He didn’t like it in his room. There wasn’t wall space in here anymore…and his parents were adding more…and more locks on every time he left his room. They were big, heavy metal things that stuck on his door with an unrelenting grip. Again and again he’d tried to get out over the past week, but his door wouldn’t open…and his parents had not given him any food. They didn’t like him anymore. He’d heard the arguments from his bed upstairs. The yelling and the screaming that pierced through the walls of his space. His father; always pointing out the faults of Michael, and his mother always pointing out that he could change. Soon…his mother’s voice started to fade, until her voice was no longer there. Her mother left him alone with…with this evil person. Bad, bad person. Bad words, bad language…mean.

They argued about him. They said he was dangerous. He was BAD. He didn’t like that word. Bad. The sound was even uncomfortable when he said it, as though he was choking the word out of his throat.

The boy actually sat there, thinking of words. Bad. Bad bad bad. Bad wasn’t the RIGHT word. The boy squirmed, thinking of this. He couldn’t find a better word. This annoyed him. Michael bit his lip really hard, and he scrunched his fingers on his clothes trying to. Using a pencil that lay next to him, he wrote a note on his wall. “Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad.”

He knew…he knew it somewhere in his heart. He knew that he couldn’t be a bad person…he couldn’t be the only child that was different. Was he really so alone in the world? Maybe…maybe there wasn’t another kid like him in the small town of Friendship, home to only 1346 people, but there had to be someone out there, right?

His anime show was flickering across his Television as he went to his computer. He didn’t know what to call himself. It was a complete mystery for him, so after he opened his dictionary program, he paused. What was he? The boy only remembered the names other children called him at school two years ago. It was a long time ago…but he remembered. He remembered everything he could about being outside. He even remembered everything about the rocks, and the water, and all the people. The nicer ones and the meaner ones stuck to the inside of his head. He refused to let them slip away.

Thoughts swarmed through his head like a black cloud of smog. Infecting what he knew in his room with what he knew of outside. He wanted to be out there…away from his dad, who hurt him when he left. It was scary here. Michael, now sitting in his desk chair started to type. He wasn’t very good at it, so he had to search for each key individually, pecking them in as he went. Michael did not use his “left” hand at all, the gloved mutation wasn’t something he preferred to use. “Freak.” He typed into the dictionary, brow furrowed.

The first definition that popped up was merely this. “Noun. A thing or occurrence that is marked unusual or irregular.” Another definition under it. “An abnormally formed organism, especially a person or animal regarded as a curiosity or monstrosity.” Monstrosity. Monstro? No…that wasn’t the word. Monster. The root of the word was Monster. He…he was a monster? A monster…what else could a monster be called? The boy looked at his dictionary again. He slowly typed it in, the arduous process causing the minutes to tick by, and his stomach to growl more.

The definition popped up and he read it. “An animal, a plant, or other organism having structural defects or deformities.” He knew he was an animal…and an organism. He was proud to say he learned that earlier. But…but a monster also had other definitions, like definitions with fairy-tail things, and the bad guys. So he knew he needed to look again. He had to find the right word. Words were his thing. He knew words…he was good at words. Monster wasn’t the right one. The boy typed in “Defects.”

The wrong tab was open when he tried to search this, and instead, it was opened in the thesaurus. One word stood out among all the other. Mutation. He blinked. He’d…he’d seen that in the paper before. He could remember it. Mutant. Mutant!!

Michael opened the internet and slowly typed in “Mutant.” There…there was information. About people like him. He found a particular website and scanned briefly through it. Then another…and another. There were…things. People were talking about what they were. He typed slowly, so he only got one message in on each site, before he noticed another grouping of words that interested him. He was saying his name…and he was asking if he really was normal. Making sure this wasn’t some kind of fake thing was important, and he wanted people to reassure him. When he went back to one site, people were talking to him. They were telling him he was fine, and that there were others like him. But Michael was scared, and confused. He posted this on a few. He posted his concerns, his fears. The reason why he thought he was different. His mother and father always told him that different was bad, and this concerned him, so he posted this in another after figuring out how to copy and paste. In fact, he copy pasted this into a bunch of places.

“I’m scared. My dad thinks I’m bad and he doesn’t bring me food anymore. I think I’m a mutant, but I don’t know. No one else is like me where I live.”

It wasn’t particularly descriptive. It took him almost a half an hour to type, however. He wasn’t good at it. Normally, Michael’s time was spent watching his movies on his television, or working on drawing characters from it. He’d grown quite a bit weaker, and could walk and things, but it was just…getting harder. His head was dizzier, and his stomach hurt more. Stick thin, the boy was unhealthy to say the least.

Michael heard feet on the stairs, and then quickly turned his monitor off, the whir of the computer still very much active. He bolted from his chair and moved to his bed. It was farthest from the door. The little boy shook slightly, holding the covers. “Go away” he thought. “Go away.”

The moment of fear that his father brought him would last so much longer. He heard the locks click open, and the boy prayed that his humming computer was masked by the sound of the blaring anime playing on his television. The door opened and Michael’s real, flesh-built hand was digging into his legs a bit. His father looked about the room.

“You’ve kept it clean enough, kid.” The voice was a handsome, suave voice. He was the kind of man that attracted all the girls that visited the bank. Handsome, though he should never, never have a child like Michael. Michael felt a slap across his face, the perfectly trimmed nails his father made sure to keep strong raked across his face. Blood from where they cut hurt him, but he still said nothing. “I SPOKE TO YOU!!” He yelled. Michael curled up in a ball, putting his head between his knees.

Any other boy of his age would speak. They would respond to this hateful man, beg and plead to have him stop hurting them, but Michael was different. He’d always been different. Something in his head would not let him talk to those that hurt him and those that were angry at him. He instead was a little boy with autism. He threw one of his pencils at his father, infuriating the male more. This father kicked him over on his side, angry and abusive. His tie was loosened, his shirt slightly unbuttoned, and his expression becoming more wild as time passed.

Sparing the details, for the next hour his father tried again and again to make his autistic child speak. Again and again this child either threw things at him, or just cowered in fear. The male, panting, soon grew tired of his attempts and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

Michael waited until the locks were clicked shut once again before he started to cry. He wanted his mommy, but mommy wouldn’t come back for him. Mommy left and he knew it. The boy felt blood drip slowly onto his sheets and he sniffed, crying out loud. Almost to the point of wailing. It hurt.

After a little bit, he heard the door slam, meaning his father went out to do something, maybe another date, or maybe something that he wanted to do with his work money, but whatever the reason, he was alone. The boy stood up, falling over as he tried to stand, but he managed it. He went to his computer, and he logged onto the websites again. He typed a single message, and his address, he wasn’t thinking about that much, he was just thinking about the pain that he had. The boy’s message read merely this. “He’s hurting me. Please please help. I live in Maine. 32 heron road friendship.”

The boy shut his monitor off again, and moved to his television, putting in his bleach videotape. The boy moved slowly then to his bathroom, now that there was a sufficient amount of noise on. He flinched as he started to put his bandages on the places that were bleeding. Other places just hurt, and he knew that there would be some new bruises. Shutting the bathroom light off, he left the room.

His bed, though it had new spots of blood on it, was warm and inviting. He curled up beneath the covers, holding onto one of his anime teddy bears. He held onto it tightly. It was an imitation from some obscure show. The only present his father actually thought about giving him, on his sixth birthday. Michael held it close to him, the animal already ratty from all the use he’d given to it. This was what he got when daddy was happy with him, but as the bear was falling apart, so was daddy’s happiness.

The day began uneventfully enough. Chase arose with twenty minutes to spare prior to breakfast, got dressed, and filed downstairs in amongst the throng of students bustling around him as they descended upon the cafeteria. Following breakfast, Chase found his group of friends and dispersed alongside them for a day full of playing. It was a Saturday, which meant no class- today, they were to sneak into the computer lab to play games. An innocent endeavor, yet the thrill with sneaking into an area (that was conveniently publically accessible to the students) gave the younger student populus something of a thrill.

So, Chase and his compatriots spilled into swiveling office-chairs and awoke the slumbering computers. Chase was the last one to claim a chair, and he wriggled onto it. Chase took hold of the mouse and shifted it, tapping it against the desk to see if the computer were truly off. It only slumbered, and the screen came into focus from the blackness. Someone had been on and left in a hurry, but they'd been gone for a while- their residue and faded into the melt of hundreds of others that had touched the mouse, and the lack of a dominant signature alluded to a longer period of disuse. Whoever it had been, they'd left a webpage minimized at the bottom of the screen. It was a crisp page with little decorations, a messaging board that was titled, "International Coalition Against Mutant Hate".

Chase picked through the word slowly, the first two words of the title posing significant difficulty for Chase to sound-out. His brow furrowed. He knew most of the words, except for "coal-ition". He most certainly knew about "mutant hate" though, and was glad to find that there was a group of people who were against it. Chase scrolled down the page, to see lists of topics. Chase scrolled casually down the board, curious colors flickering through his eyes as he read the headings. Some were,

"Bad Day on the Bus"

"Why I Hate the Cafeteria"

"FML"

Chase scrolled through the headings, under each of which small blurbs of the content of the thread. He was quickly losing interest. Chase was ready to close the page, when he spied a heading that was simple enough that it snagged his attention.

"My Father Says I'm Bad"

Chase paused. That was a tale that was too familiar. With hesitance, Chase clicked on the link, and it led him to a new page. The first post on the page was written at a level that Chase could understand. It was brief enough for an eight-year-old to follow. The boy's name was Michael, he was nine. He wrote about the atrocities commited against him by his father. It sounded all too familiar. The other boy was scared, his Dad wasn't feeding him, and there weren't other mutants like him. Chase could relate to that. Chase continued to scroll, skimming past peoples' replies to when the Michael-person posted again.

Chase shuddered as he reached the final post, his eyes going black with sympathetic fear. He had to do something.

"Chase, man," one of his friends called out, as Chase got to his feet and darted across the room, grabbing a marker and some printer paper, "You gonna log into the game or what?"

"I can't," Chase said quickly, "I remembered that I forgot something." He scampered back to the computer, undoing the lid on the marker. Chase flattened the paper out on the desk, and peered towards the screen. Chase quickly scrawled the address down, word-for-word, before corking the pen and discarding it on the desk. He closed the window, folded up the paper, and wedged it in his pocket, "I'll catch up with you later, okay?"

And with that, Chase was gone. He trotted out of the computer lab and into the hall, the gears in his mind turning. He was eight-- he wasn't concerned with the impossibility of being able to rescue another kid, he was simply compelled to save someone from a like fate. "How" was not a matter which he gave thought. Chase sauntered down the hall, mind charging full-steam ahead. Miss Gemma had rescued him, so... she'd rescue this Michael-person too, right? But... Chase had come to her, hadn't he? He needed someone else... what about... what about Katrina and Alister? They had come to him. They hadn't wanted to involve Chase's mama. That... just might work.

Chase broke into a jog once again, his little feet hitting the floor. In his warped sense of logic, just going and retrieving Michael would be cutting out the middleman, preventing another child from living on the streets or being kept locked away by parents who didn't want him. Chase didn't view it as kidnapping, but a recoinassiance mission... a search-and-rescue. And the fact that no parents needed to know made matters that much more simple. He peered in through the open doorways as he passed them. No Katrina... no Katrina... Chase huffed. Xavier's was big. This could take a while.

After minutes of searching, Chase spied a familiar blond head, and bee-lined for the older girl.

"Katrina," Chase greeted urgently, "Katrina, it's important... I need your help on top-secret stuff. It's really important."

It was in the living room that Chase found her, buried beneath a pile of text books. Finals for first semester were next week. The only class she didn't have a test in was Sam's conditioning class. No, that wasn't quite true, they had a progress check to show how fast they could run a mile and a half, as well as a test for how many sit ups, push ups, and pull ups they could do. She didn't have to study for that one, though, and she already knew approximately what her results would be: hopefully under 14 minutes, at least 100, just under 20, and 1.

It was Math that worried her the most, though it was almost by habit now, because she had the best math tutor ever. Then there was English with it's essay test on The Scarlet Letter that they were supposed to have finished reading over the holiday break, and they were balancing equations in Chemistry now, which was an awful lot like math for her tastes, and a Serbian test with over 100 new vocabulary words and she had to know all the rules for the past tense.

The test she was least worried about was History. Their exam was going to be largely on WWI, and she already read everything she could on that topic as soon as she'd gotten back from her summer trip. It had been personally relevant, and therefore quite memorable.

As soon as Chase uttered his proclamation Katrina sat bolt upright, scattering flashcards in a three foot radius all around her seat.

“Cпашавање (pron: spašavanje)¹” fluttered to the ground at Chase's feet.

Really important, top secret stuff: had Alister contacted him? Was it something about the end of the world?

“This way.” She grabbed Chase's hand and pulled him into a quiet little alcove, without bothering to even attempt to straighten up her studying mess. They could talk here if they kept their voices down.

“What's going on?” Katrina whispered, careful that no passersby would overhear her.

--------------------
¹ = rescue

Chase's urgency was met by an equally-urgent response.

>> “This way.”

Katrina took Chase by the hand, which Chase responded to with a hesitant stiffness at the contact, but he allowed himself to be led aside. Her voice dropped as she addressed him.

>> “What's going on?”

Chase glanced around, but nobody nearby was paying them any notice. It was a long-shot that this would work, but Chase would have to try anyways.

"It's a rescue mission," Chase murmured. He'd never been much of a whisperer, "I went on the computer and there was this website where people talked about bad things that happened to them because they were a mutant. And there was this boy that was my age, his name is Michael, and he has a mean daddy who keeps him all locked-up and doesn't feed him, and all of these awful things. His daddy hurts him and everything."

Just like Chase's daddy used to do. His tone was husky with the gravity of the situation, his eyes drifting ground-ward hesitantly.

"And I figured that since you and Alister wanted me to help you rescue the world, and you didn't want to tell my mommy about it, that maybe we could do the same thing with Michael too," Chase was rambling now, eager to have the story told so that he could stop talking, "He put his address up and everything. So, could you help me rescue him? Please? Do you know how to drive?"

Chase turned hopeful eyes onto Katrina, even going so far as to pout pleadingly. He'd find a way to get up there. Chase could always try his luck with Miss Gemma, if all else failed. Miss Gemma was nice, even if she was a grown-up, and she had a power that children didn't possess. She was always an option. But really, who could say "no" to a face such as Chase's?

It wasn't what Katrina thought it was, which was good considering her mind had immediately jumped to apocalypse, but it was also very very bad. A kid needed rescuing and fast!

“That's terrible. We need to help. Immediately.” They were clearly in agreement on this. The puppy dog eyes he gave her were a nice touch, but completely unnecessary in this case.

“If he's not being fed, we'll need to bring food. Also, this would be X-men business, usually, so we should see if we can find a team leader. If no one is around, though... it sounds pretty urgent. We should get there as soon as possible. Where did you say he lived?”

She glanced at the paper he was holding. Maine, huh? They'd definitely need to fly. There was no way they were going to go all the way up there in a bus.

“I'll get some food put together, you go see if you can find Shin, Kealey, or Sam, okay? If you can, get them to come with you down to the basement. I'll meet you down there.” She described what each of them looked like quick: Asian with triangle pupils, blonde lady with a nice smile, and the gym teacher with an eye patch. Kealey would be the hardest one to spot. Sam would be the easiest.

They split up and Katrina rushed to the kitchen first. She told her mom that she needed the food for a picnic with Carrick. He was her picnic buddy, so she didn't ask any questions, but tossed in extra gushers fruit snacks.

Next, she slid a note under Koga's door, because they had made a promise to always let the other one know where they were, just in case. It said, “Friendship, Maine. Took the jet. Rescuing a boy from evil father. Should be back this afternoon.”

She also sent Slate a message. His didn't require any paper, though. I'll be a little late for our tutoring session. I have an errand to run up in Maine.

Ah. Have fun. Came Slate's reply.

Errands done, she went down to the basement and waited at the door for Chase. He reappeared a few minutes later, alone. Ah well. They had to save someone, and if she was the only X-representative around, she'd just have to do, her and her trusty sidekick Chase.

“Through here.”

The newly minted X-trainee used her brand new security clearance to open the door to the hanger. They walked down a hallway lined with lockers, then came into view of the jet. A Blackbird SR-73, to be precise.

“I don't have a driver's license,” she informed Chase, “but I do have a pilot's license. We'll be there in no time.” A few minutes later and they were both buckled up. She even let Chase sit in the co-pilot's seat and showed him where the auto-pilot button was, just in case.

“Ready for take off?”

--------------------------------------

...Maine? Slate asked, after great delay.

Yup! She replied, sending him a mental image of where they were: just crossing the Piscataqua River that marked the border between New Hampshire and Maine.

A few minutes and a few keystrokes typed into the jet's GPS part of the brain later, and they were touching down in the street in front of what Katrina was fairly sure was the boy's house.

They may have been flying a stealth jet, but their arrival was not exactly subtle.

The boy had ransacked his bathroom and managed to find his last bandages. There were really hard hurts to get at. The little boy flinched as he set on a few of them. He bit his lip, and he tensed. It hurt a lot. He had a big, swollen lip, and marks along his cheek from where his fathers nails had dug into him. Michael looked around at the bandages and tried to fit a bunch on his cheek, and soon he got distracted, and started to sort the bandages instead, then he made a pattern.

Hours passed, and his entertainment was still held when there was a noise. A big, loud…bad noise. It was bad merely due to the sheer…mass of it. Something big. He stood up, still quite sore, and went to the window, wanting to see outside, but again, he couldn’t see anything from his own room. Oh how he wished that the sights were different. That someone actually believed he was there! But that was impossible. Probably a work friend for his dad.

He heard the man get up downstairs, and go outside, then a lot of cursing. The man was actually using many colorful phrases to get his point across that no, it was not okay to land on the Christmas ornaments that were still outside on the bushes. And oh, on a side note, he did probably ask, in more words than this “What the hell is there a space ship doing in my front yard?” Michael was nowhere to be seen during this whole thing, but he heard it. A spaceship? There was an actual…a real space-ship? He looked over at his things, wondering if something would help him, in case aliens were attacking him as well. The different bleeding marks staining his clothes suddenly seemed a bit insignificant.

Michaels dad was an angry, spiteful man. It showed in the way that he confronted even something as daunting as this. Of course, his choice words that ended this rant were less than welcoming. “You better not be some…some damned mutants comin here to kill all us non-mutants. We don’t like your kind in this town.”

It would figure that the shy boy was the one who was sent to find people. Chase only knew Sam, and knew that he knew Sam by the physical description of him. He wasn't too sure he'd be able to even address the other two aforementioned people coherently, if he was faced with them. The eight-year-old still legitimately looked for them, but after covering the Mansion from top-to-bottom, he still turned up at the rendezvous-point empty-handed. Why they were going to the basement, of all places, was beyond him. He gave Katrina a bashful and apologetic smile, and shrugged as he admitted that he hadn't found anyone.

Katrina led Chase down into the basement, and into a hanger which Chase had never expected to be beneath a school. With wide eyes, he surveyed the cavernous room, before amazed eyes zeroed-in on the jet. Chase gaped openly. Katrina was a pilot?! That was so cool. Chase followed Katrina into the jet in awe.

They boarded the plane, and went up into the cockpit. Chase even got to sit in the copilot's seat, and the entire time, he was grinning like an idiot and looking around with wide eyes.

>> "Ready for take off?"

"Yeah."

===//////===

It was a quiet ride over, and the whole time, Chase was wrapped in a slient wonder. There was jet parked under the school, and now they were flying the jet into Maine. The two of them began their descent, and Chase sat up taller, peeking out the window. He expected to see an airport, but what he saw instead surprised him. The plane was planting itself down on an unocuppied stretch of road in the middle of suburbia. Chase looked at the paper that was unfolded in his grasp, checking the address, before looking towards the house. This was it. Chase folded the paper up again, and tucked it into his jeans pocket.

Chase waited for the plane to land before unbuckling himself from the copilot's seat. As he stood hesitantly, Chase looked out the window, and spied an angry man stalking out into the yard. Chase looked towards the house, surveying the number that was displayed upon its front, and realized that this was the house. That meant that this was probably the father. Chase felt a roiling of nerves in his stomach. The man didn't look like his old father, but... the similarities were striking. Chase awaited Katrina's instruction, frowning speculatively.

Should he grab one of those fancy coats, and disguise himself as someone older? Or different? The angry man in the front yard might take him more seriously if he didn't look like an eight-year-old... No. Chase was the one who had wanted to come there. It had to be Chase, in the flesh, who came.

"You ready for this?" Chase murmured quietly, giving Katrina a hesitant half-smile. The two of them trailed out of the jet, and were greeted by an angry-looking man. Chase could feel his heart do an anxious stutter-- what on Earth was an eight-year-old doing in Maine trying to rescue another kid on a whim? Chase had just expected to sneak in, find the other boy and sneak out. But now, with a confrontation of sorts on their hands... he wasn't feeling so brave.

>> “You better not be some…some damned mutants comin here to kill all us non-mutants. We don’t like your kind in this town.”

Chase looked at Katrina. Well... what were they supposed to say? They were mutants, but did either of them look like killing sorts? Chase didn't think so. The eight-year-old rolled his lips together hesitantly. The man reminded him of Mr. Townsend. Glimmers of annoyed orange and angered red flickered over fear-blackened irises, but Chase remained silent. He couldn't bring himself to speak, despite the fact that he'd been the one to initiate the mission. Hopefully Katrina was better at handling belligerent fathers.

>>“We don't like your kind in this town.”

Friendship was not living up to it's name in the least. Chase, being a kid, wisely did not talk back to the angry-man-type-father-person. That, however, meant that Katrina was left to answer him.

“Oh, no. We're not here to kill anyone.” She kept her voice calm, hoping the mood would be contagious. She did not deny that they were mutants, though. “We're here to...” rescue your son probably wouldn't be a good answer under the circumstances, “provide a unique educational opportunity for your son. It even has provides year round free room and board.”

She raised her eyebrows slightly, questioningly, as she looked up at him. This was one of the times that she really felt short, when someone was angry. Most of the time she didn't mind at all looking up at nearly everyone, because it was just normal. Right now, though, she wouldn't have minded a few extra inches.

So, Mr. Angry Face, what will it be? Yell some more or take this chance to let someone else take care of your problem for you?

The little illusionist stood bravely in front of him, waiting for his response.

The man glared with anger for a moment, and he seemed about ready to scream at them again, but scratched his head. He wanted to get rid of the kid, right? The man frowned. “yeah. Yeah I’ll get him but I ain’t gonna agree to anything yet. Yah. He’ll be out soon.” He looked…noticeable worried about this. The man turned his back to them, and he went into his house, most decidedly not inviting them in. He moved up the stairs to go and get his son.

Michael was freaking out. There were noises and strange things, his dad was yelling…and now he was coming up the stairs. He heard some of it, and the boy was hiding beneath his bed and some blankets were over him as the door was unlocked. One by one, it was undone, and the boy flinched as the door was opened. There was a rustling and he peeked out to see his father shoving comic books in a bag, and some of his pencils. He wasn’t being very nice about it, and some of them got ripped.

There might have been a shred of decency left in him, as he did look down at michaels bear a moment before shoving that in too. He then looked at where Michael was looking at him from under the bed. A growl left as he spoke. “Get up, kid. Ya got visitahs you don’t wanna make upset.” Michael’s eyes widened and he looked down, and then to the side. No. No way. It was too good to be true.

As he slowly crawled out, his father was shoving jeans and t-shirts and underwear in the bag. He had a plan already. He’d deny the kid was ever his, yeah. They take him away and do what they want with him, and he doesn’t have to deal with this again. Michael went to his desk and pulled out his rubix cube, and his bag of metallic puzzles, and other such things. He clutched it tight, feeling a bit dizzy. Michaels dad, putting the backpack on the skinny little boy’s back, pushed him forward from his room and then down the stairs.

He tripped and stumbled down, and then looked at the door, hesitating. There were two people out there and a huge…a huge space shuttle. He stared for a moment until he was prodded along by his father, not tripping only due to the hold his dad took on the backpack.

And there he was. A little boy, short, skinny, and definitely weak. Blood stains were obvious on his clothes, and he was very very skinny. But he was staring at this space shuttle with wide, wide eyes. No eyes for the people…not at first…and then he looked at them with shy, untrusting eyes, bare feet wriggling on the ground. He didn’t have shoes that fit him really anymore after all. He didn’t say anything to them.

>> “Oh, no. We're not here to kill anyone. We're here to provide a unique educational opportunity for your son. It even has provides year round free room and board.”

Chase nodded. That was all he could really find the nerve to do. Nod. Good thing Katrina was speaking more fluidly than he was. The man glowered and frowned for what seemed like ages, before he finally answered the petite blonde girl. He'd get Michael, but he wasn't making any promises, yet, but he'd go get Michael. Chase looked at Kat, then looed towards the door as the man disappeared once again.

"J-just like that?" Chase asked incredulously of Katrina, frowning skeptically, "That was easy."

Then again, had Chases' parents hadn't a reputation to uphold, they probably would've been exactly the same way. Chase waited, fidgetting anxiously as he waited for the man to return. What if it was a trap? And he was really going to call someone to go and get them? Just as he was about to turn-tail and duck into the plane once again, the man reemerged, this time with a boy.

He wasn't as big as Chase had expected. He was even smaller than Chase, and way too skinny. He looked scared, too. Chases' eyes glimmered with curiosity, and the sight of the other boy spurred him into action. He moved forward cautiously, eyeing the older man with suspiscion as he approached the other boy. Michael, his name was. Chase got close enough to the other boy to survey him, his human eyes glimmering with a wash of colors. Curiosity, relief, and a sympathetic distaste. It was bizarre to see another kid that looked so much like him, to see someone so relatable. And he wasn't wearing any shoes, or socks, for that matter.

Chase wriggled his own feet out of his shoes, kicking them off so that he was only in his stocking feet, and he slid them towards Michael cautiously, with his stocking foot. It was a wordless truce between shy kids.

"Michael?" Chase whispered, cupping a hand by his mouth to shield his hand from view of Michael's father, "I saw the rescue message you put on the internet. My friend and I came to get you."

His gaze was cutting sideways while he spoke, towards the father, to see if he heard what Chase was saying, but when he didn't, Chase glanced back at Michael.

"It's okay," he explained, eyes still glimmering with iridescent colors, "We're just like you. Here, you can wear my shoes."

When the boy followed his father out the door, Katrina couldn't believe how awful he looked.

She didn't say anything, though. She didn't want to scare the dad into thinking they were going to call social services or something like that. She didn't want to scare him into starting some kind of fight. Not if they could just get the boy and go.

Chase went to work making the boy feel a little more at home, offering a little show of friendship to show that they could be trusted. Katrina smiled just the barest hint of a smile at them, then turned back to face the father.

“We'll take very good care of your son,” Katrina promised, as if he actually cared what they did with him at all. He looked like he was looking for any excuse to get rid of the boy. They were almost out now, almost safe.

“Chase, why don't you show him to his seat and get him a little snack for the flight?” Into the plane boys, into the plane before something bad happened. Quickly, she added in an illusion voice that only Chase would be able to hear, as if she whispered right in his ear, even though they were several feet away.

“Thank you for your time,” she smiled up at the big man and took a step back, half turning toward the hatch, but still keeping an eye on him.

Michael was afraid of everything outside. There were new people, and there were a lot of things that changed. There used to be flowers, and they were pretty…but the space-ship took care of that much. Michael at first flinched back from the boy that came towards him. Not looking up at the person, he bit his lip a little bit as he listened to what he said.

His eyes were on the ground, facing his own bare feet when he saw what chase was doing. He looked at the shoes, and Michael’s eyes widened. A present. This person was giving him a present…and they came to rescue him. He looked sideways at his father, and he sat down to pick up the shoes.

It had been a while, so he didn’t remember how to put them on, and he struggled to start getting up again. His father picked him up by his backpack, and set him on his feet once again, crossing his arms to wait for the kid to walk away from him, which Michael did slowly, holding the pair of shoes tightly as he looked up, just to get a glance at the little boy again.

The girl and the boy were being nice to him, and were taking him away from his dad, so he tightened his grip on the shoes again. His father was starting to get a bit annoyed with Michaels slow pace, however. There was no way that he wanted to hurt a girl, or any kid other than his son, since they hadn’t shown any kind of…weird mutation yet, but he’d kick Michael forward if he didn’t go on his own really soon.

Michael. He looked like he was about ready to fall over, in fact. There was definitely nothing he could do to keep the inevitable falling from happening if he was to try on his own, but he would do his best.

Chase watched the smaller boy with muted interest, his eyes still churning with color as his gaze remained intent on Michael. Rather than slide his feet into the shoes, Michael picked the shoes up gingerly and surveyed them. He wasn't moving very well, at all, and Chase's expression puckered faintly. At least his parents hadn't been this cruel to him.

>> “We'll take very good care of your son-- Chase, why don't you show him to his seat and get him a little snack for the flight? Quickly.”

Chase nodded in acknowledgement of Katrina's instruction, and he gestured for Michael to follow. It was his choice if he didn't want to put on the shoes, but now Chase's feet were starting to get cold, and he wanted to get on the plane as soon as possible. Michael followed obediently, but he wasn't moving very quickly. He seemed to be in a sad state. Chase hesitated to assist him, though-- he hated to be touched, and if the choice were his, he preferred not to touch people, either. But... Michael wasn't walking well, and the obvious, most logical solution to this problem would be to pick him up or somehow aid Michael in walking. Chase sighed.

He gathered his sleeves over his hands as he returned to the slightly smaller boy, and gave the brief explanation of, "Let me help. I'll pick you up."

Chase tucked his sleeve-clad arms behind the knees of Michael, so that the other boy was essentially sitting on his arms, and he picked him up. Michael was small, but that made little difference-- Chase only had a few inches on him, and was scrawny to boot. It took all of Chase's effort and concentration to primarily keep himself from dropping Michael, but also keep from turning into him. (For Michael had looped his arms around Chase's neck to steady himself.)

Chase delicately picked his way back into the jet, pausing once they were inside. Did he trust Michael enough to set him down, or should he carry him to the food? Chase opted to carry Michael the rest of the way-- after all, he'd already made it onto the plane, so what would a few more strides be.

"This way," Chase murmured, walking towards the passensteelbluegers area of the jet. It wasn't furnished like a plane built for travel, but instead like something you'd find in the military, or for a hospital, though slightly more glamorous in its outfit. The picnic basket had been tucked back in a seat and buckled-in so that it wouldn't slide around. Chase staggered over to the seats, and released Michael right in front of them, so that he could stand or sit at his own liesure.

"Katrina and I brought food for you," Chase mumbled, "Since you said it'd been a while since you've eaten." While Chase spoke, he rummaged into the basket, and pulled out a packet of Fruit Gushers. He tore it open, and held it out for Michael to take, "These are Fruit Gushers-- you ever have them before? They're really good. Try some."

The father didn't make any threatening moves, not even when Chase picked up his weak son and walked him up into the plane. Katrina took the last few steps herself and swung the hatch closed with a final, “You'll want to stand back.”

She checked to make sure the boy's straps were both buckled properly, and that they had snacks within easy reach, both those things being more for Michael's benefit than for Chase's.

“Welcome to the X-men airlines, thank you for flying with us today,” she announced in a mock-stewardess voice before swinging into her own seat and firing up the engines. She checked all her switches and dials, made sure everything was in working order, then took them up.

It was a short flight back to the mansion where Katrina put the plane back under the basketball court, just like she was supposed to.

Checking her passengers once they got back, she smiled at Michael.

“Welcome to the mansion. Let's go up to Coach Taylor's office, that's chase's mom and the school counselor, and we'll get your enrollment paperwork all filled out, and then get you set up with a bedroom and everything else you need while you're here, okay?”

She opened the hatch of the plane.

“Welcome home, boys.”

Shin was standing by the hangar exit waiting, with his arms crossed.

"Hmph." He'd gotten the notice. He couldn't believe it. But there it was.

Katrina had taken the X-jet out for a joyride. And she hadn't even invited him along for the ride.