November 10th 1996

     "We've been walking for days," Rose whined as she flopped down on the ground.

     Addison rolled her eyes and sat down next to her friend. "Come on, don't be a baby we're basically there."

     Rose looked up at her and blinked hard. "What do you mean? You don't even know where we're going!"

     "Yeah I do!" Addison yelled as she clenched her fists. "Stop saying I don't!"

     "Well you don't!" Rose yelled back.

     The hunger and exhaustion was definitely getting to them.

     "You don't know everything!" Rose stood up and crossed her arms. "You know just as much as I do!"

     "You don't know anything about the school! You'd be dead without me!" Addison stood up too, slightly towering over Rose with the few extra inches she had on her.

     "I wouldn't be dead."

     Addison frowned hard, the anger clearly evident on her face. If Rose had learned anything about the short tempered girl was that she did not like being told she was wrong.

     "Does this school even exist?" Rose asked as she cocked her eyebrow. For some reason she wasn't scared of Addison, everyone else may have been, but Rose knew her and Rose knew Addison wouldn't dare hurt her.

     "God!" Addison exclaimed as she stomped her foot like a child. "You're so fucking infuriating Rose you know that you'r-"

     Rose froze as Addison literally glitched. It was like she went completely missing for a second.

     "H-how did you do th-that?"

     "Do what?"

     "Just go away like th-"

     "Hey!"

     Both girls snapped their heads around to look at the incoming voice.

     "What are you guys doing out here?"

     They exchanged a look of slight fear before taking a step back. There was a guy standing in front of them, he had blonde hair and the way he cocked his eyebrow made him look older than he probably was.

     "Are you gonna hurt us?" Rose asked as she held up her hands. Addison could see the beginning of embers flicker across her palm.

     "Hurt you? Depends, who are you?"

     "Runaways," Addison said darkly as she stared the boy down.

     A slow smile spread across his face. "Runaways huh? You happen to be searching for Xavier's place?"

     Addison immediately shot Rose an annoying "I told you so" look before facing back to the boy.

     "Yeah we are."

     "Well my name's Alex." He smiled warmly again. "Follow me mutants."

August 2nd, 2002

9:05am

     "El's in there," Kis said as she stared blankly at the WICKED homebase.

     "You feel something?" Minho asked as he looked at the blonde girl.

     She nodded and pushed her hair from her eyes. "It's weird. I've never felt it before."

     "Are they okay?"

     "That's the thing," Kis said as she looked at the buff boy. "I'm really not sure."

     "Tommy? He's alive though...right?" Newt asked as he looked at Kis with a terrified expression.

     She nodded. "They both are just...I can't explain it. It's like they're there but something is different."

     "Well we have to get in there!" Newt exclaimed as he motioned towards the base. "If Tommy and El are in trouble, we have to go help them!"

     "We need to figure out a plan," Minho said as he grabbed his blonde friends arm. "If we just go running in there then we're all gonna end up dead!"

     "I wanna find El just as much as you wanna find Thomas," Kis said softly. "We'll get them back, we'll see them again okay?"

     Newt nodded and took a deep breath. "Yeah okay, you're right."

     "How are you feeling Newt, honestly?" Minho asked as he looked at his best friend.

     "I'm good." The blonde boy ran his fingers through his hair. "I can probably use my power for a while. I got a couple hours of juice in me."

     Kis shared a look with Minho. Her expression conveyed her thoughts exactly.

     "Stop looking at him like that, I know what you're thinking." Newt frowned at his friends. "I can hold it. Besides, what better choice do we have?"

     "He is right," Kis said. "We don't have another plan. We need to not to be seen. We have to get into the place where they're keeping El and Thomas."

     "And what do we do after we have them huh? They're gonna be too fucked up to fight. Newt can't keep five people invisible for more than a few minutes and that's at his full strength, he's gonna be fucking exhausted after we get to Thomas and El and even then..."

     "Minho," Newt said softly as he grabbed his friends arm. "Minho stop."

     The buff boy let out a breath and looked into the blonde's eyes. "I know you're tough Newt, I really do, but you'll kill yourself doing this."

     "Min." Newt tightened his grip on Minho's arm. "They got Tommy. I love him, if there's anything I can do to help him, I have to do it."

     Minho wrenched his arm out of his grasp. "You're no good to Thomas if you're dead."

     "Minho come on," Newt called after Minho as he watched him angrily stomp away.

     "We cannot fall apart right now," Kis snapped as she grabbed Newt and pulled him after Minho.

     "Minho come on!" Kis shouted. "Don't be like this."

     Minho froze and turned around quickly, one look at his face confirmed the fact that he was pissed.

     "I'm sorry if none of you care about dying!" he snapped as he glared at the two blondes. "I'm fucking sorry that I care about losing everyone I care about. You guys have a death wish that's fine, but do you ever once think about the effects it'll have I mean god after the invasion I thought I lost all of you, I was so fucked up." Minho took a deep breath. "I know you can't live without Tommy and you can't live without El, but I can't live without you, any of you. So can we please not fucking die while trying to save our friends?"

     It was silent for a moment, no one really knowing what to say.

     "We need Newt's power. There's no other way. If we go in there visible, we won't make it past the entrance."

     "She's right Min." Newt took a step toward his friend. "This is what we trained for right?" Newt gave him a lopsided smile which made Minho roll his eyes.

     The buff boy took a deep breath and rubbed his hands over his face. "Yeah okay right, I'm sorry. We're X-Men, we can do this."

     Kis nodded and turned around, starting to walk back toward where they were before.

     Newt grabbed Minho's shirt and pulled him into a tight hug. "You know I can't live without you either right?"

     Minho huffed out a little yes and held Newt tighter.

     When they pulled away Newt lightly punched his arm. "Come on, you know I wouldn't die without you. It's us til the end right?"

     Minho smiled and hit Newt's fist in a fistbump. "Yeah, you and me...now come on, let's get your fuckbuddy back."

10:26 am

     "What did they put in my head?" Thomas groaned as he slowly came to his senses. Black spots danced across his vision and he realized his wrists hurt, bad. His head felt like there was an anvil in it, like it was way too heavy for his neck and he could barely support it. The skin on his neck was on fire and hsi stomach was growling loudly.

     "What the..." Thomas trailed off as he shook his arms and gasped when he saw they were in shackles. "What the fuck is this?!" Thomas snapped as he pulled on the chains that held his wrists pinned outright to the wall.

     "Thomas?"

     Thomas snapped his head to the side, breathing out a relieved sigh when he saw it was El. She was restrained the same way, her wrists held to the wall with big iron cuffs. The cuffs had little blinking red lights on them which Thomas assumed were power canceling.

     "Are you okay?" Thomas asked as he looked at the girl. He suddenly realized they both had different clothes on. They were in a black shirt with simple letters printed across the front, Thomas' said A02 and El's said B14. He wasn't even sure when he got into the clothes. Panic shot through him when he realized he didn't have his suit anymore.

     "I'm okay," she said softly.

     "You don't sound it."

     "I let them in."

     "What do you mean?"

     "I let them into my head Thomas. I stopped fighting, I was dying I was..."

     "El it's okay," Thomas assured her as he pulled on his cuffs again. His wrists ached and his arms hurt from being suspended for so long.

     "No it's not Thomas, y-you don't understand what th-they're doing to me." She winced and shook her head like she was in pain.

     "You would have died El, my mom even said so. It's okay."

     "It was selfish!" El snapped as she glared at Thomas. "I knew what I had to do and I didn't do it, for selfish reasons. They have access to...everything now."

     "Wanting to stay alive isn't self-"

     El scoffed. "It wasn't about me staying alive Thomas."

     Thomas cocked his head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

     "I let them in because I wanted to see her again," El said softly as she hung her head.

     "Who?"

     "Kis."

     "El," Thomas started as he looked at her. "It's not selfish to want to stay alive for another person."

     El looked up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was an absolute mess. "It is Thomas. I wanted to see her again so I can tell her how I feel."

     "What?"

     El laughed lightly. "Come on, wasn't it obvious. Why do you think I wanted to find out who she was into so badly? Thomas I've been into her since we met at WICKED. She was always there for me... I know she can be a bit much and she acts all tough with her black clothes but she's not. Well she's tough, but she's sweet and she's always nice to me...if I never met her I don't even think I'd be here today."

     "I didn't know," Thomas admitted.

     "I'm gonna die and she's never gonna know."

     "We're not gonna die."

     El scoffed. "Thomas, you're way smarter than that. Look where we are right now! You really think we'll get out of here?"

     "This is my fault," Thomas said as he looked at the ground. "This was a horrible plan and I'm sorry." He felt the hot tears building up in his eyes. "I caused this."

     El let out a breath. "You didn't force me to come with you, I decided to come on my own terms."

     "I begged you not to."

     El smiled softly. "I don't turn my back on my friends. You couldn't do this alone, maybe we can't even do this together, but at least you're not alone."

     "I really am sorry El."

     "Don't be sorry, I don't want you to be sorry."

     Thomas bit his lip and was quiet. The guilt was weighing down on him. He got his friend into trouble, it was his fault that they were here. It was his fault for still having some stupid emotional connection to his mother. It was his fault for wanting to see him again. It was his fault for making impulse decisions. This was all his fault.

     "Hey Thomas?" El asked quietly in the dimly lit room.

     "Yeah?"

     "Do you think they're close? You said they were coming for us."

     "Who?"

     "Kis and Minho and Newt."

     Thomas met her gaze with a completely and utterly lost expression. "Who's Newt?"

11:06 am

     "What are we doing with them?" The WICKED guard asked as he stood in front of Mrs.Edison's desk.

     "The kids?"

     "Well your kid and his friend."

     The woman took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead. "Don't call him my kid, he's not my..."

     "He's yours Lisa, like it or not you created him, you brought him here."

     "Shut up!" She snapped as she slammed her fists on the table. "You keep reminding me of the mistake that got my husband killed!"

     "It wasn't Thomas' fault."

     "Like hell it wasn't his fault! His psycho invisible boyfriend put a knife through him."

     "How do you know that for sure?"

     Lisa laughed and pressed a button on her desk, illuminating the monitor of her computer.

     "What do you think that we did to them?" She asked as she smiled her creepy smile at her colleague. "The chips we implanted them with are state of the art technology, it's honestly marvelous."

     "What do you mean?"

     Lisa was quiet as she typed away on her keyboard. A window popped up with folders and video attachments. "Think of it as a hard drive in a way."

     "A hard drive?" The man asked as he leaned in closer to see.

     "These video files aren't really videos, here look." Lisa clicked on one and let it play.

     The video was in first person, like you were seeing from a camera lens that was being carried.

     "Hey." A blonde boy grinned as he appeared out of literally nowhere. It was like he materialized from thin air.

     "I hate it when you do that!"

     The boy smiled harder and stepped closer to the camera. "But you're so cute when you make that face."

     "My face of pure fear?"

     He nodded and leaned in, the screen went dark for a moment and lit back up when the boy moved back.

     "You're also cute when you make that face."

     "Hey, a hot boy just kissed me and I wasn't expecting it, I'm allowed to make a face."

     "Your hot boy."

     "Yes, my hot boy."

     "I happen to like kissing you." The boy was close again, his cheeks were slightly pink but his eyes were shining like he was the happiest person alive. "It's one of my favorite things to do."

     "You don't say."

     The screen was black again and the guard looked up at Lisa.

     "I don't understand what I'm watching."

     "I love you." The screen played softly.

     "I love you too Tommy."

     Realization dawned on the guard. "Those are your son's memories."

     "Bingo...Now watch this." She smiled as she clicked on the file and dragged it out of the window.

     "What did you do?"

     "I deleted it."

     "You deleted his memory?"

     "Well I didn't delete it, I moved it so it's no longer in Thomas' brain. It still exists but he can't remember it."

     "Who's the blonde boy?" The WICKED guard's stomach twisted as he looked at all the memory files in the window.

     "Thomas' boyfriend. He's the invisible one...the one who killed Patrick."

     "Why are you erasing the memories of his boyfriend?"

     When Lisa looked up at him, her eyes were dark. "Because he took away the person I loved, so I'm taking away the person he loves."

     "But he's still aliv-"

     Lisa laughed. "Not for long."

     "What do you mean?"

     "Thomas doesn't remember him, so it'll make it that much easier to make him kill him."

     "Thomas would never kill someone on purpose, he didn't kill Patrick."

     "Are you forgetting the invasion?!" Lisa snapped as she stood up quickly. "He killed thousands of us! Thousands!"

     "Not on purpose."

     "Why are you defending him?!" Lisa snapped. "He murdered our friends, brothers, loved ones."

     "Lisa, I understand that Patrick is gone, there's no bringing him back but killing everyone isn't the wa-"

     "Shut up." The woman snapped in the man's face. "Don't talk anymore, I need to show you something."

     The guard nodded and followed the woman out of the small office. "Where are we going?"

     "I want to show you the final thing these chips can do."

     "Where are we going?"

     "To visit the kids." The way she smiled sent chills down the man's spine.

     The guard was quiet as he followed his commander down a hall and to a big door. He knew this room, this is where they kept the test prisoners, the ones they experimented on and pushed.

     Lisa swiped her key card and grinned as the big door slid open.

     The guard had never been inside the room before, when he entered after his commander, his stomach sank. He saw the two kids chained to the wall, they both looked like shit. Their faces were pale and the bags under their eyes were obscene. The girl looked the worst, her hair was knotted and her chest was moving up and down at an unsteady pace.

     "What did you do to them Lisa?"

     "I put the chip in their necks, their bodies were rejecting it for awhile but now they've accepted the chips and it's implemented it throughout their nervous system."

     "You hacked into their nervous system?"

     "Something like that yeah."

     "Good morning Thomas." Lisa grinned at the boy who refused to pick up his head.

     She pulled two little disks out of her pocket and placed them on her temples, tapping them once which made them light up.

     She slowly walked over to Thomas, gently grabbing his face and picking it up.

     "What did you do to me?" He mumbled. "Who's Newt?"

     Lisa rolled her eyes. "Don't worry about that."

     "El told me-"

     "Don't listen to her."

     Thomas blinked slowly, when his eyes opened again the anger was evident in them.

     "I asked what you did to me."

     Lisa smiled and pinched his cheek. "I'll show you sweet boy."

     She moved to his wrists, unhooking the iron cuffs and watching Thomas instantly drop to his knees. The boy was up in an instant, his hands in front of him and the black smoke snaking down his arms.

     "You shouldn't have done that," Thomas practically growled as he glared at his mother.

     She just smiled at him and said slowly. "Thomas put your arms down."

     Thomas blinked and then obeyed, the confusion evident on his face.

     "H-how did y-you..."

     "You asked what I did to you." His mom grinned. "The answer is I took control of your mind."