Rebekah

I'm not sure how long I sit on the wall, staring up at the sky. It's oddly comforting, to be able to look up and know that anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, tonight, the stars will be the same. I wish I could see the Aurora again. But then, I don't know how I'd see it. I've not exactly mentioned it to the others but I've been changing more and more everyday. I've gone almost completely red-green colourblind. I can barely taste sweetness anymore. I'm gradually getting more and more long-sighted. I know what this is. It's all things relevant to the cat's senses. And sure, I can see in one sixth of the light I used to be able to, but I couldn't tell you if Scott's optic beams had suddenly turned emerald, or if Phoenix is now Dark Phoenix from a safe distance. I just stare up at the stars and wonder whether I'll still be able to tell the difference between redshift and blueshift. And then I hear the footsteps.

"I thought I'd find you here."

I glance at him. His face is sad. He stares up at the stars as well and the moonlight barely illuminates the dark face, the huge yellow eyes glowing ever so softly. Yet I can see everything in his face in perfect clarity, like the sun is streaming a spotlight right on him. There are tears. I don't even have to smell them to know they're there. And I'm never more glad that cats can't cry than I am now.

I slither over and curl up next to him, resorting to the solicitation purr, an interesting little evolutionary quirk cats have picked up, purring with the exact frequency of a baby's cry. Kurt reaches out and gently begins stroking my back and the solicitation purr quickly changes into normal purring as I enjoy the company. I press myself up closer. By nature, I'm not a touchy-feely person. Hugs in my family are never spontaneous, always come with a request to hug first. The no-hug rule at school is broken on the first day back, birthdays and unique circumstances. But right now I just need someone to show me I'm not a monster, not just an animal. I want to be reassured that I'm not some sort of lethal weapon, that I'm not going to end up like Wild Child on Alpha Flight -on the side of the angels, but chained up whenever they didn't need him. If that ever happened, I would probably leave forever, take the form of some cat and stay there forever, slowly forgetting there ever existed a human named Rebekah.

"Hank says you can go home now."

So that's why he's sad. I purr softly and snuggling in further, kneading the side of his leg with my paws instinctively, then stopping when I remember exactly what kneading is. Then I realise that I need to talk, something I really don't want to do. I shimmy backwards and shift to the more animal form, because I'm -not to put too fine a point on it- naked. Of course, I invoke the Wookiee rule. Any being fully covered in fur is not naked. Ever. The X-Men have got used to seeing the bestial me streaking through the mansion screaming about clothes. But Kurt still looks away, his face flushing.

"Kurt, I was sitting next to you as naked as I am now and you were fine scratching me behind the ears, so please just look at me."

He turns but still focusses resolutely on my face.

"Should I go and speak to Hank now?"

"Isaac's already left. He seemed...angry. Did you fight?"

I slowly nod.

"About what, or is it personal?"

I shrug.

"I'm afraid of what's happening to me. Of what I did. We had a...minor difference in opinions. It kind of got out of control."

Kurt looks away then slowly holds his arms out to let me hug him. And then I start crying, because I need to get it all out, all the fear and guilt and homesickness and because I'm not even sure if I can cry anymore, because I've not cried in years, because I've always been quiet and detached and shielded. And as Kurt gently soothes back my mane of thicker, darker fur that I call hair and I just snuffle into his shoulder, because I want to go home so very, very much but I can't. I can never go home. Not looking like this. Not when taking human form hurts like crazy and I have fur and a tail and the wrong skull and...

I'm just a little girl who wants to go home.

Isaac

Voices, louder than ever drove me onwards. They screamed for justice. Faster and faster I ran. Nothing could stop me. If this man was a murderer, I would get the truth out of him.

I arrived outside the court. The place was packed with journalist, photographers and the general public. I removed the balaclava and blended in with them, easily barging aside a few bigger men to get to the front.

There was a smartly dressed man at the front addressing the crowd. He had a posh British accent and was saying that due to the lack of evidence and the missing witness, no court action could be taken against his client.

I looked farther over the man's shoulder. Surrounded by policemen was the man I assumed was the client.

He was a rather tall man with a mouth that sagged at the edges. He had a sharp nose and mug handle ears. But it was eyes that drew my attention. They were blue, cold and completely dead, without any form of emotion of any kind. I had come within stone throwing distance of a first grade psychopath.

I didn't need to see any more. This man had murdered a young girl and another was probably trapped somewhere. Time to make a move. I thought it through, I couldn't use teleportation. I didn't want anyone to mistake me for Kurt. Same with Scott's laser vision. There was only one thing for it. I forced my way to the back of the crowd. I looked around for a victim and I found him. A tall, broad man. He looked like a tough guy with the tattoos and piercings to match. I sidled up behind him and pulled my mask over my face. I looked around to make sure nobody was looking but there was no fear of that. Everybody's eyes were glued towards the spokesman at the front who was still verbally defending his client.

I made my move. I threw a right hook at the man in front of me. It was so unexpected and quick that he cried out in agony as a few of his ribs broke. Everybody's head snapped round like a whip. I waited a few micro seconds more and then the media span around and the cameras were centered on me. That's when I went into slow time. In less time than it takes to draw a breath, I had phased through the crowd and the surrounding bodyguards protecting the defendant. I grabbed the psycho and continued running. A perfectly executed kidnapping if I did say so myself. It would be in the media for weeks. Probably wouldn't do mutants much good but there was people's lives at stake. A little girl was missing.

As soon as I got out of the sight of the crowd I shifted with the man to a quieter location. I had already picked the spot. A secluded clearing in the woods. I threw the man to the ground. He skidded across the ground and rolled to a stop. I looked into his eyes again. Slight surprise maybe but there wasn't a trace of fear. Still no emotion. He tried to clamber to his feet but I sprayed his kneecap with a burst of laser vision. He collapsed and groaned loudly.

"What do you want?" The man said through gritted teeth. Still no fear and no hatred. He was definitely a psycho. But he knew a language we both understood. Pain.

I hit him again with the laser vision and was satisfied to hear him writhe on the ground. Maybe me and this psycho weren't so different. But I wouldn't kill a innocent person, especially a little girl.

"I'm going to kill you," the man said coldly, indifferently, as if stating a fact.

"Not if I kill you first. Now where is she?"

"I don't know," the psycho said. So he knew who I was talking about.

I listened intently but his heartbeat hadn't quickened. He didn't seem to be lying. But then again a psychopath would be indifferent to lying. I narrowed the optic blast to width of a finger (a neat trick Scott had begrudgingly taught me) and blasted a hole through the man's foot. He screamed loudly. Blood flowed unchecked from his wound. I knelt down to his eye level.

"Listen here scum-bag. You may not fear for anything but what about your life? Are you willing to die to take this secret to the grave? Because I swear to you before God almighty, you will not go quickly. Where is the girl?"

The man studied me for a minute. I made no move to rush him. It was his time he was wasting and blood was still streaming out of his leg. Scott would not be happy to see how I had used the laser vision I had copied from him.

"You're like me," the man said. "You don't threaten in vain."

"I'm nothing like you."

The man smiled. He actually smiled. "Believe that if you want but you are. Just for you, I will tell you where the girl is but that doesn't mean that I took her, savvy?"

I smiled back. "Of course not."

"She's in a storage locker on Camden High Street."

"Thank you."

"You're going to kill me aren't you?" The man asked. Still no fear.

"Yes," I replied. "But out of curiosity, did you kill that other girl?"

"Yes I did, and I found pleasure in it."

One optic blast to the head was all it took. An anonymous phone call to the police station later, and I was on my way back to New York. I dumped the balaclava. I felt no guilt. The world was better off without people like him. He had given up his rights to live when he had committed murder. That was my code. I just to hope that Rebekah and the Prof hadn't seen the news.