The rest of January passed quickly. I continued with my training but life went on around me.

Timothy completed his studies and officially became an adult. His ceremony was held in the center of Nexus. It was honestly something I don't think I'll forget, watching this young man, along with all his peers, walk up to the stage, and receive his mask was a beautiful site to see. Christin didn't even try to hide the pride he felt for his son. Even from the crowd I could see the happy tears in his eyes. For a second I thought I could hear Steve whisper in my ear, "That will be you next year."

The after party was even better, though. Once the public ceremony and formality was over, all the families broke from the crowd to have small parties of their own, to complete the coming-of-age ceremonies for their individual family lines. And for Timothy's Christin went all out. There were fresh flowers weaved into garlands, that hung off of every roof, rail or tree branch. Strings of golden glowing stones formed a gleaming web in between the deck's covering and burning bright torches. A food spread that looked and smelled like something out of dream, rested underneath a decorated canopy.

However, the highlight of the night, was when Christin called the Timothy to the dance floor.

"Ladies, gentleman and all who attend," Christin called out the crowd of close friends and family, "Tonight we celebrate the masking of my fourth born child, young Timothy."

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the quiet boy's cheeks blush blue.

"Timothy my son," Christin continued, "You've always made me proud with every accomplishment you've made and lesson you learned. I will forever treasure every memory you've given me. The first Christmas, the first birthday, they first words you learned to speak to us.

Christin put a hand on Timothy's shoulder, "Now, I look forward to seeing everything you will accomplish in your life; the future you will build for yourself, and maybe one day for others. We shared no blood, but you have always been my child. Some might deny this, but they have their eyes closed. You have always been part of this family, and tonight no one will ever doubt that. Tonight, you become a member of our family line, not as someone's child, but as your own person."

Christin nodded to the musicians in the corner, and the first few notes of a joyful song were played. Nico and the adult children gathered around the father and son, dancing in a circle. They singed in unison a chant foreign yet beautiful, and clapped their hands to the beat of the song. Within the circle Christin and Timothy began to dance. The father and son mirrored each other's movements, twisting and flipping in time with the music.

It was honestly such a stunning thing to watch. The familial dance, every child part of an existing familial line would preform it along with the other members on the night they received their mask. It was a sacred tradition, part of the mask code itself, in order to promote unity within families. Each dance is unique to its family. Children are taught the steps as early as it was possible, in preparation for the night where they would be welcomed as an adult into the folds of their family.

Taiga had explained the tradition to me, as I would need to make up my own once I earned my mask. Due to starting my own family line in the clan. Unless I chose to join Christin's family line. Though, I was probably going to go with the former option. I wanted for Black Sheep to have a dance of his own once he came of age, and earned his own mask.

Everything hurt.

My lungs burned from gasping in the cold midwinter air. The head spun wildly, while my gut churned. The bitter taste of wet metal flooded my tongue. Each blow to my body was like a thunder clap on my skin, aching and burning all at once. Nothing had broken yet, but it felt like it had.

"That's enough," Nico said.

They stopped. I fell limp. The bindings around my wrists did their job and kept me from falling to the ground. Though at this point I doubt I would feel my face smacking the dirt ground. I could feel someone undoing my wrists and then catching me as I couldn't hold myself up.

"I'm sorry," I opened my almost swollen eyes, seeing the man with black braided hair that Nico invited to training that day. I think his name was Liune.

I coughed, "It's fine. You know I might have thought twice about this if I had known that I would have to let myself get beaten to pulp, every day."

"Trust me, I don't enjoy this either," Liune said.

"It is a need," Nico said sternly.

"If it's a need?" I coughed, "Are you going to tell me why?"

Liune slowly lowered me to the ground.

"We're conditioning your bone and muscle tissues. The army does something similar, however, they don't push to the human body to its full potential. They merely go for general strengthening, unlike mutants who rebuild their entire natural muscular and skeletal systems. There was a reason as to why I could break through solid rock," Nico explained.

"And how does beating me with in an inch of my life do that," I gasped.

"In order to rebuild, what is already there must be broken down. Your body will heal and also strengthen the tissue. Making them stronger, and less likely to sustain a major injury," Nico explained.

"So, you hit your kids until it doesn't hurt them?" I spoke.

"No, this is usually done gently over the course of 10-12 years," Liune said.

"However, with you we only have a few months, so your experience will be far more intense," Nico said, before walking away, "I'll allow a few moments to collect yourself before we move on."

I groaned as I picked myself up. Every muscle and tendon screaming as they were pulled and twisted. Every tear and bruise burning like a wild fire.

"Can I say something?" Liune said.

"I'm not stopping you," I said.

"You are taking this quite well. I know a number of people who would request to switch mentors."

"You can do that?"

"Well others probably could but you'd have a hard time finding anyone else willing to train you. Considering your lack of mutant blood many trainers would consider you a hopeless case, and a guaranteed death on their record."

My eyes narrowed, "Thank you for your vote of confidence."

"I meant no offence, and I do believe you're taking this well. Just the fact that you are still standing proves your resilience. Most often students ask to change classes due to Admiral Winter Wolf's teaching methods. Most find him intense."

"Nico's always this hard on students?" I rubbed my neck.

"He usually works with the older children who enroll in the more extreme programs, pushing them to the limits to rule out anyone who isn't fit for the jobs."

"Really?"

"There's a reason 'Winter' is in his title. The admiral is known for his cold demeaner towards his students. He prefers not to get attached."

"How'd you survive his tutelage then?"

"I was one of the lucky ones who could take it, but he wasn't always like this."

"What happened?"

"You should by now that I'm not allow to tell you. Let's just say he doesn't like to watch his pupils fail."

"I have a hard time believing that."

"He's harsh but it's all for the better sometimes. Though he might start trying to get you to quit."

"If they knock you down just get back up."

"Interesting philosophy, where did you learn that?"

"From someone who was just as stubborn as I can be."

"Well, it has served you so far, hopefully it will do the same once The Admiral brings out the menstrual pain simulator."

I blinked, "I'm sorry, the what?"

"No one has told you about this yet?"

"I don't even know what menstrual pain is."

Liune looked baffled, before slapping himself in the face, "Right from the 1940s," He muttered to himself before addressing me again, "Menstrual pain is the pain from menstruating. You know the woman's monthly cycle."

I felt my face flush and jaw drop, "What?!"

"You had a sister, didn't you? Surely you know about this," Liune raised a confused brow.

"Well, yeah, but she didn't talk about it with me. It's inappropriate!"

"It's biology. It's natural."

"It's not something I'm supposed to know about. It's private!"

"Alright, we're drifting off topic. So, in order to build pain tolerance, trainers simulate menstrual cramps by electrocuting the muscles of the lower abdomen."

"Why?!"

"Well, the pain of menstrual cramps is comparable to that of a heart attack, and you can't really give students heart attacks safely."

I rubbed my face, "There's no way girls are walking around with heart attacks in their stomachs!"

"You do realize that females tend to have higher pain tolerance then males, right?"

"What?"

"How on earth do you think they are able to have kids?"

"Does everyone have to go through this?"

"Some of those who has uteruses are given different types of exercises during their bleeds, as the simulator can in some cases bring them relief, but yeah. It's part of basic sex education and training."

I just gaped at him.

I exited the shower in a cloud of puffy white steam. The air chilled my wet skin, but after I rubbed the soft towel to dry off, I was comfortably warm. I changed my Pjs. Which in realty was just a plain white t-shirt and some thin sweat pants, but I still called them Pjs. I wiped the fog off the bathroom mirror and stared at my reflection for a moment. I almost didn't recognize myself.

The person staring back at me through the glass, wasn't the happy go lucky sidekick that he had been 9 months ago. No, that kid that long dead. Instead, it was the reflection of a young man whose body was covered in scars, a metal arm, and clearly hadn't been to the barber for a while. I ran my servo through my hair. It wasn't long, but it definitely was not regulation length anymore. It was almost low enough to fall into my eyes, and nearly covered my ears. I needed a trim. I could probably ask Arrow where I could find a barber. She seemed to change her hair often to know where to get a good haircut. I just shook my head and started to brush my teeth.

After I was done in the bathroom, I headed downstairs for a water glass. The house was quiet everyone had gone to bed by now. Or so I thought.

Surprisingly I found Arrow sitting at the dinning table. Her air was braided into two short pigtails, and she was dressed in her own sleep wear; a pair of soft pants covered in cartoony pears, and old tie-dyed tank-top. The table top in front of her was covered in papers, files and note books, that weren't organized in any obvious way. She was chewing on the pen in her hand, with one leg bouncing up and down as she stared at the papers. Clearly trying to make invisible puzzle pieces fit. Though, once she noticed me that train of thought had crashed and was set on fire.

"Hey," I said.

"Hey," Arrow said, taking another glance at her papers, "What are you doing up?"

"Getting some water."

"Sure, you're not snooping for snacks?"

I huffed, "I've already brushed my teeth."

"You can do it again, and there's some left-over berry muffins in the fridge."

"Well, I can't say no to that can I?" I headed into the kitchen, "You want one?"

"Yes, please."

I grabbed a glass, filling it at the sink. Then I opened the fridge, honestly surprised that there still were some muffins left. Christin had made them for Arrow's birthday two days ago, and I swear I had seen her eat almost half of them. I grabbed a blueberry one for myself and a strawberry one for Arrow.

"Thank you," Arrow said taking her muffin.

"Hey, do you know where I can get a haircut?"

"A haircut?" she raised a brow.

I ruffled my still wet hair, "Well, it's not really regulation length."

She laughed, "You don't have one of those right?"

"Judging by Liune's hair, I guess as much."

She laughed more, "So, you still want to get it cut?"

"You don't think I should?"

"You look pretty good with a short almost bob. Not many dudes can rock it."

"Really?"

"Yeah," She looked back at her paper pile, "But if you still want to, I can call my stylist."

"I'll think about it. So, what are you doing up?" I asked.

"Just going over some work Baba gave me."

"Work?"

"Just because I'm not going into the field at the moment doesn't mean I'm being lazy."

"So, what are you working on then?"

"Trying to find where Hydra got the weapons that they shot me with."

"You find anything?"

"Not things I like."

"It's Hydra. Are you supposed to like them?"

"Good point, but a lot of the puzzle pieces are starting to form a picture that I don't like."

"What's wrong?"

"What information I could pull from the stuff I downloaded at the base, and our records, it clearly points to these weapons being not their own designs. Meaning they bought them off of somebody."

"You sure, acid bullets seem like something they would design."

"I'm pretty confident. After Arnim Zola's arrest, Hydra's science division crumbled. They can still build things but only with good blueprints."

"So, where are they buying these things?"

"My first guess was AIM, a newer evil organization. They build weapons and tech and sell them on the black market so it seemed like the fit the bill."

"I'm guessing there's a 'but'."

"Yep. There have been no reports of AIM activity even near the base, or the supposed drop off point I got from the files I downloaded."

"Maybe they had some sort of disguise technology? Is that a real future thing? Or still science fiction?"

"Oh, cloaking tech exists. It's the reason why no one had ever found Nexus actually, but I don't think that's what going on here. AIM is good at tech, but sloppy at covering their tracks. We'd know if they had been in the area."

"So, what does that leave?"

"An unknown variable. The 'x' in an equation. And I don't like it."

"What are you going to do?'

"Dig deeper," she sighed and stood up, "But not tonight, I'm meeting with Mara Jean tomorrow to discuss the witness sketches of the weapons. Hopefully she can help me ID the make and handy work."

"Let's hope she does. I don't want anyone be hit with these things after what they did to you."

"You and me both."

A/N:

This came out a lot quicker than I thought it would take! Things have sucked recently. I had to take Barry (my parrot) to the ER, and then schedule an appointment with his usual vet for a follow up and that has been a stressful.

I only have a few weeks left until my autumn semester for school ends, which I am excited and dreading at the same time. Dreading the finals that I have not studied for, and excited for winter break.

I sliced my toe open. Don't know why I needed to say this.

And yes, I apologize if anyone is offended by the period cramp scene.

Anyway, see ya'll next time!