An: Tee-hee! I used "bamf!" in the last chapter.

Kurt felt arms circle him, partially dislodging the blindfold. There was a familiar sound, and then feeling, and when the background noises changed, he could only face one thing: there was another like him. The blindfold slipped down around his neck as he stared at the young blue-skinned woman who coughed, waving at the smoke that surrounded them. "Distort--" she coughed for some reason, and a wind of fresh air blew the sulfurous smoke away. Settling her lungs, she smiled at Kurt, a smile that was merely an upward quirk of one corner of her mouth, but nonetheless reached her eyes. "Does that happen every time?" she asked.

He felt his mouth drop open. She was exactly like him, right down to the pointed teeth. She glanced down at herself, as if examining her body for the first time. She flicked the blue, pointed tail with satisfaction, and then sent it down one pocket of her jeans. It came back up with a knife, which was sent slicing through the bonds on his hands in seconds. He rubbed his wrists as the knife was tossed to her hand and put away in the hidden leg sheath. "Shall I take that as a yes?" she joked.

"Who are you?" It was the only thing he could think of. How had he not known that there was another?

Her eyes---yellow! Like his!---filled with consternation. "My name is Laurel DuCrais. Also known as Xerox." She turned slightly to one of the two people behind her, and held out a hand. The other young woman started to walk forward, until the one who had just introduced herself as Laurel put a hand to her head. "Sybil," she said in a voice that was half warning, and half pleading, as Kurt stared with fascination at her eyes. They had gone from yellow, like his, to pure green, flickering back and forth undecidedly and erratically.

"Sorry," replied the young black woman. She tossed whatever was in her hand to Laurel, who caught it without even looking. This was because she had her eyes fixed with Kurt's the entire time. A sort of wash and shiver went over her body, and the hand that grasped the stone split into five normal fingers again, and turned a normal tan skin tone. The change went up her body, shifting blue skin to pink and Kurt watched as the tail was practically sucked back into her body as her ears shrunk and teeth shortened. Then, suddenly, all at once, there was a different person sitting there. A young woman probably only about nineteen or twenty, with shoulder-length auburn hair and clear ice-blue eyes stood in front of him. She was rather short, a little over five foot, he guessed, and was looking at him with solemn eyes.

"I'm not really blue," she said quietly as he tried to fathom what was going on. "They call me Xerox because I copy other people's mutations. I really can't help it." Her eyes pleaded for his understanding.

"Kurt Wagner," he said, drooping a little. If she wasn't really like him, then she wouldn't really have a way of making him look like everyone else. That's what he thought she was doing when the skin changed color. He glanced at the other two behind her. A young African woman, who looked younger than Laurel in front of him, almost a teenager, and a slim Asian man about the same age both looked back calmly. They were not without strange points themselves: the black woman had the green eyes he noticed, and the other young man had two long streaks of blue in his black hair that moved constantly in the wind. Except there was no wind right now. "They also call me Nightcrawler."

"This is the Sybil, also known as Janelle Mestiph, and Distort, also known as Morshiko Kansi." Laurel indicated the two behind her.

Kurt ducked his head in greeting. "Ah, thank you," he said, sending a wary look at the two. "I don't know what would have happened if-"

"We know," said the one called Distort in heavily accented German. "You die."

Laurel shot him an unreadable glance. "Both of them are in the midst of learning German," she said to Kurt, which was not an explanation and was not offered as one. "Do you speak English?"

He shook his head. "I know French and Swedish, and a bit of Latin. But only those."

She grimaced. "I hope you won't object to learning English. It's just about the only language we have in common right now. Sybil knows Swahili and Distort speaks Japanese."

"I don't---" but he was cut off as a commotion was heard behind them. They spun around just in time to face some members of the mob, who had gone in search of their prey.

Laurel cursed. She glanced at Distort and said something in English. The other man nodded, and made a motion with his hands. Then the Sybil hopped on the motorcycle and he climbed up behind her. Laurel straddled the one closest to her and held out a hand to Kurt. "It's time to leave town," she said. "Get on."

He glanced back at the approaching mob and thought of his "family". "The circus---"

The Sybil shouted something at Laurel. She nodded, and looked back at him. "They'll leave tomorrow and you can catch up with them in the next town on your tour," she said. Then she thrust out her hand again, impatiently. Hesitantly he took it, and the bike roared to life. They sped out of the courtyard and down the highway, leaving the mob far behind.

Laurel felt Kurt clinging to her back, his odd-fingered hands wrapped around her waist. She glanced down and saw his tail tightly wound around his leg. They hadn't gotten very far when a gust of wind blew up next to them. Feeling Distort use his talent, she threw a quick look to her left and grinned at the bag and helmets flying next to her. Up ahead Distort and Sybil had their luggage flying next to them, too. He released one hand from around the Sybil's tight waist and snagged the flying bags. Slinging one on his back and shoving the other one behind him on the seat, he took the single helmet and passed the other one to the girl in front of him, taking the handlebars as she put it on.

Laurel extended past her failsafe and felt a tail slowly grow from her tailbone. It also reached out and grabbed the backpack and a helmet. It handed the backpack to Kurt behind her, and she could sense the man's surprise. But he was game, and he put it on his own back. She then handed the helmet to him, and reached for the other one to put it on. The tail certainly was handy. Relaxing, she let the guarding stone protect her from the other mutations again. She looked up ahead. Distort's hair had stopped moving, which meant he had made himself a helmet out of the air around him. She had complete faith that he had enough control over his mutation not to get hurt if the bike wrecked. Sybil would probably warn him anyway, she thought with amusement.

She just let the air whip past her for awhile, clearing her mind as she relaxed. Surprisingly she found herself "eavesdropping" on the man behind her, as his thoughts intruded in her own. So she carefully reached out and tapped lightly in his mind.

His thoughts were whirling with confusion and pain. Foremost was his pain at the betrayal of his circus compatriot. Laurel felt him trying to forgive and understand, and sent her a shock. This man had just tried to kill him, and Kurt was going to forgive? She looked a bit deeper. There it was: Kurt was deeply religious. She admired that. He started to pray silently. She caught some of it: "Lord, help me to find forgiveness in my soul for the ones who do not understand… and help me understand those that have come to my rescue..." She glanced at his thoughts about them. His dismay at the fact that she really wasn't like him, his curiosity at the others, a secret fear that they would harm him as well. It was the last that made her speak.

"We're not going to hurt you. We're all mutants, you know," she said, sending her voice right into his mind. She felt him flinch in surprise. "This is part of my mutation," she added. "I'm slightly telepathic. I'm not strong enough to do anything over great distances, but I can speak like this when we're riding." She sent amusement. "It's easier than talking through these helmets."

"What is your mutation?" he asked. His words were slightly unclear, like he was talking through water.

"Focus your thoughts," she said. "Aim them like a stream of air to me."

"Like this?" he said, a little loudly.

"Quieter," she replied, wincing. "I'm actually a second-generation mutant," she went on. "So I've got both my parents' mutations in a slight degree. My mother was telepathic and had a little telekenisis. It actually runs in the family---I've got a younger cousin who's got them in much more strength than I do. My father had some control over liquid things. My main mutation is that I copy the ones of those around me. I can only control about one at a time, and more than that, especially if they have conflicting points, like your and Sibyl's eyes, gives me a hard time."

"A hard time?" he questioned.

"At one point I was exposed to about ten mutants at a time," she said. "I nearly went crazy." She had to keep herself from remembering this, but even so she knew he got a mental glimpse of what it was like. "I have this guarding stone to help me form a barrier between the other mutants and myself. When I'm wearing it it's like a few layers of thin steel between me and the world. As yet I can only be around a limited number of mutants at a time. Otherwise my failsafe is destroyed." She thought of one time where the stone had collapsed into powder around her neck. "There's another side to my mutation, too. A darker side. When a mutant dies around me, I absorb their mutations, and I can't get rid of them. It becomes another part of me."

"Oh," he said. "Is that part of the reason you saved me?" he asked after a while. "If the mob had killed me, you would have absorbed my mutation forever?"

"Of course not," she said sharply. "Should that be the only reason we saved you? We did it because you certainly didn't deserve it, you were being led into a trap by bigots, and we could do something about it."

Kurt fell silent, and she could feel him thinking about it. "Thank you," he finally said quietly.

"You're welcome."

They traveled in silence down the highway. Eventually as the sky grew darker they passed a small town, and Distort sent Laurel a message that they were ready to stop for the night. They ended up in a hostel for the night. Laurel nodded at the caretaker when they entered. She knew this place.