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A/N: This is Part Two of the prologue. Don't forget to review if you want to!

It was my twenty-second birthday. I remembered that my mom told me I was a minute after midnight baby.

"A miracle," she told me.

That birthday, I remember, was lonely. Ashley was at her boyfriend and other friends. I had taken the day off to clean the house to surprise Ashley and also think. Suddenly, I had stopped getting visions three weeks before my birthday. For the first two, it was very peaceful. I could do anything without having to see completely random images.

There was a knocking. I didn't answer it, my neck hair standing on end and I snuck into my bedroom. Then came my name being called. I froze, gripping the blankets on top of my bed as I heard the locks being unlocked. They picked them open. Then I remembered everything Jack taught me. I stood up and strode into the main area when the door swung open.

There were the two men I saw. And a third dressed in an army uniform between them, big sunglasses and smiling. He introduced himself, then the two men. The one with the swords, Wade Wilson, smirked at me and I narrowed my eyes accusingly. The other man, Zero, looked completely bored out of his mind.

The army man, Stryker, told me about the government run mutant team. I told him I wasn't a mutant. Then he smiled and suddenly, a vision flashed by my eyes when he reached for something in his pocket. A knife! I dodged it, the weapon buzzing past my ear and digging itself into Ashley's wall. Stryker smirked at my lie.

So I told them of my powers. But I didn't like how Stryker looked at me. Like I was something valuable. He questioned me the same way as Mom and Dad; "Can you control them?" "What do you see?" "How detailed?" I answered them warily, my eyes darting between the three of them.

Then he offered a spot on his team of mutants. 'Team X' he called it.

I denied him at first.

The smile faded away. He stared at me, or at least I had thought he had been I couldn't see through his glasses. Then he took them off slowly, folded them and held them in his hands. His eyes bore holes into mine but my own stare didn't falter. Something I learned from Jack. Don't back down, don't show them that you're afraid and nervous.

He told me that he knew my parents were gone. A stab at my heart, I had thought. To make me buckle and it worked slightly. He was right; besides Jack, I had no family. Both grandparents were gone, no aunts or uncles on Mom's side and Jack was the only brother of Dad. I had no one besides him.

I told him not to pity me. I took care of myself, didn't I? He smiled again, except it was cocky and I knew that he knew more. He told me about Jack and the childhood I spent with him. I said nothing as he had just squashed most of my life into five minutes of talking.

I didn't understand how he got that. Then I realized something: Jack told him. Anger burned in my stomach and any ounce of respect for that man was dropped. Stryker told me my accusation was correct when I hissed: "Jack!"

That's why he wanted me. That's why he had to train me. I told Stryker no again, glancing at Wade's swords and Zero's guns.

"You'd be serving your country, Brooke." He told me. I saw other in his eyes.

"Jack's not there for you. You've got no one. No one will miss you."

I stared at them for a long moment and then lowered my gaze to the floor. I agreed to come with. Then I was told that Wade and Zero would be here tomorrow to pick me up. I nodded and gestured to the door; I said they should leave before Ashley came back home. I knew she would question three men appearing on our doorstep. They left, but Wade didn't leave without a wink at me.

I shook my head. Then I shut the door behind them. I called my uncle up.

He told me everything, confiding that Stryker had wanted him to join the Team but Jack had the animals and his girlfriend, Nikki at the time. I never knew he had a girlfriend and he told me it was before I was born, but while Mom was pregnant with me. Stryker had threatened to kill Nikki, whom Jack had wanted to marry, and so, he bargained with my unborn life. If I should show signs of being a mutant, he must train me and when I'm twenty, contact Stryker about myself.

Jack said that he didn't expect my power, which is a rare gift. He said he broke up with Nikki so she was no longer in the picture anymore. Stryker had no reason to quarrel with her any longer. Then we argued.

"Look, I had no other-"

"No other choice? You could have stood up to Stryker! Joined the team!"

"It's not my-"

"Did you know Mom and Dad were going to die too? Huh?!"

"Look, I didn't. It was sheer bad luck that they did and I know for a fact, that you possibly could have been in that car with them. Maybe you could have stopped it, who knows? What's done is done."

"It-it's your fault for everything!"

"My fault?! My training will keep you alive, girl! If you weren't trained, Stryker would have beaten you to a cold, bloody pulp when he would be done! You should be thankful!"

"What's wrong with Team X?!"

"Stryker will- he's greedy. That's it. Don't join the team, Brooke-"

"Well, you trained me for it! Why shouldn't I?"

"I didn't know… I didn't guess… they're like that. You'll become like them, Brooke."

"So? Maybe it'll do me better- at least maybe I'll learn how to pick more trustworthy people!"

That hurt him, I just knew it. Jack was distant but he was human, he had feelings. I heard the click of the other line go dead. He hung up and with that, not once did I ever hear him again.

It turns out, only Wade came. He was talkative, that's for sure. He kept up a steady conversation with almost himself while he waited for me to pack. He offered to help carry my bags, but knowing by the mischievous gleam in his eye I knew better and had a good guess at what he was thinking.

I told him I could carry my own crap. He smirked behind me and then shrugged, opening the door and letting me through. I shot him a dark glare but he merely smiled innocently. In the car ride, he told me about the four other men. I listened intently but somehow the conversation drifted to me.

"So… what can you do?"

"Don't you already know?"

"Stryker is very general in his… descriptions."

I rolled my eyes and continued to stare out the window at the passing trees. Wade didn't like the silence, shifted in his seat and continued to talk.

"I'm a mercenary."

I didn't answer. Obviously, he was very put off by my blunt refusal to him. He gripped the steering wheel harder, huffed angrily and leaned away from me.

"Met your match?" I teased, feeling myself warming up to that guy.

He didn't answer directly, but smirked and said, "We'll see."

"I don't think so."

"That's what you say now…"

"Okay, don't need to hear anymore." I covered my ears to demonstrate and he laughed.

"Finally, someone with a sense of humor!"

I glanced at him curiously. He arched an eyebrow at my curiosity but continued on.

"The others are a bunch of boring guys… no fun at all! Zero, the guy from before, seems to hate everything and everyone," he rambled on and on about how Zero is something or another. I lost interest right away but let the guy rant.

A vision flashed. A plane; a big plane.

"Which of you drive it?" I asked immediately, turning to the still talking man.

"What? I was talking-"

"The plane you idiot!"

He frowned for a second, glancing back at the road and then his eyes widened. He glanced at me again before speaking.

"The plane! Oh, Chris does. Anyways, as I was saying," he continued onto another member, John Wraith I think that was his name. I sat there, not listening to one word. Just watching the trees fly by.

The plane was a bit smaller in person then I thought I envisioned. But it was a plane all the same. I met the other members through awkward introductions from Wade and Stryker. We took off and in a little while, we landed at the base.

When introduced to my room by Stryker alone, he gave me the rules.

No contact to the outside world.

If I'm found outside the base without any authorization, I will be shot at.

Disrupting the 'peace' among the team.

I gave him a silent nod and so started my days with Team X.

A few months after I came and settled in, more news came. Not the stuff like 'we're going on a mission' or anything like that. We're getting two new members. James Logan and Victor Creed, half brothers. Wild, aggressive but good fighters I heard. We'd be going on a big mission right away with them, soon after they are here.

I got a vision for each of them, deciding it's better to stay on their good side. For the most part, I warmed up to Team X. Well, besides Zero. I joked and teased Wade; talked and chatted casually with the other two. Things couldn't get any worse, I think. I set everything about Jack in the farthest set of my mind and somehow, I completely forgot about him. Training and preparing for the next mission was taking up of my time.

We killed but never had yet we killed innocence. I was normally left in the plane, a little bracelet around my wrist that would damage me somehow if I tried to get off the plane. It also would contact Stryker if I tried. I wasn't sure how I would react with killing people; I've never tried it.

But something told me: I don't want too.