"My anvils do what I want them to,"

“well then you might not want to hit me but you certainly seem to want to.” Abyss replied lightly.

"Surely they could learn though?" "Shouldn't they have the opportunity to learn? Shouldn't they have the chance to change their ways? Maybe not everyone would be willing to change, but some are and they should be given the chance. I know I've changed, my time being trapped in my bubble changed me for the better because I was given that opportunity. Shouldn't they be given the same?”

“were they toddlers? Children? I think not, they were four grown men on the street waiting for their lessons to be graded, they failed. If they could learn, why hadn’t they learned yet? Perhaps the pair you left alive can learn from the other pairs misfortune? Or perhaps I will run into them in a few months and find the still wanting. Or perhaps they will run into our little mutated friend and cuase the harm I would have happily spared her. “ he cast a glance at Juka telling him exactly whos fault that would be.

"But just because some horrible humans did that to you doesn't mean that you can blame others for their crimes."

“Oh I didn’t blame them for the crimes done to me in my childhood, I blamed them for being stupid and racist, and further still having the audacity to attack.” He waited for Juka’s next volley of if’s and but’s he would not falter where the death of foolish bigots was concerned, and he had all night to discuss the merits of killing them, in fact he was considering going back to finish the other two, because he just reminded himself that they were more than likely still dangerous.

Abyss had been keeping a brisk pace but had slowed as he thought about the little hypothetical girl, he was slowly but steadily coming to a halt.

Juka decided not to comment on Abyss' continued disparaging of his anvils. So what if they continued circling his bubble, just in case the giant red brother of his dearest Venus should try something funny. Its not like they made any move towards the other man. They were there for protection and that was all. Probably.

“were they toddlers? Children? I think not, they were four grown men on the street waiting for their lessons to be graded, they failed. If they could learn, why hadn’t they learned yet? Perhaps the pair you left alive can learn from the other pairs misfortune? Or perhaps I will run into them in a few months and find the still wanting. Or perhaps they will run into our little mutated friend and cuase the harm I would have happily spared her."

Juka was at a rare loss for words. What was he supposed to say to that? Abyss was confusing him, causing him to think about things and question things that he had always before taken as law. Killing was wrong no matter what. Wasn't it? "Are their lives worth less than mutant lives?" It was a weak question and he knew it but he was so very confused that he didn't know what else to say, how else to respond. How was it that his arguments, so well thought out or so he had thought, were being demolished one brick at a time?

Juka moderated the speed of his bubble to the pace in which Abyss was walking, an action that took only the barest thought. Floating was one aspect of his power that he was still entirely posative about, entirely in control of, even if the other newer aspects still baffled him. "Do you really believe all that?" His voice came out sounding very young to his own ears.

~~"Are their lives worth less than mutant lives?"

“Are chimps lives worth less than humans? And oh believe me you can say its different, but when you look at how they treat their predecessors. I think they have established the rules we are inflicting on them.”


~~ "Do you really believe all that?"


“Of course, and don’t get me wrong, I know I am harsh and callous. But I think for our kind to prosper as we should, our generation is stuck with establishing dominance, oh I do thirst for a time when the Humans have settled and now who they are and who we are. But such is not the time, for the next generation to have a hope of being excepted for who and what they are, embraced by the world, well we have to sacrifice a casual life for our selves. It happens in all things, the first phase, the phase where a group finds its niche, it is a violent one, bacteria, humanity, religion, politics, mutants…everything, in the very beginning there are those that are callous and violent and strong. if we wait we may loose our future, if we stay our hand when we should strike what do we loose for generations to come? What do we risk? But if we take what is ours by the most primal of laws, by the laws of nature. What do we gain?”

Juka didn't consider himself to be weak minded by any means, but what Abyss was saying was making far more sense than he was really comfortable with. Well, perhaps not the chimps comment, he certainly didn't see humans as chimps, but all the rest of it was. Something within him told him this wasn't right, that he must surely be missing something, but what? He couldn't think straight, couldn't quite get his thoughts to order themselves in such a way that made actual sense. Maybe he really did need to see more of the world.

“Of course, and don’t get me wrong, I know I am harsh and callous. But I think for our kind to prosper as we should, our generation is stuck with establishing dominance, oh I do thirst for a time when the Humans have settled and now who they are and who we are. But such is not the time, for the next generation to have a hope of being excepted for who and what they are, embraced by the world, well we have to sacrifice a casual life for our selves. It happens in all things, the first phase, the phase where a group finds its niche, it is a violent one, bacteria, humanity, religion, politics, mutants…everything, in the very beginning there are those that are callous and violent and strong. if we wait we may loose our future, if we stay our hand when we should strike what do we loose for generations to come? What do we risk? But if we take what is ours by the most primal of laws, by the laws of nature. What do we gain?”

"I want mutants to be accepted as much as anyone, but is killing off humans really the answer? Wouldn't it be better to try and integrate ourselves, show them that we really aren't so frightening? By killing them, doesn't that just make things worse? Make more people fear us and what we can do? I'm a performer and, I think, when I get a new band together I may make it a mutant band. It'll be a way of showing the world just what mutants can do in a way that won't end in terror and violence. People adore me as a human, why shoudln't they adore me as a mutant as well? Wouldnt' that help? For humans to see us as people rather than just as mutants?" It sounded niave to his ears and he hated it.

"I want mutants to be accepted as much as anyone, but is killing off humans really the answer? Wouldn't it be better to try and integrate ourselves, show them that we really aren't so frightening? By killing them, doesn't that just make things worse? Make more people fear us and what we can do? I'm a performer and, I think, when I get a new band together I may make it a mutant band. It'll be a way of showing the world just what mutants can do in a way that won't end in terror and violence. People adore me as a human, why shoudln't they adore me as a mutant as well? Wouldnt' that help? For humans to see us as people rather than just as mutants?"

“Oh, I am sure it would help on some level, but if I had the choice of wiping them off of the planet and no longer worrying about them, or trying to weave our selves a place in the spiders web, well I’ll take smashing the spider all together. The registration didn’t just register big bad mutants like me, they registered everyone with an active X-gene. Everyone, people that were strong points in the human community, police, priests, officials, all walks of life, it wasn’t just me they were after, oh they came knocking on my door too, but come after me for being a criminal and I will accept it, but they haven’t chased me for that, only for having a tail and red flesh. Living among my brethren. It is too late for me, perhaps you can change their minds before I kill them all, if you proved to me they changed, then I’d accept them, but my proving that human won’t bother us any more is easily ready and your proving of acceptance is something we must always keep an eye on.” He relaxed and turned down an alley way, a few youths set on a pair of crates.

“How ya doing fellas?”

The small group waved back and went back to chattering amongst themselves.

Juka wished desperately that he had some amazing saved human who had previously hated mutants but was now reformed to wave in front of Abyss' face. He wished there was something, anything, that he could take and say 'hey look, this man was reformed and so others can be as well'. But he had nothing. He had no one who had hated or even disliked mutants before and had changed their mind, not even a little. Then, at least, he might have a leg to stand on in his arguments for change and the capacity for change. But without that one figure, even if it was a solitary figure, he was little more than a niave child and he felt that nievity keenly. How could he argue when facts like the camps were undisputable?

"Do you only kill those that prove to hate mutants?" It was said tentatively and Juka hated himself, just a little, for even asking it at all. It was like accepting Abyss' justification for murder and truly, well intentioned or not, what he had committed was murder. How could he even consider that acceptable? Especially after what Aura had done to him and to countless others? It was inconcievable. And yet. And yet here he was asking this question at this time and, perhaps, not with the intent to judge.

Juka saw the youths that chatted and waved as the two of them went by, Abyss in all his giant red glory and Juka in his floating anvil rotating bubble and he smiled and waved back. How could he know if the youths were human or mutant? He couldn't. And maybe that was the point. That it didn't matter if someone was mutant or human so long as they were willing to accept you for what you were. And Juka was willing to accept.

~~"Do you only kill those that prove to hate mutants?"

“ I never make it my goal to kill anyone, if that is what you are asking, I left home tonight thinking only to make things a better place for our kind, but I do except as part of this world. There are even exceptions to those that hate mutants that I let survive, children for one, raised b those that hate mutants and pass it to their spawn. elderly for another, I let time take care for them. I don’t kill for the sake of killing. Those men died because they had hate and the will to act on it. if they stood still they’d still be breathing.”

He sighed. “ So yes, I only kill those that prove to hate Mutants or prove dangerous to them.” he looked inward at himself pondering momentarily, was that completely true? He could be reckless; he certainly could have taken innocent life along the way and probably had, purposefully, not so much.

He turned another corner and kept walking, he heard a scuffle in the alley across the way and rose an eye brow at Juka as he started to cross the street. Would the man let him get to the scene first or would he attempt to handle it before he had a chance to play judge and justice.

Abyss seemed so sure of himself, so dedicated to his cause. Did he even pause a moment to think about the lives that he might be ruining by the deaths he was causing? Did it even matter? "What about their families?" Juka asked. He didn't have anything else to ask, didn't have anything else to add. Maybe that's what it came down to, in the end. But then, wouldn't the little mutant girl have a family too? But surely her family wasn't worth any more than theirs. If she even had a family. Juka knew that many mutants did not. He no longer had a family, but then that didn't really have anything to do with the fact that he was a mutant. That had everything to do with the fact that he dressed in dresses and refused to conform to this parents' view of what was right and proper in a son.

Juka was so distressed and so engrossed in his own personal dilemma that he almost failed to notice the scuffle going on in front of the two of them. Two humans with knives, neither of which could have been much older than 16, confronting a girl with slightly glowing blue skin. Their theoretical powerless mutant girl perhaps? The two men were taunting the girl, poking at her with their lethal looking knives. She began to cry and her skin began glowing all the more fervently.

Inwardly Juka cringed and that cringe meant that he hesitated in reacting. Another time, any other time, and he would have swooped in in a second, anvils whirling, and knocked the two men out saving the girl but allowing the men to live. He was certain, or as certain as he could be when with a mostly unfamiliar mutant, that he was faster than Abyss, likely a lot faster while in his bubble. But he didn't act right away and, perhaps, he would never forget his lack of reaction and, perhaps, never forgive the consequences of that lack.

~~"What about their families?"


“what about them? How good could a hateful, violent thug be to his family? Mybe they are better off? Maybe they will have to find a new way. Reguardless, there is one less dangerous element in their life.”

Abyss broke into a run as the blue girl glowed more urgently, silently he hoped that it was a sign that she would soon use some great and terrible power, that might kill them all. His hands grasped the necks of the men simultaneously. And he shook them both worrying them momentarily like a dog would worry a bone.

“You are safe dear, girl. These mean wont harm you. May we ask you a couple questions sweetheart?”

The lithe thing took a couple steps back away from her tormentors still, though they were both still in dazed confusion and in the sure grip of Abyss.

She nodded, her eyes wide and afraid.

“ what did you do to provoke them?” red asked blue.

**“nothing.” she choked out in a sobbing whisper.

“what did they want from you?”

**“ they took my money…but they wanted more.” She said as she wept into the brick alley way wall.

Abyss paused looking to Juka and then the female again. “ would you feel safe with them on the street? Do they deserve to live?” he fired off the pair of questions, either answer could be the end of the knife carrying men.

“what about them? How good could a hateful, violent thug be to his family? Mybe they are better off? Maybe they will have to find a new way. Reguardless, there is one less dangerous element in their life.”

Could that really be true? Could there be any merit at all in that statement? In a way, perhaps, Juka was proof that that statement might indeed have some truth behind it. had he not hated his own family at times for their own discrimination against himself and his choices? Sure, that didn't have anything to do with mutants, not really, but it was pretty similar, wasn't it? But he was pretty sure that, as much as he sometimes hated his family, his family that had since disowned him, he wouldn't want them to be killed. But they hadn't attacked anyone with their prejudice so maybe it was different after all.

Before Juka could react to the glowing girl or the people attacking her, Abyss was there strangling her assailants to death. For a moment Juka felt a profound sense of loss, of not doing enough. Because of his inaction two more people were dead. Dead and never to return, never to even have a chance to reform their lives. But the girl, she seemed grateful. Did that make it ok? Did that justify their deaths?

"Are you ok my dear?" Ok, so it was a stupid question but it was the only question he could think to ask. Suddenly his sense of failure shifted, from the men who now lay dead to the glowing mutant girl who had very nearly suffered, perhaps, a fate worse then the death Abyss had offered the pair. Maybe Juka had failed her and those like her, not the men who had done such evil.

“ would you feel safe with them on the street? Do they deserve to live?”

"I don't know," Juka shook his head. But maybe he was beginning to know. Maybe he was just beginning to see an inkling as to why people like Abyss did what they did and mybe he was beginning to see that it wasn't as wrong as he had always believed it to be. "I don't know, I don't have all the answers. I wish I did, then life would be easier. Those people were bad people but did they deserve to die for it? I don't know. I just don't know." Inexplicibly Juka felt like crying, but no tears fell from his eyes. He was so confused and so desperately wanted everything to make sense again.

~~"Are you ok my dear?"

++“I…I think so.” the quiet voice spoke out.

~~"I don't know,". "I don't know, I don't have all the answers. I wish I did, then life would be easier. Those people were bad people but did they deserve to die for it? I don't know. I just don't know."


Abyss paused, nodding as he saw the wheel slowly grinding a path toward realization in the man’s mind, even as his morals resisted the ugly truth, But in all honesty the question wasn’t meant for Juka, his eyes turned to the girl.

“They are still alive, if barely.” His voice whispered “ but they don’t have to be.”

Her luminescent eyes said what her lips couldn’t. Abyss moved his thumbs on their necks and the life floated out of them. He strolled over to a nearby dumpster. And opened the lid he bent both of the thugs half over the vile container and searched their pockets, emptying their wallets and the bundle of the girl’s money in one of their pockets and handed it to the nerve wrecked girl.

“ there is a place with golden doors, they’ll look after you there if you ever need a place to go. Its called the sanctuary, tell them Abyss sent you and that is all they’ll need to know.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a card as well. “there’s also a number if you decide to make your own path and find your self in a” his hand gestured to the alley.” Bad situation, we’ll do our best to help you out of it. ”

The girl looked at him, terrified yet grateful. “free room and board.” He tilted his head as he stopped trying to sell the sanct.

The thugs were dead and the girl, the innocent glowing blue girl, seemed...grateful. It seemed so strange to have someone be grateful at the death of another, but then Juka had never been a victim in that way before, had he? Except for Aura and, if he were very honest with himself, he wouldn't mind if she was dead either. And he knew that made him the most horrible of people, to so wish the death of another.

“ there is a place with golden doors, they’ll look after you there if you ever need a place to go. Its called the sanctuary, tell them Abyss sent you and that is all they’ll need to know. there’s also a number if you decide to make your own path and find your self in a” his hand gestured to the alley.” Bad situation, we’ll do our best to help you out of it. ”

Juka shook his head, forcing his mind away from his dark reverie at the mention of some other place to stay. "You mean there's more than just the Mansion?" He was surprised, honestly surprised to discover that the Mansion wasn't the only haven for mutants in the city. Maybe he shouldn't be given how large a city it really was and how many mutants seemed to reside within its boundaries.

"Abyss, how could the world be so evil?" Juka sounded like a child even to his own ears but he had to know. Maybe Abyss wasn't the right person to ask but, right at the moment, he was the only person available to ask. Either him or the blue girl but he didn't think he'd like her answer. Or his for that matter.

~~"You mean there's more than just the Mansion?"

“New York city is a vast and varied place, there are several dens of our kind. Though, the mansion and the sanctuary are two with the least hassle to get into.”

~~"Abyss, how could the world be so evil?"

“The world isn’t evil, it is merely on the cusp of change, the world resists change and becomes chaotic during its process, so while it prepares for a new species to inherit the reigns, it has to settle the hands that they were in formerly.” He stated while he looked over the girl, she looked a bit worse for wear, they showed up on time to stop the worst but still not in time to stop it all.

“We’d be happy to escort you to where ever you are going if you like Miss. I’m Abyss and this is Juka by the way.”

The blue girl was still timid and merely nodded.

“lead the way.” Abyss stated casually.

“New York city is a vast and varied place, there are several dens of our kind. Though, the mansion and the sanctuary are two with the least hassle to get into.”

In some ways Juka's consistent absent mindedness was a sort of a blessing. The way in which his mind skittered from one thought to another, in rare times like these, was something to be thankful about. For a moment his mind wandered to the possibility of other mutant covens, entirely abandoning his previous moral dilemmas. They would, of course, come back to haunt his thoughts as they surely must, but for now, for this short time, he was free of them.

"Can I see the Sanctuary? Once we've escorted our blue beauty of course." He bowed low and respectfully to the blue mutant.

“The world isn’t evil, it is merely on the cusp of change, the world resists change and becomes chaotic during its process, so while it prepares for a new species to inherit the reigns, it has to settle the hands that they were in formerly.”

Even these words failed to drag Juka's mind from his newfound goal of seeing other mutant havens, although if he were honest he would say that avoiding other thoughts was taking far more effort than it normally would. What he most needed was time alone to consider everything that Abyss had said and done, time away from the red mutants very visceral influence. Something was changing within him, he knew he would never be quite the same after this night. The question was how was he changing and what did it mean? And to find out that he needed time, time alone to think. That could, however, wait until he had seen this Sanctuary couldn't it?

Even these words failed to drag Juka's mind from his newfound goal of seeing other mutant havens, although if he were honest he would say that avoiding other thoughts was taking far more effort than it normally would. What he most needed was time alone to consider everything that Abyss had said and done, time away from the red mutants very visceral influence. Something was changing within him, he knew he would never be quite the same after this night. The question was how was he changing and what did it mean? And to find out that he needed time, time alone to think. That could, however, wait until he had seen this Sanctuary couldn't it?


Absolutely, Juka! Of course you are welcome too if you’d like to dear, you can come to the sanctuary as well and not worry about waitressing and trying to get home, are you staying with any other mutants that need a place? If so we can help them out too.

The blue girl looked nervous, it was to good to be true. whats in it for you? it was almost hateful the way she didn’t trust them. Sorry, I don’t trust someone that isn’t getting anything in return.

Abyss tilted his head. what I get in return, is not worrying about you on these streets with out somewhere safe to go. You’ll be assigned chores around the sanctuary as well to keep the place running, but everybody does their part. There is also the occasional occurrence that those want to do more and help us keep others safe on the street.


I have two younger sisters, we’re staying a t a place nearby, if they agree then we’re in. Blue replied. I’m Krystal by the way

Abyss smiles at Juka. I suppose we will go more directly than we thought.