Author´s note:

Okay, I´m back. This is the longest chapter of the story so far and quite a lot of thinking went into it till I had puzzled Shade´s story together. Yay, thanks for the reviews, but: hey, this story´s on 16 alert lists. C´mon, give yourselves a push, leave a review. My days are quite dull and boring right now because of my nasty exampaper so... every review makes my day.. and makes me update faster ;-)

LunarSquirrel: Awww, thanks. Such a nice review. I´m always happy to hear when people think my spelling and grammar is okay. (beams) Glad you like my story and I´m glad you like the characterizations as Mystique is giving me a hard time now and then. Somehow, writing Magneto and Pyro comes a lot easier... hm..

AngelofSnow: You can hug him when I´m done, okay? (goes on hugging Erik) I´ve actually grown to like Shade as well, so... you might be happy with this chapter.

Meow: Nice to have you back. Hope you had nice holidays :-) So... hope you like the new chappy.

2wingo: (grins) Uhm... I won´t take anything away from the story yet... (coughs) wait and see ;-)

Okay, here you go... and remember: drop a review!

Chapter 18

Hopes and Shade

Erik could tell the girl was fighting an inner struggle and he couldn´t condemn her for it. Leaving Pyro´s little gang, as ephemeral as teenage friendships tended to be these days, must have cost her quite some effort and coming to him even more so, if he rethought their recent encounters during which he had been nothing but a threat to her and her friends. He could tell from the way her eyes were scanning the room that she was more nervous than she was willing to admit. Her hands were toying around with her necklace uneasily. Since he had returned it to her, she was clutching it in her hands.

He slowly sorrounded the desk and sat down again, looking her in the eyes, one eyebrow arched questioningly. Why had she come?

She met his gaze bravely and opened and closed her mouth ere she found a way to start. "I... it´s difficult where to begin." she said a little hastily. "I´m not even sure if I did the right thing by coming here."

"Do we ever know whether the things we do are right, before we have done them?" Erik gave back in return. As soon as these words had escaped him, he wondered why he had said them. This sounded not much like the man he had been, the mutant who had always been sure of the trueness of his cause. He brushed his thoughts aside. Reassuring the girl had nothing to do with giving in to principles that were not his own. He could deal with words, persuade people, he at least should know!

She kept silent for another few seconds, then she started.

"I saw what happened in that night on Alcatraz. I was there." Erik scowled. He was sure she had not been among the mutants of his Brotherhood then. None of them had been that young, at least nobody he knew of. He propped onto his ellbows and put his fingers together. "Go on."

"You destroyed the laboratories, but... that wasn´t all." She paused. "Nobody knew, not even you... but there was not just this one laboratory on the island. I was there. I and others. There were rooms below the surface. A cellar where they kept us."

Erik´s eyes narrowed. Was she lying? No, something told him she wasn´t. How had it been possible he had not known?

"Us?" he asked. "Who is us?"

"Me and 9 other mutants. All of them between 14 and 20. In the night the laboratories were destroyed, a part of the wall was blown away and I and two others managed to escape."

"You were a prisoner then? Who kept you?"

"I never saw the head of them, only the guards." Shade answered. "Since they caught me, I never heard the name of the main boss behind it all."

She went on, told him she had been caught by two men while using her mutation to sneak into a supermarket at night. She had been homeless, hungry, not had a proper meal for days. She and her companions, two mutants about her age, homeless like herself, had simply been looking for some food and a warm place for the night. She would not tell him anything about her family and he didn´t press on the matter. She had never seen the two men before nor after. They had taken her away anaesthesizing her by pressing something to her mouth and nose. When she had come to her senses again she had found herself in a windowless room.

She had been scared, had screamed and no one had answered her for what seemed like hours. When she had been weary of hearing her own screams of fear and fury, a man and a woman had entered the room. She could not tell much about their outer appearances but from the description she gave on them, Erik concluded they had been army officials. Shade´s voice had become steadier when she told him the two strangers had regarded her almost with respect. They had made her believe she could be happy they had picked her up, gotten her away from her miserable life on the streets. Their words had sounded inviting at first. The offer of a home, respect of her mutancy... but quickly the tide had turned. Surely she had heard of the Cure they had asked her and she had nodded. And surely did she know that although they did not share the common prejudices against mutants (at this, Erik snorted inwardly) there were mutants who meant a threat to humankind. Mutants who were terrorists. Erik was almost sure his name had been mentioned, but didn´t ask. The two army officials had then told Shade that, beyond a roof over her head, a warm bed and food they wanted to offer her even more. Security from the harassment some humans were showing towards mutants. "You would be safe" Shade recorded the words of the man whose name she had never grown to know. "We need the support of mutants. We have seen how useful you could be for us. As a spy."

The sly words left no doubt to the fact they had been no offer... but an order. No way out.

She had not been willing to give in at once. The windowless room had frightened her. The narrowness of the walls had made her nervous. "Where are the others?" she had asked. "Where are my friends?"

"They are here." the woman had answered. "They are here within these walls, don´t worry about them, they are fine and we will offer them the same as we offer you now. You only need to agree."

She had felt a slight threat going along with those words. "I... I´ve lived on my own for quite a time." she had replied to their unmoving faces. "I... I don´t think I´d like that."

The woman had shifted her position, come a little closer, her smile was false. "We talked about the Cure, didn´t we?" Shade had nodded slowly. "If you do not cooperate, we have to suggest you have something up in your sleeve. We do not even know you, little one. You could be alligned to the terrorist mutants, couldn´t you?" She had told them this was a lie, that she had never had to do with any terrorists. They had smiled but obviously not listened. "Well, then there is nothing for you to fear isn´t it?"

They had again told her how important it was to have spies against the ´bad´ mutants, they had again assured her that there was nothing for her to fear. For a girl trapped in a windowless room, separated from her friends with two army officials to corner her, this had not been an easy thing to believe, Erik thought, anger welling up inside him with every word Shade spoke.

"They gave me this." she said and held the necklace a little higher. "They said it was a sign. That those who wore it, would be recognized. That whenever there was an uproar, whenever mutants were arrested, the police and the army would recognize us. Would not harm us."

"If you joined them."

She nodded.

"And you did join them, didn´t you?"

She nodded again. "I didn´t know what to do. It didn´t sound too bad after all. A roof over your had and things. Regular meals. It seemed like... home.. almost. At least they made me believe it was."

"They mentioned the Cure." Erik said calmly. "What about that?"

"That was the part I didn´t like..." Shade continued. "They said the Cure was for those mutants that were a danger. That it took away their powers. They gave me a choice."

Erik did not press any further. He knew what their ´choice´ had been. Work as a spy or be ´cured´.

"I see."

She shook her head. "I... I told them I didn´t want that. I was angry and then I told them I had been alone for so long I didn´t care if they made me take the cure... I mean, it´s a cool thing to do... being invisible and stuff... but... I wanted to make them know they can´t force me to do what I don´t want to."

However, she had not been successful, she had not been given any choice. The nameless woman had smiled at her words and anger, she had told her with a smile that she was to remember she was not the only one in their service. She had reminded Shade she had not been the only one who had been brought to this place. What about her friends? Would they accept a loss of their powers so easily?

The words had been a threat and clearly so. She had thought to have power over them, she had thought she had still had a free will, to cooperate or not to. Now she found it was not just about her. It was about her friends. About the two she had been with. Jacky, the 17 year old that could shoot laser beams from her hands and Rascal an 11 year old youngster with the ability to run faster than the wind. They would never meet her eyes again if she was responsible for their powers being taken from them. And they would do this. They would ´cure´ her friends if she did not cooperate. They had never said so directly, but this terrible promise had been evident in their eyes and smile.

Shade had been talking for some minutes now and fell silent for a moment, her throat becoming hoarse from talking. Erik rose and walked over to the counter again, taking out another glass and a bottle of water. He stepped next to her seat and poured the water, then stood his back to the desk, his arms crossed and urged her to speak on. "What happened then?"

"It was about what they told me would happen." Shade continued her report. "I got regular meals, had a bed of my own which was nice... I can´t remember having had an own bed before that... and there were other mutants around my age there, too. I even met Jacky again, but kept asking for Rascal. They sent us on little missions, nothing big really. Made us observe public places for mutant activities and sent us to places where they thought mutants would meet. They treated us well. Once I and another one from our group got involved in some trouble. The police were storming a mutant meeting and we were scared they would round us up as well, but when they saw out necklaces they let us go. No mutant ever got to know we were traitors, but wearing the sun was always a ...protection... that felt bad."

Wearing the sun... dark memories rose in Erik´s mind. He had seen a time when people who were different had been marked with stars, not suns, times when wearing those stars had meant percecution... eventually death, not protection. The images were still similar and it made him feel sick.

"I felt bad ... somehow..." Shade went on. "But I was treated well, so I did what they made me do. I spied for them... and I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought those mutants I was spying on were... like... terrorists. Me and my group were beginning to feel proud of what we did. We were some sort of elite, see?" She was giving him a rather fearful glance, scared he would react with anger, but Erik stayed calm although his inside looked very different.

"Some sort of elite" was all he said with a voice bereft of emotion while massaging his right temple with his fingers.

She nodded. "Yes. We were all scared of what they told us. That the bad mutants were a threat. That they killed whoever was in their way. We believed them. They gave us food and a place to stay, see? We didn´t like the whole cure threat thingy, but we didn´t... well, we didn´t think about that much." She shrugged. "One day me and a friend from the Sun were sent after someone they thought was a mutant. We followed him and reported him. I had followed the man into a building... I can´t even remember what it was... the man was stealing something. They had told me that they kept important documents there... about the cure. So I became invisible and sneaked in right after him. Inside he changed... he was a shapeshifter. I reported the mutant and left. Later I found that it was a woman they had been looking for."

Mystique. Erik had wondered how they had caught her. Mystique was smart and in combat almost noone was a match to her. So it had been a mutant that had betrayed her. It was hard for him not to show any emotions.

The children of the Sun, as the mutants had called themselves with their own little pride had been proud of what they had achieved. Pushing the threat of the cure far away they had only seen the ´service´ they were doing and the reward they had been offered for it. Help mutants and humans, get a bed and food. They had not gotten much news, they had not been told that there had been uproars because of the cure. The name Magneto had been mentioned several times to them and they had spoken his name in fear. The world black and white for them. Until, one day, Shade had been tired of the vague answers she got when asking about her little friend Rascal. She had used her mutancy to sneak into the headquarters one night. She had found the file that read the words that had changed everything: Mutant no. 45 880, ´Rascal´/ age: 11 / status: cured / St. Peter´s orphanage, New York.

Since that night she had seen that nothing about what they had told her had been right. It had been a lie. She had been supportive, she had helped, she had spied and yet they had taken away Rascal´s powers. From that day her cooperation had been a double game. She had begun to hold back information, she had started to look out for mutants she could join, she had kept her eyes open for a possibility to escape. She could not run away during her missions. All the time, others if the team would be around, humans that were (as she now saw it) observing the mutant teenagers like men would look after police dogs. They had never discovered her lack of loyality and then.. a few days later Magneto and his Brotherhood had attacked the island. In the middle of the night she had climbed out through the hole in the wall and had somehow managed to escape. She could not even remember how. All she knew was that she was suddenly running along a scattered troop of mutants abandoning their fallen leader. One of the fugitives had been Pyro...

Her hopes had been high when she had joined his little scattered gang that was just about to form. She had told him what she knew, thinking he would make an effort to free her friends. He had delayed her, told her it was more important to plan things, to gather others, to show people that the brotherhood of mutants, as he had called it, had a new head. Erik chuckled when she had arrived at that point and she looked up, irritated before she went on. She had lived in fear, scared the head of the Sun could find her, force her back... force her to take the Cure. She didn´t want to. She had kept her necklace, hoping that if they would catch her in the end she would be able to find a believable story to explain her absence. If she still wore the Sun they might take her in again and not force the Cure upon her.

Then, in the second night, she had gotten into contact with Think, an 18 year old telepath, one of their group. They had been loose friends and even though she felt all else had failed, he did not betray her. He had let her know that the Sun was thinking she had been killed during Magneto´s assault. She, in return had promised him to do everything possible to free him and the others. It had stayed no more than a promise ever since. Pyro had shown no interest in her plans. Instead he had done everything to enlarge their group, to increase his power... he had told her they would come back to freeing the children of the Sun... but later. Not yet. This was a matter that was simply not that important right now he had told her.

"I thought John was different." she said. "I thought he was cool, he would help me freeing my friends. But he´s just a prat."

"Hm..." Erik, who had by now returned to his own chair, lifted one eyebrow in slight amusement. "A prat, indeed."

Shade sighed and held her eyes low as if scanning the floor to her feet. "Can I stay?"

Erik quirked an eyebrow. "Hm?"

She lifted her eyes and met his gaze, now appearing to be slightly annoyed. "Can I stay?" Her voice betrayed her. She was slightly scared and very intimidated. Erik couldn´t help but scowl at himself. Since when had Magneto needed to show his power by scaring teens?

Then he smiled. "How can I be sure you´re no longer a spy? How should I know it´s a good thing to take you in?" She looked at him, no muscle in her face betraying her emotions. "Do we ever know whether the things we do are right, before we have done them?"

"Touché" he replied.

He had already made his decision. Too many mutants had already suffered. There had been a day long ago when he had sworn to himself that he would endure the suffering of no other mutant child. He did not dare think about the numbers of mutant children he had not kept his promise for. He had failed in the past. He would not fail again.

"Welcome to the Brotherhood." he said.