Wufei followed the dark-skinned woman in front of him silently, eyes flickering about the hallways with the intensity of a hunted animal. Several teenagers, catching sight of him prowling the hall, disappeared back into their rooms with their tails between their legs. The woman- Ororo, he thought her name was- walked briskly, opening a door and going into a small office.

He looked about covertly; plants were scattered everywhere, the walls sparsely furnished, a dark wooden desk against the far wall. The Oriental youth nodded; he approved of the room. Ororo pulled a chair out for him, taking a seat at her desk and grabbing a pad of paper, holding her fountain pen elegantly poised over the paper.

"This is just a series of questions," she offered, "to let us get your basic information into our computer systems. Are you ready to begin?" The unnerving young man in front of her gave her a regal nod, sitting ramrod straight in the stiff-backed chair.

"Name?"

"Chang Wufei. However, as befits my culture, I would highly prefer to be called simply Wufei."

Ororo noted that in flowing calligraphy, continuing her questioning.

"Date of birth and hometown?"

"December 4, 1987." The former pilot congratulated himself on that; it had been an infernal job thinking up the correct year in the Before Colony system.

"I was born in Beijing, China."

"Relatives?"

Flames engulf a metal sphere, tilting wildly off its axis, the black fog of death creeping across silver metal. Gleaming hair, stained by blood, crimson life running from his wife's mortal wound to coat his hands as he holds her gently to his chest-

"They are all deceased."

Ororo glanced up; while he was not the first orphan they had ever had in the Institute, he was the only one she had seen whose relatives, distant or no, were all dead.

"What is your power?"

Wufei stared at her, the obsidian eyes calculating and unsettling. "I do not know."

She set down her pad for a moment, eyebrow raised as she thought over the options.

"We'll test you, then. Many mutants' powers activate under stress. Do your friends know their powers?"

"No."

"Alright, you may leave. If you have any questions, come to me."

The boy stood gracefully and bowed, leaving the room and shutting the door with a soft click.

Professor?

Yes? Quickly she relayed the information, knowing that Charles would tell the others to leave the question about the new mutants' mutations off the list.


"Name?" Jean studied the angelic blonde in front of her, sorely tempted to reach out to his mind and see what was inside. Quatre contemplated her as well, blue eyes intent and guileless.

"I am Quatre Raberba Winner."

"Date of birth and origin?"

"The twentieth of November, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia."

Jean wrote that down in her neat cursive script, glancing back up with a professional air about her. She had never enjoyed doing interviews, but the Professor told her to, and what he said was law.

"Relations?"

Quatre stiffened imperceptibly, an insane whisper creeping out from the dark recesses of his mind.

Crackling voice, space dark and welcoming around him, insane rage coursing through him, white light- or was it black? - filling his vision- whiteblack space around him, thousands upon thousand of gigabytes of information filling his mind, green zeroes and ones flashing before his eyes. A red scythe cleaves the darkness, death has come.

"They're all dead."

Jean's eyes narrowed. Cautiously she extended a psychic tendril to the younger man before her-

Only to be violently rebuffed by dark power, entwining through her own and forcing her back into her body, having caught not a glimpse of the other's mind. But- it wasn't his power. And if it wasn't his power, then where was it from?

Quatre stood, bidding the older woman a polite goodbye as he left the room. Wufei came around the corner, nodding to him as they met and began to walk back to their room.


"Name, please?"

"What is your name?"

"I have none."

"Everyone has a name, silly! I'm Midii Une, who are you?"

"Trowa Barton."

Hank wrote it down, looking over the mutant in front of him. He was tall, and had obviously been very well-muscled at one time, but now he swam in his own clothing. The bones of his shoulders showed sharply through the forest green of his turtleneck, his shocking emerald eyes sunken in the fine-boned face. Classic symptoms of malnutrition or starvation. He would have to make sure the boy ate well, then.

"Date and location of birth?"

Trowa studied the odd beast in front of him impartially, face impassive. Blue fur, amber eyes, white lab coat- it made an incredibly odd picture.

"July 20, 1987, Greece."

"Your family?"

Trowa felt a distant pang of sorrow, as familiar to him as the beating of his heart, twinge in his gut.

The crimson fire roars into the sky, twisting, turning, coiling like a deadly serpent into a sky the color of tarnished gold. Feet crunch on the rubble, the eyes of his 'family' dead, gaunt, lifelessly staring in mordant accusation. He kneels before the tent of the Commandant, the commandant himself impaled upon the ridgepole of his tent, dark head thrown back to stare at the golden sky.

"I never knew them. My adoptive parents are all dead."

"I'm sorry," Hank offered, feeling incredibly inadequate. Trowa accepted it silently, listening to Hank continue,

"I can't help but notice that you're underweight. If you'll come in sometime soon, I'll weigh you and figure out a diet plan for you to gain some of that weight back."

Trowa murmured a thank you, standing at the obvious dismissal and making his way to the door, disappearing through it with alarming silence.


Duo lounged indolently in one of the room's armchairs, an irritating smirk on his lips as his hands toyed idly with the end of his braid. Scott stared back at him inquisitively, his eyes dark under the crimson quartz of the visor.

"What's your name?"

"I'm the friggin' Pied Piper! Didn't we already go over this before? I tol' ya, my name's Duo Maxwell. I run, I hide, but I never lie."

Scott resisted the urge to groan and rub his temples; he knew this one would be a troublemaker, and quite a good one, if the signs were any indication.

"Your date of birth and origin?"

"The fifth of February, 1988, in New York City." Duo had been to the Big Apple once; he had loved it immensely, finding the people, the atmosphere, the high-octane pace of life to be absolutely exhilarating. Silently he promised himself that he would go visit New York at least once while they were here.

"Any relations?"

A silver cross is clutched in the hand of a man, the pristine white of his priest's collar stained crimson with his lifeblood, gushing from the raw, open wound of his neck. Booted feet crunch upon the rubble as he sprints to the side of the priest. The man is sprawled across the marble altar, his gray eyes fixed firmly to the crucifix above him, dying with complete and utter devotion. His chest, torn to shreds, the glistening bone white of the spine and ribcage the only bright thing in the room, the lung a charred black mass. The boy bends to take the cross from the stiff hand, affixing it about his neck. The genesis of Shinigami.

"They're all gone." Scott raised his eyes suspiciously for a moment before he set the pen down and asked firmly,

"Why did you insult Storm like that?" The other man's grin darkened, became feral, and for a moment Scott was uncomfortably reminded of the gun that was hidden somewhere on the younger man's form.

"She said we could trust you people," Duo said abruptly, his voice low and serious. "I don't think you understand what the five of us are like."

"You're mutants. Besides, I doubt whatever neurosis you may have is much worse then anybody else's."

In a heartbeat Duo was across the room, one slim, long-fingered hand clamped about Scott's neck, his feminine face in Scott's, violet eyes glowing with an internal rage that howled to be loosed upon the world.

"We trust nobody. Fuckin' nobody, do you understand? I've lived with Q-ball, Wuffers, Tro, and Heero for three years, and you know what? There is nothing in the world that will persuade me to trust them with anything. We live together, we fight together, we love each other, but nothing, and I mean nothing, will make us trust each other."

Scott nodded his comprehension feebly, gasping as Duo released him, the other male's mobile face moving into a deceptively innocent grin, calling as he strode out the door, "If that's all the questions, I think I'll be going now. See ya, ass-crack!"


Logan studied the slim boy before him intently, his nose twitching at the scents that rolled off of the newcomer. Sweat, blood, metal. The acrid smell of pain was not there; odd, considering that both his wrists were slashed to the bone. The kid was thin, painfully so; darkly blank eyes were sunken into a hollow face, brunette hair, messy and short, falling over his eyes. The gun- a Glock- was held carefully in one hand, handled with the sharp ease of a professional. The blue eyes, dark as space, stared back at him in return, the owner's face a neutral mask.

Heero looked at the man before him quietly; the room they were in was sparsely decorated, with several tatami mats covering the floor and an old Macintosh Computer (surprisingly that company still existed in his time) sat whirring quietly on the desk. There was a door six feet to his left, a window five feet in front of him. Had he a choice, he would have sat facing the doorway; it would have made it easier to effect a quick efficient escape.

"What's your name, kid?"

Heero was rattled for a moment, although he showed none of his confusion. He did not have a name. He had codenames. Janus, Odin, Orion, Apollo, Heero… But he did not have a name he could call his own.

"I do not have one, but you may call me Heero Yuy." What a grand example of irony, he thought sourly, that the one who bore the great pacifist's name was the one who destroyed all he stood for.

Logan raised an eyebrow; even street kids chose a name for themselves or were given one. Why wasn't the mutant in front of him protesting the unflattering use of the name 'kid?' All the mutants he called that protested as a matter of course.

"When an' where were you born?"

"Unknown factors," Heero shrugged. Logan twitched at the usage of military jargon; was the kid some sort of soldier? Regardless, he would be running some information checks on him and his friends and calling in a few old favors. Chuck had told him privately that the telepath was unable to see inside the new mutant's minds; some dark energy was blocking him. This information only made Logan more wary, which was fine, considering the other man seemed about as likely to trust him as pigs were to fly.

"Any family?"

"I found your mother in a prison cell. She was already insane when I got there; no matter, though. All I wanted was you. And there you were, being rocked and sung to."

"What was she singing, Doctor?"

"It's been a long time. Let me see...

Ah, here it is.

'Rock-a-bye baby,

Safe under the ground,

With the demons and the ghosties

That hunt without sound.' Just that verse, over and over. Your father- we never found him. Odin never knew who he was either."

"I see. Thank you, Doctor J."

"Unknown factors." Logan wrote it down in his crabbed, scrawling handwriting, looking back up and focusing on the tense form before him with amber-brown eyes.

"Ya' have a healing factor, right?"

Needles threading under skin- oh god the bright light of painpainpain- back arches screaming as acid- so light green like the hue of a new leaf- flows into his body- dimly hearing the bubble and sizzle of bones being eaten, red pain clouds his vision as he shakes wildly, clawing at his own skin and opening bleeding gashes-

"Stop the test. Healing factor has been successfully implemented."

And he is carried to his cot to die and be reborn.

"Yes."

"Were you born with it?"

No.

"Yes."

"I have one too." Blue eyes focused on him with the intensity of a laser beam, the corner of one lip quirking in a tiny smile.

"I see," Heero said softly. Logan read over the information one more time before he looked back up, saying,

"You can go now."

Heero bowed and left the room, the gun, as ever, clutched in one hand.