Disclaimer: All X-men characters are created and owned by Marvel. I am gaining no profit for this.

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Ch. 6: A Moth to Flame

Sinister looked down at his work. He was absolutely brilliant. He didn't know any other person who could infiltrate the X-Men mansion unnoticed and single-handedly knock them all off their feet. Of course, he did have his hired hands helping. But that didn't matter. Without his genius, they never would have even made it to the front gate! He looked down at Scott Summers. Once he got all of his new specimens to the lab, then all the real fun would begin. He had big plans for the Summers family, and for Mr. Lebeau.

Sinister looked out into the danger room. All of the specimens were under control, but unfortunately one of his men was down. It was Mathen……obviously. "Mathen! Get up and go to the lab. Your no use to me injured." Sinister opened a tesseract next to Mathen, "I want the rest of you to move my test subjects into their holding areas. I want this all finished within the next half hour."

Sabretooth glared up at Sinister, "Yes sir."

With that being said, Sinister opened another tesseract and began to step out. "And don't forget Mr. Summers up here." The portal closed.

Mathen was already in a sitting position, but standing was going to be hard. Fury, the woman on the team, looked over at Mathen. "Are you going, or am I going to have to carry you back too?" She had already lifted Beast onto her shoulders effortlessly.

Mathen winced as he put his weight onto one knee. "No. I'll make it." He took a deep breath and stood. He felt very light headed, probably because of all the blood he had lost. He wanted desperately to look at his wound, but decided against it. Slowly he walked toward the tesseract and went through.

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Sandra was in her father's study, by herself. She would usually spend most of her day there studying. Like her father, she was interested in the facts. While her father spent most of his time on science, she just enjoyed learning about anything. He always told her that since the day she was born, 20 years ago, she had been on a search for knowledge. Today was no different. At the moment she was interested in birds. Sandra had already cataloged about 345 different types of birds in her database.

She was now looking at her newest find, the Forty Spotted Pardalote. It was an endangered bird that was found in Australia, and it looked awfully fragile. It reminded her of a rare jewel almost. The Pardalote was one of the smallest birds found on the continent, and it was a pale olive green color with a slightly yellow back with black wings. She was astounded by its beauty.

Suddenly her father walked in. He looked pleased and irritated all in one moment. Sandra paused in her work and turned her chair towards her father. "Did the retrieval go well?"

He looked at her as if he had just noticed her. He bent his tall frame so that he could give her a quick embrace. "Yes my dear. Things went well. Except there were a few mishaps, but not enough to make it unsuccessful."

He turned to leave but then twisted around to speak to her. "Oh. Sandra?"

She stood up and went to him. "Yes Father?"

"Mathen received a minor injury. I need to change and get a few things prepared for this afternoon. Could I trouble you to see to his wounds and also get the lab setup?"

Her eyes widened ever so slightly. She did not want to seem as if she were too worried for a man that she hardly knew. "Of course Father. I'll go there right now."

She turned on her heel and almost ran out of the room. Sinister had noticed that she had left her program running, so he went over to the computer and saved her work for her. She's got my intelligence, but I think I still need to work on her carelessness for detail. He trusted his daughter though, more than anyone. She would always do as he said. He headed toward his private room to change.

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Ch. 7: Messing Around

Sandra came running into the main lab to find Mathen heavily leaning against an examination table. She noticed right away that his left shoulder was badly injured.

"Here, let me help you." She said as she helped Mathen onto the table. The inner scientist in her was already thinking of possible treatments for the wound. She went to a side counter and grabbed a few medical tools. Then she was right back to being inches away from his shoulder, assessing the damage. "Could you tell me what caused this injury?"

"Well hello to you too." Mathen cupped his right hand by her neck and gently lifted her chin, so that she could look at his face. He stared into her eyes. He loved those eyes. Sandra bashfully grinned. "Oh, hi. I'm sorry. You know me, anything involving anatomy drives me wild!"

Mathen gave her a devilish grin. "I know."

Sandra's whole face blushed when she realized that his answer had two meanings to it. "Stop it! Mathen you really need to stop with that. You're actually pretty seriously injured here. So tell me, how'd this happen?"

"A guy shot some kind of light ray out of his eyes at me."

To any normal doctor, such an explanation would seem absurd, but Sandra was use to it. So she went to a medicine cabinet and took out a cream, a bottle of pain reliever, some gauze, and a syringe. She turned back towards Mathen. "Well then, my diagnosis is that you'll be fine after I perform four medical procedures."

Mathen gestured with his right hand to his injured shoulder. "Proceed away."

She cleared away the pieces of shirt that had stuck to the wound. "First, I must clean the wound and at the same time, I will apply an antibiotic. This cream here will do both actually. I just created it about a month ago."

She put a glove over her hand and grabbed some of the blue goo from its container. She then generously applied it to Mathen's shoulder. As soon as she had done so, Mathen tensed up and winced quite loudly. "Oh, and it may sting a little."

Mathen clenched his teeth and gave her a slight nod. She felt kind of bad for hurting him, but at least it was the pain of healing rather than any other type of pain. "Ok um, I don't think you're going to like the second procedure. I'm going to give you a painkiller, but it's not in pill form."

Mathen looked at her as if he were a little annoyed. She kept going. "Look, I know you think it's overkill for a shot and everything, but I'm the one with the medical skills, and I'm telling you that you need it."

With that said, she quickly filled the syringe, and promptly shoved it into Mathen's right arm.

"OW!" As soon as she had pulled it out, Mathen grabbed the side of his arm to protect it from any further attack. "You didn't have to be so rough."

"Well you didn't have to be so whiny!" She couldn't believe it, only after five minutes with the man and he had managed to get her all flustered. He was the only person she knew that could do that. She picked up the gauze and began unwinding it, without any special care. Sandra looked up and noticed that Mathen was still holding his arm and looked as if there was no way that he was going to give it up. "Come on Mathen! I have to wrap your shoulder up or it will get infected."

"No way! Just give the bandage to me and I'll do it."

"You can't do it with one hand it'll be too loose!"

"No!"

"Mathen just-" she reached out to grab his arm, but he dodged to the left. She followed him, but he quickly moved to the right and she ended up slipping and falling to the floor. "Mathen!"

He stopped, worried that she'd hurt herself. Sandra popped right back on her feet and brushed herself off. He smiled at her. "Ok I'll quit."

"Thank you."

He let go of his arm and turned the right side of his body toward her. She gently took his arm in her grasp and carefully began bandaging his arm. After about three minutes of silence, a thought came to him. He looked to his right, where Sandra was just finishing. "Hey, you said there were four procedures and you only did three. What was the forth?"

She looked at him and smiled. "A kiss."

He grinned right back at her. "Now that's what I call medical attention." He leaned into her all prepared for the moment to come……..

TBC

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Author's Note: Are ya'll hangin'? I really hope you're hangin'! Ok so Sandra is this new mutant that I've created. I know I haven't really given any clues as to what she does, how she got there, or even what she looks like! But don't worry all that good stuff is comin! Right now I am diligently working on the next coupla chapters. So the next chapter is going to be packed! That also means that ya gotta wait for it. Ok that's it for now. Hasta La Vista Readers!!