A/N: Hello everyone! Here's a very late update and I'm sorry if I haven't been able to reply to your reviews or come up with this update on a prompt manner. I can try to do better, but with all my projects, that may be hard. Still, thank you all for the support that you've given me. Now, on with this update!

OOOOOOOOO

Scarlet let out a small groan as Logan threw her across the Danger Room. Her back had collided with the wall hard, but she knew that the sting was going to blend in with the rest of the pain that she was feeling after training with him for a few weeks straight. She twisted out of the way when he flew at her again.

Can't let him get me in a corner, Scarlet told herself, dodging the lasers of the created enemies that Logan had placed on his team. He gets me in a corner and then those big over-grown toasters are going to tear into me. Real or almost real, that's going to hurt.

She threw fire at the nearest gigantic robots, disabling two with the heat and crippling one only slightly. Cursing under her breath, she looked for Logan, who had disappeared again. The pull of the power that she'd copied from her father let her know that the feral man was nearby, but didn't give her advanced warning as he attacked her from around the nearest projected tree.

"Ugh!" she cried out, feeling his fist slam into her stomach. The pain of the metal under his skin hit her hard. "Damn…"

Her hand grabbed onto his wrist and pulled him into the air, slamming him into the tree. While he was recuperating, she took off into the mismatched terrain that the Danger Room had been turned into. She jumped up into one of the trees that was heavily laden with branches and leaves and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Her chest heaved with each breath she tried to catch.

He keeps getting rougher with each training session, she thought, glancing through the small opening that the branches allowed her to see of the ground below. And I keep getting the shit beat out of me – even if I keep knocking him around.

Scarlet's eyes turned down to her stomach where red slices wept onto her flesh above the waistband of her X-suit's shorts. She sucked in a painful breath and pressed her fingers against the open wounds.

He's going to smell the blood and get me, she thought, glaring at the crimson liquid staining her fingertips. That can't happen.

Scarlet closed her eyes and sifted through her accumulated powers, trying to find one that would work without too much effort or concentration. Three copies of her appeared and they were each somewhat shaded in appearance. Scarlet didn't have to say anything to them as they touched her stomach, taking some of her blood onto their hands before they ran off to do what they were supposed to do.

Okay, heal. Scarlet told her body as she clambered up higher on the tree that she had been perched on. Heal now. Heal already.

She hissed and jumped from one tree to another, seeking out Logan without letting him find her first. The images of the Danger Room flickered as her powers flared in one of their weird uncontrollable moments. Scarlet heard Logan's heavy breaths as she moved through the forest. The tug on her flesh told her that her healing powers were starting to work on the bleeding wounds.

"Maria!" Logan called out from somewhere below her. "You've got to do better than this!"

A little sound welled up in Scarlet's throat as the tree that she was landing on shuddered and started to tip over. Her claws extended from her fingertips instinctively and she held on tightly as the tree headed for the ground. Something hard and metallic grabbed her before the tree touched the ground and squeezed her around the middle.

"Dammit!" she cursed again, squirming in the grasp of the giant robot. The images of the Danger Room flickered again as her powers mixed up.

Logan was standing at the feet of the robot, looking up at her with a cigar between his lips. "You gotta do better, Princess."

Scarlet's eyes turned bright red and she stopped squirming in the robot's grip. She saw pain fill Logan's eyes as he was lifted into the air with his limbs stretching out to the side. Her father's power had always been the easiest power to copy, but she rarely had to use it. It wasn't every day that she encountered someone who had metal coating every single bone in their body.

Stop it! Scarlet told herself, looking down at Logan as his body shuddered under her power. Stop it or you're going to kill him!

Scarlet threw Logan back against a tree with her power and then crushed the robot holding her using her father's power. She fell several feet to the ground and landed awkwardly on her ankle. A soft cry escaped her lips as she realized that her ankle had cracked.

"Damn," she cursed softly, rubbing her ankle as she sat on the floor.

The Danger Room's projected scene wavered and faded away as the order to do so was given. Scarlet heard Logan come over and smelled his cigar as it was lit.

"You were careless again," he commented. "But you're getting the hang of some of your powers, Maria."

"Scarlet," she corrected, though she knew by now that he wouldn't listen. "And it's not going fast enough. I keep losing control and…you're going to wind up dead sometime."

"I don't think so," Logan said, taking a puff on the cigar. "You have more control on your powers than you think, Maria. You just have to work on that temper of yours."

I'll show him temper…

Scarlet rubbed her ankle again and looked away from the feral man. He clapped his hands together once, trying to get her attention.

"Do you want to go for another round?" he asked.

Shaking her head, Scarlet looked towards the doors of the Danger Room. "Not tonight. There's something else in this world that I'd rather do." She carefully pushed herself onto her feet and tested her weight on her now-hurt ankle. "Same time tomorrow though…"

"Right."

Scarlet held her head high in a false sense of pride, trying her best to ignore the pain that was coming from her ankle. Heal, she thought, glancing down at the ankle as the doors slid open for her. Dammit! Heal already.

She quickly went to the locker room and switched her new X-suit for a pair of high-waist denim shorts and a black tank-top. By the time that she was done changing her clothes, her ankle had healed enough for her to put her full weight on it with only some minor tenderness. She didn't waste any time to get into the nearest elevator and smashed the button repeatedly with her thumb, not caring to hear the female voice that sounded over the speaker.

"Don't care," she muttered, glaring up at the mirrored-metallic ceiling. "Stop talking to me."

Scarlet tumbled out of the elevator the moment the door opened enough for her to squeeze through. She waved to a couple of her friends, but made no small talk with anyone on her way out of the mansion.

Scott was cleaning his motorcycle collection, humming to himself as he worked on them. He didn't seem to notice that Scarlet was approaching until she had her hand on one of the smaller motorcycles.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, glaring at her through his rose-colored glasses.

"Can I borrow this?" Scarlet asked, squeezing the handgrip. "I'll bring it back to you in one piece."

"No," Scott said, straightening. "You don't have a license."

"Maybe I do," Scarlet countered.

"Prove it."

Damn! Scarlet slid her hand into her pocket. "C'mon Scooter, just let me borrow it for an hour. That's it."

"No," Scott stated, crossing his arms. "You can't borrow any of the vehicles. And my name is not 'Scooter', Maria!"

Scarlet shrugged. "I was going to try to be civil and polite about this, but you've left me no choice." A small smile tugged at her lips. "Now I'm just going to have to take your bike like a rude person would."

She pulled her hand out of her pocket and showed him the keys that dangled between her fingers. He moved forward to stop her, but encountered a barrier that forced him back. A soft laugh escaped Scarlet's lips as she mounted the nearest motorcycle and revved the engine.

"See ya!" she called out over the motorcycle. "Wouldn't wanna be ya!"

As she sped away from the mansion, she knew that she was going to be in big trouble when she came back to the mansion. But the look on Scooter's face would be worth it. Besides, there was a memo on her phone that told her that she had something very important to do.

OOOOOOOOO

Logan and Ororo were watching over the students that were playing in the yard in front of the school when Scarlet reappeared on school grounds. The girl killed the engine of the motorcycle that she'd driven somewhere and climbed off. A glow surrounded the motorcycle when she raised her hand over it and then it quickly faded away, leaving the motorcycle like it had always been – in appearance anyway. That done, she reached into the storage hatch and pulled out a big bunch of flowers and turned, heading away from the school and into the woods nearby without looking back.

"It's the second time she's done that since we brought her here," Ororo commented, watching the girl disappear into the woods. "It's always on the same date, but with different flowers…I wonder what she's doing with so many of them, but none of her friends know why. Even Addison doesn't know…"

"Can't be anything too bad," Logan commented around his cigar. "You don't hear any screams and no one comes back hurt. It's probably some kind of religious thing."

Ororo's gaze turned onto Logan and she frowned. "Then why does she come back in a sour mood?"

"She always is in a bad mood."

"Okay, you've got me there, Logan, but I'm worried about her. Charles is worried about her because she hides these flower days behind walls that even he can't get through. What if something is really wrong?"

Logan shrugged. "No one's asked her, so no one knows. Aren't people allowed having their own secrets?"

Ororo shook her head. "Charles needs to know. He wants to be able to help her through the healing process and to help her gain control over her powers, but he can't do that if he doesn't know why she does these strange things." She pressed a hand against his arm. "She hasn't told you anything in your training sessions, has she?"

"About this? No. I haven't asked her anything about this."

"Well, you should."

Logan's hazel gaze turned onto the weather-manipulator. "Why me?"

"Because she trusts you and respects you."

"Right. You're just afraid that she's gonna kill someone for intruding in her personal things."

Color flushed Ororo's face, deepening the mocha skin slightly. Logan sighed and headed away from her, muttering incoherent words under his breath. The students stayed out of his way as he crossed their paths, fearing him even though he hadn't been aggressive to any of them recently. It was something that he had noticed about their treatment to Scarlet – they knew who she was and were seeing what she was capable of whenever she had an accident in class or around them. They would fear her as they feared him and he knew that at least one of them wanted to change that.

He heard the girl's voice whispering before he saw her. She was kneeling next to the pond, throwing the flowers' heads softly into the water. If he was hearing her correctly, he thought he could hear her muttering the names of people and the repeated "I'm sorry" chant that followed each name. If she realized that he was there watching her, she didn't show it. For several minutes he stood in silence behind her as she whispered names and apologies until the last flower – a single white rose – was floating away from her.

"What are you doing here, Funny Hair?" Scarlet asked quietly, still kneeling by the pond's edge and staring out at the flowers drifting away. "Shouldn't you be thinking of ways to break up Red and Scooter?"

"I'm just checking on you," Logan said, moving closer to her. "People are getting worried."

Scarlet let out a little laugh. "They're concerned that this flower thing is something to be worried about and ended, huh? Figures. I never thought that they would react otherwise." She pressed her hands into the soft mud around her. "You can tell them that there's nothing dangerous going on around here, okay? This is just something that I have to do."

"I don't understand," Logan said, looking down at her. "What's so important about throwing flowers into the water?"

"It's important because – because…" Scarlet shook her head and looked up at him with pain in her scarlet colored eyes. "Do I have to tell you?"

Logan nodded slowly, reluctantly saying, "They'll want an explanation."

Scarlet sighed and looked away from him again. "It's my pathetic attempt at penance for everyone that I have hurt. All of those flowers represent the people that I have killed and their ages. No matter where I am or what I'm doing, I have to find a body of water and throw the flowers in it, saying their names over and asking for forgiveness. It won't come, but I have to try. I owe it to them for everything that I took from them." He could hear the waver in her voice and knew she was fighting back tears. "I took everything from them. Everything good and everything bad. Everything, Funny Hair. And now I have to live with the knowledge that they're dead and it's all because I couldn't control my damn powers. So if that's what you want to hear from me and report back to the head honchos, go. Just leave me alone here."

Logan shook his head. "I'm not going to tell them everything. You need your privacy and I…I think that just telling them that you're not doing anything dangerous should keep them satisfied." For now, anyway.

Scarlet's body relaxed a little and she pushed herself onto her feet. She swiped her hair back out of her face and turned to look at him. Her eyes seemed wetter than before, but there were no tears or evidence that she had been moved to tears.

"I don't understand why you care so much," Scarlet said to him, folding her arms over her chest. "People say that you don't get so involved in the lives of others. Why me?"

Logan scratched the back of his neck. "I don't understand it either. I just think that maybe you need someone to be able to talk to since you don't talk to anyone else."

"I don't talk because no one listens and no one understands," Scarlet muttered, looking away. "Even my own sister doesn't know. I'm thankful for the effort though, Funny Hair. I just don't if it'll be enough to keep me from losing it or leaving this place for good."

"We can try though," Logan commented. "And we'll never give up on you, Maria."

"Scarlet!" she hissed back at him, but he merely smiled at her and turned away, heading back the way that he had come.

OOOOOOOOO

A/N: So, what do you think about this update? I can answer your reviews if I feel inclined to and I will take any suggestion that you send me into consideration. Flames are asked to be mild, just enough to make some smores. Please and thank you for the reviews. God bless and have a wonderful week all of you! –Scarlet