I do not own claim to any of the X-Men or their universe (just my girl Mimik) and I make no money from this. Enjoy!

NOTE: An awesome reader named The Suburban Coyote recently drew what Mimik/ Kim looks like and I believe it is spot on! Check it out at:

suburbancoyote. deviantart. c o m (remove the spaces)

Thanks for all the support and the amazingness!

"Hey Kitty, where's Kim?"

She puts some potatoes on her plate and then moves to the next container of food, "I think she's still sleeping. That teleport wiped her out. I wonder if anyone's mentioned it to Professor Xavier yet."

"I'm not sure. Should I go see if she wants dinner? She hasn't eaten since lunch and all she had was a sandwich."

"For most people that's a filling lunch." She pokes my stomach and I smile.

"So should I?"

She shakes her head she picks up a small pork chop from the container full of them, "Let her sleep. If she's hungry she'll wake up."

I follow her to a table filled with other students; Tabitha notices me asking, "So how your girlfriend?"

I blush hotly, "I- Uh…."

Kitty smacks her on the arm, "Tabby! Leave him alone! He's still in the puppy love stage."

She giggles and Bobby says, "Dude, I don't think she knows you're giving her signals. She seems kinda clueless when it comes to being normal."

DJ punches him in the arm, "Shut up!"

Noticing glares from several others at the table he quickly starts eating his carrots. I smirk at the fact that they're defending Kim.

"We'll I'm thinking about going to the mall later on, would anyone like to join me? Preferably someone who can drive?"

Kitty bounces in her seat, "Oh! I can-"

"NO!"

Everyone at the table shouts it as they looked panicked. Jubilee pats Kitty on the shoulder, "It's ok Kitty, we would just like to get there and back in one piece, that's all."

I chuckle and say, "Well I wanna leave by seven, so I'll meet ya at the front door, if you're coming."

They all wave and say," See ya Kurt."

.

My heart is pounding and my lungs feel like they're on fire!

Where am I? It's so dark…

Wait, I hear something. Breathing, there's someone else here in the darkness!

"Hello? Who's there?"

The other person growls, deeply, like an animal.

I back up slowly, feeling the ground under each step. My back hits a wall that feels like it's covered in plants.

The animal thing snarls angrily and I can hear it getting closer.

I hurriedly feel along the wall and become ecstatic when I find what feels like a door handle. I turn it and push, almost falling into the next room. I blink rapidly, blinded by the sudden harsh bright light.

As I regain my vision I look back at the black doorway, looking for the creature I was with. Within the darkness it roars and jumps out at me. I couldn't move when I saw it.

That creature is me, but not really. The way she moves and is built is different, more animalistic almost feline in her movements and looks.

She lands on me and pins me down, snarling as I struggle.

"Who are you? WHAT are you?"

She bends down to bite my neck with pointed metal teeth, but stops when she hears a shrill beeping sound. She whines and quickly runs back into the dark room, on all fours.

"Excellent! That went amazingly well."

I whip my head around to the familiar voice and see Dr. Cornelius standing on the opposite side of metal bars. We're in a cage, like at a zoo.

"Let me out of here!"

I'm ignored as he speaks to an assistant who appears out of thin air, "We have seen the extent at which this mutation can progress; now how can we reverse its affects and maintain it within reason?"

"Well, sir, some of the chemicals we have developed could help, but we would need more testing."

Cornelius nods and said, "Let me feed her and then we can be on our way."

He turns to a cart on his right and with a pair of tongs lifts up a large raw steak and throws it in between the bars.

I back up against the wall as Cornelius and his servant leaves. What is going on? Why didn't they even acknowledge me? Why do I look like some sort of animal hiding in the darkness?

A noise from the darkness draws my attention and I watch as the other me cautiously walks over to the steak and then picks it up with her mouth, dragging it back into the darkness.

I stare in horror as a body suddenly appears on the floor where she had me pinned, its throat torn out. She wasn't attacking me… I must've been inside her victim.

It's a young male mutant, he's an odd gray color, bald, with gills behind his ears, and webbing between his fingers and on spines along his arms, back, and head. He looks like he's only 10 or 11…

What is this? Is this a dream?

Darkness surrounds me and suddenly I'm looking a familiar metal table.

This is the cutting board, where Cornelius performed all of his major surgical experiments on mutants, most of them never made it off the table alive…

A loud yowling draws my attention to the airlock doors that help block out contaminants from the room. They open with a 'swish' and in walk Dr. Cornelius with a few of his aids dressed in surgical gowns.

They're followed in by guards dragging between them the animalistic me, completely naked, with a small bleeding wound on her neck. The guards set her on the table and leave while Cornelius' team starst prepping for something.

Outside the door I catch a glance of Sabertooth watching, looking pissed off at something. Sick fuck is gunna watch them cut me open.

Cornelius snaps on his gloves and says, "Alright, just so we are all on the same page; this procedure is to open up cavities in the head at the eye and ear, giving us full access to the brain. We are then going to place a neurological implant blocking the centers of the brain where this feral mutation is coming from; drastically reducing the effect that it has on the subject. This combined with our serums should prove effective in nulling her territorial behavior as well as removing that pesky mating instinct complication. Is this clear?"

They all murmur "Yes, Doctor."

He smiles and says, "Miss Ortez, I would like you to be the one who monitors the healing retardant as well as the tranquilizers. Make sure that you keep them at full dose. Mr. Grant, the drill, if you would be so kind."

One of the assistants hands him a wicked looking instrument and I cringe in horror as I watch Cornelius bring the drill up to hover my other's closed eye. As he brings it down I scream and cover my eyes.

.

I bolt upright, breathing heavily, still screaming and covering my eyes.

I stop when I realize I'm awake and open my eyes to see Kitty, in her pajamas, running in through the wall.

"Kim! Are you ok? We heard you screaming!"

Just as she said that Kurt appears in a cloud of black smoke, looking panicked in his boxers, "What's going on? Are you alright, fraulien?"

I look at them and then it hits me, "That wasn't a dream…"

They look at each other and Kitty sits next to me on my bed, "It sounds like you were having a nightmare."

"No. Those were memories."

Kurt frowns, "Memories? Were they of Wraith?"

"No, of me."

I throw the blankets off me, forgetting I was only sleeping in a shirt and underwear. Kurt coughs and covers his eyes, "Kitty I'll be outside the door."

He vanishes and Kitty laughs, "I don't I've ever seen him that dark. What are you doing?"

I'm looking through the pile of clothes I left on the dresser and find pants and a new shirt.

"I need to go for a walk, just go back to bed."

I hear loud voices outside the door, sounds like Kurt and a few others I can't recognize. She crosses her arms, "We have a curfew."

"You may, but as you can tell I don't really follow the standard set of rules."

I quickly put on the clothes, not caring if she saw the scars on my back.

"I'll be back later."

Hesitating for just a moment, I use Kitty's power and fall through the floor; just as someone starts to bang on my door.

I pass through an empty classroom and then end up in Forge's lab.

After a moment of trying to regain enough energy to walk, I head down the steel-blue halls until I find the med lab, where Beast works.

I try the door and find it unlocked, but the lab itself is dark. I sigh and sit in one of the chairs, planning on waiting till he shows up.

.

The door opens and Beast walks in and when he turns on the light, he jumps, startled at the unexpected person there.

Kim is curled up on one of the waiting chairs, arms wrapped around her legs, staring straight forward like she could burn a hole through the opposite wall.

He frowns at her disheveled look and bare feet, "What is the matter, dear?"

She blinks, and looks at him like she just realized he was there.

"I need your help, Beast. Last night… Last night I had a dream, but they were memories and I need to find out if they're true."

She stands up and Beast notices the light green lines showing all over her skin.

"I think those drugs that the lab boys used were important. Not all of them, but some of them were. I need you to run some tests."

Beast walks over to his desk, putting down some files he had taken to read while in bed, "You need to calm down. Have you slept at all?"

"Yeah a little, I woke up screaming, I think I woke up some of the others as well. I came straight here, but you weren't here yet, so I waited."

"Do the others know you're here?"

"No I used Kitty's power to get here from my room."

"Oh dear, I'm sure they are all running through the mansion looking for you."

She shrugs, "So will you help me? I was planning on coming down here sooner, to find out the effects of the drugs, but now… Do you have a machine that can scan brains through adamantium?"

"Why on earth would you want-"

"Do you?"

He nods. "Good, I'll let you get all settled first and then you can help me. I'm going to assume like any serious scientist, you kept a sample of my blood from when you initially brought me here."

He smiles, "Of course."

"Good, you'll need to take some more blood then so we can compare the samples."

He walks around the lab, collecting things and turning on a machine here or there. She watches him nervously, waiting.

When he finishes he turns to look at her and says, "All right, now what is this all about?"

She frowns, "Last night I had what I initially thought was a dream where I was more animal than human, as if my feral mutation had become dominant. I watched as Dr. Cornelius and his team made holes into my brain through my eye sockets to block out parts of that mutation. I need to find out if they are still there first and then I need to find out what concoction of drugs were used on me and how much they kept that mutation at bay. I don't want to be that animal I saw, EVER again. I may be a monster or a weapon, but I still have my own thoughts and feelings. That, that- thing didn't. It only went on instinct and needs."

Beast jots down notes as she talks, nodding, "I understand, I myself have witnessed many feral mutations actually devolve the mutant. We feral mutants are still a mystery, with so many different forms and lengths as to which the beast develops."

She nods in agreement, "So you'll help then?"

He smiles again and says, "Of course."

.

He finally begins testing, drawing her blood and doing scans of my brain along with a few other tests that he suggested.

At one point Kitty rushes in looking for me, she looks relieved when she sees me sitting in a chair while Beast quickly draws my blood, before I can heal or reabsorb it.

"We have been looking EVERYWHERE for you! Kurt's freaking out thinking you got stuck in a wall or something."

"I'm sorry, but this couldn't wait."

"What was in that dream that's got you so spooked?"

"Nothing."

She huffs, "Fine don't tell me. I gotta go find Kurt so he'll stop bamfing all over the place."

She walks away and Beast looked at me with a bushy eyebrow raised. "What?"

"She seemed concerned about you and you just brushed her off."

I glance back at the doorway, "She seemed like she was upset with me not worried."

He laughs, "That means she is worried about you."

I look at him confused and he recites a quote, "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

"She sees me as a friend?"

"I believe so; if she wasn't then I think she would have just gone back to bed, instead of searching for you."

"So if someone gets mad at you like that it means they were worried about you?"

"Sometimes, yes."

I rub my jaw, recalling Sabertooth's punch when I defused that bomb. No. He was just being an asshole…

Beast places the samples into a machine and then looks at the scans that finally printed out.

"Here, look."

He hands me the scans and I frown as I look over the images.

"The adamantium is the bright parts outlining the darker brain matter. You can see the wires running along the surface of you your brain. The fact that you're like this is appalling. That is why you are shorter than most, you know. They put your skeleton in at such a young age; I'm surprised you're not a lot shorter than this."

"I'm 5' 3, just like Logan, and he's always been this short. Anyways, they had me shift into a taller person before replacing my bones. I was stuck as a green teenager for the weeks after the procedure while I was only seven. It took forever for my body to adjust to the adamantium and be able to accept it as part of me."

"And how is it you can change your bone structure and shapeshift?"

"It's the same way I can change my clothes, the atomic make-up of my whole body is altered to rearrange into the form I want. I can't duplicate or remove the atoms and so that's why I can only do things that are human-sized. Next time you see me shift watch the air around me, the shimmer that makes me kinda blurry, that's all my atoms moving at a rapid speed, shifting around into my new shape."

"It's interesting you are so well informed on your abilities."

"During Cornelius' studies and experiments I had no choice but to sit there and listen to him discuss it with his team."

I finally spot the thing I'm looking for, "There! That bright spot there! That's at the same angle at which they went into through my eye. Thank god it's still there, and it seems like all those shocks I got didn't really mess with it."

Beast takes the sheet and looks closely at it, "This is the device they placed into your skull? The location suggests that they were trying to cease all natural basic instincts. Do you recall what exactly they were inhibiting?"

"They said something about stopping the parts of the brain where the feral mutation originated from; making it so I wasn't so… animalistic."

Beast frowns, "This technology and practice is awfully advanced, how long ago do you think it was that this happened to you?"

"I don't know, I looked younger, but I saw Sabertooth there and one of his assistants Ortez, the last time I recall them being at the facility at the same time was about five years ago. I think… My memory is full of holes so I can't be completely sure."

A machine makes a noise and Beast walks over to it to retrieve a print out, stopping to read it.

"What's that?"

"This is the list of identified chemicals found in your blood when we brought you here that aren't in your system now. This cocktail is unethical, it would kill any other person; mutant or not."

"So what have they been pumping in my system?"

Beast absentmindedly scratches his cheek, "There's this group of hallucinogenic chemicals that I have seen used for thought manipulation, but this combination… Then there is a few that are radiological chemicals that I'm not quite sure they were using for, and the only other ones I can somewhat I identify without research are chemicals used in emotional repression pharmaceuticals. The others on this list I am not familiar with, most of these are highly illegal or considered taboo among the science community."

"So the mind control drugs helped them control me, I know that, but what about the others?"

Beast sits down on a nearby stool, thinking hard.

"Have you been experiencing anything out of the ordinary? Maybe hallucinations, pain, or spikes in emotional responses?"

"I've been having strange problems with my abilities. Just the other day all my senses became amplified and I could smell and hear better than I ever have before. And then just recently I've been having problems with copying other mutant's powers. I teleported using Kurt's abilities and I was wiped out afterwards. For a few moments I could barely even walk, the same thing happened during the training session in the danger room."

Beast frowns, "With you permission I would like to look over the notes that are in your file you took from the facility and compare them to these findings."

I nod, "Do anything you need to, I can't afford to let anything go wrong."

"Until I can discover more information, I would suggest you refrain from using that particular part of your abilities and maybe even explore the feral parts of your mutation. I understand you don't want to have it surface completely, but knowing your father, repressing the beast is something that could have unfortunate consequences. If you begin to experience strong emotional responses to any situation; be it anger or extreme happiness, I want you to come down here. I can study the hormonal and chemical changes happening and see if it's related to what those abominable men injected you with."

I shift, quickly hiding my worry and say, "Thank you… Dr. McCoy. I really appreciate your help. If you could have seen the creature I saw…"

I shake my head and take a deep breath.

He nods, understandingly, "Please, call me Hank and you're welcome, it is the least I can do after your help back at the facility."

I frown, confused, "You're the second one who thanked me for helping them. I was just doing what I was ordered to."

Hank smiles, "You protected both Jean and Ororo and in doing that you saved Scott as well. You weren't ordered to do that, quite the contrary; all because you knew that it could have huge repercussions outside of the facility."

I shrug and turn to go, "I guess I didn't want you guys to end up like me."

I hurry out the doors and sigh as I reach the hallway.

I better go change and find Kurt and Kitty and apologize for upsetting them.