Authors' Note: Please review!
~The Nerdlings

Title: Freedom
Summary: When two mutants are thrown into the middle of an anti-mutant propaganda, they vow to help set free the captured mutants- meeting the X-Men in the process...Except for the fact that X-Men they meet are the ones that got captured.
Genre: Adventure/Humor
Rated: T
Disclaimer: We do not own nor claim X-Men Evolution. We do own OCs (Lori and Jade)

Prologue

Third Person:

The ten year old Lori Parkerson pulled her hoodie closer to her body as she walked through the park. She didn't really have any friends, so she preferred to be alone anyway. She enjoyed pretty much anything to do outside, so she went to the park often. Her favorite thing was playing in the water, or the mud. She also liked camping, just because of the simple fact that she even liked fire. She wasn't a pyro, she just found it calming.

"Hi there."

Lori spun around quickly. It was a girl around her age- twelve. She had black hair that was pretty short and bright blue eyes, and a slightly thick accent.

"Hey," Lori said, taking a small step back.

"My name is Jade."

"I'm Lori. If you don't mind me asking...Uh...Where are you from?"

"France. You?"

"New York, born and raised. So...What's it like there?"

It wasn't long before the two girls became friends. They talked about their hometowns and their schools and such, and frankly, they just enjoyed each other's company. It was nice.

"Hey, do you have a phone?" Jade asked.

Lori nodded and took out a pen so she could scribble it on her hand. Jade did the same to Lori.

"Thanks," She said. Jade nodded.

"My parents are calling me, I have to go," Jade said. Lori nodded and gave a small wave as she watched her new friend run off.

It sucked- that was the first thing that Jade realized as she returned to her home in France. After living in America for a few years, she wanted to stay there. She didn't want to leave the country of the free and she didn't want to leave her best friend (her first best friend actually).

As she entered the small, homely house, she found she had missed her American friend that she had met. Unluckily, her family had to leave as her grandmother had passed away.

She bit her lip as tears welled in her eyes. She was sixteen years old (seventeen in a few weeks). She wasn't supposed to get this emotional when someone died- especially if it was a grandmother who she didn't know that well. Maybe it would've been better if she didn't know the grandmother at all or if her grandmother was mean. That wasn't the case- her grandmother was a sweet kindly lady from the times that Jade did meet her. Maybe someone killed her- that would explain why I'm so sad. Someone killed her, but who would kill a nice old lady? Maybe it was written off as a tragic accident? Maybe... She might be a paranoid person, but even she wasn't that paranoid to believe someone would kill her grandmother.

She sat down on her bed and closed her eyes tightly. She only opened them when she felt a few fingers sweep through her pink hair (which had been dyed in a fit of a rebellion at first when she was fifteen, but she found she rather liked it better than her natural hair). Greeting her was the sight of her boyfriend, Wade.

Wade smiled at her.

"Hey babe, you doing okay," he asked.

Jade smiled as she sat up on the bed.

"Well I have you don't I," Jade said with a smirk as she kissed him- she always had been a bit more affectionate than she should be for a priest's daughter.

Wade had been her boyfriend for three years- she even dared to say that she may love the eighteen-year-old boy (his birthday was just yesterday). So as long as she had him, then maybe, just maybe she could get through it.

"I love you," Wade whispered as he buried his head into her hair.

"No," Jade whispered in horror, "No... No...No...NO!"

Her breathing rapidly increased as her heart beat accelerated. She fell to her knees on her bedroom floor. The door was shut, as it usually was, but she knew that her parents were on the other side of the door talking to themselves about the just-received news.

He can't be gone, Jade thought hysterically, it's a trick, a prank, someone is toying with me. Wade isn't dead- maybe those guys who he owed money to caught up with him, maybe he's been kidnapped, but there is no way he is dead- he cannot be dead. No...He's supposed to be my date to the funeral. We're supposed to be together- we love each other. We're supposed to get married... He can't be gone...My parents...

Her senses seemed to double as she sensed things that she hadn't been able to sense before. Her head shot towards the door. My parents are there... I can sense them... I just know... Why do I know? What is causing this? She breathed heavier as she hissed in pain as a headache came on.

'She's going through some hard things, but she can't just lock herself in that room.'

It was her mom's voice.

'She better be alright- if she isn't I bet it's Dad's fault.'

Her older brother- he was visiting strictly for the funeral (or funerals now) because he never got along with their parents' strict ways.

'Lord help her.'

Her father's voice. He was reciting a prayer.

They were all in her head... In her head... Head...Why were they in her head?

"GET OUT," she screeched in a panic.

Just like that, her older brother Thomas burst down the door ignoring their mother's screams.

"JADE!"

He saw her on the floor on her knees. She was clutching her head, screaming. Things were shaking around her slightly. Thomas, shaking out of his shock, ran over and put his hands over her shoulders.

"Jade? JADE?"

She wasn't replying.

"A demon," their father whispered, "She's being possessed... Thomas step away from your sister."

"Just because you're sixteen it doesn't mean to get to do that," Lori's younger sister, Lala, whined as Lori put a blob of peanut butter on her nose.

She laughed.

"Of course I can. The fun part is I can only do it to you."

"At least I don't have a mean face."

"Which is the only reason the boy I like won't even spare a second glance at me. Now what kind of leftovers do you want for desert? Ice cream or s'mores?"

The two made eye contact for a complete two seconds before saying,

"S'mores," in complete unison.

Other than Jade, Lori could only really connect with her sister. She didn't know what she would do if something bad happened to her. It was like she was talking to a younger version of herself.

"Okay, well, now is the perfect time to show you how to make them. Okay, so all you have to do is light the stove a little bit, stab a marshmallow with a skinny piece of metal, and hold it over the fire for a few seconds. And this is the only thing I know how to make so take my word as if it's golden."

Lala giggled slightly and nodded as she did as instructed with the marshmallow as Lori lit the stove.

The second she turned on the stove there was a big explosion that threw her on her back. Lala screamed, expertly alerting their parents upstairs.

"What happened?!" They screamed as they went downstairs.

Only a few steps from the floor debris fell in front of the doorway. Lori was still recovering from the blow when a large beam fell on her stomach. She cried out in pain from the impact as she felt the fire eating away at her flesh, the darkness creeping at the end of her vision. She turned to Lala, who had fallen to the ground, and was coughing extremely hard. her face was bright red through the effort form her lungs.

Lori grit her teeth and gripped the wood tightly, wishing for clean air to come in and wipe it away. She was thankful she did all sorts of sports like football and baseball, so she was stronger and faster than most girls her age. But it still weighed a few more pounds than she could bench.

When she got the beam off of her she stumbled towards Lala, who had collapsed. Lori picked up her light body and made their way through the debris and out the door, where there was a huge fire truck waiting outside. She was getting sprayed in the face slightly as they doused the house in water, so she moved her hand to the side slightly. The water from the giant hose started circling around her instead of the house, and strands of her hair lifted with a few rocks. She looked down at her bloodied hands to find them glowing red. Not from the blood. they were glowing from the inside.

Tears started falling down her cheeks as she screamed slightly, running away from the house. Once she was a safe distance away she set her sister on a stretcher as paramedics checked on her. A few minutes later he turned around and told her what she had been fearing the most.

The water and air and earth and fire around her started spinning in a vortex, and she was in the center. She gripped her head and screamed as the fire men squirted her to the ground. Everything stopped spinning as she made contact with the assault.

"She's a mutie!" One of them cried. "Didn't you see that?! She's the one that caused this!"

"I...I didn't mean to, I just-"

She was cut off by more water being sprayed in her face. It was no use arguing with them. They were right, and now they wanted to kill her.

So she ran.

In two weeks, a lot had happened to Jade. She still had no idea why it was happening, but she managed to figure some things out. She found out that what she was hearing was people's thoughts. The thing she was sensing was people. It was as if they all had their own wavelengths and she was just the sensor.

And now, she was sitting in her brother's house (a benefit of him being a successful lawyer), after being exorcised three times, hospitalized once, and being disowned by their parents when she wasn't 'improving.' She could have faked getting better, but that went against what she believed in.

Her brother fixed her a cup of hot chocolate.

"Je t'aime," he whispered as he kissed her forehead.

"I love you too," she whispered, "Are you sure that-"

"-Oh no, don't you feel bad. The way I see it, you've been blessed with these gifts, not cursed... Though I don't know what you can do yet since all you were doing was screaming and stuff was shaking. Whatever this is, you'll get through it either way. 'Sides I have been looking for a reason to scream at Father for a long time. He's... He's not exactly an ideal Christian- with him being so... anti-everything. God loves everyone, so why can't we?"

Jade smiled at her brother.

"Thank you," Jade said as she hugged her brother tightly.

Another week had passed before she remembered hearing about something called mutants in America.

Lori collapsed in an alleyway, away from the mob. they had been after her an entire week, so she forced herself to at least get a little bit of control over what she could do. Before the mob made it to the alley she was in she lifted a, earth wall from the ground and lied down, panting from exhaustion.

"Get the bulldozer!" One of them called. She didn't care anymore.

She was to tired to care. She killed her mom. She killed her dad. She killed Lala, and everyone hated her even more.

"Hello, there. Lori, correct?"

Lori sat up a little to quickly in surprise and winced. Over the week her burn had been slowly healing, but the New York mobs could be a bit vicious. Now she had scare going from the nape of her neck to her collar bone from some wack-job with knife.

Now she was looking at someone who walked a little like a gorilla, and he had blue fur everywhere.

"Who are you?" she asked, slowly raising another earth wall. he smiled softly at her.

"It's okay. My name is Hank McCoy. My friend and I want to give you an offer."

"What kind of friend? What kind of offer?"

"That would be me."

Lori's head snapped up. It was a voice, but she couldn't see where it was coming from.

"Did you here that?"

"That is an excellent question, and the answer is no. Of course, if you're not talking about the angry mob, then yes. That, my friend, was Charles Xavier."

Lori looked back to Hank, only to find him holding out a bottle of water. She shook her head.

"I...That's not a good idea."

"You have a gift, and you're frightened. The X-Men can help you. there, every kid has a special power."

"But...What if I hurt them too? I..."

Hank put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"What happened was not your fault. Would you like to meat my friend?"

Lori nodded.

"Then would you please put down the wall? It's safe, I promise."

Lori waited for a moment, weighing her chances. She didn't really have all the much to lose, so she went ahead and did as she was asked. There, a man in a wheel chair sat in front of the mob. But the mob seemed...Frozen...Like they just didn't know what to do anymore.

"W-what happened to them?" She asked, backing up a little more.

Xavier gave her a warm smile.

"They are simply frozen. Thanks to my gifts I was able to do that so we could have a little talk. Now, you are currently homeless, yes?"

"...Yeah...And I don't know why you keep calling these gifts. For me they're more like a curse. i can't control them properly, and I ended up killing my own family! How am I supposed to live with that creeping in the back of my mind for the rest of my life?"

"You were given a life because you are strong, and you are able to live with the pain that is on your shoulders. Nightcrawler was chased through the streets like you. Rogue can't touch anyone. Cyclops burned down his orphanage by accident. We all have stories and past events that have made us stronger. You can become even more so if you choose to be around friends. Without friends, people can go extremely crazy."

Lori was silent for a long time. Ever since that day all sorts of trust had flown out the window. In fact, the only person she trusted was Jade, and she went back to France. She still didn't know about it though.

"And if I don't want to stay?"

"Then we will not make you stay. You may leave as you like, and you are always welcome back."

Lori pursed her chapped lips and nodded slightly.

"Okay then," She said, standing up, using the wall for support, "I'll go."