With nowhere to go, her feet took her to the last place she'd felt safe. Raven found herself in that same alleyway she had last seen Michelle. Where she'd last seen those eyes staring at her in the puddle. She knew, if anyone else saw her in this town like this, they'd kill her. If her own parents… Raven was still trembling. It didn't seem to matter what she did, hidden behind the line of full trash cans, she was unable to pull herself back.
She sat there for hours shaking, staring at the blue hands so strangely clear in the dark of the night. Even shock wore off, though, and it was replaced with a cold burning anger.
Her parents… even the shock of them trying to murder her wore off as she sat in the night, staring at the back of her hands. Such an odd shade… so different… so… beautiful. She'd always loved midnight blue.
When something so traumatizing happened… it shook her down to her core and forced her to realize a cold, simple fact.
One, that she was alone and there was no one she could trust. There were no good and and bad people… everyone was bad. She couldn't remember a person besides Michelle who had been otherwise. So why keep believing in lies? She nearly died for those lies.
Two, this was who she was. Raven realized… and she couldn't go back. It was all too unstable to hide completely, wasn't it? People hated mutants, that's all she had ever known, was hatred… and somehow they must have known all along. That must be why she never fit in.
Suddenly, she laughed. Raven laughed at the absurdity of it all. After what she'd just gone through… how was it she felt, relief? What a relief it was to realize that, all the things she felt were wrong with her… they simply boiled down to the fact that she wasn't like her parents or the school kids. That was why she didn't fit in, why she'd loved Michelle so much. Raven was a mutant. One who could apparently turn into other people… her former self, Michelle, her Father….
Her future was uncertain, but she knew who she was now. How ironic! After all these years wishing she was someone else… she could be anyone she wanted to be!
Raven stood up and closed her eyes, breathing in and out as deeply as she could, it was time to get out of here. She felt it this time, her body transforming. She suddenly could see the alley at another height vantage and she wasn't sure who she was. As she stared down at her large hands she came to realize it didn't matter. She could use it, who ever it was, to get out of town without anyone recognizing her.
Raven Darkholme's life was over. Whatever this mysterious power was going to bring her… there was only one thing she was sure of as she left her old town.
Raven was dead, peeled away and shed like an old skin.
Now… now was the time for someone else, someone who could do what she liked, whatever she wanted. Someone not afraid and who would never stood down from here on in. She could grow into this, powerful enough to stop any man, or she could turn into a friend and never be seen.
She could become anything she wanted now.
So maybe she didn't know who she was yet, or who she was going to be. Now she realized that for the first time in her life, there was an exciting mystique about it all.