Soft white hazy floaty hazy land began to look like something pale, blurry, and hovering right over my face. "I still can't find its pulse," said the blur I took to be an EMT.

"She's not an 'it,'" said an indignant tremulous little voice I took to be Ian's. "She's my mommy!"

My vision cleared a little. I could see Grace nearby in Belle's arms, eyes wide and gushing horrified tears as she digested what was just said. Drops of blood spotted her lip as she bit back the fresh screams she realized she must not release.

"My mistake," said the EMT, caving instantly at a glimpse of Ian's sad blue eyes and quivering lip. "Of course she's a perso… AUGH!"

I grabbed his wrist. "And you'd find my pulse right where you'd find any other person's," I hissed, raising my head and looking him square in the eye. Oh dear. That was too much. My head swam in protest.

"Mommy?" said Ian.

Grace's jaw dropped. "Phoenix?" she whispered.

"Nah," I said, letting my head drop back. "Just a mutant who skipped lunch."

And telekinetically moved a half-ton truck safely over the school bus it was about to hit. I'll never do that again on an empty stomach.

"And just a mutant who should have kept playing dead, if you knew what was good for you," whispered the man, his horn rimmed glasses now inches from my face. A quick skim through his mind revealed more than I needed to know. I was dealing with a man who more than just looked like a combination of Henry Gyrich and Mr. Bennet.

I blearily rolled my eyes Belle's direction and tried to focus on the brewing hullabaloo with her as she tried to comfort my kids and her son, juggle her cell, and fend off a man in a police uniform.

"Ben? Ben, something's happened! Vicky and Grace..," she rattled frantically to Ben, who was working at what we know of around here as The Site. "…No, Grace is fine, but Vicky…"

"Ma'am? I'm afraid I'll have to take your phone."

"What for?"

"Evidence."

Belle gesticulated my direction. "I'm talking to this woman's husband! Doesn't he have a right to know there's been an emergency?! Sorry, Ben. Some cop's now trying to take my phone. Vicky… Officer, with all due respect…"

The cop grabbed his tazer. Ian bravely stepped in front of Belle and fixed the cop one of his simultaneously priceless and deadly serious expressions. "She's talking to my Daddy," he said with a grave simplicity that implied no tolerance for interference.

The cop hesitated, a conflicted look on his face. Grace snatched the phone and bolted. "Daddy! There are fake police officers here, and a medic told us Mommy's dead, but she woke up. He's a fake too!"

"Don't let her get away!" Gyrich yelled.

The cop turned his tazer toward Grace and shouted for backup.

"STOP!" I shouted, jumping up and not so delicately throwing Gyrich out of my way. "Nobody move!"

Nobody and nothing did, except the molecules within that tazer. If I was blessed with the finesse to move a flame with but a thought as well as the mental muscle to levitate a truck, I might as well make good use of it. Pulling a tazer into pieces proved to be pretty simple.

Heh. So that's what I did to my alarm clock this morning. While I was still quite unsteady on my feet, my inner Dark Phoenix reveled in this discovery and contemplated doing the same to the uniformed man who looked dumbstruck at the warm, tingling hand that used to hold a tazer. Yet I perceived another threat.

Grace stood stock still, completely stunned.

"He was going to zap my sister," said Ian, radiating palpable righteous fury. "That BAD MAN WAS GOING TO ZAP MY SISTER!!"

"What's the big idea?" yelled a very large man who had stepped out onto his porch to see the commotion.

"He was going to taze an unarmed little girl!" shouted a lady next door who'd done likewise. "The pig!"

"Unarmed my foot!" bellowed an irate driver with a windshield spiderwebbed with cracks. "It was that girl's shrieking that did this to my car!"

"And what do you think will happen if she's hurt?" screamed a driver of a similarly damaged car, shaking her fist.

I threw up a psychic shield as quickly as I realized what was going on. I detected that the anger of all in the vicinity began to match Ian's. Grace frowned and resumed biting her lip to keep herself in check. And if I allowed myself to be so affected by this psychic bombardment, I might just make like X3 Phoenix and disintegrate everyone. As it was, it looked like a riot was brewing.

And people thought Ian was only a sensitive little charmer, rather than a broadcasting empath. "Ian, calm down!" I yelled. "Calm down, or so help me, I will ground you for a month!"

He looked at me, startled, then, forgetting all the horror for a second, giggled. "Mommy, you sounded just like Elastigirl."