Chapter 5: The Reunion & The Revelations

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Shalimar knocked on Hope's bedroom door and asked, "Hope, are you ready to go?"

"Yeah, almost- come on in," came the reply from within. The blonde went in and saw the red-head rummaging through one of her drawers. Looking up, Hope said, "Shal, do you have any idea where I may have put my ATM card? I've looked all over the room and I can't find it anywhere!" She then continued her quest throughout her drawers.

Her friend didn't have supersonic abilities for nothing. Focusing her energy on finding the missing piece of plastic, her eyes turned light yellow as she looked around the room. Spotting a rectangular shape item in Hope's wallet, which she prefered to carry around inside her draw-string purse, Shalimar said, "Have you checked your wallet? I think it may be in there."

Walking over to the makeup-laden bag, Hope searched until she found the wallet and, sure enough, the card was in one of the slots. With a sigh of relief escaping her lips, she said, "Thanks- you're a life-saver!" Returning the wallet and the card into the purse, closing it up, and swinging it's straps across her shoulders, she nodded with satisfaction. "Now I'm ready to go!"

"Great! Let's hit the road, then! Lexa's waiting for us at Double Helix- I hope you don't mind me asking her to come with us." Shalimar said, a touch of anxiety in her voice.

Clicking her tongue, Hope said, "Shame, shame! I thought we agreed to not worry about anything anymore! She's a girl, too, and she obviously has the shopping gene, just like we do, so I don't mind her coming. Now there is only one thing that we hafta worry about, Shal- not overloading Double Helix with so much stuff!" Both Shalimar and Hope laughed as they went down to meet with Lexa.

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Aurora, who was at the mall before the three younger women arrived, walked over to her favorite Italian restaurant booth and ordered a plate of spagetti. 'Surely by now,' she thought as she sat down and took her first bite, 'she should be here. What is taking her so long?' Just as the thought finished, she spotted three girls walking through the food court to the Chicken Shoppe, a booth that Hope visited every time she went to the mall. Between the blonde and the brunette, she saw her red-headed target, who, oblivious to the eyes that watched her, was reading her latest copy of Moon Girl manga book.

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"Welcome to the Chicken Shoppe- may I take your order?" the girl behind the counter said in a slightly mechanical voice.

Peeking over her book, Hope said sweetly, "That depends, C.V.- does the menu include a smile from the employee?"

With a gleeful gasp, the raven-haired girl exclaimed, "Hope! I didn't know you were here!"

"C'mon, C.V.- I'm always here on Fridays, and you tell me this?" Hope's eyes glittered with mischief.

Now smiling, C.V. returned to her main question, but in a more pleasant voice. "Well, now I know. You want the usual, right?"

"You got it, girl. Same price?"

"Ah, let me check..." her friend said as she calculated the price on the register. Then, with that figured out, she said, "Yup- the exact amount as usual."

As Hope counted out the money to pay for her meal, the blonde woman with her looked around, sensing eyes on she and her two friends. Scanning the croud carefully with her supersonic vision, her own eyes landed on a woman who seemed to have an older version of Hope's figure. The woman, who had silvery white hair, was looking intentedly at the red-haired girl. Usually Shalimar, the blonde one, had the creeps whenever someone was watching either her or her friends, but there was something about this woman that was longing for something or someone.

"Oh, Shal!" called Hope in a sing- song voice. "Earth to Shalimar Fox!"

"Hmm?" Shaking her head, Shalimar returned to normality. "Sorry, Hope- I thought I felt someone's eyes watching you, so I had to search for them."

"Find anything?" Now Hope felt the eyes on her, but she curiously felt more comfort than she did fear.

"Yeah, I did. Do you see that silvery haired lady over there?" she replied, cautiously pointing to where the strange woman sat.

Squinting for a second, the younger one looked over to where Shalimar had pointed. Then, the next moment, Hope caught her breath when she saw the woman and whispered in a slightly hoarse voice, "That woman! She looks- she looks exactly like- my mother! But- how could that be?! I- I- I saw her die with my own eyes! I must be going crazy from my grief over her!" Then, more resolutedly, she said, "But I need to know for certain if I'm dreaming or not!" Holding her head high, despite the fact that her knees were quaking, she walked over to the table where the woman sat.

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The red-haired girl, her two friends in tow, was coming her way. Aurora decided to carefully lead them into a safer place, somewhere that they could see each other face to face. Getting up from her table and depositing the paper goods in the trash and tray in its place, she sauntered through the croud, weaving slowly enough to be seen and to avoid suspicion, finally going into one of the clothing stores.

Sure enough, the three girls followed her, and she manouvered her way into the women's outfit department. Again, the threesome followed her lead, but this time, instead of moving into another area, Aurora stopped. Turning to face them, she whispered to the red-head, although the other two heard also, "It's been a while, hasn't it, Hope?"

Needing more assurance, Hope slowly approached the older woman. As she did, Aurora held out one hand, palm up, and, as soon as one of the girl's hands landed in it, she placed the other on top. At that, all confusion and doubt left Hope and, knowing for sure that this was real, she hugged Aurora in an embrace that seemed to say, "Don't ever let me go- ever!"

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Later in the ladies' restroom waiting area, the four ladies were talking in an attempt to get aquainted. "I know I have much explaining to do," Aurora said kindly to Hope, Shalimar, and Lexa. "And I intend to do just that. You see, just a few weeks before I married Mason Eckhart, I was on the verge of suicide. I didn't want to marry him, but because of his control freak attitude, I was forced to go ahead with it.

"Adam, who was an associate of Eckhart's at the time, tried to encourage me to fight back." She smiled at the mention of Adam's name. "He almost convinced me to, but while we were talking, we found out that we loved each other. Only it was not in the way that we really should have- we both released all logical resolve and gave ourselves away to each other. It was both a miracle and a curse for us.

"The miracle was that you were born, Hope. The curse was that Eckhart found out our secret and is going to try to kill Adam in the same way that he almost killed me. Most likely he's being used as bait to catch you, and then Eckhart will kill you after you watch your biological father die, using the same method! The only reason that I escaped from death was that I am sort of a mutant. I have the ability to make myself look different from what I really am- an illusionist, I suppose.

"I waited until the Vampire, the machine, that is, had drained me of all except two pints of my blood, colapsed the vein the transference tube was in, and slowed my heartbeat to an undetectable rate, tricking the heart monotor into basically saying that I was dead. Later, I managed to sneak out of the local morgue and, after a while in hiding, finally returned to a more recognizable state. So, you see, girls, I didn't want Hope to think I was dead, but there was really no other alternative."

Hope, who had been quietly listening up until now, looked over at Shalimar and asked, "Should I tell her my secret?" Her friend nodded and she then asked Lexa the same question. With both in agreement, she looked at her mother and said, in a slightly insecure tone, "I'll understand if you reject me when I tell you this, but I probably won't understand why to begin with." 'Here it goes', she thought. 'I hope this works out.' Then, taking a deep breath, she said in a rush, "Mother, I'm a mutant that can make earthquakes occur."

For a moment, Aurora was silent, but there was a loving smile on her face. "I know, dear."

Hope's jaw dropped as she said, "What?"

Nodding at her, the older woman said, "I've known since you were a baby that you could do that. You see, sweetie, whenever you needed something and weren't getting it, you cried out in anger, like normal babies do. But it wasn't your crying that got my attention each time. Whenever you'd cry, if you were ignored, you would get angry and that would always start shaking the ground. At first, I thought nothing of it; I figured that it was only an aftershock from any earthquake that might have hit. What made me realize the truth was that one day, when you had hit the terrible twos, so to speak.

"I was picking up your building blocks, knowing that it was way past your bedtime, while you were still playing with them. Well, you started screaming and crying, and I scolded you, but it only grew louder. Suddenly, as I was about to pick you up and take you to your room, the floor started to shake, which I knew was unusual. The shaking grew stronger at the same time that your screams were, and that is when I realized that the earthquakes weren't from any aftershocks- it was your anger that created them!"

Temporarily silent, Hope was stunned, so, when she did find her voice, she said, "So you knew this all along? Why didn't you tell me in the first place?"

"I think you know why, sweetheart- if Eckhart knew that you were the one that was causing the quakes, he would have used you for research and, after he was finished, he would kill you. I didn't say anything to either of you because I didn't want anything to happen to you. Do you understand, Hope? You are my daughter and I love you too much to let Eckhart, to let anyone use you for personal gain." By now, tears were running down Hope's cheeks, and Aurora was holding her face, gently wiping them away. "I didn't want either you or your biological father to suffer by my 'death', but I didn't want either of you to die on my account." Then, looking sadly down at the floor, she said, "It looks as though my strategy isn't going to work now, though."

Speaking up at last, Shalimar said, "Who says so, Ms. Landos- you or Eckhart? With both you and Hope to help us at Mutant X, your plan might just work after all!"

"And," Lexa pointed out, "Hope is already giving the gang some great ideas to start off with. Do you really think, Ms. Landos, that any of us will give up finding Adam for the sake of giving Eckhart his own stupid way?"

To finish, Hope finally told her, "I may know a lot of things about science and technology, mother, but I also know this- I am not Mason Eckhart's daughter, but I am Adam Kane's. So if Eckhart thinks he can get away with killing anyone, be it you, Adam, myself, or anyone else at Mutant X, he is so mistaken!"

How mistaken he was, only those of Mutant X, which now included Aurora Landos, would learn later down the road.