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When Mirage woke up, she felt an amazing, almost unbearable pain in her mind. The first thing she did was check to be sure that the walls she had built around her mind was still stable. She was greatly relieved to find that it was all in order, all the memories her mind had absorbed were still contained.
Once she had determined the state of her mind, she began to analyze the state of her body. She felt the pain from where rings had kept her in Magneto's power for as long as she could remember. She lifted her hand to look at her wrists, they had been cut badly, but they were bandaged carefully. She knew that it had been Jean who had taken care of her, she knew that was what Jean did, but she didn't know what else.
She began to examine her surroundings. She was in a room that had strangely ice blue walls. Everything was bare. All that was in the room were Jean's medical supplies and the screens and wires for monitoring her condition. She began removing the wires and then she stood up.
Standing up was a mistake; she immediately sat back down.
Welcome back to the world of the living!
She cringed at the sound of the male voice in her head. How long have I been. absent?
About three days, I think. That's about how long it takes you to gather that much energy without directly touching anyone.
Well, at least I know I didn't touch anyone. I think my blocks all stayed up all right.
You shouldn't have fought the way you did. You should have just fought for yourself, let the X-men handle their own.
I couldn't.
Why?
I don't know why. I just couldn't. They were my friends once. But I still can't remember anything about them. For some reason, I think the key to my memory is here.
Are you sure you're alright?
Not completely.
I'll be there soon.
Okay.
She was glad he was coming. She wasn't sure where he was, but she missed him. She knew she needed him.
She tried again to get up. This time she managed to do it with only a little bit of spinning in her mind. She shook off the unbalance and began moving towards where she felt the X-Men would be. She didn't know what she needed to learn, but she knew there was something in this place that would help her. ************************************************************************
In the meeting room, the X-Men were gathered to discuss the identity and the powers of the strange woman who had helped them a few days ago in their fight against Magneto.
"We can't seem to determine exactly what her powers are, and I can't find her name either. All we know really is that for some reason she was able to touch Rogue's bare skin, without being effected. Other than that, I can't find anything, somehow she's blocked me out of her mind, the block is so powerful that I can't break it down even when she's unconscious" Jean's frusteration with her inability to come up with any information about this strange woman was apparent. None of the rest of the team blamed her.
"The blocks are even too strong for me to break down. I did not try them with cerebro, due to my fear that she set her blocks to be that strong for a reason. Something very dangerous could be inside" the professor's response created shock among those in the room. This woman must have amazing power in order to be able to keep the professor out of her mind.
"Something tells me that perhaps this woman is why Rogue was returned to us. If that is the case, then it is quite possible that she could help us get her back again." Mirage entered the room quickly, and angrily. "You lost her? Again? Maybe I should have just given her back to Magneto the first time, it could have saved us all some trouble." "Now, wait a minute." Cyclops was quick to rush to the defense of the group, but Mirage wasn't about to hear what he had to say. "No, you don't know what he wants with her! We have to get her back NOW!" Mirage almost felt panicked, this girl was so much like she had been, she couldn't let her become what she became. "Look, we'll get her back. Why are you so concerned anyway?" Scott was just being defensive at this point. "We have to think about this, we don't know where Magneto is, or what his plan is. For that matter, we don't even know who you are, or what you're up to." "You want to know what I'm up to! Okay, how about this, I'm trying to keep an innocent girl, who happens to have a very distructive, and probably quite useful power, from becoming what I became. She can't become like me! It's too dangerous. It'll destroy her, it destroyed me." Mirage hadn't thought of what she was saying until it was out of her mouth. Her argument had a drastic effect though, all the others in the room remained silent.
"Who are you?" Jean was the first to speak.
"I don't know." Mirage spoke quietly, but the rest of the group seemed to understand her comment. Logan, she felt, was immediately sympathetic, but she didn't want sympathy at this point.
"Why don't you know?"
"I forgot" Mirage made it seem as though it were a challenge, to any of them to try to contradict this statement. "What are your powers?" "It depends. What are your powers? The professor's? Scott's? Logan's? Aurora's? Rouge's? The powers of everyone in this school? Those are all my powers." Mirage answered the question, but she was quickly getting tired of this, she felt an urgency that the others didn't seem to have. She knew that they needed Rogue back immediately.
"It sounds like you don't have any weaknesses."
"Okay, my mutation is that I can't make my own energy. I feed off the energy of others, and that's how I survive. Many times the energy I steal is in the form of memories. When I use too much energy using other powers, I don't have enough energy to even keep moving."
"That's why you could touch Rogue without being harmed." Mirage only nodded at this statement. "How can you have both powers? It seems that they should be compatible powers if you have more than one, but yours aren't, do you have any idea how that's possible?" Leave it to Jean to ask the scientific question.
Pain came over Mirage's face, she did know how it was possible. She had worked very hard to retrieve that memory, to answer that question. She couldn't answer it now, not to other people. "I won't answer anymore question! I'm going to get Rogue back." Mirage got up to leave the room. The others tried to stop her, there was more they wanted to know. She left the room, but Logan followed her.
"Wait!"
"No, no more questions." The pain of trying to remember, of not being able to, it was too much right now, she needed to leave, she needed to go somewhere else. She moved quickly, hoping that he would give up and she could throw all her thoughts into getting Rogue back. She needed to focus on something other than what she was, that question was too hard, too draining.
"Just wait a minute. Lily, hold on!"
As Logan grabbed her wrist, and turned her around, both of them were suddenly shocked. He couldn't understand, the name had come so easily, it just seemed as though that was the right thing to call her. Her shock was much the same, it did seem right, it seemed that it was her name, at least one of them. She knew it was not her real name, because she was sure that her real name would unleash her memories from the far past. But this name did seem right.
The others were coming out of the professor's office, but they all stopped when they saw Logan and Mirage looking at each other, shocked. There was complete silence in the hall. Then. suddenly. there was a howl.
Everyone turned toward the front door where the sound had come from.
"What was that?" Jean asked.
"It sounds like." the professor tried to answer, but Mirage finished his sentence with a happy exclaimation.
"Coyote!!" Mirage broke Logan's grasp on her wrist and began running toward the door.
All of the others followed quickly, in order to see what was happening. When they got to the banister they all stopped and watched the scene unfolding.
In the open door sat a peaceful looking Coyote. As they watched, Mirage seemed to fly down the steps, like a little child towards a long lost loved one. As they watched, the Coyote began to change. They watched as the strange animal grew taller, human legs shaped, then a torso. The man's arms and smiling face formed just in time to catch the flying girl who had only a few minutes ago been a strange and angry woman.
Mirage hugged Coyote tightly, it had been a long time since he had been more than a voice in her head.
As Logan watched the exchange he became somewhat jealous, though something told him, in the back of his mind, that he had no reason to be.
When Mirage woke up, she felt an amazing, almost unbearable pain in her mind. The first thing she did was check to be sure that the walls she had built around her mind was still stable. She was greatly relieved to find that it was all in order, all the memories her mind had absorbed were still contained.
Once she had determined the state of her mind, she began to analyze the state of her body. She felt the pain from where rings had kept her in Magneto's power for as long as she could remember. She lifted her hand to look at her wrists, they had been cut badly, but they were bandaged carefully. She knew that it had been Jean who had taken care of her, she knew that was what Jean did, but she didn't know what else.
She began to examine her surroundings. She was in a room that had strangely ice blue walls. Everything was bare. All that was in the room were Jean's medical supplies and the screens and wires for monitoring her condition. She began removing the wires and then she stood up.
Standing up was a mistake; she immediately sat back down.
Welcome back to the world of the living!
She cringed at the sound of the male voice in her head. How long have I been. absent?
About three days, I think. That's about how long it takes you to gather that much energy without directly touching anyone.
Well, at least I know I didn't touch anyone. I think my blocks all stayed up all right.
You shouldn't have fought the way you did. You should have just fought for yourself, let the X-men handle their own.
I couldn't.
Why?
I don't know why. I just couldn't. They were my friends once. But I still can't remember anything about them. For some reason, I think the key to my memory is here.
Are you sure you're alright?
Not completely.
I'll be there soon.
Okay.
She was glad he was coming. She wasn't sure where he was, but she missed him. She knew she needed him.
She tried again to get up. This time she managed to do it with only a little bit of spinning in her mind. She shook off the unbalance and began moving towards where she felt the X-Men would be. She didn't know what she needed to learn, but she knew there was something in this place that would help her. ************************************************************************
In the meeting room, the X-Men were gathered to discuss the identity and the powers of the strange woman who had helped them a few days ago in their fight against Magneto.
"We can't seem to determine exactly what her powers are, and I can't find her name either. All we know really is that for some reason she was able to touch Rogue's bare skin, without being effected. Other than that, I can't find anything, somehow she's blocked me out of her mind, the block is so powerful that I can't break it down even when she's unconscious" Jean's frusteration with her inability to come up with any information about this strange woman was apparent. None of the rest of the team blamed her.
"The blocks are even too strong for me to break down. I did not try them with cerebro, due to my fear that she set her blocks to be that strong for a reason. Something very dangerous could be inside" the professor's response created shock among those in the room. This woman must have amazing power in order to be able to keep the professor out of her mind.
"Something tells me that perhaps this woman is why Rogue was returned to us. If that is the case, then it is quite possible that she could help us get her back again." Mirage entered the room quickly, and angrily. "You lost her? Again? Maybe I should have just given her back to Magneto the first time, it could have saved us all some trouble." "Now, wait a minute." Cyclops was quick to rush to the defense of the group, but Mirage wasn't about to hear what he had to say. "No, you don't know what he wants with her! We have to get her back NOW!" Mirage almost felt panicked, this girl was so much like she had been, she couldn't let her become what she became. "Look, we'll get her back. Why are you so concerned anyway?" Scott was just being defensive at this point. "We have to think about this, we don't know where Magneto is, or what his plan is. For that matter, we don't even know who you are, or what you're up to." "You want to know what I'm up to! Okay, how about this, I'm trying to keep an innocent girl, who happens to have a very distructive, and probably quite useful power, from becoming what I became. She can't become like me! It's too dangerous. It'll destroy her, it destroyed me." Mirage hadn't thought of what she was saying until it was out of her mouth. Her argument had a drastic effect though, all the others in the room remained silent.
"Who are you?" Jean was the first to speak.
"I don't know." Mirage spoke quietly, but the rest of the group seemed to understand her comment. Logan, she felt, was immediately sympathetic, but she didn't want sympathy at this point.
"Why don't you know?"
"I forgot" Mirage made it seem as though it were a challenge, to any of them to try to contradict this statement. "What are your powers?" "It depends. What are your powers? The professor's? Scott's? Logan's? Aurora's? Rouge's? The powers of everyone in this school? Those are all my powers." Mirage answered the question, but she was quickly getting tired of this, she felt an urgency that the others didn't seem to have. She knew that they needed Rogue back immediately.
"It sounds like you don't have any weaknesses."
"Okay, my mutation is that I can't make my own energy. I feed off the energy of others, and that's how I survive. Many times the energy I steal is in the form of memories. When I use too much energy using other powers, I don't have enough energy to even keep moving."
"That's why you could touch Rogue without being harmed." Mirage only nodded at this statement. "How can you have both powers? It seems that they should be compatible powers if you have more than one, but yours aren't, do you have any idea how that's possible?" Leave it to Jean to ask the scientific question.
Pain came over Mirage's face, she did know how it was possible. She had worked very hard to retrieve that memory, to answer that question. She couldn't answer it now, not to other people. "I won't answer anymore question! I'm going to get Rogue back." Mirage got up to leave the room. The others tried to stop her, there was more they wanted to know. She left the room, but Logan followed her.
"Wait!"
"No, no more questions." The pain of trying to remember, of not being able to, it was too much right now, she needed to leave, she needed to go somewhere else. She moved quickly, hoping that he would give up and she could throw all her thoughts into getting Rogue back. She needed to focus on something other than what she was, that question was too hard, too draining.
"Just wait a minute. Lily, hold on!"
As Logan grabbed her wrist, and turned her around, both of them were suddenly shocked. He couldn't understand, the name had come so easily, it just seemed as though that was the right thing to call her. Her shock was much the same, it did seem right, it seemed that it was her name, at least one of them. She knew it was not her real name, because she was sure that her real name would unleash her memories from the far past. But this name did seem right.
The others were coming out of the professor's office, but they all stopped when they saw Logan and Mirage looking at each other, shocked. There was complete silence in the hall. Then. suddenly. there was a howl.
Everyone turned toward the front door where the sound had come from.
"What was that?" Jean asked.
"It sounds like." the professor tried to answer, but Mirage finished his sentence with a happy exclaimation.
"Coyote!!" Mirage broke Logan's grasp on her wrist and began running toward the door.
All of the others followed quickly, in order to see what was happening. When they got to the banister they all stopped and watched the scene unfolding.
In the open door sat a peaceful looking Coyote. As they watched, Mirage seemed to fly down the steps, like a little child towards a long lost loved one. As they watched, the Coyote began to change. They watched as the strange animal grew taller, human legs shaped, then a torso. The man's arms and smiling face formed just in time to catch the flying girl who had only a few minutes ago been a strange and angry woman.
Mirage hugged Coyote tightly, it had been a long time since he had been more than a voice in her head.
As Logan watched the exchange he became somewhat jealous, though something told him, in the back of his mind, that he had no reason to be.