"I know I left that paint can somewhere."

My grandma grumbled to herself, straining to reach the top shelves of a wooden cabinet. My little head returned to the enormous banner in front of me, and the strokes of red I was forming to from the m in "scum."

As in, Rid Mutant Scum.

I didn't know what any of that meant yet, or even that I would be one of them. I just blindly painted, eager for the approval of my grandmother and only family.

There was a hard thud and the flapping sound of paper as my grandmother knocked a file full of documents from the cabinet.

"God blessed," she swore, her bushy brows scowling.

I set the red-dipped brush down onto a newspaper. I bent down to my knees and began to help her scoop the papers back into a pile. My eyes curiously tranced over foreign words and pictures of the same man, repeated. I read his name aloud,

"Sebastian Shaw."

My grandmother's eyes went wide at the name.

"Give me those!"

I glanced at black and white Polaroids of him as a boy, riding a bicycle, playing with a model military plane, running through the front yard of the very house I was sitting in. My little finger pointed,

"Grandma, who is that?"

"He's a bad man. A very very bad man, sweetheart."

"If he's bad then why do you have photos of him?"

"I don't know. I'll have to store these away in a storage locker or something. Don't need them junking up the house."

"Why don't you just throw them out?" I pressed, oblivious to what I was prying open.

"Because before he was bad...he was my son,"

Her eyes went red, and glossed over. She took a deep breath, hesitantly adding in the faintest whisper, as if intended only for herself,

"your father..."

***

"Firefly...Firefly..."

My eyelids unsealed themselves, fluttering a bit as my vision cleared. The dream, or the memory I should say, stained itself onto my mind. I was caught in a daze.

Where was I?

Charged, metal walls. The low humming of propellers. Three strangers beside me.

Right. I was on a helicopter bound for a mutant testing facility. Fun.

Scott, I learned was the name of the sarcastic kid with the ruby glasses. He had an older brother, Alex, that had coincidentally just died in the spontaneous explosion that occurred a couple hours ago. I mean, with that considered he looked like he was doing pretty well. But I don't think his powers allowed him to really cry. Inside, though, I could sense everything. And he most definitely wasn't fine.

Kurt, the one with the blue skin and pointed teeth and blood red eyes, I guess was saved by Mystique from mutant cage fighting, then followed her like a lost puppy until he wound up in America.

And the girl, with those green, restless, fiery eyes. Jean.

Jean I couldn't put my finger on for the life of me. The second she glanced at you she knew you literally in your entirety. She was always half-present, half-stranded off somewhere else. Jean gave me the impression she was always seeing ten times more than what anyone else was. And that it took a toll, every single minute of her curious existence.

"I think we're landing soon," Scott noted, regaining my attention. Jean uncomfortably glanced to me and then back to the window.

I must have been staring.

When we entered an enormous compound, the inside of the helicopter went dark. Pitch black. We shifted a bit, uncertain if we had completely landed or not. There were a couple of thumps, the closing of the pilot door. But the helicopter was still on, and that meant the energy field was still buzzing around our heads and holding us hostage.

Scott's voice softly treaded through the darkness,

"We need to break out of here."

"I agree. The problem is how. The forcefield is still running," I said, my fingers hovering above the stinging walls.

"Well, we can start with a light," Kurt suggested, turning about the cramped space.

God. I'll I needed was Peter. And boom, the place would be radiant. Regardless of any forcefield.

"That's a good idea," Jean mumbled to me, already knowing what had brushed my mind.

My face went hot. Embarrassed a bit.

"Uh. Peter isn't here," I clarified.

"What are you guys talking about?" Scott questioned. I imagined a confused look on his face in the surrounding blackness.

I felt the pads of three fingers touch my temple. They belonged to Jean. I flinched a bit, unnerved by the brash contact. But what happened next made my shoulders heat and melt like candle wax.

She showed me something breathtakingly beautiful. It was a collection of memories, of microscopic moments with Peter.

His laugher vibrated against the side of my neck. His silver hair shone like glass in the sun. Peter's lips drew me close, soft and tender. I knew it wasn't real. I knew that. And yet in that moment I was consumed by the warmth of his energy.

I saw every second of him my eyes had ever seen in the course of a single second.

A sudden burst of light, bright like the sun. The three of them held up their hands, shielding there eyes from the intensity.

"Okay, I think it's working," Scott remarked sarcastically, even taking his glasses off to shut his eyes tighter.

The energy courses throughout my entire body. But the clock was ticking. I could only sustain it for so long with the forcefield still in tack. We would have to plan the next ten seconds out very precisely.

I explained carefully,

"Here's the thing. I can bust open this thing but we gotta be quick. You all have to be ready to fight your way out of here the moment we're out, yeah?"

Kurt raised his hand,

"What do we do when we find them?"

"That's for us to figure out when we get there. We stick together. Kurt will get us through fast. Jean will keep us hidden. And Scott?"

"Yeah?"

"Take the glasses off if you need to."

The glow flickered a bit and I felt the energy beginning to diffuse away.

"Alright then. On three."

"One."

"Two."

"Three."

There was a titanic clash of metal against the stone floor. The energy exploded from my hands and chest in a golden burst of light, the memory of Peter still dancing around my head. My muscles felt a bit weaker without the energy, but I pushed onward, now with a reminder of him fresh in the palm of my hand.

Jean's fingers pressed into the side of her head. The entire mass of guards stood in their place, paralyzed.

"There's a lot of them, I can only hold them so long. Run, I'll catch up."

I lingered for a second, unsure about running ahead of her. Her eyes shone brighter, sharper. She repeated to the three of us,

"Go ahead. I'll let go of them when I get far enough. Kurt be ready to go when I get there."

He swiftly nodded. I flashed her a quick half-smile and the three of us took off, running breathlessly from the landing area and down a hallway. It smelt metallic. The place reeked of fear and anger. And still, I could faintly sense Peter's energy from a far distance.

We stopped short when we had run far enough.

"They're in the northeast corner. I can sense them," I state, sucking some air in through my mouth.

A couple seconds later, a whipping flag of red hair presented itself from around the corner, briefly followed by hoard of angry guards.

"Kurt, now!" she shouted, jumping to embrace us as we disappeared into a cloud of black smoke.

To be deposited off somewhere else amidst the abundant and unknown chaos.

Author's Note:

So here's how the past month has essentially played out for me:

Busy. Collapse. Sick. Busy again. Sick once more. Another collapse. Super busy again. One more collapse. Gut-wrenching sickness.

As you can see, there's been a very unpleasant pattern reoccurring for me in the past couple of weeks.

However, the time is almost here where I will be able to break this pattern and have a crap ton of free time to produce SO MUCH content for you amazing people that you amazing people deserve.

For now, I deeply apologize for the wait. Thank you so much for your patience with this story and with other stories and with me. Thank you for your constant support and enthusiasm and I hope to be posting much more from here on out. Thank you for everything.

—thecatgurl =^._.^=