"Uuuuunnnnggggg... Shadow slowly eased herself up into a sitting position with her hand on her head.

What in the world just happened? She thought as she now cradled her head in both of her hands resting her elbows on her knees.

She felt like someone used her head for a drum and instead of those drumsticks decided a sledge hammer would be better, and her stomach felt like it was threatening to heave everything inside of her out. She could barely move, she didn't dare try to open her eyes (if she did it seemed like her insides would stay true to their threat) and she realized she wasn't hearing anything either. It was just a very high pitched whining sound.

Soon that noise got deeper and deeper until she could only hear what sounded like fighting. Okay, it's probably not a good idea to be a sitting goose like this. Just get up slowly.

She faintly wondered if she got that term right, but it wasn't important.

She reached out her hand and felt something solid, like a wall. So bracing herself on it she eased herself up while slowly opening her eyes. Everything was blurry, but soon it came to focus and it blew her mind what she saw. "What in the -!"

Her assumption had been correct, there was a huge fight going on. It was chaotic and there were a few flames causing smoke to rise out of a ceiling with holes in it. Bodies were flying everywhere some were firing weapons from various heights while others would get locked into a struggle until one became unconscious or knocked a few yards away, she couldn't decide who was on what team or where she was exactly. It seemed to be some lab with windows that were shattered.

Her head still pounded and her eyes were watering from the smoke. The fire was getting bigger, she couldn't focus on a direct escape route though because of the grunts, groans, and explosions going on in the fighting.

A body suddenly landed beside her. It was a black-haired teenage boy wearing jeans and a black shirt with a red S in some sort of triangle. He immediately leaped up in an attack position, and Shadow (after many practices in self defenses) instantly raised her hands causing her black energy to send the guy flying backwards over some debris.

She had not fully recovered though, and fell back on her butt from her own force. I need to get out of here...I can barely defend myself. So she went behind what looked like control panels to catch her breath and think of a good way to escape. Uhhhhhhhh my head. She thought, once again pressing her hand to her forehead. She could hear the guy angrily flipping the wreckage over and heading back towards the fight. Shadow looked around, the fight seemed to be ending so she was going to have to move soon. She noticed a window that had been broken not to far away.

If I can muster up enough energy, then I can fly out threw that broken window. She thought as she started to get ready to move quickly.

Doing a quick double-check from over the control panel to make sure no one was looking, she noticed a strange machine. It was where she had just come from. It was a giant circle, it looked golden in the moonlight, with a bunch of different tubes running around it and connecting to the panel she was hiding. There was a glow that was quickly dimming in the middle and it was soon out.

Shadow realized she had been staring, wondering what the machine was, to long because a girl dressed in green noticed her, and shouted to the others in the room. Most of the fighting had stopped by now and Shadow knew she had made the mistake of not getting out when she could.

Luckily her head ache was fading so she quickly shot out of the window into the night air.

She let out a silent "Aaaahhhhh..." That was better. Out of the smoke and ruckus and into a starry filled night. She could already feel it energizing her more.

She looked back in time to see the boy with the red S sailing towards her, she had just enough time to , again, shield herself with her black energy, sending him back down. She would of liked to have helped ease him down but she could already see more teenagers threw the window.

One had green skin and was flying, another looked small and scrawny and was wearing a mask, one was dressed in a bright red and yellow suit, there was also a black skinned guy wearing a red and black shirt. and finally another was dressed in green and had a bow and arrow aimed at her. Shadow only took a second to see them before she quickly flew away. She had no strength to fight all of them.

I hate fleeing, but it had to be done. There was no way I could have taken on...what was it? One...two...five. Five of whoever they were. But one of them was green? Well it's not like she's was any different than Kurt. Kurt!

Shadow stopped thinking about the people down there and more about the X-men and Sunshine and Chamele. Where are they? She wondered concern all over her face as she faced the horizon, she didn't notice that she was facing an ocean as she was to lost in thought. Are they alright? What happened? Shadow had landed on a building a few blocks away from where she had been and sat down to organize all the her thoughts.

How did I get here in the first place? She wondered. Okay so I remember our mission. A little... She closed her eyes tightly as the memories started to slowly swim into focus. Cyclops had ordered me, Iceman, Jubilee, and Wolfsbane to keep a lookout on one half of the perimeter of some lab while Sunshine, Hotspot, Cannonball, and Magma kept an eye on the other half.

Iceman had started complaining about how boring this was when there was shouting and...and an explosion! At remembering that Shadow's eyes snapped open. Okay so...then what. She closed them again. What happened next? We ran in, Mesmero was there along with some scientist, they had opened a portal... Again she opened her eyes and gasped at the achievement of remembering the rest of it. And stared out into the ocean and the coming dawn. That's right, we were going to stop them from their crazy plan of opening up other dimensions, when we ran inside there were a bunch of other bad guys fighting. Almost to much...the portal was opening and Sunshine was trying to fight Toad. But when it looked like the portal was going to blow up, Sunshine was right in front of it. Toad (the slimy little worm) jumped out of the way. Because it wasn't fully night, I didn't have my powers so I pushed Sunshine out of the way and ended up...here.

Huh, okay. Shadow smirked at the failure of the bad guys. This doesn't seem to be a different dimension at all, they must have meant to just have a quick access across the country or something, because this is obviously still America. So what was with those other guys. I've never seen or heard of them before, and one was using a bow-and-arrow so clearly she wasn't a mutant. Unless her ability is to have great vision.

Shadow descended on the building trying to puzzle this out. Maybe they weren't really hostile. Ya right, She smirked. They tried to attack you! If that doesn't scream hostile than I've better get the professor to make sure my brain isn't damaged. Maybe I should-Shadow stopped suddenly, she couldn't quite explain it, but it felt like there was something in her mind.

She could feel it coming through. Angrily Shadow focused her brain and found herself sucked into the astral plane, she saw the blurry figure of the green skinned girl. She's trying to get inside my mind! The girl must have heard because she quickly turned around to face her. Even though Shadow couldn't get a good look at her face she knew that the girl was startled. Angrily Shadow summoned up her energy and painfully shoved the girl out yelling NOBODY IS ALLOWED INSIDE MY MIND!

Shadow landed on her feet back on her feet, she had accidentally started to levitate during the encounter, it had nearly exhausted her. She saw the sun half way up on the horizon. She felt herself being slowly drained of her energy. She realized that she was very tired , her eye lids were sagging so badly she could hardly keep them open. Peering over the edge of the building there was a little alley way with a bunch of boxes and a couple of dumpsters. That will do. With what little energy she could come up with, she unsteadily lowered herself down.

She had flash backs of the olden days when she, Sunshine, and Chamele would have to sleep in alley ways when they couldn't find better shelter. She grabbed the best boxes and laid them in the darkness of the farthest dumpster from the alley way entrance, although she had spent plenty of times around dumpsters and bad smells, she had been living in such a nice mansion for so long that it took her moment to get used to the stench once more, but the the second she did, she was out