As Liandra woke up from yet another nightmare-free night, the third that week, there was no doubt in her mind that this past month at the Xavier Institute had changed her drastically. She smiled more, probably more in this past month than she'd done since she was a kid. Cassy and she had gotten a little closer, although both of them still held their ground.

The control Liandra had gained over her powers felt phenomenal. No more did she know everything about a person the moment they stepped within her range, and now that her control didn't depend on her emotions she would get a bit more vivacious.

Things couldn't be going more in the right direction, and even though it frightened her how much progress she'd made in one month, she felt happy. Even so, living with the thought of how any moment all this could be taken away from her wore her out a little.

Meanwhile, things had happened around Liandra. Sam had gotten the nerve up to actually talk a bit to Peter, so even if nothing had really happened between the two they were a step on the way, which Aymee reminded Sam of every night. That was, not that it was a step on the way but rather that there were many steps left.

Aymee had looked a bit cheerier in the past days, having gotten a sweet letter from her girlfriend in England, which Sam of course had stolen and read out loud, to Aymee's great dismay.

Cassy and Markus were still hanging out, and Cassy seemed to be getting a bit more outspoken and gaining a little more confidence all the time.

Getting dressed, Liandra smiled and walked out on the small balcony. She glanced up and waved to Kurt, who was sitting there as well, grinning at her. It was a bit of a morning routine by now.

"Tonight."

Five heads turned to look at the solemn young man.

"Everyone, get ready. We're doing this tonight." He glanced at them all. At their surprised faces. And he felt frightened.

"Ugh, I can't believe the homework we got from Ms Munroe!" Sam slammed down her book on the ground and dropped down herself. "And we've got Danger room with Logan this afternoon! Can this day get any worse?"

Liandra smiled and looked up at the sky. "You've had it easy. I've been with Professor Xavier all day, I feel exhausted. But somehow, I'm still signed up for Danger room too."

Sam shrugged. "At least you don't have schoolwork. You lucky cheese."

Liandra chuckled and Sam opened the book to study. "I'll see you later, Sam. Gotta get to the Danger room."

"This is the Blackbird. Pride o' the X-men she is." Despite the loving note there was a hint of coldness in Logan's voice when he spoke to Liandra. He still hadn't forgiven her for hitting him over the head with a tray, little more than a month ago.

He was showing her the jet affectionately dubbed the Blackbird. Liandra wasn't much for technology, but she had to admit that the things Logan told her about this airplane sounded impressive.

She was sitting in the co-pilot seat when Logan froze up mid-sentence and stared blankly ahead. Liandra immediately understood what that meant and tapped into the telepathic waves around them.

"…emergency, all x-men gather in the Blackbird immediately. Liandra, I guess you deserve to come along as well."

Ten minutes later, the entire team was gathered in the jet, all suited up. The team consisted of Cyclops, the leader, Storm, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Iceman and of course Professor Xavier. Liandra sat in a chair in the back, unsure of what to do as the Professor briefed them.

"The brotherhood have initiated an attack on the White house. There are a lot of civilians there and they are not afraid of harming anyone."

"What are they demanding, Professor? Magneto doesn't usually attack without a purpose," Cyclops asked. Xavier shook his head. "I don't know, Cyclops. I don't know any more than that he is there right now."

Wolverine grunted. "Sounds more like a trap ta me," he growled. "Like they're wantin' us ta go there."

Xavier shook his head again. "It can't be helped. Our first priority is to rescue the civilians and the president. Then we can deal with what Magneto wants, if possible."

Logan cracked his knuckles. "And the kid?" no one doubted that Logan was talking about Liandra. They had all been thinking it, but only Logan had the guts to ask. "She's not ready for somethin' like this, Chuck."

Rogue snorted. "Logan, you said the same about us last time, sugah. She's ready if she feels like it, and otherwise she'll jus' stay in the jet. Right, Annie?"

Liandra didn't answer and the topic returned to the mission. After another few minutes, Cyclops started the jet and they were on their way.

Kurt came back and sat down in the chair next to her with a reassuring smile. "You are nervous, nein?" Liandra didn't answer. "It is understandable. You have not seen battles before. I myself do not like fighting, but it is about doing vat is necessary." He smiled. "You vill be fine."

Liandra nodded but didn't look at Kurt.

"We're in."

Dimitria awaited the response from the earphone before she moved. Gambit was behind her, and quite frankly, the sooner they got out of this ventilation system the better. It was crammed and she kept getting the feeling Gambit was checking out her ass.

"Good," Shadow's voice said in the earphone. "Keep going, it should be just ahead for a while, then left. Remember that?" Dimitria rolled her eyes, but replied "Yes" curtly. She crawled along, hearing Gambit following behind her, but they didn't speak. This was the first step; she felt blood rushing through her veins, every sense heightened. No matter what Magneto might say and not, she didn't want to use violence unless she had to.

She'd have fun when she did, but she liked avoiding it.

Turning left, she breathed in some dust and gave a tiny cough. Behind her, Gambit snickered. "Shut up," she muttered, hearing someone walking underneath her. It would be utterly lovely if the floor under her gave away, of course she knew it wouldn't. Why the white house had vents large enough to crawl in, albeit uncomfortably, she had no idea.

"Now what?" she whispered into the mic. There was a few moments pause before the reply came. "Just a little more, then there should be a hatch on the right side."

"Copy." She said and crawled a bit further. She took up her palm and created a little orb of electricity, lighting up the surroundings. True, just a bit ahead there was a hatch, a small one. Gambit would have trouble fitting through. "There," she said to the man behind her and crawled ahead of the hatch. Gambit was incredibly skilled at lock-picking and in just a minute he'd gotten the hatch open. It took him about five minutes to crawl through it though. He was a bit too broad-shouldered for it to go easy.

Dimitria waited patiently. "Electra, report, what's taking such time?" Shadow asked. "Hatch is open," she replied. "But Gambit's having troubles getting through. I'll come back to you when he's down."

Another minute passed before she heard Gambit's voice from underneath. "Coast clear, chere."

Dimitria went down legs first, and Gambit caught her by the waist and helped her down. She glared at him a little, but then summoned another orb to shine up the room they were in. It was a technical room, full of wires and switches and a closed box in which all the electricity was controlled.

"We're in," she said in the mic. "Comencing."

She pointed to the closed box, and Gambit went straight on it. "Copy," said Shadow in the earphone. "Tell us when it's clear for us."

Gambit got the box open without difficulty and moved out of the way with a mock bow, smirking. Dimitria couldn't help but smile a little. She was nervous. This was really it, after doing this there would be no way out of completing tonight's task. The box was full of cords. "One, two, three or four? Green, red, yellow or blue?" she asked Gambit, who shrugged. "Beats me, chere, you be de electrician."

Dmitria smiled. "True. I guess, really, it doesn't matter." She placed her hand over all cords and instead of pulling them out, she focused her energy, drawing electricity out of the wall.

First her hand began glowing. The glow then traveled down her arm, and she felt a tingling sensation under her skin; a sensation that turned to burning as she absorbed more and more.

Once she felt she had enough, she grabbed all the cords and tore them out. Gambit, who had unlocked the door out, peeked out and smirked. "Mission complete," he said. "We're done," Dimitria said in the mic.

"Good." Was the only response she got. That meant that they could begin moving out.

Gambit and Dimitria split up outside in the corridor. She didn't meet anyone for a few minutes, but ran into a whole group of guards. They noticed her clearly, since she was glowing.

"Over here!" one of them yelled, pulling out a gun. "I've got one! Freeze!"

Other voices chipped in. "Don't move! Stand still or we'll shoot!"

Dimitria smirked, full of power. "Really?" she asked and with a flick of the hand she threw electricity on them all. They jerked around in violent spasms, dropping their weapons immediately. But Dimitria didn't stop; laughing, she kept on until they had gotten much higher voltages through their bodies than humans could handle. Some began frothing, their eyes rolled up into their skull. The group of them fell to the floor, dead.

Keeping on without casting so much as a glance behind her, she talked into the microphone. "Can you tell me my location?"

There was about a minute before an answer came. "Trouble. X-men. You're on the right way, just be on your guard." Shadow sounded troubled.

And for a good reason. He wasn't a fighter, yet he was trapped in the middle of the action in a great ballroom. The X-men had arrived very soon after the lights went out; Shadow had wondered briefly how they had found out, but that was before he's been attacked by the blue X-man named Nightcrawler.

Nightcrawler and Shadows powers were similar in the way that neither were very offensive. Their difference being that Nightcrawler knew how to throw a good punch. He was superior to Shadow, who had troubles with finding hiding places.

He had been in shadow form for a while; he could change shapes and remained dark, he could blend with other shadows easily and he could travel much quicker in the shadows than if he would run. He ran past Gambit, who was struggling with two flying X-men, dodged a beam from Cyclops' eyes and hid behind a piece of rubble.

In this moments refuge, he closed his eyes. He didn't much enjoy doing this, but they were so far outnumbered and Shadow felt his strength waning. He was summoning his friend.

Before him rose a figure from the shadows. Tall and thin, with claw-like fingers and the entire body swirling around itself, a large hat topped the creature and one large, gleaming eye stared out over the scene. A large grin formed, revealing sharp teeth.

"Shadow," he muttered and stood up, now back in human form. "Help."

There was no need to tell the creature more. It glided out toward the nearest enemy, a young man he recognized as Iceman, and before he had time to react the creature and enveloped him in darkness. When the creature moved on, Iceman was passed out.

Shadow couldn't help but laughing a little as his creature set out for its next victim. He looked up and saw that the ceiling was cracking. Finally, help was arriving. Two people ascended slowly in a telekinetic bubble.

While his attention was on Magneto, he didn't notice his foe creeping silently up behind him. The creature, just about to swallow up Storm, dispersed into nothingness as Rogue had touched Shadow's cheek. Before everything went black, he heard Rogue gasp behind him.

"Phoenix!"

I'm so sorry this is so late, but I've been way to busy to do anything. Before last week I came home after seven-eight every evening and still had homework to do, and I worked all weekend. But now I'm back and with the realization that there's not much left of this story now.
Right now I'm feeling a bit bad because I've damaged my hand somehow and even sitting by the computer hurts. But I finished the chapter at least. At last xP

Again, no guarantees on when I can get the next chapter up. However, I can say that there is some fanart on my Deviant Art account. Take a look on my page to get a link. There will be more up soon enough, since I'm getting a tablet for my birthday.

Thank you all for reading, and remember that I appreciate reviews x3