"Dream Walker"

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the movie/comic series, X-men.

Just so you know, this is based on the movie version of X-men

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Prologue:

The woman sat on the bench in her chamber. It had been five years since they had locked her in here, and she was sick of it. Outside, the witch-hunts continued, yet she was exempt from their wrath, thanks to her father, the father that supposedly loved her. After all, he had locked her in this place, with little fresh air and no windows. She hated it, but she hated him more.

He was saving himself from the murderous hearts that roamed just as much as he was saving her. And he thought she should be grateful.

The woman stood and paced the small room that she had come to know in the past five years. It captured almost every part of her, except for one thing. In her dreams, in her sleep, she was freer then any human she had ever met. She could roam places unseen and unheard of, but alone, always alone.

The woman sighed, and walked to a bookcase. Her only haven was the fact that she could read, and her father, though a horrible man, was also an avid reader. The walls of her large room were covered in bookcases, each reaching to the ceiling. Her father was a wealthy man, so he could afford to buy her silence in the form of novels, histories, and anything else she fancied. She spent days either reading or learning to wield the sword her father had given her to teach herself with before he locked her in.

At first she had refused it, thinking that she, of all people, would never have to use a physical weapon, but after the first week, she had brought herself to pick it up, its weight an unfamiliar burden in her arms.

The woman stopped her reminiscing and reached for the weathered long sword that sat on her books. She picked it up and began a pattern dance, a combination of all the fighting that she had taught herself, and learned from the books. The sword soon became a blur of steel before her eyes, she let herself go in the rapid cuts, thrusts, and blocks that had become a part of her daily routine.

After nearly ten minutes, she dropped her arm and sighed. For the first time she had done her hardest dance perfectly, but she knew that there was more to it. The few times that she had been allowed to fight an opponent, she had beaten them without thinking, and about a week ago, when she had been brought her fathers champion, she found him little more then an irritation, a fly to be swatted.

She knew that she was among the best, and the fact that she couldn't face a more challenging foe made her so angry that she felt she might burst. After all, she thought, she was eighteen, and quite capable of protecting herself.

The woman replaced her sword, and moved back to the bed. She was seen as a freak, a horrible creature that, despite its physical beauty, must be killed before the people saw it and panicked. She smiled as she realized she was referring to herself as 'it'. People took one look at her face and screamed. Woman fainted, and men drew their swords and took down torches to burn her, she hated being what she was, but she had no choice in the matter.

This was going to be her final day in prison. She was going to escape from the cell that her father had put her in, and he knew nothing of how she was going to do it. The heavily bolted door was useless, as only she knew, the tiny gaps at the bottom barely large enough for a fly to squeeze through. But, she thought, they were big enough.

She walked over to the door, and stopped. She felt the change as it was coming, and welcomed it, the warm feeling creeping through her spine as she changed. It happened fast, everything grew, and she shrunk.

As the change came over her, she felt herself sprouting wings and, somewhere in her mind, she smiled. The gaps were so small that only a fly could fit through, but then, she thought, she was a very changeable person.

The muscles in her back contracted, and she rose quickly above the floor, that had now become a vast plain of stone. She made her way to the panel of wood that was the door and flew steadily downwards until she reached the floor. The gaps now seemed body sized, and she quickly walked under.

When she reached the other side, the light from the sun blinded her, and she would have laughed to feel it on her face, if she had not smelt, or tasted, something first. The fly that she had become urged her to fly towards its source, but she knew the smell, she knew the bitter tang of the metallic scent of blood. She obeyed her urge, flying towards the scent, and stopped dead in the air as she saw the cause through an open window. The courtyard was strewn with bodies, saturated with blood, and she could see her father lying face up, rotting in the sunlight he had deprived her of.

As much as she hated him, he hadn't deserved this. As she floated, taking in the carnage before her, she heard something. The yells of the one's who did this. She could hear them screaming for the blood of the sorcerers, and knew that they had come at last. Her father could stop them no longer, and he had been unable to fight the wave of superstitious evil that had swept his lands. The voices echoed and bounced off the walls of the castle, and she moved out of the hall, forgetting for a moment that, to them, a fly at the scene of such carnage would be a perfectly natural thing. The men that had murdered her family ran down the hall, stopping at her room, her jail.

She heard them whispering to each other as they prepared to break the door, whispering that they must be careful of the witch that was kept within, that her powers were great. The fools then broke the door, and then entered. The outraged shouts that came from within all but deafened her, but she couldn't care less.

Her father may have been evil, but her sisters, and brothers were nothing but innocent. She had seen their bodies too, lying on the floor, the girls beaten and raped, and the boys stabbed beyond recognition. It was only the small trinkets that she had been permitted to give them that identified them to her.

She stayed there, hovering, until the men had set the place on fire, then left, and the castle was burning around her. She managed to fly to the woods outside of the castle before she changed back.

She landed on the ground, and changed back into the human she always was. The process was usually uncomfortable, the feeling of growing limbs and a head made her feel ill, but anger had burnt away her sickness.

She flopped onto the grass after she transformed, temporarily exhausted, then stood on shaking legs. Her fierce amber eyes reflected the fire, and her long black hair trembled in the breeze as she stood watching.

Her eyes fixed on the figure of a small cat running away from the fire, and she grimaced. The cat looked turned to look at the strange woman and, for a moment, their eyes connected. The cat blinked several times, as it recognised cat's eyes in a human face. The cat then turned and ran, without glancing back at the face, the face with the cat's eyes, their vertical pupils burning with anger and sorrow.

Erin turned, black hair swinging, and walked into the night.

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Storm woke. She hadn't even realised she was sleeping until the doorbell rang, and she glanced at her watch, which pointed to nearly three p.m., two hours since she last looked. She stood, ready to go to the door, but then remembered the guard that had been assigned ever since the cure had been made public.

Bobby was on door duty, and when Storm reached the door, he was peering through the small hole, one hand palm up at his waist, ready to freeze whoever waited at the slightest sign of trouble.

"Who is it, Bobby?"

Storm couldn't see the person through the frosted safety glass surrounding the windows. She knew it couldn't be Mystique or Magneto, but then there was so much evil in the world these days that it might just be a mugger with gun.

"I don't know, but she's one of us."

Storm raised an eyebrow. "'Us' as in mutants or 'us' as in one of our allies?"

"She's a mutant, but I don't know if she's on our side."

"Well that's inter-" Storm broke off mid speech as she felt a strong presence enter her mind.

Hello Miss Monroe. You don't know me, but if you look at me closer, you might. Storm thought cautiously, This may be a trap. How do I know I can trust you?

The voice rang out again, clear in her mind, I'm afraid that you don't, but please examine me closer, you will see I mean no harm to you or anyone you know.

Aurora thought a yes, and was then bombarded by the stranger's thoughts. Aurora tried to remember all she saw while looking for anything to indicate the presence of anything but well wishes to her and her fellows.

She looked, and saw nothing but memories of a long and painful life. She guessed the woman was like Logan and never aged, but she had been around for much longer then him.

Bobby was looking at him curiously, and Storm decided that, for the moment, she could trust this woman not to attack once she entered. She nodded at Bobby, who cautiously unlocked the door with one hand, his other one rising slightly as he readied if he needed to freeze an enemy.

The door swung open, and a tall, slender woman stepped inside. She glanced at Bobby, then turned to face Storm. She saw a beautiful young face, but remembered a tortured, strangely metamorphic, mind hidden underneath. She saw the slitted eyes and the sharp, aware, but not unkind, gaze, and greeted her;

"Welcome, Erin."

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Hey readers, just decided I should update this chapter so I can get on with the rest of the story. Hope you all like the new version!