My life as Hope helped prepare me for my life as Ana. Schmidt wasn't as sadistic as Duerr and wasn't attempting to make me a Super-Soldier. He just wanted to see the depth of my power and expand on it really.

Erik didn't have any previous experience to help him through what Schmidt put him through. While I was fifteen years old like him, I had around one hundred years in my head to help me through whatever Schmidt threw at me.

Bang!

Something in Erik broke as he screamed, anger and pain rushed through his veins as he watched Ana fall backwards, glacier eyes blank and glazed over and face slack as blood trailed down her pale face from the rather neat hole in her head.

He channelled that into his power and crushed the cube of thick metal in front of him, fighting not to attack Schmidt as he seemed to mockingly clap at Erik's success.

He stood still, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists that shook with the depths of his emotion, as Schmidt peered at the crumbled metal with a critical eye for a moment.

"Wonderful," Schmidt complimented before gesturing almost carelessly towards Ana's prone form. "You can remove the bullet now."

Something in his knees cracked from how hard he landed on the floor next to her, and his hand trembled slightly as he held it over the bullet hole and he barely had to focus as a crumpled bullet pulled itself from her head—he had done it enough times now.

He watched as the bone mended before the skin fused over it, leaving only blood behind to show what had happened, and life came back into her eyes as she gave a startled gasp.

"Almost a whole minute faster, amazing," Schmidt complimented Ana—she came back from her death-like state faster and faster as time went on, which Schmidt was happy about.

Ana grimaced and reached up to wipe the blood from her eyes and brow before it could truly blind her.

"I hate guns," she muttered as Schmidt left them alone in the room.

I had never really gotten to know Magneto before my death as Hope, but I didn't really mind that fact. I hadn't yet had a past relationship conflicting with any of my present relationships, so I got to know Erik, not Magneto.

I know that one day I will encounter the Professor, especially if I stick with Erik, and I wonder how it'll feel. Looking into the eyes of my once mentor and see a young and largely inexperienced man who just brought the first of the X-Men together.

I had seen the movies so I knew that Xavier wasn't the man I had known and respected, but one day, he would be.

Erik watched the coin as it circled around his flat hand before glancing across the room at where Ana sat on her bed. She was thumbing through a well-read copy of the banned book The Hobbit.

Schmidt treated them well enough when they weren't 'training' their powers. They were given good clothes, a good bed, some toys and books and good food. Some would say that weren't even treated like prisoners, but they were wrong.

They was just stuck in a pretty cage.

"Are you attempting to burn a hole in my head or am I just that pretty that you can't take your eyes off me?" Ana asked dryly as she glanced at him with warm glacier blue eyes.

Erik ducked his head with a slight blush and a smile.

Sometimes it made Erik wonder how at ease Ana was for a tortured prisoner. He hadn't seen her flinch once no matter what horror that Schmidt put her through. It was almost like she was used to being a prisoner and that made something in him twist—would he one day end up like Ana? Near-indifferent even when being captured and tortured? Or would he be so full of rage that he became like Schmidt?

Erik never made the mistake of thinking that Ana was meek or scared and that was why she did most things without a fuss. Watching Ana put a guard twice her size on his ass after he attempted to be too touchy with her was a real eye-opener because of the ease that she did it and how it was almost instinctual.

He had seen the way she had blinked almost in confusion as if she hadn't been completely aware what she was doing until she had the guard on the ground and was twisting his arm behind his back as the other guards levelled their guns on her—they didn't shoot her, though Erik was sure they would have if Schmidt hadn't shown up.

Schmidt had given Ana a strange and almost proud smile and had patted her head, which caused her tiny shoulders to tighten but she didn't attack him and Erik was almost disappointed.

He had been sure that Ana could break them out of Auschwitz if she tried but for some reason she didn't. When he asked her why, she had given him a look and told him that if they escaped while the Nazis were winning or seemingly winning, then they would be hunted down and whatever happened to them after would be worse than whatever Schmidt decided to do to them under the guise of helping them.

He had to grudgingly admit that she was right.

"You haven't answered my question," Ana interrupted his thoughts and he looked up at her.

"You've been captured before," it wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact.

Ana didn't look up at him but her slim fingers paused from their flicking through the book.

"Yes," there was a tone of warning in her voice that almost made him hesitate in his questions but he was too curious.

He was curious about Ana, how she seemed so much older despite being the same age as him, how she was able to fight someone twice her size without breaking sweat. He wanted to know everything he could about her.

"By someone like Schmidt?" he asked.

"By someone worse," she told him with certainty and Erik frowned—he couldn't imagine someone worse than Schmidt—she glanced up and gave a humourless smile like she could hear his thoughts. "There are many men worse than Schmidt out there, you just haven't had the displeasure of meeting them yet."

"How?" Erik wasn't sure what he was asking but Ana seemed to understand.

"In his own twisted way, Schmidt is attempting to help us. Help us understand how to use our power, to help strengthen it and such. The man that first took me wanted to make me into a weapon, a mindless machine that would jump before they finished asking me too. Schmidt's not really attempting to break us, unfortunately for you it's a side-effect."

"But not for you," it was almost an accusation and she met his eyes squarely.

"You can't break what's already broken, luv," she told him firmly, a hint of her British roots shining through despite the fact that she was speaking German.

He swallowed and decided to address another question that had been burning in the back of his mind.

"Have you killed before?" Erik asked.

Sometimes Ana had a look in her eyes as she stared at some of the guards, it reminded Erik horribly of how those same guards stared at his fellow Jews.

"Yes,"

Her answer was simple, her tone matter-of-fact.

"What was it like?" he asked after licking his lips.

"The first time is the worst, you feel sick that you've actually taken another person's life. You get numb and have vivid nightmares for days after," she paused for a moment. "After that first time, it almost gets easier. You still feel terrible but that's a good thing as it means you're still human. If you start to feel nothing at all or worst good after killing someone then you know you're broken deep inside."

"Do you get better?" he asked and he saw her pause as she seemed to think deeply on that.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"How can you tell if someone's broken?" he asked and she stared him.

"You can see it in their eyes," she told him softly.

Erik shouldn't know what that meant but he thought it meant her eyes. Ana's blue eyes were hard and almost angry at times, an anger that almost scared him, and whenever she looked at anyone that wasn't him they were so cold.

"I don't want you to be like me Erik," she admitted as she looked down. "Don't focus on your hate and anger, don't look at everyone like they are Schmidt, I don't want you to paint them with the same brush. I don't want you to be broken like I am, I don't want you to get used to killing that you become detached and used to it. I want you to live, to love, and to heal."

"How can I heal with us stuck here?" he asked almost spitefully.

"We're not going to stay here forever," she was certain, he could see that.

"I want to kill Schmidt," he declared strongly.

"I know," she pierced his blue eyes with her glacier blue ones. "I'm not going to stop you, you need to do that to help yourself, Erik. I wish I had killed that man but I never did. I just want you not to focus on your hate, your anger and your need for revenge, I don't want to see you become like me."

He looked down at his hand and knew he didn't want to be like Ana either.

I wasn't naïve enough to think a few words spoken to fifteen-year-old Erik would change his fate, but I could hope my being around him would.

I wasn't a hopeful person by nature but hey, miracles could happen right?

(God, that was horribly optimistic for me)

Erik knew that Ana didn't like water, she had told him that she couldn't swim, and she didn't like the thought of drowning.

Schmidt must have heard about her fear as he decided to see how she recovered from drowning.

It was horrible watching her struggle in the grips of some guards. It was the first time that Erik had seen her show any fear. She would scream under the water, bubbles rushing up to the surface and when she finally stopped struggling and went completely limp they would drag her out.

Her lips were blue and her face was fixed in an expression of fear. She was turned on to her side so the water trailed out of her open mouth and Schmidt would time how long it took her to come back to 'life'.

It was horrible for Erik to watch as the seconds than minutes ticked by before she suddenly gasped and choked out of water in great heaves.

Erik had a feeling that her fear was going to get a lot worse before they got out like Ana was certain they would.

My fear of deep water was something that came about, like most fears, from bad experience. It first started when I was young, still in the single digits, and watched Jaws for the first time. Now I can easily see that the shark was fake, but to my young self it was real and I never liked the thought of playing in the sea after that.

It became worse a few years later when I almost drowned in a swimming in Paris and had to be dragged out of the water by my long hair—it happened because I had attempted to swim without any floats despite the fact that I couldn't swim.

It wasn't a skill that I learnt as Hope, nor did I learn to swim with the Pokémon—an oversight maybe, but…well some fears are hard to overcome.

Drowning was one of the worst ways to die. The feeling of water filling your lungs as your brain screams for air, the way you slowly lose consciousness and the will to fight, to live. Waking up after drowning is horrible too, the burning pain in your throat as you choke up water. Horrible.

1945, the year the war officially ended Ana decided it was time for her and Erik to leave. Schmidt had already left, probably to form his Hellfire Club, and only nervous Nazi guards were still around.

She listened to them muttering and worrying about the Allied Forces certain victory that was coming. Heard the mutters about Hitler attempting to hide and everything, heard the mutters that the Japanese were getting more ruthless now that failure was sure in the future.

She decided that she wasn't going to wait around for the Allied Forces and she really didn't like the looks that they were getting from some of the guards now that Schmidt was gone. It was a simple decision to decide to leave.

"Ana?" Erik blinked as he watched Ana tighten a belt around her waist that a pair of his trousers would stay on her slim waist—slimmer than it should be as Schmidt had decided to see how long Ana could last without food.

She didn't even glance at him as she knotted her hair at the base of her neck before dropping to her knees and reaching under her bed.

"Pack everything you want to keep, we're leaving,"

"Just like that?" Erik hesitantly asked, and she stood with a good-sized knife in her hand—when had she found that?

"Just like that," she confirmed with a smile.

Ana didn't attack every Nazi on sight as she smuggled them out of Auschwitz, only the ones that attempted to stop them.

She killed them cleanly and quickly, not letting them sound the alarm, and Erik could see what she meant about being broken. There wasn't a shadow of guilt or anything that flashed over her face as she laid the choking—dying—guards on the floor.

There was a blankness to her face that he didn't like and hoped never appeared on his face. He also hoped that he didn't get used to that look on Ana's face.

She glanced back at him as she lifted some of the wired fence up, and her glacier eyes seemed warm as she looked at him and attempted to give him a reassuring smile. Most wouldn't be comforted by a smile on a blood-stained face but strangely, Erik was.

He smiled back before crawling under the fence, turning to hold it up on the other side so Ana could get through and then they were free.

AN: Okay, so I probably over simplified them escaping from Auschwitz but I think that Ana would have wanted to save herself this time instead of letting people save her like they did when she was Hope.

At the moment I have no idea where to go with the next chapter as my ideas are more focused later in the story when they finally meet Charles and are older.

Is there anything you, my fans, would like to see in this story?