Previously…

After suffering another loss against what was discovered to be the source of the leaking darkness — a mutant-Heartless hybrid and former Barden student named Donald — the Barden mutants proposed an offer to Congress: revoke the vigilante status of unregistered mutants and they, in return, would aid in the fight against Donald. Despite polarizing opinions the proposal was approved, as Donald was a much larger and more current threat to national security than the unregistered mutants were.

Hoping to use their success as a bargaining chip to permanently revoke mandatory registration, the mutants reunite at Fort Benning, a military base just two hours outside downtown Atlanta. It was a productive but brief meeting for this new mutant task force; all their time was spent training with and against each other, devising strategies against Donald's powers of absorption. Not long after they began training, however, the hybrid initiated a surprise attack on the Barden Institute.

The 'non-threatening' mutants left at the school, Emily among them, had successfully stalled until the special task force arrived. The ensuing battle had been going as planned — they kept Donald at a distance, gradually subduing him until Beca could release his heart with her Keyblade — until a cunning move forced the team to break ranks in order to save Aubrey from having her heart taken.

Just when it seemed that all hope was lost, a trio of mutants entered the battlefield, one of whom was powerful enough to stop Donald with only her mind: Chloe. Confident that they had secured the win, Beca summoned her Keyblade and stepped in.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: And Release

This never happened.

—but an arm shot out to stop her advance. Beca attempted to force her way through but having yet to fully recover from being drained by Donald her struggling yielded no results. "What are you doing—? I have to release his heart!" she argued angrily to the shape-shifter holding her back. Realizing that the two older mutants were likely unaware of the Heartless to begin, she amended, "Look, I don't have time to explain, but this is the only way we can stop Donald and save his life. You have to let me go."

Donald's anger over being frozen against his will had exacerbated his transformation and his body had now begun to emanate visible wisps of pitch-black darkness. As his body was slowly lifted into the air, Beca began hearing choking noises. "Wait, she's not—Chloe won't kill him, will she? Doesn't she know he's not fully transformed yet?"

"Hon', we just got here. Nobody gave us the 4-1-1 yet," the shape-shifter answered dryly.

"He's still in there!" Beca cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "CHLO-EEE, STO—aurgh!" The shape-shifter socked Beca in the arm, growling, "What the hell? I said don't interrupt her concentration!"

"Fuck off!" snapped Beca. Whatever special technique Chloe needed to use to activate her powers, Beca knew it wasn't worth losing her humanity over it. "I don't care if this is a stupid teaching experiment or whatever, I'm not going to let Chloe live with the burden of accidentally killing him. I have to stop this."

She had finally regained enough strength to fly off but once again, just as she passed the blonde woman ahead, her approached was abruptly stopped. Beca felt herself move in mid-air—but unlike her normal flying the sensation wasn't like being propelled one way or another. Instead, it felt like her entire physical body was shifting its location relative to everything else, ultimately bringing her backwards. It was a strange feeling, and for the first time she felt that there existed a force capable of manipulating the laws of physics even more drastically than her own powers did.

Beca's movement slowed to a stop until she was placed awkwardly upright beside the second woman, the final barrier between her and Chloe. Her palm was facing toward Beca, as if conducting her body through space.

Damn, that's right. She's telekinetic, too. Breathing heavily, Beca resigned herself to standing lamely beside Chloe's teacher and observing the fight from a closer distance. At least, long enough to convince the woman of the importance of ending the fight early.

"Don't worry, I stopped Chloe from hurting him," the woman assured Beca. Her tone was confident but wary, like a master showing off her pupil and being critical of her techniques. "But she's still figuring out what he is, figuring out that he isn't an object but, essentially, a collection of organs, of cells, tissues, and atoms... This is a delicate process, Beca. Any sudden changes in Chloe's psyche could spell disaster."

"'Figuring out that he isn't an object'?" Beca repeated with distaste. "What the hell've you been teaching her?"

"Better than whatever she'd been taught at this school, obviously," the shape-shifter commented from behind. She had lazily walked over, knowing that the telepath would stop Beca very easily. Jerking her thumb over her shoulder, she said, "By the way, the blonde Germanic beauty back there kept yapping on about a 'Heart of Darkness.' What's her deal?"

Beca exhaled through her nose in frustration. "It's what I keep warning you about! Donald's heart is being taken over by the darkness and if it gets completely consumed, he'll turn into something called a Heartless and he'll be even more powerful than he already is." She brandished the Keyblade forcefully in their faces. "See this? I can release his heart before that happens, but not if you won't fucking let me!"

The shape-shifter scratched her chin. After a pause, she shook her head. "Yeah… no, I actually meant what's her deal deal, like, is she involved with anyone? What's she into? Men? Women? 'Cause it doesn't matter, honestly, I can literally swing both ways—"

"Frankie," the blonde chastised and Beca recognized the name from the night Chloe left. 'Frankie' seemed an unorthodox name for someone that could be of either gender, but Beca was far less interested in what she was called at the moment.

Chloe's teacher turned back to Beca and said diplomatically, "We understand the urgency but can't you just release his heart from over here?"

"If I could, don't you think this fight would have been over sooner?"

Another strangled roar from Donald turned their attentions back to the battlefield. Beca ground her teeth. "We're wasting time. If I sneak up behind him so Chloe can't see me, would that be okay?"

Frankie shrugged. "Sure. But then once he's dealt with, it'll just be you and Chloe. And she's a way bigger problem than that guy." When Beca cast her a doubtful look, she rolled her eyes. "Kate didn't catch you up on how their powers work? Chloe's only been in training for... what, two weeks now? She isn't used to having this many stimulants around her while she's accessing her powers. Who knows what goes on in that cuckoo world she's in? If you startle her now, she could freak out and blow up everything."

"If she's that unstable why did you even bring her here?" demanded Beca.

Frankie snorted. "Like we had a choice? She wanted to go back to Barden the moment she thought her friends were in danger. Your girl can be a real hothead when she's determined."

Despite everything, Beca was elated by the fact that Chloe would drop everything to come and help them, even if it meant cancelling all her longed-for progress. But before she could begin contemplating whether that decision was worth it, she felt an elbow poke her in the ribs and she looked to her side to see Frankie waggling her eyebrows suggestively. "Makes me wonder if she fits any other redhead stereotypes, if you know what I mean."

Kate glared at the shape-shifter. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just make a sexual innuendo about my daughter, Frankie."

Daughter?

When Beca heard the beginnings of the possessive 'my', she assumed that the word 'student' would follow, and apart from agreeing with Kate that it was inappropriate to make such a comment at a time like this, her immediate reaction was relief and assurance that Chloe was tutored by someone protective of her dignity... But the word 'daughter' had never even crossed Beca's mind. Hearing the two words combined and working out their meaning caused her brain to temporarily malfunction.

"I wasn't being pervy! I was just looking to lighten the mood. You know, bond a little bit." Frankie turned to the now unresponsive Beca and, wearing a knowing smirk, hooked an arm around the younger brunette's shoulders. She bent down slightly and spoke into her ear. "Relax, kiddo. This won't be the only surprise you'll have today."

Hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away from Barden, sitting on a cheap plastic desk pushed against the concrete wall of a repurposed warehouse, a computer streamed various news sites simultaneously. None of the stations could report anything happening beyond Barden's gates, but once aerial footage was made available, Tommy and Justin completely abandoned their task of sorting through documents and watched, open-mouthed, as the intense fight was finally broadcast live.

"I can't watch! I can't watch!" Justin covered his eyes when the tiny brunette standing between Stacie and the menacing creature was blasted with electricity.

"Don't be a pu—oh, shit!" Tommy shrieked and bit his knuckles. "Oh… Phew! Wait, what the? ... Holy crap! … Awesome!"

"What is it?! God, I can't stand your roller-coaster commentary!" Justin pulled his hands off his face gingerly and blinked. "Where'd everybody go? And who's the redhead?"

"She just came outta nowhere and… and voosh. Got him totally frozen!"

Justin squinted at the screen. "Frozen? I don't see any ice."

"Not literally!"

Suddenly, a breaking news banner interrupted one of the streams. The station's newsroom anchor announced that the newly-elected President had arranged a press statement in light of what was going on at Barden.

"As President-elect my duty begins, not on Inauguration Day, but on the very night the American people chose me to be their next leader. Throughout my campaign, I had promised to provide a solution to the mutant issue. The current administration has, time and again, failed to protect Americans from these unnatural and extremely dangerous threats. That said, in light of today's attack, I, among many others, have little confidence that this small, industrious town of good and hard-working people will not end up a pile of rubble under the directives of those currently in power."

Justin and Tommy exchanged confused and unimpressed looks. "Is he seriously using this as an opportunity to trash talk the President?"

"Your government—the government that swore to protect you—has allowed this mutant crisis to go on for months! You have been duped to think that negotiating and spending even more taxpayer money on subsidizing their lavish lifestyles would keep us safe. Well… take a look now! The deal that Congress struck—in the dark, mind you—that absolved criminal, fugitive mutants has been abused! These mutants escaped military custody today, breaking their agreement to pursue their own interests.

"Do not let anyone fool you. Their 'flight to fight' is no act of heroism. It is an aggressive move, no matter their intentions."

"Now he's demonizing the mutants for wanting to protect people?" Justin said in disgust. Tommy continued to listen quietly.

"It is clear to all of us now that we cannot control these mutants—not with laws, nor by force. We cannot trust them to obey the law; we cannot even trust them to uphold the law among themselves! For even the registered mutants at the Barden Institute refused to help the FBI apprehend their old friends, when asked."

Tommy's frown deepened. The President-elect did not single out the unregistered mutants in his tirade, and that meant trouble.

"They cannot be stopped... At least, that is what we believed until today."

The President-elect spoke slowly and deliberately, knowing that millions of people, including Justin and Tommy, were hooked on to his every word:

"I am calling on the incumbent President to act now, in the best interests of our constituents, to exercise his emergency powers and approve of the use of mutant-specific suppressors created years ago to counter the rise of superhuman individuals in 1987—"

Justin's mouth dropped open. On screen, murmurs quickly grew into cries and demands for clarification from members of the press corps. "Did he just… admit that the SRA happened?"

Tommy remained laser-focused on the broadcast, which was now being covered by all stations on his monitor. He had theorized that the SRA, despite serving as the basis for the more recent MRA, had never been publicly declassified for two major reasons: it had degenerated into urban legend over the years and politicians did not want to risk the ire of skeptics and lose credibility; but more importantly, Tommy believed, it was kept confidential because of the very thing the President-elect was now boasting about.

"—a testament to its effectiveness that, only until recently, we have not seen a single mutant since '87. Yes, you are hearing me correctly: the mutant problem was solved twenty-five years ago. Since then, however, the blueprints for these suppressants were hidden by pro-mutant interest groups like AMG and the Barden Institute, who wanted to make mutants stronger and exploit them. Thankfully, these blueprints have now been acquired by our nation's intelligence services, but due to the advanced technology and legislative ambiguities, the decision cannot be placed in the hands of our ineffective Congress. That is where the President intervenes."

In the flurry proceeding the statement, news stations had turned to their analysts to speculate on the implications and stretch out air time.

Justin muted the screens and turned to his partner. "You know how, between the two of us, I've tended to be the more discerning one? Well, right now I can't figure out what in god's hell he's talking about without jumping to a conclusion that he's gone batshit crazy."

The hacker chewed his thumb in concentration. It didn't make any sense to him. The SRA's true purpose had nothing to do with suppressing mutants at all. In fact it was meant to encourage them to register and take part in the study to isolate, replicate, and spread whatever it was that gave them their super-human abilities in order to advance the military interests of the country at the time. Bragging about the fact that the mutants had been somewhat 'cured' of it seemed misinformed...

"'We have not seen a single mutant since '87,'" quoted Tommy thoughtfully. "But no, the real reason mutants went into hiding then was that the jig was up and no one wanted to be a part of the soldier-killing experiments anymore... The only mutants killed were maybe those that witnessed the failure of the project, and even that's just a theory."

He turned to the table on which they had piled up all the sorted documents. The obvious absence of a whole section of pages almost seemed to smile mockingly at him. "Those sanitized pages… the missing evidence on the failed SRA experiments… 'blueprints for tools'… 'not seen a single mutant since'..."

Tommy's worry that the FBI had gotten to the 'proof' before they did was suddenly supplanted by an even bigger fear: that the FBI did get to it first, and had drastically misunderstood what they had in their hands.

"Justin," he began in a dry rasp, "between the two of us, you've also tended to be the more optimistic one… What are your thoughts on the government, intentionally or unintentionally, carrying out the execution of all the mutants at Barden?"

"Sir? Marcus Day is waiting outside to speak with you."

The army general tasked with overseeing the special mutant task force raised a finger to ask his secretary for a minute while he finished his phone conversation. "Okay, sir… Yes, sir… Understood. Good-bye."

He replaced the phone on the receiver and continued to stare at the device with a grim expression on his face until his focus readjusted and landed on the sleek, black Pelican case resting intimidatingly on the carpet of his office. It had been delivered to him directly (and not to the armoury as most cases of this type usually were) when the mutants had first arrived at Fort Benning three days ago, with special instructions not to open or commission unless explicitly instructed by the Commander-in-Chief himself.

"Sir?"

The general snapped out of his reverie. He waved his hand to let the young mutant in.

"Sir!" Marcus stood poker-straight with his fists held firmly against the seam of his pants. The general suppressed a chuckle; he could see on the boy's face the struggle to recall whether he ought to salute or not. To ease the pressure—it was the least he could do after learning that the boy had been tied up in the mutants' cabin—the general gestured at him to simply proceed, which the boy did rather rapidly.

"Sir, I wanted to personally let you know that my fellow mutants didn't mean anything bad. Our school is being attacked and our friends are in danger, sir, and they tied me up because I wanted to go with them. They were just trying to protect me—to protect all of us! They didn't want the military involved in fighting Donald either because he can do things, dangerous things, that you can't stop with guns or body armour. So please, sir, don't be mad at them."

The general heaved a tired sigh. "The agreement was for them to cooperate with us in the event that Donald attacked the United States. Donald attacked; they pursued the enemy alone. Quite the opposite of 'cooperating', wouldn't you say?"

"Yes, but," Marcus chewed his lip, "sir, given the circumstances—"

"I hope your time with us has taught you that we in the military adhere strictly to a set of rules. We cannot give exemptions to friends."

"I know, sir, but... sir, they're saving the world."

The general looked at Marcus carefully. There was awe and admiration all over his youthful face. Ironically, it was with the same spirit that the general himself, as a young man, had joined the army, and the target of his own admiration had been the troops. Throughout his thirty-five years of service the general had the unpleasant privilege to witness the change in the youth's disposition toward the military. Nowadays kids favoured vigilantes and anti-heroes. Order and discipline were no longer seen as values but as evidence of moral apathy.

To Marcus, the mutants had committed an act to be proud of, they were taking a stand for what was right and good. Unfortunately, to the U.S. government, it was an act of aggression comparable in seriousness to a general going rogue. As the President had told him over the phone: it was a clear message that mutants answered to no one.

"Doesn't that count for anything… sir?"

The general leaned back in his chair. It creaked shrilly at him, as if to scream "get it over with!" There were rules to follow and commands to obey. He wasn't doing the kid any favours by delaying the truth. "I was on the phone with the Commander-in-Chief before you came in," he revealed and, as expected, Marcus' eyes widened impressively. "The situation in Barden has given him reason to put Georgia under a state of emergency. Furthermore, I have been tasked," he nodded toward the black case behind Marcus, "to use that."

Marcus noticed the box for the first time and eyed it nervously. "What's in it, sir?"

"I'm not certain but my guess is, it's a weapon." The general turned serious. "Listen. Your friends may not have intended to frighten the public but what they did is tantamount to an ally breaking a defence pact. It's bad diplomacy. It sends the wrong message and in order to alleviate the situation the military needs to respond appropriately. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

When Marcus gave a resigned nod, he moved in for the final blow. "In a few moments I will mobilize the army's side of the task force. However, our official target has been updated. Not only will we be aiming to suppress Donald, we will also apprehend the unregistered mutants—"

"But, sir—!"

"—and if need be, treat any uncooperative registered mutant as a threat as well."

"But that's not fair!" Marcus cried angrily. "They've done nothing wrong!"

"They've done one thing wrong," reminded the general. "But don't worry, son..."

He rose from his chair and walked over to the weapons case. He flipped the clips and lifted the top, revealing a row of rifles that at first glance looked almost like a child's toy due to their being made of plastic. Underneath the guns was a deep recess in the foam that held stacks of strange-looking ammunition. They were too small for rifle bullets, and their transparent casing revealed that they were filled with an eerie green substance somewhere between solid and liquid in form. The bullets were visually similar to giant gel medicine capsules and evoked in Marcus the same ill feeling associated with taking one.

Plastered underneath the lid of the case was a bright yellow sticker warning that the weapons and ammunition must only be used against mutants. The general took one bullet, rolled it between his fingers curiously, and continued, "...I've been told this is nothing more than a tranquilizer designed specially for mutants."

Marcus winced slightly when the bullet caught the sunlight and a flash of green hit his eyes.

Somehow he felt that that wasn't true.

Stacie's eyes followed the woman who had pulled her to safety earlier run after Beca. The stinging had finally dissipated from her body and she was now able to get to her feet, but once she did her arm suddenly gave an involuntary jerk. Then a spark of electricity burst from her fingertips. "So are we… just going to sit here and watch?" she asked, wringing her hands absentmindedly.

"Chloe seems to have a handle on things, and those two women said not to break her concentration or else things could get bad," Cynthia Rose said with a small frown. She had noticed Stacie's hands spark out of the corner of her eye and recalled a similar experience after their last battle against Donald in Damascus when she had been struck down. She made a mental note to study at a more convenient time whether spontaneous electric pulses were a common after-effect of being drained, or whether it was due to proximity to Aubrey at the time of the draining.

"Do you think she might lose control again? I mean, the Heartless we fought last year was Chloe's, wasn't it?" Jesse said. "I'm not too eager to fight that again."

"But Chloe can't have reached her limit yet," said Aubrey, "not this soon." She turned to Kommissar and added, with noticeably less confidence, "Right?"

The stoic goddess gave a small nod in assurance. "She is fine. But this fight cannot go on much longer. She has angered the monster and hastened its transformation. The other woman," she gestured toward the blonde newcomer, "has the ability to suppress movement as well, it appears."

"Which is probably why Beca hasn't intervened yet," noted Luke.

"Hey!" The mutants turned toward the source of the harsh noise and saw Alice standing impatiently with a hand on her hip. "Does this mean the fight is over? Why aren't we getting rid of the Heartless—I mean saving Donald—yet?"

"Er... it's complicated," said Jesse.

"Well, it's about to get even more complicated," Alice retorted and stepped to the side, revealing Benji and Emily. "These two just told us that the fucking army is on the way."

"It's all over the news," Benji corrected hurriedly. In his panic he scrambled to form the right words to explain in the shortest time possible. "They've dug up some sort of mutant suppressor—"

"And they're coming after all of you," Emily finished. She was scared and intimidated to be standing before the infamous unregistered mutants but determined to do her part. After all, she had as much to lose as they did if they weren't warned properly. "They're saying you violated the agreement because you left the base without permission, so now you guys are fugitives again. So we were thinking: maybe the girl with teleportation powers should take you all somewhere safe—"

"What? No, screw that!" Bumper interjected angrily. "We're fugitives again? We promised to help them stop Donald—and we are. They can't just decide not to hold up their end of the bargain! And for chrissake, nobody gives a shit about asking permission in the heat of battle, everyone knows that!"

Aubrey, thinking steps ahead, gasped. "Chloe's classified as a fugitive!" she reminded them. "If they target her while Donald is still restrained..."

They all turned toward the battlefield. Nobody knew what would happen if Chloe's concentration broke at that moment, but judging by the forcefulness of her kidnapper-teachers in keeping everyone away from her, it wasn't good. And if Donald broke free while within arm's reach of her, there was no controlling that power.

"Mitchell, we gotta go!" Alice hollered, her iridescent wings fluttering anxiously behind her. "Enemies incoming!"

Over at the front lines, Beca snapped out of her trance. If Frankie was right and there was more to be discovered, then Chloe's family drama could wait until their lives were no longer in danger. She gestured toward Alice's yelling and once again told her captor, "We don't have time for this!"

"Just a little longer," Kate replied quietly. Her greenish brown eyes were still fixated on Chloe, but Beca noticed a difference in her features—features which Beca couldn't deny resembled Chloe's, but that was neither here nor there—worry. It was clear that whatever Kate was waiting for was taking longer than expected. "She'll be back any moment now..."

Beca tensed. She didn't like the idea that Chloe was 'gone' in the first place, that she had to be in this state of psychosis just to use her powers, even though Beca suspected that it was the only way Chloe could.

She didn't know what made her think it would work, but Beca scrunched her face and thought as 'loudly' as possible, hoping that Chloe's mind could somehow pick up on it amid the mass of other things in there.

Chloe…

Chloe...

The tangle of colourless molecules around Chloe began to coalesce and grow in distinction. They combined into a lengthy figure with a roughly rounded top and unattractive extremities flailing against some unseen force. The jerky motions bothered Chloe, so she stopped them. The figure abruptly froze and in that peaceful window she was slowly able to make sense of the rest of the world around her.

At some point while filling out her surroundings Chloe realized that she had gone so far into the metaphysical world that she no longer distinguished matter. She only vaguely remembered feeling an emotion, and then replacing that emotion quickly with a directive: stop this being. Stop its actions.

Stop him.

Finally, a face formed out of the soupy molecules before her. She began to see features that were scrunched up, expressing something she knew from memory to be Anger. Fury. Hatred. She allowed those emotions to materialize, to emanate from its body and come toward her like tendrils of smoke. She felt them: cold, bitter, and dark.

The strange world around her gradually became clearer and clearer until she eventually understood her position relative to the creature's. She was below it, it was above her; she was on flat ground, it was in the air. She determined that the anger was due to its immobility; the ugly flailing was a reaction and she came to the conclusion that her hold on the molecules was too tight.

So she loosened it.

Kate gasped. "She moved." Beca and Frankie strained their necks and eyes to try to see what Kate had seen. Indeed, Chloe's arms were now bent at the elbow and her weight had shifted to her rear foot; she was taking a more defensive stance.

"Is she—can I—? Chloe!" Once again, Beca yelled without permission, but in this instance she truly wished she hadn't because almost immediately after she had, Donald fell to the ground.

The mutants farther away reacted quickly and readied themselves for an attack. But Chloe, who now had her arms raised in front of her for balance, was still keeping Donald at bay. "I'm… I'm okay!" she called over her shoulder. The dark grey sky, the untended grass beneath her feet, and the familiar, stifling darkness coming from Donald threatened to overload her concentration, but she managed to keep one metaphorical foot in the metaphysical world. "He's struggling but I think I can hold him down."

Kate let out a small sigh of relief. She turned to give the go-ahead but Beca was already beside her girlfriend in a split-second.

When Chloe sensed another being competing for her attention, inviting her back to the physical world, she deepened her focus while still managing to sluggishly mumble, "Sorry, I overshot a little."

Despite the pressure of knowing they were expecting company very soon, Beca was still more relieved to hear Chloe back to normal than she was concerned about time. "That's okay, Chlo, you're doing great. I'm glad you're here... I really missed y—"

"BECA!" Nearly everyone behind them (including Pieter, although far less politely) yelled out to remind her that she had a more important task at hand.

"Right!" Beca swung her Keyblade and pointed it at Donald. "Keep him still, Chlo. He won't like this." A bright white light burst from the tip of the blade and connected with Donald's chest, beginning the mysterious process of cleansing his heart.

Suddenly, Beca felt something whizz past her ear. She turned away from Donald to locate the object and saw Chloe staring at the space between them. Then she saw it: a small green capsule, tapered on the front end, frozen in mid-air. A bullet. She had only just realized that the ominously green colouring was actually a liquid substance when another bullet stopped its trajectory mere inches to the right of Chloe's shoulder.

"Chloe, be careful!"

But the psychic was no longer as 'present' as she was a moment ago. Sensing multiple, rapidly incoming objects had pulled Chloe back into her fugue state, staring blankly at bullets she was stopping with her mind.

Beca, her arm still outstretched holding the Keyblade, glanced over her shoulder toward the other mutants, whose backs were now turned to her as they faced a squad of soldiers advancing from inside the mansion.

The army's special task force, distinguishable by their all-black body armour, had arrived in style, bursting through the doors and spilling into the courtyard like well-trained black ants. Meanwhile, overhead, a helicopter began dropping even more soldiers onto the roof for a better vantage point. Ten, twenty, thirty soldiers… Beca lost count—and even more were approaching from the forest, completing a wide formation that surrounded Donald and the mutants.

Beca felt a tremendous sense of relief. Their timing couldn't have been more perfect—not that their help was needed or even expected, considering Alice's warning; but it was perfectly timed for the soldiers to witness that the mutants had successfully subdued Donald without the need for military intervention. And now that they had just proven that mutants could—and would—handle threats from their own kind, they could end the day, pocketing their well-earned leverage for use in negotiations with Congress.

Beca was ready to exchange triumphant looks with her fellow mutants... but then she noticed a red dot on her chest.

"Nobody do anything crazy," Cynthia Rose warned quietly as the squad soldiers closed in, making it menacingly clear that they they weren't on their side.

One of the soldiers barked into the tense silence: "All unregistered mutants are to stand down and surrender. Resistance will be met with force. This is your only warning."

Cynthia Rose frowned. She was no expert in military tactics or law enforcement procedure, but she was certain that there was no protocol that allowed such a blatant threat on civilians—though she would call herself naive if she thought any one of the soldiers saw the unregistered mutants as anything less than fugitives.

She stole a glance in Aubrey's direction and saw that she, too, was alarmed by their forcefulness. Before either of them could say anything, however, Luke sought to diffuse the situation himself. "Look, we have the threat under control," he said firmly. "I'm sure if we could speak to someone in charge we can work things out without the need of force."

His words were met with indifferent silence, a silence that amplified the drumming of Cynthia Rose's heartbeat. Then she realized (du-dum, du-dum) that the soldiers were simply waiting for time (tick-tock, tick-tock) to run out. It was evident in their posture, their tone, that there was no negotiating and no compromise to be made. It was either yes or no; surrender or fight.

"Luke, Stacie. Just go."

Her voice was surprisingly steady for what she was asking them to do. And from the betrayed stares she received from Bumper, Alice, and the other unregistered mutants, it was as if she had issued their death sentence.

And she didn't blame them. After all, this was meant to be the fight to end it all; they were promised their freedom after this. The last thing they expected, after months of staying in hiding followed by days of intense training, was to be captured and detained anyway, thanks to their ally simply giving up. But Cynthia Rose knew that if the unregistered mutants ran and went back into hiding, it would set their plan back by months or, worse, make it altogether impossible to succeed.

That game-winning plan had been to show the world that, when given the chance to work together and without fear of persecution, mutants that had been trained and disciplined at Barden could overcome a mutant gone rogue. It would have set a precedent for a new era of mutant regulation: not one of suppression and punishment, but one of openness and trust. Without the need for restrictive laws, mutants would regulate themselves and responsibly maintain the peace between themselves and non-mutants.

It was a simple plan and Donald provided the perfect set-up for them. But they had not accounted for his striking Barden, which was not only the symbol of mutantkind, their home base, but also a place where innocent mutants were gathered. So once they found out, the team had no choice but to leave Fort Benning immediately. The bureaucratic chain of command would have been too costly—any rational person would have understood that.

But their biggest mistake, and ultimately the reason the unregistered mutants couldn't run away again, was forgetting that their true enemies hid in the shadows, waiting for an opening to exploit, looking for a reason the government could use to justify turning its back on mutants so quickly after just one act of disobedience. Their agreement to cooperate in fighting Donald, Cynthia Rose realized too late, was the perfect set-up for the enemy; another violation would only further deteriorate the public's trust in mutants.

The sudden turn of fortune was confounding, but Cynthia Rose couldn't be bothered to make sense of it. They had seconds to decide, and if all their careful planning had been for nothing, then the safest thing to do was comply—gain some goodwill—and fight another day.

Unfortunately, this industrious outlook wasn't shared by everyone, and the idea of going back to square one was the last straw for some.

"No fucking way."

"Bumper—"

"Nope!" Bumper shook his head vigorously. "Not gonna do it. Sorry."

Alice and Unicycle warily eyed the guns that swung with pinpoint precision toward Bumper. Every mutant was on edge, wondering how much longer the soldiers were going to allow him to speak.

"We had a deal, man," said Bumper. His tone was a mix of amusement and exhaustion and it perfectly expressed how everyone was feeling, minus the fear. "We agreed to help fight Donald and we did. We even beat him without you clowns."

"Bumper, they're not here to negotiate," reminded Cynthia Rose. "Just do what they say and we'll fight another day."

"You mean lose another day," snorted Bumper. "But by then, I dunno…" He shook his head and muttered, with surprising foresight considering the nature of his tantrum, "Things won't be the same."

"Bumper, I won't be able stop these bullets," warned Luke. It was only then that Bumper noticed the array of green bullets hovering in mid-air above them from the rifles of soldiers positioned on the roof. The bullets were on a trajectory that was aimed not at them but at Donald. They were stopped, presumably by Chloe, which gave him the opportunity to see that they weren't ordinary metal bullets, but plastic ones, which explained Luke's warning.

Still, Bumper wasn't fazed. "Doesn't matter. I'm not scared. Hell, that's why we're all here together, isn't it? We're a team. We cover each other's backs."

In this, Cynthia Rose found an opening. "You're right, Bumper. We cover each other's backs. So do that, now, and stand down. Please."

Bumper paused and he turned to his friends. Unicycle's expression was as tense as his stature, and Alice's wings were curled close to her body. Everyone else around them—the creepily quiet Asian girl, the tiny Latina, that one girl that just seemed to be in the background, and all the other mutants they'd picked up along the way—all were extremely tense. Looking closely at their faces, Bumper realized that what he was seeing wasn't just anxiety toward the soldiers' next move, but toward his as well.

When Bumper left the Institute, a place where he had spent many years free to be who he was, he did so not out solidarity with the others who had made the controversial decision, but as a giant middle-finger to the people trying to control his life. He had decided then that he would rather be a fugitive than a puppet and walking away from a life of luxury was the ultimate declaration of that.

His motives had been entirely individualistic then, but Bumper now realized that his actions may not have been. To an outsider, his leaving was only seen as a mutant disobeying the law, so his giant middle-finger was meaningless, like a papercut on a dead body. He was part of a group now, an item on a list; he was represented by, and a representative of, the entire group of unregistered mutants. Walking away that day only reinforced the enemy's argument that there would be other mutants who wouldn't register. His leaving only fuelled their fear-mongering.

And now, whatever Bumper did would affect not just him but all of the mutants standing beside and behind him. If he further provoked the soldiers, they wouldn't hesitate to shoot at his friends under the pretense that they belonged to the same group and, thus, had the same motives he had—even if they didn't. The realization and weight of this responsibility caught Bumper off guard, and he buckled under the pressure.

"This is just so… unfair." It sounded childish but there were no other words to describe their situation. "We can't win with these guys, not unless we give up what we believe in." Bumper waved a hand over Cynthia Rose and the others. "Look, I'm not dissing you guys or anything. If you registered, you registered, and that's that. But… what does it really mean?

"At first, you think it doesn't matter — so what if you give them your names? Your addresses? Every bit of information they ask for? In exchange, you get to stay in a cushy mansion and get all these fancy stuff, so it's all worth it, right? But look how far they've pushed in. Barden used to be a place where we could be ourselves and learn our powers, but those that are left there now aren't learning shit, are they?"

Emily looked down sadly. Bumper wasn't wrong.

"They're being taught to act normal, forced to think that their powers are a bad thing. They want to control us… But what happens when they find out we're not all easily controlled? I mean, look at us," he gestured at himself and his fellow unregistered mutants. "We refused to fill out a piece of paper and now we've got guns pointed at our heads. Registered or not, we are all mutants. We are all powerful and we are all capable of breaking the rules. We all … cannot be controlled."

He jerked a forceful finger toward the line of soldiers. "They know this. Why else could the task force so easily turn against us? And how do you think they'll react when, say, a mutant backfires on them, like if Big Bertha over here flattens an entire city with her fat ass by accident," he added snidely toward Fat Amy who, despite the insult, couldn't bring herself to retort. "When that happens, will they still cooperate? After all, they're the ones who came up with those stupid Categories, ranking us based on how easily they can stop us. Category One, Two, whatever—it's all just the same in the end: if any one of us does something remotely threatening—god forbid we leave their sight for one second to go save the world, right?—they have a plan for that and it isn't sitting at a table holding hands and apologizing to each other.

"So while those of you who registered enjoy all this freedom, think: are you really free... or is your master just holding the leash slack so that you think you are?"

There is something incendiary about the colour red. Stop signs, danger and warning signs. Fire. Blood. The colour red evokes so much violent context that a tiny speck of it against the dark blue of Beca's mission suit was enough to send a shock-wave through Chloe's mind, collapsing the world around her and sending her crashing back to reality.

The liquid-filled bullets fell to the grass and before she knew what she was doing Chloe reached out to grab Beca by the arm."Beca!" she cried instinctively.

"Chloe, wha—?"

Chloe had miscalculated the distance between them and they both ended up tripping over each other and falling to the ground.

It happened in the space of a second, but Chloe could identify step-by-step how everything went wrong. The moment her fingers curled around Beca's slim wrist was the same moment she realized that she no longer controlled the immobile mass of molecules off to the side that comprised Donald, who was now, thanks to her clumsiness, no longer being cleansed by the Keyblade.

Chloe immediately attempted to recapture Donald, but it was like grabbing at marbles falling out of a bag; she managed to get a grip on a few pieces, but that didn't avoid the overall mess.

Bumper felt a hand rest gently on his shoulder. It was Luke's.

"Everything you've said is true, yes. It's not fair." He paused. "But… I refuse to believe that this is always how it's going to be. I know it feels like loss after loss for us, but we're getting somewhere. Standing down today doesn't mean we're giving up, Bumper. It doesn't mean we're accepting their terms. Today, standing down means surviving. Surviving so that we get another shot at winning. Even if we lose, as long as we're alive, we can keep trying."

In contrast to the tense line of mutants in the foreground, the sudden commotion at the centre of the battlefield prompted the soldiers to readjust their targets away from Bumper. Two dozen elite sharpshooters, stationed at nearly every possible vantage point, followed protocol and opened fire.

"NO!"

But Aubrey's protests fell on deaf ears—at least on the part of the soldiers; the mutants scrambled to take cover or to bring each other away from harm. In her hurry, Aubrey got her foot caught in something hard and she fell forward onto the grass.

"Sorry." The utterance was muffled as though it came from one side of the speaker's mouth. Stacie was lying flat as a pancake on the ground, almost impossible to see from Aubrey's point of view. Above them, green bullets continued to sail toward Donald. "It was faster than pulling you down myself."

"No worries," grunted Aubrey, rolling onto her back and breathing heavily. "What are we going to do? How do we get out of here?"

"That's my line. You're usually the one with the—ah, fuck!"

Aubrey turned to her side and felt her heart sink. "Oh, my god. Stacie!"

"I'm okay, it doesn't hurt that much… but fuck, what are the odds, right?…" Stacie grimaced. She inflated herself back to normal to observe the damage: the skin between her glove and sleeve that was exposed by her outstretched arm was marred by an ugly wound. The bullet had struck her wrist bone but its gel-like casing prevented any serious damage. At most it was only a sprain.

"We need to get to Benji," Aubrey said urgently, getting up on her elbows to search for the healer.

"No, it might put him in the line of—" Stacie choked. In the space of a few seconds her skin had turned so alarmingly pale that the veins in her neck, temple, and cheeks stood out. She shut her eyes tightly against the unknown source of pain.

"Stacie?" Aubrey shook her gently to get a response but all she received was a strangled noise. Aubrey frantically crawled closer and brought her ear to Stacie's chest. Her breathing seemed fine. "What's wrong—?" Then, to her horror, Stacie seized up and started convulsing. "Stacie!"

Stacie needed to be brought to a safe place. In an act of desperation, Aubrey screamed into the air, "STOP SHOOTING!" and, as if to reinforce her plea, a body from the sky crash-landed just a few feet beside them. The crumpled up pixie wings told Aubrey who the next victim was. "Alice!" she cried. When the brunette rolled over, she saw the same pallid face and distressed shaking she saw in Stacie.

Revelation dawned on Aubrey. In the distance, she could make out Unicycle and Bumper falling to the ground as well. The convulsing—was it meant to make it easier to arrest them?

Aubrey spotted Luke, in full metallic regalia so as to be immune to the bullets, doing his best to negotiate a ceasefire. She looked in the other direction. Beca and Chloe were both huddled on the ground with their arms over each other. Above them, Donald was roaring in anger, initially in retaliation toward Chloe but once a bullet had struck him on the leg, he turned his anger toward the soldiers.

Aubrey was barely able to process what was going on to form a plan when she felt the earth beneath her disappear. For a few terrifying milliseconds she was floating through nothingness, and then she felt cold hard marble beneath her palms.

Her eyes readjusted. They were inside the mansion, in the foyer.

She released the tight grip she had on Stacie's hand, got to her feet, and looked around. Here and there, portals appeared and disappeared, bringing the mutants to (relative) safety indoors. It did not comfort her at all, however, since many of her fellow mutants were, like Stacie, ghostly pale and convulsing—or worse, completely unconscious.

"They're… they're dying."

Aubrey spun around and saw Benji, eyes wide open in distraught, kneeling beside one of the unregistered mutants to whom she had yet to be introduced. Lilly had likely teleported Benji to safety first, perhaps hoping that he could reverse the damage.

"What?" Aubrey's voice was barely above a whisper.

"It's—it's... wha-whatever's in those bullets," Benji said distractedly. "I can't do anything to stop it… It's attacking all parts of the body—the brain, the liver, the heart—and shutting them d-down—"

"But you said it was a suppressant!" Aubrey yelled and Benji flinched at her forcefulness. She was angry at him for overreacting, angry at him for bringing up a fear she never thought she would be confronted with. "A glorified tranquilizer! It's not going to kill them! That's insane!"

Benji looked up at her with pain in his eyes. "You could be right," he said softly, before pushing himself up and moving over to Alice to try his luck with helping her.

Aubrey continued to glare at him, following his movement through the room as though watching it in slow motion. Her eyes landed on Emily at the foot of the staircase, on her knees beside Unicycle, checking his pulse. On the steps above them, Fat Amy was yelling at Bumper to wake up while he dangled lifelessly from where she had him held up by the collar.

A portal suddenly appeared beside Aubrey and from the ground rose Beca, Chloe, and the teleporter herself. Aubrey cried out in relief, "Beca! Chloe! Are you okay?" Beca let out a string of curses and Aubrey's gut clenched. She couldn't take more bad news. "What? What's wrong?"

"I should have ended it faster!" said Beca, slamming her fist against the floor in frustration. "I was right there! I should have focused on releasing his heart!"

"It's not your fault. I was the one who lost control," Chloe said in dismay. She thanked Lilly, who lay still on her back, panting (quietly) in exhaustion but was otherwise fine. "How are the—?" Chloe stopped short when she witnessed the scene before her.

Following suit, Beca raised her head and let out a shocked cry. "No… no! What's going on? Is everyone—where's Jesse?"

"He's outside with Luke and those two from the dark place, negotiating," answered Emily from across the foyer. "They're not under fire, thank god, but…" She wrung her hands nervously. "Is it true, what Benji said? Are they…?"

"They can't be dead," Aubrey repeated firmly. "That can't be what those things were made for."

"You're right, it's not."

From the archway that led to the kitchen, Cynthia Rose emerged with a phone in her hand. Though they were relieved to see that she was unhurt, the expression on her face had their nerves on edge yet again. "I received an encrypted message from Luke's hacker friend during the fight," she began gravely. "He said that the missing documents they've been looking for may actually be the blueprints for this 'mutant suppressant' that the government has been recreating in secret ever since they took over AMG's research."

Aubrey frowned in confusion. "Didn't you say those files were from the SRA? Luke and I studied the act extensively; I don't remember there being blueprints for weapons—"

Cynthia Rose shook her head. "That's the thing; there isn't. Which makes us think of something else they may have come across that maybe looked like a weapon. The only thing in that project that needed a blueprint. Not necessarily a mechanical one… but perhaps a chemical one.·"

Aubrey recounted what she had learned in recent months. Only one thing stood out that needed any sort of blueprint. "... The serum?"

Beca raised an eyebrow. "You mean that thing they injected into soldiers that ended up—oh, god."

Cynthia Rose nodded morosely. "It makes sense…" she began, but nobody wanted to hear the explanation. It was enough to know that whatever their friends had been shot with was highly lethal.

Chloe had covered her mouth in shock. Emily didn't fully understand the details but she could tell that the situation was grave. Aubrey had turned away from the scene before them and, like her, Beca found herself trying to look anywhere else but at the bodies of her former classmates… the word 'former' now taking on a different, a more final meaning.

Every single one of them felt sick. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Even though they risked their lives fighting Heartless on a semi-regular basis, and as morbid as it was to think about their own demise, the mutants still imagined being defeated by a vastly superior power, like a great big Heartless or even a mutant sociopath. They were special. Powerful. Super-human. To fall to nothing short of a stupid mistake in chemical engineering was...

"There… there might be a way to save them."

Emily wasn't surprised that her announcement didn't grab the attention it deserved. After all, she was a young and inexperienced mutant compared to the rest; there wasn't any plan she could come up with that Cynthia Rose or Aubrey hadn't already. So Emily decided to get straight to the point: "I could go back in time."

Beca looked at her and Emily was glad to see there was hope in her eyes. "You've learned how to control it?"

"Well... no," Emily confessed sheepishly. "But I know where to start." She turned to Chloe. "Beca told us that the reason you had to leave was because no one here knew how your powers worked. I think it's the same for me."

"What do you mean?"

"I read your progress reports. Focus exercises don't work, right? I need to know what does so I can do it and go back in time and stop this all from happening."

But Chloe seemed skeptical. "Emily... it's not that simple. It takes weeks, months of concentration and isolation—"

"And is that something you want to subject your friends to?" said an unfamiliar voice from the top of the stairs. The mutants yelped in shock when they saw a soldier approaching them, but the man raised his hands in surrender. "It's me, Frankie. I had to knock one out and shift into him so I could get away."

"Where's my mom?" Chloe asked in a panic, ignoring everyone's confusion.

"Hiding. We split up but her powers will keep her safe, don't worry." Frankie reached the bottom step and stood face to face with Emily. "I heard your plan. You're a time-traveller, huh? Well, like Chloe said, it could take months for you to even attempt something that complicated. That's months of families and friends thinking their loved ones are dead—or, if you decide to tell them, waiting for you to bring them back. That's not even touching on the fact that, if you do this, you'd be setting a precedent: what if every person who dies wants you to bring them back? And what about the whole butterfly effect thing? Are you—"

"It makes sense..."

Chloe felt a hand gently pull her away from the group in mourning. She turned and met Emily's big brown eyes filled, not with sadness like the rest of theirs, but with a sort of panicked determination. "I don't have much time to explain," the young girl whispered urgently, "but there's a way to save them and only you and I can do it."

Chloe was confused. "What? How?" She turned instinctively to bring the others hope but Emily quickly pulled her away again. "No! They won't understand," she said frantically. "I've been through this already—and getting here was a total fluke already. I'm not betting on myself to be able to do it again."

"Do what—?"

"I have the power to travel back in time," Emily revealed, speaking rapidly, "but I have no idea how to use it. It seems to only happen at random times when I get really emotional or really stressed—like just after I floated the idea of going back and warning the others the first time. The shape-shifter—um, the other one, not Miss Charlene… but, hey, it's pretty weird how that happens, huh?" She shook her head vigorously. "Anyway, she told me it's too risky, blah-blah-blah, and that it took you weeks—and it'll take me possibly months—to grasp the concept, let alone the skill to do it properly. And that's time we don't have! I'd rather not prolong this grieving period and create an ethical dilemma every single passing second of my life—"

Chloe was still catching up to Emily's train of thought but the part about grieving brought her to focus. Chloe gripped the young girl by the shoulders and said firmly, "Emily, shush! Tell me how I can help you go back in time so we can stop this all from happening."

Emily's eyes shined with excitement. "Yes! So, one of the times the shape-shifter was really laying it on me, she mentioned bending reality. I figured that's what you've been doing while you were away and that's what I need to do, too! The problem is, I don't have as much time to learn how to, so I figured... why not combine our powers?"

"'Combine'? Emily, I don't think you understand how—"

"Benji once told me that you are potentially the most powerful mutant here," Emily said, completely seriously. "You are the only Category Three mutant and he said that that's because your powers are different from all of ours. Yours has to do with the mind, something that can't be explained by science. You can bend reality and you're a telepath, too, which means you can access what's real in my mind and manipulate it, right?" Emily moved her finger back and forth between them. "If you get into my head and apply what you know about bending reality, we could use my power together!"

"Emily, that's—"

"I told you, I already know what you're going to say. 'It's crazy', right? 'We don't even know if it'll work', right?" Emily paused to swallow. "But people are dying for the stupidest of reasons and here we are, the two of us, with the ability to save them. Don't we owe it to them to try?"

Chloe was speechless. Every impulse was telling her to do it but the methodology of Emily's plan brought to mind the issue Chloe had with using her telepathy to control people. Supposing she could even enter Emily's mind, Chloe would be crossing lines she herself had drawn. But on the other hand…

Stacie… Bumper… Alice… Unicycle...

One by one the faces of friends and fellow mutants crossed her mind's eye. It was hard to imagine them being close to death at that very moment. Everything seemed to be happening in the span of seconds and suddenly she understood why Emily was in such a hurry to convince her: better to not let the idea settle in. Best to act quickly.

But then Chloe wondered why Emily was denied her plan the first time. "What did Frankie said to you?" she asked. "The shape-shifter, what did she say that made you go back and tell only me?"

Emily fidgeted uncomfortably. "That I would be setting a precedent for saving other people in the future." She shook her head. "Look, I know there should be limits to what we do with our powers. I know that. But I just want to right this wrong now. No one deserves to die—and of course no one deserves to live more than anyone else but…" She let out a frustrated groan. She couldn't escape arguing with herself. "I just don't want it to end this way!"

Seeing the tears pooling in the corners of Emily's eyes, Chloe empathized. Emily was facing a moral crisis, as Chloe would, too, as per her agreement once she learned how to control minds. In either case there was no right thing to do; it was down to what their own choices would be.

"Clear your mind."

In a closet under the stairs, Chloe and Emily stood with their eyes shut in the darkness and silence.

Briefly before entering the room, Chloe had pondered the implications of what they were doing and the implications of their potential success. According to Emily, Frankie had been viciously shrewd, as Chloe would expect from someone perpetually wary of life; the shape-shifter immediately realized that time-travellers would be burdened with the responsibility to answer to people whose deaths could have been avoided. Frankie had probably even looked further than that, to a point where some people would desire to wrest that power from Emily and replicate it for themselves—after all, it wasn't so long ago that Chloe's power had been envisioned to satiate an energy-hungry world.

Was this ability even something one could replicate? The experiments done on her had failed. The SRA had failed. Could Emily's or her blood even be used to create a chemical cocktail of powers… that would eventually be mistaken for a weapon and one day kill an entire population of mutants...

Brushing off this final thought in her mind, Chloe started letting go of those images and emotions, allowing herself to once again see only the bare essence of the reality around her. When she opened her eyes again, for a split second there was nothing before her, and then the world started filling in—not physically, as walls and objects were irrelevant to her mind's reality—but theoretically. She saw only varying levels of energy in the space around her. Somewhere beyond, there was an ugly, flaring splotch; elsewhere, a low pulsing.

The most attractive area was an open, fresh, and clear spot right beside her. Upon closer inspection Chloe saw realities upon realities hiding inside that energy. She reached out for them, not knowing what to expect, not knowing where to go.

As soon as she entered this new realm, Chloe felt the presence of another being and it triggered in her a sense of direction. There was a reason they were in there together; they were supposed to be doing something.

Chloe turned toward all the different realities, which she had arranged haphazardly before her like giant screens connected by strings of energy, and noticed one that the other presence seemed to want to enter. Chloe merged their forms together and entered the new reality.

Emily woke up to the uncomfortable feeling of cold tile beneath her palms and the smell of sterile metal in her nostrils. Her head throbbed and her vision was, she discovered as she forcibly peeled her eyes open, slightly clouded as though she had been asleep for hours. It was difficult to keep her eyes open, let alone move her body.

Emily, wake up.

The voice in her head was strikingly familiar but it took a while before she could place it. "Chloe…?" Then she remembered what they had attempted to do. She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked around.

She was lying in the middle of a hallway lit by rows of fluorescent lights. Walls of thick concrete were bare and without windows. Emily could tell by the cold that they were underground. After taking in her surroundings, she noticed the absence. "Chloe? Where are you?"

I'm in your head, I think. I can see everything, but I'm not physically there.

"Are you okay? You sound funny."

I'm fine. I just have to concentrate and not lose focus.

Emily nodded. She didn't want to find out what would happen if Chloe broke their mind-connection while she was in this place… wherever this place was. "Where are we? Um, when are we?"

Not sure. Start moving.

Emily glanced towards both ends of the hallway and decided to walk down the one she was already facing, for there must have been a reason Chloe's and her subconscious brought them to that exact location. She reached a locked door, secured by a pinpad, and without hesitation walked through it. She suspected that Chloe's powers were boosting hers, and she knew that nothing in this world was un-bendable. Nothing could stand in their way.

Beyond the door was another, longer hallway, this time lined by rooms with only a single door and small window through which to see inside. The remarkable thing was that, although Emily knew there were walls, she didn't actually see them. They appeared as transparent objects with hazy outlines, and she could clearly see inside the rooms.

Each had a reclining chair, similar to a dentist's, raised on a small platform at the centre of the room. Surrounding it were various medical paraphernalia: x-ray scans, monitors, and sterilization equipment. There were no people at all, however.

"Chloe… do you think this is where the weapon was created?"

Keep going.

At the end of the hallway was a single room, and with Emily's sight she saw that it was a larger one compared to the others. It looked like a laboratory combined with her dad's garage: there were blueprints taped to walls beside the periodic table of elements; the tables against the walls were littered with junk; and a small TV in the corner played a series of videos of athletes showing off their skills. This room, unlike the rest, was occupied. Huddled around the main table were men in lab coats, talking and pointing at something on the table.

A sharp rattling to her side jolted Emily. There was another door at the end of the hallway, hidden from her by its awkward location within an alcove. It was a fire exit, and someone was coming through from the other side.

Emily quickly moved herself into one of the empty rooms and watched as another man in a lab coat walked into the meeting. He was carrying a clipboard and shaking his head. Suddenly, as though she had acquired magic earphones, Emily heard parts of their conversation.

"... still no difference in the anomalies."

"The formula isn't working…"

"... evidence needs to be sanitized ASAP."

Go through the door.

Emily wondered for a second if Chloe was asking her to interrupt the meeting, but then she realized that the 'door' meant the one the man had just left.

What greeted Emily beyond the supposed 'fire exit' was enough to turn her blood cold. Instead of a stairway it was a tiny room not much bigger than her single bedroom at Barden. Inside were half a dozen prisoners, young men and women, all with shaved heads, matching jumpsuits, and gaunt faces. They were sitting on wooden benches attached to three of the four walls.

In her shock, Emily failed to realize that she had entered the room being entirely visible to its inhabitants. "What—who are you?" one of the prisoners said, surprised. "Did you just go through the door?" another asked in disbelief. "Are you special, too?"

"Shh! Everyone be quiet!" A male prisoner stood and glared at Emily suspiciously. "You're one of us, obviously. But what are you doing here?"

But Emily was more concerned about the state of them. "You're in chains!" she exclaimed. "Chloe, we have to help them!" She felt a wave of pain, like a weak migraine, wash over her momentarily.

No. We need to focus.

If Emily was surprised to hear Chloe declining to help others, she didn't let it show. Instead, she turned to the prisoners, who were searching the space around her for whoever she was talking to, and said, "How often do they check up on you?"

The man who stood up took charge and responded at once. "Frequently. At least once every hour ever since we destroyed the security camera." He nodded toward the top corner of the room where the burnt out remnants of a camera was propped.

Emily proceeded to free them from their chains. "Then we have to go now. Do you know the way out?" Her headache was growing worse but she ignored it. "Everyone hold hands and stick together."

Focus. Weapon.

"After we get them out," she murmured quietly, even though it was likely that Chloe could just read her thoughts. The prisoners, meanwhile, debated in which direction they ought to go. "We're definitely underground," said the de facto leader. "So if you have a way of going up—"

In this reality, it wasn't a problem. Emily climbed the air with finesse that would've made Beca proud to call Emily her student. She poked her head through the ceiling carefully and was relieved to find herself in another empty hallway. Then, with Chloe's mental help, Emily was able to help the six prisoners sail through the floor just as easily as she had done.

The captives' leader pointed to a potted plant the end of the hall and said, "I remember that when we were first brought in. We're in some basement level of a building; the lobby should be just above us."

Emily took a step forward but stopped herself when she realized the walls lining the hallway, which she saw as vaguely translucent, were actually large tinted windows, behind which were more lab coat-wearing scientists. "Crap. We can't go through without being seen."

"Could we maybe pass underneath?" one of the mutants suggested.

Emily dipped her head slowly before pulling back and shaking her head. "That would be the main room downstairs, where all the people in labcoats are."

"How about a distraction?" the leader said. He jerked his head toward his fellow prisoner, a thin, wispy teenager whose breaths came out in wheezes. "We can set off the fire alarm and you can bring us through the room while they run out."

Emily. The weapon.

Emily rubbed her temples distractedly. It was becoming more difficult to keep her mind focused. "Um, yeah, okay."

The thin boy craned his neck toward the ceiling and let out a puff of smoke from his throat, as effortlessly as though he were expelling cigarette smoke. It wafted toward the smoke detector in the middle of the hallway and after a few more puffs it started to alarm.

"Let's go." The leader grabbed Emily's wrist and that of a female mutant beside him. They kept an eye on the commotion, and when the scientists laid down their tools and rushed toward the doors, Emily simultaneously phased them through to the newly vacated room.

"It won't be long before they realize we've escaped," the leader said quickly. "And if I'm right about our location, there should be an underground parking lot behind this wall." He walked across the room and rested his palm against the wall opposite the doors.

On her way to test his theory, Emily accidentally bumped her hip on the corner of a steel table, causing a rack of test tubes to spill over. She cursed and leapt away to avoid coming in contact with its contents.

A strange green liquid, semi-translucent and almost slimy in appearance, spread across the papers and items on the desk. Emily noticed another blueprint. 'DO NOT DUPLICATE' was stamped in red across the top and 'CLASSIFIED' watermarked the centre. From what her muddled mind could gather, it detailed the chemical composition of something titled 'the Super Soldier Serum' and a long list of instructions on how to administer it.

This is it.

Emily quickly grabbed the blueprint before the green liquid reached it.

"Hey, let's go!"

She poked her head through the wall and was relieved to find that it was indeed a basement parking lot. And a surprisingly empty one at that. "Clear," she said.

They ran across the lot and through to the building's service entrance. (The security guard had been called for evacuation duties.) Once outside, they didn't cease putting distance between themselves and the complex. They sprinted through alleyways, ignoring the bewildered looks they received from people as six haggard, jumpsuit-clad individuals led by one teenager passed them by.

As they zigzagged through streets, Emily noticed that her surroundings started to become more distinct: tall buildings, a mishmash of colours and stylized graphics on billboards, and yellow taxi cabs. It seemed as though Chloe was realizing their location. "This looks like…"

Before Emily could determine with certainty whether they were indeed in New York City, the lead prisoner directed them all into a tiny nondescript thrift store. "We're doing a show," he explained calmly to the bewildered shopkeeper. "Canvassing for some outfits." Then, when the shopkeeper nodded in understanding, he turned to Emily. "We need a change of clothes. Do you have any money?"

"No, sorry, I—"

In the above-ground light, Emily finally got a clearer view of the formerly captive mutants. She had initially thought they were old—with their gaunt faces and unkempt hair—but they were in fact quite young, perhaps even her age, or Beca's. She locked eyes with the female mutant behind the leader. Another wave of pain washed over her at the sight of the young woman's greenish brown eyes.

They heard the faint sirens of fire trucks in the distance. "We can stay here," suggested one of the mutants in the back, pressing a faux-fur vest against his chest and checking himself out in the mirror. "They won't expect us to stay within ten blocks of the facility."

The leader grabbed a handful of clothes from a nearby rack and tossed them to the others. Then he began to undress right there. "Someone take care of him," he instructed, with a nod toward the shopkeeper who had his back turned to them. "The rest of you, get rid of the jumpsuits and stay in the back."

Emily opened her mouth to protest, but it resulted in a gape when she saw him morphing into the slightly overweight, balding shopkeeper. "Wait a second, you're a—!"

The woman behind the shape-shifter stopped by Emily on her way to the back. "Thank you," she said solemnly. "You saved our lives." Up close, her eyes were more vivid and… familiar.

M-Mom?

Emily hissed loudly as a sharp and sudden pain threatened to split her head apart.

A flurry of images flooded her mind—a tired-looking woman running a hand through her head, sitting on a kitchen table laden with overdue bills; that same woman standing behind a counter and cracking eggs into a bowl; and, finally, the woman standing a few yards away on a grassy field, watching her intently as she held someone captive in mid-air…

Emily realized that she was seeing these images through Chloe's mind, and that this woman was Chloe's mother.

This woman was Chloe's mother.

Distantly, she heard the other mutants changing into their disguises. "Yo, Frankie, where do you want us to put him?"

She and Chloe had indeed gone back in time. However, they had travelled not twenty minutes, but twenty years, into the past.

It's impossible!

Emily fell to her knees. The pain in her head blinded her. The reality around her, which she hadn't noticed had become far more solid, flickered between various states of tangibility. She no longer knew where she was; she didn't even know if she existed in that reality anymore.

There was no guiding voice in her head. Chloe's presence was gone.

Overwhelmed by shock, Emily blacked out.

Apologetic A/N: After almost two years without an update, I can only assure you that, despite the hiatuses, writing and finishing this story are never off my mind. As I often reply to the kind people who send me messages about The Light: the story already exists in my head, it's just a matter of writing it down. Life can get in the way, but writing will always be a part of mine and so I will always try to find time for it.

To be honest, this update was ready months ago but the editing took a long time. This chapter, which is ideally the penultimate of Season Three, is close to 13,000 words because I couldn't decide what to cut. I didn't want to split it either because I felt like everything needed to be said here before I end the season.

Lastly, I want to thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoy it.

Response to Reviews:

Guest (Mar 11) - Sorry about that! Rest assured it will never be abandoned.

Kt (Nov 12) - Thank you for your insightful review! I wanted to portray Chloe and Beca's relationship exactly as you described. Both are characters with individual depth that can be independent of their relationship. I hope to continue to give all these characters unique voices and perspectives, as numerous as they are becoming, and to explore their powers further. Thanks again!