AN: Will take this moment to note that I am not a geneticist. Which is one of the many reasons why we're hearing about mutant genetics from Wanda, and not from Sinister; Wanda's a layman, it's okay if she's wrong ;)

Chapter 4

There was no further sign of Sabretooth and after a few weeks everyone started to relax. Then too, half the students went home for the summer, and many of the X-men and the remaining students (as well as some that went home) ended up spending a good deal of time playing World of Warcraft. Neither Storm nor Logan would tolerate any of them spending too much time on the computers, though, and they kept up a regular schedule of Danger Room sessions and outdoor activities.

Sam and Tabitha walked out of the movie theatre, hand in hand and chatting about what they thought of it.

"So, whatcha wanna do now?" Tabitha asked as she turned on Sam and wrapped her arms about his neck.

"Hmm, I don't know," Sam replied and slid his hands onto her waist. "Go home and make out?"

"Sounds like you do know what you want to do," Tabitha teased him. "Okay, but let's not go home. Let's just...park the car somewhere private."

Sam kissed her lips gently. "Well, if you insist."

Tabitha poked her tongue out at him. They let go, and went back to holding hands again as they started down the corridor of stores leading towards the parking lot. They hadn't gone very far when Tabitha's eyes landed on a display in the window of one of the shoe stores.

"Oooh, but first, I have to go in here," Tabitha said eagerly.

Sam gave a resigned, long-suffering sigh as his girlfriend dragged him into the store.

Pietro swaggered up to a group of four men in their early twenties hanging around a car in a parking lot.

"Hey," he said. "I hear you like to beat mutants to death."

The men looked up at Pietro and took in his slimline white and blue clothes. One sniggered.

"Whaddya want?" another asked.

"Oh nothing," Pietro replied. "It's just that I'm a mutant."

Before they could even blink, Pietro zipped over to them and wrapped his arms over the shoulders of two of them. "Why don't you see if you can catch me?"

The first five minutes were a joke as Pietro taunted them; zipping in a out of their range in a blink of an eye. The men had no chance of catching him. Then Pietro got bored and started beating them up.

To anyone watching, which there wasn't, it would have looked like the four men where spontaneously lurching forward, falling back, staggering to their feet, waving their fists around in random directions, and crying out in pain and anguish as blood and teeth went flying while a white and blue blur danced around them.

At last the four men were nothing more than bruised and bloodied lumps on the ground. The plan was to kill them, of course; they were guilty of multiple mutant murders. They deserved to die. Yet Pietro found for all his bravado, he couldn't actually bring himself to give the killing blow. This had hardly been a fair fight, and to take their lives now would be no better than killing them in cold blood. He couldn't do it.

But if he didn't, what was to stop them from killing more innocent people?

"Die, you bastard," Tabitha said, glaring at the monitor.

"Gee," Sam said from the computer next to hers, "thanks a lot."

"Not you, dork head," Tabitha replied, intent on defeating the villain her blood elf rogue was busy fighting. "Him! I'm going to kick his stupid ass if it's the last thing—ah ha! Finally! Douche."

"You are getting way too much into this game," Sam said, nodding sagely.

Mastermind was perched on a barstool at a night club. She had a drink sitting in front of her, but she hardly touched it; too much alcohol could make it difficult to concentrate on using her powers, especially in this sea of people, some of whom had drunk a little too much themselves.

As she perused the room, looking for her target mentally, she found the mind of a man who had taken it upon himself to slip a little something into the drinks of one of the other women at the club. Incensed, Mastermind wrapped him up into a little illusion. She made him think that someone had slipped something into his drink, then took him home and raped him. She took perhaps a little too much pleasure in his feelings of helplessness. Mastermind then moved on to having him taunted by his peers for his ordeal, none of them taking his situation seriously. Once Mastermind was satisfied he had been scarred for life, she freed him of the illusion. Only two minutes had passed.

Finally, Mastermind located her real target; a woman who had been personally responsible for five mutant deaths that they were aware of. Mastermind worked her way into the woman's head and wrapped her in an entirely different illusion; one where she was beaten and then buried alive. Mastermind knew just how powerful the mind was. She knew how easy it was to convince her victim that she was running out of air and couldn't breathe.

After she dropped dead, no one could figure out why exactly she stopped breathing.

"You sure about this?" Bobby asked Sam.

The X-men were gathered for another meeting in the War Room, this one to discuss the Friends of Humanity situation. Sam nodded at Bobby.

"It makes sense. I'm going to be moving in with some of my college friends anyway," Sam said. "That makes for good camouflage."

"It also potentially puts them in danger," Storm pointed out.

"If these guys are that much trouble, they're already in danger by associating with a mutant," Sam said.

Storm nodded, unfortunately having to agree with that idea.

"Besides," Sam went on, "if I do get in a spot, I can just cannonball out of there, and I'll be invulnerable when I do. Yes, I realise that's not fool-proof, especially if they have something that can turn off powers, but it does give me an advantage."

"One that I don't have," Bobby said with a nod. "Well, I can't say that I mind giving up the position."

"If these guys have something that can turn off powers, I'm asking why," said Tabitha, looking cranky as she folded her arms across her chest. "They seem to be more interested in killing mutants rather than depowering them."

Sam reached over and took Tabitha's hand. "I promise I'll be careful."

Wanda sat in the swivel chair while she waited for the owner of the home office she was in to finally return. Once again they had been unable to find the perpetrators of a mutant murder and were forced to go after a prominent mutant detractor instead. The next one on their list was a prominent radio host; had he been a 'shock jock' they might have been inclined to let him slide, as it was he was shopped as a serious broadcaster.

Just when Wanda was wondering if she was going to be there all night, the door finally opened. He saw her in his chair immediately, before he even closed the door and stared at her.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my house?" he demanded.

"I'm the Scarlet Witch," Wanda replied, and flicked a hex bolt at the door to close it, lock it, and prevent any noise from leaving the room. "I'm with the Brotherhood of Mutants, and I'm just here to talk to you."

The man immediately whirled around. He grabbed hold of the door knob, but all he could do was make it rattle. He cursed and pulled and jerked, but it didn't move. Failing that, he whirled on Wanda and started yelling at her. Wanda largely ignored him and just waited for him to take a breath.

"Saying that kind of thing was what got you into trouble in the first place," she said plainly. "Please, have a seat."

"Have a seat?" the man demanded as Wanda gestured to the spare chair. "This is my office! My house!"

"And what a lovely one it is at that," Wanda said, and picked up a photo off the desk. "You have a lovely family too."

He went pale. "Leave them alone."

"Oh don't you worry," Wanda said, sliding the photo back on the desk, but turning it in his direction so he could see his wife and two little kids. "If anyone's going to be hurting your family, it's going to be you."

"I would never hurt them," he insisted.

"I hope you remember you said that," Wanda replied. "By chance, do you know how mutant genetics works?"

"Some kind of X-factor..." he said, then glared at her. "What's this about? Get out of my house!"

He reached for his phone, but Wanda zapped it with a hex bolt, rendering it useless. She also zapped the windows, closing and locking them, and ensuring that no one could see in.

"I only understand the basics myself," Wanda went on, ignoring his further attempts to escape and get help. "There are two pairs of genes which make up the X-factor; we'll call them 'A' and 'B'."

"I really don't care," he told her. "This is my house and you have no right to—"

Wanda shut his mouth his a hex bolt. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to interrupt? You'd think after having to do so much talking at work, you'd be glad of a chance to keep your mouth shut."

He glared at her, but he couldn't open his mouth, nor could he even mumble. He looked at her with real fear, perhaps for the first time truly appreciating his situation.

"Now, sit down and listen," Wanda said, she waited until he had done so, and continued: "In baseline humans, A and B are recessive. In order for a mutant—the colloquial definition of the word—to exist, he or she needs at least one A chromosome to be dominant and at least one B chromosome to be dominant. If someone only has a dominant in one, but not the other, they're a carrier. Do you follow me? Nod or shake your head."

For a long moment, he didn't do anything. Finally he shook his head. Wanda gave a long suffering sigh, then pulled out a pen and wrote on a scrap piece of paper on the desk:

Baseline human:
aabb

Carrier:
Aabb
AAbb
aaBb
aaBB

Mutant:
AaBb
AABb
AABB
AaBB

"There are more combinations than that, but that's the general idea. You follow me now?" Wanda asked, and he nodded. Wanda pointed to the first 'carrier' options. "You might be interested to know that you're a carrier, and so is your wife. More to the point, One of you has a dominant A, while the other has a dominant B. In other words, you two are biologically capable of producing a mutant child."

Wanda dropped the pen and leaned towards him with a smug smile on her face. "And you have."

"Liar," he exclaimed, and discovered he was capable of talking again. "Liar!"

Wanda chuckled.

"Why should I lie?" she asked. "You can verify my claim quite easily; you only need to do a DNA test, or four. I'd be careful who you ask, though. I'm told there are some unscrupulous testers out there who tend to pass on information if they find a mutant."

"Oh and I suppose you have a recommendation?" he asked with a sneer.

"Nope," Wanda replied blithely, and went on: "We were planning on killing you, just so you know. People like you; you may not pull the trigger yourself, but you inspire others to do so, and we of the Brotherhood of mutants are very, very tired of our people being murdered by racist cowards. But here, now you have a second chance. We rarely give those out, so I'd take advantage of it, if I were you. One of your children is a mutant, the other is a carrier as well, and is therefore capable of providing you with mutant grandchildren—"

"Lies—"

"Do not make me shut you up again," Wanda snapped at him. "If you care for your children at all, if you truly love them and want to see a world where they are accepted and not in fear of their lives, then you will take this opportunity. You can go on the rest of your life vilifying mutants and one day reject your own child, or you can start accepting us. We're people too, in case you haven't noticed. We live, and laugh, and breathe. We fall in love and get married, and dare to hope that if we bring children into this world that they might be safe, and that they won't live their lives in fear."

Wanda stood up.

"This is the only chance the Brotherhood will give you," she said coldly. "Squander it at your peril."

A few hex bolts later, and Wanda was able to depart without being hindered, and she got into her car which had been parked across the street. As she drove off, she couldn't help but think more about genetics and inheritance.

It had come to her attention while Magneto had been doing his experiments attempting to turn humans into mutants that she was capable of altering genetic code. This was not information she volunteered to her father, and indeed she argued strongly against what he was doing. Sure, if all the world were mutants, then there wouldn't be this war, but changing someone's DNA always seemed wrong to her.

Something that Wanda needed to be aware of was that the higher the odds against whatever she wanted to have happen, the more chance there was of her hex bolt failing, even backfiring. Had changing someone's DNA occurred to her prior to Magneto's experiments, she would have put it in the 'too dangerous' pile and left well enough alone. Unfortunately, the radiation generated by Magneto's machine, intended to alter DNA, made it easy—so very, very easy—for her to use her powers to alter DNA any way she wished with little to no chance of failure or backfiring. And to the chagrin of her conscience, she learned that first hand when she discreetly used a hex bolt during a couple of her father's experiments. She tried to tell herself it was okay; Magneto was already experimenting on them, so what did it matter? And besides, humans had experimented on humans, shouldn't turn about be fair play? She was never able to convince herself.

There was one other opportunity she had for determining the DNA of another with ease; conception. Her abilities made it possible for her and John to have all the unprotected sex they wanted (and they did) with no chance of her getting pregnant. She would never get pregnant unless she chose to, and what's more, when they did decide to conceive, she could make it happen that very day. That part excited her, and she was also happy about the idea of being able to make sure that her children didn't inherit anything bad; no dangerous recessives, no damaged or missing chromosomes, no chance of genetic diseases. But...where did it end? Did she choose what colour hair they got or eyes? Did she decide their gender? Their height? Whether they were a mutant or not? (Although the odds on that one were already heavily in their favour; 75% for a mutant, and 25% for a X-factor carrier.)

Wanda continued mulling over her personal ethical dilemma all the way to the residential village that was the home of the Brotherhood of Mutants. It looked so innocent it was almost hard for Wanda to believe that there was a secret underground level which was their headquarters, and she had been in there on multiple occasions. The residential village had many houses, most of them identical, and more than half of them empty. When Magneto had been doing his experiments, a number of the former humans lived in them, but most of them left after he was imprisoned. Then they had a population boom about a year ago when they had taken some of the Sentinel's prisoners back with them.

As Wanda drove to the home she was sharing with John, Pietro, and Dominic, she passed by the home—now empty—that Pietro had once shared with his girlfriend, Crystal, and their daughter, Luna. Crystal had been one of the humans that Magneto had experimented on, and successfully too. Luna, on the other hand, was born human. Magneto had acted like it was a personal insult against him. Sometimes Wanda wondered if she should have meddled and ensured Luna was born a mutant. Maybe if she had, Crystal wouldn't have left with Luna, and Pietro might have been happier.

Wanda glanced out the window and spotted the plastic replica of Magneto's machine that stood outside the community hall. She told everyone else that it was proof that she was always right and that everyone should listen to her, which was true enough, but what she didn't say was that it was also a reminder for her that just because she could do something didn't mean she should.

"So," Tabitha said, looking around at the apartment Sam would be sharing with some of his friends from college. "This is where you're gonna be staying, huh?"

"Yep," Sam said, dropping one of his bags down on the floor.

Tabitha sniffed as she regarded the apartment with disdain. "You're going to have even less privacy than you did at the mansion, and it's going to be cramped. It's not too late to change your mind..."

Sam wrapped his arms around Tabitha's waist and drew her close.

"It's not going to be that bad," he said patiently. "And I'll miss you too."

"Hmph," Tabitha pouted.

"It's not too late for you to move in with me..." Sam said teasingly.

Tabitha pulled a face. "No thanks. Sharing an apartment with a bunch of college guys is not my idea of an ideal situation. Besides, that kind of thing gives people the wrong idea about a girl."