Author's note: This chapter is short and somewhat duller than the others. >_< But I had to write in some kind of break from the action. Please review this story! I really am enjoying it and would like to have some affirmation that others enjoy this story too!
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Slowly, the sun came up over the mansion, lighting the sky a momentary blood red. Amit was the only soul up, a great massive figure lying against a tree, bare-chested, with his great muscles rippling. He'd come out there every morning watching the crimson swirl together with the violet and rose dusk. Something about it was reflective, let out the tension.
Sometimes he just wanted to tear it all to shreds. The stupid professor with his research that cost them all little lives...those little lives too. They had no idea how to fend for themselves. Not even some of the older ones, like Tyler and Sabine, truly knew what they were dealing with. They were a good three years younger than he. Little did they know what they were dealing with. Sure you could read books about children saving the world from evil, and destruction. Even Sabine, who lived so far away from the world of fairy tales in which those heroic stories belong in, still believed deep in her heart that they would succeed. He had seen the fear in her eyes on the bridge. The need she had to live. He knew that she was like the rest of them, so fragile like a china doll. Nope, not one of them knew what they had done when they had agreed to live the legacy their parents had left them. He had been twelve at the time, but even then he understood what the professor had been doing. Give nine-year-olds stories out of comic books and movies with great heroes and dastardly, often terrifying villains, and you will see their imaginations come alive. They wanted to save the world.
So he wanted to rip it apart. Sometimes he wondered why he even fought anymore. Someday the hunters would find the mansion and kill them all, then what had they accomplished? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! He had been there nearly since the beginning, and still felt that nothing had been done. He could recite several hunter attack formations. He understood part of the mutation process that created the hounds. He had discovered the way the sunglass visors that the hunters always wore worked. But what did this do? So they understood the enemy, but how did it truly help them? Had any attempts ever been made to save any of the mutants? And did the professor truly care about those who were trapped or did he just want to learn about how the hunters caught them?
That fragile little nine-year-old girl-what had been her name-Tara? No...Tamara...she cracked so easily. She had no chance. Not one chance, be it in heaven or hell. Little muscle, tiny bones that could snap like twigs...did she really deserve to die like that? For a flamn' hound. A damn hound! How could the professor send an amateur team out to deal with hounds?
It was times like that when he realized why he still fought, it was for the tiny porcelain dolls he worked with. He couldn't let them go out and break their necks. Though some of them had great promise and were amazing in combat, they needed someone who had grown into maturity to fight with them. Someone who had developed physically and mentally. They needed him, and lord knew, he needed them. Sure, he hated that hell-hole of a mansion. He felt like a baby-sitter sometimes. No true company, feminine, or otherwise. The only girl he could possibly get anywhere with was Sabine-but even she was too young, too vulnerable, and too inexperienced. He couldn't take advantage of her. Yet, he loved her, in his own brotherly way. But he needed them. He did need them. He needed their optimism. He needed their friendship. He needed their respect. Sometimes, he had to admit, he needed their skill. They kept him alive just as much as they kept him alive.
The sun was coming up quickly now, morning awakening in all its glory. One again, Amit's doubts were at rest. He'd stay. He'd stay for Tyler who took himself and his position way too seriously. He'd stay for Sabine who did not know quite what she wanted most. He'd stay for Alyce who attached herself to people so easily, that she was so easy to break. He'd stay for Hannah, who looked up to him in all respects. He'd stay for Mike, who was way too young to be fighting, and needed someone to give him the courage just to continue. He'd stay for them. He only wished that he could be as strong about it as his dad had been.
***
Reaching down into their special case, Sabine delicately placed the contact lens in her eye, relieved to be going outside of the mansion on her day off. The contact lens' she wore were special, developed for her by the professor. They made her eyes look like a typical white pigment with vibrant, yet natural-looking, green irises. He said they made her look like a copper-haired version of her mother; a comment which annoyed Sabine immensely. Although she remembered her mom as gorgeous, she didn't want to be connected with her past that hurt so much to remember because she longed to return to it. Despite that one annoyance, the contact lenses were a blessing. They gave her the freedom to mingle with the normal folk. The teens who did not have to live in constant terror. She wondered what it felt like: not to wake up thankful that she was still alive. To take freedom for granted. How nice it must be. After placing the other lens in, she carefully smoothed down her loose curls, her red t-shirt with a leaping flame screen print across the bottom, and her short, black skirt that looked like a thousand black patches sewn together, in a manner that was neat yet funky. Then, she turned on the heel of her black boots and opened the door, to find Hannah waiting outside for her.
The girl tossed her brown hair back over her shoulder. "Are you going with Alyce and I to town?" she asked.
"Mais Oui! Ah'd do anything to get out of dis blasted place!"
"I don't blame you," Alyce's voice called out, as the girl walked down the hall, "after yesterday, all I've wanted to do was get away!" Her hair was blond that day, as in these troubled times, even died hair could make you under suspicion for being a mutant.
"Totally," Hannah agreed, " oh yeah, I've talked Amit into driving us."
"Ah don' know how you do it, Hannah! Ah don' know how you do it!" Reaching for her khaki-colored purse with camouflage trim, Sabine followed the other two down the hall to meet Amit, who would be out in the front by that one old tree, as usual.
Three hours later, the three girls sat together, daintly slurping delicious noodle soups using chopsticks and special spoons, at a trendy Asian noodle bar in the city. Glasses of Thai iced tea, which was sweet black tea with a splash of cream, sat besides their plates, already half drank, with careful restrain to keep from downing the entire glass cool, smooth liquid.
They stared at another group of girls talking about guys and school - typical, everyday girl conversation. All three of them, Sabine, Alyce and Hannah, could not help but feel a wave of jealousy. Those girls over there had been untouched by the terrible tracking act in 2015. They got to enjoy simple pleasures, such as their parents keeping careful vigil over them, and then complained about it. Ah! If only.
It was nearly funny, while mutants lived through a holocaust-like nightmare, humans continued their everyday lives, barely even realizing the existence of the hunters or hounds. When they were brought up in conversation it was always as "the special police" or whatnot. But it was rarely even brought up in the typical human world. "Mutant" had become slang for criminal. It was enough to give Sabine temptation to take out her contact lenses, and Alyce temptation to use her strength in some frightfully shocking way. But they didn't.
After a while, Hannah grew uneasy with the silence of her comrades and broke the ice. "I wonder what sort of technology the professor wants us to test."
"I don't have any desire to try it," Alyce said, "whatever it may be. Something's up with him. Everyone's noticed. Mike came into my room last night - that boy still acts like a little kid sometimes, guess it's because he came here when he was six before he could get too much lavishing from his parents. Anyhow, I was talking to him for a long time, trying to comfort him. The bridge was a terrible experience for all of us, even Amit, though he'd never admit it. And Mike said that he thought the professor didn't quite look at him the same way he used. Less compassion, you know what I mean?"
"Ah've noticed it too. The way he talked about mah powers last night. Creepy."
"Yeah...I wonder what's wrong. I know that Viktor's noticed it too. I was talking with him last night. He was asking about you, Sabs."
"Yeah...figures...." Sabine muttered.
"So you've noticed?" Alyce laughed, happy to be able to talk about something strangely normal.
"It's kinda hard not to, non? De way he's always lookn' at me. How he always mentions mah name first when he talks about our team. Did ya think Ah was clueless?"
"You don't like him then?" Hannah asked, slightly disappointed.
"Ah don' know. Maybe Ah do, Ah haven't concentrated too much on anything of the kind . But honestly, Ah don' think he's mah type. 'Sides too many other guys here have looked at me like dat! Ah'm the eldest girl here, an' certain things come along wit it. When Amit was a little younger, he used to look at me like that too. It's because there's a lack of girls the proper age. You'll be gettn' those looks pretty soon too, Ah'd be willn' to bet."
"Aw...you're no fun," Hannah whined.
"Well, Ah mean, Ah've looked at all the guys, but never thought seriously about it. Ah'm not dat much of a prude."
"Well, with the way you flirt with all them, dear, no one's calling you a prude," Alyce noted.
"Ah'm no worse than you! An' Ah really don' flirt, Ah mean, when do Ah have time? Mon Dieu! How typical we sound!"
"It's nice, isn't it?" Hannah remarked.
"Yes, it is nice," Alyce agreed, sipping her tea.
"One day to ourselves," Sabine sighed dreamily, "It would be perfect if Ah could forget about yesterday."
"The poor girl. She didn't have a chance," Alyce whispered.
"Ah had talked to her the night before...She had a nightmare about being attacked by hounds. An' Ah told her a story...an' then she went to sleep. First time Ah'd really talked to her. Known her by name, but Ah never had spoken with her before. Seemed a sweet girl..."
"Why was she sent out at all?" Hannah sighed, "Her leg hadn't even healed yet."
"Who knows," Alyce whispered, "but that's precisely the reason why I don't want to go out tomorrow!"
***
They were gathered in front of the professor once more, now more fidgety and nervous than ever. Who knew what kind of mission they'd be sent on this time? A mechanical arm reached over to a lab table, picked up six black objects which looked similar to thin beepers from the twentieth century, and placed them in front of the six Neo-X-Men.
"These, my X-Men, are cloaking devices. They mask your appearance so that you blend in with the background," Professor X explained.
"Cool! Like the one on Batman Beyond!" Mike exclaimed.
"Well, yes, I suppose..." The professor said.
"You must have a pretty dangerous mission in mind if you want us to test those out," Alyce said, a slight hint of disapproval.
"Yes. It seems that the hunters are looking for all the mutants whose records they've lost track of. In other words, any of you who had a chip implant."
"And?" Tyler questioned.
"This sudden interest in all of you intrigues me. They could have looked for the lost mutants years ago, yet suddenly they just decide to crack down. Something is wrong. I want to be able to get as close to them as possible to figure out their plans. Perhaps even figure out a translation system for prowl gab! And I want all of you to go out to the old, abandoned back on Rikston Street and test them out before I send any team with them out on anything more dangerous."
"Simple as that?" Tyler asked.
"Yes. Simple as that."
Tyler was relieved, "Well that should be easy!"
"I don't like it," Amit growled when he was well out of hearing reach, "It's too easy. Two days ago a routine rescue mission turned deadly."
"Ah don' like it either," Sabine agreed, "An' Ah've got a bad feeling about this."
"What do you mean, Sabine?" Tyler asked, accustomed to being the one with premonitions.
"Ah mean dat Ah don' like this whole idea. Cloaking devices! Dat's an awfully complicated tactic we've never used before!"
"Aww...Sabs! Don't be so paranoid! It's a routine mission, and if they don't work, the bank is nothing we can't get ourselves out of!"
Alyce shook her head, "I got to agree with Sabine. Something is not right! But oh well. We might as well just get this over with!"
The team rushed to the blackbird, ready for the seemingly simple mission that lay before them.
