(OOC: Continued from Now What?)

The road was deserted, testament to the fact that only specific individuals, with specific goals, or specific assignments, traveled to the facility at the end of this path. Considering the security put into the Labs and surrounding areas, most individual who traveled this road, did so by invitation, and returned in the same fashion. As invited guests, or workers, there was no need to rush, no need to ‘beat the traffic’, a game the majority of New Yorkers seemed to be rather fond of. And for those that were not invited, return simply was not an issue....

For that reason the SUV zooming down the road at dangerous speeds was most unusual, an anomaly in the everyday tranquility of this stretch of countryside. However in more ways then one, the driver of the wild vehicle was also anomaly.

In her rapidly alternating state of mind, Iris saw very little of the blurred landscaping rushing past. At the moment she was swinging back and forth between anger and irrational humor. She was furious at having been imprisoned yet again, while at the same time it struck her as hilarious that she would be released from one prison, only to wind up in another right away. The days had blurred together, and she was now questioning if she had actually returned to the Mansion at all. Perhaps it had all been the same, one elaborate, mind-warping experience.

Mind warping. An excellent expression for her current state. In fact, at that moment another warp occurred. She realized the speeds that the truck had reached, and fear of what could happen overwhelmed her. She slammed on the breaks and twisted the wheel, a maneuver that normal would have flipped the vehicle. Instead a pillar of ice formed underneath the tires, lifting the truck into the air and abruptly halting its breakneck speeds. Iris hit the steering wheel hard enough to make the horn sound. As quickly as it flooded her, the fear vanished, replaced by more irrational laughter.

<“Stop it! STOP!!”> she screamed inwardly at herself. She realized that this new gem was the source of her problems, but she couldn’t find a way to stop it. The mutation wouldn’t deactivate, no matter what she tried. Her back was on fire, and sweat dripped down her face and neck, drenching her shirt.

Suddenly her face went blank. She still needed to get away, and sitting here yelling at herself wasn’t getting that done. The ice retreated, setting the SUV back onto the road. The instant the tires hit pavement, Iris hit the gas. She very quickly reached top speed again, but her expression was flat and uncaring. There was no one else on the road. The sun was up, so it was unlikely that she would come across any wildlife, save a skunk or raccoon. So why should she slow down?

<“But what if there are people out here??..... It serves them right for walking the road unprotected....... I’ve driven in blizzards, this is nothing. I can stop on a dime if I have to..... Unless I pass out at the wheel from hunger. I knew I should have eaten breakfast..... Breakfast? Dinner? I cooked for him! How DARE he do this to me!!”>

”STOOOPP!!” The back windows cracked and spiderwebbed as her scream was magnified by the sonic mutation. She hit the brakes yet again, spinning the vehicle again, though less violently this time.

For a brief instant her back felt as if someone had poured acid on her skin, and her right hand went numb. She choked on a gasp, and arched backwards. Then it was gone. She slumped forward, passing out for a short minute. When the blackness cleared, she was breathing heavily, her energy drained. She didn’t realize it at the moment, but the silver had faded from her hair and eyes. It had been only thirty minutes since she first activated the clear gem, but it seemed like an eternity.

Hunter stayed back as Paragon tore her way along the road. When she made her sudden stop on the ice he told the pilot to hold position, hoping that she would deactivate the gem so he could talk to her. Just as he thought she might have stopped the ice disappeared and she raced off again.

He heard her scream even form the distance he was and the car stopped, with no powers seeming to be used. The gem had worn off at last. As the pilot swooped in Hunter just waited until he was over Paragon’s position and leapt from the helicopter. Landing heavily with a small grunt of pain he rose to his feet and dashed to the vehicle. Seeing Paragon unconscious fuelled him with fear, and he ripped the door of and pulled her out of the vehicle.

Setting her down gently on the edge of the road he shook her gently. “Paragon,” he whispered to her, using the name he had given her for the first time, “Paragon, please wake up.” A single tear rolled down his cheek. How could it have all gone so wrong? He had only done what he thought was right, but it had ended like this. If she didn’t make it he would not even give James a chance to explain himself before he tore the man apart.

“Paragon, please…”

The first thing Iris registered was the sore spot on her forehead. <"Ugh, at least its a normal headache this time...">

“Paragon. Paragon, please wake up." That was the second thing. He was back. "Paragon, please…”

<"Para-what?">

"Stay away from me!" She struggled to get away from Hunter. The hysterics and panic were gone, but that didn't keep her heart from pounding fearfully. "I thought you said I could go. What do you want from me?!"

Hunter released Paragon when she came to. She was alive. However, she was still confused and angry. “Please,” he said, rising to his feet, “Just let me explain. I promise you that once you’ve heard me out that you can go and I will do nothing to stop you. All I ask is that you hear me out.”

He wasn’t sure that she would. After all that she had been through he could understand that she would feel betrayed by him. But she had to listen, to know why he had done what he had done.

Iris retreated to the far side of the truck, keeping it between her and Hunter. She wasn't about to let him near her again, if she could help it. Where had he come from anyway? There were no other cars around. She heard the helicopter overhead, but she'd only blacked out for a minute. That wasn't enough time to even drop a line from the chopper to the ground.

“Please, just let me explain. I promise you that once you’ve heard me out that you can go and I will do nothing to stop you. All I ask is that you hear me out.”

"Why should I?" she snapped, glaring at him over the hood of the vehicle. "Everything you've told me so far has been a lie." Well, maybe not everything, but she wasn't mincing over details at the moment. "Why should I believe anything you say? I'll bet this whole nightmare has been your fault from the beginning, including Syn, Kaz and Haywire! Were you the one that set me loose on the Mansion? Or was that all a charade too? If you were trying to drive me insane, congratulations! It worked!!"

With each question-slash-accusation her voice rose in volume, until she was yelling at him at the top of her lungs. At the last, she slammed both fists down on the hood of the SUV.

Hunter could clearly here the anger in her voice, but there was more than that. She felt frustrated at being deceived yet again. “I had nothing to do with Syn, Kaz or Haywire,” he said honestly, “and where it my choice that would never have happened. There is so much I need to tell you Paragon, but none of it will make sense unless I tell you this first.”

“You are my daughter.”

He paused to let that sink in. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, he doubted it was that. He wasn’t sure she would believe him, in fact he was fairly certain she wouldn’t, but unless she knew that nothing else about what he had done would make sense.

“You are my daughter.”

....

.... ....

.... .... ....

There were several ways she could have reacted to that statement. Understandably, her first were silence and staring. She may have blinked once or twice, she wasn't sure. She may have even tried to say something.

"Okay, maybe I'm not the crazy one..." she finally muttered.

Reaction number two involved a bit more movement. Iris closed her eyes for a moment, rubbing her temples. This was just too much weirdness to happen in one day, let alone one hour. She leaned on the hood, suddenly feeling just.... drained....

"Two things," she said aloud in a very, very bland voice. She held up two fingers, ticking off her points. "One, you're not that much older than I am. Unless someone seriously robbed the cradle, you're going to have some issues getting me to believe that.

"And two, my name is Iris. I don't know who this Paragon person is." Maybe she reminded him of someone, and it was a simple case of mistaken identity.

.... .... ....

<"Not likely....">

“Actually,” said Hunter, “I’m a lot older than you. I’m four hundred and thirty seven years old. And Paragon is the name I gave you. Maybe this will help convince you.” He’d never thought he would be doing this, but then again he’d never thought he’d be seeing Paragon again.

Her reaction had been as expected, disbelief. However, the day’s events seemed to have drained her, so her voice was significantly calmer and she seemed willing to listen. Hunter knew though that words would not be enough, he needed to use something stronger.

Locking eyes with Paragon he delved into her mind once again. While her mind had changed a lot in fifteen years he still recognised it. This was his little girl. He soon found what he was looking for, the blocks hiding her childhood memories from her. With one swift thought he cast aside the barriers and let the memories flood into her mind.

“Actually, I’m a lot older than you. I’m four hundred and thirty seven years old.”

That claim boggled Iris’s mind, to the point that she didn’t hear the rest of Hunter’s statement. She had seen him heal; he’d told the truth there, and there was no doubt he was a mutant. With that fast of a healing ability it was possible that he wouldn’t age normally. So he could be quite a bit older than he looked. But four hundred and thirty-seven??

Because her thoughts were preoccupied, she didn’t realize that he was staring at her. However once she did refocus, she suddenly found that she couldn’t break eye contact. She couldn’t even turn her head. Now more than ever his eyes resembled those in her nightmares. She instinctively took a step backward, before her mind exploded with images.
--------------------------------------

”What’s wrong Daddy? You look sad.”

A room with blue walls and yellow curtains. A neatly made bed with a ruffled comforter and pillows. Soft carpet that tickles bare toes.

“No, I’m not sad. Just thinking.”

A pile of stuffed animals in the corner of the room. A short bookshelf full of picture books. Crayons scattered around a coloring book.

“Should I think hard too? So you have sad-face company?”

A closet full of dresses and play clothes. A drawer full of hair ties and barrettes. A hairbrush with bits of blonde hair sticking out from it.

“No, no more sad thinking. We’re going to play a game instead.”

A little girl, with grey eyes, swinging upside down on a jungle gym. A sparkling blue jewel peeking out from under a spaghetti-strap shirt. A dark-haired man smiling proudly down at her.

“Yay! Games! What’ll we play? Can I win? Please??”

The same girl, but with purple eyes, chasing after the man, squealing happily. Spouts of water shooting through the air. Wet splotches on the carpet.

“We’re going to have a staring contest.”

The child in bed, breathing heavily, face flushed with a fever. The man sitting by her bed, stroking her cheek, looking worried.

“Aww, but you always win staring contests. And people do silly stuff when you stare at them. I don’t wanna be silly.”

The dark-haired man trying to comfort the crying, now blue-eyed girl clinging to his leg. The floor and walls covered with icy crystals. A frozen teddy bear on the floor.

“I’ll bet you can win this time. Come on, let’s try.”

The pair curled up in a corner, reading a book together. A soft snore from a nodding, blonde head.

“I guess. If you promise I can win. If I do, can I have a pet hamster?”

A handmade card on the desk, decorated in crayon with a purple flowers and yellow hearts. The words ‘I Love You Daddy’ written in childish scribble.

“Yes, Paragon. I promise.”

“Okay, I guess. You promise you won’t forget?”

Silver eyes, staring at her. Silver eyes that no longer seemed cold, but sad.

“I won’t. But you will.....”[/i][/b]
-----------------------------------

Iris inhaled sharply as their eye contact broke. She lost her balance, and grabbed at the vehicle to keep herself on her feet. Her heart was pounding again, her breathing shallow. She blinked furiously, trying to both clear her vision and her confusion.

Several long minutes passed before her throat could put sounds to any words. Eventually though, her gaze lifted again. Denial, hurt, distrust, and numerous other emotions flooded in with the released memories. Foremost was confusion.

And denial.

”What did you just do?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.[/color]

Hunter watched as Paragon seemed to relive some of her childhood. “I gave you back the childhood memories that I took from you fifteen years ago,” he said truthfully, “I robbed you of your past to try and give you a better future, but it went wrong.” The man responsible for that had just been found and was being brought in. when he was, Hunter would have bloody vengeance.

“Now do you believe me Paragon? Do you believe that I am your father?” He dearly hoped she did, as he could then explain how sorry he was for all the mistakes that he had made, including the latest one with the clear gem. Every time he’d just done what he thought was best, only for it to go horribly wrong each time.

There were so many memories flooding her mind, Iris felt as if she was watching a movie on fast forward, a five-year long movie in which she saw herself and Hunter as the main actors. Only, they weren't acting.

She shivered as another memory bloomed in front of her eyes. She stood outside in the rain, watching a retreating black van. A flash of lightning lit the sky, and for a few seconds she saw the driver's face reflected in the side-view mirror. It wasn't Hunter; his eyes looked black, and the expression he wore was one of disgust.

Iris shook her head, clearing away the memory, and countless others. She felt dizzy, overwhelmed.

<"He has some sort of psychic mutation. He's trying to manipulate me. It can't be true!"> She tried to convince herself of this. It was the only way she could keep herself sane at that moment.

"N-no, I don't believe you." She shook her head, but then asked a question that contradicted her denial. "Why did you do this to me??" She meant implanting the gems.

The question he had been dreading, why? Despite her protest of denial, the question showed that, on a subconscious level anyway, she had accepted that he was indeed her father. However, that didn’t concern him as much as her question. Why? Why indeed.

“To answer that I need to explain the events surrounding your birth,” said Hunter, casting his mind back twenty years, “You were originally intended to be part of a project to create a super mutant, one who could utilise multiple powers. Some of my DNA was taken, along with some from a human donor, and you were created from it. One of my abilities is to absorb mutants’ powers, but only for a short time and not as strong as the original.”

“The only ability of mine that passed to you was my absorption ability, but it was altered and changed, allowing you to absorb the gems. That way you received a mutant’s powers at full strength, and for longer than I could. But then something unforeseen happened. I cared for you. From the moment you first grabbed my finger I knew that I could never use you as a soldier, but my curiosity as to the success of the project meant I continued it.”

“With each gem there was a flaw, the personality change. However, your first two gems, the aquamarine and tanzanite had only minor flaws, so I continued. It was the next three, onyx, gypsum and opal, that showed the how severe the flaw was. After you used opal for the first time I made a decision.”

“I cancelled the project. I locked away your childhood memories and ordered the gems removed. You were to be placed in a human orphanage, where you could grow up and live a normal, happy life. Until a week ago I thought that was what had happened. Then I discovered that the gems had not been removed, and you had not been put in the orphanage.”

“For that, I am so sorry. I should have checked up on you, that you were alright. But I feared that to see you again would shatter my resolved, so I didn’t, and immersed myself in work instead.” Now she knew. She knew why he had done what he had done. Regardless of the outcome now, he had told her. He felt somewhat as if a great weight had been lifted, for no matter what happened now, he had told her.

Iris closed her eyes as Hunter tried to explain things. It sounded like some bizzare science-fiction movie. What made it even more bizzare was that she could put memories to what he said. But were they really her memories, or had he simply planted them there?

From the quagmire of emotions weighing down her mind and heart down, anger began to surface.

"So you were just using me too. Just another experiment," she snapped, her grey eyes blazing. "Even if these really are my memories, you're no father. Just a mad scientist. You're no better than Syn."

She stalked around to the driver's side of the truck, climbed in and slammed the door furiously, then began messing with the ignition. She wanted out, to get away. She was too confused and upset to think clearly. She need to find somewhere quiet, preferably away from any other human or mutant. Maybe Central Park..... No. Definitely not the park. Not yet. There was a butterfly garden near Long Beach. That would work. Animals never talked back....

Ebony!

Her head snapped up. She'd left her baby back in the fake Mansion! And Crystal! Her phone, all of her belongings were back in that room.

She glared at Hunter. "I want my stuff back." She wasn't sure what she could do about retrieving everything; she didn't want to go back to that facility if she could help it, but she wasn't leaving her baby there either.

Hunter mentally winced at her words, which cut him deeper than any blades. It was made all the worse because she was right. He should never have authorised the sixth gem. But Dr Ingram had said it would have no side effects. Now was not the time to accommodate thoughts of what he would do to James.

“While I cannot deny that you began as a simple project, you became so much more.” Hunter reached into his jacket and pulled out his phone. Dialling he paused a moment before saying, “Excelsior, my location.” Hanging up he returned his phone to his pocket before looking back at Paragon.

“There was meant to be no flaw with the sixth gem,” he explained, “no change to your personality. The man who made it was wrong. I was too eager to give you your gifts without a curse that is didn’t stop to consider the alternative possibilities. For that, I am sorry. Your belongings along with your cat will arrive here shortly packed into a van. When they arrive you can go where you wish.”

It had all failed. All of it. He’d hoped to foster trust with Paragon, to rebuild their relationship, but instead he’d only succeeded in turning her against him. It would be best to let her go back to her life, to walk away. But he knew he wouldn’t. For better or worse he was a part of her life now, and she a part of his. He would be watching out for her, making sure that she came to no harm, trying to right some of his past wrongs.

“There was meant to be no flaw with the sixth gem, no change to your personality. The man who made it was wrong. I was too eager to give you your gifts without a curse that is didn’t stop to consider the alternative possibilities. For that, I am sorry."

She refused to acknowledge the apology, looking away instead.

"Your belongings along with your cat will arrive here shortly packed into a van. When they arrive you can go where you wish.”

She was not comfortable with simply waiting around, especially not here. But she had little choice. So she did the only thing she could think of to drown out her thoughts; she turned on the radio full blast. She wasn't a music person, and didn't care what was playing. The beat simply gave her something to focus on other than her memories or anything, or anyone, else around her.

Fortunately the wait was short. Within half an hour a non-descript black van pulled up behind the SUV. Iris shuddered slightly, but she squelched the rainy-night-vision back down. Two uniformed men climbed out of the front seat, and took up rigid stances on the opposite side of the road. The didn't look at her as she climbed out of the truck and walked to the back of the van. She opened the back door, and was immediately assaulted by an unpleasant, but comfortingly familiar, high-pitched yowl. As long as Ebony was there, Iris didn't care about anything else.

She walked back around and opened the driver's side door. On the seat was her phone. She picked it up and clipped it to the sun visor before climbing in and shutting the door.

Then she paused. She turned her head slightly in Hunter's direction, but couldn't bring herself to look at him. A few seconds later the van backed up, and drove away, this time at a decent speed.

Iris waited till she could no longer see the figures or vehicle in her rear-view mirror, and then flipped open her phone with one hand.

"Activate program MPath."

The air shimmered beside her, and her hologram doppleganger swirled into existence in the passenger seat.

"Ugh! Finally! About time that creep let me out. I'm never going near anyone with closed-circuit access again...." Crystal frowned and rubbed her neck. She looked over at Iris. "You know, your Dad has serious anger-management issues."

Iris stiffened. The van swerved momentarily, but she regained control quickly. "Deactivate program," she snapped.

Rather than vanish right away, Crystal shook her head and snorted. "Touchy, touchy. Maybe you two should consider family therapy. You both seriously need to lighten up." The she vanished in a flurry of sparks.

(OOC: Continued for Iris in Botanic Gardens Bed 'n' Breakfast)