ANTICIPATION

"Our dear father..."

Brianna clenches and unclenches her fists as a strategy to deal with her nervousness as Kurt Wagner mutters a prayer quietly. None of them comment on this; they are all anxious and nervous and they understand how the blue boy feels.

Scott hangs his head low, lips quivering. Brianna feels a sudden urge to hug him but knows that would be inappropriate in this situation. Jean watches out the window with glassy eyes and pinched eyebrows.

"It should have been me," Scott chokes out, sounding on the verge of crying. Brianna understands this, too, because she probably cared about Alex Summers just as much as Scott did.

"He was the one that was gonna do something with his life," he continues, looking up, out the window of the helicopter. "He was always the one." Kurt has his hands together, and Jean's eyelids flutter shut for a moment before opening again. Brianna just remains quiet, listening to the sound of the loud chopper.

"Thats not how he felt," Jean replies, voice soothing and warm. Even Brianna finds comfort in it. Scott just hangs his head again. "He felt you were gonna be the one that was gonna do something special with your life." She pauses, sun gleaming against her face in a graceful way. "That you were gonna make a difference in this world."

Brianna knows these words to be true. She remembers the endless conversations she had with Alex, and she remembers how almost every time they talked, he would bring up his little brother.

"Maybe even change it," Jean adds as an afterthought.

Creases appear in Scott's forehead. "How do you know what he felt?" He questions, looking again at the ground, kicking his shoes together.

"I know what everybody feels," she says sadly, eyes glassy and Brianna tenses up for a moment as she feels the redhead's gaze slip past her. And then Jean rests her small hand on top of Scott's, looking at him in understanding. In this moment, the brunette catches a glimpse of her father in this girl, and suddenly understands why he seemed to favor her through the time she has been at the School For The Gifted.

Kurt continues to pray and Brianna feels a heavy weight on her shoulders. They have already lost Alex, they can't lose anyone else. She has to get her father back. Safe and alive. Losing him would tear her apart, she realizes, and he doesn't even know it.

Outside, snow covered mountains pass by the window. Brianna suddenly feels a chill from the dip in temperature, but it's nothing compared to her fear of what is to come.

The chopper begins to lower, and goes lower, hovers over water before slipping through the side of a mountain via tunnel. Brianna's nerves spike and she keeps herself on high alert.

-

Inside, with the help of Jean's powers, her, Brianna, Scott, and Kurt are able to hide from all of the security. The red head rests her middle and index finger against her temple, another move that heartbreakingly reminds Brianna of her father.

When the hall is clear, Jean doubles back to the boys and Brianna, who are trying to get in to a room with a large metal door labelled B, Secure Cell.

"What's taking so long?" Scott presses, eyeing Kurt expectantly through his red ruby quartz glasses.

"I can't get in," the blue German boy replies, blue and black bangs falling over his forehead. "They have a field around it, like the helicopter." Scott's lips part and a look of disbelief seems to cross his face. He sighs and shakes his head.

"There gotta be a way to cut the power," he says.

They four of them step quietly down another hallway, looking for something to help them. Kurt's long blue tail trails behind him. Jean and Brianna take up the back. The hall opens up to a room just some feet ahead. A few security guards jog past, and the four of them stand against the wall, dead silent.

Then, the heavy metal door that separates the hall from the room shuts with a clank. Scott turns back to his friends. "Guys, that could be our way out of here."

"Hear me, inhabitants of this world," a voice echoes through all of their heads. Brianna comes to a halt and her breath hitches in her throat, as the voice speaks again, she recognizes it as her father.

"What is that?" Scott asks, bringing his hand to his head.

"This is a message," Charles continues, but from where, none of them know. At least they know he's alive and well, Brianna thinks, tearing up in relief.

"I think it's the Professor," Jean guesses. Brianna silently wishes that they would all shut up so she could hear. Just hearing his voice at a time like this helps her feel much better, better than it has in years.

"A message to every man, woman, and mutant in the world. You have lost your way. But I have returned. The day of reckoning is here. All your buildings, all of your towers and temples, will fall." His voice pauses. "And the dawn of the new age will rise, for there is nothing you can do to stop what is coming.

"This message is for one reason alone. To tell the strongest among you, those with the greatest power, protect those without."

And his voice goes away. Tears are streaming down her face. Brianna doesn't know if she should feel happy or relieved or upset or frightened.

"He just spoke to me," Jean says somewhat urgently, bringing her fingers away from her head.

"I think he spoke to everyone," Scott says, obviously.

"I could hear him, too," Kurt adds.

"No, no," Jean starts to argue, "he just sent me a hidden message. One he knew only I would hear. I know where they are." Brianna's heart starts to race with anticipation and she snaps out of her trance, putting herself once again on high alert.

Suddenly, a guy wearing a cap and gear comes around the corner, straight for the mutant children.

"Hey!" He shouts, lifting his gun at them and shooting, but Kurt is too fast. One by one, he teleports the three of them out of there, quicker than a flash.

They hurry down another hall, and now they have gone down so many different halls in this maze of a building, that Brianna has lost count. She doesnt even know where they are.

Scott takes the lead as they round a corner and stop in front of a door. He looks through the small glass window in the door and sees in another room three enormous boxes with lights and buttons.

"The generator," Scott clarifies, "it's worth a shot." They turn to Kurt expectantly and he zaps them to the other side of the door, into the dim room with the generator.

They step forward, glancing around at the odd metal tables, tools, and instruments. Brianna furrows her eyebrows, but her heart rate picks up again as the four of them hear a deep growling sound coming from the far side of the room.

They all turn and very slowly approach it, reluctant. "There's some kind of animal in there," Scott ventures, as the thing inside sniffs, as if it can sense the approaching children.

"Its no animal," Jean says, taking a light step forward. "Its a man."

"Who is he?" kurt asks, orange eyes glowing.

"That part of him has been taken away," she continues, ignoring Kurt's words, it seems.

"What do you mean?" Brianna asks, voice coming out scratchy from not talking in a long while.

"I mean, they turned him into some kind of weapon," she says. The four duck behind the corner as some troops can be heard outside the door. As they approach, Jean uses her mind powers to unlock the man-beast's heavy secure cage.

Alarms start blaring and the guards look around, half in fear. The children take shaky breaths as well, worried for what will happen.

The door slides open, animalistic sounds coming from it. The man slowly comes out, mostly bare except for a ragged pair of shorts that go to his knees, and some odd type of equipment around his head, chest, and waist. He turns to face the guards.

"Fire!" One of them shouts. The guns statt going off, but they dont do any good. This only angers the man. He comes forward, long silver claws emerging from between his knuckles, screaming a war cry and lunging at the men.

Minutes later, the man has escaped the room. The young mutants go down another hallway, dodging dead bodies scattered on the floor. "You sure he's not an animal?" Scott asks.

The blood on the walls horrifies Brianna.

They run, and eventually come to a musty old room, where the man is beginning to open a heavy metal door that leads outside. Upon seeing Scott, his plans seem to change. He turns, growling, walking slowly. Scott begins to lift his glasses to defend himself with his mutation, but Jean stops him.

"Scott, wait." The man seems confused, dazed, as he eyes Jean with an odd look. She must be talking to him, from mind to mind, Brianna assumes.

Kurt, Scott, and Brianna watch in fear as Jean ventures forward, slowly but surely. She doesn't seem to be afraid. The man's silver claws retract, and Brianna finds some sort of relief in this.

"Jean," Scott warns, trying to urge her back to them, but she continues. She carefully lifts her hands to the side of his head, obviously going for the odd piece of unnamable technology around his head. He grunts and snatches onto one of her wrists, but she only flinches.

A moment of heavy silence, and the man releases her, finding some trust in the young mutant. She moves her hands closer to him, before lifting the helmet type thing from his head and tossing it aside, revealing his shaggy dark hair and confused look better than before.

Jean lifts her hands to his head again and touches his temples again, fluttering her eyes shut. Moments later, he does the same. When they open their eyes, the man has a sort of calmness in his eyes that was not there before.

Still watching her, he removes two white sharp objects pressed deep in to his stomach. When he is wearing only his shorts once again, his eyes skim past the four mutant children, horrified looks plastered across their faces still, before he turns and sprints out the door, barefoot through the heavy snow outside.

"What'd you do to him?" Scott asks, breaking the silence.

"I found a piece of his past and gave it back to him. Just the few memories I could reach."

As an afterthought, Scott adds, "I hope that's the last we've seen of that guy."