Hello again to all my friends. I don't own X-men, but regardless the original characters that I'll be using in here do belong to me.

It has been three weeks since the last update, and I see from the numbers in my Traffic Stats, you people keep reading this thing. Gosh, I guess I'll have to give you another chapter. Just kidding, I was planning to give an update soon too. Enjoy!

Chapter 22

Over the next few weeks things began to settle into a bit of a pattern. Once Naomi was recovered she started going back to classes, her training with Nightcrawler was intermingled with training with Rael. Since the incident with the snowball fight and the odd revolving weapon around the shield he'd been trying to make her reproduce the effect with little success.

The snow was starting to melt, but Naomi spent most of her days indoors. It was easier to avoid getting into the now periodic slush fights. She walked down the stairs toward the basement, a text from Rael her reason for going down. Not that she didn't go into the lower levels quite often, she'd developed a slight habit of going down to talk with Emily, as well as have a sort of training to strengthen her mental defenses. The comatose psychic often said she was getting better, she didn't know how it was possible but she was gaining more confidence in herself.

She dialed her uncle as she walked, it went to his voice mail. "Hey, just calling for the weekly check in. Nothing all that exiting happening on my end, school's still fun for me. Rael's getting more aggressive to try and make me attack with shadows like I did before, it isn't happening yet. I guess you're off doing something amazing to try and help mutants everywhere. Kay, I'll call again later, Bye Uncle Hank." She clicked off the phone and opened the door downstairs. She paused at hearing a conversation down the hall.

"...be here in a few hours, I'm begging you Storm I need to be somewhere else." It was Hart. Naomi walked a few steps closer and saw Storm and he walking toward one of the rooms that was having a class.

"Alright, I'll tell Sparky you're out for the day, just make sure to take someone else with you. Take Rune, I'm sure the two of you could keep yourselves out of trouble." Storm replied.

Naomi thought back to the conversation with Emily, Sparky had a thing for Hart. So, why was he avoiding her? The conversation continued.

"Rune snuck out sometime last night." Hart lowered his voice, "He said it was something to do with something you asked him to do? Well, he wasn't here this morning."

Storm paused, "He's keeping an eye on things in the Shadow Brotherhood for me, I would think he could get back before morning. He's almost eighteen but I worry about that boy..."

Naomi lost some of the conversation, she used a shadow to listen through.

"...Rumor that Recharge was in town." Hart was saying, "It isn't a good time for anyone, especially Rune to be out and about."

She blinked, who was Recharge? She stopped listening as the conversation went back to him getting out of the house before Sparky's arrival. She went down stairs and into the danger room.

Rael was firing off a long succession of black arrows from his energy bow. Each arrow struck a moving target even while his movements were minimal. "You're late...er than usual." The last target fell to the dark energy. "What kept you?"

"I over heard something Hart was saying to Storm." Naomi stated as she put her bag in one of the gaps between the door and the room. "He wanted out of the house cause,"

"Sparky's coming home." Rael said with a too happy of a smile from him. "She's a little over enthusiastic, her aura is a little overwhelming for our resident empath." He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, "Just don't mention you've spent some time with Hart while she was gone, she's very easily jealous." He smirked, "That also means Feathers should be home."

"Feathers?"

"She's a shapeshifter, she turns into a hawk. She's Sparky's older sister, and my girlfriend." Rael replied, still smiling. "It doesn't sound like that riveting of a conversation to make you late."

"Do you know a Recharge?" Naomi asked, her shadow pooled around her feet expecting Rael's usual attack.

Rael didn't move, for a moment he didn't speak, slowly, stiffly he turned toward Naomi. "Pray that you never, ever meet Recharge."

"Why is there something wrong with her, who is she?"

"Dragon's sister. She's... addictive." Rael looked rather uncomfortable. "Her name shouldn't be Recharge, it should be Cocaine or Ritalin... or Backfire."

"Huh?" Naomi tilted her head to the side.

"Her power, every time she touches you it makes you feel stronger, more powerful. And for mutants... you are more powerful. She's steroids for mutants, but after a while it fades off," He ran a hand through his hair, "Its pretty cool the first few times, then you start to crave being around her and if she's not there you feel... powerless."

"Sounds like you know a lot about her." Naomi said softly. "But I still don't understand."

Rael held up a finger then walked up to the control room, after a moment all the lights but one went out. He came back down to her. "Alright go cast your shadow and take in all of these shadows."

She blinked but let her shadow out it began to collect shadows, even in that much darkness there were multiple shadows roaming in the dark, she could feel them, but couldn't see them. Naomi closed her eyes against this mid-light.

"Dragon, Recharge and I grew up in the same neighborhood." Rael began to speak again while she let her shadow collect others. She could feel her skin splitting at her fingertips. "They didn't think she was a mutant at first, no one knew what she could do. So we would all play together when we were kids. Their parents started to pick up on it when Dragon and I would get jittery and, well, really angry when Recharge wasn't around. One day she told me to go steal something from a store while Dragon made a distraction, I did it without question because I wanted to stay near her, let her hold my hand and give me little kid kisses on the cheek." Naomi shudder at the thought of that amount of manipulation. "Alright," Rael said, "I think you got them all right? I mean they all shivered when you did."

Naomi nodded, "I've got them, now what?"

"Break that lightbulb with them." Rael ordered, "Just hit it with them."

"I don't know how..."

"Just do it, think about what you want to do and do it." Rael said annoyed.

She took a deep breath and forced the shadows into the light. What Rael saw looked like the tail of some massive creature coming to a point, it swung up over the lightbulb and struck it. Glass shattered and they were plunged into darkness.

All the shadows had vanished, Naomi felt the skin crack all the way up to her shoulders in spider web thin cracks.

"How do you feel?" He asked in the darkness.

"Fine why do you..." Then she felt it, there was an emptiness where that power had been along with the fear in her belly of being stuck in a pitch black room. "Why would anyone want that?" Her hands shook slightly from the lack of even her own shadow that she'd grown use to having control of. It had become part of who she was in that moment she'd control them all.

Rael shrugged, Naomi could see it after all in this total darkness. "Ask Rune, he dated her for a while. I'm guessing that he's off getting high on her again, or that's what Hart's worried about if he brought her up."

They were silent for a moment, "How about some training then?" Rael walked up to the room and turned on all the lights but the one she'd broken.

Her phone went off when she got out from the basement, a text message, from Curse. She wanted to show Naomi her newest achievement with her powers, she was in one of the dance rooms. Naomi smiled and started in that direction when her phone shocked her. She dropped it and looked at the device it hadn't ever done that before.

"I heard from a very reliable source that you've been spending a lot of time with my Hart."