“Amara? Hey, Amara, wake up.”

     Amara groaned and slowly sat up on her bed, rubbing her eyes.

     “Rogue?” Amara said as she opened her eyes, the room coming into focus. “What… what do you want?” Glancing at her clock, she continued, “It’s only six in the morning. Since when are any of us up this early on a Saturday?”

     “We all need to get a head start if we want to be at that rally by eight. It’s taking place about fifty miles from Bayville—on the opposite end of Manhattan-- so it’s going to be a bit of a drive.”

     Rally? What ral—oh… right. Mayor Kelly’s supposed to be speaking to politicians from all over New York about that Mutant Registration Act today…

     “When… who all is going?” Amara asked, stretching as she tried to organize her thoughts.

     “About three-fourths of us, but not all for the same reasons,” Rogue said. “Me and some of the others are going to protest, but some of the X-Men are going just to make sure the Brotherhood or the Acolytes don’t try to cause any trouble.”

     “Okay, simpler question, then,” Amara replied. “Who ISN’T going?”

     “Well,” Rogue sighed as she continued, “Hank’s staying here to hold down the fort, so to speak, and to keep an eye on the two Jamies. Cessily isn’t going because she actually thinks the Mutant Registration Act is a good thing, believe it or not. X-23 isn’t going for obvious reasons. Roberto, Kurt, and Rahne don’t care one way or the other, and Kitty has too much homework to go.”

     “Good, so I won’t be alone,” Amara said, plopping back into bed. “I’m staying here.”

     “What?” Rogue said, flabbergasted. “Amara, do you know what the Mutant Registration Act would do?! It would force all of us to—“

     “I know what it would do, Rogue,” Amara said, burying her head underneath a pillow. “I said I don’t want to go.”

     Rogue sat there at the side of the bed for a few moments, silent, before speaking up again. “Is this about your… about the way you look now? Look, Amara, believe me, I know how you feel, but you’ve got to get over this and get out and—“

     “Get OVER it!?” Amara said, pulling back the pillow and glaring at Rogue. “My skin was covered in burns and I was bedstricken for MONTHS. I’m permanently disfigured. And you want me to ‘get over it’? Yes, I am avoiding public places, because I hate the way I look now and because everyone stares at me—even you guys-- as if it wasn’t bad enough when the existence of Mutants was made public. At least Kurt has that image inducer.”

     “You know, the Professor could create one for—“

     “Just… just forget it,” Amara said sadly, putting the pillow back over her face, her temper tantrum gone as soon as it started. “I don’t want what Kurt has… I don’t want an image inducer just to look like me again. I’m… sorry I snapped, Rogue. But I don’t want to go. Besides, if the Brotherhood does show up, and Wanda’s there….”

     “Alright,” Rogue said, sighing and standing up. “For the record, I tried.”

     Amara grumbled something unintelligible as Rogue left the room and closed the door behind her. Closing her eyes, she slowly drifted off to sleep again.

     Amara was awakened again suddenly by a fairly loud thud as the door to her room was thrown open and banged against the wall.

     Sitting up with a start, Amara almost reflexively turned into her flame form, though she stopped herself just in time, remembering that she was sitting in something that was quite flammable.

     “It’s almost ten. Are you going to sit there all day, or are you coming to your training session?” said X-23, irritated.

     “Wh—X-23, what the heck do you think you’re doing!?” Amara said, just as equally irritated. “I was in the middle of sleeping, and training sessions on weekends aren’t mandatory!”

     X-23, however, wasn’t even listening. She had already opened Amara’s closet and, picking out Amara’s X-Uniform, threw it at her. “Here’s your clothes. Be ready in five minutes.”

     “Do you have ANY manners at ALL?!” Amara yelled, taking X-23 aback slightly. Ever since X-23 had joined the X-Men, she had never seen Amara yell at anyone. “Or did they just forget to teach you those, wherever the heck you came from?”

     “No, they didn’t teach me what you call ‘manners’,” X-23 replied, not picking up on Amara’s sarcasm. “Though I did learn the proper etiquette for blending into relevant situations. But I don’t understand what that has to do with the current situation. You’re stalling. Get ready.”

     “I’m not training today,” Amara replied. “I don’t feel like it.”

     “I don’t care,” X-23 said. “Get ready.”

     “What IS your problem!?”

     X-23 grunted in frustration and slammed the door shut with her foot before pivoting and walking up to Amara at the side of her bed until their faces were mere inches from each other. Seeing the look of anger on X-23’s face send a chill down Amara’s spine. She knew only the basics about X-23’s background, but she had been there the night X-23 broke into the Institute and took out nearly all of the X-Men—she was well aware what the clone was capable of.

     “What are you here for?” X-23 said to Amara’s face, scowling.

     “…To… live with other Mutants in a fairly safe place…” Amara answered hesitantly, not sure where X-23 was going with this.

     “Wrong,” X-23 said, yanking Amara out of bed by one arm. “The Mansion has been attacked multiple times now. It should be obvious that this is not a safe environment. You’re here to learn how to use your powers more effectively to protect other people and assault the enemy. And to do that, you need to train. Not lay in bed and sulk.”

     “Leave me alone, X-23,” Amara said, her voice wavering as one of her fists ignited in a plume of flame. “I’m serious.”

     X-23 gave a passing glance at Amara’s fist before continuing. “You won’t fight me. You and I both know you won’t win. And one of the reasons for that is your sulking.”

     Amara just glared wordlessly at X-23, gritting her teeth, before extinguishing her fist.

     “I remember when I came here that first night, you didn’t look like this,” X-23 said, gesturing at Amara’s face and hands. “Now you do. I don’t care why. But I have noticed that you barely talk to anyone, even here in the Institute. I observed everyone for a while before I went after Wolverine that first night—you were not like that then. It stands to reason that your vanity is what’s keeping you participating in sessions more often. You’re ashamed of how you look. Again, I don’t care why. I’ve never understood anyone’s want to ‘be normal’. We’re not. By definition, we’re abnormalities of nature. Accept it, and if you can’t accept it, than at least accept your mission and follow through with your tasks. Right now you’re making me feel ashamed that we’re the same species.”

     Amara just blinked, unsure of how to reply. X-23 was usually someone of so few words.

     “Now. Get ready,” X-23 said as she swiftly turned around and re-opened the door to Amara’s room. “You have a Danger Room session to attend.”

     “I’m telling Hank about this,” Amara growled.

     X-23 didn’t respond as she closed the door with a slam.

     Amara fumed for a few moments before she regretfully started to remove her pajamas and put her uniform on. Just as she was about to leave her room, a familiar sound emanating from her desk caught her attention.

     Walking over and grabbing her cell phone, Amara took a quick glance at the caller ID and smiled.

     She couldn’t have called at a better time.

     Jean surveyed the scene in front of her from a building ledge high up above the crowd below.

     “…more than its fair share of disasters over the past few years, as our expense reports can no doubt attest,” Mayor Kelly finished, laying a fairly large stack of papers in front of the assembled representatives in front of him.

     Unlike most political debates, Mayor Kelly’s speech was being held in a plaza in the center of popular business district, instead of behind closed doors in an indoor meeting room. After getting a whiff of the public interest in the topic, national newsanchors had asked Mayor Kelly to make his presentation in public, and Kelly, certainly not having any objections to getting his point across to as many people as possible, had readily agreed. Several New York politicians were attending the meeting as well, all seated on a stage in front of a vast crowd. Much of the crowd was silent, listening intently to the debate raging on stage, though there were some on both sides of the issue holding up various signs and occasionally yelling out various slogans. To their credit, Jean had noticed Rogue along with most of the other anti-registration protestors from Bayville-- including not just Mutants from the school but also a few normal humans such as Amanda Sefton—had fairly tame signs. A few particularly obnoxious anti-registration protestors were continuously shouting while holding signs that compared Mayor Kelly to various mass-murdering dictators from history. Of course, the signs on the pro-registration side also ran the gamut, as well. All in all it was a tense atmosphere, but no fighting had broken out. Yet.

     Because of the obvious controversial nature of the debate, security was everywhere. Policemen and SWAT team members were literally swarming around the plaza—there were even a few helicopters circling far above. Reluctantly, the chief of security had allowed some of the X-Men to oversee the debate for security reasons as well--- likely because he realized that even this amount of security couldn’t deter some of the more powerful Mutants, Jean reasoned.

     *11:30 on the dot,* came a voice over Jean’s comlink that she recognized as the security chief’s. *All units report in.*

     “Phoenix here at vantage point A-1,” Jean spoke into her headpiece. “I see nothing to worry about here.” She didn’t particularly like the codename she had been forced to quickly choose for security reasons—she thought it wasn’t very fitting, and she preferred to just be called by her real name—but she understood the need for them, in case someone tapped into their comlink frequency.

     *SWAT sniper team Alpha, vantage point A-2. All clear.*

     *Colossus, A-3. I see nothing out of the ordinary.*

     *SWAT assault team Epsilon reporting, A-4. Everything’s good here.*

     Jean continued to half-listen to the rest of the various personnel and X-Men on security duty report in—all accounted for and all reporting that nothing looked suspicious, thank goodness. Most of her attention was focused on the debate, though, as the other New York politicians had finally finished digesting Mayor Kelly’s expense reports that he had summarized aloud for the benefit of the audience.

     “So if I am reading this correctly, Bayville’s expenses over the past three years have been a full fifteen times higher than a town of comparable size in New York?” One of the politicians—a brown-haired, overweight woman—asked, continuing to flip through the pages of Mayor Kelly’s report.

     Gasps broke out from some members of the crowd, followed by considerable muttering.

     “That is correct,” Mayor Kelly responded, raising his voice to be heard over the increasingly noisy crowd. “As you will notice from the details, all of this extra damage can be traced back to one source—Mutants. Sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, but if you look far back enough, they all lead to Mutants. Two million to repair a school parking lot and collateral damage caused by localized earthquakes. Sixteen million to repair damage in downtown Bayville after a Sentinel—“

     “You’ve already summarized the reports, Mr. Kelly,” another one of the politicians said, his voice taking on a twinge of annoyance. “You don’t need to do so again.”

     “The point I’m trying to make, Senator Jackson, is that this is why we need a Mutant Registration Act. How fair is it that I’ve been forced to raise taxes so much on the citizens of Bayville to cover these costs just because they happen to live in the area of the world with the densest concentration of Mutants, due to the existence of such local organizations as the Brotherhood of Mutants, the Morlocks, and the X-Men?”

     “I see your point,” Senator Jackson acknowledged, “But surely you can acknowledge that some Mutants can do just as good of a job protecting property as they can destroying it. After all, thanks to the efforts of some of the X-Men here, we have been able to have this conference in relative safety.”

     A few cheers came up from the audience.

     “Senator, you’re missing the point,” the overweight woman cut in. “Yes, these… X-Men… may be helping us, but we wouldn’t have to worry so much about security in the first place if we could keep track of who is a Mutant and who is not. We’d have all the Mutants with a criminal record on close watch and far away from here, instead of possibly in the midst of these fine citizens we have assembled right here in front of us.”

     A few more cheers, from a different section of the assembled crowd than before.

     “I have to agree with Ms. Walters,” remarked another representative-- this one male, with a fairly handsome visage and short-cut blond hair. “And, as these expense reports indicate, even these supposedly virtuous ‘X-Men’ have done their fair share of damage. Whether it was intentional or not has not been determined beyond a reasonable doubt, but as much as I am grateful for their participation today, this does not automatically exonerate them from any acts—perhaps even criminal acts—they have committed in the past. From these reports, we have documented evidence of them resisting arrest after the Bayville Sentinel incident, considerable damage during a scuffle in an Italian eatery… one of them even attempted to steal school fundraising dollars from Bayville High School!”

     “Look, I’m not saying that this is a black-and-white issue,” Senator Jackson responded. “But investigations have already concluded on the X-Men. Any damage they have directly caused has been paid for, and any damage they have indirectly caused—through battles with other Mutant groups, for example—has been proven in one way or another to not be their fault. You are misinformed in that respect. This… this Mutant registration act… it just smacks of a slippery slope to be, a new way to discriminate against people.”

     “I’m not sure what idealistic world you live in, Senator, but people sometimes do have to be discriminated against,” another representative replied. “If a person has the ability to walk through solid objects like one of these X-Men, wouldn’t it be wise to have them publicly identified so that if, say, a robbery occurs and there was no evidence of a break-in, we would have a potential suspect?”

     “If I may interrupt for just a moment, Mr. Rodriguez,” Mayor Kelly interjected. “I think I owe it to Senator Jackson to answer his wrongful assumption that the X-Men have been cleared of any wrongdoing.”

     As Mayor Kelly was talking, an aide had briskly walked up to the podium. As he finished his sentence, he silently accepted a folder the aide had presented to him and opened it, flipping through the papers and photos inside as he continued to speak.

     “I have not brought up this incident until now, because I have not been able to collect all the hard evidence. I also haven’t talked about this catastrophe because without proof, my story would seem, well… crazy, to put it simply.”

     “Get to the point, Mr. Kelly,” Senator Jackson said. “What catastrophe? What are you talking about?”

     “I am talking, ladies and gentlemen, about an incident that occurred at Bayville High School over two years ago, before the existence of Mutants was even public knowledge.”

     Mayor Kelly dramatically emptied the folder of its contents in front of the assembled politicians, spreading the photos and papers out so all of them could take a look. One of the cameramen on stage zoomed in on the folder’s contents so that the audience could see them as well.

     Oh, man.

     Jean almost responded over her comlink for Scott to keep quiet, until she realized that she was picking up a thought of Scott’s that was directed at her—no actual communication had passed over their comlinks.

     This is not looking good, Jean solemnly agreed.

     “This catastrophe occurred during a heavily-attended soccer game at Bayville High,” Mayor Kelly continued, a smirk growing on his face as he paced back and forth across the stage. “A catastrophe that, according to the hundreds of eyewitnesses at the game, was caused by malfunctioning fireworks.”

     He knows he’s got us. He’s not going to let this one go, and I don’t think these guys will either.

     Just hold on a moment, Scott, Jean thought back. Let’s give the other politicians a chance. Maybe they’ll understand once they get our side of the story…

     Why do I get the feeling they won’t care?

     “I invite all of you—representatives of the people of New York, the audience both here and watching at home—to look at these photos and documents,” Mayor Kelly said. “Study them in detail. My staff will make them available online for anyone to read as soon as our meeting is concluded here. Photos of the damage caused by the ‘fireworks’, compared with photos taken from other incidents of actual firework damage. Expert after expert, giving their written testimony that the extensive damage done could not in any way have been caused by fireworks.”

     “What are you getting at, Mr. Kelly?” asked the male blond-haired politician. “Everyone there agreed that—“

     “What I’m getting at,” Mayor Kelly responded, “Is that these people’s ‘memories’ of this game are, in fact, false. There are telepaths among the X-Men—powerful enough to even change one’s own memories. Nearly all of them were present at this game, and you’ll notice the recorded communications blackout that occurred just before—“

     Mayor Kelly’s speech was suddenly drowned out by a loud rumble that emanated from the far end of the business plaza.

     *Anyone, give me the situation, stat!* came the security chief’s urgent voice over Jean’s intercom as people starting to panic in the crowd below. SWAT agents were almost immediately swarming the stage, surrounding the assembled politicians and urgently motioning them towards armored vehicles on the other side of the plaza.

     Jean immediately flew up into the sky, noticing smoke starting to emanate from a now-wrecked tollbooth blocking access to one of the plaza’s parking lots. No one was near the blast, but it had been enough to cause the tollbooth to collapse, and a black ring surrounded the booth.

     “Phoenix here, I see where the blast came from,” Jean said, swooping down towards the collapsed tollbooth. “Tollbooth to parking lot D. No people nearby, tollbooth has been destroyed but otherwise no collateral damage. Parking lot is empty.”

     *This is SWAT chopper 2, Phoenix’s report is confirmed,* Jean heard over her comlink as a helicopter flew past her from a few hundred feet above. *No casualties or injuries. Looked like just a warning message of sorts.*

     *Any sign of anyone fleeing the scene, a possible suspect?* the security chief asked.

     “I’m not seeing anyone,” Jean said, visually scanning the area and doing a light mental sweep for good measure. “Whoever planted those explosives, they were detonated remotely.”

     *I still don’t want to take any chances,* came the security chief’s reply. *Everyone, help all the civilians get out of here, stat, and make sure no fights break out. Let’s make sure the casualties and injuries stay at zero.*

     “This is your new apartment?” Amara asked as the jeep she was riding in pulled over to the side of the road in front of a fairly run-down complex.

     “This is it,” Tabitha said from the drivers’ seat, looking backwards as she parallel-parked her vehicle. “Not much to look at, but it’s good enough. The landlord’s not too demanding on rent, and besides, it’s the best one I could get on such short notice. Since, y’know, my old one was partially destroyed by some crazy giant robot.”

     “Thanks for getting me out of the X-Mansion, Tabitha,” Amara smiled as she got out of the passengers’ seat. “I hate being cooped up there, but I hate going out even more… because of, y’know… all the looks.”

     “Hey, I figured you were having a bad time lately,” Tabitha said as she too got out of the jeep and they both walked up the steps and entered the apartment complex, continuing up another flight of steps as she continued to talk. “Being around such a tight-wound place and all after all that’s happened. Getting out now and then and havin’ some fun is what life is all about, Amara! Who cares what other people think?”

     “Well, I don’t necessarily think random people I meet on the street or at school are judging me as a bad person,” Amara said softly. “It’s just, with the burns and all… it kind of attracts attention.”

     “Yeah, they’re just automatically judging you as a bad person because you’re a Mutant,” Tabitha said, huffing. “Look, they still react the same way towards all of us, it’s just that because of your recent… changes… you’re more obvious to the casual observer, is all.”

     “What did you want me to see, anyway?” Amara said as Tabitha unlocked the front door to her apartment.

     “What, I need a reason for you and I to have a good time?” Tabitha replied innocently, opening the door. “Voila! What do you think?”

     “It’s, um… it’s nice.”

     The apartment was extremely messy, with Tabitha’s various paraphernalia thrown all over the place, in no real order. There was also a musty sort of smell that Amara couldn’t quite identify, several cracks along the walls, and only one medum-sized window overlooking the street outside.

     “It’s okay, you don’t have to lie,” Tabitha said. “It stinks, I know. But hey, it’s cheap. And I don’t have a bald guy and his staff ordering me around all day.”

     “Y’know, Tabitha, normally I’d fire back a retort at that. Erm, no pun intended,” Amara quickly added when she saw Tabitha grin. Clearing a room on Tabitha’s couch and plopping down on it, she continued, “But lately they’ve been bothering me, too. Bugging me to play a game of softball, participate in a Danger Room session, come downstairs and socialize, blah blah blah. And this new girl, that creepy X-23… she’s not helping, I’ll say that much. I’m just getting tired of it all—even among the rest of the X-Men, I still get stares sometimes when they think I’m not looking. It’s getting so old, I have to be honest, I’m… thinking of leaving.”

     “Whoa, and move all the way back to Brazil?” Tabitha said. “I thought you didn’t get along well with your douche of a dad.”

     “I don’t,” Amara replied, scowling. “And I’m not thinking about moving all the way back there. Just… not at the X-Mansion.”

     “Whoa, brainstorm!” Tabitha exclaimed. “Hey, if you’d pitch in with a bit of the rent, I bet you could live here! C’mon, we’d be roommates with no X-Men to boss us around, what could be better than that?”

     “Uh, Tabitha, I’m too young to be an owner of an apartment yet,” Amara said, rolling her eyes.

     “So? Just do what I did, lie. I know this guy who makes the best fake ID cards…”

     “But you’re almost old enough, Tabitha, you’re 17—I’m not. You can pass as someone slightly older. Like I said, I’m still thinking about it…. I’ll let you know whenever I decide something. Now, what did you invite me up here to show me? I assume it wasn’t your apartment.”

     “Guilty as charged,” Tabitha said, putting her hands up. “I actually led you up here to show you something really cool I’ve learned.”

     “About what?” Amara asked.

     “My powers, what else?” Tabitha said. “Check this out!”

     Tabitha created a few of her “booms” in her palms and threw them haphazardly across the room. One landed right in Amara’s lap.

     “Tabitha!” Amara said, almost shrieking as she quickly leapt out of the couch, dropping the energy ball on the floor. “What do you think you’re—“

     “Oh, will you hold on a second?!” Tabitha replied. “Just wait.”

     With all of Tabitha’s energy balls far enough away from her now, Amara clamped down and just stared at some of the “booms” scattered across the room.

     Nothing happened.

     “Tabitha, what’s… what’s going on?” Amara said. “Your firecrackers, they’re not working.”

     “Actually, they are,” Tabitha grinned. “It’s something I did once a long time ago, when I left the Brotherhood house and was reeeally steamed at Mystique, but I hadn’t been able to replicate it since then… at least, until a few days ago.”

     Suddenly, Tabitha pointed one of her hands at one of her explosives, with her hand in a gun-like gesture. “Pulling the trigger” of her “gun”, one of the explosives immediately went off—since it was so small, however, it only left a small black spot on the carpet, having no more power than a small firecracker. Making several silly “bang” noises, she repeated the gesture at the other energy balls in the room, which each went off one-by-one as she “pulled the trigger” on them. After they had all exploded, Tabitha “blew the smoke” off the tip of her finger and made a “holstering” gesture, smiling.

     “Whoa, you learned how to control when they go off?!” Amara exclaimed. “That’s so cool!”

     “Yup, no more accidental explosions for me,” Tabitha grinned. “Unless I want to make it look like an accident, of course.”

     “So, I’m guessing some great practical jokes are the order of the day, then?” Amara smiled.

     “Actually, not today,” Tabitha said, turning on the TV and quickly flipping through the channels. “Well, maybe later today, but not right now.” Tabitha finally stopped channel-flipping when she got to a 24-hour news network that was showing coverage of Mayor Kelly’s speech.

     “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Amara said in disbelief, crossing her arms. “You want to watch the news? And coverage of Mayor Kelly’s stupid speech, of all things?”

     “Hey, it’s going to get a LOT more exciting in a minute,” Tabitha said, sitting down on the couch next to Amara. “I was actually there, where they’re filming, about a day ago.”

     “Wait, what?” Amara asked. “Why?”

     “Watch,” Tabitha smirked. Taking a deep breath, Tabitha’s expression took on one of deep concentration, and suddenly Amara heard the rumble of an explosion—from the television set.

     “So you guys know these people,” the security chief said. “Any idea who the perp might be?”

     All of the X-Men who had attended the rally—either as security or as participants—were now assembled around the blown-apart tollbooth, a few of them picking through the pieces. The security chief stood opposite the assembled Mutants, flanked by two full heavily-armed SWAT teams. Clearly the limited trust that had existed between the X-Men and the rest of the security team had been all but shattered.

     “Well, firstly we do not know all Mutants,” Colossus said, helping Jean sift through the rubble. The two of them had been the obvious choices to go through the crime scene, given that Colossus’ metallic form had no fingerprints, and Jean’s ability to move large pieces of debris without actually touching them. “It very likely could have been a Mutant we are not aware of.”

     “And how are you even sure it’s a Mutant?” Rogue asked the security chief indignantly.

     “Phoenix, lift up the roof section,” the chief commanded. Jean nodded and levitated the largest in-tact piece of the tollbooth in the air. With the roof levitated, the debris-strewn floor of the wrecked tollbooth was easily seen by everyone present.

     The security chief walked into the ruined booth, nudging by Colossus, who quickly got out of the way as a few SWAT agents followed a few steps behind. As the security chief talked, he pointed out the evidence he was referring to with his gloved hands.

     “First off, you can see there’s no leftover metal casing or wires. That rules out explosives of the traditional variety. There would’ve had to have been some kind of remote timer or detonator, given that no one saw anyone fleeing the scene of the crime before the explosives went off. And for an explosion as relatively small as this, the remnants of that equipment should still be here. However, there is the residual carbon scoring all over the tollbooth, as you can see from all these blackened marks everywhere. So whatever was used has the makeup of a traditional explosive, but no electronic fuse. And given what Mayor Kelly was talking about, I’m not treating this as a coincidence. Now, I’ll ask again—what Mutants do you all know who could do something like this?”

     “I bet it was Gambit,” Cyclops said. “I wouldn’t put this past him. He’s done worse.”

     “There’s no way it was Gambit!” Rogue said, abruptly stepping in. “Look, all the parts of the tollbooth are still here, more or less. If Gambit had charged up a part of the tollbooth to explode, with his powers it would’ve meant at least one major section of the booth would’ve been completely gone. Besides, as soon as Gambit lets go of whatever he charges, it’s not long until it explodes. Someone would’ve seen him leaving.”

     “Hrrm,” Cyclops said. “I guess you’re right. But then, who does that leave?”

     There was silence for a while, until Berzerker piped up. “Um… could it have been Boom Boom? That’s the only other Mutant I could think of that could have pulled off something like that.”

     “Tabitha’s pretty crazy, but I don’t think even she would have done something like this,” Jubilee said.

     “Besides, don’t we run into the same problem?” Cyclops spoke up. “Tabitha would have had to plant the explosives right before they went off.”

     “Not necessarily,” Jean said, her expression showing that something had just popped into her memory. “After Boom Boom left the Brotherhood, we found out later that she had blown up Mystique’s room—after she had left. Could she have that much control over her explosives by now?”

     “A girl codenamed ‘Boom Boom’ is our main lead, then?” the security chief asked. “Geez, anyone who picks a codename like that has gotta be nuts. Wouldn’t something like that raise a red flag with you people?”

     “Iceman, get out your cell phone and contact the X-Mansion,” Storm said. “I forget if Tabitha’s given us her new apartment’s phone number yet, but if she has it’s going to be somewhere in the Mansion’s database. See if Beast can pull it up and contact her. It’s probably another Mutant that we’re not aware of, but we need to make sure.”

     “On it,” Iceman nodded as he took out his cell phone and started dialing.

     Amara watched the ensuing chaos on the television—people running frantically away from the plaza, SWAT teams engulfing the podium—for a few moments, shocked. It took her nearly a minute to snap out of her reverie, realizing what had just happened.

     “T-Tabitha…. What did… what did you do!?”

     “Hey, I know what you’re thinking, and don’t worry,” Tabitha said, putting her hand on Amara’s shoulder. “I didn’t plant the explosives in the middle of a crowd or anything. Just a bunch in some tollbooth parking lot almost a block away. There weren’t any cars or anything there, so no one was hurt—this was just to send Mayor Kelly and the others a message, that’s all. Cool that I was able to do that all the way back in Bayville, huh?”

     Amara briskly pushed Tabitha’s hand off, getting up and stepping backwards a few feet. “No one was hurt? No one was hurt!? Tabitha, you just… you just realize what you’ve done, haven’t you? You’ve committed an act of terrorism!”

     Tabitha looked at Amara for a few seconds, her expression an odd mixture of hurt and confusion. Suddenly a grin popped onto her face and she started to laugh, almost uncontrollably.

     “Oh, man… Amara… hahaha!! You really had me going for a moment there—me, a terrorist! Hahahahaa! Oh, girl, this is why I like to hang out with you so much, haha!” Putting on a fake Arabic accent, she continued, “For Allahahahahaha…. BOOM! Hahahahaha!!!! Death to the inf---hahaha, oh man, I can’t continue this, my sides are hurting. Hahahaaaa….”

     Amara just stood there, shocked that even Tabitha wasn’t taking this seriously.

     “Tabitha, I’m not joking around! Yeah, okay, you weren’t doing it for some twisted holy crusade kinda reason, but you were doing damage and scaring people just to get your message across! And how do you know that no one was hurt, huh? How do you know?”

     As she listened to Amara, Tabitha’s mood quickly changed when she realized her friend wasn’t being facetious. Standing up, her face flush, Tabitha shouted back, “Are you kidding me? Are you really freaking kidding me!? Amara, you DO know that jerk Kelly was the whole reason for this rally, right? The Mutant Registration Act? Y’know, that whole thing? Since when are you on their side?”

     “I’m not!” Amara insisted. “I hate Kelly! But you don’t blow up something at his rally, Tabitha! You protest, you write letters, you sign petitions, I don’t know! You don’t do this! I knew you’d been hanging around with Pyro too much lately…”

     “Hey, John’s a good guy, he knows what’s on the line here,” Tabitha shot back. “But look, I’m not going all gung-ho on this like the Loserhood is! I’m not killing people, I’m not kidnapping other Mutants! I just put a few of my explosives in a fairly remote area that was still close enough to interrupt those retards! Amara, you haven’t seen the spot where I placed them. No one was hurt.”

     “You. Don’t. Know. That,” Amara said through gritted teeth, tears starting to form in the corners of her eyes. “How do you know someone wasn’t walking by just at the time you set them off? What if the parking lot was full, Tabitha—or worse, what if, I dunno, there was something like a tanker truck full of oil driving by at the time?”

     “There wasn’t.”

     “Whatever happened to the Tabitha who knew it was wrong to steal the school fundraising money? Who apologized for throwing one of her explosives into some whiny woman’s breakfast, huh? What happened?”

     “Life happened,” Tabitha replied bitterly, her eyes now starting to look watery as well.

     “Right,” Amara sighed, putting a hand over her forehead.

     “Alright, then what would you like me to do?” Tabitha spat back. “Hmm? Sit back and just let them pass that stupid thing? I don’t know if you’ve forgotten already, Amara, but Sam and Logan are dead because of ‘cautionary measures’ like the one Mayor Kelly’s about to take. And they’re just the beginning, unless we do something to stop this. Unless we show the world that we mean business, that we’re not something for them to poke, prod, and snicker at. You—of all people, YOU, one of the X-Men—should understand that.”

     “And all you’re doing is justifying that kind of attitude,” Amara said tiredly. “Look, Tabitha, I’m done trying to argue with you. This isn’t just about you, it’s… it’s about all of us. And you’re making all of us look bad. I’m outta here.”

     Amara quickly walked towards the apartment entryway, but just as she put her hand on the doorknob and began to turn it, she felt another hand on her shoulder, with an uncomfortably firm grip.

     “Hold on a sec,” Tabitha said. Anger was still the primary emotion behind her tone of voice, but a bit of panic was starting to creep into it as well. “Amara, you’re not… you’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?”

     “They’re going to figure it out, Tabitha.”

     “No, they’re not. My explosives don’t leave anything behind. They won’t figure anything out if you don’t tell them.”

     “But I thought you wanted to send them a message?”

     “Alright, enough with the screwing around, Amara,” Tabitha growled. “Just promise me you won’t tell them, and I’ll let you go.”

     “You’ll let me go? Tabitha, please… back off….”

     “Then just promise me,” Tabitha said, panic now blatantly evident in her voice.

     “Tabitha, get…OFF….me,” Amara growled. As she emphasized the word “off”, steam suddenly started to come off of her skin, and the tears that had running down her cheeks instantly evaporated. Tabitha reflexively pulled her hand off with a yelp.

     “Why you little—“ Tabitha began, forming a couple energy balls in her hands.

     “You won’t fight me,” Amara growled, turning around, her eyes now burning a fiery red. “You and I both know you won’t win. Please. Back off, Tabitha.”

     Wait… why does that sound so familiar?

     Tabitha merely let out a curse at Amara and threw a fist full of explosive balls at her former friend, who just barely managed to dodge them. They flew past Amara, almost blowing right through the door with a loud bang.

     “So this is how it is, then,” Amara said softly. Fully converting into her flame form, she unleashed a fireball at Tabitha, her cry a furious mixture of pain and frustration.

     Tabitha leapt backwards out of the way and into the main room of the apartment. She threw a slightly larger one of her “booms” at Amara, which hit her right in the left foot. Amara hissed in pain as the foot started to bleed profusely, though the wound was almost immediately cauterized by her own powers.

     The fireball that had missed Tabitha had impacted the wall behind her, and now the apartment was quickly catching on fire. The smoke detector started to wail loudly, though that didn’t phase Amara as she walked right into the living room after Tabitha, each of her footprints leaving a flaming imprint on the carpet.

     “Tabitha, stop this now,” Amara said. “I’m giving you one last chance. Just let me go.”

     “Screw you,” Tabitha growled. “You just have to be a fricking tattletale, don’t you?”

     A huge gout of flame erupted from the front of Amara’s form, engulfing Tabitha and pushing her head-over-heels through the other end of the room and crashing out the apartment’s lone window.

     Amara quickly reverted back to her normal form, running over to the flaming hole she had just blown in the wall. Two stories below was Tabitha, unconscious with her skin and clothes severely burned, having landed awkwardly on the top of her own jeep.

     Oh my God… what have I done?!

     Erupting into a brief unbridled bout of weeping, Amara took out her cell phone and, forcing herself to calm down a little, dialed 911.

     “Is… is she going to be okay?”

     One of the medical personnel looked up from Tabitha’s unconscious form on the stretcher and back and Amara as three others started to roll the stretcher into the ambulance.

     “I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘okay’. Obviously, she’s burned—quite severely in some places—and her left arm and both of her legs are broken from the fall onto the jeep. However, none of her injuries appear to be life-threatening. She’ll be in the hospital for quite some time, though, and given that she’s also got some major criminal charges filed against her… well, let’s just say I don’t think you should be in a hurry to fix that hole in the window up there.”

     911 had responded quickly, and now the entire portion of the street in front of Tabitha’s apartment complex had been cordoned off. An ambulance, several police cars, and a fire truck were now all parked in front of the ruined apartment, with a few firefighters inside Tabitha’s apartment putting out the few remaining fires. Amara had initially tried to stem the blaze she had created with a fire extinguisher, but given Tabitha’s messy apartment, it had taken her a few minutes to find it, and the fire had almost engulfed the entire main room and kitchen by that time. Her fire extinguisher clearly hadn’t been able to do the job—luckily, however, the fire department had arrived before much of the fire had spread into any neighboring apartments.

     Amara looked up through her tear-filled eyes as the X-Van screeched to a stop in front of the blockade, and Hank, Rahne, and Kurt quickly opened up the doors and got out.

     “Whoa, hey, this area is blocked off,” one of the policemen shouted out, running up to block the X-Men from entering the cordoned-off area. “Use an alternate route.”

     “It’s okay, they’re with me,” Amara yelled. As if it would have been hard to figure out…

     The policeman reluctantly let the X-Men by, though everyone else present eyed the group of Mutants warily as the three of them ran up, Rahne embracing Amara.

     “Amara, thank goodness yer okay!” Rahne exclaimed.

     “What are you guys doing here?” Amara asked as they let go of each other.

     “Bobby phoned us from the rally,” Hank said. “They had postulated that Tabitha was behind the blast there. I called her cell phone to ask her myself, and when I received no answer—and Kurt informed me that no one had seen you around the Mansion for hours—it didn’t take much for us to put two-and-two together.”

     “Yeah…. I’m sorry about sneaking out,” Amara said, her gaze dropping to the street. “I just… I wanted to get away. I know it was wrong.”

     “I understand and accept your apology, but that’s still no excuse,” Hank said sternly. “We’ll discuss your punishment later when the other instructors get back from the rally.”

     “Is that Tabitha!?” Kurt exclaimed, noticing her in the back end of the ambulance. “What happened?”

     “Tabitha had invited me over so that I could watch her mess up Mayor Kelly’s rally. She was… she was proud of it,” Amara said, fresh tears beginning to flow down her cheeks again as she recounted her experience. “I apparently surprised her by how I reacted to it, and she wouldn’t let me leave. So… this happened.”

     “No,” Kurt said, heartbroken, while Rahne just put her hands over her mouth to stifle a gasp and Hank just shook his head sadly. “Tabitha couldn’t have… when did this happen?! When did she suddenly decide something like this was okay?”

     “I don’t know,” Amara admitted. “I think maybe some of Pyro’s ideas sunk into her head, or something. But from how she was talking, she just wanted to stop Mayor Kelly from interfering with her life—no matter how she did it, and no matter how bad it made the rest of us look.”

     “Tell me about it,” Kurt said, burying his face in his hands in frustration. “I was watching the rally when it all happened. She couldn’t have done this at a worse time.”

     “I didn’t mean to hurt her so badly… I just wanted out,” Amara said, her voice wavering.

     “Hey, we get it,” Rahne said, hugging Amara again. “Accidents happen, ye know.”

     “Well, it looks like the situation’s been dealt with here,” Hank said. “Do the authorities need us to answer any questions to back you up?”

     “Yeah, a few,” Amara admitted.

     “Okay then, just wait a few minutes and then we’ll go home,” Hank said, starting to walk over to where most of the policemen were gathered.

     “Actually, if you don’t mind,” Amara replied suddenly, stopping Hank in mid-stride, “The Mansion’s not too far, only about five miles away or so. I think…. I think I’m just going to walk back. I just… I have some things to think about.”

     “I understand,” Hank said, nodding. “Just understand that we’re here for you whenever you need us, Amara.”

     “I know.”

     “You showed up.”

     “You sound surprised.”

     “I am,” X-23 replied, eyebrows narrowed as they almost always were. As she talked, she continued to put on her gloves and boots. “I figured you’d want to sulk all day again, given what happened yesterday.”

     “I get it, you know.”

     “Explain.”

     “What you were saying yesterday,” Amara replied, putting on her own gloves and boots. “It took something like that to snap me out of my reverie, but… you’re right. Why I’m here, it’s not…. it’s not about me. There’s a cause, an… ideal this place represents. And I was so caught up in my own sorrows I forgot about why, beyond just helping us control our own powers, this place exists in the first place.”

     “Mmm.”

     “…You know, you’re not very good with words.”

     “I wasn’t trained to be,” X-23 replied stiffly, as she and Amara left the locker room and headed into the main Danger Room chamber.

     “…X-23, I don’t know much about your past… because you haven’t really told me,” Amara replied, “But you know…. You can talk to us. The only thing that’s keeping you from becoming friends with people here is... well, you.”

     “You’ll know a lot more than you want to soon enough,” X-23 said.

     “…What?”

     “Nothing. Like you said before, this isn’t about you, and it isn’t about me, either. Now, are you going to participate in this simulation or what?”

     “….Right. Where are the others?”

     “The simulation calls for us to see how long we can last, and then they’ll join in whenever we’re in trouble. Computer, activate Acolyte simulation X-23, level 10.”

     Amara watched as the Danger Room faded from view, replaced by a virtual parking lot in the dead of night. Amara barely had time to take in her surroundings before she heard a loud crash behind her. Turning around, she saw Omega Red only yards away, laughing as he raised two cars gripped in his tentacles, preparing to throw them at the two teenagers.

     “Alright then,” Amara said, flaming up. “Let’s give our all to the cause.”

The End
 

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