Dominick Tucker was afraid of the dark. Actually, he was afraid of a great deal of things, but darkness just managed to top the list. Outdoors was bad enough, when he was alone and there were shadows and places for people to hide. Inside was another story. Darkened hallways, black rooms, shadowed corners, all were sufficient to send him into the downward spiral that eventually led to a panic attack. He had spent a great deal of time wondering how he could've developed such an intense fear of something so commonplace, but had never come up with any plausible situations. According to Dominick, and most other people on the planet, fear of the dark was saved for young children, and deranged mental patients living in institutions. But Dominick was neither. He was just a seventeen year old kid, two weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday, who in daylight, could take care of himself reasonably well. He knew how to fight, how to start them and end them, and had been doing both for as long as he could remember. He wasn't a large kid, peaking at maybe five seven, soaking wet he weighed only one hundred seventy pounds. But his body was packed with lean, tight, working muscle that wasn't easily noticed under a few layers of clothes. He knew how to handle himself too, which made a difference when one didn't have size on one's side. But it didn't matter how good he had been at solving his own problems before. He couldn't possibly get himself out of the bind he found himself in without outside assistance.

He sat on a saggy old cot, leaning against a cold cement brick wall with a worn, grey, wool blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders. He was alone; he had been since he'd been thrown into the dark, damp dungeon of a cell he currently found himself in. A stained and cracked toilet stood in the far corner, a sink in equally as good repair was fastened to the wall next to it. Despite his pleas for extra lighting, the cell only contained one bare, exposed lightbulb hung on a two inch chain from the middle of the ceiling. Lighting in this kind of place didn't worry him so much, though. He could even turn off the light to sleep without waking up sweaty and panicking. There wasn't a mirror in the cell, and for that Dominick was greatful. He didn't like to look at images of himself. He knew he was a good looking kid, in the same way that he knew the earth revolves around the sun. Enough people start to tell you something, and eventually you believe it, without ever having seen proof yourself. His light brown hair was longer than he could ever remember it being; he didn't need to look in a mirror to know that. But it wasn't as if barbers were abundant in Riker's Penitentiary. His eyes were bluish grey colour; so non-discript they appeared to change colour depending on the colour he wore. Now, reacting with the dark blue of the prison get-up, they looked washed out, almost void of colour. Much like how Dominick sometimes felt himself.

He was a mutant. At least, that's what he'd been told. He wasn't quite sure yet himself, and he certainly wasn't about to sign anything to that effect. For all he knew, the fire at the Mullocks' house could've been an accident, one of those one time freak calamities that leave everyone's minds boggled. But some how, he knew that it wasn't true. When he'd been standing on the front lawn, staring up at that hateful house, with thousands of horrible memories flitting in and out of his mind, he'd felt the fire. He'd felt it start, and felt it growing as it swept through the first floor, eventually travelling to the second. And then he'd heard that scream...

"Tucker!"

His head shot up even as he was shaking off the chill that came over his body. A prison guard was approaching his cell, swinging his nightstick back and forth in his right hand like a pendulum. In his left hand was the dreaded control box. Barely the size of a Gameboy, it would not be a stretch of the imagination to say that box controlled Dominick's life. Unfortunately for him, he had been arrested at a time when the country's penal system was ill-equiped to deal with felonius mutants. In order to better "control" him, he had been fitted with an experimental mutant supression collar. It was made of heavy metal, and comparable in size to a choker or dog collar. His mutant power was blocked at all times, he could no more light a spark with his fingertips than he could blow the bars off his cell door. Also, with just a push of a button, the collar could deliver a powerful shock designed to render the recipiant helpless and unable to control their motor functions. He had been placed in the heightened security wing; both an id card with a magnetic strip and a four digit pass code were required to gain entrance to his cell. Gone were the days of simple locks and keys.

Dominick immediately stood as the guard stopped in front of the cell door, crossing his hands behind his back. Although he hated giving in to these people, he hated even more the debilitating effects of the shock treatment.

"You got visitors,"the guard barked out, as he busied himself unlocking the door's mechanism.

Dominick's eyebrows nearly disappeared under his hairline. He wanted to ask who would visit a kid like him, but he had learned the day he arrived that the guards don't answer questions. Especially not those asked by "mutie freaks." The swelling in his right eye was just now starting to fade.

Despite the fact that he was quite literally defenseless, the guards all handled him as though he would go off at any minute. Along with the mutant suppression collar, he was hand-cuffed, with a short chain connecting his hands to the cuffs around his ankles. Just in case he decided he wanted to make a run for it.

Most prison visits were conducted outside, in a relatively free range but well fenced in area. Dominick, however, was considered "high risk," and instead was led deeper into the belly of the prison, to a windowless room, about the size his bedroom at the Mullocks' had been, with a conference table and four chairs set up haphazardly around it. Two men were already seated at the table, looking for all the world like they belonged there. The first man, closest to Dominick, smiled warmly at him. He was bald, though by choice or genetics, he couldn't be sure. His eyes were a cool blue, but appeared to house a kindness Dominick rarely saw. He was immediately suspicious. The man was dressed in a well tailored, obviously expensive, navy blue suit with a grey patterned tie. The younger man, sitting farthest from Dominick and his accompanying guard, looked like he stepped out of an eighties sci-fi movie. He wore a kind of visor, that wrapped around the front of his face and covered his eyes with red glass. Dominick could see what looked like a dial of some kind on the left side, just above the guy's ear, but couldn't hazard a guess as to what it was for. He had boring brown hair, and style wize, he could've fit right in with the models for a prep school uniform catalogue.

"You got ten minutes,"the guard said, pushing Dominick down into a chair opposite the two men. "And no funny stuff."

Dominick smirked at the guard's back. He may be a mutant, but he wasn't a magician. There wasn't much that qualified as "funny stuff" that he could accomplish being chained up like he was. He focused his attention on the two men before him, narrowing his eyes slightly as he studied them closely. He couldn't read them as well as he would've liked, Baldy looked genuine, but there really was no telling. And Dominick didn't have a hope of reading One Eye without being able to see his eyes.

"So, what, are you two my lawyers, or something?"

"Have they been treating you alright?"the younger one asked, as if Dominick hadn't said a word. The stranger seemed to be taking an uncommon interest in Dominick's slow to fade black eye.

He shrugged. "I'm still here, aren't I?"

This did not seem to be a suitable answer, as One Eye exchanged what appeared to be a concerned glance with Baldy, then shook his head slowly, as if disappointed with the downward spiral of the country's sense of humanity. Baldy turned back to face Dominick, and smiled gently. "My name is Professor Charles Xavier, and this is my associate, Scott Summers. We come from Xavier's School For the Gifted."

"Am I supposed to know what that is?"he asked, raising an eyebrow. Without waiting for a response, he abruptly changed focus. "Why are you here?"

"We know what you are,"Scott said, leaning forward and folding his hands on the table. "We want to help you."

Dominick held his stare for a long minute, unflinching, despite the runaway pounding of his heart, then scoffed and looked away. "You want to help me? No offense, but if you aren't my lawyers, how the hell are you gonna help me? I'm in prison, for God's sake."

"We've noticed,"Scott said wryly, earning himself a sharp look from the Professor. "We know about the fire that burned down the house of your foster parents."

If at all possible, Dominick's gaze turned colder. "Yeah, so? I'm sure it was on the news. Local for sure, if not statewide. That kinda stuff always gets people's attention. Generous, well-to-do foster parents that take in the kids society doesn't want to deal with lose everything they own in a sudden accidental fire. It's tragic, really." His tone suggested he felt otherwise, but he certainly wasn't giving anything away. Scott leaned closer, and said in a hushed voice, "but it wasn't an accident, was it? We both read your file from Child Services. I think you wanted to make them suffer, you wanted them to lose everything. Am I right?"

Dominick had paled slightly, but otherwise showed no reaction to his words. "I don't have any idea what you're talking about. I'm not a freak."

Scott's lips pressed together in a thin white line, and he shook his head. "I never said you were a freak. But I do think you're a mutant. Like I am."

The younger man laughed softly, though it was a sound completely without mirth. "You're a mutant? What's your power?"

Scott raised one hand to his visor, and tapped the dial with one finger. "Optic enery blasts. I have to wear this visor to control them. You didn't think I wore it because I thought it looked cool, did you?"

Dominick didn't respond. He wanted to trust these people, more than anything he did, but trust generally had a way of blowing up in his face. Besides, all they had done was show up, tell him they worked at some school he had never heard of, and that they wanted to help him. Still, it was more than most people had done for him in the past.

"Dominick, I think you misunderstand why we're here,"the Professor spoke up, as if reading his very thoughts. "My school caters do a different kind of gifted, like yourself and Scott here. My school is for mutants, young people with nowhere else to go and no one to turn to. We provide everything you need, as well as help you better understand your power, because it is through understanding that you earn control. I know you're a mutant, Dominick, even if you're not entirely sure. And I identify with your reluctance to accept our help. But I guarantee you, we are the real deal. I've already met with your public defender, and the judge handling your case. They've both agreed to release you to my care, with all charges effectively dropped."

Dominick immediately frowned. "What's the catch?"

"There is no catch. I desire only to help children like you, help to give you a leg to stand on. I will assure you that without my help, in our less than ideal law system, you will be convicted. And then you will be beyond my help. But this is your decision, and nobody else's. I recommend you think on it for a few days. We'll return the day after tomorrow, to see what you've decided."

He started to back away from the table, and it was only then that Dominick noticed he was confined to a wheelchair. Scott signalled the guard standing outside the door, and he returned to take Dominick back to his cell. But suddenly, anything seemed preferable to that hole. He didn't care how little they'd told him about their school, or how impulsive he was being, when he usually thought things through so intensely. He wanted so badly to go with them, and escape this hell, that his throat closed up momentarily, and when he called out to them, he sounded more like a frog than a felon.

The two men turned slowly, and regarded Dominick with varying looks of concern.

"I'll do it,"he blurted out. "I don't need to think about it. I'll go with you."

The Professor and his companion exchanged glances again, then both turned back to the young boy with wide smiles on their faces. Dominick noticed the relief in their eyes, and knew without doubt that despite the unknowns, he was making the right decision.

"I'll go meet with the judge,"the Professor said softly. "We'll come back for you later today."

A/N: Hope those few of you who read the first chapter like this one too. I'm embarrassed to say I'm developing a bit of a crush on Dominick Tucker, even though he's all in my mind. I have many visions for him in the coming chapters, and hopefully you will all follow them. Thanks for reading!