Roberto hummed to himself as he folded his clothes in the hospital laundry room.
"You know, doing your own laundry's not so bad," he told Sam, who was slouched on a nearby chair.
"Just how many shirts did you bring?" Sam asked.
Roberto tossed one of his shirts at Sam. "Here. Maybe now you'll finally wash that shirt you've been wearing."
Sam looked at the shirt before putting it over his shoulder. "Neat."
"So, was it scary?" Roberto asked. "You know, working in the mines."
Sam nodded.
"I don't think I'd work in a mine even if you paid me a million dollars."
Sam chuckled. "I couldn't pay you a million dollars anyway."
"When we get out of here, I'll spot you," Roberto promised. "My folks are good for it."
While the boys talked in the laundry room, the girls were attempting to sleep, with only Rahne succeeding. Dani tossed and turned, haunted by the memories of her father's death, While Illyana simply stared up at the ceiling.
All of them were being monitored on a group of security screens. But no camera was focused on the edge of the woods, where a large shadow emerged and ran forward with a sickening growl.
The shadow collided with the forcefield covering the grounds. Instantly, Illyana shot out of bed and the lights in the laundry room went out.
"What was that?" Sam asked in the darkness.
"Just the circuit breaker," Roberto assured him. "You'd think they'd have better wiring with that force field they have keeping us in. Wait here. I'll get the lights."
Sam leaned his head back. "A million dollars, huh?" He began to hum the tune to 'If I had a million dollars.'
There was a banging noise, causing Sam to stop humming and look around. On the far side of the laundry room, one of the washing machines was shaking and glowing from the inside, providing the only source of light with the power still out.
Sam stood up and slowly approached the washing machine. He leaned over and touched the glass door, his hand beginning to vibrate in fear.
A hand suddenly pressed against the inside of the washing machine's door, and the light disappeared, enveloping Sam in an even greater darkness than before.
"Hello?" he called out. "Is anybody there?"
As if in response, a familiar sound came to Sam's ears, the sound of pickaxes striking rock. He walked around the washing machine and found himself surrounded by miners pounding away at granite walls.
The lights from their helmets nearly blinded Sam, who slowly walked between them. None of the miners stopped to acknowledge him, but he recognized some of their faces.
Sam's breathing grew heavy as he approached one miner who was pounding away at the back wall. This miner was the only one who was making any noise other than the sound of the pickaxes.
"Dad?" Sam whispered.
The miner stopped what he was doing and turned his head to look at Sam with a bruised and bloodied face.
"Sam Hill, what have you done?"
Someone screamed, and the other miners swung their pickaxes at Sam. The young Kentuckian panicked and blasted backwards, smashing through the chair he had been sitting on and cracking the wall behind it.
Sam groaned in pain and shock and stared at the washing machine, which seemed to have exploded from the inside.
Illyana stood up, clutching her puppet, and stared out the barred window of her cell.
"What do you think that was, Lockheed?"
Dani yawned as she stepped into the girl's shower. She had barely slept the previous night.
Illyana and Rahne were already there. Illyana was in the process of drying her hair as Dani walked in and promptly left without acknowledging Dani's presence.
Dani glanced after her before taking the shower stall next to Rahne.
"You'd better get up earlier if you want any hot water," Rahne explained. "Illyana's always the first one here and she always takes really long showers."
"Thanks for the warning." Dani glanced at the walls and ceiling. "There's no cameras in here, are there?"
"Only safe place in the building," Rahne replied. "Though I never checked the boys' showers."
The girls chuckled and Dani turned on her shower faucet. She grimaced as she turned the hot water knob as far as it would go to no avail.
"Told you," Rahne said.
Dani looked at Rahne and noticed a large 'W' burned onto her shoulder.
"That's some serious body-art. Tattoos aren't hardcore enough?"
"It wasn't my idea," Rahne said.
"What's it stand for?"
Rahne turned the shower off and wrapped herself in her towel. "I don't want to talk about it," she said as she left.
In the boys showers, Sam stood in front of one of the sinks, staring at his reflection in the mirror.
Sam began to sob. He raised his right hand and punched himself in the face. He then punched himself again and fell to the floor.
The group session that day focused on meditation. Emma and the teens sat in a circle on the floor. Their legs were crossed Indian style and their eyes were closed.
"Control," Emma said softly, repeating the word every few seconds.
Sam, Dani, and Rahne were attempting to empty their minds and get into the meditation, but Illyana simply sat with her hand on her chin and a bored expression on her face. Roberto opened one eye to look at her.
"Roberto, Illyana, would you please take this seriously?" Emma asked. Her eyes were still closed.
Roberto closed his eyes, but as Emma resumed her chant of "control," Illyana's lips parted in a snake-like grin.
After the session was completed, the teens gathered in the rec room. Roberto went straight to the ping pong table and picked up a pair of paddles.
"You up for a round?" he asked Sam. "I'll go easy on you."
As the boys began their game of ping pong, Dani and Rahne approached the foosball table and began playing. They laughed as they manically spun the little men around and knocked the ball back and forth.
After Rahne scored a goal, Dani went around the table to retrieve the ball from her goal. She looked up and her smiled disappeared as she saw Illyana sitting on the couch staring at them intently with her dragon puppet held against her cheek.
Dani grimaced as she took her place and dropped the ball back onto the table.
"Does she have to stare at us like that?"
"That's what she does," Rahne replied. "You get used to it after a while."
After a while, they switched places, with the boys taking over the foosball table and the girls picking up the ping pong paddles. The continued to play until Emma entered the rec room.
"Lights out in ten."
Roberto rolled his eyes. "Party pooper."
The group began to leave. Dani stopped at the door and looked back. Illyana had walked over to the foosball table and was slowly turning the goalie's handle.
"If you wanted to play, you could have just asked."
Illyana looked up at Dani in surprise.
"I said, you could have asked to play if you wanted to."
Illyana looked down at the foosball table again. "I don't know how," she said softly.
"Foosball's not a hard game."
Illyana sighed and let go of the handle. She angrily walked past Dani, who could only stare after her in exasperation.
That night, Dani again struggled to sleep. She tossed and turned as she did the night before, but something else was wrong.
She was shivering. Even with her blanket wrapped tightly around her, it was far too cold in her cell.
As Emma watched from the control room, the camera monitoring Dani shorted out, and another display alerted Emma to an anomaly in the cell.
Something touched Dani's face and she opened her eyes.
There was no ceiling above her. Instead there was a black sky from which tiny flecks were falling.
Dani held out her hand and caught one of the flecks. It was black ash.
The ash-fall increased in intensity and she looked up. A pair of glowing red eyes were glaring down at her, and she heard a loud roar.
Dani screamed in terror as Emma unlocked the door to her cell. She found the girl shaking, her clothes and hair covered in black soot.
She looked at Emma, struggling not to cry.
"What's happening to me?"
An analysis appeared on the main computer.
Subject: Danielle Moonstar
Elevated levels of psyionic energy sustained for 48 hours.
Mutant ability unknown.
Collect blood sample for analysis.
Emma moved Dani to a hospital bed and began taking a blood sample.
"Your ability is clearly manifesting itself. We need to conduct some tests to figure out just what it is."
She looked into Dani's exhausted eyes. "You haven't been sleeping, have you? I can give you something for that, if you want."
Dani nodded, and Emma pocketed the blood sample. "Once we determine what your power is, everything will become much easier, I promise."
"Did you know that baby rattlesnakes are much more dangerous than adult ones? They can't control how much venom they secrete yet. New mutants have a similar situation. When their power first manifests, the chances are they hurt someone, usually themselves. That's why new mutants are dangerous."
"Is that why we need to be locked up?" Dani asked.
Emma smiled. "That's why you all need to be sequestered, for you own safety and for everyone else's."
Rahne entered the chapel and sat down in the confessional booth.
"Forgive me father, for I have sinned. It's been a week since my last confession. I had impure thoughts. I lied to Dr. Frost. And I was up in the vents again."
Rahne was startled by the sound of loud footsteps from inside the chapel. She glanced out of the holes in booth, but could see no one there.
"Hello?"
She turned back, speaking quickly in her nervousness and sudden need to get out of there.
"I'll say an 'our father' and two hail Mary's, ok?"
The door to the chapel opened with a loud creaking sound, causing Rahne to gulp.
"Who's there?"
An all-too-familiar voice whispered at her.
"Witch."
Emma was walking with Dani towards the cafeteria for breakfast.
"My superior runs a facility for gifted mutants. You could move there after this, if you wanted to."
"Rahne said if I followed your program I'd get out of here faster," Dani said.
Emma smiled. "You've gotten close to Rahne, haven't …"
Her voice trailed off as she suddenly became concerned about something.
Rahne ran out of the booth and the chapel as the voice screamed after her.
"You witch! I'll flay the flesh from your bones!"
She collapsed on the grass, clutching the cross on her necklace.
"Demons can't enter churches. Demons can't enter churches. Demons can't enter churches."
"Dr. Frost?"
Emma looked down at Dani and smiled. "It's nothing, dear."
Rahne looked even more troubled than usual when they began that day's group session.
"Are you all right?" Dani asked as she took her seat.
Rahne nodded, but was spared the need to respond further when Emma began the session.
"Today I'd like to talk about obedience. If you want any hope of moving on to my superior's facility, I have to know that you can be trusted."
Sam raised his hand. "What if we don't want to move on? What if we just want to go home?"
"Sam, you remember what happened last time. Do you think they've stopped looking for you?" She glanced at all of them. "If you weren't here, you'd be in prison, or worse."
"It was an accident!"
"Will anyone outside this room believe that?"
"I would," Dani protested. "Sam's a good guy."
"Even if I wasn't, why do I have to be here for the rest of my life because of one mistake?" Sam asked. "I thought I was here to get better, but I'm not getting any better. I'm seeing things, having these terrible nightmares. When am I finally gonna get better?"
"You're better when I say you're better," Emma said sharply before softening her tone. "And I promise, you will get better."
"Every new mutant starts out exactly where you are now. Even that famous team of mutant superheroes were once teenagers who didn't know how to control their powers."
Illyana looked away at the mention of the X-Men.
"You're saying we could be X-Men too?" Roberto asked.
"Perhaps," Emma answered. "Eventually."
"What d'you think?" Roberto asked when they gathered in the rec room again. He sat down on a chair and put two fingers to his temple. "Is her 'superior' Mr. 'I sense a disturbance in the force?'"
"Why would we want to be X-Men?" Dani asked.
"I know," Roberto said. "I'm rich. I'm not putting on a suit and fighting people." He looked at Sam. "You should do it. It'd probably be better than working in the mines. You could be the Exploding Boy."
"I think I prefer what Rahne called me," Sam replied. "Cannonball."
Roberto pointed at Rahne. "You could be Wolf Girl. Awoooo."
Rahne made a sound somewhere between a giggle and a sigh.
"What mutant name would you choose?" Dani asked.
"Colossus is already taken, one more reason not to be an X-Man," Roberto said.
Illyana suddenly stood up and began to walk out.
"Come on," Dani said. 'This is like our ice breaker. Why don't you tell us what kind of mutant name you'd pick?"
"I've got it!" Roberto pointed at Illyana. "You could be the Magic School Bus."
That got Illyana to turn around in confusion.
"You could just pop the X-Men over wherever they need to go and bring them back when the fighting's done."
Illyana's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "I can do a bit more than that."
A small circle of light appeared next to Illyana. She stuck her hand into the circle, and it reappeared out of an identical circle behind Roberto's head. She flicked her finger in his ear.
"Ouch." Roberto rubbed his ear, but his smile did not diminish at all.
"Rahne said you could get out of here any time you wanted," Dani said.
"I could," Illyana acknowledged.
"So why don't you?"
"I guess I don't have a reason to."
"You've got to have someone you want to see again," Sam said. "Some friends or family."
Illyana grimaced and held her puppet tight.
"I've got Lockheed. He's the only friend I need."
Roberto burst out laughing. "That again?" He stood up and walked around Illyana.
"Aren't you a little old for imaginary friends?" he asked as he yanked the doll from her arm.
"Hey!" Illyana yelled in horror.
Roberto threw the puppet to Dani when Illyana tried to grab it back from him. When Illyana turned around and ran at Dani, he called out "here!"
Dani threw the doll back to Roberto. Illyana was beginning to hyperventilate with rage.
"GIVE HIM BACK!"
All the lights dimmed as Illyana screamed. Roberto stared in shock as Illyana looked ready to kill him.
He quickly handed the doll back to her. "I-I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd get that upset."
The lights returned to normal as Illyana took the puppet in her arms and hugged it tight.
"I'm sorry," Roberto said again, but Illyana did not seem to hear him.
"It's ok, Lockheed," she said, rocking and cooing the doll and seemingly oblivious to everyone else around her. "I won't let anyone take you away from me."
The others all looked at each other, exchanging expressions of shock at Illyana's outburst.
In the control room, Emma replayed the footage of the brief fight over the puppet. Her eyes narrowed as the monitor displayed a message which read 'no unusual energy readings detected' as the lights dimmed
She turned her attention to another monitor, which displayed several documents written in Russian.
Emma picked up her phone and called out.
"It's me. I think I've figured out why we couldn't find any documents about the Rasputin girl. We were looking in the wrong decade."
"What do you mean?" a male voice on the other end asked.
"She's not sixteen years old. She's six."
"How is that possible?"
Emma glanced at a picture in the corner of the monitor. The photograph depicted an extremely large black-haired young man who had a very small blonde girl on his right shoulder. Both of the subjects of the picture wore wide smiles.
"I don't know. But she is clearly hiding a lot more than I first suspected."
"Send everything you've found over to me. Do you require assistance?"
"No," Emma assured her superior. "I think I'll enjoy this challenge."