A/N: Hello!! Been a while since I updated, so here's chapter 3...that's all I really have to say...hope you enjoy!!

Kris wrapped her arms around herself as she leant against the wall next to the window looking out of it at the snow covered ground. She guessed there were worse places she could be. After all, they treated them alright, some of the guards were a little hostile, but most of them were alright people – people who were just following orders. Some of the time they could even be a laugh. All the same, most the time Kris couldn't help but wish that she was anywhere but the middle of this frozen wasteland. Sometimes it was just so hard to keep on going, to keep on coping. Her eyes narrowed, was that a jet she saw?

Footsteps behind her startled her into glancing round.

"Cole…" she started.

"Training," was all the young guard told her. Kris blinked. She'd completely forgotten.

They fell into step together and Kris reflected on how the guards weren't actually there to guard them – that was just a coincidence. None of the four mutants on the base knew why the soldiers were really there, they just knew that they were.

"What's your name?" Cole asked suddenly.

Kris blinked at him for a moment before replying. "Psycho."

"I mean your real name. You know, what everyone called you before…"

Kris knew what he was trying to say when he broke off. Before Weapon X kidnapped her. Before she became a 'slave' to them. "It doesn't matter."

"Yeah it does. I don't think Psycho suites you."

That brought a bitter chuckle to her lips. "You didn't see me when they first brought me here."

Cole opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by the alarm. They shared a look for mere seconds before both broke into a dead out sprint. They skidded to a halt at the armoury as a group left. Their commander looked at them both before jerking his heads at the shelves. As they strapped on Kevlar vests and gathered weapons he gave them the low-down on the situation.

"Break in on the lower levels. Lost contact shortly afterwards. Cole, I want you and Psycho to protect the mutants."

"Yes sir," Cole saluted and the two of them jogged towards where the other three would be. Cal met them at the door.

"What's going on?" he demanded. Kris shrugged. She'd tuned out of half of the brief. She always did if she was present. It wasn't her problem.

"Seems to be an attack," Cole replied, gesturing for them to follow him.

He took them to one of the other rooms where it would be easier to defend. It was a large gymnasium with most of the equipment piled at one end. The three younger mutants quickly moved to one corner while Kris and Cole perched on the equipment, both ready to roll off the minute the door opened. Cole offered Kris a tab(A/N: 1, see below). If she'd been asked when she was younger if she was going to smoke, her answer would've been a very firm 'No'. But that all seemed so long ago, especially now when she needed something to calm her down. She accepted it, taking the lighter and relaxing slightly as she felt the familiar rush of smoke flood into her mouth. The two of them sat silently for a while, smoking, wondering how things were going.

Kris tentatively reached out her mind, focusing on her ability to find people. Abruptly she withdrew her mind, flinching back visibly at the ferocity of the attack she'd just found. Cole reached out and place a hand on her shoulder, eyes searching for hers.

"Shit," Kris breathed, struggling to get her breath back. "Shit."

"Easy," Cole soothed. "What's up?"

"We're not going to survive this…not if what I just felt is anything to go by. Shit."

"We will, we'll be fine. Just relax, 'kay?"

"'Kay," Kris nodded, suddenly coming to a decision. "Kris."

"Huh?" Cole looked at her, confused.

"My name, it's Kris."

"Joe."

"But Cole…"

"My last name."

"Ah…Guess that makes sense now, you are a soldier, they do refer to them by last name don't they?"

"Yeah."

"What do you reckon they're talking about?" Cal asked watching the way Kris and 'Cole' were talking to each other, perched on the equipment, smoking with their guns rested in their laps.

Akira glanced their way and shrugged, fingers straying to the ties on her mask as they always did when she was nervous. Cal grasped her hand and squeezed it slightly. Sammy was curled up against Akira's other side, head hidden in her shoulder. A small movement of Akira's head told Cal that she was grateful of the comforting gesture.

Kris had changed drastically in the few weeks since they'd discovered that Yuriko was dead. Her already bland outward façade had become distinctly blank, with absolutely no emotion showing on her face as though she was fighting an internal battle that she didn't want the others to know about. She'd been spending more time training than ever before – and she'd already spent a lot of time training. It was her eyes that scared Cal the most though. There was an almost dead look in them, as though whatever she'd seen when she'd touched Yuriko's dog tags had killed part of her. It always worried Cal when Kris used her powers, he knew that she could lose herself in other people's memories, start forgetting which memories where hers, start acting like someone she wasn't. It plain terrified him every time he saw her do it, because he knew that this time could be the one that pushed her over the edge and started her down a road she couldn't turn back on – the next time she touched an object could be the time he lost the person he saw as his big sister.

Cal watched her with the guard they'd all come to be friends with. The way she shifted as though to move closer, but never quite did, the way she kept chewing her lip when she didn't have the fag in her mouth. The way something he said suddenly made her smile – a smile that Cal hadn't seen in years. It was small, sweet, almost innocent and full of pure joy. Her head turned and he could see her almost waiting for the door to open, the smile was gone, her shoulders were tense, she was on guard.

"Something wicked this way comes," Kris murmured, moving and sliding silently off her perch, resting her gun on top of it instead. Cole slid down next to her.

"How long?" he asked, the humorous, kind guy he'd been moments before disappearing under the shell of a professional soldier.

"Few minutes away."

"I need exact."

"Can't give you exact and you know it."

"Sorry."

The two of them fell silent, shaking their heads at each other and leaning further down, waiting for the door to open.

OK, I lied, I do have something to say, and it hasn't been said before so listen up.

1) Tab is a cigarrette(sp??)

Kris is a Geordie, and Tab is the Geordie word for cigarrette, so please, don't ask me what it means!! It's right here!!