I own nothing! This entire chapter is finished due to my beta reader, Chicaalterego, who turned it from a part of last chapter into its own chapter. While I did a lot of the scene setting stuff, and some dialogue, she was the one who turned it from a tangled mess into this!

Damon's hardened heart didn't even felt a shred of sympathy for the man that had lost his whole family and friends while still a teen, he never bothered asking for explanations for why Daniel had done what he did after showing kindness and care for so many months. The only thing that Damon could feel was satisfaction, basking in a revenge that had years coming.

Chapter 27: Shattered Perceptions

February 23

Two weeks. That was how long they had been keeping their head low while the world marked them as the enemy. But beyond the fear of what would happen next, there was a boredom and a sense of being trapped. But, fortunately for Kitty, she would be getting a breath of fresh air today, because today was supply day, the closest thing she and Kurt had to going to a party night on the town. Of course, there was the fact that it wasn't a true party night on the town since (1) it wasn't night and (2) they weren't partying.

Kitty knew that partying would be way more fun, but not even her teenage rebelliousness at its worst would allow her to put her friends, or herself, in danger.

But, back to it being supply day, there were important things to retrieve, like food, which was running low at the end of pretty much every day because they were too many on the ship. And fuel, the likes of which they picked up frequently since doing a single trip to retrieve thousands of gallons of gasoline would be too suspicious and get them busted.

At least they hadn't needed to steal yet. All of their money had been bought with them —thank god for the Professor's emergency stash of cash— so they had no problems on that front.

She and Kurt split up this time around; she waited at the bottom of a tall pine while he had climbed it to get a good look of the area. She hummed quietly, pretending she was doing nothing of importance, until a loud pop disturbed her rhythm when Kurt jumped down the tree, then grabbed her arm and teleported away with her without any warning.

It was like they were spies on a recon mission, gathering Intel, like in those movie. Kurt had agreed with her vision once, and seemed to like being the one in charge of something as important of making sure the team lacked for nothing.

He was enjoying it way too much, she decided darkly. What with him getting back that playful spark in his now shadowed eyes, hunted orbs that seemed to hurt with memories she dared not ask him to share. On the other hand, the whole thing made her queasy, to the point that sometimes she wondered if she would prefer to stay stuffed into the Jet with the whines of the terminally bored teenage crew. Probably not, because more often than she wished to be safe in the jet, she was thankful that her intangibility made her a logic option to go since she could phase out of any building and get away safely. She was thankful that the elf was the one to go with her because of his teleportation abilities.

This supply day was particularly sunny and windy. She looked around, basking on the sunlight and the breeze as she vaguely wondered if the tons of blackflies between Mother's and Father's Day in their part of Maine had something to do with the name of the town they were in, Flysville.

As the two of them stood out of a small market, a man with black hair and blue eyes that looked a bit like Mr. Williams walked out of the automatic doors, making Kurt tense, and even she had to work hard to keep her mind off the betrayal. She elbowed him sharply and he cast her an annoyed look before they picked up the pace in a strained silence.

Once they entered the store, they began shopping. Sneaking a couple of packages of chocolate fudge cookies and a few sugary cereals (beside some more nutritive food like meat, lettuce and milk) into the cart slowly cheered them up again. By the time they were finished, they had two carts full of food. They checked everything out after paying (in cash. The cashier stared at them for that) then they made their way out, pushing the carts until they were in a camera blind-spot in the parking lot. Kurt disappeared with a puff of smoke and returned a mere fifteen seconds later with empty carts.

"Did you just teleport the carts from under the food, again?" Kitty asked, eyes crinkling with amusement. She envisioned the reactions of several of the students, groaning with annoyance over having to put so much food on the shelves. She wondered if any of the sweet treats they had picked up would survive long enough for them to get any.

"Yes. I left zie food in the kitchen. I vonder if zie osers vill put it up before our return." Kurt shared a smirk with her, and they both wheeled the shopping carts back to the rows of carts where their carts had come from —the cashier staring at them, again, clueless of how they managed to empty their carts so far.

With the food gathering scratched off the list, they had the tedious mission of getting fuel. "How are ve going to get zie fuel to zie jet visout me being seen teleporting?" Kurt asked, pointing to the bald guy that was filling several huge container of kerosene, which made obvious the man planned to be there for a really long time.

Kitty paused for a moment, letting herself think. "I could distract any customers if there are any. I don't know what exactly I would do, but it could come in handy. Maybe I could steal a car!" She joked promptly.

Kurt snorted. "Zat's probably a bad idea-stealing a car, zat is. But maybe a distraction could be gut."

It probably would have been wiser to simply go to another station, or even leave the place and pick twice as much as they usually did the next day, but none of them were all that exited with the idea of facing their protesting friends, who had to put the food in order and probably would be complaining because they got this cookie and not that cookie, then would try to push a list of crap they didn't really need to buy, being as obxionous as grounded toddlers.

Kitty put the five-gallon containers next to the filling stations. Having their jet being capable of flying using common gasoline was a brilliant move, but it made the ship consume a lot of it. Kurt handled the hose, keeping an eye on the machine that was marking how much they would be paying, since none of them wanted to go over the amount they could pay with the cash they had left at hand.

When they'd filled the five containers, Kurt teleported them away to pour the fuel into the jet's tank. That process, unlike the food one, was not one that could be ended in mere seconds, since it was less than ideal to leave the fuel lying around, much less empty the contents of the containers like they had done the shopping cart.

Kitty was a mass of nerves when left alone in the gas station. Regardless, she counted what was left of her money, calculating they could fill tree more containers with what was left. So she picked up only 3 up this time around. As she was done filling the last of them, an elderly man got out of a generic blue car. He started to fill up the tank of his car, looking distracted. Kitty, more than a tad paranoid, work her mind into a not trying to figure out what to do not to look suspicious standing there, with 3 containers of gasoline at her feet when no car was around for her.

"Hi, sir. Do you need any help?" The man didn't acknowledge her presence in the slightest. I guess that's a no, Kitty thought. "Do you know where a good restaurant is? My…boyfriend doesn't know the area that well." She was biting her lip nervously, belatedly realizing the man didn't seem to give a damn about her being there standing around. She would have been a terrible spy.

Finally the guy glanced up, and looked in the direction of her "boyfriend", and Kitty smiled despite of herself because she was no longer alone.

"Go left when you reach that road and walk until you see McGillies Fish Fry. Usually the foods' good. Sure got a lot of gas, young lady." He turned around, dismissing her presence once more. Finally he put the hose back in place, then entered the store to pay for the gas. Kurt entered the store too, after taking the money out of her trembling hands.

Kurt rejoined her a few moments later, seeing as the man drove away. Thankfully, Kurt didn't comment on her blunder, instead he teased her with a grin. "Boyfriend? Seriously? I zought you vere in love vis Danielle." She gave him a shove.

"It was the first thing that came to mind, Kurt. Really." She looked bashful to her feet as they made their way to the safe spot Kurt had teleported from last. It was as she was looking down that her eyes easily spotted an abandoned newspaper of that day lying in a puddle. "Captured Suspect of Mutant Conspiration," was written in bold, red letters, and Kitty couldn't stop herself from picking the paper up.

captured at a warehouse in Bayville. An intensive research effort followed and it was discovered that, while his paper trail was entirely legal, his…

Suddenly nauseated, she tried to peg the clues together, in such a way that they fitted with what she knew: that Mr. Williams had betrayed them. There had been a mutant in the warehouse where the man had tried to lure Kurt before. Had their teacher used the same trick to lure other mutants in there? How many? When did he gain the trust of so many others like them? How did he know those people were mutants?

The scenes playing into her head were revolting and more than a bit horrifying.

She had missed Kurt's request of waiting there while he went to the bathroom, not even noticing her 'hmm' response. All she was capable of processing was that which she was reading in the blurred lettering, words she had to squint to make out.

...At six o' clock, a radio and television show on all the major channels will disclose all the information discovered on the leader of the mutant conspiracy, now in custody of the authorities.

They needed to hear about this mutant. She dashed a few steps forwards, blindly, before bumping into a startled Kurt. "Vat's zie hurry, Kitty?" Kurt asked, clearly confused.

"We need to get back to the jet now! I saw something on the newspaper rack about the warehouse that the others might want to hear." She urged. He understood her implications and teleported away an instant later.

They stumbled lightly upon arrival, sprinted into the main room where Hank had spent hours poking the radio until he somehow managed to fix the device with little more than some leftover wire and a lot of duct tape. He probably would have it done on the first day instead of yesterday if not because Kurt and her kept getting the wrong parts every time they tried to buy what he had asked them to.

However, as soon as the radio was fixed, it was turned off, since the bit of news that they could get from it —a lot of praise to Senator Kelly about finally ridding the world of the monsters that put in peril everything that was good and normal— dealt a blow to the morale of the teens. However, the news that was to come was too important to miss given how they had been partly responsible for getting Mr. Williams to the position to lure more innocent mutants towards a trap, and that they all needed to know what could have been the fate of one of their own X-Men.

Kitty rushed to the radio as soon as they got in the ship. It was five past six, which meant the news had already started. She rushed to turn on the fragile, duct-tape-bound radio and turned it on.

Her unusual actions drew the attention of every mutant in the room, who curiously walked closer to the frizzled Kitty and a somber Kurt, standing in front of a radio spouting what seemed to be another long speech of anti-mutant propaganda.

The murmurs in the room were getting louder and louder, to the point it was hard to hear the words of a self-righteous military man who was spitting vitriol about their kind. Annoyed, Kitty tried to turn the volume to its maximum capability... the radio was too much of a mess, though, and instead of getting it louder there, she accidentally put the news on every speaker of the ship.

It was moments later, as the tale of one Daniel Fenton, alias Daniel Williams, was told on the speakers, that the mutants' perceptions of the warehouse incident were shattered forever.

Here's a new chapter. How do you like it, readers? Please write a review telling me what you think! With the addition of this chapter, this story is officially the length of a novel (50,000 words). A novel! I never realized it would get this long when the idea was first beginning to form for this story! Have the 50,000 words in it been worth the reading so far?

-MiaulinK