A.N. I've decided that 11k words don't really need 22 chapters to contain them, so I've reorganized the story so that everything is grouped together differently. This contains no new material, it's just reformatted. I'm not dead, I've just... moved on? May be updated later, I have no idea. For those of you who never read the original version, don't bother looking at it.

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men, I don't own any characters you recognize, I don't own the 100 theme challenge this was inspired by (I'd give credit where it was due, but I forgot who had it on their profile originally). If you want to sue me... you're an idiot.


1. Introduction

They never talk about a mutant's point of view on the news, have you ever noticed? Its always "dangerous", "uncontrolled", and "should be registered", never "fear of discrimination", "in danger from violent anti-mutant groups", or "normal life gone over night".

But then again, what kind of mutant wants to let the entire world know about their life? In my point of view, it would be extremely useless, because life as a mutant is something no one can understand, and even other mutants don't have to face the daily challenges that come with a unique power.

It would also be extremely stupid. Why tell a hostile and violent world exactly who you are and what you are capable of? Yes, I know that not everyone is like that; not everyone reacts in fear. But for most people, it doesn't take everyone in the world to kill you. Just one person with a gun.

Why take the risk?

Why would anyone confess to being a mutant long enough for someone to understand what it's like to be one?


2. Love

Ah, young love—or should I say infatuation? So easily found and even more easily broken.

It's funny how things work when your best friend and recent boyfriend finds out you're a mutant. I was expecting him to be a little put out, maybe mad at me for not telling him sooner, even though I had only found out a month ago myself. He might think I was joking, I though, even though April Fool's Day was last month. I didn't really think it would change our friendship; I had known him since I was eight years old after all.

I was not expecting him to panic, call the police, and start yelling at me to "stay away from me, you disgusting freak". So much for six years of friendship.

After that, things went to hell in a hand basket. See, I hadn't told my parents yet, so when they overheard him yelling about their mutant daughter, they… reacted. Looking back, I know they were just acting in surprise and ignorance when they told me to "get out and never come back. We don't have a daughter anymore". So much for loving me no matter what.

At the time, it was a life-changing betrayal.

It wasn't my fault I'd gotten the gene that let me make things appear and reappear in another place. It wasn't my fault. I hadn't done anything, had hardly even used my power once I knew I had it.

Of course, that didn't stop them from kicking me out onto the street with nowhere to go, and only the clothes on my back and a few dollars in my pocket.


3. Light

A police car soon arrived, lights flashing and leaving bright spots in my eyes, sirens glaring at full volume. I was relieved, until they started pointing weapons at me.

Apparently, being a mutant is a crime you can be arrested for. Who knew?

Before I had thought the police were people you could trust, just like I had been told since I was young enough to understand. If you ever get lost, my mom had said often, Don't come looking for me, you'll just get even more lost. Find a police officer, or someone else responsible, like a store employee, and tell them you can't find your mother.

So who can you go to if the police aren't on your side?

I took one look at them and ran, away from the suspicion, the hostility, the threatening weapons, the deafening sirens. I'd like to say I ran and never looked back, but I did, just one glance.

There were my parents and my boyfriend, standing together in the little puddle of light cast by a lantern on the porch, united by their hate of mutants. United by their hatred of me.

I fled from everything I had ever known, away from the light.


4. Dark

I was expecting to be chased—after all I was a "dangerous mutant"—and I was not disappointed.

I was, however, disappointed at how easy it was to keep ahead of the police man. Didn't they specifically train these people to catch criminals? Of course, the neighborhood had been my home for the last ten years, and I knew it and its shortcuts like the back of my hand, but still.

The familiar streets looked different at night, only lit up by the occasional street lamp and homes with lights on.

I had always been told to stay off the streets at night. "It's dangerous," my parents had said, "bad things come out with the dark."

It was almost funny how right they had been; I told my ex-boyfriend I was a mutant just as the stars were coming out, and he and my parents had transformed from loving, caring, supporting people, to people who wouldn't care if I lived or died, and would actually prefer the latter.

So, I stole the cop's gun. There were dangerous things out at night, and my mutation wouldn't do much good if I was cornered and in trouble. Theft, however, was a piece of cake.

After all, it's hard to stop me when the thing I'm after disappears from wherever it was and reappears right in my hand.

The police man who was following me gave up really quickly after he lost his weapon, and I slowed to a walking speed as I traveled on to who knew where.


5. Past

It was an hour and a half later when I finally got to my friend's house. She lived in a whole different neighborhood on the other side of town, and I was exhausted by the time I arrived, but I knew her parents were pro-mutant and would let me stay the night at least.

Of course, the fact that I hadn't seen her for over a year since she switched schools made me a bit nervous to knock on the door, but on the bright side, my parents wouldn't check for me here.

I hoped.

The door opened to let me in. Her parents were as nice as I remembered, and said of course I could spend the night there, the next several nights if I had to. I didn't want to have to.

It was painful, seeing my once best friend again. She had hardly changed, and I couldn't forget how different I was compared to last time I had seen her. I didn't even look the same; my hair was different, my clothes were different, I was different.

There were so many questions she asked me once she found out I was a mutant. What could I do? How long had I been one? How did I find out? How did I hide it?

The day I found my mutation will always be a day I never forget. Thankfully, it was the weekend and neither of my parents was home. I was writing a report for school and my pencil broke. I could have sworn the sharpener was downstairs last time I checked, but when I looked around it was sitting on my desk as if it had always been there.

It took a series of weird coincidences after that with things appearing as I called them for me to actually accept that I was the one making this happen. Once I acknowledged that fact, I was seriously freaked out.

The internet can tell a person a lot of things, but somehow doesn't hold the answer on what to do if you wake up one morning able to move things without touching them.


6. Break Away

As much as I was thankful for a place to stay for a while, I didn't want to live the rest of my life freeloading from the parents of my once best friend. I figured I had to find some way to make money, but what kind of store hires a mutant? Most of the ones I passed had "no mutants" signs on the windows, which confused me. How did everyone know if I was a mutant or not?

I spent most of the next day having fun and messing around with my mutation, trying to forget that my life was in shambles. I hadn't practiced moving things before; I had known my parents didn't like unnatural things and had subconsciously felt they'd be disappointed in me for using my power, I guess. It didn't really feel right being able to move things I wasn't even touching. This power could be so easily abused and used to break the law. Now, though, it was a bit too late to worry about being arrested—they were already after me and I hadn't done anything yet—or making my parents proud—they started hating me for being a mutant the moment they found out—so I experimented.

Things didn't have teleport instantaneously, and I didn't have to see where they were to make them move. I could get a glass of water from the kitchen and it just wouldn't exist for five minutes until I called it back.

Basically, with my power I was the perfect thief and/or storage container.

Just imagine. Pick pocketing was easy as thought, because that's literally what it took to get someone's wallet.

Robbing a store? I had it covered, things disappeared off the shelves and stayed in stasis—I never actually figured out where they went before I put them somewhere else, but I kept a clock once for 15 minutes and not a second had passed according to it—and came back to reality once I was back at the house.

It was like having an invisible, weightless backpack that could never be filled. I could store so much stuff in it, the potential was endless.

And, so, that day an idea was born. So what, no store would hire me, but there were other ways to make money.


7. Heaven

Theft was a new idea to me at the time. My only prior experience was shoplifting a piece of candy, and that happened when I was six and hadn't figured out yet that it was wrong to take things without paying for them. Other than that, my mind seemed to equate stealing and Robin Hood.

Rob the rich and feed the poor wasn't really what I had in mind the first time I tried it. I ended up walking into a store and right back out without taking anything. I was nervous, ok? I knew there was no way I could get caught. I knew this was the only way I could survive in the world. But still…

"Easier said than done" was definitely a saying that applied in my case.

After I finally got up the guts to do it the first time—I swiped a sweatshirt, some food, and $20 from the cash register as the store employee was distracted—the second time wasn't a problem.

Some things really did get easier with practice; the butterflies in my stomach calmed down and my hands stopped sweating. I didn't get that pang of fear every time another person noticed me either. It got to a point where I could walk into a gas station and buy a drink and a pack of gum, carry out a conversation with the cashier, and walk out the store without my heart rate rising, leaving the owner to discover their missing stock half a week later when someone took inventory.

I moved out of my friend's house half a week after my parents kicked me out. In four days I went from penniless, to in possession of enough food, clothing, and to easily survive for several months on my own. I rented an apartment in on the worse side of town—I was only 15 and no one else would let someone obviously underage stay—and only slept there at night, spending most of the day at the mall or down town. As the months passed, I became an expert at dodging cops on the lookout for truant students. I didn't even bother avoiding mall security since even if I was searched, I had nothing suspicious on me.

I was living in teenager heaven, no parents, no rules, no one to tell me what to do, and almost everything I could ever want at my fingertips.


8. Innocence

I should have guessed that with all the things that went missing, they would have increased the security in stores. I had to be careful about where and when I used recognizable things I had appropriated from certain stores. The updated carefulness didn't even come close to catching me, though, since most of what I took was either money, or basic things like milk and cereal, so my life hardly changed.

Others, however, were not as successful in hiding their ventures.

Several times while roaming the mall, I caught sight of shoplifters or pickpockets being hauled off by a security guard. Maybe I felt sorry for them, but most were probably spoiled kids just trying to avoid using up their allowance too soon. One or two looked like they actually needed the things they were caught with, though. I tried to do what I could to help them get out of trouble, usually by putting the things they took back on the shelves without anyone noticing, and then asking the security guard what the person had done.

It was almost funny how the cops reacted when nothing was missing and the evidence was nonexistent. In one case, the employee of the store that had almost been robbed actually apologized to the thief, and the security guard, and to me. I barely managed not to laugh when that happened; the store manager himself gave the kid a gift card and promised it would never happen again.

All three times something like that happened, the kid—or adult in one case—got off home free and slightly confused. They knew they had taken something, but every time they checked their bag, or pocket, or purse, there was nothing there and the thing taken was back where it should have been, nicely folded and looking untouched.

The fourth time I decided to help someone out was the time everything changed.

The thief looked like one of those normal kids with rich parents, but there was something about her that made me step in when she was caught. She looked like she was dressed for winter temperatures and her clothes looked a little too dirty for the mall. That, plus the way she flinched away from the guard and anyone who came near her made me want to intervene.

If she stood out from across the hall, the scene was even more unusual from up close.

I was right, I noticed, the girl was too grubby to fit in here; her clothes looked slept-in, and the brown hair obviously hadn't seen a brush in over a day. It was easily 80° inside and she had to be baking in long sleeves, gloves, and a scarf around her neck. Also, there was a crowd forming around store entrance where she was, larger than usual for petty theft.

Mystery solved when the security guard grabbed her wrist and collapsed; stealing earned a night in jail, a fine, and a phone call to your parents if you still had them. Mutation paid in one way tickets to maximum security testing facilities.

I could get rid of evidence of stealing, but when the proof is in the DNA, there's no way to fake innocence.


9. Drive

At that time I was faced with a dilemma. She was a mutant, like me, but no one knew that I could do anything special. Should I leave her to her fate and let them drag her off to who knows where, or do I rescue her, reveal myself, and lose what life I had made in the last few months?

I wavered, indecisive, as the guard collapsed, the crowd watched on, and another mall cop arrived and was informed of the situation. The girl was on the ground as well, clutching her head and mumbling to herself quietly. The second guard looked at his colleague, then at her, then back to his fallen friend. After a moment of deliberation, he opted for crowd control and yelled for someone to call 911.

I made a decision. A multicolored cloud filled the air as the part of the hoard of smoke bombs I had stored was dropped in the middle of the mall. People panicked, some called for police, some ran, and some feared a mutant attack as the smoke just got thicker and the sprinkler system activated to make the scene complete. It was chaos; it was madness; it was a perfect distraction. With a handkerchief covering my face from the smoke, I grabbed the mutant and ran to the parking lot, dragging her behind me.

Distracting a mob, dodging cops, and escaping a mall while half carrying a mutant of unknown power was easier than I had thought it would be.

She had taken my cloth mask and was currently hacking up her lungs onto the sidewalk. Add a hat and it was the perfect disguise; who looks twice at a sick person? People just aren't that nice anymore. Plus, she wasn't the only one having trouble breathing at the time. Maybe I used a few too many smoke bombs?

I steered her over to a car that flashed lights at me when I clicked the button on some stolen keys I had grabbed during the pandemonium. The poor mutant girl looked half-dead, and I think she may have been in shock, but she didn't resist when I told her to get in the passenger's side.

The police were just starting to arrive at the scene when I realized I had never driven a car before. Let's just say it was an interesting journey back to my apartment. No, I did not kill anyone. Yes, I had to temporarily vanish a few fire hydrants that I may have hit else wise. And, yes, a few pedestrians had on the go lessons on dodging cars.


10. Breathe

After a long and interesting drive, I managed to park the car and drag her inside, thankful that I lived on the first floor. She may have been skinny, but even that weighs at least 100 lbs for her size, and I'm not exactly strong or large myself. I hadn't tried moving living things with my power, and didn't want to start with a human. At least she wasn't squirming around, though; the mutant girl had somehow lost consciousness while I was driving.

I suppose that, when waking up in a strange place after having fainted or fallen asleep under strange circumstances that included a hostile mob, copious amounts of multicolored smoke, and a helpful, but completely unknown rescuer that looked younger than you were, panic is a normal reaction. Panic is fine, I can deal with panic.

When the girl managed to hyperventilate herself into unconsciousness less than a minute after she woke up, though, I was not prepared. Next time she came to, though, I was ready with a paper bag. Which she refused to use.

Obviously she was not a very trusting girl.

Of course, I can't really blame her. She did, after all, have her mutation revealed to everyone in the mall less than an hour ago, and they didn't really react in a good way. But I didn't really want her to pass out on my couch again.

So I, being stupid like I was, decided to use my hands as a paper bag and covered her mouth.