Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution or any related characters or properties.


Arc I:
The Breakout

II

A dented can of beets. A half-empty bag of roasted peanuts. And an unopened canister of Nutella.

Practically a feast.

She would do just about anything for a Reese cup or a bag of fresh microwave popcorn. Hell, a cold drink of Coca-cola would do. It had been far too long.

She looked at her nearly gaunt fingers, the way the skin almost stretched in all the wrong places. If she wanted, she could pinch and pull the skin away from the ring finger on her right hand, and see just how thin she was.

Of course, she would really only have to look in the mirror to know how much her diet had changed from living relatively well and eating at a regular pace, to barely scraping by on whatever she could find.

It had gotten better when she found the boy who was most likely a couple of blocks away, looking for food for both of them and using his powers to do it.

She had always looked down on mutants, had never really been exposed to them growing up. "Just stay away from them, Jintara," her father would say. "They're disgusting creatures who deserve no pity. Let them suffer their fate." That had been all she ever really knew about these "subhuman" beings.

Of course, that had been before things had changed for her, before her life had started to unravel. Before she had discovered that she had her own active X-Gene, which had caused her to lose her place in the ring and any chance at getting it back. The Purity Act of 2055 had suddenly become entirely relevant to her own life.

She had not wanted to hide, had not wanted to flee from anyone or anything. Her dying father luckily never had to see her decision, and in her grief, she fled from her home and went into hiding. She had been forced to leave to the streets of San Diego.

The girl remembered going through a period of her life where she had completely hated herself, and there had been many times when she thought about just ending it all. The struggle with being a mutant who hated mutants had been too much to bear, and she simply could not handle her dukkha, her suffering, anymore.

Her powers could not directly help her in the strictest sense of the word, but when she met Micah, she sometimes wished they could swap abilities, even with all of his drawbacks. Micah's ability to somehow mentally communicate with pretty much anything around him was practical, and there were times when she wished that she could lose her memories like he does. She thought that it might be therapeutic, especially considering.

Micah could get food whenever he wanted, simply by gathering animals to him that he could then butcher for food. He could influence the growth of plants, even catalyze it somehow so that he could grow more fruit or vegetables or edible leaves or spices. With Micah's presence, she seemed to soften up on her feelings about being a mutant because she could see the direct benefits of having powers.

All she could do was block direct physical damage, in the lamest way possible. It didn't help her on a day-to-day basis, like Micah's could.

That made her think back to her first few weeks alone on the streets of San Diego. Most of California was monitored closely, but even more so on the southern half of the state, near the ruins of San Francisco, where she and Micah were. She had been struggling constantly to find food and bribe people and clever places to sleep, especially if a storm ever came through.

She struggled more back then, but that was simply because of experience. She had never encountered any mutants face to face before, but a little girl named Hope, probably only nine or ten years old, had been cursed with a pair of legs shaped like an insect's. That girl hadn't stood a chance.

Jintara had begun to share food with the little girl, even shared a sort of distanced company with her. If anything happened to Hope, she had not wanted to be caught in the crossfire.

But one day, their luck had run out, and the two mutants had been discovered by a small patrol squad of policemen. The policemen radioe-

"Jin, did you find anything?"

The voice broke her from her reverie, and Jintara looked up to see Micah, approaching with a small duffle bag in hand. She eyed the skinny boy and noticed the pained expression on his face, and she knew he was suffering from another migraine. She eyed her watch, realizing that it was nearly time. Only minutes away.

"Um, nothing much. Some nonperishables," she muttered, standing up and hastily stashing the rest of the items into her bag. "And some Nutella that might be close to expiring." She eyed him again, watching him closely as the boy's eyes seemed to grow dimmer.

"Micah, you're about to black out."

His eyes widened, looking at his own watch and realizing she was right. He gulped. "Not again... Maybe this time, it'll be different?"

She shook her head. "Better safe than sorry. Let's head back, get you lied down somewhere safe. Try to drown out the noise until we get there, and maybe it'll buy you a few seconds."

He nodded, clutching his bag as the two of them began the short trek up the hilly streets of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Spire visible just in the distance. The sun was starting to lower toward the horizon, a strange picture of red and orange forming in the clouds.

Jin tried to urge the brunette boy along, silently wishing him well. It happened every six days, at exactly the same time of day with little variation. She wondered why this was so exact, why this was so methodical, but not even Micah could explain that. Usually, they planned their day accordingly, but for whatever reason, Jintara had absent-mindedly forgotten that crucial bit of information, and she hated herself for it.

The place they had been allowed was a tiny shack, at most. It was entirely run-down and near the epicenter of the city's barren areas, which was probably why it had been empty. She could see it ahead of them, but the time was winding down and they had almost two minutes until he lost it. There were at least two more hills before they reached the city block where it was located, and she cursed under her breath.

"Come here," she muttered, gesturing for the boy to follow. The mutant turned, rubbing the side of his head as his headaches intensified. Jintara led them both into an alleyway, obscured from sight behind a dumpster. "Not exactly the most elegant place, but it will have to do."

Micah looked at her confused. Despite having done this exact same thing nearly every time, she always had to explain it to him again and again and again. His memory loss was that severe.

"Lie down here and I'll cover you with one of our spare blankets. Last time we didn't make it back in time, I had to nurse an open head wound." She gestured to the spot on his head, where there was a knot from where he had fainted from the pain, collapsed and banged his head against a brick wall. He felt the spot and grimaced, wishing that he could remember those little things.

"All right," he muttered, lying down as he tried to dull the pain within his head, screeching and searing against his skull. He rubbed at his temples and lurched forward, gasping and coughing involuntarily.

It was starting, Jintara realized once more.

The boy's body went limp, his brain completely unconscious and his body still. His eyes were wide open, but there was no activity behind them. Jin frowned at the idea of someone losing their memory like this, but she knew she wished that she could do the same.

She gently covered him with a blanket and waited. Her mind wandered to the many times before when she had witnessed this same process happen again and again. She would never understand how this all worked, but she promised that she would protect him and do whatever she could to ensure that he remained okay.

The girl turned to his bag, lying close to his hands. She pulled it toward her and then sifted through it, a goal in mind. She pulled one of the three notebooks from the bag and flipped through it, where she found entire weeks' worth of journal entries. At least he wouldn't forget completely, but she still couldn't believe that someone would have to live through this.

These journals were his only lifeline to his past. Thankfully, he still remembered things like his family from back home, but he couldn't keep anything in short-term memory for very long. So the day to day questions like, "What's next? Who are you? Where am I?" were more easily answered with the journals. She couldn't comprehend how unsettling it must be.

After a few minutes of trying to meditate but failing, she put the journal away, put the bag around her shoulder, and stood, waiting on the boy to suddenly rise and genuinely freak out.

His fingers twitched. His fists clenched. And suddenly, his body bolted up and he screamed, grabbing at his temples. "The voices! Make them stop!"

She frowned as he tried to recover. It was not fun to watch him like this, not fun at all.

After another minute or two, he stopped shouted and turned to her, confused and scared. She frowned again and offered her hand to him.

"I'm Jintara, but you've always called me Jin," she said amicably, with a smile on her face. "I know you're lost right now, but we need to get back." She pointed to the duffle around her arm. "Inside this bag are three notebooks that you wrote yourself, explaining your memories and what you've been doing over the past few months. You can read them when you get there."

He took her hand and she yanked him up, but the boy was still more than a little bit scared, guarded. His disheveled brown hair and deep brown eyes gave him a look of innocence, and she wished that she could look in the mirror and see that same look in her own face.

"Come on," she said, smiling. "Try not to ask too many questions until we get there, and these notebooks will be yours."

She wanted to just give him the bag. She wanted him to understand as much as the next guy, but two or three "data wipes" ago, the boy skimmed through the notes and nearly left her. She couldn't have that, she wouldn't be able to survive without his powers.

It was selfish and misguided, but she needed him.

Like she thought, the boy followed her up the last two hills and up to the shambled house. The entire top floor had the windows blown out and it always smelled like burnt tar, but she had to deal with it.

"This is... nice," he tried to say, curious and bad at lying. "Is this yours?"

"Ours."

"I live here too?" he asked as she unlocked the door and ushered the two of them inside.

"You do for now," said a voice.

Their eyes widened as three intruders walked from around the corner, eyeing the two mutants with intimidation. Jintara knew them, but Micah was totally confused.

"What do you mean, 'for now'? We still have a week to pay up," the girl questioned. "Rent isn't due until the end of the month."

Rent was essentially about a fifth of the resources that they stockpiled from the city and the surrounding area. It didn't matter what the resources were, they had to pay up one fifth of whatever they collected, as well as two gallons of drinking water. For that reason, the Nightmares basically ruled whatever mutants or humans were stupid enough to settle in San Francisco.

"Yeah, well, Delirium wants early collection," the guy in the middle said. She knew him well: a young pyrokinetic mutant that called himself Flint, with blond hair and shockingly blue eyes. She had seen what he could do, and he wasn't scared to do it.

"Since when?" she asked, worried now. Even with one-fifth, they had to have collected a certain amount of weight, and Jintara knew they didn't have enough. Delirium was not a woman to mess with.

"Since now," the girl on the left said, running a dark-skinned hand through her black hair. She called herself Zephyr, and her powers seemed to fluctuate between powerful to totally harmless, almost like PMS. She could generate airblasts at the palm of her hand, and that was a dangerous power sometimes.

The only other Nightmare member was someone who scared her more than anyone she'd ever met, barring probably Delirium. He was easily a few inches over six feet and was thick with muscle, almost to the point of ridiculousness. His face had a calm but threatening look to it, and for good reason. She had seen the behemoth of a mutant tear through an entire house before on a whim. His dark green eyes were terrifying to her, the green eyes of the Nightmare who called himself Titan.

"We'll take what you have for us," Flint began, absently generating a flame in the palm of his hands, which seemed to shock Micah. "Is your haul still in the basement?"

Jintara shared a glance with Micah, who was so bewildered that she was surprised he hadn't run off at the first chance he got. He tried a shrug as a response, totally confused.

"Yeah, but I'm warning you now that it's not enough," Jintara explained early. "The collection has been pretty dry this month."

"Don't worry about it, Jintara. We'll just take all of it," Zephyr said with a false smile. "And probably, you'll have to come with us too."

Her eyes widened, and her hands visibly shook. She wanted to run, wanted to hide. But Micah was still confused, still not knowing what the hell any of this meant or what it was all about. So she decided that she would face her, no matter what that meant.

"We'll go with you," Jintara said, defeated.

"We?" asked Micah, scared. "What do you mean? I don't want to go with them!"

Jin twisted toward him and gave him a sour look, gesturing to the bag. "Shut up," she hissed under her breath. "You don't know what these guys can do."

He still looked like he would argue with her, but Flint's eyes flickered to the bag. The fiery mutant gestured to it and then patted Titan on the bag.

The giant boy walked toward Jintara, but the girl stood her ground. She was terrified, but she knew he couldn't hurt her directly. At least, as far as she knew.

"You're not going to get this bag," she said, surprising herself that her voice sounded solid and strong.

The taller mutant took another two steps forward, and Jintara made sure to remember the pained expression on his face. He reached out and touched the bag, but as he tried to grab it, she suddenly spun and kicked at the mutant's arm, knocking him back. Titan hesitated, giving her an almost pleading look, but She was not about to have this bag stolen. Those notebooks were too important to Micah.

"Are you nuts?!" the boy behind her exclaimed.

Another flame flickered in Flint's hands. He turned to Micah and said, "Hey, you, amnesia kid. Tell your friend to give us the bag, or I'll burn the entire house down. You have three seconds."

Jin closed her eyes for a moment, taking in a deep breath. She turned to look at him, trying to convey to him that the notes were more important than this shack. Despite the memory problems, she knew that Micah was still the same moral person, pre-wipe or post-wipe. He would have tried to save the house instead of the notes, and she tried to let him understand that the house wasn't important.

The boy met her gaze. "Let him have the bag, Jin. We'll go with them or whatever else we need to do, and then we'll come back here and I'll start a new journal." He gave her a smile, but she wanted to scream at him for choosing the wrong damn thing.

She considered her options. She could run away and probably escape the clutches of the Nightmares, but that would get Micah killed. She could try to fight them off and probably get burned to a crisp, but that would get Micah killed. She could tell Micah to run, fight them off herself to buy him time, but with his memory problems, that would probably get him killed.

"Fine," she said, begrudgingly giving Titan the bag. She let her head droop, feeling crest-fallen. Titan handed the bag to Flint.

"Let's see what's so interesting about this bag," the pyrokinetic said. He unzipped the blue duffle bag and curiously picked up one of the notebooks. Flint's eyes widened. "So this is how you remember then, huh, amnesia kid?"

The boy snapped his fingers, a spark of orange and yellow fire instantly setting the papers ablaze. Micah's jaw dropped, sadness and anger flooding through him. Jin gasped and had to force herself to hold back as the mutant threw the flaming notebook on the ground. Zephyr snickered a little bit, and Titan's face had a flicker of remorse.

"Let's see, two more, huh?" he wondered for a moment, before coming up with an idea. "All right, we're going to take you to Delirium, and you're not going to bitch or fight. If you do, I'll burn the rest of the notebooks and you'll never remember anything. Don't even think about running away, because you know what happens when people flee from Delirium."


And that's a wrap for now! I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please leave me a review! I love to know what you guys think, and if you think I'm doing something wrong or something right, I really want to know! That way I can improve and grow us a writer.