’t see it yourself, I’ll show you.” She crossed the room in a single stride, taking Beth’s face in her hands.
 Instantly, Beth’s face was flooded with pain. She cried out, eyes rolling upwards in her skull as consciousness began to evade her. Her mind flickered. Her resolve wavered. She gritted her teeth, pushing herself to stay awake, through the pain, and met her girlfriend’s gaze. Their eyes flared magenta, and their minds became one.
 Beth was immediately swamped in a flood of emotion. Rage swirled around her, Marian’s rage, white hot and persistent. In it she saw Kimura’s face, always on the receiving end of fantasies of revenge. Beth steeled herself, and looked deeper. The rage was no longer a flood, but a mask, and the mask covered Marian’s face. Marian, she said. Show me.
  I’m scared.
 That’s natural. Let me see underneath.
 She reached up, and gently plucked the mask of fury from Marian’s face, and read what was beneath. Marian’s face became instead a great expanse, and in that expanse Beth saw reflected many things which she was feeling. Regret. Pain. Woe. Self hatred.
 Marian’s hands snapped away from Beth’s face, and she fell backwards, panting. Beth fell against the wall, cheeks still burning. She could see stars.
 “Beth?” Marian stumbled to her knees. She shuffled over to Beth and placed her hands on Beth’s covered knees. “Oh my god. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t want… oh god, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry-”
 “It’s ok. I’m not mad.” Beth sighed, rubbing her cheeks. “And I’m still conscious, so we’re making progress.” She looked down at her girlfriend. “My dear, you need to talk about your emotions more.”
 “I’ll try.” Marian wrapped her arms around Beth’s legs. “I’m so sorry, Beth. Please, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’d never hurt you. You’re all I have.”
 “I know, sweetheart. It’s ok. I love you. And I always will.” Beth wished then, perhaps more than she had ever wished for anything, that she could kiss Marian. To just pet her hair would have been enough, or to hold her hand without the need for a glove. A tear rolled from the corner of her eye. What she would give...

Moira looked up sharply as the door to her study was thrown roughly open. “I found him,” Emma breathed, eyes wild. “He has some kind of psychic shield, but he removed it for long enough for me to locate him.”
 Moira stood up, smile broadening. “Perfect,” she said. “Emma, my friend, we are finally in business. Call the council at once.”

“Magneto is sequestered on a satellite,” Emma declared them. “Just as Moira told us. When I detected it, he was directly above a largely empty stretch of the Pacific Ocean. I have logged the orbital path to Cerebro’s data cache, but I assume that he is able to make alterations to the orbital path.”
 “It seems likely,” Sage agreed. “We will need to act fast. Moira, do we have the means to reach his satellite?”
 “My magics are still limited,” Moira said grudgingly. “But I believe that I can send a team to Asteroid M without too much difficulty.”
 “How soon should we be ready to leave?” Logan asked.
 “As soon as possible. Though I am not without magic, it will be difficult for me to manage a large group. I would suggest a group of no more than eight, if that number can be sourced at such short notice.”
 “It can,” Scott said, standing up. “Logan, Xorn, Sage, you’re with me. Emma, stay here in Cerebro. Provide a communications link between us and the island. I’ll bring Piotr too, and Jean. Anyone else?”
 “Ororo,” Logan said tersely. “The more Omegas, the better.”
 “Agreed. And for an eighth…” Scott’s face curled into a smile. “I believe we shall debut our newest member. What Magneto doesn’t know can hurt him a great deal.”

Scott Summers, “Cyclops”
Country of origin: United States of America (Alaska).
Mutation: Concussive force blasts projected from the eyes.
Power class: Beta.

Logan Howlett, “Wolverine”
Country of origin: Canada.
Mutation (primary): Hyper accelerated healing factor.
Mutation (secondary): Bone claws.
Mutation (tertiary): Superhuman physiology and senses.
Power class (primary): Beta.
Power class (secondary): Gamma.
Power class (tertiary): Gamma.
Enhancement: Adamantium skeleton.

Shen Xorn
Country of origin: China.
Mutation: Gravitational field manipulation and creation.
Power class: Omega.

Tessa Sage
Country of origin: Serbia.
Mutation: Computational brain and resultant superhuman intellect.
Power class: Gamma.

Jean Grey
Country of origin: United States of America (Nebraska).
Mutation: Psionics (telepathy, telekinesis).
Power class: Omega, Omega.

Monet St. Croix
Country of origin: France.
Mutation (primary): Superhuman physicality, senses, and intellect.
Mutation (secondary): Psionics (telepathy, tactile telekinesis).
Mutation (tertiary): Healing factor.
Mutation (quaternary): Highly manipulable physical form.
Power class (primary): Gamma.
Power class (secondary): Alpha, Tau.
Power class (tertiary): Beta.
Power class (quaternary): Alpha.

“Report, team!” Scott barked.
 “Colossus, reporting!”
 “Wolverine, reporting!”
 “Grey, reporting!”
 “St. Croix, reporting!”
 “Xorn, reporting.”
 “Sage, reporting.”
 “Storm, reporting!”
 Scott’s lip curled upward. They stood in the main hangar, assembled in an ordered line. Scott faced them, visor attached to his face. “You’re all aware of the stakes of this mission,” he grunted. “The future of mutantkind, the freedom of one of our own, our having to remain in the public eye.” He marched up and down the line. “The plan is simple. Once aboard the satellite, we make our way to Magneto by any means necessary; but we leave Magneto himself, as well as his inner circle, alive. They have information which we desperately need. Is everyone prepared?”
 “Aye, sir!” His cohort chorused.
 Scott turned to Monet St. Croix, the X-Men’s newest addition. “St. Croix,” he addressed her. “This is to be your first field mission. Are you prepared?”
 “Oui,” she replied, chin angled upward. “I am quite prepared, Cyclops.”
 “Perfect.” Scott turned to where Moira was standing. “Mz X, we’re ready when you are.”
 Moira nodded, and took a step forward. “Beast and Frost are monitoring you all,” she informed them. “Be wary, X-Men.” She arched her face upward, took a deep breath, and reached out towards them. She carved runes into the air, brow furrowed in concentration. She muttered strange words under her breath, words which had no meaning in any language to be found on Earth. Around the assembled X-Men, the air began to pulse with sudden energy.
 “Here we go,” Logan breathed.
 Monet sucked in air through her teeth, eyes wide with anticipation.
 Jean glanced upwards, as if searching for answers.
 Ororo’s jaw was set in grim determination.
 Scott and Piotr exchanged terse nods.
 Xorn and Sage remained unreadable.
 Moira made the final runes, and her hands flared with light as the X-Men vanished into thin air.
 For a moment, all there was was falling, and then…
 Boots hit the metal deck of a grand chamber. At one end of the cavernous space, on a raised dais of steel, stood a great throne. The eyes of their occupants turned on the group of X-Men and stood up, taking stock of the visitors.
 On the throne, a man rose to his feet. A great helm was upon his head, and his body obscured by a purple cloak. Through the helm, the X-Men perceived a pair of bright blue eyes, which were trained on them in rage.
 “X-Men…” Magneto drawled. “You have found me.” He ascended above the throne, cloak billowing around him. “I sense equals among you. What a shameful waste of talent.” He raised a hand, and around him rose many lengths of polished steel, heavy and razor sharp. “The time for debate, it would seem, is at an end. Goodbye, X-Men.”
 Scott squeezed the pressure pad on the thumb pad of his glove. A burst of red light, and two of the beams were annihilated. Jean’s hand flew up. The remainder stopped in mid air.
 Scott narrowed his eyes. “Go get them, X-Men,” he growled.
 Logan lunged. Monet rocketed forward. Jean released a psychic scream which caused Magneto’s council to drop to the ground, hands covering their ears and faces contorted. Scott ran forward, and before he knew it he was in the thick of combat. Energy forms flared around him, toward him, from him. Flames erupted, metal was torn, the sounds of screaming and rage filled the chamber.
 Logan relished the fight. Three months of frustration and fury welled to the surface, and it was all released in a red rage. He felt his claws tear at flesh and rend bone, and roared in the faces of the mutants that tried to pull him down. He smelled blood, sweat, anger, and… his eyes narrowed. Creed.
 Xorn ascended above his companions, hands folded before him. “Magneto,” he greeted his opponent. “A pleasure.”
 “Mr Xorn, I believe,” Magneto replied cordially. “I must say that of all the potential here wasted, yours is perhaps the most regrettable.”
 “I can and would say the same for you,” said Xorn, inclining his head. He opened his hands, revealing within them a sphere of total blackness. “Perhaps you know what this is?”
 “Impressive,” Magneto mused as the carnage raged below them. “A way to end all of us. And where would that leave you?”
 “We have other X-Men, and children entering training.”
 “Just as I have underlings who will continue my work after my own death.” Magneto raised a hand, and the magnetic fields around Xorn’s helmet fluctuated, warping the metal.
 “I would not advise that. I am not able to manipulate all singularities as easily as this one,” Xorn informed him. The fields ceased. “Thank you.” He held aloft the black hole in his hand, the blue light in his helm flaring, and released a concentrated jet of Hawking radiation at his adversary.

Kitty stood by Hank, anxiously wringing her hands as he checked and rechecked his instruments, brow furrowed in extreme concentration. “How is the fighting going?” She asked.
 “It’s difficult to tell from my position,” he told her, voice coming out slowly as he concentrated on his work. “Things seem to be progressing as planned, however. Jean is injured, but it is not beyond Dr Reyes’ skill to heal, and Logan is losing blood quickly. However, it is estimated that in his current state of heightened adrenaline, his healing factor will soon overtake the rate of blood loss.” A light on the control panel began to blink. “Interesting. Gravitational and electromagnetic fields around our team seem to be in extreme flux. Xorn and Magneto are holding little back.”

Destiny gripped her charges by their upper arms as she dragged them away from the carnage. The girls were complaining, of course, but she was in no mood to allow them to leave. “Your father’s orders were clear,” she told them, voice clipped and severe. “You are to be evacuated.”
 “But we want to help!” The girl she held with her right hand growled, flicking her green hair back in defiance. “We can help!”
 “You are children!” Destiny snapped. “And while your father will do a great many things in the name of our goals, he will not send children into battle.”
 “We’re nineteen,” shot back the other girl, darker skinned and with red pupils. “We’re not kids anymore. And besides, if that were the case, he wouldn’t have sold Pietro.”
 “Pietro abandoned us,” Destiny hissed. They were approaching the escape pods, which were already filling with other denizens of Asteroid M. “Move! I have his children to be evacuated!”
 “We can help!” The green haired girl insisted. “We’re powerful! I’m more powerful than he is!”
 “But you lack experience,” Destiny retorted, thrusting them both into a pod. “Once you arrive on Earth’s surface, you are to remain hidden. The pod’s tracking device will allow us to locate you.”
 “And if you aren’t still here to find us?”
 Destiny paused, thinking for a moment. She leaned in close, and whispered. “You didn’t hear this from me. Find the X-Men. They won’t turn their backs on you, no matter whose daughters you are. I’m sorry, both of you.
 She stepped back, and the pods doors slammed shut between them. She waved to the girls one final time before they dropped away, an orange halo forming around the pod as it plummeted towards the planet below.

Lorna Dane
Country of origin: Norway.
Mutation (primary): Electromagnetic field manipulation and creation.
Mutation (secondary): Gravitational field manipulation and creation.
Power class (primary): Omega.
Power class (secondary): Omega.

Wanda Maximoff
Country of origin: Romania.
Mutation (primary): Reality bending (thaumic).
Mutation (secondary): Magical affinity (chaotic).
Mutation (tertiary): Psionics (telekinesis).
Power class (primary): Omega.
Power class (secondary): Tau.
Power class (tertiary): Alpha.

“Detecting a number of objects leaving the Asteroid M satellite!” Hank reported. “Size and composition would indicate escape pods.”
 “Leave them,” Moira ordered from her command seat. “They likely present no threat. Do we have any more injuries on our side?”
 “None that I can detect, although the integrity of Xorn’s helmet has been put at risk. There is a two point six percent chance of a fracture before the battle is up.”
 “I don’t like those odds. Emma, tell him to keep away from the majority of the fighting.”
  Message relayed.
 “Thank you.”

Above the world, mutant war raged. The daughters of Magneto plummeted away from the battle, and somewhere below them Kitty Pryde bit her nails in nervous anticipation as her eyes darted across the dashboard of Hank McCoy’s instruments. Nick Fury listened with interest as an agent informed him of electromagnetic storms in the upper atmosphere.
 Under the world, the son of Magneto and the daughter of the Wolverine huddled together for warmth, shuddering against the encroaching night and whispering reassurance to each other when the draft blew.
 In the vast heavens, the being which Jean Grey had befriended turned blazing eyes on the Earth, interest piqued.

Chapter Text

Moira IX

Night descended upon the mutant capitol Tyr. In the jungle beyond the city’s bounds, the night time calls of the forest beasts whooped and screeched into the night. Below the city’s dome, however, the populace slept soundly, the sounds and fears of the night kept at bay by the glass hemisphere.
 At the centre of the city, in the midst of the elegant architecture, lush greenery, and mutant peace, sat the Throne Hall of Apocalypse, the ruler of the city. In the centre of that hall, upon a great throne of marble, sat the great mutant immortal. He leaned forward, his grey-blue face, screwed up in thought as he listened to his horsemen.
 “Sentinels mass on our western border,” War told him. “I have seen them myself.”
 “How many?” Apocalypse asked. “And of what variety?”
 “Hard to say,” shrugged War. “At least two hundred of the regular ones. Looked to be some smaller variety too, maybe omegas? Was hard to tell. About a thousand of those. Some black-brain mutants, maybe fifty of them? And nanites. No idea how many there were, or how dangerous they’ve gotten.”
 “Interesting,” Apocalypse mused. “Famine, how are the humans faring?”
 “Hard to tell,” Robert Drake replied. “Like Logan said, with the sentinels on our border, it’s getting difficult to see much further west, and they’re starting to get wise to my slipping through the waterways. However, they’re alive and kicking. It’s hard to say exactly how many are left, and they seem to be passing off more and more power to the sentinel AI, which is becoming increasingly complex, by the way.”
 “Problematic,” Apocalypse rumbled. “Death, do you have the capacity to take out the sentinels on our border?”
 “Not alone,” said Xorn wearily. “The AI appears to have discovered how to adapt to even the most strenuous exertions of my power.”
 “Dammit,” Apocalypse cursed. “These sentinels are evolving faster than we are.”
 “If I may, sir,” said an oily voice from behind the three horsemen. They turned to see a fourth man, face pale as a sheet, dressed all in black. On his brow was the shape of a diamond, and red as blood. “There is a potential fix to this.”
 “No,” Robert and Logan snapped in unison.
 “Wait,” Apocalypse ordered. “I will hear your idea, Pestilence.”
 “Thank you, my lord,” Pestilence said, superficial smile wide across his face. “As I have postulated in the past, a planned breeding program, using hand selected mutants, could with minimal genetic tampering result in a next generation of supremely powerful mutants, allowing for up to sixteen X-Genes per mutant by the fourth generation.”
 “Lord Apocalypse, you cannot allow this to stand!” Robert exclaimed. “What Pestilence suggests goes against everything we as homo superior hold dear! Our freedom, our children, our individuality!”
 “And what happens, Lord, when humans attain genetic engineering on a scale enough to induce mutation in themselves, hmm?” Pestilence continued. “One mutant amongst homo sapiens is a god. A mutant amongst homo novissima, a name which I have heard whispered amongst human geneticists, is nothing . Our choice, Famine, is to breed, or it is to expire.”
 “And in breeding, becoming no better than them,” Logan snarled.
 “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary actions, my friend,” Pestilence smirked.
 “Do you have a program ready?” Apocalypse asked.
 “I do, Lord.”
 “Good. I want you to begin right away.”
 “What?” Robert roared. In a heartbeat, his form had shifted, flesh and bone replaced with solid ice. “No! I will not support this insanity!”
“The choice is not yours to make,” Apocalypse growled. “Power down, Famine.”
 A pair of wings, comprised of fine lengths and shards of ice, emerged from Robert’s back. The temperature in the room, which had been pleasantly warm not a moment before, was suddenly cold enough for breath to become visible.
 Logan stepped forward. “Bobby,” he said softly. “Now is not the time.”
 The wings drooped, and Robert looked down. In another moment, the wings dropped to the ground, shattering and beginning to melt there. Ice reverted to flesh. He looked up at Apocalypse, tears in the corner of his eyes. “I will have no part in this,” he said defiantly, and stormed out of the Hall, shooting Pestilence a look that could have killed. Logan hurried to catch up with him as he descended the steps from the hall, head in his hands.
 “Bobby!” He called. “Bob, come on…”
 “It’s Robert, Logan,” he retorted. “I’m not a child anymore.”
 “Robert. Sorry. Please, stop, I just want to talk.”
 Robert sighed, and stopped walking. He sat on the steps, gazing out over Tyr. “I’m sorry,” Logan murmured, settling himself beside him. “I understand that it’s harder for you.”
 “It’s been… two months,” Robert murmured. “I won’t… breed. Phoenix, does he have to say it like that? No, I won’t breed with anyone else.”
 Logan nodded. “We all miss her, kid,” he sighed. “Even when we don’t have as much reason to as you.”
 “What do I do now, Logan? I can’t… I won’t disrespect her memory. Not now. Not with North to look after.”
 “Doesn’t seem to me like there’ll be much option,” Logan said gently. “And besides, with how you treated him back there, and that you’re Omega-Class… your name’s gonna
be at the top of the list.”
 “I would rather die.”
 “Don’t say that. Lorna wouldn’t want you to say that.”
 Robert snorted. “Lorna’s gone, Howlett. It doesn’t matter what she’d want anymore.” He wiped the tears from his face. “I’m leaving. One way or another. If I have to get to space, or another dimension, or anywhere else to escape, I’m leaving.”
 Logan was silent for a long time. “Robert?”
 “Yeah?”
 “I think I’d like to come with you.”
 Robert stuck out his hand. “Welcome aboard, old man.”

Robert pushed his front door open wearily. Logan had left him several blocks prior, going to check in with his own daughter. Stepping into the hallway, he wiped his shoes on the mat, sighing as he did. The house seemed emptier now, as did meetings of the Horsemen. He realised now just how much he had taken Lorna for granted, and how much brighter his life had been with her around. She had always been a little abrasive to others, but with him she had been tender, loving, and full of fire. There was less laughter now. Fewer reasons to smile. North had asked to be enrolled in after school classes, because now that Mommy was gone Daddy was never as happy. Meetings of the Horsemen had devolved from Pestilence being shouted down at the first opportunity to his ideas being the ruling vote in Tyr. Xorn wasn’t bad in Lorna’s role, he simply didn’t have the presence that she had brought.
 The light in the kitchen was on. “North?” Robert called. “You there, buddy?”
 His son poked his head around the door, his light green curls highlighted in the yellow light from the bulb. The fourteen year old had red eyes and a handkerchief in one hand. “Hello, Daddy,” he said hollowly.
 Robert managed a weak smile. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
 “I’m not tired,” North sniffled.
 “Me neither.” Robert sat down in the chair positioned by the doorway. “Do you want to hear a story?”
 “Is it a happy story?”
“No.”
 “Then yes.”
 Robert almost laughed, but caught himself. “Ok, North,” he sighed. “Here goes.”

Once upon a time, there was a great Tower, and that Tower rose above all the lands around it, and from its great peak the lord of the Tower commanded those lands with an iron fist and a watchful eye.
 The lord of the Tower was a powerful Magician, who it is said had made a deal with the Devil himself, and for her efforts been awarded the Tower and many great magical powers.

“What was the Magician’s name?” North interrupted.
 “I don’t know,” Robert shrugged. “I don’t think she has one.”
 “Everyone has a name.”
 “Fine. Her name was Rasputin.”
 North cokced his head. “That sounds familiar…”
 “I knew someone called Rasputin once. Anyway, listen to the story…”

The Magician, whose name was Rasputin, lived in this Tower with everything that she could ever want, and she had many courtesans and entertainers to keep herself happy. For many years, the Magician lived in that Tower, as contented as could be, when one day it occurred to her that despite all the luxuries around her, it had been such a long time since she had left her Tower that she had forgotten all about the outside world. She voiced this concern to her two favourite courtesans, whose names were Cylobel and Emmanuel. They did not know what to do or say, for they did not remember a time when they had lived outside the Tower themselves. So the Magician went to the great mirror that stood in the highest room of the Tower, and she asked to see the Devil. The Devil came to her in the image of a Cardinal, and she said to him, “Devil, why have you trapped me here?”
 And the Devil said to her, “Why, Magician, whose name is Rasputin Chimera, Fifth in her Family of that Name, at Whose Command wait all the Powers and Dominions of Hell, I have trapped you in this state to free you and to educate you!”

“She does have a name!” North exclaimed.
 “Yes, she does,” Robert said, mouth twisting again into the facsimile of a smile. “It’s a very special name, and if I were you I wouldn’t repeat it.”

“But how do you plan to free me if you have caged me here?” The Magician asked.
 “I have not caged you,” the Cardinal who was the Devil told her. “You may leave at any time you wish. The true objective is, and has always been, to teach you.”
 “What do you wish to teach me about?” The Magician asked him.
 “I wished to teach you an important lesson about God and the World,” said the Devil-Cardinal. “For I have given you everything that you might possibly need in this Tower, and you have made your own amusement and made no attempt to leave. Do you understand me, Rasputin Chimera?”
 “No,” said the Magician. “For, although this world is limited, there are men who build Rockets to take us to the Stars, and women who weave Magics to take us beyond this set of Dimensions.”
 “But you underestimate God,” the Cardinal behind whose eyes burned the Flames of Hell said. “For God has provided a means to slake your appetites for exploration and hunger beyond the confines of your Planet, just as I have provided people to come and go from this Tower. Do you understand me now?”
 “I believe that I do understand you,” said Rasputin Chimera. “But what must be done about it?”
 The Devil smiled his wide Devil smile. “The next lesson to learn is not yours,” he told her. “But the Tower is still yours, and in it I shall sequester you beyond Time and Space, that you may await the occasion that all the lessons are learned.”
 The Magician, beginning to understand, thanked the Devil, and left the highest room in the Tower to return to the delights below, where waited her courtesans and entertainers. And the Devil took the Tower, and bent Space and Time around it, so as to conceal it from the sight of humans, mutants, machines, and even God.

Moira X
Magneto knelt, hands bound behind his back. His head was held back by a length of rope, and he was forced to stare into a bright light. His nostrils flared as the woman standing over him spoke.
 “I can do this all day,” she told him, each word slamming through his mind like a knife. “I may eat and drink whenever I wish. I can do whatever I want with you.” Emma Frost stooped to his level, eyes burning with rage. “Where is Laura Kinney?”
 “Why does it matter?” Magneto sneered. “One lost child in the name of the cause? There will be others, before your mission is over.”
 Emma slapped him, and he felt the knife in his mind twist. He groaned at the psychic pain. “I may not be able to access your memories directly, but I can make things very uncomfortable for you,” Emma said, voice clipped with malice. “And if you don’t comply with me, I’ll let Wolverine interrogate you. We’ll see just how much you enjoy that .” 
 “You people are no better than I,” Magneto laughed. “You align yourselves with humanity’s Avengers, but you would go as far for your cause as I.”
 Emma’s mouth curled into a wide smile. “We’re no more aligned to the Avengers than you are,” she said. “Last night, I used Cerebro to remove any memory of us that humanity ever had.”
 “Why?”
 “We used the Avengers to lure you out. Now that we have you, there is no more need for them.”
 “Cunning as ever, Mz Frost.”
 “Perhaps. But we are getting off topic. What is the purpose of your partnership with Kimura?”
 “We used her as a way to attack you. She used our information to take the girl. The partnership was simple, and mutually beneficial.”
 Emma twisted the psychic knife. “And she told you where Laura was being transported?”
 “She did.”
 “Where?”
 “That is not your concern.”
 Emma bent down, eyes narrowed. “I’m forced to disagree with you there, my friend,” she said. “On this island are a father and a mother without their daughter, a little boy without his big sister, and any number of children without their friend. And if these people go without that for much longer, it is going to become my problem. And if it becomes my problem, then it also becomes your problem.” She gripped Magneto by his chin, and forced him to stare into her eyes. “Where is Logan Howlett’s daughter?”
 Magneto stared back defiantly. “Do you think that I don’t want to tell you?” He asked. “Kimura has something of mine, just as she has something of yours. But a deal is a deal.”
 Emma let go of his face, glaring. She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, frustrated and despairing.
 Moira waited for her outside. “I take it you made little progress?”
 “He definitely knows where she is. Nothing more, at least not yet.” Emma sighed, deflating a little. “Should we allow Logan to speak with him?”
 “Not yet,” Moira said. “We need him alive, after all. I asked Sarah if she would see him, but she refused.”
 “Marian.” Emma wasn’t sure where the thought had come from. “Psionic defenses are useless against her.”
 “So you’re suggesting that we…?”
 “Yes. She’s Laura’s friend, she’ll say yes.”
 “And the potential consequences of having Magneto in her head?”
 “It’s a risk we’ll have to take.”
 Moira nodded. “I see. Find her.” She took a deep breath. “We may finally have some answers.”

No-Space
Rasputin Chimera sits in earnest contemplation at the summit of her tower, hands folded on the hilt of her sword. Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated, trying desperately to hold on to every second. The act is to be immensely difficult.
 She looks up sharply at the sound of footsteps. A man will enter the room. His skin is red, his ears pointed, and a snaking tail protruded from beneath his robe. “Cardinal!” She greets him, standing from her throne. “It has been a long time. Or perhaps no time at all.”
 “I must confess that I too have lost track of how long we have been here,” Cardinal will say. “I looked at the face of the clock in the Great Hall earlier, at least I think it was earlier, and it had many more hands than I remembered, and all moving at different speeds.” He shakes his head. “It has become impossible to keep track of anything.”
 Rasputin will nod her head. “It is indeed a strange circumstance,” she mused. “Why have you come to see me, Cardinal?”
 “It is because I find myself wondering,” Cardinal replies. “That as we are here, beyond time or space, and all moments are simultaneous, that we may not know if we are ever to leave, or to have left, this existence.”
 Rasputin considered this. “It is an interesting question,” she will say. “But, at once, there was a time when we were not like this, thus implying that the future is a state that still exists, even if the time taken to reach it is infinite.”
 “That is true,” Cardinal shall concede. “Then there is nothing to do but wait?”
 “It appears not,” Rasputin sighed. “Do you know any location in which Cylobel may be found?”
 “Nearly all of them,” Cardinal replies.
 “Oh. Of course. I suppose that is true.” Rasputin Chimera placed her head in her hands. “This scenario is so bizarre, Cardinal.”
 Cardinal nods. “And yet, there is nothing that we can do.”
 “No. No there is not.”

Moira X
Pietro stared with dull eyes through the glass, on the other side of which Laura writhed on the floor and Kimura hit her, over and over with the same police baton she had used to punish Pietro only days prior. Laura howled and screeched in primal fury, back arching and claws scything to little effect. Kimura was clearly delighted, laughing as each blow connected and kicking Laura as she recoiled from every hit. This was the fifth time Pietro had seen her do this. She would spray a little of the trigger scent on herself, and then delightedly do as much harm to Laura as she could as she desperately tried to cut through her impenetrable skin. The first couple of times, Pietro hadn’t even watched. The third, he had banged his fist on the glass, yelling and pleading with Kimura to stop. The fourth, he had simply cried. Now, watching her beat the girl who had woken him up in the morning with a kiss within an inch of her life, all he felt was a hollowness in his soul. He was powerless. His leg was locked in a brace, which would deliver an extremely painful electric shock if he attempted to use his powers. The glass was five inches thick. The guards were under orders to cripple him if he tried anything. All he could do was watch Kimura. He could no longer tell if the display was to beat Laura into submission or to break his spirit, but it had succeeded at the latter.
 He dimly registered that Laura had stopped moving. Kimura poked at the unmoving form with the toe of her boot, and laughed. She grabbed Laura by her hair and dragged her over to the observation window, where she hoisted her up to the glass and waved her bruised and bloodied face in front of Pietro, a grin on her own face. Pietro only blinked. Kimura laughed out loud, and dropped Laura.
 A section of the viewing window slid open, and Kimura hurled Laura’s unmoving body through. “Take them back to their cell,” she ordered the guards. Pietro felt the barrel of a gun prod at his back, and he glumly stumbled forward, movement impeded somewhat by the brace. “X-24!” Kimura called. He looked over his shoulder at her. “I’ve got a very special surprise for you tomorrow. I think you’ll love it.”
 Pietro made no response, and trudged back to his cell.
 Laura came to a few minutes after the guards had bolted the door behind them. She pushed herself up onto her elbows, took a shaky breath, and vomited up a stomachful of blood. “I’m fine,” she assured him as he started forward. “Better out than in.” She wiped blood away from her mouth. “I’m sorry she made you watch that. Again.”
 “It gets easier every time,” Pietro said softly. He gulped. “Oh god, here I go…” Tears started to run down his cheeks. He bent over, sobbing into his knees, taking deep, ragged breaths between sobs.
 “Hey!” Laura exclaimed. “Hey, it’s ok!” She crawled to him, and gently pulled him into a hug. “Shh, now. What’s wrong?”
 He rested his head on her shoulder, letting his tears soak into the fabric of her tattered shirt. “She’s finally done it,” he said, voice small and weak. “She’s broken me.”
 Laura petted his hair, eyes full of pity. “I know, babe,” she murmured. “It’s bad. I hate her too.”
 “She said she has some kind of… of surprise for me tomorrow.” He clung tight to Laura, not daring to loosen his grip lest she fade. “I’m so scared, Laura.”
 “Listen to me, Pietro,” she whispered. “Whatever it is, she won’t kill you. And I’ll still be here for you once it’s over.” She kissed his brow. “I’m scared too. When we’re away from here, on Muir Island, I will stay with you, night and day, as long as you need me to. I’ll help you calm.”
 Pietro’s tears subsided a little. “Tell me more about Muir Island,” he asked, leaning up and kissing Laura’s jaw.
 “Well, it’s very windy. And very rainy. But sometimes Ororo, my stepmom, will send all the clouds and the rain away, and then there is the most beautiful sunshine, and the sea is as calm as a mirror.” Laura sighed contentedly. “And when that happens, we go out onto the moors and look for wildlife. Sometimes me and Marian run with the deer. Sometimes we find fish in the tarns. Sometimes Beth and Rachel get the rabbits and birds to come to us, and we pet their fur and their feathers.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to show it all to you. For you to join us as we run with the deer.”
 “I would like that,” he said, still holding her. “I love you.”
 “I love you more.”
 “You wish.”
 Laura laughed, and kissed him some more.

Emma knocked on the door to the rec room in the kids’ dorm building. She couldn’t help but turn her nose up, just a little. Elizabeth had a point, this place could be in better shape. The door was opened by Kurt Wagner, who practically gasped in surprise at her appearance.
 “Kurt,” she greeted him with a smile. “Is Marian in there?”
 “Ja,” he replied. “Why? Is she in trouble, because the damage at the gym was completely-”
 “No, she’s not in trouble,” Emma assured him. “Although I will need to hear more about this occurrence at the gym. I actually have a job for her at this present time. May I come in?”
 “Of course.” Kurt stepped aside, and Emma strode into the room. The kids were lounging around, not doing any of the schoolwork that they had been set.
 “Children,” said Emma, stepping into the room. Immediately, the group was more alert and straight backed. Emma sighed. “I see that none of you are currently pursuing your studies?”
 “No, Mz Frost,” came back the low murmur from the room.
 Emma pursed her lips. “At the very least, the honesty is appreciated,” she said curtly. “Ms Carlyle, could I please have a moment of your time?”
 “I, uh, um,” Marian stammered. “Sure. Yes, Mz Frost.”
 “With me,” Emma said, leading the girl from the room. Marian followed nervously. Emma closed the door behind them. “Marian,” she said in a low voice. “I have an important task for you.”
 “Oh.”
 “It’s to do with finding Ms Kinney.”
 Marian’s eyes widened. “I can help?” She whispered.
 “We think you may be the key to finding out where she is,” said Emma. “It is true, is it not, that psychic defenses are quite useless against your primary mutation?”
 Marian nodded.
 “You see, I’ve been having quite a bit of difficulty getting into Magneto’s head,” Emma continued. “But, if you were to give me some help, I believe we could accomplish the task.”
 Marian paused. “When I… when I absorb someone,” she said cautiously. “It isn’t just their memories I get. He’d be inside my head. I don’t know if my mind would come out on top.”
 “I will help you, then,” Emma promised. “As, I’m sure, will our friends the Greys and your beloved Ms Braddock.”
 Marian nodded again. “I… will help,” she said, voice still quavering slightly. “Do you want me to do it now?”
 “As soon as possible,” Emma said. “We want your friend back soon.”
 “Alright.” Marian sucked in the air through her teeth. “Let’s go.”
 Emma smiled. “Elizabeth! Rachel!” She called. “The two of you will also be needed. The rest of you are welcome to come and observe.”
 The door opened, and six concerned faces peered out. “What do you need, Mz Frost?” Beth asked nervously.
 “Your help is required in locating Laura Kinney,” Emma explained. “I’ll tell you the rest on the way. Come along, children.”

Moira IX
Logan and Robert sat on a bench at the centre of Tyr, facing the serene lake at the city’s centre. For almost an hour, neither spoke, just took in the sheen of moonlight reflected on the water’s surface. A family of ducks slept under a bush by the shore.
 Eventually, Logan spoke. “I talked to Kymera,” he said. “She doesn’t see much hope in this war anymore. She wants to leave.”
 Robert nodded. “So does North,” he said, voice still heavy with melancholy. “He hasn’t said anything, but if there were a way out of here… he would take it.”
 “Do you have any ideas?” Logan asked.
 Robert shrugged. “Maybe. It turns out that Earth was quarantined by an alien intelligence, the Archivists think the Kree, a few years ago. There’s no way in or out through space flight.”
 “But?”
 Robert took a shaky breath. “There may be a way to slip out of this dimension unnoticed. Some of the Archivists have been doing research relating to North’s powers.”
 “What’d they call it again? Void manipulation?”
 “Something like that. They think North may be able to access extraspatial and extratemporal reality. They called it No-Space. Or Nowhere.”

Moira X
Marian knelt before Magneto, face creased with anxiety. The man just stared at her, his expression entirely blank. Marian glanced up at Emma, who gave her an encouraging smile. She took a deep breath.
 “You’ll do just fine,” Emma assured her. “We have your back.”
 Marian gulped. “Thanks,” she said in a small voice. “Is he, uhm. Is he definitely restrained?”
 “Yes,” Jean said. “And utterly powerless while in this room.”
 “Alright.” Marian pulled off her gloves, taking a shaky breath. “I’ve got this.”
 She reached for Magneto’s face, causing him to shrink back with a sneer. She flinched slightly, but hardened her resolve, and gently placed her palm on his cheek.
 The flood of thought and emotion was instant, and Marian cried out in shock as it flowed through her. She felt pain, rage, fear, and longing. A burst of memory sent her spiralling, and she found herself reeling at the presence of nearly ninety years worth of experiences. The man was far older than he looked.
  We have you, Emma’s voice echoed in the back of her mind. Stay strong. Find Laura.
 Marian stared with her mind’s eye into the brilliant torrent of memory. She saw laughter, tears, pain, and guilt. She saw the face of the woman she had glimpsed briefly in the club, attached to a perplexing mixture of guilt and hatred. She pushed forward into the memory, opening her mind to Magneto’s experience.
 Erik stood on the dry earth of a vast meadow, watching as the cohort of jeeps pulled up to the small ring of trees before which he stood. He felt repulsed by the sight. Human modes of transport such as these would have to go, he decided. They were nasty, greasy things, which spoiled the clear air of this beautiful world. He was sure that he could easily find a faster and more environmentally friendly alternative, it was just that humans never seemed to want to look.
 The jeeps screeched to a halt. The door of the first one opened, and a woman jumped out. She swaggered over to Erik, displaying what Erik considered to be a quite vulgar level of cockiness. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips as she approached, making his disdain clear, but this only seemed to accentuate her swagger and widen her smirk.
 “Magneto!” She greeted him. “My, oh my, to meet you in person? It’s a privilege.”
 “The privilege, Kimura, is that I have not annihilated you where you stand,” Erik spat. “I am here to conduct business. It is my full intention to one day kill you.”
 “And I look forward to that day!” Kimura laughed. “But that isn’t important. You said you had information on the whereabouts of a certain item that was stolen from me?”
 Erik sighed, and nodded. “One of the many advantages that my species has over yours is the natural occurrence of individuals with precognitive abilities,” he told her. “One of them has informed us that the girl is to be present at the Incense Nightclub in Edinburgh in two weeks, three days, five hours, and roughly twenty minutes.”
 “Hmm,” Kimura said, stroking her chin. “Interesting. Only problem is, I have absolutely no guarantee that that’s actually gonna happen. Also, you literally just threatened to kill me, which I’m not gonna take lightly. I’m gonna need collateral.”
 Erik nodded. “A fair demand. I have a child who I believe can be used for your purposes, much like the Wolverine’s daughter has been. He will also be present at the nightclub at that time, and should the girl evade capture, he is to be all yours.”
 “Done deal,” Kimura said. She extended a hand. “What are you getting out of all this, though?”
 “I just need to be able to track the X-Men,” Erik told her. He glanced back at the copse of trees briefly, and in that moment a brief thought about where he was flashed across his mind. He turned to Marian. “Get the fuck out of my head.”
 Marian snapped her hand away from Magneto’s face, screaming. “The prairies!” She yelled. “She’s in the prairies! In Canada! In the wilderness, miles from…” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she fell into warm unconsciousness.

“We have an exact location,” Emma shouted, bursting into the council chamber. “Alberta. I can program the exact coordinates into the jet’s computer.”
 Logan shot to his feet, eyes wild. “When are we leaving?” He barked.
 “Slow down!” Moira urged, standing up. “The team is still recovering from capturing Magneto. We can’t afford to send everyone back out immediately.”
 “Well, I’m going!” Logan cried, pulling his jacket on. “I’ll bring Remy and Hank. They’re-”
 “We’re coming too!” Came a voice from the corridor. The council turned, stunned, to see four faces in the doorway.
 “No!” Moira snapped. “Absolutely not. You’re children!”
 “We’re old enough to kick ass!” Rachel retorted.
 “Old enough to help our friend,” Beth added.
 “Omega-Class enough to be useful!” Bobby shouted.
 Kitty shrugged. “She’s my best friend,” she said simply.
 “Decided, then,” Logan butted in before Moira could get any further words out. “I take Remy, Hank, and these four. We go in, get my daughter, and get out.”
 “Wait, Logan,” Moira said, already knowing it was hopeless. “They’ve had no formal combat training.”
 “Rachel, I’ve seen what you can do, just do more of it. Bobby, do not let your armour down. Beth, you can overload people’s brains, so just shout at them real loud. Kitty, stay phased until absolutely necessary. There, combat training. The four of you have had X-Men uniforms waiting in storage for two years now, so come on. We’ve got some bad guys to slaughter.”

Pietro shivered on the ground. His arms were covered in a patchwork of scars. His eyes were unfocused and wide open. His breathing was laboured and ragged. Kimura had hurled him back into the cell an hour ago, in which time he had said nothing to Laura, despite her coaxing. She had slammed fist against the door and screamed at the guards outside, demanding to know what had been done it him. She had been given no response, and so had returned to the laborious process of shakily slitting her wrist and rubbing the blood into the scars on Pietro’s arms, which had begun to fade. She sat beside him, quietly singing to him. For a while, this tactic had seemed as useless as the others, but after a time he stopped shivering and pushed himself a little closer to her. She patted his arm, and continued her song.
 Eventually, he began to hum along to the melody, and Laura sighed in relief. She sang for a while longer, allowing him to settle down. “Laura?” He asked when she finally stopped. She looked down at him.
 “Pietro?” She replied.
 “I don’t think the X-Men are coming.”
 Laura said nothing. She placed a hand on his head and rubbed his hair. He buried his face in her thigh, and tears wettened the ruined fabric.

“The plan is simple,” Logan explained as the jet sped across the Atlantic Ocean. “Gambit, Beast, and I will tackle them head on. You four keep your defences up and don’t make a move that could compromise your own safety.” Beth raised her hand. “Go for it.”
 “I can’t create very strong telekinetic wards,” she said sheepishly.
 “I can siphon off some of my own power and direct it to you,” Rachel said. “Just keep your mind linked to mine and you’ll be fine.”
 “Great plan,” Logan said. The corner of Rachel’s mouth curled upwards. “We take a systematic approach to things, that way we have the best chance of finding Laura. Rachel, Beth, I’m gonna need you two to keep active communication channels open. That gonna be an issue?”
 The two telepaths glanced at each other. “Uh,” Beth said sheepishly. “Probably.”
 “We’re not Jean and Emma,” Rachel added. “That kind of thing is a lot harder for us. Particularly without practice.”
 “Dammit.” Logan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Well, try your damndest. Bobby, I want you with me. I’ve seen some of what my wife has been teaching you to do, and it’s impressive. Kitty, you’re on sneaking around with Remy. Hank’s guarding the exit. Beth and Rachel, do whatever feels the most useful.”
 “What does that even mean?” Beth asked, eyes wide.
 “I don’t know! Jean and Emma just do their own thing, and it’s usually useful!”
 “Go with Logan, but try and keep comms open with me!” Remy called from the pilot’s seat.
 “Yeah, that,” Logan said. “Ok. We’ve got a long ride. Try to get some sleep.”

Marian cracked her eyes open. Two faces swam above her. She shook her head to clear her vision, blinked, and the faces resolved themselves into Alex and Kurt. “Ugh,” she groaned. “Where’s Beth?.” She pushed herself up, finding herself to be on a sofa in the games room.
 Alex and Kurt glanced at her. “She’s… with Logan,” Kurt said slowly.
 Marian froze. “You mean… she’s getting Laura?”
 “Yep. So are the others.”
 “Oh my god.” Marian swung her legs off the sofa, to see three other kids watching her from the other sofa. “Oh. Hi, guys. Dani, and Chris, and I want to say… John?”
 “Jean-Paul, but close enough,” the pale Canadian boy said. “Oh. You knew that, didn’t you?”
 Chris patted his boyfriend on the back. “She’s just kidding, J,” he said softly, ruffling the feathers of his enormous brown wings. “We were just worried about you. Alex told us about what went down with Magneto.”
 Marian nodded, staring into the middle distance. “Marian?” Alex asked. “You ok?”
 “Fine,” Marian muttered. “Hey, do you three losers know how to play, like, I dunno, Monopoly?”
 “Obviously we do,” Dani said, looking a little taken aback.
 “Don’t act like we’re not the losers,” Kurt muttered to her.
 Marian rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We gotta do something until Beth gets back. Who wants to play?” She got up and wandered over to the cupboard. Behind her, she could catch tiny snippets of the mouthed conversation between Kurt and Alex. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips.

Laura brushed the dirt from Pietro’s hair as he stirred. He had spent all night with his head in her lap, sleeping fitfully. She had dozed off a few times herself, but ultimately been too consumed with concern to stay asleep.
 “Pietro?” She whispered into the dark.
 “Laura?” Came the response.
 “Are you ready to talk about what happened?” Pietro was still for several seconds, but Laura felt him nodding. “In your own time.”
 “They… cut me open,” he said quietly. “There wasn’t much painkiller.”
 “There never is.”
 “Then they… they removed the bones from my arms.”
 Laura’s breath hitched. “They did something like that to me once,” she said soothingly, smoothing his hair.
 “Then, they… they made casts of my bones. And they poured some metal into them.” He curled up closer to her. “And then they… they… they put the metal bones back in.”
 Laura felt a tear drip from her nose. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “And they’re still in there?”
 He nodded slightly. “In my arms. I have metal bones now.”
 “Are they adamantium?”
 “How am I supposed to know?”
 Laura bowed her head. “That was a dumb question. I’m sorry.”
 A pounding was heard at the cell door. “Wait here, babe,” Laura whispered, gently laying Pietro’s head on the floor. She stood and slunk over to the door. “What do you want?” She hissed through the gap.
 “You two are coming with us,” the guard’s voice returned. The door was flung open, and Laura found herself staring down a gun barrel. “Emergency.”
 Laura made no reply, but held her hands out to be handcuffed. “Don’t resist,” she called over her shoulder. “You never know what they might try if you do.”
 “That’s what I want to hear,” the guard laughed, locking the cuffs around Laura’s wrists as a second pushed past them to deal with Pietro.
 “What’s the emergency?” He asked as he was forced to his feet.
 “None of your business,” the man snarled, kicking him in the shin. “Come with me.”
 Laura felt herself pushed away from the cell, and from the corner of her eye caught the other guard pushing Pietro in the other direction. “Wait,” she said, panicked. “Where are you taking him?”
 “Emergency,” the guard behind her grunted, shoving her forward. “We’re not sending the two of you to the same place.”
 “But-”
 Her arm was viciously twisted, and she cried out before she could finish her sentence. “You’re assets,” the man snarled. “We can’t afford to lose you both.”
 Pietro was far out of sight, and Laura found herself bewildered in the grimy corridors of the new Weapon X facility. “One day, I’m going to kill you,” she told the guard.
 “Not all too likely,” he laughed. “Kimura’s got the final stages all planned out. You and your boyfriend aren’t going to be keeping your minds much longer.”
 Laura could hear gunfire now. “That’s my dad, isn’t it?” She asked. The guard was silent. “I’d be terrified, if I were you. Do you know what happens to people who get on the Wolverine’s bad side?”
 “Shut up, X-23.”
 Laura smirked. She glanced round as they passed a side corridor, and had to stifle her astonishment when she saw Kitty creeping toward them, finger pressed to her lips. Laura very deliberately didn’t look at her, and the guard, not having Laura’s eyesight, didn’t spot her.
“Besides,” the guard continued. “I don’t see how it matters if it is your dad. Not as if he’s going to be able to find you.”
 “I don’t think he’ll need to,” Laura shrugged, just as Kitty grabbed the man from behind and turned him intangible. His hands passed right through Laura, and he cried out in astonishment and fear, only to be silenced as Kitty smacked him over the head with a police baton. He crumpled to the floor, where Kitty kicked him several times. She looked up at Laura.
 “You look like shit,” she said, trying very hard to keep the tears out of her voice and failing quite spectacularly. Her lower lip quivered. “Oh my god, Laura, we’ve missed you so much!” She threw her arms around her, her free hand phasing the handcuffs from Laura’s wrists.  “I’ve missed you so so so so so much.”
 “You two, Kit,” Laura replied, hugging her friend. “This has been one long, shitty ass year.”
 Kitty pulled back. “A year? Laura, you’ve been here four months.”
 “Really? Wow. It felt so much longer, and it was so…” She pulled Kitty back in. “I need a hug right now.”
 “Maybe so, but we need to get back to Logan and Remy now, because they aren’t going to be able to hold security off forever.”
 “Ah. Yeah.” She separated from Kitty again. “See, we have to go get someone first.”
 “What? No, we need to go, now!”
 “We have to, Kitty!” She looked her friend in the eyes, trying to make her understand. “He’s Pietro Maximoff, the boy from the club. His dad, that’s Magneto, sold him to these people as compensation for trying to help me.”
 “We can come back for him when we have more X-Men, because Bobby and Rachel aren’t exactly having the easiest time of it up there!”
 “I love him, Kitty.”
 Kitty’s face shifted to pity. “Laura, this was not the place or the time to get a boyfriend.” She sighed. “But, fine. We’ll find Pietro Maximoff.” She kicked the guard once more for good measure.
 Laura jerked her head in the direction that she has seen Pietro dragged away to, and she set off in that direction, Kitty in tow. “You haven’t got any slower,” she puffed, the effort of keeping pace with Laura a little difficult. Laura’s eyes sparkled like they hadn’t in months.
 “I managed to keep in shape,” she said with a smirk. “Anything interesting happen while I was away?”
 “We all… cried a lot… and were pretty angry,” Kitty panted. “Turns out Bobby’s Omega-Class. Please, can you slow down?”
 “My boyfriend is in potentially mortal danger,” Laura reminded her as they whirled around a corner. “I’m already slower than I’d like.”
 “Stubborn as ever,” Kitty grumbled, and pushed forward.
 Laura paused briefly as they passed the operating room. Pietro had been tortured in there. Her nostrils flared, and she kept running.
 “What’s he like?” Kitty asked as Laura guessed at corridors and lead them to dead ends. “Anything like his Dad?”
 “I sure hope not.” Laura’s face softened a little. “He’s adorable. And sweet. He’s not had an easy life, even when held up to us. I love him.”
 “Pretty standard then,” Kitty teased, earning her a dirty look. “Oh, I’m sure he’s lovely. I won’t ask him too many probing questions, I promise.”
 Laura ignored her, and sniffed at the air. “Everything stinks of blood in here,” she muttered. “It’s impossible to pinpoint- ah!” Her pupils dilated. “I’ve got Kimura. He’ll be with her.”
 “I don’t know if that’s such a good-”
 “I don’t care. Come on!”
 Kitty sprinted after her.

“What the hell is taking her so long?” Logan snarled, pinning a guard to the wall and brutalising his face. “They should be back by now!”
 “Kitty says they need to find someone!” Rachel replied. “It’s hard to concentrate on the psychic connection, I’m sorry!”
 A bullet ricocheted off Logan’s skull, and he turned to the man who had fired it, nostrils flaring, only to watch in surprise as Bobby encased them in a coffin of ice. “Nice going, bud!” He called to him. “Hold down the fort, I’m going after Kitty!”
 “But what about us?” Beth shrieked.
 Logan glanced at the blade of shimmering psychic energy that extended from her clenched fist. “I think you kids are alright,” he said. “Don’t kill anyone without me!”

Laura raised her foot as she approached the door and smashed through it, bursting through into Kimura’s personal office. The room was bare, the walls barren, marked only by a desk and chair. Behind the desk was Kimura, holding a pistol to Pietro’s head.
 “Get out,” she snarled. “Go back to your oafish father and your family of freaks and you’ll never have to see me again.”
 Laura took a step into the room. Kimura cocked the pistol in response. “I’m not leaving without him,” she said, voice low and intense. “If you never want anything to do with me again, you’ll hand him over.”
 “I need him, or you, or both of you!” Kimura roared, voice wavering.
 “Then what are you doing with that gun?”
 “Laura, just go,” Pietro whispered.
 “Shut up!” Kimura snarled. “You’re not a person, X-24, you’re my property, and I’m not going to-” She froze completely. Her eyes widened, and she gurgled. Kitty stepped into view from behind her, clutching in one hand a lump of slimy flesh.
 “I…” she mumbled. “I just grabbed at something. I didn’t mean-”
 “That’s her heart, Kitty,” Laura said gently as Kimura slumped to the floor, Pietro wriggling out from under her corpse.
 Kitty stared in horror at the heart, then at Kimura’s body, then back to the heart. “I…” she whispered. “I… I-” She dropped the lump of muscle, and covered her mouth with a bloodstained hand. “I killed her…”
 A pounding of feet was heard from the corridor, and Logan appeared in the doorway. He took in the sights. Kitty knelt on the floor, tears dripping into a pool of blood around her knees. Pietro sat against the wall, knees tucked up to his chest. Laura turned to face him as he appeared, her dirty face streaked through with her own tears. “Hi, Dad,” she said quietly.
 Her ran over and hugged her, and she hugged him back, and before either of them knew it, Kitty and Pietro were hugging them too, and all four cried in relief and horror.

Ten hours and several showers later.
Tentatively, Pietro placed his tray of food down next to Alex’s. The larger boy looked up and smiled at him. “Pietro, right?” He asked.
 “Yeah,” Pietro nodded, smiling. “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?”
 “Alex Summers,” he replied, taking Pietro’s hand and shaking it. He continued as Laura took her seat opposite her boyfriend. “That’s Beth, she’s the smart one. That’s Kurt, he’s the funny one. Next to him is Bobby, who thinks he’s the funny one.”
 “Hey!”
 “The one with the things that look like tattoos is Rachel, but those are natural facial markings. That’s Marian, she’s quiet. And you already know Kitty and Laura.”
 Pietro opened his mouth, and before he knew it he was deep in conversation with the table, laughing along with them and listening to their stories. Happiness was kindled in his belly, and for the first time in his life, he knew that he belonged.
 Marian laughed with the rest of them. She whispered to Beth and Bobby, who she was sitting next to, occasionally, but otherwise made no attempt at input. She decided she liked Pietro, even though the impressions of him she had received from Erik were overwhelmingly negative.
 Dinner ended. Beth asked if she was coming up, and she shook her head and told her that she wanted to go for a walk by herself. Beth nodded, kissed her on the shoulder, and left for her bed.
 Marian walked out into the village, hands stuffed into pockets for warmth. She kicked at a few loose stones by the sidewalk, making her way to the subway entrance. She ran her fingers over the chilly metal of the handrail as she descended into the skunkworks, clouds overhead replaced by concrete and LED lamps. She navigated the tunnels, ignoring the corridors to the hangar, Cerebro, and the council chamber. She found the gaol easily enough, and let herself in using the password that Emma didn’t know she had seen her use. The doors slid open, and she made her way to the only occupied cell. Erik sat cross legged on the floor, facing the bars. Marian mirrored him.
 “You have returned,” he said hollowly.
 “Yes,” she said.
 He looked up at her with tired eyes. “Why are you here, child?” He asked.
 Marian dropped her eyes, not meeting his gaze. “Because you’re right,” she whispered. “You’re so right.

Chapter Text

Lorna could feel a pounding inside her skull. She groaned and cracked her eyes open, wincing at the sudden influx of light. Memories started to return to her in a trickle. She recalled Destiny slamming the escape pod door on her and Wanda, and then the sudden weightless feeling of falling. She had felt the rushing of the Earth’s magnetosphere around her, and then the pod spinning round and round as she and Wanda screamed. At some point in the confusion she had dimly registered that the parachute had failed, followed by an intense sensation of impending doom. Wanda had passed out at this point, Lorna assumed from injuring her head, and Lorna had been left alone in the pod, hurtling towards the planet’s surface at terminal velocity.

 “You’re awake!” Someone shouted as Lorna cautiously started moving her limbs. Her whole body ached.

 “Wanda?” She rasped. The inside of her mouth was dry. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the light. She seemed to be in a clearing in the middle of the woods, under a small tent. A light dusting of snow coated the landscape. Wanda was hurrying to her side, a bandage wrapped around her head. “Fuck. Get me some fucking water.”

 Wanda crouched down beside her and held out a water bottle, which Lorna snatched and poured down her throat. “Ugh, fuck. Thanks.” She pushed herself into a sitting position, crossing her legs below her. “How the fuck did we survive?”

 “You, I think.” Wanda sat cross legged opposite her.

 “Me?” Lorna rubbed the bridge of her nose. She vaguely remembered, as she had lost consciousness, creating a magnetic field around the pod in some desperate attempt to slow its descent. “Fuck, seriously? That worked?”

 “It must have done,” Wanda shrugged. “We landed here. I’m not sure which country this is.”

 “Gimme a sec,” Lorna muttered. She bit her lip as she tuned into the Earth’s natural magnetic and gravitational fields. “Yeah, I think I got it. About sixty-six degrees north. Pretty much narrows us down to Russia or Canada, maybe Scandinavia. You found anyone other than us?”

 “I haven’t left you,” Wanda said.

 Lorna felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “Thanks, you big dumb loser.” She looked up at the dusky sky. “The pod had built in GPS software. Assuming we can still interface with the fucking thing, we should be able to pinpoint our location from that.”

 “It got pretty beat up,” Wanda said sheepishly.

 “Ah, fuck. We’d better get looking for people.”

Moira took her seat at the head of the council table. “I trust everyone is feeling rested?” She asked, to nodded heads and murmured assent. “Excellent. This past week has been a great victory for us.” She steepled her fingers. “However, we have other potential issues. Sage, would you like to tell everyone else what you told me this morning?”

 Sage got to her feet. “While we aligned ourselves to the Avengers, the United States government worked against us in secret,” she informed the group. “Now that we have returned to the shadows, without a trace, they have unveiled their newest anti mutant weapon.” She snapped her fingers, and a holographic image flickered into existence above the table, showing an enormous circular structure peeking out from the ocean. “This is the Raft. It’s a high security prison, designed specifically for mutants. It was unveiled by Tony Stark this morning on major news outlets from all around the world. They believe that Asteroid M was destroyed in a freak magnetic accident, and they’re looking for refugees. Anyone seen to have aided or abetted Magneto has been labelled an ‘enemy of humanity’.”

 The table was silent for several seconds. Eventually, Xorn raised his voice. “This is immensely troubling,” he said gravely.

 “You can say that again,” Logan grunted.

 “So what’s the plan?” Scott asked. “You must have dealt with this before. Prison break? Whisper campaign?”

 Moira set her face into a grimace. “I’m afraid not,” she said tersely. “The plan is to do nothing.” The council stared at her in silent shock. “It is a less than ideal situation, I will admit,” she continued. “But the Raft has never surfaced, excuse the pun, in any of my previous lives. I believe that a non-lethal solution to the mutant problem will do a great deal towards keeping sentinel emergence at bay.”

 “There are children in there!” Sage exclaimed. “We have a moral duty to do something!”

 “And I wish that it were favourable to do so,” Moira said. “But any time we can buy against the sentinels is worth it. The Raft may be exactly what we need.”

 “Time to do what?” Scott asked, getting to his feet. “Cross another mutant target off our list? We don’t even know where Apocalypse is!”

 “Listen to me,” Moira said, looking up at them. “I have seen a world ravaged by sentinels. I have seen them subjugate every living being on the planet, and I do not have the strength to see it again. The rage I feel when I think of the mutants stuck in that place is enormous, but it is nothing compared to the despair I felt in the hours before my last death.” She looked at Xorn. “I saw them tear the black hole from your skull and use it for spare parts,” she said, letting the rage into her voice. She glanced at Logan. “I saw you lose all hope and abandon reality itself,” she told him. “I have watched all of you die. All the other X-Men, too. And most of the kids.” She shook her head. “No more.” The X-Men exchanged silent glances. “If you really wish to destroy the prison, Scott, I am powerless to stop you. But understand that in doing so, you are only replacing Magneto. We will still be terrorists. And the sentinels will only come after us sooner.”

 Scott looked down. Logan whistled to himself. “Quite the speech,” he said. “Meeting adjourned.”

 The council rose, solemnly nodded to each other, and trudged out of the chamber.

Pietro adjusted his tie nervously and rapped on the door with his fist. He gulped as he heard footsteps approaching from within, and tried to set his face in an expression approximating polite expectation. The door was flung open, and a wash of orange light flooded out, framing the stocky frame of Logan Howlett, hands on his hips, wearing a slightly smarter shirt than was his usual. “Um, hi,” Pietro said, extending a hand. Logan looked at the hand, then at the suit Pietro had borrowed from Kurt, then up at the clouded sky, spitting tiny droplets of rain.

 “Come in before you catch your death,” he said gruffly. After a moment’s consideration, and seeing Pietro’s awkward stance, he took the boy’s hand and shook it firmly. “Now come on, it’s a cold night.”

 “Of course,” Pietro stammered, stepping over the threshold. “I have, um, some wine? For you?” He held up the gift bag. “It seemed appropriate.”

 Logan took the bag as he closed the door, removing the bottle and inspecting it with interest. “Not big on wine,” he said. “But this is very much appreciated.” The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Thank you.”

 Pietro felt himself blush. “Not a problem,” he murmured. “You have a lovely home, Mr Kin- Howlett. Mr Howlett.”

 Logan stifled a laugh. “Thank you, kid,” he said, glancing around the well decorated front hall. A framed photograph on a dressing table, depicting an image of himself and Laura standing on the balcony of the Eiffel Tower, was on its side. He frowned and adjusted it. “Sorry about that. My son, I’d imagine. Come on, you’d better meet the family.” He led Pietro through the hall in silence. Pietro pretended to be very interested in the furnishings while the apparently endless journey lasted, feeling extremely relieved when they finally arrived in the kitchen, where four other people waited. “Pietro, this is my wife Ororo,” Logan said, and Pietro shook her hand. She smiled warmly at him.

 “A pleasure to finally meet you, Mr Maximoff,” she said.

 “Hmf, hold your horses,” Logan grunted. “This is Sarah, who has insisted on living here for the past six and a half years. Oh, I’m kidding, she’s a great friend.”

 “Laura has told me a lot about you,” Sarah said. “It’s good to meet you at last.”

 “You too, huh?” Said Logan. “Ok, this one’s Laura, she’s not important.”

 “Hey!” Laura exclaimed.

 “And this is my son, Jimmy.”

 Jimmy, now fifteen, had been forced into a suit, and was very deliberately not looking at Pietro. His blond hair was pulled down over one eye, and he was rolling the one which Pietro could see. The overall effect was quite comical, and Pietro found it somewhat difficult not to laugh. He felt a hand on his arm, and turned to see Laura, smiling softly. “You alright, babe?” She whispered. He nodded. “Dad didn’t scare you too much? Mom told him to rein it in before you got here.”

 “I owe your Mom my life,” he whispered. “You look, um, pretty, by the way. It’s a nice dress.”

 Laura’s smile widened. “You look pretty as well,” she said. “Or cute. Or handsome. Um. Yeah.”

 Logan cleared his throat. “I cooked,” he said. “Anyone actually hungry?”

 The table had been set far more complicatedly than Pietro was used to. As he sat down, he pointed to the array of alien cutlery arranged before him and mouthed “What?” to Laura, who only shrugged.

 “Ok, grub’s here!” Logan called, walking in from the kitchen carrying a steaming casserole dish. Pietro winced; Logan wasn’t wearing oven mitts. The dish was set down on the table, and Pietro averted his eyes as the blotches of red skin on Logan’s hands faded into nothing. The others made no reaction; this was apparently an ordinary occurrence. “Alright,” Logan said. “Time to eat. Ororo, could you help me serve up?”

 The food was by all accounts good. Pietro made awkward small talk with Sarah, next to whom he was sitting, while Laura occasionally intervened when her mother started talking about science. Things didn’t seem exactly settled, and Pietro caught Logan giving him the eye on more than one occasion, but his worst fears were assuaged.

 Eventually, when Logan had stood up to fetch dessert and Ororo and Sarah were talking amongst themselves, he leaned over to Laura and whispered, “Is your family always this intense?”

 “We’re intense?” Laura had time to ask with a frown before Logan returned, carrying a steaming sweet pie in his hands.

 “Alright,” he said, setting it down. “Normal rules. Whoever can impress the chef the best gets the most pie.”

 “Logan!” Ororo exclaimed. “I hardly think that’s necessary when we have a guest!”

 “Nonsense!” Logan said. “We should let him in on this!”

 “We have a thing,” Laura sighed. “For deserts. You tell a cool fact, or a story, or something, and whoever tells the best thing gets the most desert. Dad, this is pointless.”

 “It doesn’t need to be,” Logan said, sounding offended. “Come on, you always enjoy it!”

 “Sure, but right now… oh, forget it. Fine.” Laura sighed. “The other day, I found a stone with a vein of quartz running through it on the beach. I shaved the rock away and polished the quartz. It’s like a sheet of crystal, and it’s sitting on my bedroom window.”

 “I averted a tropical storm in the south Pacific last night,” Ororo chimed in. “It would have caused serious flooding in hundreds of coastal towns in eight countries, but I prevented it.”

 “Both very cool,” Logan admitted, earning himself a slightly reproachful look from his wife.

 “Moira has never tried Japanese food in any of her lives,” Sarah offered with a shrug, to Logan’s spluttering and dismay.

 “Pass,” Jimmy muttered. The boy had been sullen and silent all evening.

 All eyes turned to Pietro. He gulped. “Um,” he began. “Well. There’s a story, I guess.”

Moira VI
A shell detonated barely ten feet away, and sand sprayed into Laura’s face. She spat it out, disgusted, wiping it from the barrel of her rifle and blinking it from her eyes. She gritted her teeth, wincing as they ground against the remnant grains of sand, and squinted through her rifle’s scope. More shells went off around her, but by the sounds of things they still weren’t sure where she was. She felt a pounding in her skull as the desert heat began sinking its fingers into her brain, the pain now barely dulled by her healing factor.

 She glanced up briefly, checking the skies. They remained blue, for now free of drones or attack planes. It was possible that the humans here didn’t know how serious the threat currently posed to them was, but she couldn’t take any risks.

Moira X

“Hang on,” Sarah interrupted. “I’m human. Did your father teach you this story?”

 “I don’t remember,” Pietro said thoughtfully. “I suppose he might have…”

 “Who’s the woman?” Laura asked. “She sounds pretty cool.”

 “I don’t know her name. Anyway…”

Moira VI

“Professor?” Laura hissed aloud. “Can you hear me?”

  I hear you, Laura, the voice echoed in her head. How are things going?

  The humans don’t seem to know how many of us are here, Laura replied. They’re shelling, but only as much as we might expect if we were a basic commando unit.

  Good, Charles Xavier thought to her. Do you see an opening?

  Laura squinted up at the shadows of the Mesquite Mountains ahead of her. Gun turrets were dotted along their outlines, and occasionally one would flash as a shell was launched. She crept back behind her dune. Maybe. Give me half an hour or so. She glanced behind her X-Men unit, all of whom nodded.

 Illyana closed their fist around empty air, and a long steel blade, inscribed with twisted runes and shimmering with blue flames materialised in their hand. They nodded.

 Remy set his face in grim determination. The air pulsed pink around his fingers. He nodded.

 Nathan’s single luminous eye seemed to glow a little brighter. Laura smiled to him, and he smiled back. He nodded.

  We’re ready, Professor, she relayed.

  Excellent. I don’t need to remind you how much is riding on this mission?

 Oh, I understand.

 Good.

Moira X

“Fuck,” Lorna breathed, hobbling out of the woodland and shielding her eyes against the glare of the setting sun. “We’re in Norway,” she told Wanda, who was supporting her sister by an arm. The orange of the beginnings of twilight glistened on waves that lapped against the shore of a stony beach below them. “Which is probably a positive, for obvious reasons.” She gritted her teeth as she took another step. “Fuck this. I need some actual medical help.”

 “Do you know where in Norway?” She asked.

 Lorna shrugged. “Can’t tell. Didn’t get quite enough fucking training with Dad to pinpoint our lattitude precisely, but the coast is a decent start.”

 “I regret teaching you swears, you know that?”

 “ Faen ,” Lorna said, rolling her eyes. “What, you think you’re changing anything by teaching me fucking English?” She coughed. “Shit. Do you know where there might be any actual civilisation?”

 “I mean… I could go look? But then I’d have to leave you.” Wanda bit her lip. “I don’t want to do that.”

 “Oh, fuck off, I’ll be fine.” Lorna placed a hand on a boulder and settled herself on the grassy bank, sighing happily as she lay down. “Seriously, go have a look. I’m shit at flying, and you know it.”

 “Are you sure?”

 Lorna nodded and rolled her eyes. “Come on, Wanda, I’m an Omega, same as you. I can cover my ass.”

 Wanda pursed her lips and nodded. “Alright. But it’s on you if anything bad happens.”

 “Whatever.”

“Genuine question,” Pietro said. Kurt looked up at him, eyebrow raised. “How much control do you actually have over the tail?”

 The boys were seated in the games room, hunched over a Monopoly board. Kurt cracked a smile. “It just does its own thing whenever I’m not thinking about it,” he admitted. “I’d like to claim that it’s a true part of my body, but that would probably be a lie.” The tail flicked. “That part was on purpose.”

 Pietro nodded, staring into the middle distance. “Right. Right.” He rolled some dice, and sighed as he saw the result. “Great.”

 Kurt cocked his head. “Are you alright, Pietro?” He asked. “You see distracted.”

 “I’m…” Pietro trailed off. “Asteroid M is gone, right?”

 “Ja. Xorn jettisoned it into the Kuiper Belt after everyone had been evacuated.” Realisation hit Kurt. “Ah. Your sisters.”

 Pietro nodded. “I’m worried about them. Especially with this Raft thing that’s got everyone wound up so tight.” He drummed his fingers on the board. “I would like to try and find them.”

 “We can help,” Kurt offered. “I’m sure it wouldn’t take Emma or Jean very long.” He gave Pietro a pitying look. “Let’s go and find one of them now, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

“This will be almost impossible,” Emma said, lips pursed. “Mesmero didn’t have enough contact with your sisters for me to extract a psionic signature from his mind.” She looked down through the bars of the psychic’s cell, where he lay whimpering, with disgust. “And, as a non psychic, you don’t even have the ability to perceive their signatures.” She sighed. “I will, of course, still try. Do I have permission to read your mind, so that I can obtain information which could help me?” Pietro nodded. “Excellent.”
Emma swept off through the skunkworks, face set in grim determination. “Honestly, all this worrying about you children is going to give me wrinkles,” she said haughtily. “But I will be an old and hideous crone before I allow your sisters to come to harm, Pietro.”

 “Thank you,” Pietro stammered.

 “It’s no issue. I’ll tell you once I have something,” Emma replied. “For now, you boys should be continuing with your studies. And don’t forget, I know when you’ve been slacking off.”

 “Yes Mz Frost,” they both mumbled as she left them behind, rubbing her temples. Whether this was to stimulate her powers or out of a headache, Pietro had no way to tell.
“Is anything happening today?” He asked.

 Kurt grinned. “Ja. Alex said he’d organised something on the moors. Want to go check it out?”
“Sure.” Pietro smiled weakly. “It’ll take my mind off Wanda and Lorna.”

 Kurt took his friend by the shoulder, and with a sudden reek of sulphur and sensation of falling, Pietro found them outdoors, beneath the pouring rain. He looked up at the water, which to his surprise seemed to be cascading around an invisible dome above his head. He looked down again, still surprised, to see Rachel and Alex sitting at a camping table, sharing a beer. Kurt immediately rushed over to his girlfriend, who laughed and hugged him as he arrived.

 Alex waved Kurt over and passed him a beer, which Pietro gratefully opened and began to sip at. “How’s settling in going?” Alex asked.

 Pietro shrugged. “Oh, you know. Fine. The room’s a bit tight compared to what I’m used to, but the company’s better. Mostly.”
“What’s ‘mostly’ meant to mean?” Alex asked. Pietro was about to apologise, but saw the twinkle in the older boy’s eye.

 “He’s missing his sisters,” Kurt said before Pietro could answer. “We’re not sure whether they got off of the asteroid safely.”

 “Yeah,” Pietro said with a small nod. “They were always there for me, when dad wasn’t.”

 “Shit, sorry,” Alex said. “Didn’t know.” A frog hopped out of the grass into the bubble of dryness, noticed the four humans looking down at it, and hastily hopped away. Alex’s lip curled upward. “What did you do, anyway? To make your dad hate you so much?”
Pietro went incredibly red and spluttered, searching for the right words, but was saved by Rachel. “He’s trans, you moron,” she said, elbowing Alex hard in the shoulder. “Did Laura not tell you?”

 “But why would that-”

 “Alex, shut your mouth.” Alex shut his mouth. “Sorry,” Rachel said to Pietro sheepishly. “About Alex but… more about your dad.”

 “It’s fine,” Pietro said quickly, trying desperately to duck out of the conversation. “Um. What about your parents?” When met with yet more awkward silence, he blustered on, “if… you have parents?”
Kurt laid a hand on his arm. “Everyone else at this table is an orphan,” he said softly.

 “Oh. Shit. I’m so sorry.”

 “That’s fine,” Alex said, now turning the same shade as Pietro. “Look, me and Rachel were basically raised by Scott and Jean, and Kurt…”

 “I’m fine,” Kurt said tightly. “Fine.”

 The four lapsed into silence. Pietro awkwardly dug at the mud with his boot, while Rachel gave Kurt a slightly awkward hug. The rain began to abate, and Rachel dismissed the telekinetic field that had kept it at bay.

 A minute or so in, unable to bear it, Alex asked, “So. Where are you from?”

 “All over the place,” Pietro said, relieved. “Um. Was born in Warsaw, Poland, with Wanda, my twin. Grew up mainly in Germany, then moved to Norway after my dad found out he had a kid over there as well.”
“Randy old goat,” Rachel muttered, making Pietro briefly snort with laughter.

 “Where in Norway?” Alex asked. “Scott and I went to Oslo once.”
“Oslo, yeah,” Pietro answered. “Must have been there… four years? Lorna, that’s my other sister, is like three years older than me. Guess I was… ten? When we left. And then it was bunkers and then a space station and now… some Scottish island.”

 “Welcome to the rainiest patch of dirt on the planet,” Alex said with a grin.

 “Thanks. Where are you guys from? I know Kurt’s German, you two sound American? But I said that about Laura and she corrected me.”
“Ignore her, Laura barely counts as Canadian,” Rachel snorted.

 “That’s not quite fair,” said Alex. “That’s where her accent’s from, that’s what her passport says, that’s who she wants to be. Anyway, it definitely doesn’t make her American. I’m from Alaska, Rachel’s from Connecticut.”

 Pietro nodded as though American state names meant anything to him. “Cool.”
“And I’m from Düsseldorf,” Kurt told him. “Which people say has a weird name. But it’s a nice city.”

 “I’ve been to Düsseldorf!” Pietro said excitedly. “It was great! I was small, but me and Wanda used to make sand angels by the river.”

 Kurt gave him a quizzical look. “Sand angels?”
“Like snow angels.”
“Yeah I got that. Sounds uncomfortable.”
“It was! Dad didn’t like us doing it. Wanda’s hair got full of sand.”

Wanda breathed in the sea breeze that wafted off the fjord. Across the water a road ran along the bank, the sun shining down on a tiny settlement that it bypassed, only a handful of houses. A dolphin breached in the water, sending schools of fish scattering. Wanda couldn’t help but smile. The situation was dire, yes, but damn if the view wasn’t worth it.

 Peering down the hillside to the water, she could make out a small wooden jetty with a rowboat tied to it. Which was… odd. That implied there was someone else on this side of the fjord, but she had seen no one on the way here. She clucked her tongue, warily scanning the cliffs and shrubby woods, but saw nobody. A shiver went up her spine as she thought of Lorna, on her own with a bad leg somewhere in the woods behind her. Whoever it was probably wasn’t a threat to them, probably just some local out for a walk, but she could never be too careful. And besides, once she got back to Lorna she could bring her back here and they could try to signal whoever was living on the other side of the fjord, hopefully reach the X-Men. Wanda felt an uneasy twist in her belly at that.

 “Look at me, Wanda,” her father had once said to her when she had asked him why they were at war with the X-Men. “Look. The X-Men are everything that we are not. They are cowardly, they take the easy road. They think that by working with humanity to engineer our own destruction they will somehow change their minds, but I know that that never happens.”

 Wanda had looked around her father’s lusciously furnished apartment, from the black marble fireplace to the crystal coffee table and the gorgeous art, to the floor to ceiling windows that offered a vast and open view of the Earth. “We are above them,” Magneto had told her, conviction blazing in his voice. “They lack sight of the fuller picture, the possibilities open to us that are closed to them. This is not to say that they are not good people.” He stood behind her and clasped his hands on her shoulders. “I think most of them are. They are simply foolish.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “One day, this world will be yours. I promise you this.”

 He released her. “Go now, my child. The X-Men are not worth your pity, and neither are they worth your worry.”

 Wanda bit her lip at the memory. She was unsure even of how much Magneto had believed the things he had told her that day. For a man who she knew had no qualms killing for his ideals, in conversation he had never seemed entirely convinced of them.

 She turned back to the woods, minding her torn dress on the undergrowth as she made her way back through the dark forest toward Lorna.

 The sky above the treetops was darkening by the time she found Lorna missing. The fallen log against which she had been propped up, aromatic with the smell of mushrooms and gentle decay, had been gouged by something, large chunks of wood missing and splinters scattered about the damp earth.

 Wanda stood frozen for a few seconds before screaming as loudly as she could, sending birds shrieking from their perches and sending the woods into silence.

 “Fuck!”

Rachel locked Kurt’s bedroom door behind her, ignoring Alex’s incoherent cackling and Pietro’s bemused chuckle as she did. She turned to Kurt, who sat cross legged on his bed. The room was slightly smaller than her own in Scott and Jean’s house, and decorated far differently. The random punk paraphernalia with which she adorned her living space was swapped out for boardgames, comic books, and action figures. A crucifix hung over the doorknob.

 “Safe?” He asked.

 “Let me check. Name, age, previously agreed upon password?”

 “Kurt Wagener, twenty but nearly twenty-one, electron.” His eyes narrowed. “You?”
“Rachel Grey, nineteen, rice.”

 They appraised each other, then both nodded. “We’re free of prying?” Kurt asked.

 Rachel reached out into the psychic aether, found no attention diverted their way, and nodded. “Completely alone.”

 “Good.” Kurt pulled a trunk out from under his bed, unlocked the combination padlock that kept it secure, and once it sprung open began pulling things out of it - photographs, notebooks, harddrives. Rachel took a seat beside him, and began flipping through the largest notebook. On the cover were three words: Moira Kinross’ Lie.

It had been three years since Rachel and Kurt had, entirely by accident, discovered that Moira was lying to everybody on the island about something. The two of them, prompted in part by Laura and Alex, had snuck into the Muir Island skunkworks for reasons that no longer seemed important.

 Rachel had found Kurt with his ear pressed to a sealed door, eyes and mouth wide. He had pressed his fingers to his lips and beckoned her over, and she had tiptoed up to him and placed her ear against the door too.

 “...Magneto knows the plan,” said a voice, which Rachel took a moment to place as Moira. “He understands his greater role in it.”

 “Does he?” Said another voice, a smooth, oily voice that sent uncomfortable shivers up Rachel’s spine. “Does the plan truly involve allowing him to wreak havoc across the world? That hardly seems very X-Men.”

 “You already know the answer to that. Why are you here?”
Rachel heard footsteps and prepared to run, but they were only the steps of someone pacing back and forth pensively. “I wanted an update.”
“You could have emailed.”
“No, I couldn’t. You damn well know that I’m still rotting in some… barbarous cell as far as the authorities are concerned, leaving an online footprint would be moronic. And I am not a moron, Moira Kinross.”

 “Excuse me? How do you know my surname?” Moira sounded genuinely shocked.

 “Oh, I pick things up here and there. Look. It’s starting to take a lot of, ahem, medicine to keep Charles Xavier manageable. I want to know that you’ve got your band of good guys under control, and that they’re not going to pose a problem when things hit the fan, pardon my French.”

 “They’ll behave.”
“Really? And will the children behave? They were never part of the plan you brought to me.”

 “I can keep them under control.”

 “Hmph! Let us hope! Well, fine, I’ll get out of your hair. I can pick up what you’re putting down, as the youths might say.”

 “You are so out of touch.”

 “Says the thousands-of-years-old woman! Let me know how Erik is when you next speak, will you?”
“I will. How’s Charles?”
“How do you think he is? Grief, I had to break his spine to keep him in.” Moira made some outraged spluttering noises, but her conversation partner cut her off. “Oh, he’s fine, he’s alive. Much easier to control when he’s in a wheelchair, too.”

 Moira drew a belaboured and exhausted breath. “Fuck off, Essex.”

 “Certainly! But, Moira?”

 “What?”
“I’m getting impatient. See you soon.”

 It was at this point that they both scarpered, getting most of the way down the corridor before Moira emerged from the meeting room and saw them. Her eyes flashed angry, then afraid, and then back to angry. “What are you two doing?” She said, voice low and containing a note of implicit threat.

 Rachel had opened her mouth to say something, barely aware of the fact that the wrathful accusations that had immediately occurred to her would make things far worse when Kurt said, with such a convincing lie that Rachel in spite of herself almost believed him, “Kissing.”

 Rachel shut her mouth, now seething with a quite different source of rage, and agreed, “Kissing.”

 Ten minutes later, when Moira had stopped reminiscing at them, they were both fairly sure completely convinced, Rachel had exploded at Kurt on the way back to the dorm rooms. “ Kissing? Seriously ?”

 “Rachel-”

 “No, shut up, fucking hell, is that really all you could think of?”
“Yes?”

 “God. Ok. Fuck you with a poleaxe Kurt, I’m a lesbian, alright? I’m not into… you. No offence, it’s not because you’re blue, the tail-”

 “I am really not into you, Rachel.” Rachel stopped dead and stared at him, eyes hard. “What else would she believe? Us sneaking around somewhere we shouldn’t be without anyone else? You heard her talking our ears off, she thinks it’s sweet and normal and stuff.”

 Rachel nodded slowly. “Right. Yeah. Fine. Ok, sure, you saved our asses. Well done. I am still pissed at you.”

 “Oh for crying out loud, Rachel.” He rubbed his forehead. “Sorry, ok? I am bisexual and generally prefer guys, if that helps. Couldn’t see the point in telling anyone.”

 “Helps. Only a tiny bit though.”

 “Then I’m very sorry. And I won’t tell anyone that you’re a lesbian if you don’t want me to.”

 “Ok. Uhm. Good.” She eyed him sheepishly. “Sorry for blowing up at you, Kurt.”

 He sighed. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll survive.” He chewed the inside of his cheek. “But, ignoring that… holy shit. What did we just hear?”

 Rachel paused. “I think we might want to be a bit further away from anyone else before we discuss that,” she said, voice low. “I don’t think that’s something anyone on the island was meant to hear.”

 So had begun the long, tedious, and awkward lie that she and Kurt were a couple. In part it had been to lend credence to the lie they had told Moira, and in part to justify the otherwise unreasonable amount of time they now spent together. Rachel couldn’t quite help but chafe just a little whenever Beth or Marian joked about being “the official group lesbians”, and she knew Kurt had intentionally passed up more than one prospective boyfriend on behalf of the lie. But as the years progressed and they dug deeper and deeper, the necessity of it had become more and more obvious.

“What’s the find?” She asked Kurt, who was organising and looking through the photographs.

 “Nathaniel Essex, or someone who looks a lot like him, was spotted in London last Monday,” he replied, arranging a few photos between them on the bed. “Look. This limousine pulls up to this club, bodyguard gets out, and then this guy. Here.” He showed her the image. An extraordinarily pale man wearing a fur ruffed suit, hair and beard styled in what she had heard Laura and Kitty call “straight boy chic”, always followed by the word “pass”, was glancing over his shoulder almost in the direction of the camera. In the next photo he had turned his back, and the third was blurry, showing him entering the club itself.

 “Fuck,” Rachel murmured. “That is him.”

 Kurt nodded gravely. “Yep. Sparked some discussion on 4chan.” He mimed gagging. “Essex is apparently still in solitary confinement in Newgate, someone in the thread knew a guard there and knew his exact cell.”

 “You checked?”
“Briefly. Short long ranged teleport, needed to be high accuracy so I could get in and out quickly without anyone noticing I was gone. Remember how fucked up I was the day before yesterday?”
“Yeah. I’m guessing not a hangover?”
He nodded. “Yep. Brief appearance in his cell and then straight back here. Absolutely wiped me out, but it was enough to confirm that he is in there. Emaciated and insane, but definitely there.”

 “Not this guy at all then,” Rachel murmured, looking back at the healthy, over groomed man in the photo. “But that’s him. ”

 Kurt nodded. “Yeah. Let’s make a note on it for now, figure this out later when we’ve both had time to think on it, or we’ll be late.” They both looked at the clock, hands indicating quarter to six. “We’ve got a date.”

Wanda, who had never spent more than six hours at a time away from human civilisation, was staring very hard at the ground, trying to derive some sense of meaning from the mad scuffing in the mud. She could make out her own footprints, leaving and then returning to this spot, but hadn’t had the mind to pay attention to the marks that Lorna’s footwear left in the ground.

 What she was certain of was that, aside from her own, there were two distinct sets of prints here. They were a mess, all around this log, and she had no idea whether that showed signs of a fight, or if people had been pacing back and forth, or anything else. The darkness hampering her vision made things just hard enough that she was beginning to panic, and panicking was making it very hard to think about whether it was possible for her to do anything at all.

 Wanda did not understand her own powers. On the academic level she comprehended them fully - she could alter the probability that a given event would occur, though she had no idea to what degree. On a practical level, she had no understanding of her powers at all. She couldn’t make specific things happen - try as she might she had never been able to target specific events. She had no noticeable impact on the flip of a coin, hadn’t ever been able to make traffic or the weather do what she wanted them to, and had never been able to keep her father from finding Pietro’s testosterone pills. She couldn’t even control the path a raindrop took down a window, which she was certain should have been easy.

  But. Wanda had always had startlingly good luck. Wishes she made - blowing out candles on her birthday or just lying in bed staring at the ceiling - had an unusual habit of coming true. Once, when Pietro had just told her that he was a boy and their father had been furious, she had wished for a new sister who would stand by them even when their dad didn’t. The next morning they were booked on a flight to Oslo, Lorna’s mother having discovered her former lover and reached out to them.

 Wanda sat on the log and gazed up at the darkening sky. She couldn’t make herself suddenly find a trail, she couldn’t make a miracle drop out of the sky. But she could hope. “I wish…” she murmured. “I wish… that Lorna will be safe. And Pietro too.”

The little village on Muir Island possessed a building that was a little optimistically called the town hall. It was a long building, very little more than the hall itself and a kitchenette, which saw brief periods of use interspersed by longer periods of ignorance and not a small amount of neglect.

 Tonight, the hall had been crammed with uncomfortable wooden chairs and a small stage erected at one end, below a chandelier that Pietro was fairly certain was extremely expensive. On the stage a full suite of band equipment was set up. A drum kit near the back of the stage, a microphone near the front, heavy speakers set off to the sides. Pietro scanned the handful of people already seated. His first instinct, to sit with Kurt, was dashed when he saw that his friend was already with Rachel, the two engaged in hushed whispering. Looking slightly further afield, he saw Beth and Marian a row away, chatting idly but not apparently on the verge of making out.

 He sidled up beside them awkwardly, said “Mind if I sit?”, and with relief took the chair beside Marian when Beth good-naturedly gave him a thumbs up. Marian smiled at him a little wanly.

 “How’s it going?” Beth asked, leaning in. “Got up to anything yet?”

 “Oh, no,” he said. “Just been decorating my room, mostly. Had dinner around Laura’s place.”

 “She told me about that,” Beth said, a wry grin spreading across her face. “Said you looked like you were on the verge of running away the whole evening.”
Pietro, not for the first time that day, felt blood beginning to rush to his face. “I, uh. I guess so. I don’t know if Logan likes me?”
Marian snorted, and said, “Logan’s just overprotective.”

 “Yeah,” Beth agreed. “And he’s a little bit like that to everyone, don’t worry about it. If Sarah liked you you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

 “I think she did? She kept trying to talk to me about science.” He paused, and frowned. “And might have asked if I could contribute a DNA sample? For… research stuff?”

 Beth laughed. “She does that to everyone. It’s just a cheek swab, don’t worry about it. No idea what she does with it after that.”

 “I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to fill me with confidence?”

 Beth shrugged. “She did it to me when I got here, and I’m fine. Marian too.”

 “I protested,” Marian added.

 “Yes, you did. But we’re both fine.”

 “Cool?” Pietro said. “Um. Anyway. The dinner was nice.”

 Marian twirled a lock of her hair, and Pietro winced at the sting as it accidentally brushed against his cheek. “Laura really likes you,” she said in a low voice.

 “I really like her too,” he said, a bashful smile flickering up his lips. “Like, a lot.”

 Marian regarded him with deep green eyes. She nodded. “Good.”

 Pietro glanced up at Beth, who was looking at Marian with pursed lips and a quirked eyebrow, which slipped off her face when she saw him looking. He opened his mouth to ask her what exactly had just happened, but was interrupted by Kitty loudly sitting down in the chair next to him.

 “Hi!” She said brightly, and Pietro gave her a small wave. “Hope you guys don’t mind. Kurt and Rachel look like they don’t want to be disturbed.”

 “They’re incorrigible,” Beth said archly.

 “I think it’s sweet,” Pietro said. “They’re cute.”

 Kitty produced a water bottle from her rucksack, took a truly enormous gulp of it, and almost snorted water down her nose at what Pietro had said. “Oh, gag,” she said once she’d wiped the moisture from her face. “Please don’t tell me that’s a sign of things to come.”

 “What? No! Just… there’s nothing wrong with… well…”

 There was an awkward clearing of a throat from on stage. The four of them looked up, broken out of their squabbling by Laura, giving them the stink eye. An electric guitar was slung over her shoulder. “Hi,” she said, “everyone. Thanks for coming.” Pietro craned his neck, to see that most of the seats in the hall had filled up with kids not in the weird little in-group that Laura and Kitty had immediately roped him into, as well as a few grown ups.

 “Why do we call ourselves kids?” He had asked her the previous evening, sitting in her bedroom after Logan had begrudgingly allowed them a moment alone. “I’m not even mad that I’m being belittled, we’re just… not? I’m eighteen. Kurt and Beth are in like… their twenties, right?”
“Force of habit I guess,” she’d replied, lying back on the bed and staring at the ceiling while he sat by her legs. “We’re adults now, but we were kids not that long ago. That’s the way it was for ages, the grown ups and the teens. Kids. Whatever.”

 He lay back across her legs, prompting an “ow” and a short flurry of rearrangement to get comfortable. “Don’t you want to be more than a kid?” He asked.

 Laura released a long exhalation. “Yeah. God, yeah.” She looked up sharply. “Wait, was that-”

 “Huh?”
“Were you, uh…”

 “Was I what?” Laura gave him a hard look. “I have no idea what you mean!” He protested, truly lost. “I meant, don’t you want to get up and go and see the world, and live for yourself, and all that shit? Because Kimura’s dead! The Weapon X thing is gone gone.”

 Laura nodded. “Yes. Yes, I really do.” She lay back again. “We’ll do it together. Me and you.”

 “And seven tagalongs.”

 She laughed, a short sharp sound. “Yeah. Probably.”

 He grinned. She’d been right, he did like her friends. “What did you think I meant?”

 “Huh? Oh, I thought you wanted to have sex.” She cackled at his horrified expression. “God, you are so fucking cute when you’re flustered.”

 “I- I wasn’t suggesting-”

 “Oh, it sounded a lot like you were.” Her gaze softened seeing his distress. “No, it’s ok, I understand now. Sorry to tease.”

 He sighed. “Am I doing ok at this?”

 “Ok at what?”
“Having a girlfriend?”

 She smiled. “Yeah. You’re doing fine, honey.” He blushed. “What you will get in trouble for is if you miss my show tomorrow.”

 “I won’t.”

 From the stage, Laura smiled down at him. He waved back, and she grinned. Behind her, Alex was getting comfortable behind the drums, and Bobby was tuning his own guitar. “Thank you,” Laura repeated as applause died down, and with a, “and a three, and a one, and a one, two, three!” The music began.

 The music started with a crash, startling Pietro a little (to Kitty’s clear amusement). Laura had shown him some of her records the previous night, and while he hadn’t disliked any of it (or at the very least hadn’t told her that he did) it certainly hadn’t been to his taste. The heavy guitars and loud drums were a little too much.

 He was starting to get it now. Laura thrashed her head to the metal, dark hair haloing around her as her fingers plucked the guitar strings and she bellowed the words with an energy he hadn’t known it was possible to put behind a voice.

 “Who is this?” He whispered to Marian.

 “What?” She asked.

 “Who is this?!” He said, louder.

 She gave him a blank look. “Laura.”
“No, who wrote it?!”

 The corner of her mouth quirked up. “Laura.”

 His eyes widened, and he watched her again. “Holy…” he breathed.

 Kitty leaned in. “What do you think?”
“She’s incredible.”

 “Yeah. She is.”

 “I don’t know if I’m lovesick but… she’s definitely the best one in the group, right?”

 Kitty nodded. “Yes. By a lot.”

 To himself he thought, And she’s really hot.

The song ended, and Laura bounced down from the stage to hug him. “What did you think?” She asked, tackling him at the end of the rows.
“I think you could get famous doing that.” He kissed her on the cheek, only to feel a little stab of embarrassment remembering all the eyes that were on him. Laura just squeezed him tighter.

 “Thanks,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

 “What’s the song called?” He asked, pulling slightly away.

 “The Second Gene,” she said. “It’s about the mutation trigger event. Alex and Bobby actually wrote most of the lyrics.”

 “I really liked it,” he told her. “Truly. You’re… a really good singer. Really good.”

 Laura grinned ear to ear. “Yeah?”

 “Yeah. You’re amazing.”

 Laura looked up and released Pietro as their other friends approached, clamouring to congratulate her. On instinct he tried to step away, but her hand stayed on his. She gave him a brief comforting look, and more than a little awkwardly he stood with her as Kitty, Marian, and Beth congratulated her.

The shuffling, lumbering guy who had smacked Lorna over the head with a mallet was taking a smoke break. She glared daggers at his back from where she was propped up against a tree, arms bound and with roots digging uncomfortably into her legs. The man just took a long drag on his cigarette, ignoring her muffled yelling through the gag.

 She had lost all track of time very quickly. The stars and moon were obfuscated by tree cover and she was pretty sure that she had nodded off at least once. Her head still throbbed from where he’d hit her.

 Her first instinct, to use her powers, had been foiled rapidly. The bonds he had tied her with were plastic, the hammer he had used to knock her out was wooden, and nothing else on him was metallic. Her second trick - anchoring herself to the Earth’s magnetic field in order to fly - had backfired when the man had noticed her sudden inertia and knocked her out again.

 So instead she just glared at him while he smoked, and a moment later he turned around. His big, broad face belied no scrap of information, nothing she could use or leverage. She maintained her cool glare, while he regarded her with blank bemusement.

 She struggled as he hoisted her over his shoulder again, screaming through the gag, but he soundly ignored her and continued to lumber through the woods. Thrashing her legs against his back only served no purpose other than to infuriate and tire her out further, and his grip was too tight for her to wriggle away.

 The quiet of the woods had become insufferable, and the hunger pangs in her belly had become painful. Worse, she had no idea what had happened to Wanda. If her sister had been captured just as she had then they were both most likely doomed, but if she hadn’t there was hope yet. If Wanda could find the X-Men and tell them what had happened…

 Lorna fitfully dozed off. She dreamed that she was back on the asteroid, and Magneto was on one knee before her as she sat in his throne. Cautiously, he removed the thick steel helmet from his head and extended it to her. It hovered an inch above his palm, hanging in the air as if not a true part of the world, but removed from it and imposed directly into her brain.

 The dark eye sockets of the helm seemed to hold her gaze. “Will you wear it?” Her father asked. “When I am gone, will you do what I need you to?”

 Lorna had reached out and placed her palm on the domed summit of the cold metal. “I need to know first,” she said slowly, deliberately. “What is it that I need to do?”

 Magneto made eye contact with her over the top of the helm. “Keep our people safe,” he said, an edge to his voice. “No matter the cost. No matter the odds. Keep us safe from them, Lorna.”

 She had taken the helmet from him then, and though it was heavy and weighted awkwardly placed it over her head. He leaned in to her, and whispered a secret.

 “One day they will build something to wipe us all out. A machine that will know us by sight. It will come as a peacekeeper at first, and then as a tool of oppression, and then as a vehicle of genocide.” He locked eyes with her, and her resolve wavered to hold the steely blue that pierced her mind. “It will succeed if it is not stopped before it can be completed. That is why we do what we do, Lorna. We do it because if we do not strike first, they will kill us all.”

The council assembled one by one. Moira leaned forward over the table, studying each of their faces carefully.

 Scott and Logan stared at her stonily. Emma archly raised an eyebrow. Sage and Xorn were unreadable. “Well,” Moira said slowly, eyes fixed on Scott. “Would anybody care to explain what happened-”

 “I saw the news about what was happening in Russia,” Scott cut in. “What they were doing to those people was inhumane, and I wouldn’t stand for it.”

 Moria seethed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We are past that phase now, Scott,” she said, voice level and cool. “In reaching out further, all we do is put ourselves in greater harm’s way.”

 “I will not stand for it.”

 “Then I must assume that you are challenging my authority.”

 Scott paused. “I am,” he said, cautiously, “because I do not believe that your orders were accurate in this case.”

 “Excuse me,” Xorn interjected, deep voice cutting through the stillness of the room. “But might I inquire what exactly happened?”

 “I was watching the news,” Scott began, “and I saw that the Russian government was sweeping the country for mutants, rounding them up for deportation to the Raft.”

 “Awful,” Xorn said.

 “That’s what I said. So I took Piotr, Logan, and Ororo and intercepted a convoy on the way to a port.”

 “By stealing a jet,” Moira said, glaring at Scott, “and without asking me before he did so, and having been explicitly barred from further superhero-like work.”

 “If we want to help, then let us help,” Scott shot back. “Your plan won’t be endangered by my doing what I did.”

 “What they’re doing to them is awful, Moi,” Logan added. “I saw it happen. What they did to them, squeezed together like animals in a cage.”

 Moira exhaled through her nose. “Ok,” she said tightly. “Fine. Interception of convoys, that’s allowed. But the Raft itself is to be left alone, at least for now. And we can’t accept refugees, not unless we can get a much larger island.”

 Scott and Logan sat back, relieved. “Go,” Moira said tightly. “You have full control over this now, Scott. Do not make me regret it.”

Laura regarded her friends from across the gymnasium. Beth, Kitty, Bobby, and Rachel stood to attention, all three trying not to giggle too much in their tight-fitting uniforms. Beside her, Scott leaned in and whispered, “How much of a hard time are you going to give them?”

 “Enough to make them realise how far they have to go,” she replied. “Make today hard, and then start easing them into it tomorrow.”

 “Right.” Louder, he said, “Listen up!”

 The four stopped chatting and turned to face him. Beth and Kitty stood to attention, while Bobby and Rachel did a bad job trying to suppress their grins. “The five of you are X-Men now,” Scott announced. “Congratulations. The very first thing you need to learn is what getting hurt feels like.” He began pacing behind Laura, and the new X-Men’s eyes tracked him back and forth. “And you’ll need to learn how to push past that pain. You also need to know that you will not always be able to rely on your powers. There will be occasions in which, perhaps due to high stress or some outside influence, you will find yourself unable to properly use them.” He stopped pacing. “I will teach you both of these lessons now. Elizabeth, I would like you to attack Laura.”

 Beth blinked. “I’m sorry?”

 “You heard me correctly. Without using your telepathic or telekinetic abilities, I would like you to attack Laura. She is likewise forbidden from using her claws. The first of you to fall loses the bout.”

 “Um. Ok.” Beth awkwardly walked forward, her peers’ eyes glued to her back. She stopped about two paces from Laura. “Sorry,” she said, and swung a punch for Laura’s head.

 Laura watched idly as Beth’s elbow came back, and had plenty of time to judge where it would strike her and duck to the side. Beth had swung from too far away and the momentum now carried her forward, and Laura darted in below the punch and jabbed Beth in the stomach. Her friend released a wheezing sound as she collapsed in pain. “No, I’m sorry,” Laura said, genuinely meaning it seeing Beth curled up in the foetal position mouthing ‘ow’ to herself. “But this is something you said you’d be fine with.” She extended a hand and helped Beth to her feet.

 “Thanks,” Beth groaned. “Also, fuck you.”

 “Robert, you now,” Scott said and Beth took a seat on a bench and took a swig of water, still panting.

 “Y’know, I’m not so sure-”

 “Do you want to be in the X-Men, Bobby?” Scott cut him off. “If the answer is yes, your bout with Laura starts now.”

 Bobby gave Laura a look of apprehension, and then bull rushed her. Laura almost laughed, pirouetting to the side and kicking his legs from under him as he came at her. “Sorry again,” she said, meaning it again as he got up from where he had landed on his face.

 Rachel’s strategy was more complicated, trying to stay out of Laura’s reach while getting a punch in any opportunity she could, moving like a boxer. Laura grabbed her by the wrist when she lashed out, tugging her forward and (carefully) throwing Rachel over her shoulder so she landed sprawled out on her back, winded.

 Rachel threw her a dirty look and shuffled over to the bench, dragging her feet such that her gym shoes made unpleasant screeching sounds on the floor. “You could have been a touch more gentle,” she muttered to Laura as she passed.

 Laura turned, surprised. “You’re not mad are you?” She asked. “Shit, Rachel, sorry-”

 “Enough of that!” Scott called. “Laura isn’t at fault. Blame me if you want to blame anyone, Rachel. Would you prefer that I don’t use your for instructional purposes, Laura?”

 Laura cast another worried glance at her three friends slouched on the bench, Beth still clutching her stomach and Bobby with a tissue pressed to his nose. “I don’t think I want to hurt my friends?” She said, tone wobbling. “Sorry, Scott, I just… didn’t…”

 “It’s fine. Katherine, come at me.”

 Laura seated herself next to Beth, who shot her a look of smouldering irritation as she sat down. “Sorry,” she mouthed again as Scott pulled Kitty into a headlock. “I was just… I forgot that other people can’t-”

 “It’s fine, Laura,” Beth sighed. “It’s fine, right guys?”

 “Sure,” Bobby grumbled, and Rachel nodded halfheartedly.

 “You got carried away,” Beth continued. “It’s fine. We all do it. And sure, it highlighted how far we’ve got to go. Or whatever.”

 Laura cringed a bit as Kitty wandered over, rubbing her neck. “I think he went easy on me after that,” she said.

 “Hey! Line up!” Scott called over to them. “You all showed promise, you in particular Rachel, but promise won’t save you in a real fight.”

 “Yes boss,” the others grumbled, while Laura sat back and stared blankly up at the ceiling, wishing she hadn’t done what she had.

“You’re one hundred percent overthinking it,” Kitty said later. They sat atop the cliffs, legs dangling toward the breakers that roiled and crashed far below them. “Rachel wasn’t happy about being showed up and Bobby’s ego is wounded, sure. But it’s fine. No one’s going to give you the silent treatment over this, and they’re not going to start treating you like a pariah.”

 Laura just stared into the eddying black water below them, dark and endless in the moonlight. “I didn’t actually hurt you though,” she said, “and it’s not like I won at a board game or anything, I actually bodily hurt them.”

 “Oh relax, Laura.” Kitty patted her on the back. “They knew what they were getting into. Scott told them it would hurt, they had all the time in the world to back out.”

 Laura continued to meditate on the waves. Kitty poked her. “Hey. Earth to Laura.”

 Laura looked up at her friend wearily. “What?”
“What’s going on in that head right now?”

 She took a deep sigh, and asked the question. “Kitty, are you afraid of me?”

 “Would I be sitting in a lonely spot with you where nobody could hear me scream if I were afraid of you?”

 “I’m serious.”

 Kitty looked at her critically. “Why?”

 “I don’t want a million questions and evasions. I want a yes or a no.”

 Kitty put an arm around her. “No. Not really. At first, when you were this isolated little thing who had trouble controlling her anger, sure. Yes. I was. Not anymore though. You’re my best friend, you know that? My best friend in the whole wide world. And you’re not going to scare me off by punching Beth and making Rachel look kinda like an idiot. She kinda had it coming anyway.”

 A seagull screamed up at them from its white-streaked perch atop one of the rocks. “Why?” Kitty repeated.

 Laura released a deep, world-heavy sigh. “I’ve always wondered,” she said tightly. “I’ve been wondering more since they got to me again.” She rested her head on Kitty’s shoulder. “You won’t tell anyone we’ve had this conversation?”

 “No. I swear on my life.” Kitty squeezed her. The night breeze ruffled their hair, and Laura felt Kitty shiver.

 “You don’t mind that I found Pietro, do you?” She asked quietly, and now it was Kitty’s turn to sigh.

 “Honestly? I do a tiny bit.” Laura opened her mouth, to say what she wasn’t sure, but Kitty shushed her. “No, let me finish. Yes, I am annoyed that you found someone you like spending time with more than me. I am annoyed you did it at the worst possible time. I won’t pretend I don’t have a tiny bit of a crush on you, because I think you know that anyway.”

 Laura nodded. “Yeah. I’d guessed. Bi?”

 “Yep. And, again, don’t tell anyone. But look, it’s just a crush. I’ll get over it. Yes, I’m a bit annoyed, but you’re straight and… you are straight, right?”

 “Yeah. Pretty sure.”

 “Cool. Yeah, you’re straight, this was a band-aid that needed pulling off some time. And god, he’s a good guy. I envy you almost as much as I’m happy for you. And trust me, I’m really happy for you.”

 “What about Bobby?” Laura asked. “You two seemed to be getting on pretty well before I had to vanish for four months.”

 Kitty shrugged. “We talked about it. He really wanted to, I wasn’t sure. And I don’t want to just… hit it off with someone because they’re there, y’know? I don’t think me and Bobby would last more than a few months, and that would fuck up the group no end.”

 Laura smiled faintly. “Love you, Kitty.”

 “Love you too, you big loser. God, I’m cold.”

 “Want to go?”

 “Please. Fuck. I almost miss New York. Scotland’s weather is trying to kill me.”

 Laura helped her up and the pair began the trek back to the village. “I think it’s fine.”

 “You grew up here. God, just you wait until I show you New York. You’ll love it.”

 “I am unconvinced by that.”

Lorna gradually came to. She wheezed as she breathed in, something restraining her chest with painful tightness. She blinked as the meaningless blur of sterile lights resolved itself into a barely more meaningful white cell, fluorescent lamps in the ceiling illuminating sheer plastic walls and flooring. She tried reaching out for the floor, only to find her arms uncomfortably pinned to her sides. She struggled, succeeding only in falling over, as she discovered that she was wearing a straightjacket. She glared at the featureless opposing wall from her vantage point on the floor, and after a brief few seconds of irate internal monologuing dragged herself back into a sitting position.

 The only hints of texture anywhere in the cell was the unpleasantly bright lamp that was beginning to make her eyes ache and a single windowless door. “Hey!” She yelled at the door. “Hello! Hi!” After a minute of silent glaring, when the door had miraculously failed to budge open, Lorna sighed and reached out.

 Her capacity to control magnetism was just that - she directly controlled the magnetic field itself. She could read it too, thumbing through the invisibly imaginary lines of the field as though rifling through a filing cabinet. In theory, she could pinpoint her precise location anywhere on the planet doing exactly that, test the magnetic field strength of any given magnetic device (pretty much everything involved in modern machinery), and orient herself north trivially easily. Lorna had only truly figured out how to do the latter of these three things.

 The real problem was that she couldn’t actually use the ability to detect ferrous material. She didn’t directly control it either - iron and nickel would obey her only when she submitted herself to their whims and bent the magnetic fields just so . Her father had long since mastered this art, making magnetic control of the world look so easy as to be trivial. Lorna was not her father, and was constantly frustrated by the difficulty she had - where for him things were so easy.

 Now, Lorna extended her sixth sense into the world, past the walls of the cell. Magnetic fields tickled at the edge of her brain as she searched for them - spiralling around the electrical wiring in the walls, pulsing in the fluorescent lamps. She felt them in the motors of fans in what she could broadly map as a hallway outside this cell. More gently, lying behind all the others and quietly pulsing away on its own, she could feel the magnetic field of the Earth.

 Carefully now, almost not daring to try, she began to affect what she could. Lorna - like most mutants who possessed gifts that allowed them to directly affect the outside world - didn’t actually need to be able to use her hands to use her powers. Full utility of her control over magnetism was, in theory, completely possible even while fully bodily paralysed. However, both she and most others with gifts similar to hers had developed a certain reliance on physical gesture regardless, a shortcut and intermediary between what she could visualise in her mind and the actual external world. Her father had likened this practice to training wheels - excellent for getting to grips with what she could do but dangerous to become over reliant on. Lorna, not foreseeing something so obvious as her enemies squeezing her into a straightjacket, had developed the reliance anyway.

 She felt a new magnetic field wobble into existence a few feet in front of her face. Her breath quickened as her concentration bore fruit, and in the momentary distraction she lost her mental control over the field and it dissipated into nothing. “Fuck!” She roared, eyes snapping open.

 The door swung open abruptly, causing her to yelp and scrabble back from it as a tall man, bald and wearing a pair of eccentric orange goggles. The overall effect put her in mind of some large bug. He wore an orange lab coat, precariously buttoned over his large belly, and an expression of professional disgust. Behind him, a tall man holding a rifle stood to attention.

 Lorna shrunk back as he approached, and he bent down to stare at her beadily. “Good morning, Ms Aaberg,” he said smoothly. “You have been asleep for quite some time.”

 “Fuck you,” Lorna spat. He was speaking English, probably meaning she wasn’t in Norway now. Which was a bad sign. “Where the fuck am I?”

 The man straightened. “You are in a high security facility designed and operated specifically to house and control mutants. The Raft. Have you not heard of it?” When Lorna remained icily silent, staring him in the buggy orange goggles, he sighed and continued. “The Raft is a floating prison complex owned and operated by the United States military. We are presently located in the Gulf of Mexico, about four kilometres south of New Orleans.” He smiled grimly as the colour drained from Lorna’s face. “Lorna, my name is Dr Kilian Devo. I am here to ensure your physical health for the duration of your stay on the Raft. Please, if you have any questions-”

 “How long?”

 “I’m sorry?”

 “My sentence. How long?”

 Kilian Devo smiled emptily. “As a collaborator of the known mutant terrorist Magneto, the base length of your sentence will be ten years. Due to there being no evidence that you yourself have taken an active role in his acts of terrorism, we can safely say that it is unlikely that your sentence be extended beyond that.”

 Lorna nodded, trying to look thoughtful even as her soul was crushed. “Ok,” she said slowly. “Alright. One question.”

 “Yes?”

 “Do I get a phone call?”

Kurt knocked on Pietro’s door, which moments later creaked open to reveal his new friend, bleary eyed with bed hair. “Hi,” he whispered. “Sorry to disturb you.”

 “Whatcha want?” Pietro mumbled.

 “Quick thing,” Kurt replied. “Rachel and I need to borrow you.”

 Pietro seemed immediately more alert. “Um, look,” he said, backing away. “I’m not-”

 “Not like that.” Kurt put as much intensity behind his words as possible. “Pietro, my friend, Rachel and I are…” he lowered his voice. “We’re not what people think we are.” Pietro raised an eyebrow. “Really, we’re not. I’m telling you this in extreme confidence, because we think we need your help.”

 Pietro gave him a hard look, deliberating. Eventually he said, in German, “What sort of help?”

 “It’s best to show you,” Kurt said, “and you can’t tell anyone about this. Got it?”

 Pitro nodded. “Sure. Let me just-” He was cut off by the sound of his phone. “Sorry, let me get that quickly.” Kurt tapped his foot as Pietro answered. “Hello? Who is- Lorna?” Kurt’s head swivelled in surprise. “Yeah, I’m with them, I’m safe. Where are-” A few seconds of silence. “Oh, god.”

Chapter Text

Dr Kilian Devo snatched the phone away from Lorna’s ear. “That’s your five minutes,” he told her. “Additional phone calls are possible, as rewards for good behaviour.” He passed the phone back to the guard who flanked him. “Take that to cybernetics. Have them figure out who she called.”

 “No,” Lorna said. “You won’t.” She narrowed her eyes as the guard took the phone, and both turned to her with looks of shocked amusement on their faces. She forced a magnetic field into existence around the phone, imaginary lines slicing through wire and sending electronic components into startled, squealing overdrive. The guard swore, dropping the phone as it overheated.

 Kilian Devo rounded on her. “What did you do?” He snapped.

 “Bricked it.” Lorna gave him her smuggest smile. “Bad doctor, no phone.”

 Devo raised a hand and Lorna shrunk back, eyes widening in horror. He held it there for a moment, and her stomach turned as his mouth widened into a toad-like grin. He gets off on this stuff, she thought.

 “I’ll be seeing you, Lorna,” he said, scooping up the ruined phone.

 “Fuck you,” she snapped. He gave her one last oily smile and slammed the door behind him.

Scott distantly registered that he was lying in a ditch. He could feel the muddily itchy sensation of dirt under his nails and taste it cloying in his mouth. He stared up at the red sky, crimson clouds overlaying the maroon of night. He coughed, expelling a clod of earth from under his tongue, then, with about as little dignity as possible, flopped over like a fish and threw up a stream of uncomfortably lumpy and acrid fluid. Fuck. That was a bad sign.

 Scott became aware of a ringing in his head. Not in his ears, it was too profound to just be in his ears, but within his very mind.

 “                        ,” he wheezed, only for nothing to be audible over the ringing. Probably in his ears as well then. Numbly he reached for his visor, to a dull relief finding it intact. Ok. He hadn’t nuked anyone by accident.

 Where was he? He looked around. Countryside, he was sure of that. Fields. That was interesting. Where? People ran through the fields. Not towards him. Not away either. Away from… something?

 Something impacted his back, and he whirled, fist out, connecting with flesh. The person there stumbled back, and Scott staggered to his feet, bringing his hand to his visor to blast the assailant into dust.

 “                             !” The person screamed. Scott faltered as his eyes refocused.

 “Wolverine?” He asked, blinking the haze away. The ringing was fading now.

 “Christ, Slim,” Logan said, pushing himself to his feet. “Got me good. You ok?”

 Scott shook his head. “No. What happened? Where are we?”

 Logan raised an eyebrow. “Oh, shit. It’s bad bad. You got shelled.” He looked down at Scott’s torso. “There’s shell in you.”

 Scott looked down and, yes, there was a jagged piece of steel sticking out of his stomach. “Oh,” he said quietly as he began to sway. “That seems bad.”

 Logan caught him as he almost fainted. “No you don’t, Cyclops,” he muttered. “Ok, let’s get you back to the jet. Where are the kids?”

 Scott’s heart almost stopped. “The kids are here?”

 Logan gave him a look somewhere between panic, disbelief, and pity. “Please tell me you can remember what we’re doing here?”

 Scott shook his head. “No.”

 “Fuck, crap. Ok. Yeah, come with me.” Logan supported him as he started to hobble toward a dim patch of trees where the jet was apparently located. “Yeah, this is a routine Russian operation. Get people out of the convoys, this one looked easy so we brought the kids along.”

 “And it wasn’t easy,” Scott mumbled.

 “No.” Logan pulled his own radio from his belt. “Iceman? Shadowcat? Talon? Come in, come in.” There was only static from the other end of the radio. “Shit, shit, shit.”

 Light flared to their left, and Logan stumbled. Scott dropped back into the earth, unable to stay upright. Logan roughly pulled him back to his feet. “You are too heavy,” he muttered. “Come on, we’re almost there.” Scott stared at the remnants of the explosion that had winded Logan. Fire arced and twisted into the air. Mud and soil rained.

  Rachel, he thought. Rachel Grey. Where are you?

 His mind remained blank save for his own whirling thoughts. That was a bad sign. “We’re not having a great track record with the kids at the minute,” he said wryly. Logan didn’t laugh, which was another bad sign.

“Hey, Laura?” Rachel said. “I forgive you for beating the shit out of me the other day. Actually, feel free to do it again in future. This is so much worse than that.”

 They were crouched in the blazing remnants of a barn. Soldiers were yelling outside, where the fields were also starting to catch. To their left, the sound of gunfire betrayed Kitty’s position. They had no clue where Beth or Bobby were.

 “Not the time,” Laura murmured. “If we make a break for it now, can you keep a forcefield up around us as we move?”

 “Pff, sure.”

 Laura locked eyes with her friend, her expression utterly lacking in humour. “Rachel. You are probably going to die if you can’t. So tell me, yes or no, no bravado, can you do it?”

 Rachel paused. “I… think so.”

 “‘I think so’ isn’t good enough,” Laura said. She cautiously peaked her head out of the smouldering doorway of the barn, catching figures moving across the fields. Her radio crackled feebly. “Hello?” She hissed into it, to no reply. “Fuck.”

 “Do you have a better idea?” Rachel asked. “Because we’re kinda fucked here and we need to do something .”

 Laura pursed her lips, contemplating. “No,” she said after a few seconds. “Ok. We’ll make a break for it. Keep me between you and the soldiers at all times - if the forcefield doesn’t hold I can afford to get shot.”

 She took notice of Rachel’s hands, which were rapidly clasping and unclasping. “Ok, ok.”

 “You going to be good?”

 “Mhm. Yup. Yeah.”

 “Ready? You know where the jet is?”

 Rachel nodded sharply. “Yup.”

 “Ok. On my count. Three. Two.”

 “Fuck, shit, ohmygod we’re gonna die Laura we-”

 Laura slapped her. “No. We aren’t. I’ve been in situations like this before. If you listen to me - and I mean you really have to listen to me - we’ll be ok.”

 Rachel nursed her cheek, only a little pathetically. “Th-that hurt.”

 “Sorry. But right now I need you to focus. Look me in the eye. Look into my brain if you have to. I know I can get us through this.”

 Rachel regarded her for a moment, her face a confused mixture of fear and anguish. Laura felt the slightly unnerving sensation of having her mind read, like someone flipping through her memories like a book. Rachel’s face cleared, almost in shock, then settled into grim determination.
“You good?”

 “Yes boss,” Rachel said with all her usual roguish charm.

 Laura nodded. “Ok. Three. Two. One.”

 They burst out of the barn, sprinting as fast as their legs could carry them toward the looming shape of the blackbird jet that squatted against the dull twilight above the horizon. The barn collapsed behind them, embers and smoke flung high into the air in the wake of its descent. Laura almost felt her senses flung into overdrive, eyes straining and superhumanly adapting to the low light, nose sharply attuned to the scent of blood, of gunpowder, of churned and blazing farm muck. She could hear Rachel’s footfalls and panting breaths behind her, see every muzzle flash from the soldiers to her left with perfect clarity, smell the terror on the wind. A bullet came screeching toward her out of the dark, only to be arrested in mid flight about a metre from her left shoulder and drop to the ground. It was followed by more, a nonstop hail of lead that had all her deeply ingrained and practised instincts twitching, only for each bullet to plink uselessly off the wall of nothing. Behind her she could hear Rachel’s jaw grinding in concentration.

 Incrementally they approached the jet, feet sticking in sucking mud, besieged from all sides by whirring lead. They were almost to it when Rachel fell down. Laura could make out Scott, visibly wounded and clutching at something in his gut, unleashing blast after blast of crimson light to keep the encroaching soldiers back. She turned back, about to call out to Rachel in reassurance, just in time to see her friend trip and fall face down in the muck. Her eyes widened in shock, and the first bullet impacted her right collarbone and shattered it. She registered the pain dimly, her thorough conditioning to its presence kicking in and compartmentalising the shock away. It didn’t matter, the wound would heal. If Rachel was shot too-

 The second bullet hit her in the forearm just above her right hand. It ricocheted off the adamantium stored within, knocking her off her balance and tearing up tendons and musculature as it went. She fell carefully, extending her already injured arm to cushion the fall, registering the fractures that snaked through her bones as they absorbed the shock of the drop. Her right arm was useless by the time she landed, but she couldn’t let that distract her. She rolled toward Rachel pushing herself forward with her left arm while she felt bullets whizzing above her head.

 Rachel was on the ground, quivering in fear. She was kicking uselessly at the mud, breathing laboured, in the throes of a panic attack. “Rachel?” Laura hissed. “Rachel, can you hear me? Are you ok?”

 No response. Rachel was too far out of it, too deep in panic. Laura shuffled closer to her, throwing her good arm over her and squeezing her. “Breathe,” she whispered. “Come on, Rachel. Breathe. We’re alive. I’m sheltering you. You’ll be ok.”

  Laura? Is that you?

 “Yeah, it’s me.”

  Are we dead?

 “No, not dead. You’re having a panic attack. How are you holding up in there?”

  I don’t want to die. Laura I don’t want to die I have to tell you something I need someone to know.

 Laura looked up. The gunfire seemed to have stopped, but she could hear the soldiers creeping closer, thinking that their quiet movements could fool her. She checked on her injuries quickly. Her collarbone was gradually piecing itself together, a cool numbness replacing the pain as her regeneration worked on it. The fractures in her arm were gone, and the flesh wound was busy knitting itself back together. If she knew her powers right, and she did, she’d be back in fighting shape by the time the soldiers made it to them.

 “Ok,” she said softly. “What do you need to tell me?”

  I’m- I’m gay. Kurt and I aren’t actually a couple. I’m gay and I’ve wanted a girlfriend for years but me and Kurt had to pretend because of what- because of what we found out.

 Laura blinked, abruptly shocked out of the situation around them. “I- what?”

  I’m sorry I just had to tell someone before I died.

 “You’re not going to die. I’m here. I’ve got you.” The numbness surrounding her collarbone had ceased. “Do you want me to keep that a secret?” She could hear someone about ten feet behind her, clumping through the mud. Probably assuming she was dead.

  Yes. Please. I’m sorry I’ve got us killed.

 “You haven’t.” Lightning fast, Laura leapt backwards away from Rachel, pirouetting through the air and catching the soldier in the side of the head with a vicious kick. He dropped, shouting in surprise, and Laura tore off his helmet and stamped on his head, knocking him out cold. She pulled his rifle from his slackening grip. Not a model she recognised, but it was a gun. The essential principles of operation didn’t really change.

 She ducked into a bush just as bullets started flying again. She narrowed her eyes as she brought the weapon up, watching the muzzle flashes. She breathed out as she pulled the trigger of the rifle. A single bullet impacted the leg of a soldier, knocking him down. These guys were good - Spetsnaz operatives she would guess. But not as good as her.

 Carefully, taking her time and not letting panic for Rachel consume her, Laura picked them off, one by one. Few wounds she inflicted were lethal - at least she hoped - and one by one the soldiers converging on where Rachel lay, whose panicked movements were gradually faltering as the panic attack wore itself out, dropped as a bullet wound took them out of the fight or backed off.

 Laura crawled out of the bush, throwing the rifle to the side. Rachel had pushed herself up onto her side, tears streaming down her face. She screamed when she saw Laura, and Laura looked down at herself to see that her jumpsuit was caked in blood. “It’s fine,” she grunted. “Wound’s healed. I’m all good.” She hooked a hand under Rachel’s armpit and pulled her to her feet. “Come on. Time to head home.”

 They stumbled back to the jet, now unmolested by gunfire. Rachel was still quivering in shock while Laura tried her best to soothe her, unsure if her words were actually helping at all. Logan ran out to meet them as they approached, catching Rachel as she collapsed out of Laura’s arms. “She’s in shock,” Laura murmured. “Had a panic attack as we were taking fire.”

 Logan nodded and hauled Rachel into the jet. Laura looked up, seeing Scott now strapped into a chair, a hunk of jagged metal protruding from his gut. Kitty, Beth, and Bobby were strapped in opposite, all with haggard, far away looks. Logan gently strapped Rachel into a seat beside them.

 “What happened?” Laura asked, climbing up and taking her own seat. “You told us this would be easy.”

 “Thought it would,” Scott croaked. “They were anticipating us. This was a trap.”

 Laura stared at him. “Why?”

 “I’ve been doing this a lot, with the X-Men,” Scott said. He sounded almost on the brink of passing out. “Going into Russia, getting to the mutant caravans, getting them out and to safety. They got wise to it.”

 “Christ,” Laura breathed. Logan was in the cockpit, flicking switches and pushing buttons as quickly as he could. The jet began to rumble as the engines kicked in. “Fuck.” She turned to her conspicuously silent friends. “Are you three alright?”

 Beth nodded tightly. “Kitty um. Phased us. Got us here unhurt.” She looked up at Laura, eyes wide. “Is it always like this?”

 “No,” Laura said, at the same time that Scott said, “Sometimes.”

 They glanced at each other. “Laura and I have different experiences,” Scott explained. “She’s more used to being a solo agent on… projects that only need a single operative. I’ve always worked as part of a team. Things can get bad when you’re with a team.”

 Laura nodded. “I believe that.” She turned back to Beth and the others. “Are you going to be ok?”

 Beth laughed shakily. “I. Uh. Sure? No.”

 “Gonna have nightmares,” Bobby muttered.

 Kitty gave Laura a half hearted thumbs up.

 Laura gave Scott a dark look. He looked back at her, expression unreadable behind the red of his visor. After a few seconds she realised he had passed out.

A small party of people was waiting for them as they disembarked the plane. The first were Hank and Dr Reyes, carrying a stretcher onto which Scott was bundled. The rest stood outside, clamouring to Logan for details, wanting to know. Laura noted Kurt, but to her surprise and mild hurt not Pietro. It was only when she then noticed that Kurt was making quite deliberate eye contact with her and beckoning discreetly that she hopped down from the plane and approached him.

 “Is Rachel ok?” He asked.

 “She’s fine. Shaken, probably going to be a bit fragile for a few days. But fine.” She gave him a hard look. “She also told me you two are just pretending,” she said in a much quieter voice.

 Kurt’s blueberry skin took on a hint of purple. “I can explain that later,” he told her softly. “And I do genuinely care about how she’s doing. And the others.”

 Laura nodded. “The same, really. Going to be a bit fragile for a while. I’d reckon Kitty’s going to get over it quicker.”

 “Ok. Good. Pietro got a call from his sister a few hours ago.” Laura’s jaw dropped in surprise. “She’s being held in the Raft. He’s in the dorms right now. Ms Grey is talking to him, trying to get him calmed down.”

 “Is he ok? Does he know what’s going to happen to her? Is everything going to-”

 “Let him explain all that, Laura.” Kurt put his hand on her shoulder. “Should we go now or do you want to stay with the others?”

 “Go now.”

 With a faint pop and a momentary reek of sulphur they were in the common room of the dorms, Jean looking up in surprise. Pietro sat beside her on the couch, eyes puffy but looking equally shocked. For a handful of moments he and Laura just stared at each other in shock, before she rushed to him and bundled him up into the tightest hug she could muster.

 “Glk,” he wheezed. “Laura. Tight.”

 A little reticently she released him. “Are you alright?” She said.

 He nodded, wiping a tear from his eye. “Fine. Yeah. Fine. She just- Lorna. She’s so scared, she was trying to hide it but I know her and she’s terrified and we have to do something because-”

 “Pietro,” Jean cut in. “There’s nothing that we can do right now. The council will need to convene and discuss, and Scott has just returned from a mission, he’ll need a while to recuperate.” She glanced at mud streaked Laura with a quirked eyebrow as she said this.

 Laura felt a crawling sense of guilt, shame, and discomfort. “Scott… was wounded,” she said, averting her eyes. “And the others… Rachel. Rachel was pretty shaken up. Things were worse-” But Jean was already gone, screaming Scott and Rachel’s names as she sprinted for the exit.

 The three of them stood in silence. Pietro reached for Laura’s hand, and she took it and squeezed. “I… should go and see Rachel,” Kurt said awkwardly.

 “You have some explaining to do,” Laura told him, immediately regretting the sharpness of her words.

 “I know I do,” he said. “But… I do actually care about her. And the others. So I’ll go now, and explain all this to you two later, alright?”

 Laura nodded. “Fine.” There was a pop, a brief sulphurous reek, and Kurt was gone. Immediately Pietro threw his arms around her, holding onto her with a vice grip.

 “Tight,” Laura told him, and he relaxed a bit. “Come on, let’s get ourselves somewhere private.”

 “Yep,” he said quietly.

 She led him upstairs, past other kids who gave them a wide berth. She pushed into his dorm with him, settling him down on the bed and looking at the largely bare walls and dresser. A poster for a German pop band was shoddily tacked to the wall, obscuring what she knew to be a bad plaster job. He settled on the bed, and she sat beside him, an arm around his shoulders. He leaned against her, head on her shoulder. “It fucking sucks,” he said. “It really, really fucking sucks.”

 “Yeah,” she agreed. “Yeah, I know.”

 “Still don’t know where Wanda is. Lorna didn’t seem to think she was also in the Raft. And the X-Men can’t do shit because Scott’s injured and they’ve got to do bullshit bureaucracy, which really shouldn’t get in the way of protecting other mutants! That’s what the X-Men are for, right?”

 Laura was silent for a moment. “I think so,” she said, unsure. “That’s the idea, anyway. But… Moira.”

 Pietro laughed drily. “The more I learn about Moira, the less I like her,” he sighed.

 Laura nodded. “Yeah. Me too.”

 A fit of sobs ran through Pietro, and she squeezed him tighter. “Fuck… fuck this. It’s like… I can’t have what I want. With my family I get the two coolest, nicest sisters I could have hoped for, I get as much… power as I want, I get people willing to bend over backwards because I’m my father’s… son. But none of it matters because I’m not actually his son to him, and I’ll never thrive as long as… as long as I’m me.” He drew a ragged breath. “Or here, with the X-Men, I get a great bunch of friends, I get the most amazing girlfriend I could ever have, who’s cool and funny and clever and gorgeous and somehow loves me , but I can’t fucking do anything. I’m a caged animal, the X-Men won’t do anything unless they’ve discussed it until the worst of the problem has already happened, and I just have to watch and scream and…” he looked at Laura tearfully. “God, I probably sound like the most entitled little shit on the planet, don’t I?”

 She leaned in and kissed him. He was clearly taken aback, squealing slightly as she pushed her tongue between his lips. With a moment to adjust though, he relaxed and let her, reaching out and embracing her.

 Laura broke away briefly. “Listen,” she told him. “You’ve got me now. And like you said, there’s no more Kimura. There’s no more Weapon X. I can do whatever the hell I want. In the morning, you and I are going to sit down with Rachel and Kurt. We are going to make them tell us everything.” She kissed him again. “They know something. We are going to make them tell us. Magneto is here, in the gaol. You can confront him, with you holding the power now. See what you can do to make him change. Ok?” Slightly dazzled by her intensity, Pietro just nodded up at her. Laura’s lips curled into a smile. “Ok, then. And be nice to Scott, please. He really was very badly injured.”

 “R-right.” Pietro wiped his mouth as Laura released him. “Sorry.”

 “It’s ok,” she said. “We can work on the spoiled brat thing. You don’t need power anymore, Pietro. You’ve got us. Me. We’re here to help you, ok? No matter how much the gears of bureaucracy might grind.”

 She leaned back in for another kiss, fully intending to take it further, only for him to hold her back. “Uh. Laura.” She cocked her head, a little hurt. “You’re very hot, yes, but you smell of blood and gunpowder. Later.”

 She stared at him, then looked in the mirror and remembered the mud caked in her hair. “Ah!” She said, “right!”

 And then she broke down laughing. After a moment, Pietro tentatively joined in.

“How is my daughter?”

 “Son,” Marian corrected. She sat cross legged before Magneto’s cell. He was propped up on his bed (which, Marian had noticed, was rather more comfortable than any prison bed she had seen before), a book discarded next to him. They regarded each other with guarded fascination. “He’s well.”

 “Son,” Magneto mused, a smile tugging at his mouth. “Well, I am glad that sh- he. I am glad that he is… happy here.” He did not sound very sincere to Marian’s ears.

 Marian shrugged. “Yeah.”

 “I sense you have questions,” Magneto said with a small sigh. “Which is shocking, given the circumstances.”

 “I…” Marian bit her lip. “I want to help you. But…” She bit her lip. “I don’t have a full picture anymore. Of… of everything that was in your head.” She looked him in the eye, keeping him held there. His gaze did not waver. “Do you trust Moira? Do you trust Essex?”

 “No.” Magneto’s response was flat and immediate. “As you should well know, I do not.”

 Marian shrugged. “Yeah. Mostly.” She continued chewing her lip as Magneto regarded her cooly. “Do you really think you can pull it off?”

 “Yes.” As automatic a response as before.

 “Why?”

 His gaze turned thoughtful. “Because nobody else would ever try,” he said after a moment’s thought. “And because I will have help.”

 Marian considered this. “And the people? Humans who get in the way?”

 “Will be dealt with.”

 “I see.” Marian folded her hands in her lap. “Fine. That’s… fine.”

Scott lay staring up at a halogen light, wishing that it was something else. His visor had been replaced with a more securely fastened version designed for exactly this scenario while Cecilia Reyes, the only qualified doctor on Muir Island, had been plucking chunks of shrapnel out of his bowels and then sewing them back together. Scott was informed that this had been a complicated and draining process, and Cecilia was now nowhere to be seen. Probably trying to sleep.

 Jean sat beside him, looking haggard. The terror had long bled out of her, and was now replaced with a deep thoughtfulness that Scott, even after nearly ten years of marriage, could not pierce.
“Never again,” she said quietly, just as Scott’s retinas were beginning to adjust to the flickering of the light. He rolled his head to look at her.

 “It’s what I get paid for,” he said.

 “No, idiot. Not the X-Men.” She gave him what he felt was an unfairly harsh look. “Rachel.”

 Scott felt a sharp pang of guilt in his gut. “Rachel volunteered,” he supplied weakly. “And-”

 “No. Nope. Shut up.” Jean was wringing her hands. “What if that had been Alex? Huh? If your little brother had come back from something like that with me? What if it was Alex who’d almost died because of a mistake that I’d made?”

 “Alex doesn’t have the stability to-”

 “It doesn’t fucking matter, Scott!” Jean snapped, getting to her feet. “What if she hadn’t been with Laura? What if she’d got separated and shot in the back? What if she was on her way to the Raft right now?” She put her head in her hands. “Rachel isn’t… she can’t do that again. Ok? No more.”

 Scott frowned. “And what about what Rachel wants?”

 Jean stared at him, mouth agog. “What do you think she wants? She had a panic attack, she-”

 “Have you actually asked her?”

 Jean stopped dead. “Well, no. But do I need to? She’s barely talking. She looked terrified.”

 “We looked terrified,” Scott countered. “Remy looked terrified. Hank and Warren and Emma looked terrified. Hell, I bet if you go back far enough Logan and Moira looked terrified. This is hard , Jean.”

 Jean shook her head. “I- I know. But I don’t want this for Rachel.”

 “It isn’t your choice.” Jean glared at him. “She’s an adult, Jean.”

 “It hasn’t slipped my attention that Rachel is an Omega,” Jean said icily. “And that she would make for an incredibly powerful member of the team if she was correctly trained.”

 “Yes, that helps. Sure.” Scott rubbed his forehead. “But… Jean. Rachel and Alex aren’t our children.”

 “Oh, god, not you too.”

 “Yes, me too. It doesn’t matter what we want for them anymore.”

 Jean sat back down wearily. “They don’t understand,” she said, voice low and gentle. “They don’t know what they’re getting into.”

 Scott shook his head. “I think they- Rachel does now. Which is why it’s her choice.”

 “You’re a bastard to love sometimes, Scott Summers.” She sighed deeply. “Ok. Cool. Fine. I’ll hear Rachel out.”

 Scott nodded. “Thank you.” He sighed wearily and placed his head back on the pillow. The surgery bed was uncomfortable, more of a slab really, and he doubted he’d get much sleep tonight, among the bottles of hand sanitiser and gently humming equipment.

  What’s going on with you, Scott? Jean’s voice broke through in his mind. He didn’t reply for a few seconds.

  I don’t trust Moira anymore.

  Christ. Why not?

  He glanced at her. I don’t think she actually cares. About mutants. I think she’s on her own side, not on ours.

 Jean pursed her lips. Right. But we don’t have a better hope than her.

  Scott remained silent.

Fifteen Years Ago

The office was oak panelled. Great windows lit it with great sweeping beams of sunlight, giving the whole room a homely glow and sending flecks of sparkle around the place where it refracted through the crystal whiskey bottle placed to one side of the grand mahogany desk.

 Scott sat facing the desk on an uncomfortable fold out chair. Across from him, long fingers steepled, was Charles Xavier. The man wore a pea-green suit over an immaculately pressed white shirt, a songbird patterned tie completing the look. He was framed by a landscape painting - a small fleet of yachts and pleasurecraft moored in a harbour - the deep reds of the sea and the rosy glow of the sky meeting behind their masts.

 “Mr Summers,” Xavier said. “Good morning.”

 “Good morning, Professor,” Scott replied. He sat up a little straighter.

 Xavier spent what Scott felt was an unfair amount of time looking over a bit of paper that Scott wasn’t able to read, then placed it to one side and gave Scott a thoughtful look. “Are you aware of why I have asked you here this morning, Mr Summers?”

 “No, sir.”

 “Truly?” Xavier looked amused. “You have no idea?”

 Scott frowned and thought. “Is it to do with Emma?”

 “Ms Frost? No, it isn’t. Though I have noticed you two communicating during class.” A grin broke out across Xavier’s face as Scott’s mouth became a perfect ‘O’ of horror. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing that the school rules say you can be punished for, so I won’t. But please focus harder in your lessons.”

 “Yes, sir.”

 Xavier nodded. “I’ve asked you here, Scott, because of recent events that transpired in Anchorage.” He swivelled his computer screen around, showing Scott a news article. The headline read ‘Devastation As Gas Station Suffers Fuel Leak’, beneath which was an image of a smoking crater sandwiched in the middle of suburban housing. “Have you heard of this?” Xavier asked.

 Scott nodded slowly. “I think so,” he said. “They mentioned it on the news last night.”

 “What do you think caused it?”

 Scott frowned. “A fuel leak, someone being stupid and smoking in a gas station? Professor, what does this have to do with me? Besides that I’m from Anchorage?”

 Xavier sighed. “Scott, this wasn’t a gas explosion. And I’m very sorry, but it has everything to do with you.” He folded his hands, suddenly looking very uncomfortable. “Scott… I’m afraid that one of the people found dead in this explosion was… was your mother.”

 Scott didn’t respond. Every cell of himself was numb, every instinct flattened. He blinked. “No, she isn’t,” he said, meaning it. She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be, not like this. Not without him knowing.

 Xavier looked away. “I’m sorry, Scott,” he said quietly. “But she is.”

 “No.”

 “This-” Xavier pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll show you.”

 Scott’s head was suddenly filled with information. Xavier receiving a phone call the previous night. A man from SHIELD recounting what had occurred, informing him in clipped, clinical tones of the events as SHIELD understood them. Young Alex Summers had manifested mutant powers. He had caused a massive explosion while in the car with his mother. There had been no survivors.

 Scott was silent when the stream of information ended. He just nodded.

  I can’t cry, he thought. Crying will make it worse. Crying will break the pressure seals on my glasses and then I’ll…

 “I’m so sorry, Scott,” Xavier said softly. “I truly am.”

 Scott shook his head. “But Alex is so young,” he said plaintively. “Mutations don’t manifest until you’re like twelve and Alex is five, he can’t have-”

 “He did.” Xavier also looked on the brink of tears. “SHIELD has him in custody. They’ll run some diagnostics on him, tests to see if anything could have caused this early manifestation of mutation, and then he’s coming here.”

 Scott nodded. “Will he be safe?” He asked. He wiped at his nose, embarrassed to find that it was running.

 “I trust that he will,” Xavier replied. “And if he isn’t, I shall be having words with my contacts at SHIELD. Don’t worry, Scott. He’ll be quite safe.”

 “Thank you, Professor.” Scott stared blankly ahead, mind still working. “What about me?”

 Xavier raised an eyebrow. “What about you, Mr Summers?”

 “Where will I be going for Christmas? I don’t have anywhere to… to go after this. And… and the funeral? I don’t want to miss that because of class.”

 “Ah.” Xavier sighed deeply. “Well, you needn’t worry about missing the funeral. I will be escorting you there personally. And for Christmas you are most welcome to stay here. Mr Eisenhardt and I hold a get-together for ourselves and some friends each year, and you would be most welcome to attend if you don’t mind. Alternatively, I’m sure there are several students here whose parents would be willing to accommodate you.”

 Scott nodded dully. “Ok. Thanks.” He got up. “I would like to be alone now, sir.”

 “As you please, Scott. And may I reiterate how truly sorry I am for what you have lost.”

 Scott nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Now

Laura knocked sheepishly on the grand wooden door behind which the Grey-Summers household conducted their lives. Scott and Jean had one of the largest houses in the village, dwarfed only by her own and the home of the extensive Guthrie clan. The front of the building was lined with flowerbeds and ivy grew across the sandstone walls. The door knocker was shaped like a mighty eagle, wings spread wide.

 The day was warm. Laura could feel the sun gently warming her dark hair, which was pulled every which way about her head by the gentle summer breeze. The flowers smelled exquisite.

 The door was pulled open by Jean, who smiled warmly and beckoned her in. Laura did, kicking her boots off next to Rachel’s in the porch, and allowed herself to be led into the airy kitchen beyond. Scott was seated at the oak dining table, filling in some paperwork absentmindedly. In the opposite chair was Alex, bouncing Nathan on one knee. Rachel stood at the stove, stirring something delicious smelling round a frying pan. She looked round as Laura came in, and her face broke out into a huge grin.

 Before Laura knew what was happening, Rachel had sprinted to her and wrapped her in a tight bear hug. “Glk,” Laura exhaled. “Rachel. Tight.”

 Rachel let go, but the grin stayed. “Sorry,” she said, but she didn’t look it. “And thank you. So much.”

 “Alex, give Nathan to Jean,” Scott said, looking up. “And take over on lunch.” Alex grumbled but complied, and Jean hoisted the toddler over her shoulder to shrieks of glee. Scott put down his pen and gestured Laura to a seat, which she took.

 “Laura,” Jean began. “We invited you here to thank you for what you did yesterday.”

 “It’s ok,” Laura said, turning red. “Really, it was nothing, I would have done it for anyone.”

 “You took two bullets for me,” Rachel said. “That wasn’t nothing, even for you. You saved my life.”

 Laura squirmed. “Um. That’s ok. Really. I just did what I had to.”

 “ Laura, ” Jean said softly. “What you did was heroic, and we are extremely grateful.”

 “I only-”

 “Oh my god,” Rachel said, exasperation in her voice. “Laura Kinney, you idiot. Can you try and accept, just a little bit, that what you did was really, really good ?”

 Laura blinked. “Huh.” She looked up at Rachel. “ Huh. ” Her face cracked into a grin almost as huge as the one Rachel still wore. “It was, wasn’t it?”

 “Hallelujah!” Rachel whooped. “She admits it! The moping comes to an end!”

 Nathan gave her a ridiculous frown. “Be nice,” he said, making Rachel cackle all the more.

 “Really though, Laura,” Scott cut in. “We’re very grateful.”

 “We wanted to do something to thank you,” Jean added. “So… Rachel and Alex picked something out.”

 It was a necklace. Filigreed silver wolves twining a rose-quartz stone, shaped into a heart. Laura stared at it, cradled in Rachel’s palm. “I know you don’t wear jewellery, really,” Rachel said quickly. “But this, I don’t know, I thought you’d like it.”

 Laura shook her head. “No, Rachel. It- it’s wonderful. Thank you.”

 Nathan began to cry, and while the others were distracted Laura looped the necklace over her head, admiring the way she looked in the window. Rachel tapped her shoulder. We should go, her voice said in the centre of Laura’s mind, and Laura nodded.

 “We’re headed out!” Rachel announced, pulling on her boots and Laura bent to do the same.

 Jean looked up. “Really? I thought you were staying for lunch?”

 “Well, yeah, but I wanted a moment alone with Laura.” Rachel playfully pulled her friend into a headlock, which Laura, with no shortage of indignation, slipped out of and swatted her for. “We haven’t had that much chance to talk since what happened.”

 Jean pursed her lips, but the girls had already scampered out the front door, boots kicking up clouds of chalky dust behind them.

 They made their way down to the beach, sheltering below the cliffs in a rocky hollow, insulated from sight by the rock and hearing by the turning of the waves. Rachel spent a moment with her eyes unfocused, checking for telepathic listening, and when she found none turned back to Laura.

 “Where’s Pietro?”

 Laura shook her head. “Too shaken up to be here, we decided. Kurt?”

 “Hungover.” This Rachel said with her fore and middle fingers raised, half bent, and Laura nodded. “Just us girls.”

 “Just us girls.” Laura hurled a stone into the sea, skimming it for one, two, three bounces. “What do you know, Rachel?”

 Rachel drew her legs up to her chest. “Something bad.”

 “Be helpful.”

 “Alright, alright.” She recounted to Laura the story of what had happened that time ago, of what she and Kurt had heard behind the closed door, which could surely only mean conspiracy with Magneto. She told Laura about Nathaniel Essex, the man imprisoned at Newgate, who she and Kurt had found strutting the streets of London and believed to be colluding with Moira, or Magneto, or both. She choked herself from screaming about the lie she’d been forced to tell all that time, tried not to blame Kurt for it too much, and Laura rubbed her back as she held back tears.

 “I’m sorry,” Laura said when it was over, rubbing small circles on her friend’s back. “God, Rachel, that’s-”

 “Fucked.”

 “Really fucked.”

 Silence bloomed between them like a dark flower, roots drinking deep of the sea before them. Minutes went by, both staring into the surf. Laura ceased patting Rachel’s back, allowing her hand to simply rest on her shoulder. Overhead, a gull trilled.

 “I think it’s bad,” Rachel said quietly. “Because, it sounded like the man had a prisoner, someone he was hurting.”

 “Yeah.”

 “And what could Moira and Magneto want? What could they both want that they’d need to lie about it?”

 Laura watched the hazy blue of the sky, the disc of the sun invisible behind the stony ceiling above her. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I think Moira’s lived a long time. I don’t think… I don’t think we’d ever have been able to trust her, not really.”

 Rachel took in a great, ragged breath. “Fuck. What do we do?”

 “What have you and Kurt been doing?”

 “Nothing. Well, no, looking. Trying to find something… anything else about what’s going on. And failing.”

 Laura nodded slowly. “Just sightings of that guy.”

 “Exactly.” Rachel’s gaze was fixed on the horizon. “But we can’t keep doing that, can we?”

 “No.”

 “Well, Magneto is here now, I guess, we could always talk to him.”

 “No.” Laura squeezed Rachel’s shoulder. “If they’re colluding, he’ll tell her.”

 Rachel nodded once. “Right. Then… who?”

 Laura cast around for answers, inevitably coming up short. Logan wouldn’t believe her, he was too loyal to Moira. Scott didn’t see eye to eye with her these days, but even he seemed a step too far. “Beth,” she said at last. “Tell Beth.”

 Rachel almost laughed. “You know, I didn’t mean-”

 “I know, but there’s no one else. Beth will believe you. We… we should all know. Us nine. Starting with Beth.”

“Christ.” Beth stared into the middle distance, hunched over at the edge of her bed. “Fuck me, alright.” She reached under the bed and produced a four-pack of lager, handing it round. Rachel took one, Laura declined.

 “Taking it well, then,” Laura said wryly. They were in Beth’s bedroom, just next door to Kurt’s, door locked with the Beatles on the record player to mask their voices. Beth snorted through her beer.

 “I’m the fourth person to know about this, then?” She asked.

 “Fifth, technically. Pietro knows something’s up, but we haven’t told him what yet.”

 “Oh, him before me, that feels good.” She waved away Laura’s defensive expression. “Oh, it’s ok. Just would have thought you two trusted me more by now.” She sighed at their hurt expressions. “Sorry. No, I understand why you didn’t come to me first.” She looked at Rachel, her face softening. “And you. I’m sorry, Rachel.”

 Rachel averted her eyes, embarrassed. “It’s really-” Beth held up a hand.

 “No, it’s not. ‘Official group lesbians’, what the hell was I thinking? I’ll make sure Marian apologises too.” She smiled tentatively. “You need any advice, you can come to me.”

 Rachel toed the carpet with her boot. “That’s… I.” She met Beth’s gaze. “Thank you. That means a lot. Thank you.”

 Silence bloomed again, punctured by John Lennon, before Laura said, impatient. “So, Beth. Now what?”

 She stared into her beer. “Well. I’ll be telling Marian… immediately. After that, we can arrange some time to let the other three know.” She saw Laura’s face. “But I don’t think you meant that. Well. I don’t really know, but it’s clear enough that we can’t stay.”

 Rachel swallowed, fidgeting nervously with her shirt. “That meaning…”

 “That meaning that, for at least six of us, life on Muir Island is over, one way or another.” Rachel placed her face in her palms. Laura leaned back and released a pent up breath. Beth looked grave.

 “Pietro’s gonna love that,” Laura muttered.

 “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

 “No, I knew.” She looked over at Rachel, who nodded.

 “Yeah. Me too.”

 Beth put her beer down. “I know that it’s harder for you two,” she said softly. “You have family here.”

 “We’ll come,” Rachel said, eyes downcast. Laura nodded.

It was quiet on the moors. The sun shone today, but weakly, yellow beams barely warmed the skin of Beth’s exposed arms. Wispy clouds hazed across the blue, occasionally casting faint clouds over the heather. Half a mile from the village, Marian sat on a grassy knoll, watching the west as late summer storms blustered past the island on their way to Norway. Beth knelt next to her, and offered a hand. Marian reached out and squeezed it, today’s gloves a sensible and unadorned cotton. “Hey,” she murmured, eyes not leaving the horizon.

 “Hey yourself,” Beth replied, eliciting the smallest chuckle from her love. “See anything nice?”

 Marian pointed, her finger describing a fuzzy dark line framed beneath the sun. “Greylag geese, there. Puffins, of course. Some cormorants. Oh, and a ringed plover. Adorable little thing.”

 Beth watched the geese for a moment, but was, as ever, drawn back to Marian’s face. “I love you,” she told her, and Marian broke into a full grin.

 “Sitting in one spot for hours on end nerding out about birds does it for you, huh?” She said, with no lack of humour in her voice. She playfully tapped Beth on the nose with one finger. “Cute.”

 Beth turned away, feeling herself turning red. “You stop that,” she said.

 Marian squeezed her hand again. “I love you too,” she told her. “I love you to the sun and the stars. I love you more than I love love itself. I love you more than I love ringed plovers.”

 Beth laughed. “Oh, then that really must be quite a lot.” They lapsed into quiet in the early twilight of August, eyes sparkling and fixed on each other. Beth felt the familiar yearning, to reach out, to take hold of this woman who she loved so dearly, to kiss her. As ever, she restrained it. “We need to talk, Marian.”

 The sparkle faded from her girlfriend’s eyes. The smile lessened on her lips. “I know,” she said, soft as the surf. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been telling you things, my love.”

 Beth squeezed her hand again, and Marian’s muscles were like iron under the glove. “It isn’t just that. There’s something I know now. Something that changes everything. That has to change everything.”

 Marian stilled, though her fingers continued to caress Beth’s hand. “We may know the same thing,” she murmured.

 “I suspect that we do.”

 Marian stared out at the water, at the jewelling of the reflected sunlight on the waves. She did not release Beth’s hand, and Beth did not ask her to. “I would like to enjoy the sunset,” she said. “I want to live in this twilight as we are now, Beth. I want it to last until the sun sinks into the sea.”

 Beth nodded. “I can wait for that.”

 Hours passed. They spoke absently, about things that they had done that day and things that they would never do in the future. Marian complimented Beth’s perfume, Beth admired the frizzy waves of Marian’s hair. Once, without quite knowing why, she took one hand and ran it through the chestnut-and-ivory river, and to the surprise of them both it barely stung. And then only the very last band of the sun stood above the horizon, and Marian gulped.

 Beth kissed her knee. “We’ll be ok, sweetheart,” she murmured. “I’ll be with you.”

 Marian nodded, perhaps a little too fast. “There’s a conspiracy.”

 “I know.”

 “It’s called ORCHIS.”

 At that Beth paused and looked up at Marian’s faraway green eyes. “What?”

 Marian looked at her in surprise.

 “I thought you knew?”

 Beth shook her head. “No, all I know is that Moira is colluding with Magneto, and someone else called Nathaniel Essex. Oh, and Rachel’s gay.”

 “Blackmailing, not colluding. She’s blackmailing Magneto.” Beth’s jaw hung open. Marian stared at her, incredulous. “Nice to know that about Rachel, thank you for telling me. You really don’t know?”

 “I mean…”

 Marian swivelled to face her. “Oh, honey.” She kissed Beth’s hair, tentatively. It didn’t hurt at all. “Beth, darling, we are in so much more trouble than you realise.”