Accel heard the sound of the swordsman's footsteps as he ran across the tiled bathroom floor towards them. As she did so, suddenly she felt differently. A moment ago she had been ready to give up and resign herself to being killed. There was nothing any of them could do. They'd tried everything they could. They'd tried using their powers. It just wasn't enough – they were too young, too small, too weak – he was older, bigger and stronger, and now he was going to have his way and kill them.

Something inside Accel changed. She had felt this way before. Nearly every day of her life until the age of seven years old, she had felt this way. Being small. Being weak. Being under attack, by people who were older, bigger and stronger, whom she could do nothing to protect herself from, as much as she tried to use her powers. People who wanted to hurt her, to humiliate her, to make her cry, to amuse themselves by tormenting her.

Sub-creatures. Worthless, disgusting, undeserving of life. Scum. Humans. She remembered. She remembered everything at the orphanage, the memories of being picked on and bullied, beaten up and forced to eat off the floor, having her head forced down the toilet and her sleep disturbed at all times of night. How she had longed to be able to do something, anything, to protect herself. How she had been too scared to do anything but run away and try to hide. How she had wanted to just scream and scream and scream.

She opened her eyes. As the swordsman ran towards them, both blades swooping down through the air, Accel screamed. Every last drop of anger, hate, bitterness and resentment that her memories could produce, was poured into one shriek of fury.

At the same moment, she felt herself running towards him, fuelled by pure anger, and suddenly he was no longer advancing forwards, but being driven back through the doorway he had just smashed. Accel was still screaming, still giving vent to her overpowering rage, and moving faster and faster, propelling the swordsman back into the main room of the house, and towards the open front door. Just outside the front door stood a single figure.

Vertigo.

Still accelerating, still forcing the man backwards, still forcing out the single long, enraged shriek she had started only seconds ago, Accel pushed with all of her strength, and the swordsman was flung headlong with the force of her momentum. He landed on his back, utterly shocked and bewildered, both of his swords dropping from his hands. Vertigo stood over him calmly for a second. Then he swooped down and drove his fist directly into the enemy mutant's throat. The swordsman jolted violently, and then lay still.

"Vertigo! Is he dead?"

The other four children appeared beside Accel, all eight of their eyes fixed intently on the fallen enemy, ready to run again the second he got up.

"Yup," said Vertigo. "Dead as a human."

Bibi ran towards Vertigo, and flung her arms around him, sobbing into his chest, still frightened and desperate for a reassuring cuddle.

"Quit it!" he snapped at the little girl, pushing her away. "We don't have time! Get in the car! All of you!"

Phoebe put her arm round the crying Bibi and tried to speak comforting words in her ear as Vertigo shoved them roughly out of the door. The two boys hurried after them. Only Vertigo and Accel were left inside the safe house. The ten year old was still breathing hard, her heart beating faster than she could ever remember, all of her muscles bunched, her fists clenched tightly.

"Accel?"

She looked up at him.

"What was that?" said Vertigo. "I've never seen you do that before."

"I don't know..." the girl panted breathlessly. "I really don't know...I just felt – "

But he shook his head, "Forget it, I don't care. Just get in the car."

She relaxed. Her fists uncurled and her muscles untightened It was OK. They were OK. The guy was dead. What had happened? What had she just done? She didn't know. She had no idea. One moment she'd been crouched down, resigned to her fate, expecting nothing but death. The next moment it was as if a red-hot fire had suddenly exploded in her brain and blazed throughout her entire body. In the space of a few seconds, one scream, she'd forced the guy out of the building, away from her friends, so Vertigo could kill him. How had she done that? She couldn't have done that normally – could she? Accel didn't know. The anger, the screaming, imagining all the things she had wanted to do to the humans she had grown up with, thoughts of anger and hate and revenge, somehow it had given her new energy, new strength, new power, new confidence, pushing her beyond what she had thought were her limits.

"Move!" Vertigo barked at her, grabbing her arm and forcing her out of the door.

"All right!" she snapped back. "Look, you can't push us around like that! You're going to hurt Bibi! She's only eight!"

"Remind me how old you are again?" he retorted. "That's right – barely into double figures! So why don't you just shut up and do what you're told?"

"What's wrong with you?" she demanded. "Why are you so angry with us? We nearly died in there! And where the bloody hell were you?"

Vertigo smacked Accel in the face, "When I want you to speak, I'll ask you! Get in the car!"

Caught by surprise, the girl had had no chance to avoid the blow. Flinching and crying out in pain, she told herself it didn't hurt, but her face was still sore from where Dervish had hit her a few minutes ago, and it was only with quite an effort she held back her tears and glared at Vertigo angrily as they walked towards the car. The other children had seen what happened, and all of them sat in a frightened silence as Vertigo started the engine and they began to pull away from the house. Vertigo himself kept his attention entirely fixed on the road ahead, trying frantically not to let his face betray the wild maelstrom of emotions that was unfolding inside his head.

He'd left them. He had driven off and abandoned the children, thinking only of the new life he was going to begin with the money from Magneto's emergency cash supply. All the while his conscience had been screaming at him to turn round, to go back, to stay with the children, to put their safety ahead of his own desires, but he had silenced it by telling himself that they were safe, nobody could possibly find them, and they didn't need him any more.

Then he'd seen the swordsman pass him on the other side of the road, back on his motorcycle or perhaps a new one he'd acquired, speeding in the direction of the safe house. Somehow, impossibly, the enemy had known where they were, and was on his way. And so Vertigo had turned around. He knew he hadn't a hope of catching the guy up, and could only hope the kids could stay alive long enough until Vertigo got there. And they had. Accel had done something, something even she didn't know what it was, and the five of them, by some sort of miracle, were all unhurt.

But now both sides of Vertigo's mind were screaming at him for being an idiot. His desire for a new life, on his own with more money than he could ever spend in a lifetime, was wrecked. Now he was back with these stupid children that the stupid X-Men wanted him to look after until heaven knew when. And on the other hand, his conscience was tearing him apart for abandoning them in the first place. What was wrong with him? If he hadn't gotten there when he did, if Accel hadn't done whatever it was she'd done, he would have had five dead children's blood on his hands. He'd just yelled at the children to shut up, but it was really the two sides of his own mind he wanted to silence.

What should he do now? Where were they even going? He had no idea. He was just driving randomly, following his instinct. Getting away from the safe house was the first priority. The sword mutant had known it was there, and for all Vertigo knew the guy's friends might have been five minutes away from piling in alongside him. He had to get the children away, and find them somewhere that was actually safe.

But where? The school wasn't safe any more. The conference centre was out of the question. The safe house hadn't lived up to its name. There were others, but not for hundreds of miles, and there was every possibility they had been compromised too.

So what then? He still had the cash card, so in theory they could go anywhere. But he had no intention of dragging five irritating children around with him wherever he went. There had to be somewhere he could take them, somewhere he could leave them, somebody else he could put in charge of them. He could drop them off at a school or an orphanage, but doing that would attract unwanted attention. He wanted to disappear afterwards.

Wait! Two of the X-Men still lived over in England. Or was it Scotland? He hadn't the slightest idea or interest in the geography of his own country, let alone foreign ones. OK, well, Britain. Oculus and Gaia lived there. They'd retired from "active duty" and would probably be happy to take the children off his hands, plus they were strong enough to protect them. Vertigo felt relieved, a little. He had a plan. He could satisfy both halves of his mind. He could send the children to Oculus and Gaia, where they'd be safe. And since they would no longer be his problem, he could then disappear and start his new life.

It was a good plan. But Vertigo had no way of knowing that, before he would even have a chance to put it in motion, he would suddenly have to face up to something he'd been refusing to face up to for the last nine years. His old life, before he had joined the Brotherhood, before he had even met Pyro or the others. It all went back to the day his mother had died.