There is an old adage that says that bad things always happen at night. There was some truth in it, for any psychologist could tell you that there was something about darnkess that brought out the worst in people. Some truth, though. Jubilation Lee had always taken that particualr bit of folklore with a large grain of salt. Bad things happened all the time, whether in the light of the full moon or the bright, merciless noonday sun.

For example, it had been a bright October afternoon when she had returned from school to see her parents lying in their own blood, staining the thick carpeting of their Beverly Hills condo. It was the end of what the weather man had called an Indian summer, and the sun had been hot enough to draw tiny beads of sweat on the social worker's forehead and send it dripping down both chins to stain his shirt. She had watched in fasicnation as the fabric darkened with each drop.

This time, though, it was early in the morning when something had awakened her. She lay still and let her senses extend fully, her mind racing, though if anyone had seen her she would have looked asleep. It was a strange habit, but she had learned it and it had saved her life more than once. Her ears told the most. The barely perceptible hum of the security grid was gone, replaced metal-toed footsteps and the sound of something sliding along a rope.

In one swift movement she was out of bed and across the room, holding her breath as she listened for any sounds from the hallway. Between heartbeats she had opened the door and slipped out, her bare feet silent on the smooth hardwood floors. Her journey along the hallway was that of prey, cautiously swift, utterly soundless. She stayed as much as possible in the shadows of the walls, taking refuge in the alcoves housing semi-precious art and sculpture on pedastools. Semi-precious since the time Boddy Drake had covered the entire second floor with a sheet of ice as a prank and Peter Rasputin had slid the length of the building like a big wrecking ball.

She had reached the first of the concealed doors that accessed the tunnels when Tracy Cassidy's scream shattered the silence. Because this was Tracy Cassidy, nickname Siryn, her scream also rattled every pane of glass framing the paintings hung in the hallway. Fighting the urge to cover her ears, Jubilee had the door open and was two steps inside when Tracy stopped screaming, probably because she had run out of breath. Into that sudden vaccuum of sound chaos let loose a polyphany of noise. The other kids took up where Tracy left off, screaming and shouting and running everywhere. In counterpoint to that was the tympanic drumbeat of stun grenades and the rat-tat-tat of machine guns from the ground floor.

Jubilee was reaching for the door to pull shut behind her when she saw Kitty Pryde run through up the hallway. Literally run through, blonde ponytail streaming. In her wake came more screaming and shouting as the invaders lost what remained of the element of surprise. Jubilee looked over her shoulder down the tunnel as she shut the door closed behind her, allowing herself one heavy sigh.

She had gotten around the corner of the hall when she got her first look at the invaders. Black from head to toe, with his face blackened by camo paint and wool hat over his night-vision goggles, everything about him screaming military from his fatigues to the matte-black Heckler & Koch MP5 strapped to his side. She was on him before he could level the dart gun he carried at her. With the agility of a panther she kicked the gun aside.

He was momentarily stunned into paralysis. Their briefing had focused on the known adults expected to be here, and while they had been warned about the children, he hadn't really expected to encounter any serious resistance from any of them. Little, kids, he reasoned, were going to be terrified and cry, even little mutant kids. That this small, Asian girl was not the least bit intimidated by him came as a complete surprise. Before he could recover from his shock, she had planted one tiny, dainty foot on his solarplexus hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. Gasping, stumbling back, he never saw the stone statue she held come crashing down on his head. As the ground rose up to meet him, the last glance he had of her was the eyes, startlingly blue, gazing at him, the windows to a much older soul than the body declared.

Dropping the statue as she crept foward, Jubilee crept foward as she came closer to the stairwell. A crash from above signified the destruction of the bay window and skylights on the third floor. Another crash, this one harder to identify. It was like the Easter egg hunts she had gone to as a child, she thought. Every time she rounded a corner, she found a kid. Sometimes they were crouched in alcoves. A couple were under beds or dressers. She even found the Doyle twins hiding in a bath tub. She had no basket to put them in, but they followed her all the same. Sounds of pursuit told her that her original escape route was now inaccesible. Up the stairs they went.

"Jubilee!" The shout came from her left. She turned to see Peter Rasputin with his own frightened gaggle, Siryn unconscious in his arms. His skin gleamed in the strobing lights of the helicopters circling.

"That way's no good," she shouted in return, the words punctuated by gunfire from below. "Try the next wing over." She pushed the least terrified looking of her charges towards him. "Go." He nodded once and ran out, ushering the wailing brats before him. From the opposite end of the hall came a grenade blast and broken glasss richoched off the doorway. Shoving the slower children along, she retreated even as laser targets flashed on the walls outside the doorway. "Run, morons!" The remaining kids looked at her and cowered even as they pumped their legs faster.

Like sharks attacking a school of baitfish, they entered the hall. She heard the blast even as she felt the taser wires hit her back. She almost grinned. The nature of her particular powers had a lot to do with electricity, and if she had the tendency to fry her CD player on a regular basis, it also meant that the taser gun was practically ineffective. The look of surprise on the trooper's face was priceless as she not only didn't fall, but pivoted on one foot, dropped into a crouch and sent a jolt of electricity from her right arm. It travelled through the air, hitting him with all the impact of a semi, hurling him back against the wall so hard he left an indent of his body deep enough to hold him upright.

She heard, too late, the sound of a dart gun coming from the darkness, fired by another trooper under cover. Muscles suddenly soft, joints loose, she crumpled to the floor even as she pulled the dart from her arm and threw it with all her remaining strength at the trooper. As grew roses blosomed on the edges of her vision, she fixed her gaze on the still inert man embedded on the wall.

Author's note- yeah, I know I took some liberty with her powers, but that's how they were handled in the novelization, so I figured no one would mind. The movies have so many other things switched around, anyways.