Here's Chapter 3 of X-Men: Light within Darkness. The new title is better with the story as I plan on extending it. I hope you're all enjoying this and that Jubilee's transformation draws further into my story. Enjoy!


Chapter 3: Transformations

Jubilee moaned and opened her eyes for the second time in the last 12 hours. The nausea and vertigo were gone, but now she felt pretty stiff. Heck, she felt like she hadn't moved in a month. As she stood and almost every joint in her body popped, she noticed that room was too bright, considering the fact only her desk lamp was on. She was amazed that her ankle bones were still in one piece by the time she crossed her bedroom to study it. They were cracking like crazy.

It didn't look different than when she had turned it on last night. She reached over and turned it off. What happened next was strange. As soon as the light was off, everything went black only to have her eyes adjust almost instantly. She had witnessed the phenomena like every other person, except it had never happened this fast before and she was certain that it wasn't this bright at night. She opened her window and was nearly blinded. She squinted and looked away. A moment later she realized that she had been looking at the full moon, which right now looked as bright as the sun. She looked over at the alarm clock on her bedside drawer and saw the time. 5:32 in the morning.

Jubilee knew she wasn't going to go back to sleep; she felt rested, heck, she felt great now that the stiffness was gone. She simply picked out her clothes for the day and went into her bathroom. There's a grimy feeling that comes with sleeping in your clothes and she wanted it off.

I must have caught some really weird kind of bug she thought while working the shampoo through her hair. I feel so crappy and then I collapse, only to feel great when I wake up on the floor. She finished showering and cleaning up. She grimaced at what was left of her yellow jacket, her second one because of the explosion at the Institute. She had gotten one just like her first because she liked the style and the color just suited her. She'd go buy another one when she got the chance.

She looked over herself once more in the mirror and gave the reflection her approval. She suddenly jumped a foot and then looked real closely at her eyes. For a moment, she could have sworn they had turned a blood-red instead of their usual hazel. Must be seeing things.

She opened the door to find her bleary-eyed mother looking at her. "Jubilee, what are you doing up? It's six in the morning." Usually Jubes wasn't up for at least another hour.

"I woke up and knew I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep," Jubilee replied.

"How are you feeling? You looked pretty sick before you went to bed."

Jubilee shrugged. "I feel great, for someone who collapsed on the floor after finishing their homework."

"You collapsed? Honey, why didn't you call us? We thought you were fine."

"Sorry mom. I tried calling for you guys but I was so weak. I couldn't even stand up straight. Frankly, I'm amazed I finished my homework."

Her mother sighed. "Well, whatever it was, you appear to be alright. How's the wrist?"

Jubilee held it up. "It feels good. I avoided getting it wet in the shower…." She trailed off and moved her wrist around experimentally. Then she removed the bandage quickly.

"What are you doing? It's not done healing," her mother protested. She grabbed the wrapping before it could hit the floor. "You shouldn't," she started, but then she stopped and stared.

The bite mark was completely gone. There was no sign of blood; there wasn't even a scar. "How?" her mother whispered.

Jubilee starred at it and then said, "Maybe I've developed a healing factor. That's it. My powers have changed to include a healing factor. That's why I was so sick last night." She smiled.

Her mother looked puzzled. "Healing factor?"

"It's a passive ability, involuntary. You can basically heal at a much quicker rate than usual. If it's strong enough, you can even regenerate lost organs or limbs. Though, the only mutants I know of that have that ability are bestial-type mutants," she mused.

"Well, at least that awful bite is gone," her mother said. "That looked dangerous. Would you mind turning the coffee pot on? I'll be down in a few minutes."

"Sure thing, mom." Jubilee felt like squealing as she went down the stairs. I have a healing factor! Not showy, but incredibly useful. Wolverine isn't the only indestructible one now. That thought only reminded her that she would be going back to the Institute in a few days. Those would be spent transferring her school credits to Bayville High and packing. She felt like singing as she put the coffee pot on and got the eggs out. Maybe now when she went back to the Institute, she would be allowed higher levels in the Danger Room, maybe even become an X-Man (or X-Woman) faster than expected. She figured that most of the others had likely graduated from the New Mutants, or maybe even turned into their own team.

She smiled as she got the milk out. Things were finally looking up for her.

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She barely noticed the insults and the bigots as she went to school and sat through her classes. The anger from yesterday had pretty much vanished. She knew there would be the same garbage at Bayville but at least she wouldn't be alone. Being alone when you were in a targeted minority was awful. Being with others who understood you made it bearable. Right now, the elation from it all worked like a telekinetic shield. Not even Nurse Kelly could have dampened her mood.

It lasted until just after lunch. A nerd would have said that her brain was coming off the dopamine high created by the news and that her body was starting to tire after her good night's sleep. It was some of that, and it was also the page full of crude jokes about the X-Men she found in her locker. That pretty much put her back in a foul mood.

She knew just who wrote most of the jokes; Angelina's g's looked way too much like q's. Penmanship was not her strong suite, amongst other things. When she found Angelina and her minions outside the girl's room giggling at her approach, she could guess easily what they were giggling about.

Jubilee held the paper out and shook it. "I bet you think this is hilarious."

Deedee flipped her hair and smirked. "Of course it is, Jubes. If it has to do with your freak-friends, it's automatically hilarious."

Jubilee simply glared and proceeded to crumble the paper into a ball and throw it at a garbage can. She nailed it too. "What's funny is that you'll forget that garbage without that list."

"We won't have to remember them," piped up Mindy. "We printed a bunch of them and posted them all over the school. Everyone's going to see and remember them." Jubilee realized that earlier she had wondered why people were gathering around the bulletin boards and laughing up a storm. She hadn't bothered to check it out. She looked past Mindy at such a group. Their laughter grew as they realized that she was looking their way and one of the jocks cracked a real dirty one concerning Kurt's tail.

Jubilee slowly turned back to the three girls. "What did a mutant ever do to you? Why do you hate the X-Men? All they've ever done is help people. They saved this stinking world, and you, from Apocalypse. Now, why?"

"One, you were born," said Angelina. "Two, the X-Men were saving their own hides when they took on that blue mutie. All they wanted to do was to make sure they had all the power. They'd be nothing if everyone had powers."

"They stopped Apocalypse because he would have killed millions of people, millions who wouldn't have survived the transition," Jubilee said quietly. She looked Angelina in the eye and lowered her voice. "I wonder which would have been worse for you: To be a mutant, or to be dead. I hope you would have become a mutant, the very thing you hate so much."

Angelina sniffed and held her nose in the air. Deedee and Mindy followed suit. "Well, maybe you should have helped Apocalypse. That temper of yours would be good for a villain."

Jubilee's anger flared inside and she spoke through gritted teeth. "And your petty arrogance and stupidity would make for an excellent-." She was cut off by Mindy's shriek.

"Look at her EYES! And her TEETH! She looks like a VAMPIRE," she screamed. Both Deedee and Angelina jumped back, starring at her in horror. Mindy's cries drew the attention of passersby and people began pointing at Jubilee. Their reactions ranged from fear to caution to anger. Most hurried away, while a group, mostly jocks, began to advance on her.

Panicked, Jubilee ran past Angelina and her clique into the girl's restroom. She ran over to a mirror and starred into it. She nearly screamed at the sight of her reflection. Her eyes were a flaming blood-red, just like the gang that had attacked her. Only their red eyes had been freaky; seeing the same thing set in her face was terrifying. Slowly, she opened her mouth to reveal a set of fangs, with the canines being the longest and sharpest.

Very slowly, she crumbled to the ground and began shaking. The perfect day had just gone sour in a matter of minutes. Oh no. That gang, they really were vampires. And I've become one. Oh dear Lord, please let this be a dream, please let this be a dream, please let this be a DREAM. She reached down and pinched her arm hard with her fingernails. The pain, nonexistent in the realm of dreams and nightmares, was cruelly felt in the real world. She could feel the tears threatening to spill over.

She barely noticed two bathroom doors opening. Then someone hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see the green-haired girl looking at her, concerned. The other girl looked at Jubilee, gasped, and then left hurriedly, looking over her shoulder the whole time.

Green-hair sighed. "It's the pits, isn't it? When your mutation practically turns on you."

Jubilee took a closer look at her. She looked to be about 17, tall, and a bit on the pale side. "Are you…" Jubilee started to ask.

The girl shook her head. "No. My little brother. When he turned fourteen, he started controlling rocks. Then a month ago, he turns into this six foot tall rock-man while walking down the street. No one from school saw him, and neither did any cameras. Some anti-mutant supremacist almost had a mob come after him. That jerk better be glad I'm not a mutant."

I bet. The fire in the girl's eyes spoke of outrage for society's crimes against her kid brother. "I'm Jubilee, by the way."

She smiled. "Janet," she responded. "And my brother's name is Brandon."

The door opened and the lunch lady came in. "Is everything alright? I heard screaming." She caught sight of Jubilee's eyes and gasped. Jubilee hung her head sadly.

She heard the lunch lady walk up to them and stop. "Ms. Lee, look at me please." Jubilee raised her head and looked at the mirror first. Her eyes were still the same angry red that she had glimpsed in her bathroom mirror that morning. Then she looked the lunch lady in the eye.

The lunch lady kneeled down to face Jubilee. "Ms. Lee, what race am I?"

"Black," she answered quietly.

The woman nodded. "I was your age when the Civil Rights Movement was going on. People discriminated against me because of my skin color, and I'm not about to do the same thing against you because you have red eyes, sharp teeth, or any other differences. You are a person first and foremost."

Except I might not be a person anymore Jubilee thought. I'm a predator, a hunter of humans. A monster.

"And besides," the lunch lady continued, "your eyes just turned back to normal."

Jubilee jumped up and looked in the mirror. Her familiar hazel irises looked back at her. She opened her mouth to reveal a perfectly human set of teeth. She slumped with relief. Maybe, maybe I can control this. Maybe there's hope.

"Let's get you out of here," Janet said. "If people see you now, they might not believe anyone who saw your vamp eyes." Jubilee cringed inwardly. "Or if they do, you have a better chance of escaping out there than in here."

"Good idea. Thanks," answered Jubilee. As she turned towards the door, she looked at the lunch lady. "I never caught your name."

"It's Melinda May. I should honestly clean my name card."

"Thanks, Melinda, for everything."

"You're welcome." And knowing that she had some allies, human allies nonetheless, Jubilee opened the door.

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A quarter after three o'clock found Jubilee at an abandoned lot safe from prying eyes. Thankfully, she hadn't gotten in trouble when she left the relative safety of the restroom, the reasons being her eyes weren't red and her teeth weren't sharp anymore, and that she hadn't done anything with them. The only downside to the rest of the afternoon, besides the problems she was having with algebra, was that no one besides Janet, Melinda, or Mr. Nelson had come close to her for the rest of the day, which was actually a relief in some ways.

It hadn't happened again so far and Jubilee was grateful for that. It was bad enough if people knew you had red eyes and sharp fangs for teeth. Seeing it was worse, and the last thing she needed was for people to begin to suspect that she really was a vampire. What was that the Leader had said? "Despite how we look, we're not mutants. It's so convenient, being mistaken for one of you. Really throws them off from the truth." How many vampire attacks or sightings had been blamed on mutants? And why had her fireworks fried them?

Wait a minute. If my powers are lethal to vampires, and I've become one, what will my powers do to me? Will I still be able to use them, or will I disintegrate into ash like those guys? Suddenly Jubilee wasn't feeling that eager to practice her powers.

She decided to just practice her acrobatics and martial arts instead. She started by flipping around and using walls as leaping points. She kicked and punched through pieces of woods she had set up earlier. Soon she realized that not only was it easier than before, she was leaping farther and hitting harder than ever. Little by little, she began calling up her anger and as she did, she only got faster and stronger.

She stopped and took out a makeup mirror from a purse she kept in her bag while in school. She popped it open and didn't even flinch when she saw her reflected vamparic eyes and teeth. She was honestly getting used to the look. She also noticed that her skin seemed paler than her usual complexion. Red eyes, sharp fangs, pale skin, check, check, check. I've got the agility and the strength too. What about the enhanced senses? She sat down and concentrated on her senses of sight, hearing, and smell. The lot, which was darkened by the nearby buildings, lit up to the finest details. She could hear cars a few blocks away, a rat hiding behind the dumpster across from her, and even insects skittering amongst the pebbles a few yards away. Her nose detected a moldering pizza in the same dumpster, a cat watching her from a second story window, and blood. Her head snapped towards the smell and she concentrated fully on locating the source. Alley to left, 30 yards, young male, knife. Some punk kid had cut his hand with his own knife. She pulled her concentration from the information and breathed hard. Now, what about weaknesses?

Her mother kept some garlic in the pantry, and she herself had a cross necklace in her jewelry box. There was also some real silver plates and utensils they kept for special occasions that she could use for testing. Right now the only test for vamparic weaknesses available was sunlight.

The buildings around her kept the sunlight from shining directly into the lot except at noon, and it was nearly four right now. Jubilee spotted a fire escape that would allow her to test the light. She had been under direct sunlight earlier and had experienced no adverse side effects, but she wasn't going all vampire when outside. And she had been indoors during her episode earlier.

She got up, walked over to the escape, and jumped up to the first level, just below where the light was striking the building. She made sure she was going vampire in her mirror, and then took a deep breath. Not hesitating, she stuck her hand directly into the light.

Nothing. Zip. Nada.

She breathed a sigh of relief and then jumped down to the ground. She would test the other supposed "vampire allergies" later. To tell the truth, she was actually starting to like her new powers. But how did they work with her original abilities? She found a wide piece of wood and drew a gross caricature of Gary Anderson on it. She set it up and walked a few yards away. She held out her hand and thought back to what she had done almost a full day ago. A gang of vampires had attacked her and she had fried them by just raising her hands and using her natural mutant abilities. Now she was a vampire (or so she thought), and she had no idea if her powers would turn her into a pile of ash or not. She whispered a quick prayer and then started to count down from ten in Chinese. The original language of her parents helped to calm her sometimes.

"Shi, jiu, ba." This was probably the most important countdown of her life. She was about to see if her own powers could kill her. A day ago it had been simple: She shot fireworks from her hands. Now she had the abilities of a vampire. Could she have both and live?

"Qi, lok, wu." She could be dead within a matter of seconds. A single gene would be responsible because her DNA had been altered by something that shouldn't even exist, something that her powers vaporized on contact.

"Si, san, er." What if she died, was turned into an unidentifiable pile of ash? Her parents would never find her body, probably never figure out what happened to her. She would never see them again, never see her friends at the Institute again, never see gruff Mr. Logan, kind Storm, smart Mr. McCoy, or wise Professor Xavier ever again. She would never see Bobby Drake or his impish smile in this world.

"Yi." She fired.


I came to the last sentence and decided that it would make a good cliffhanger. Man, that feels so good to leave it hanging like that. Don't worry; the resolution to this evil cliffhanger will come in the next chapter.

The Chinese words for the numbers ten through one are spelled differently in that some of the letters have symbols above them that don't appear on the English keyboard. If you know how to change English words into different languages, please tell me in a review or a PM.