Yoo. (:

I haven't posted in a few days—sorry about that. I've been superrr busy recently. :p

Anyway, question, er—favorite month?

June. (: School ends then. Durr. :p

Enjoy the chapter. :3

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Blair and Logan both looked at Danny peculiarly, and he pointed to the bushes a few feet away from them. And he was right. There was a pair of bright, yellow eyes staring straight at them.

"Logan…," Blair said carefully, taking a cautious step away from the bushes. "Hey—what's that?"

Logan took a defensive step in front of Blair, readied himself to propel his claws from his hands, and growled to the eyes in the bushes, "Who are you?"

The eyes blinked twice before replying, "Relax—I'm not dangerous." The voice was a shrill female voice that resembled Emma's but was, at the same time, still unique.

"Who are you?" Logan repeated, his tone absorbed in venom.

The eyes blinked rapidly, chuckled, and said, "My name's Kira Chloe. I'm—I'm here to help." The girls' eyes shot a cautious glance at Logan before stepping out of the bushes.

"Were you following us, kid?" Logan growled.

"No," Kira promised. "I wasn't. I just happened to be taking a walk on this road—my parents and I live on a farm nearby, and I heard that you needed to know about an island—I think I know what island you were talking about. Nuclear power plants, right?" Kira smiled radiantly, and if you looked closely, you could see that her eyes were not yellow, but an extraordinarily bright amber color. Dark brown outlined her pupils. She also seemed to be of Greek heritage—for her skin was a dark olive tone, and her hair was a slick and shiny black.

"Yeah…," Logan assured her slowly. "So—you know where the island is?"

"Yep!" Kira said brightly. "It's not that far—by foot it'll take about two days to walk there, and then you'll have to find a way to cross the water and actually get onto the island. I could help you with that, if you'd like. My or—I mean, my parents own a boat. It's docked not too far from the island."

"A boat?" Logan replied, bemused. "You seem to be awfully prepared…." A hint of suspicion was mixed together with the cautiousness that was Logan's expression.

"Oh, Logan," Blair sighed, butting in. "You've really gotta learn to trust people more often."

"I trusted Stryker," Logan growled hotly in response, "and that came back and hurt me in the end."

Blair ignored Logan and walked up to the girl, smiling. "So you can get us to the island? Really? That would help so much."

"'Course I can," Kira replied immediately. "I'd be pleased to help. But I'd like to come along."

"Hold on," Logan interjected crisply. "I don't think she should come. It might be dangerous—she can just give us the directions and we'll get there on our own."

"But I'd really like to come," Kira pleaded.

"And why should I let you? I don't know you," Logan snarled.

"Well, maybe because I want to go—and if you don't let me, I won't tell you how to get there," Kira responded snippily.

Logan clenched his teeth and darted his eyes back and forth between Blair and Kira, who were both grinning ear to ear. "You and Blair would get along nicely…."

Blair's smile flickered slightly. "What is that supposed to mean?" she whined.

Logan ignored Blair's remark and kept his eyes now fixed on Kira. "Kid—do you even know why we're going to the island?"

"No," Kira admitted slowly. "Why?"

Logan lowered his voice in an attempt to sound menacing. "We're going—" he cut himself off to build tension, "because we've got to kick some ass and kill some bastards, that's why. Are you sure you want to be apart of that?"

Kira's face seemed to pale slightly, but she kept a strong voice and replied, "Why are you going to do that?"

"Because—I've got a score to settle. And the worst part is that—one of the people I'm after is a bloodthirsty mutant."

"M-mutant? What's that…?" Kira replied cautiously, obviously a bit frightened by now.

Logan opened his mouth to respond, but Blair butted in furiously, "Logan! Stop freaking her out!" She sighed uneasily and turned to face Kira, "A mutant is a—a normal human with—extra special gifts."

"Extra special? What do you mean by that?" Kira asked curiously.

"Well—all of us are mutants—I—well—I'd have to show you what I mean," Blair sighed. She looked to Logan for a moment, then decided against that, for she knew he would try his hardest to scare the girl. So, still smiling feebly, Blair turned to Danny and said, "Mind demonstrating, Dan?"

Danny nodded enthusiastically, blinked, and turned invisible before everyone's eyes.

Kira's eyes widened. She staggered a step backwards, fell on her back, then stood up again shakily, brushing herself off, before saying, "You—you're—invisible?"

Blair heard Danny chuckle before returning to his visible form. Blair turned unsurely to Kira, a weak smile on her face, and said, "See? We're—different—"

"Y-yea, I can see that," Kira spluttered, her eyes still wide and her mouth hanging open.

"Hey, listen," Blair sighed, "if you'd rather not go—I'd totally understand. It's a lot to take in, I guess…."

"Not that we want you to go," Logan scoffed from beside Blair, smiling grimly.

"Logan, shh," Blair said from the corner of her mouth, still facing Kira who seemed to be thinking hard. When she didn't reply for a minute, Blair said in an obviously disappointed tone of voice, "Er—you'd better not go. You definitely seem skeptical—"

"No!" Kira said quickly. "I—please—I want to go—I really do." Kira's eyes were full of pleading, and Blair couldn't help but to wonder why she wanted so desperately to come with them….

"Well, all right then." Blair's smile faded as she faced Logan, "Logan—let her go. Please? She really seems to want to go—she could help us—"

"No," said Logan shortly. "Hell no."

Blair allowed her lip to quiver, giving her the 'innocent-little-girl" affect. "Please?"

Logan's face softened the tiniest bit as he stared at Blair's. "Blair—" he groaned, "don't do that. The girl's gonna get hurt if she goes—and I'm not taking responsibility—"

"You won't have to!" Kira interrupted desperately. "Please—I want to go—I can help—and I won't get in anyone's way. And if I do happen to get hurt, it'll be all my fault, not anyone else's."

Now Kira's lip was quivering, and, for some reason, she seemed dangerously close to tears. Logan groaned in an exasperated manner and snarled, "Fine! You can go! But when you get yourself killed, er, Kira, don't come crying to me."

"I can't cry if I'm dead," Kira murmured hotly.

Logan growled slightly and trudged ahead of Kira, Danny, and Blair, shouting, "Let's go! Which way, Kira?"

Kira smiled weakly, wiped the growing wetness out of her eyes, and replied, "Keep going straight down this road until I say otherwise."

[Gambit]

Gambit finally woke up.

It felt like forever ago that he'd been brought back to the Three Mile Island, been face-to-face with Stryker, and then immobilized before he could say a word. He wondered how long he'd been out, but he'd probably never know.

His head was pounding mercilessly as he shakily stood up off his back and stared around. His clothes had been replaced with a full-body burgundy outfit that Gambit was no stranger to. He'd been dressed in the same exact clothes when he'd been forced into a cage on the island only a year ago.

Gambit glanced around at his surroundings, and they were as sickeningly similar as before. He was in a metal cage that was nearly inescapable unless opened from the outside, and other mutants surrounded him. None of them were looking his way, for most of them seemed intent on escaping. Some of them were moaning, the hope sucked out of them from many failed attempts at escape, and others were simply balled up in a corner of their cages, looking utterly miserable.

Gambit only recognized one of the prisoners faces. It was a pretty blond headed girl with diamond hard skin. He didn't quite remember her name—just her face. The rest of the mutants were unfamiliar to him. Stryker's variety of prisoners seemed to have grown rapidly in the past year….

However, he knew that many of the faces he would've recognized were missing, and he shuddered at the thought of what might have become of them….

That realization suddenly brought a new thought buzzing to the center of Gambit's mind.

Would whatever happened to the absent mutants happen to him, too?

[Logan/Blair/Danny/Kira]

It had been only three hours.

But a long three hours for Logan.

He was trudging grumpily ahead of Blair, Kira, and Danny. He kept mumbling venomously under his breath, annoyed that he'd agreed to let the powerless girl come. She was going to get herself killed—was she intentionally setting herself up for murder, or did she not believe him when he said it was dangerous?

However, Blair seemed to feel quite the opposite towards Kira. She found her highly brave to accompany them, and they had really seemed to hit it off. They could become close friends if they got to know each other well enough.

"So—" Blair began enthusiastically, smiling at Kira, "what are your parents like?"

Blair seemed to have asked the wrong question, because Kira's face paled out. "Oh—they're—like parents—"

Blair eyed Kira interestedly. "Hey—can I ask you a personal question?"

Kira seemed to hesitate. "Oh, uh," she began unsurely, "yeah, okay."

"Well—do you—er—love your parents? Or like them? Whichever word you prefer," Blair asked slowly.

"Oh, well, yeah," Kira murmured unconvincingly. "'Course I do."

After Kira's unconvincing response, Blair decided to drop the subject and asked, "Do you have any siblings?"

Again, Kira seemed to answer unusually. "No," she said in an unnaturally high voice.

Blair didn't understand why Kira was acting strangely now. They'd had a comfortable conversation for the past few hours. Blair had asked things like—what's your favorite color? (blue), what's your favorite animal? (Giraffe), and so on, and Kira had been perfectly content to answer them all.

But when Blair had asked her where she lived, she'd clamed up and said, "Oh—an hour away from here" in a constricted voice.

And Blair just couldn't help but to wonder—did this girl have something to hide?

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Eh, not the BEST chapter—I sort of threw it together. :p But, ya know, I try. xD

Review. :3