Chapter two:

Claudia felt weird. Jittery, full of energy, for some reason. It was a while since she had felt like this. She had an odd urge to do something. Wandering around her room, she wondered what she could do with this energy. Not a lot. It was a terribly dull room; white floor, tan walls, a bed, a bedside table and that was it. But really, what could one expect after being randomly kidnapped by the government. They had picked her up mere hours after her powers first manifested. She'd been impressed with their efficiency. Though it did make her wonder, if they could find someone that fast after they got their powers, how come she had only seen about a dozen others there? Not that she had been allowed to meet them, but after a while you were bound to accidentally meet someone you were not supposed to. She sat down on the bed again, but couldn't stay there for long. She paced the room again, now with more determination. What she was determined to do, she did not know, but it felt like something.

It had been two hours since her last meal, which she was fairly sure had been a dinner, and it struck her that she should have been sleeping. The little pink pills ought to have made sure of that. She frowned. Maybe some new worker had gotten her medicine mixed with someone else's? But then, no one got anything but sedatives with their dinners. Maybe someone- Her train of thought was broken by a terrible howling sound. The alarm. It was probably a false alarm, like two weeks ago. The workers had panicked, but nothing had happened. At least she thought so. The sound of gunfire coming from the floor below did, however, seem to disagree with her hypothesis. She crouched by the door, waiting for someone to enter.

She was out of breath after a mere minute of running. Exercise for the inmates was not a priority. She had been right, someone had come to give her an extra dose of medication, but they had evidently not expected her to be awake and relatively alert. She had tripped them, and run. She didn't know if they were following her. Panting, she stopped for a moment and looked around. She should have run into someone by now. There were plenty of guards in the facility, she knew that. And with the alarm still painfully loud in her ears, they should be everywhere. She peered around suspiciously. Maybe this was some kind of new experiment? Maybe they were testing the safety systems by letting the inmates escape? But letting mutants run wildly around in the halls with few enough drugs in them to let them use their powers? It seemed a risky experiment, in that case. Or maybe they were testing some airborne drug. It did smell a lot worse than usual. She shook her head. Now was not the time for analyzing the motives of evidently mad scientists, now was the time for running for the exit and hoping the best. And, slipping out of the visible specter of light, she did just that.

.

The communicator in Toad's ear buzzed three times before it registered with his sleeping brain. The fourth buzz seemed angry. Pressing the button to open the line, he mumbled a sleepy "Yeah?" into the mouth piece. The voice that replied sounded sophisticated even through the loud static.

"They were expecting us; your presence did evidently not go as unnoticed as you imagined."

A flash of guilt made its was through Toad's brain. He grimaced at the inside of the cockpit, not quite sure how to respond. Magneto did not let him try.

"There is only one human in the building. We are getting out, hopefully with some of the targets, but get the jet here now, Toad."

.

After the first two floors down, Claudia realized she was going in the wrong direction. She had never been taken anywhere by the stairs, just by an elevator with the floors written in binary code. She had at the time wondered why they went to such ridiculous steps to keep her from orienting herself. Well, she wondered no more. She had a vague idea about the layout of the floors, enough to know that the outer corridors had windows, but she could see none here. Evidently she was under ground. She found this odd, she had always imagined her room as being on the first floor. Maybe because she preferred it that way. It had been like that at home…

The sound of running feet shook her from her thoughts. Instinctively, she hid behind a cabinet, peeking her head out to see who was approaching. Instead of the white clad guards she had expected, she saw a quartet of very peculiar individuals; a red headed, blue skinned naked woman; a huge, hairy man clad in what appeared to be an impressive collection of dead animals; a distinguished looking old man in a helmet and cape, who floated, rather than ran; and a confused looking teenage boy in clothes similar to her own, down to the little blue numbered bracelet. He was being dragged by the large, feral looking man, and did not look too happy about it. The latter suddenly stopped, as they were approaching her, raising a massive hand. He seemed to sniff at the air. She frowned. It was not that long since she had showered.

The man let go of the teen's arm roughly, and started walking slowly towards her. She pressed herself against the wall, hoping that he would not notice her. She did realize that these might be the people giving her an opportunity to escape, but the man looked scary as hell, and the smell did nothing to recommend him, either. She let out a breath, and realized instantly that this was a mistake. A ridiculously large, clawed hand shot out before she had time to react, and violently grabbed her arm. How he managed to aim at invisible limbs she did not understand, but she was impressed. Or she would have been, if the claws digging into her skin had not distracted her. Distracted her enough, in fact, to make her lose the concentration she needed to stay out of sight.

"Another one?" the old man asked, in a tone of mild surprise. He smiled to himself. "Excellent, bring her along."

.

The jet was landed, close by the building. Far too close. Still, Toad had not seen anyone approaching, armed or not. It was suspicious, but then, it was not his job to investigate. It was, as Magneto had explained patiently, and with greater detail than necessary, his job to sit quietly, watch out, and generally be a good little pilot. He was not bitter, not at all. When his communicator buzzed again, telling him to open the hatch and be ready for take off, he was perfectly civil. And when they came onboard he did not even comment on the fact that they had no more than two new apparent recruits, he merely nodded, and obeyed. As the jet rose into the air he did ask, albeit in a polite tone, what the horrible smell was, other than Sabertooth. The larger mutant growled menacingly.

"Gas," replied Mystique, further explaining with "poison."

"The Friends of Humanity had noticed your little visit," Magneto said, as if giving him some trivial piece of information, and not blaming him for the relative failure of the mission. "And had helpfully filled the building with poison gas. I rather think they believed they could take us out that way. It's charming how simple minded homo sapiens can be sometimes."

.

Claudia spent the beginning of the flight being somewhat terrified. Also motion sick, but mostly terrified. She had no idea who these people were, though they evidently were mutants, and also appeared not to have any great respect for the law. She sat huddled in a seat, observing the four people who appeared to know each other. She would have tried to follow their conversation, but she felt rather shaken. The teenager who evidently had been a fellow inmate sat in a seat near her. He looked as is he was at least as nervous as she was, if not more. She wondered idly whether she had been rescued, or kidnapped. Or both. She had a feeling she might find out soon.

"Do you know who these people are?" the boy asked in a low voice.

"No clue. They don't seem to be wearing lab coats, though. I'm taking that as a good sign."

He laughed nervously. She studied him. He did not look like he could have been at the facility for a particularly long time. She could see his hair had been dyed not too long ago, an inch or two of brown roots showing amongst the blonde. He had a fairly handsome face, or she thought he would have, if he stopped looking so worried. That was not likely to change any time soon, though. He was wearing the same clothes as her, grey sweatpants with a plain gray t-shirt, but they looked newer than hers. Obviously he was a recent addition to the governments mutant collection. Or had been, anyway. It struck her that she was free. Well, possibly. She, at least, had new captors (liberators? She guessed she would find out), and she would never have to see that horrible little room again. It was a rather frightening thought, oddly enough. The place had, after all, been a home, of sorts, for her the last four years. A mistreating home that drugged her and did tests on her, granted, but no home was perfect.

"So… you turn invisible, huh?" The boy's voice brought her back to the present. She nodded absentmindedly. "Any other powers?"

"I can solve a rubix cube in 57 seconds. Otherwise, not much. What do you do?"

"I manipulate fire," the boy said, with some measure of pride. She heard a hint of an accent in his voice, like an Australian trying very hard to emulate American. Huh.

"What, you make it make shapes and stuff?"

"…Something like that, yes."

"Can you show me?"

The boy looked down, almost as if ashamed.

"Uhm… You haven't got a light, have you?" He looked around the plane, very deliberately not meeting her eyes, as if afraid of judgment. "I, uh, can't create the fire. Only control it…"

"Huh," she said, eloquently. "That sucks."

.

The landing was not particularly smooth, but not horrendous either. There was no point in the newbies getting to used to comfort. They would not find it a common commodity on the island. Sighing contentedly at a mission reasonably well done, he turned off the machinery, and followed the rest of the now expanded team out of the jet. He waited behind, taking in the appearance of the new recruits. There were indeed two of them, one teenage boy, and a girl who seemed to be a couple of years older. The boy had brownish blonde hair, brown eyes, and looked rather nervous. Toad was not sure he liked the look of him. The girl was very white. She had white hair, white skin, even her eyes were a pale gray. He suppressed a shudder. Albinos had always creeped him out. They were both wearing the same gray uniform. From the facility, he guessed. Neither of them looked too competent, but they would have to do. Maybe they would surprise him and have fantastic powers. He rather doubted it, but perhaps they could be trained to be useful. He found he was rather thankful that they had not been able to get as many new mutants as Magneto had hoped. These ones would be annoying enough.

Author's note: I sincerely apologise if there are too many errors in this. Firstly, I don't have any beta, and I suck at reviewing my own texts. Secondly, tell me if I have to change the rating due to language. Thirdly, yes, I changed Pyro's arrival a bit, because I wanted to get a character I'm familiar enough with to write into the plot. Fourthly, the premise of this story is more how the Brotherhood exists in the movies, and will be quite unrelated to the plot. Liberty Island, for example, hasn't happened. (Yet?) Fifthly, I am going to expand the Brotherhood more, tell me if there are any characters you want me to use. Sixthly, there are lots of references, including the chapter titles. Just putting it out there. Seventhly, thanks for reading! /rant.