CHEYENNE, MUTANT, VALKYRIE

Part II

By George Cameron

It was easier than I thought it was going to be. Leaving the Xavier Institute, that is. The thought had occurred to me as I drove down the highway toward the bright lights of New York City. Instead of taking one of the Institute’s many, many vehicles, I had opted instead to take my own: an old Land Rover that had definitely seen better days. It might not have been the most attractive vehicle on the road, and certainly wouldn’t blend it with the rest of the traffic in the city, but it served its function. The Rover was reliable, it got me from Point A to Point B, and I could drive it on damn near any kind of terrain. And being a ‘nature girl,’ I appreciated that sort of accessibility.

But leaving the Institute had been a pretty tough decision for me. Warren had been right when he told me that I had everything that I wanted when I was staying at the mansion. I had finally joined the ranks of the X-Men, I was able to go on field missions, and I was able to give the whole teaching thing a shot. And admittedly, it had been a pretty pleasant way to spend my time… for a while.

Now, with the beginning of summer break at the Institute and with so many of the X-Men pursuing other things in the wake of the Cassandra Nova fiasco, I had a chance to take a good look at myself and what I was doing. I had finally decided to ask myself the really tough questions: had I put my experiences with Apocalypse, and Cassandra Nova, behind me? Or had they just been put on the backburner?

As I drove toward the city, the rays of the evening sun bathing me in a soft glow, I knew the answer. Instead of completely working through my problems, I had merely ignored them. A failing of mine, or so I’d been told. I could have, and probably should have, asked for help at the very beginning. But I’m a Cheyenne, and I’m quite capable of solving my problems on my own.
Warren would have helped, if I had asked him. I knew that even before he and I declared our love for each other. All of my friends and teammates in the X-Men would have helped. But none of them understood. No one could ever understand the things that I’d learned. More than any other person on Earth, I thought, I understood the very nature of death and dying. That’s the sort of knowledge that no person should ever have to be burdened with. And I would never burden anyone else with my problems.
I began to think about the events leading up to my decision to leave the X-Men. Unlike Sam, I had never particularly dreamed of joining the X-Men, but when the opportunity came, I grabbed it with both hands. I knew that it was an honor to be able to carry on Xavier’s dream alongside his most cherished and trusted friends and family, and I would never willingly fail Xavier. But so much had happened since I decided to join the ranks of the X-Men.

Recovering from Apocalypse’s brainwashing had not been an easy task, but the X-Men had helped me through it, at least in the physical aspect. I’d always been a pretty private person, but that’s just because I prefer to handle things myself. The X-Men had shown considerable trust by inviting me to join them so soon after my recovery, and I have to admit that being an X-Man was something I strived for ever since my days as a New Mutant. Of course, life had a way of sidetracking me from that dream. Asgard, working for S.H.I.E.L.D., infiltrating the Mutant Liberation Front… this girl’s had lots of things to do over the last couple of years. And my time with X-Force, and everything that had happened after that, with Apocalypse… I didn’t know what I was doing with X-Force half the time, and I knew then that I was just killing time.

I’d lost my way after what had happened in Asgard, and despite my undercover assignment with the Front, I hadn’t a clue what to do with myself once I had returned to Earth. And there were times, like right now, that I still didn’t have a clue as to what I wanted to do with my life. Aimlessness and confusion were not things that I dealt with lightly. In fact, it pissed me off that I didn’t have a goal right now. In the past, I’ve always worked toward various goals. Learning to control my mutant powers. Graduating from the Xavier Institute. Fulfilling my duties as a Valkyrie. Bringing down the Front from within. Working to join the ranks of the X-Men. I’d done all of that… now what?

Well, well, well. While I was engaged in internal monologue with myself, I had entered the city. The hour or so drive from the mansion to New York City can go a lot quicker when you have a lot on your mind. But once you’re actually in Manhattan, then you’ve got to start paying more attention to your driving, because driving your own car in Manhattan is a feat worthy of monuments. It was a lot different than most places, because there’s just so much congestion. You never really seem to get anywhere. Always a frustrating thing for a Type-A personality.

But this particular traffic jam, caught as I was in the final throes of rush hour, wasn’t going anywhere. I had just crossed the Harlem River onto Second Avenue, so I was in Manhattan per se, but the traffic just wasn’t moving. I looked at my clock, and sighed. I was already late. The best I could do at this point would be to find a parking spot, an equally challenging task, and just hoof it to where I was going. So with one hand draped on the steering wheel and the other propping my head up, I began the search for a spot to park. If you had asked me right then what I’d rather do, I’d have rather taken on all the Acolytes by myself.

Thirty-five minutes and a subway ride later, I found myself sitting in a place that I never, ever thought I’d set foot in: a coffee shop in the Village. These sorts of places always made me laugh, because I found the sort of people that frequented coffee shops to be a little odd. Then again, I was a Cheyenne mutant who had stood in the halls of Asgard, so who was I to throw stones?

Attired as I was today, I seemed to fit right in. I wore a suede, fringed halter, leaving my back almost completely exposed, and a faded jean skirt that fell to my knees. And I’m not a skirt kind of girl at all. A gold bracelet on one wrist, another wrapped around the opposite arm, and a pair of cowboy boots later, and my ensemble was complete. No one ever accused me of having great fashion sense, but no one complained, either. I had arranged my long hair into two loose braids, bound together by leather thongs and draped over my shoulders and chest. I had even woven two white feathers into the right braid: one of Warren’s, and one of Brightwind’s: the only tangible object I have left of my Asgardian steed and friend. I wore his last physical remains in my hair as a way to honor him and his life, a life senselessly cut short by Reignfire. But I wasn’t about to go there.

A few people that I could only describe as Bohemians sat at one table, discussing topics ranging from politics to art, and although I sorely wanted to throw in my two cents on some of the issues, I left it alone. Across the room, I saw a young man strumming his guitar softly for an audience of one, whom I presumed to be his girlfriend. Or a fan. Who knows? Besides those people, and the man working behind the counter, there was only one other person in the shop: a just-entering woman that instantly drew my attention, though I couldn’t understand why.

She was tall and slender, with pale, porcelain skin that contrasted well with her monochrome attire. She had straight, shimmering black hair that was cut to her jawline and came to a point between her eyebrows, framing her elegantly sculpted features. She wore a black double-breasted women’s blazer and a black dress skirt that fell to just above her knees, and beneath the blazer she wore a white dress shirt with elegant ruffles. Black fishnet hose and black business pumps completed the ensemble, and while most people would’ve thought of her style as morbid and depressing, I didn’t get that impression from her. In fact, I found her style to be very archaic, very Pirates of the Caribbean. Several fingers on both of her hands bore silver rings, of varying designs, and a pair of silver crucifixes hung from her ears.

After the woman had gotten her cup of coffee, she turned around, and just happened to glance in my direction. The moment her eyes, a striking arctic-blue in hue as seen over the top of her round black sunglasses, met mine, a look of uncertainty passed over her face. Her reaction struck me as odd, as if she and I knew each other. And as she began to walk toward me, I realized that that was exactly the case. She stopped just shy of my table, and when she spoke, her voice was deep and husky. A whiskey voice. Something else I found interesting.

“Excuse me,” she asked, “but are you Danielle Moonstar?”

“Yes,” I replied. I wonder where she knew me from. For all I knew, she might’ve seen me on television, when Cassandra Nova introduced the X-Men in front of the entire world. It wouldn’t be the first time I had been recognized in public.

“Oh, good,” she said, as her stance and her expression relaxed. “I’m Evangeline. I’m a friend of Shan’s.”

My eyebrows raised at that, and I knew that a smile had appeared on my face almost reflexively. “Where is Shan? I know I’m late, but if you’re here…”

Evangeline nodded. “She had to pick the twins up from school. She said to tell you that she was sorry that she couldn’t make it herself, and to bring you over as soon as you got here.” She shifted from one foot to the other, and before I could offer her a seat… “Do you mind if I sit down and finish my coffee before we go?”

“Oh, not at all. Please,” I replied as I indicated the chair opposite mine. “You’re a friend of Shan’s from college, I take it?”

Evangeline nodded, and I subconsciously picked up some odd emotional readings from her as I asked the question. I didn’t have to actively scan her empathically. “Yes. I met her when she first joined the Mutant Rights Coalition at the university. I head up the Coalition here in New York at my firm.”

“So you’re a lawyer?” I asked.

“Yes, but try not to hold that against me.” She said the last with a chuckle, a mischievous, pleasing sound, and took her first sip of coffee.

I sat nursing my own drink, a relatively harmless chai tea. You couldn’t go wrong drinking chai tea in a coffee house, and it had a rich enough flavor. Once again, I picked up Evangeline’s emotional spikes. I had my suspicions as to what was going on in her head, and to save time, I decided to just call her on it.

“I’m sorry if this is a strange question, Evangeline—“

“Please,” she interrupted, “call me Vange.”

“Alright, Vange,” I continued. “Are you and Shan an item? Because every time her name comes up, I pick up some strange vibes from you.” There was a time that I would never have publicly spoken up, even obliquely as I just had, about being a mutant. The world was a dangerous place for mutants when I was growing up. But times had definitely changed… thanks in part to Cassandra Nova. Like it or not, the X-Men had become a worldwide institution for mutant freedom, and I had to represent that. To do otherwise would be to deny myself, and I’d had quite enough of doing that while working undercover in the Mutant Liberation Front.

Vange, for her part, had the grace not to look sheepish or ashamed. Rather, she met my gaze with her own, and I quickly took the measure of this woman. I was impressed with her, because I could sense in her a kindred spirit. I instantly liked her, and while part of that made me nervous, I knew right away that I was going to be better off having known her.

“Yes,” she replied, “we are.” I could sense the anger rising up in her, the defensiveness, and I realized that perhaps she believed that I would be disapproving. So I decided to set the record straight, in as friendly a fashion as I could.

“That’s great! I’ve known Shan since I was fifteen, and she’s never had anyone special in her life. It’s great that she’s spreading her wings, you know what I mean?” I felt Vange’s anger fade, and I smiled inwardly. And people say I don’t know how to be diplomatic.

“Yeah, I know,” Vange said. “She doesn’t talk much about her life before she started college, but I know she’s been through hell and back. She’s changed a lot in the last year, and I think it’s been good for her. She seems a lot happier these days.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I told her as I leaned back in my chair, becoming more comfortable. “She’s had it very rough growing up. I admire her to this day for being as strong as she is. I don’t know if I could have dealt with life the way she has if I had experienced it the way she has.”

Vange smiled. “Yeah, Shan’s a tough girl. She’s had it rougher than I did, and came out better than I did. I’m almost envious of her, in a way.” She sighed, and also leaned back in her chair, though it was more of a resigned slump than an attempt to get more comfortable. Something was on her mind; I could tell that much without scanning her emotions. But I wouldn’t pry.

“We’re a product of our experiences,” I said, the most neutral thing I could think of to say.

“That’s certainly true,” she said. “So you’re out of the Xavier Institute, too?” The question itself would’ve floored me in the recent past, but again, these were different times. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to the new status quo. Besides, if Vange headed up the Mutant Rights Coalition, she was on our side, so to speak.

“Yep,” I replied. “One of a select few graduates of the Xavier Institute of Higher Learning. It’s like being in the Ivy League for mutants.”

She laughed. “So I hear. She wants to send her brother and sister there, because she thinks it would be the best place for them, given the times we live in.”

“The twins? How are they?” Leong and Nga, who were the focus of Xi’an’s life for years, had gone through some traumatizing experiences before finally being reunited with their older sister. They’d been through hell, almost literally as well as figuratively, and I had been so glad to hear that they and Shan were finally beginning to move forward with their lives.

“They’re good, actually. Shan has an apartment here in the Village, where we’re going, and they are staying with her now that they’re done with their physical therapy.”

“I’m glad to hear that. They deserve some peace in their lives.” I finished off the last of my tea, and noticed that Vange was just now finishing her coffee. “Well, are you ready to get out of here?”

“Oh yes, absolutely,” Vange replied. And just like that, we were gone.

Xi’an’s apartment was only a few blocks away, so we didn’t have far to walk. Ascending the staircase within the building, we stopped on the third floor and Vange led me down the hallway to Xi’an’s door. As we stopped at the door, she stepped to the side, probably so that I’d be the first person Xi’an saw when she answered the door.

We only waited a few seconds after I knocked when Xi’an opened the door. And when she did, I was taken aback for a moment. Vange certainly wasn’t kidding when she said that Xi’an had changed a great deal since she started college.

Xi’an Coy Manh, who was once a part of the New Mutants under the codename of Karma, had drastically altered her appearance. Where once she bore medium-length black hair, she now possessed very, very close-cropped purple hair. She wore a sleeveless, high-collared, deep purple shirt that clung to her slender upper body and left her abdomen very exposed, revealing a navel piercing. Baggy grey cargo pants hung from her hips almost precariously, revealing a dark purple lace thong, and the bottoms of her pants were tucked into shiny black combat boots that laced up to mid-calf. Her skin was tanned a lovely golden, and somewhere along the line she also acquired a nose piercing. This was definitely not the Xi’an Coy Manh that I went to school with.

However, any misgivings that I might have had about Xi’an because of her new look were quickly banished as her entire face lit up upon seeing me for the first time in years. Her eyes sparkled with affection, and her mouth widened into a grin.

“Dani! You made it!” Shan reached out to draw me into a hug, and I let her. It really was good to see her again. Especially since she seemed to be so much happier these days. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and I did the same, and we enjoyed the moment. With everything that had been weighing on my mind recently, it was good to forget about all of it for a brief moment in time and enjoy a reunion with an old friend.

“Sorry I was late, Shan. Traffic is murder, y’know,” I told her as we pulled back so that Vange and I could step into the apartment. As I took a look around, I could tell again that Xi’an was happy. She’d always been a very spartan decorator, for her childhood and adolescence didn’t allow for much else. But seeing her very spacious place, the very edgy and beautiful artwork hung on her walls, the very avant-garde feel of the furniture and decorations, I could tell that she was finding herself after so long. Good for her!

The three of us moved to the focus point of her living room, a pair of black leather couches set across from each other, with a glass-topped coffee table between them. Xi’an and Vange took a seat on one couch, and I sat opposite them, bringing my legs up and tucking them under me comfortably.

“I’m so glad you called, Dani. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the old days, especially with graduation coming up in a couple of months.”

“Congratulations, Shan. What’s your major?” I asked.

“Languages,” Xi’an replied. “I’ve been giving a lot of thought into teaching, and with all the chaos that I’ve dealt with over the years, it seemed like a good way to give back, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m teaching myself, you know. Or at least, I was.”

“Up at Xavier’s? That’s great, Dani. I know you’ve had your own issues with finding a direction with your life. Does it make you happy?”

“Yes,” I answered, “it does. With the school having gone public and everything, we’ve got a lot more students attending. Almost two hundred, and the number gets bigger every day, it seems.”

“Wow,” Xi’an exclaimed. “And to think, when we were New Mutants, there were only the nine of us.” She regarded me for a moment before continuing. “You said that you were teaching. What happened?”

I sighed, and gathered my thoughts for a moment before continuing. “A lot has happened since the last time I saw you, Shan. I’ve been through my own personal hell, and I’m still picking up the pieces and finding a way to move on.”

Xi’an looked at me with concern, and Vange chose that moment to stand up, regarding the both of us. “I’m going to go make some tea, Shan. You two talk.” She raised Shan’s hand up to her lips, and stooped gracefully to kiss it gently before retreating diplomatically to the kitchen.

After she had gone, Xi’an leaned forward, concern still shining in her dark brown eyes. “Talk to me, Dani. Tell me what’s going on.”

“Well, I ran with X-Force for a while after we talked to each other at the Colossal Man Festival, until a few of us were captured by our enemies. They decided to sell me off to Apocalypse.”

Xi’an was floored, and I could feel her panic, her fear, and her anger well up. “What?! Oh my God, Dani, that’s horrible!”

“It gets worse,” I said, and continued. “Apocalypse brainwashed me, and forced to serve him as the leader of his Dark Riders. It was our task to gather his new Horsemen. I hurt a lot of people before the X-Men saved my life, Shan.” I looked at her intently, willing her to feel the raw terror and pain that I felt.

But I knew Xi’an would understand all too well. She, too, had once been thought dead by me and the rest of the New Mutants, until she turned up months later until the mental control of the Shadow King. He had used and abused Xi’an, and the rest of the New Mutants, before his control over her was broken.

“Dani,” Xi’an said, “you’re one of the strongest people I know. That’s why all of us looked up to you when we were New Mutants. You’ll work your way through this, I’m sure of it.”

“I hope you’re right, Shan,” I said. “It just seems like every time I find an answer to a question, another one pops into my head. I just… don’t know anymore.”

“You know what you need, Dani?”

“What’s that?” I asked her.

“You need to have some fun. How would you feel about going out with us tonight?”

I raised an eyebrow at that. “Just as long as it’s not some beatnik coffee house.”

Xi’an laughed. “No, no, nothing like that. I was thinking that we could all go out clubbing. Kind of a girls’ night out, that sort of thing. What do you think?”

Xi’an, clubbing. Just the sound of that brought a smile to my face, as I could not picture Xi’an dancing the night away in some nightclub. The thought intrigued me so much, I knew what my answer would be before I said it.

“Sounds like a plan.”

Not even an hour later, Xi’an, Vange, and I were standing in line at a club in the Lower East Side, appropriate named The Violent Overthrow. Xi’an and I didn’t need to change, although I had decided to take my hair down, the feathers remaining woven into a single, small braid that blended into the rest of my hair. Vange, however, had changed, and her clubbing attire was just as interesting as what she’d met me in at the coffee house.

She had opted for a black tank top that buttoned up the middle, but which left her abdomen completely exposed, revealing not only a single silver belly piercing but a tribal tattoo design that circled her navel like a halo. The lower half of the tank was left unbuttoned up to the bottom of her breasts, but what was most interesting was the gauze black lace that extended down from the bottom of the tank top to fall to her ankles. She also wore a pair of sleek black silk pants that were just raised up enough from her ankles to be called capri, and a pair of black strappy platform sandals. She’d retained the silver crucifix earrings, and had added simple silver rings to several of her fingers and toes, as well as a pair of simple silver bracelets on each wrist. To complete her ensemble, Vange had worn a black choker, from which a single, clear glass oval hung.

I had noticed on the way to the club, and even now while standing in line, that Vange had a very interesting tattoo between her shoulder blades. The design was of an intricately-drawn black dragon, its wings folded in slightly, coiled as if in rest. The design was very beautiful, and showed great skill in the art. I’d asked her about it, and she had told me that it was something very personal to her and that it was a symbol of her own struggles as a mutant.

Minutes later, the three of us had been admitted into the club, and the dull roar that I could hear even out on the sidewalk hadn’t quite prepared me for the in-your-face, deep bass throb that assaulted me as I walked in. The club was a large one, with lots of multicolored stage lights that flashed almost chaotically amongst the dance floor, which was packed nearly wall-to-wall with people. The music itself was fast and rhythmic, some sort of techno but not like any I’d heard before. Were I a little more prepared for the place, I think I would have liked the music. As it was, I still had to get my bearings. You’d think that a girl that’s been to Asgard and back would be able to handle a nightclub. Go figure.

As we all made our way toward the bar, I noticed something odd for the first time. Something I hadn’t noticed while we were standing in line. I couldn’t be absolutely certain, but every patron of the club was a mutant. Mutants came in all shapes and sizes, with every sort of appendage and color and shape and size imaginable. It was actually interesting, because I didn’t know such places existed. Although, with the changing times and the seemingly exponential increase in the number of mutations manifesting among humanity, perhaps I should have. Despite the many obvious mutants present, many more people appeared to be normal humans, although they could easily have been mutants as well. An all-mutant club. Cool.

We stopped at the bar, and Xi’an turned to the two of us. “Drinks, ladies?”

Vange spoke first. “Vodka tonic, if you please.”

“Tequila Sunrise,” I said. Though most people didn’t know it, I was a hard liquor girl. Beer just doesn’t do it for me. Most people didn’t even believe that I drank at all, as athletic and healthy as I try to keep myself otherwise. Believe me, though, when you’ve been through half of the things I have, you wouldn’t blame me at all for having a drink with friends. Most people who experienced the sort of lifestyle that the X-Men lead would run screaming to the nearest bar.

“So,” I said, “how long have you two been together?”

Xi’an and Vange regarded each other for a moment, and I could see the fondness for one another in their eyes. It made me so happy for Xi’an. “Almost a year now. I asked Vange to move in with me after Simone and Jessikah graduated.” I remembered the two young women, whose idea it was to attend the Colossal Man Festival where I had last run into Xi’an.

“And what about you?” Xi’an asked, as our drinks arrived. “Anyone special in your life, mademoiselle?”

“Actually,” I replied, “there is.”

“Tell me more,” Xi’an said. “Anyone I know?”

I nodded. “Warren Worthington, our Archangel.”

Xi’an’s eyebrows raised at that. “You and Warren? Who would’ve ever seen that one coming?” We both chuckled at that, and I took my first swallow of my drink. And it was good, not as watered down as I’d assumed it would be. Made me think more highly of the establishment.

“I know I wouldn’t have,” said a new voice from behind us. One that I recognized.

Xi’an and I turned around to see a pair of young women that I know I’d never thought I’d run into casually in a nightclub. They were both blonde-haired and blue-eyed, though the first wore hers pulled back into a tight ponytail while the second wore hers short and with a slight flip. Both attired in green tops and fitted jeans, they almost looked like sisters.

“Sally! Jen!” I exclaimed. Sally Blevins, known during her short stint as a New Mutant as Skids, and Jennifer Kale, young Atlantean sorceress and a girl whom I had met during my days with X-Force. Here, in this club. It was almost a New Mutants reunion.

A few hugs, handshakes, and introductions later, the five of us had migrated to a round table that was placed on the level above the dance floor, where we could watch the eclectic crowd enjoying the music and the pulse of the night, and each other.

“So what are you up to these days, Sally?” Xi’an asked.

“Well, I’m interning with Damage Control before I graduate,” Sally answered. “I’m even thinking about working for them full-time. I really like it there.”

“The construction company?” Vange asked.

Sally nodded. “Yep. They have a corner on the market of cleaning up after superhuman battles, and when the opportunity came up, I knew I had to do it. A way to give back, y’know?”

“I hear you, girlfriend,” Xi’an replied. “Everything’s been going alright for you? I know you’ve had some rough times…”

Sally’s eyes dropped momentarily, and I knew she was thinking about Rusty. She and Rusty Collins, another former and brief New Mutants, were very much in love, and had gone through hell and back at each other’s sides. Tragically, Rusty had been killed in battle, and Sally had never gotten over it. In fact, last time I had seen Sally, she was attending college back in Colorado, and was rather bitter about her days with the New Mutants. Which is why the news of her working for Damage Control came as a surprise to Xi’an and me.

“Yeah, things are going pretty damn well,” Skids answered, her tone much more upbeat than last time we’d spoken. “It’s great being back in New York again, and I love what I’m doing. And I’ve even made some new friends at Damage Control. People we know, in fact.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yep. You remember the New Warriors team, right?” I nodded, and she continued. “Well, a few of them are also interning over at DC, and we’ve formed our own sort of Breakfast Club. Robbie, Elvin, Mickey, and I do lots of field work together and pull the same shifts, so we’ve become pretty close.” She was referring to Robbie Baldwin, Elvin Haliday, and Mickey Muashi, better known to us as Speedball, Rage, and Turbo of the now-defunct New Warriors team.

“I thought you wanted to get away from the life, Sally,” I said, and almost instantly regretted it. I didn’t want to bring Sally down on a night where all of us should be having fun. But I had to know.

“I did, and it took a while for me to get it all out of my system. But I know that what I’m doing now is the right thing to do, and it makes me happy. Besides, majoring in biology was boring the hell out of me,” she laughed.

“Have you been dating since you got back, Sally? Because it sure does seem like everyone else has been,” I said as I looked mock-seriously at Xi’an, who winked at me. Again, another question I probably shouldn’t ask, but I wanted to know if Sally had started moving on with her life. When X-Force had paid her a visit in Colorado, she was so withdrawn that she seemed depressed, and I hoped that that wasn’t the case anymore.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” Sally replied, a slight smile causing the corners of her mouth to lift. “He’s this new guy over at Damage Control, Davis Cameron. Very cute, very laid-back, very Australian, very blonde. You’d hate him.”

I laughed, and thought about Warren. “Don’t be so sure about that. So things are going alright with this guy?”

“Yeah,” Sally responded. “I like him a lot, and we’re both mutants, so it wasn’t a big shock to him when he tried to get touchy-feely once and got a handful of deflector field.” She grinned.

“That’s cool, Sally. I’m happy for you.” I reached out and gave her hand a squeeze, before turning to our mutual friend Jennifer. “And what’s your story, Jen?” I asked. “Last time I saw you, you were living in San Francisco.”

Jennifer smiled. “Same reason as Sally and Shan here, college. And I have a little project that I’m working on.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?”

“Well, I’m trying to get Doctor Strange to take me on as an apprentice,” she replied.

“Again?” I asked, and we laughed.

“Dakimh always taught me to never give up once I’ve set a goal for myself.” She was referring to her own mentor, the wise and powerful man who had helped Jennifer to develop her inherent mystical potential and to set her on the road of righteousness. And this particular bit of his wisdom, I definitely could take to heart right about now.

“I like your friends, Shan,” Vange said. “Now I see why you turned out so—“

“Well-adjusted?” Sally interjected.

We all laughed at that. “Considering everything that’s gone on with the lot of us over the last few years of our lives… Spirits, we should all be in the loony bin!”

Suddenly, Xi’an stood up and regarded each of us together. “Ladies, what say we make our way down to the dance floor and show these kids how it’s done?” She held her hand out to Vange, who took it as she rose from her seat.

“Somebody has to set the right example for the next generation,” I laughed as Sally, Jennifer and I stood to join them.

A few hours later, the five of us were strolling casually down the street a few blocks away from the nightclub, taking Sally up on her suggestion to chow down at the Empire Diner. It wasn’t Harry’s Hideaway, sure, but Sally knew the city better than any of us, and if she said the food was good, that was good enough for me. Besides, we were all fairly starving by that point, and there was the added benefit of spending more time with each other. I was definitely enjoying the evening, and I didn’t want it to end. I was pretty sure that everyone else felt the same way.

I hadn’t noticed that we were in a rougher section of the city until a group of men stepped out of an alleyway not ten meters in front of us. Though they were all clad in shoddy clothes and apparently hanging out in a bad neighborhood, they had frat-boy written all over them, right down to their clean-shaven faces and oh-so-primped hair. And I could feel their bad intentions, their anger, their hatred, even without reaching out with my mind to read their emotions. This was going to be interesting.

“Hey, ladies,” one of them said. I couldn’t be bothered to differentiate between any of them, because they were so generic. If there were a mail-order service for stupid thugs, these boys would be featured on the front cover of the catalog. “Kind of late for you to be walking the streets.”

“Is it?” I asked, taking a step forward in front of my friends.

“Yeah,” he replied, looking not-so-subtly at his companions. “Something bad could happen.”

“I think we can take care of ourselves,” Sally said.

“Hey, don’t I know you?” said one of the other men, who I would henceforth be referring to as thugs. He was pointing at me. “Yeah, yeah, you’re one of them mutie bitches from TV. You’re one of the X-Men.”

“So what?” I replied. Not the most clever thing I could have come up with, but I’d just spent a few hours dancing and drinking, so I had a valid excuse. Besides, I already knew where this was going. All of us did, because we’d all played out this scene at least once in our lives.

“So, your kind isn’t welcome here, bitch, that’s what,” he replied. And he’d just filled my quota for hearing the word bitch thrown at me for the night. When the inevitable fight exploded, I was so nailing him first.

“And what kind would that be?” Xi’an asked. “Mutants? Lesbians? Witches? American Indians? Female construction workers? Narrow it down a little for us, would you? There are so many groups that we’re offending right now, and we want to know where you boys fall.”

“Not cool, bitch,” said a voice from behind us, and we half-turned to see another group of frat-boy thugs who had moved in behind us without our being aware of it. They were brandishing guns, as now were the first group. Yeah, this was going to be a bad one.

“We’re getting’ tired of you muties thinkin’ that you can just take shit over. We’re not afraid of you.”

“With all of those guns, you look pretty afraid to me,” Skids said.

“Maybe you should just walk away now, before someone gets hurt,” I added.

“Maybe you should just shut the fuck up, bitch,” the thug who was so fond of the word said to me, and they all pointed their weapons at us. The speaker fired his weapon, and I knew he was aiming for me.

Before I even moved to step from his line of fire, Skids extended her forcefield to encapsulate all of us, forming a protective dome of barely-visible energy to protect us from the bullet of the gun. The projectile pinged harmlessly off the field, and the rest of my friends were already assuming their well-rehearsed battle formations. Vange, inexperienced as she was, seemed to be the only person who wasn’t quite sure what to do, but she wisely kept her cool, and let Shan step in front of her in a gesture of protectiveness. I nodded to Skids once, and she lowered her forcefield, so that we could quickly respond in kind.

I began to draw upon pure, unadulterated, psychotic terror, and the familiar psionic energy shape of a bow formed in my left hand as I focused that primal fear into a tangible form of pure emotional energy. Aiming the psionic arrow that had also formed at the mouthy thug, I unleashed the projectile at my attacker, and smiled as the arrow struck true in the thug’s chest. Psionic energy crackled all around the thug as he went down, consumed in his own private visions of fear as his nervous system was literally overloaded. He hit the ground, unconscious, before he was even aware that he’d been hit.

Xi’an had reached out with her own mental abilities, forming mind-links with the flanking group of thugs and superimposing her own will over theirs. Now in full possession of their minds, she forced them to drop their guns to the ground and turn on each other with savagery, attacking each other with fists and feet in a wild melee. That was certainly a new trick for her. Obviously, she’d been practicing.

Jennifer had begun chanting a mantra that I could just barely recognize, an ancient Atlantean spell that would suffuse her targets with euphoria and soften them up for the rest of us. I only recognized the spell because of knowledge gleaned during my time as a Valkyrie, but I knew enough to know that her casting of the spell was flawless. Almost every single thug in the first group became overwhelmed with intense feelings of pleasure and satisfaction, and they dropped their own guns out of pure disinterest. And people say that X-Men can’t handle their problems nonviolently. For shame.

The first thug who had spoken, who had initiated the encounter in the first place, seemed to be unaffected by Jennifer’s magic, and stepped toward me with his gun firmly in hand. “Tell your friends to stop it, bitch, or my next bullet is going right between your eyes,” he threatened, and I knew it was no idle threat. He’d get his shot off before I could do anything to stop him, and Skids was even now getting Vange out of harm’s way. So I’d have to deal with him in another way. Something he wouldn’t see coming.

“You really are afraid of us, aren’t you?” I asked him.

“Not for much longer,” he responded.

“You should be afraid, y’know,” I told him, as I initiated my own psionic probe into his subconscious. As I spoke, my probe navigated through the complex layers of his thoughts, sifting through various emotions until I found that fear and grabbed onto it with both hands, so to speak. That fear of mutants.

“We are indeed everything you fear,” I said to him, as I began to materialize that terror in the form of an illusion. As the illusion seemed to be focused on me, I couldn’t see what it was that I had brought out of him, but I knew that it was having the effect that I intended. He visibly paled, and his steady gun hand had begun to shake. “We are beyond your ultimate nightmare.”

“NO!” he screamed, and it was a scream of raw, primal terror. Whatever it was that I had shown him, he believed it, with all of his heart and soul. I could feel that much through the empathic link that accompanied this most basic use of my mutant abilities. When I was younger, the intense emotions that poured through the link with my targets were a little much for me, but I’d become more than accustomed to them now, and when I consciously reminded myself that the emotions I were feeling were not my own, I could ignore them and focus on the task at hand.

His gun had lowered to the ground, as he was now more than unsure of himself, and I took that opportunity to lunge forward, closing the gap between us in less than two seconds and delivering a solid blow to his nose with the heel of my hand. Though the sharp pain that suddenly throbbed in my hand was a drawback, I could see that I’d drawn blood. Good. Just in case he got any ideas about continuing the fight, I followed up my blow with a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. As I regained my balance, he hit the pavement with a dull thud.

And just like that, it was over.

Fifteen minutes later, the police were on the scene, along with a pair of FBI agents. I’d personally believed that bringing the Feds in was a little overkill, but the government didn’t take mutant-related activity lightly these days. All nineteen of our assailants were being led to the pair of paddy wagons in cuffs, and even now Sally and Jennifer were giving their statements to the FBI agents. Xi’an and Vange were talking a few meters away from me, and I could hear Vange state that, given the circumstances and the evidence involved, the frat boys would be doing hard time.

Surprisingly to me, the police had almost bent over backwards to accommodate us, taking our statements without a hint of skepticism or suspicion. The lieutenant in charge had even asked if I wouldn’t mind signing an autograph for his daughter, who thought we X-Men had “looked awesome on TV.” It was so strange and so satisfying at the same time, that I agreed to do so. The officer, Lieutenant Tagliatti, regarded me with admiration as he spoke to me.

“I just want to say, Ms. Moonstar,” he said, “that my boys and I don’t have any problems with mutants. If you spend enough time in the Five Boroughs, you get to see all sorts of craziness, and I’ve seen enough to know that you all just want to live and let live like the rest of us, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do,” I replied. I knew that Tagliatti was as aware as I of the tension often present between mutants and law enforcement because of countless examples of soured encounters between the two, and I knew that he was trying to do his own part of setting things right. It didn’t make up for all the prejudicial actions of the rest of the country’s various law enforcement agencies over the years, but tonight, it was more than enough for us. It was nice to hear it for a change, and it made me smile.

“Even though you’ve had your troubles up at your school here lately, we’re all rooting for you X-Men. If it weren’t for you guys, we’d probably have had our asses handed to us by Magneto, or Doctor Doom, or any number of other baddies out there. And I just wanted to say thank you. I guess you don’t hear that too often, and I think it needs to be said.”

I regarded Lieutenant Tagliatti with interest. “I… thank you, Lieutenant. I don’t know what to say, really, other than thank you for your help tonight. A lot of anti-mutant activity gets swept under the rug, and for once, it’s nice to see some justice done.”

He smiled at me, and something showed in his eyes that I couldn’t place at first. I think he was interested in me, on a personal level. And it’s not to say that he wasn’t an attractive man. Despite the fact that he had a daughter, he bore no rings on his finger, and he didn’t act like a man who was trying to swing a little action on the side. However, despite my own lack of jewelry, I was very much spoken for. By my own personal guardian angel.

“My pleasure, Ms. Moonstar.” He turned to regard the thugs, the last of whom were even now being secured in the paddy wagons before they took off. “These boys won’t be giving you any more trouble, believe you me.”

“I did have a question about that,” I said.

“Shoot.”

“Well, despite how they were dressed, I kept getting this frat-boy vibe from them. They seemed a little too… pretty to be some street gang or whatever. And the guns they were using were pretty nice, pretty expensive.”

“You haven’t heard of Purity?” he asked, and I shook my head. “They’re this group of students up at NYU, mostly frat boys like you saw tonight and their girlfriends. From what we’ve heard from other students and mutants, and what we’ve read on their website, they’re all about keeping the human race ‘pure’ or what-have-you. But this…” he said, as he turned to indicate the scene of the battle between us and the frat boys, “this is the first time they’ve actually been so bold about it. They must’ve recognized you from TV, too.”

“Even so, it’s a little bit surprising that they’d throw away their college careers like this,” I said.

“They used to be a lot more subtle about going about their business. The Feds think that the X-Men going public caused them to act more openly against what they see as a threat. That’s why they’re down here with us tonight,” he said, as he pointed to the two agents questioning Sally and Jennifer. “They’re trying to build a solid case against Purity, because they think that the organization represents domestic terrorism at its ugly worst.”

“Is there anything we can do to help?” By that question, I meant not only myself and my friends, but the X-Men as a whole. And he interpreted it exactly the same.

“Not at this point, but just make sure your students are well informed of what’s going on and what this group is capable of. If they were willing to strike out at you tonight, just imagine what they might do to the children.”

That was certainly a sobering thought. I nodded sagely. “I’ll take care of it, Lieutenant. It might be a good idea to put more restrictions on off-campus trips for the time being, until the situation improves.”

“Great. And if you ever need our help, Ms. Moonstar, we’re just a phone call away. Remember that.” He regarded me again with that same interest, but I chose not to burst his bubble tonight. We’d all been through quite enough for the evening.

“I will,” I responded, as I extended my hand to the lieutenant. He took it in hand, and shook it firmly. He smiled as our eyes met, and politely began to make his way back toward the other officers as Xi’an and Vange walked toward me. The two of them breathed sighs of relief as I smiled at them, pleased that the authorities were as helpful as they were tonight.

“Did you hear that that guy threatened to sue you for mental anguish, Dani?” Xi’an asked with a slight chuckle.

“What an idiot,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Don’t worry, Dani,” Vange added. “If he does, I’ll take your case.” The three of us chuckled. I took a good look around us, at the various officers inspecting the crime scene and the garish lights of squad cars strobing all around us, and I sighed.

“Well, ladies, it’s been one hell of a night.”