It was probably a good thing, that whole superhero thing was just Katja's imagination running wild so far. At least as long as she hadn't even started to get a grip on her own gift.

Ororo was next to take some time for her, the next morning already, and the young woman would need quite a lot of it, both in biology class and in the training afterward, on a sand court in the backyard built for such purposes in particular. Even when after dozens of attempts, there were still only thick raindrops falling from the sky instead of effective weapons, Ororo was still lacking any irritation.

What had shaken Katja's life recently was just still very much present, and the strongest feeling she was having about it simply was sadness. She kept on wondering how she was ever going to learn how to let her chaotic inside control the weather.

"It will come, in time." Noticing her self-doubts, of course, Ororo took her for a ride downtown after the lesson, for a debriefing regarding those past exercises during what was basically a clothes shopping marathon.

Katja still wasn't entirely comfortable with spending money that someone with a good heart had simply slipped her, but since she'd hardly brought anything with her here, she desperately needed to fill her closet.

Thanks to the mall's glass roof, that rain was continuously falling on, while the rest of New York was being blessed with bright sunshine, it was easy to see that her frustration about her meager successes was showing in the shape of a cloud right above her head.

Something that couldn't have gone unnoticed by the other visitors either. In any case, the people Ororo and she passed were conspicuously keeping their distance from them. Ororo's hair got some suspicious glances as well.

"Hopefully not too much time, or I can never leave the house again without attracting attention," Katja grumbled. "What is this like for you?"

"For me? Pure instinct. Which wasn't always easy to control, either." A wistful smile of memory curled around Ororo's pretty lips.

She stopped at a flower store to pick out some seedlings for Xavier's garden, with the eye of an expert and, again, infinite patience that proved her love for her plants. Katja had already been able to notice earlier how important her connection to nature was for the young woman. Not once had she allowed a clumsily directed bolt of lightning to strike one of the bushes or trees, or, worst of all, one of her beloved rose bushes. Instead, she had directed the highly dosed energy onto the sandy field with a practiced gesture every time. Each time, much to the excitement of the children and teenagers who had watched from the fence.

"I was already struggling with this where I grew up, in Egypt. Outside my village, I would not have survived on my own. Back then, people still thought especially mutants like you and me to be either witches or goddesses. In some places – including some in western countries, for that matter –, that belief hasn't changed. That's an advantage you have over the young people in our house, Flashwind. You already have the mental strength to deal with such rejection and such prejudice."

"I hope so." Katja thought gloomily of the cheerful young people she had met over the past few days, who supported and encouraged each other and who were always able to seek advice from their so very gifted teachers.

There was no doubt, that the children were doing well in their little fortress out there, far from the city, isolated from people who hated them. But they wouldn't stay in that manor forever.

It was a damn good thing that there were selfless beings like Ororo who helped these little personalities prepare for life in a world of humans. And who could maybe Katja a little bit, too.

"I know it." Ororo gifted her with one of those smiles that made Katja feel as if a little bit of that fear of the future fall away from her every time. "You're already about to leave the last few weeks behind. Some people need years to do that. Not everyone throws themselves into a new job like a madman as you do, you know. Scott was quite impressed that he couldn't tire you out at all yesterday."

Katja was suddenly extremely glad that Ororo wasn't the one on her team with telepathic powers, given the utterly indecent thoughts that inevitably ran through her head at that last remark. Too bad her mutation was also making her immune to temperatures, as it turned out more and more. A cold shower would have been very helpful right now.

„I always had far too much energy," she quickly tried to distract Ororo from her slightly too red cheeks. „And me staying on the move makes life easier for your lightning rods until I learn how to rein in my head. As you say ... I'm an adult. I'm expected to get my life together on my own, right?" Katja couldn't help feeling a little bitter. If she absolutely had to belong to this group of people who would always have to fight for their rights ... Then she would have preferred it to happen earlier. That might have at least spared her things like Fabian.

Or other lows before him. Her hand, which was not carrying a heavy shopping bag, grazed a few certain old scars on her left forearm without her really realizing, which had recently almost been joined by another. Never again. Thinking about it now, it seemed incredibly childish to her that she had once let a few crushed hopes depress her so much that she had sought salvation in the shape of pain. Well, if nothing else, at least those little slips as a teenager had raised her pain threshold considerably. Which also meant, she could easily let Scott slam her on a workout mat a few more times without always needing half an hour to recover.

A slender hand came to rest on hers for a moment. A strong squeeze exactly around these old scars made her wince. The leather bracelet Katja usually wore in that spot must have slipped earlier when she had kept on raising her arms to the sky. Something that according to Ororo wasn't necessary anyway, but it was easy for her to talk. She already could do all this, after all.

"The only one in our house who will ever expect anything from you is yourself, Flashwind. And you better not ask too much of yourself. That ends with self-destruction faster than you'd like, and I hope you're long past those times. If they do come back though, you will get support from us without paying for it in blood. You still have plenty of time to decide what your future will look like."

"Not if Magneto has anything to say about it, right?" Though the last few days had occasionally been fun, Katja couldn't just forget what Xavier had revealed to her when she first arrived. If what the X-Men feared would really happen ... Then such fun might be over soon.

Ororo's uneasy shrug was enough of an answer.

What had so far only manifested itself in vague nervousness was unfortunately soon to become reality indeed.

Early the next day, someone hammered against the door of Katja's room. "Flashwind! Come quickly!"

Sleepily, Katja scrambled to her feet. When she went outside, Ororo had already run on.

But Scott, who still looked at least as crumpled as Katja herself, just come limping from his room, on one leg, slipping into his second boot. Today, that irritated grind of his jaw was apparently not just notorious morning moodiness. "The Professor has located two mutants north that he would like to bring here. Such invitation runs usually aren't dangerous. Charles thinks this is perfect for you to see our work from up close. To give you an idea of what would expect you in our team. Hurry, please. We'll be waiting in the basement."

Technically, Katja wasn't even being asked if she wanted to come along. That was apparently already a done deal, no matter how unenthusiastic Scott sounded about it.

Katja was too curious to mind. She struggled to get into her uniform as quickly as possible, straining to figure out how best to breathe in it. These things were pure sadism, compared to which even a corset was comfortable.

From the sound of it, Ororo, Scott, and she would travel by that jet that Katja had already briefly seen. With this so-called Blackbird to Canada, at high speed – that alone was an experience Katja would not have wanted to miss. The hangar, like most of the team's strategically important equipment, was located in that part of the basement that was sealed off with code-locked doors, that only they, being senior residents of the manor, had access to. From there, the plane was able to exit the mansion through a fold-out space in the ground that served as a basketball court otherwise.

A very tight takeoff that made Katja a little uncomfortable, but she quickly realized, that Scott was an excellent pilot. Besides, she had always loved flying. The view of her new neighborhood from above, once they were speeding above countless skyscrapers and then over the amazingly untouched surroundings of New York, made her forget all the difficulties for a few minutes.

They covered the last stretch in the robust X-jeep they'd brought along in the cargo hold, as the coordinates that the Professor and Jean had found after a long, sleepless night pointed to a very impassable, snow-covered area. The telepaths had stumbled upon this place with the help of this strange Cerebro device that Katja had already read a lot in the network about, with which the Professor could mentally connect with other mutants.

The question wanted to enter her mind for a moment if Xavier had also used this thing to watch her stumble to New York awkwardly a few days ago, but decided she'd rather not know.

What she did want to learn was the criteria used to select the people seemingly interesting to the X-Men though. That she of all people was supposed to fit into this picture was still not entirely credible to her. "Scott?"

From the movement of Scott's head, she thought she could tell he was seeking her gaze in the rearview mirror. It was the first time that Katja saw him with his VISOR. This clunky silver-black thing covering his eyes – suspiciously reminiscent of some old Star Trek series –, already made him look much more like a mutant than the still relatively inconspicuous sunglasses ...

Katja was immediately ashamed of the thought. After all, she was now one of them, too.

"Why those two?"

"One of them has been known to the Professor from stories for some time. And Magneto, sadly, knows him, too. This guy is very powerful. Charles thinks the Brotherhood might hire him. We have to find him before they do." A very sober tone had crept into Scott's often already brief way of talking. It was obvious that his entire focus was on the task at hand, once he was wearing that certain leather outfit himself that, to Katja's chagrin, unfortunately, suited him quite well.

"Which we usually are lucky enough to do. But even if it's unlikely: If we run into Magneto's people, you stay in the car, Flashwind, no matter what. I want you to take a good look and learn. That's the only reason you're here. They won't hurt you as long as you lay low. They have no reason to. But you need to get to know them, their strengths and especially their weaknesses, in case you do face them as their enemy one day." Ororo's voice did not allow for any debate either.

Not that Katja was feeling like one. "There could be more of them there?" It looked like this trip wasn't that harmless after all. Had she not been told to take her time with her decision regarding going to battle? So what was this about then?

Ororo shrugged slowly. "The Professor couldn't tell for sure. But if there's one thing my time as a member of the X Men has taught me, it's that the Brotherhood usually shows up at the worst moments. And danger from the Brotherhood means danger to the world."

Katja folded her arms with a silent shudder, suddenly very glad that the back of the vehicle had tinted windows to block the view. Xavier's embellishments were harder and harder to believe. What the hell was she doing here?

It just happened far too quickly, exactly what should not have happened in the first place. When they reached said coordinates, the Brotherhood had indeed been faster. The car that the two unknown mutants were stuck in had been involved in an accident and was apparently about to explode.

They had to act immediately. Well, Scott and Ororo did, anyway.

The sight of a gigantic mutant with fur, a long tail, fangs, and claws convinced Katja, even at a first glance from a distance, that she should better follow her orders entirely voluntarily.

Ororo gave them all cover with a strong blizzard, so naturally, without even lifting a fingertip, that Katja inevitably wondered if she would ever be able to pull off that kind of thing.

Scott chased that Sabretooth guy away with a well-aimed laser shot through his VISOR that made Katja startle quite a bit. Reading about such an power in a file wasn't the same as suddenly seeing, with her own eyes, the destructive power of such a glaring red beam generated by the pupils of a human being of all things.

The still quite young-looking teenage girl trapped in the passenger seat of the wrecked vehicle looked intimidated as well when Scott shot her seatbelt and Ororo tried to help her get out. For a dangerously long moment, she hesitated ...

And then there suddenly appeared a mutant with dark blue skin behind Scott, whom Katja recognized from her network research as the one named Mystique. Before the team leader had even fully turned around, the woman knocked him down with a punch to his temple.

Sabretooth, contrary to what they'd thought at first, had unfortunately not fled very far after almost being hit by Scott either, but now lunged at Ororo with a loud, animalistic snarl.

Katja had frozen in her seat, trying to decide in a split second what she should do now. Whether she should do anything at all. After all, the X-Men didn't want her to interfere ... But from how it looked, they hadn't expected such big trouble either. If that car would really blow up ...

Katja needed to do something, no matter how afraid she was. Afraid of these enemies in particular, who attacked people for no reason at all without any scruples. It was madness, trying to go against such persons ... But fortunately, thanks to her powers, Katja didn't have to. The enemies wouldn't even be able to see her face ...

If she had thought about it any longer, there would have been no more need to, because then the enemies would have taken the mutants with them who had brought Scott, Ororo, and Katja here. And Katja would have only sat around on her ass the whole time ... No, she couldn't do that, and not only because she felt sorry for the young girl, who was at least as fearful as herself and apparently much more helpless in this situation.

A few dark clouds had already gathered in the sky, Katja realized with relief. Today, it would be working. Today, she didn't need any memories to activate her powers, either. The sight of Scott's bleeding face and the possibility that he might be too dazed to escape in time was quite enough to make her mad.

Anger, worry for someone she barely knew. Apparently, she had another big fat problem there that she should better take care of real soon before it could turn into a disaster.

But she wouldn't be able to do that until her fellow weather mutant sufferer and the man who had become the unplanned object of her attention were out of mortal danger.

Somewhat startled, Mystique jumped back when a bolt of lightning struck just beside her and spun around. Hateful yellow and brown eyes seemed to pierce Katja even through the suddenly ridiculously thin-looking obstacle of the window. Before she really understood what was happening, that muscular shape approached the X-Jeep at an almost supernatural speed.

Katja didn't even have time to bundle up her anger into another flash. Instead, heavy rain started to fall, just half a second before the car door was ripped open and a strong hand closed around her throat ...

Another flash – not Katja's this time – had Mystique back away with an annoyed hiss.

Ororo had managed to chase Sabretooth away for good this time, with the help of an ever-increasing thunderstorm, and was now coming up at them with the same rage that had just been brewing inside Katja. Her eyes were shining with that eerie white hue again. A strong gust of wind pushed Mystique away from the vehicle. More and more lightning cracked the sky, loud thunder warning the enemy that Ororo would not miss her like Katja had if she really wanted to hit her.

Mystique once again thoughtfully eyed Katja, who had retreated to the other end of the back seat and was trying hard to find enough focus to use her powers at least as well as Ororo. Her lips formed silent words that Katja understood even without the ability to lip-read. "I'll see you."

Then she rushed after her teammate.

"I'm good. But ..." Still coughing quietly to herself, Katja finally got out of the damn car and pointed at Scott, who seemed to be slowly recovering as well ... Too slowly for her taste.

"Yes. That piece of junk is about to blow up. We're too close, the windows might not hold. Get to safety on foot, quick!"

Ororo ran up to Scott and harshly pulled him to his feet before helping the strange girl out of the car.

Finally properly awake again, Scott managed to hoist the other mutant off the car's hood, dragging him behind him, and the three of them took off running.

Not a moment too soon. A deafening bang, then the smell of singed clothing infused the air. Merciless heat crept over their skin for a moment, far too close ... But they escaped danger literally at the last second, even though all five of them would probably have problems with their hearing in the next few hours. On TV, such scenes somehow always looked much more harmless.

Once they had caught their breath, Scott eyed Katja with an expression in which she could easily read unbridled fury, despite his VISOR. "Just what do you think you're doing?"

"I was just trying to help ..." Katja said in offense, with as much dignity as she could come up with, currently holding her side with clenched teeth, praying that nothing was hurt there when she had just so clumsily fallen onto a thick branch.

"We told you to stay out of this!", Scott snapped at her. "You're a helpless civilian! Do you have any idea what could have happened? This woman never hesitates to kill for what she wants!"

"But I ..." There was only that many reprimands Katja could deal with. After all, she had only meant well. "I could have ..."

"What?" Scott interrupted her again. "Defeated her? Look at you! You're still getting lost in Charles' house if no one tells you where to go. Don't you get it? Mystique would probably have been happy to snap your neck if Storm hadn't ..."

"Scott." Ororo must have seen Katja trembling, how belated panic was clouding her vision and signaled her teammate to stop. "I think she got the idea."

"I hope so. This is exactly why I didn't want to allow this, Storm. Our job is not to do some goddamn flightseeing." Without giving Katja another glance, Scott walked ahead to the rover with the foreign mutant over his back, who had fortunately been largely spared by the explosion.

"He doesn't mean it. He's just worried." Ororo briefly put a hand on Katja's arm.

But the disconcertment she watched Scott leave with had Katja suspect that it was not normal for someone with Scott's conspicuously reined-in temper to lose it so badly. Something was wrong with him; Katja's insight into people had not deceived her there.

"Thank you for trying. It shows me that you already seem to know pretty well which way you want to go one day. Someday, when we don't have to protect you from yourself anymore." Ororo's warm smile helped Katja calm the fear Scott had conjured up there.

Yes, she had been careless. She might even have died – the thought was so abstract just seconds after that fight that she quickly dismissed it. But for a brief moment, she had thrown Mystique off balance. Once she had learned to use her powers properly ...

It was pointless to keep denying it: In that risky situation a minute ago, something had burst open in Katja that had been brewing inside of her since her arrival in Westchester. It was as if she hadn't felt this awake in years. Maybe never. Her cells seemed to be literally vibrating, but her hands didn't shake for even a second. The urge to get right back to her training then and there was overwhelming, to learn as quickly as possible everything she needed to, to actually earn that uniform on her body.

It simply wasn't right that some mutants with a taste for murder were going after innocent teenagers. There was so much injustice, so much wrong with this world ... Why not take the chance to change it? All of a sudden, Katja had a chance to do so, no matter how small and inconspicuous she was. The sudden urge to act hardly allowed her to sit still for a second.

She had stopped being the flower on some office wall in the countryside. She never wanted to be that again, and she would prove that to herself and everyone else soon enough.

Besides, Scott had admittedly just awakened her defiance a little. Whatever his problem with Katja was, she wasn't going to let it stop her. Someday, he would see for himself that she was strong enough for his team.

That goal in mind would hopefully also help to chase away the silly crush on that man from Katja's stupid head.

The girl they had rescued introduced herself as Marie D'Acanto but only called herself Rogue. The teenager didn't say much on the way back to the jet, but it was impossible to miss that she knew no way out, thanks to her constant hunted glances around and her fingernails that were almost chewed off bloody. Marie admitted to having run away from home after mutating, to making her way through half of Canada drifting. There was no doubt, she had been through quite a bit. She shied away from any kind of touch, and certainly not just because of the frightening mutation she was talking about, that poisoned her skin so much that she could no longer touch anyone without protection. Compassion for that, she blocked with her chin thrust forward harshly, just like the offer to contact her parents so that they would at least know that she was alright.

Katja, just like Ororo, realized immediately from experience how serious the situation was. This young woman urgently needed someone to show her a way out of this darkness that had started spreading in her mind, otherwise, she would get lost in it. She might even learn to appreciate it, to love it ... and drown in it.

Katja at least wanted to try to prevent that. So once the jet had taken off, she took a seat next to the girl on one of the passenger benches, at a respectful distance, because Marie immediately flinched in a way that was still very familiar to Katja from her own arrival at her current home. "Are you sure you're okay? Those psychos didn't touch you, did they? I didn't see everything."

Marie again just shook her head jerkily. Her eyes wandered to the side of Katja's neck, to an annoying, light scratch from sharp fingernails that Katja hadn't even noticed until now, thanks to her low pain perception.

"It's nothing." Katja wiped away the small trail of blood with an annoyed grimace. "At least I made it to day 3 before fucking up at the world's weirdest internship. But that's nothing compared to the final boss called a fax machine from my last job. No, seriously," she added with a grin when Marie chuckled at least briefly, as she had hoped. "The junior partner's anteroom looked like a battlefield. That carpet was ruined for good. They never put a toner cartridge in my hand ever again."

Marie's still quite restless eyes wandered back and forth between her and the pilot seats, where there were no doubt two people following in the conversation extremely interested, via the connection of the headsets they were all wearing. "You're also new?"

"I needed a place where I can't do any more harm," Katja replied quietly, reminded again by Marie's tale about her powers of the real reason for her flight from Germany. "And at first glance, the house looks good enough."

"And those guys over there can be trusted?" Understandable skepticism, especially after that stupid argument between Scott and Katja a few minutes ago, creased Marie's low brow.

Now, Katja's smile didn't look half as forced. "I have no reason to believe otherwise so far. And if we do fall flat on our faces again right away ... What nature came up with for the two of us as a special effect, it's pretty crappy. But at least skills like that help you get out of a situation pretty quickly."

Marie's visible relief also helped her to discard the somewhat sketchy impressions of this ill-considered mission today for the moment. She had to strongly doubt that something like this would happen again in the near future. This conversation, as brief as it was significant, had also made it clear to Katja that she didn't have to rush headfirst into life-and-death encounters to make herself useful. Instead, she remained by Marie's side unprompted once they arrived at Mutant High.

Which Jean was noticeably glad about since Marie and Katja were not only almost the same age but also in similar situations. Hopefully, that would make the girl able to really trust Katja soon.

So it was up to her, together with Ororo, to show Marie a room where she could wash up thoroughly after the exhausting time on the run, and change her clothes. Katja also stayed for the following meeting with Xavier, which, however, turned out to be much shorter and less informative than her own had been. Marie, after all, was not the person Charles had been so eager to recruit today.

By the time they toured the estate and finally got to the infirmary, where Jean was examining Wolverine, the other new mutant, Marie had at least relaxed a tiny bit.

She had agreed to stay with Xavier for the time being, but continued to speak only sporadically and avoided every glance. It was clear that not much was getting through to her, no matter what the conversation was about. You couldn't just leave a trauma of this kind behind so quickly, Katja knew that all too well herself.

It wasn't until she saw Wolverine again that some life came into Marie's so downcast expression. Of all people, she seemed to be very fond of this rather frightening mutant with his extremely muscular figure, whom Marie had only known for a short time herself. Her piercing stares followed Jean's every move while the doctor made her diagnosis.

"You sure you want to put that thing in him, Jean?" Katja, too, eyed suspiciously the very nasty-looking syringe on Jean's instrument table.

Marie had been talking about a brutal cage fight she had seen the stranger being engaged in. This man was undoubtedly dangerous; his rugged attractiveness could not hide that fact.

'He's unconscious. He won't feel it anyway.' Jean answered her telepathically, so as not to unnecessarily upset Marie with the somewhat unkind reply. Using her telekinetic powers, she let the syringe fly toward her.

It was the first time that anyone was talking to Katja in this particular way, and she accordingly startled at the sound of this already quite familiar voice behind her forehead. This would take some getting used to.

'Now he is.' This time she made a conscious effort to translate the few words into English in her own mind, hoping that Jean would actually pick it up. She still had no real idea how this form of communication worked.

Judging by Jean's almost invisible shrug, it had worked. 'If this wakes him up, fine with me. We really need to find out what Magneto wanted him for.'

Catching the syringe in her palm, she placed the needle on Wolverine's bare arm.

Suddenly, someone did wake up, and it was Marie. "Doctor Grey, wait!"

The warning was too late. Wolverine suddenly jumped up. The guy obviously hadn't been half as blacked out as they had thought.

Jean, more or less prepared, backed away, but Wolverine was like lightning. He grabbed her firmly from behind, choking her for a moment ...

Then he was gone before Katja and Marie could have intervened in any way. The security door closed automatically behind him, as well as the lock in the shape of the symbol of the X-Men.

"Are you all right, Jean?" asked Katja worriedly, shaken by the unprovoked assault.

"I'm fine ... Follow him, quick!" Jean shouted, coughing with a grimace.

Even though she didn't like leaving her friend alone after that scene, Katja ran outside together with Marie and just barely spotted Wolverine down the hall.

"Wait!" Marie shouted, suddenly with a surprising amount of strength and determination in her voice.

The man spun around at a speed that was unreal. For seconds, Katja felt scanned by hazel eyes that seemed to be downright analyzing and classifying her. Like a predator did with its prey.

She was not unhappy when the guy turned to Marie. Suspicion entered his expression. "Kid? What is all this? Who sent you?"

"No one." Marie approached him slowly, cautiously, intimidated by this dismissive manner despite her affection. "We're here because these people want to help us."

"I don't need help," her companion growled snidely. "Give me my clothes and show me the quickest way out of here, that'll help the most."

"Whatever. But before you go fighting for a new truck and running off again, you should ask yourself who's just saved your life."

"You've got quite the mouth on you for your age." For a moment the stranger seemed to want to cooperate, but then he turned away with a snort and just hurried on.

Katja sighed. That would have been too easy. "The Professor will talk some sense into him." She didn't think, Charles' powers of persuasion would leave even someone as headstrong as Wolverine cold.

She felt Jean's astonished look at her back and grinned at her in embarrassment. The fact that Katja already felt so naturally as a member of this mansion was probably due to the adrenaline that had briefly sent her body into such ecstasy earlier ... And a little bit also due to the feeling of coming home that Jean in particular had given her on the first day. And if Katja's new life was going to be quite dangerous indeed from time to time ... Well, then she would learn to defend herself. Perhaps it was time for her to grow some claws as well.