Disclaimer: Don't own them!

Chapter 1: Birthday.

She opened her eyes to the intermittent red light, which went along with the screeching alarm.

Big red numbers on a wall claim it's 4 am.

It's her twelfth birthday, and she doesn't know it.

The metallic floor feels like a block of ice to her feet, but that's no problem, because she's used to it. They all are, and they're already folding the thin sheet of each bed.

That's when the alarm finally stops.

Every water drop that falls somewhere, every step or breathe, produces an echo that ascends towards the ceiling of the place that is both changing room and bathroom. It's dark, but this doesn't stop them from seeing well; that's one of the things they're made for.

Good thing about her power is that she gets a separated place to shower and put on her uniform, so she doesn't have to do it with the rest of the girls and the guards staring at her. She could accidentally hurt them, the girls, but they never seem to be scared of it. Guess they know they all are on the same boat.

4:20 am already, and they go down the stairs in lines, boys and girls, their marching steps going with identical rhythm. One of the guards inspects and counts them, another one checks their uniforms, nobody talks. Good soldiers know unnecessary talk is a waste of time.

The gym is big and has no mirrors; there would hardly be one in a real fight, for them to check their moves.

"Keep track of your opponent's every move and blink" the big man with big muscles told them, as they sat on the floor around him. "Anticipate what he's about to do and caught him out of guard. Ian."

The blond boy stood up, and adopted the same attack position the trainer had.

Rogue paid attention to each move, taking a mental picture of every kick and punch. But then, she saw something with the corner of her eye; something glowing. It was that boy again, the one with the attitude issues. The sparkling tiny thing, whatever it was, went to land next to the trainer's foot, exploding and causing him to stumble, giving Ian the chance to recover and win the fight.

"Thanks so much, you smartass" the man said, standing up from the ground: "You're giving me the chance to remind you all: this class is not about powers, it's about physical combat." The boy and the man didn't break visual contact for what seemed an eternity.

"Why can't he just stay quiet?" she thought in tension.

"On your feet" the man commanded, and the kid obeyed right away: "Let's see how tough you are with your fists."

A couple of minutes later, the trainer was lying on the floor with bleeding nose and lips. But he wasn't upset; he was more like laughing on his inside, and even proud: this whole perfect soldiers thing was working. And he was doing a good job.

The guards lowered their heads in respect, as their bosses' boss made his way down the hallway. He didn't bother in giving them a glimpse.

When the door was completely open, every kid was already standing firm, looking impassively to the front. The man entered the room, closed the door behind his back and ran his gaze down each one of the twenty still child-like faces. But they weren't just children to him, of course. They were genetic creations, disgusting mutants used for a good purpose, killing machines in progress.

"Sit."

They did, making no noise at all.

"The video you're about to watch shows technical and tactical aspects of a building's occupation. So far, nothing we haven't studied before" he turned off the lights and continued: "But this time we'll focus on team work, and the way each of you should use your powers to achieve a fast, efficient, clean attack."

Fast. Efficient. Clean.

Goal. Discipline. Duty.

Their lives were all about these words.

This place was everything they'd ever known.

Their team mates were their only family.

Later on, came the advanced physics, advanced maths, advanced mechanics and electronics classes.

Lunch was identical day to day: balanced and energetic food in small portions, vitamin pills in abundance. They weren't allowed to use their power out of training time, but one of the girls, Anna, only had to stare at the food for it to disappear from the dish and probably appear on her stomach.

They speakers played music during lunch, the only one they'd ever heard: Mozart. It was supposed to be good for their brains' activity.

On the long table, her hands were the only ones wearing gloves, so she still felt different.

She never liked this part: they made her sit on a long chair, her wrists and ankles tied to it. Where did they get the people she was to absorb, how they brought them there? She had no clue; they were just guinea pigs. The amount of people they made her absorb grew up gradually, to the point she now had over thirty different folks wandering around inside her head.

Her task? To keep them under control, to search for a determined information in one of them, to identify and take control of a mutant power if necessary, to lock them away as fast as possible.

But it was getting hard today.

Three of them were mutants… team mates, maybe? And they all were yelling and in sorrow, and it was just so confusing.

More than that, it was painful. Her head hurt, and the more she tried to control them, the messier everything got. But it was her responsibility to learn to use her power properly…

So she focused, trying to put in the back of her mind everything that was useless.

And it was painful…

"Good job" the man that was everyone's boss told her once she managed to put things together up in her brain. "I have high expectations on you."

This didn't make her feel any better.

It was dark already and they were wearing their outdoors uniform. Today, the prey had eight minutes and ten seconds of advantage (a little more each day) and the expectation was in the air as one of the guards checked his watch.

They couldn't wait to start the chase.

Then, the signal was given, and they all started running into the woods.

She knew how accurately she had to keep her position, where each one of her team mates was, how much longer they needed to go to catch the prey. It was a silent and exhaustive persecution in the middle of the night.

They started to go slowly. With another signal, Jim, one of the kids, let them know they were getting closer. They nodded. No words were needed: they all knew sign language.

Within a few seconds, the prey was surrounded. The poor guy did nothing but screaming and asking for mercy, but he wasn't listened. One of the girls broke his neck.

Fast. Efficiently. Cleanly.

A while later, Rogue was on her bed again. It was midnight. They only had four hours of rest during a day, but they could stay awake and in action up to seventy two hours, if needed. People inside her head were in silence now, as well as everything around. But something felt wrong. For a second, she wished she could be somewhere else, but where? There was nothing else, this was her life.

Something woke her up about an hour later. A slight noise. She sat and looked around: one of the beds was empty.

She walked towards the door, among the sleeping kids. And then she heard it, outside:

"Where the hell do you think you're going?!"

The sound of quick steps reached her, and then commands, insults, mocks. And she dared to look outside, through the gap of the door: someone was on the floor squirming in pain, and several armed guards were around him.

"Assholes!" the kid yelled, only to receive a kick on the stomach.

Rogue winced and went back to her bed.

It was him again, that boy. The one with red on black eyes.

Note: hi! I'm back. But I'm a little bit sad, 'cause I begin classes tomorrow. Oh, the torture. Anyway, I'll try to find time to update. As you can see and if you watched the series, this was based on "Dark Angel", which I don't own, just in case you're wondering. I used to love it. But not the whole fic will be based on it. Only the concept and a couple of scenes. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it and remember reviews are good for the world.

P.S.: The evil boss guy, is human, therefore he's not Sinister. Wanted to clear it up ;-)