[OP: "Revolution"-- The Score.]

Magneto made his way towards Shine.

"Did you think that would intimidate me, woman?" he asked.

The crowd was starting to leave, as the hosts had announced they were ending early tonight, for obvious reasons.

But some of the Mutates still saw this.

"Stay back." Gambit held up a card.

Magneto ignored him.

"How dare you show yourself here?" Storm said.

"Careful, Erik," Shine just said, her tone full of haughty disdain. "I named no names, but if you out yourself here, I can't do anything to stop it."

"And these humans cannot either, and there are not enough of you to stand up to us," Magneto said. "You will fail. I warned you."

"And we warned you," Shine said. "As of this moment, your assassination squad has been soundly whipped by the X-men, and the national guard has been alerted that a known mutant terrorist was planning to cause trouble at our conference tonight."

"What?" one Mutate said.

"Of course we told them that many peaceful mutants were also attending and were concerned about it," Shine said, smiling slyly. "But the name Magneto did seem to raise some concerns. Oh, and get this, they said they'd bring plastic weapons."

Magneto suddenly got a very different look in his eye. "You're bluffing."

"Am I?" Shine said, suddenly sounding fierce. "Am I really? Yeah, you know the staff here have working phones. It took all of five minutes once the police heard we had an actual suspect who might show up."

Magneto and his Mutates looked stunned.

"Didn't think we'd do it, did you?" Wally couldn't help but say. "Thought we'd never try to turn you in."

"You realize you will make it worse for mutants," Magneto said. 

"Poppycock!" Shine shot back. "(Because a worse word would not be appropriate in church). You started this. Our doing the reasonable thing will make us look good and you look bad--that is the long and short of it. Stop blaming us for your poor decisions, you fool. We warned you."

Her eyes suddenly flashed. "I'd get out of here while you still can. Once this room is cleared, we're going to tell them you're here...and if you make one move, even one, to harm any humans, I will send you into the earth's magnetic field. I know you will survive this...but it will take you a long time to get back here, won't it?"

Magneto glared at her.

"And if your pathetic little followers over there make one move," Shine added, "the X-men will first thrash them and then give every single one of your names to the police, along with our best guess at your location and a free offer to help them track you down--and with weapons that will work on you."

Magneto and his Mutates looked even more shocked.

"And furthermore--" Shine took a savage step towards him. "--if you touch one of our children ever again, and I mean so much as a threat, I will do the exact same thing. And we will not rest until we've searched the globe for you. And your camp. And if that is not enough, we will go a step further. You have children, no?"

Magneto suddenly looked dark. "Are you threatening them?"

"No, I would never do that," Shine said, with utter disdain. "I'm not you. But I think they'd like to know what you did, wouldn't they? Perhaps their opinion will matter to you. I see no one else's does."

"Ouch," Gambit muttered.

"You little--" Magneto said.

"Hey, don't you talk disrespectfully to her," Wally interrupted him. "You're in plenty of hot water. You're lucky we're not beating the crap out of you right now, but we're Christians, so we're trying to do the right thing here."

"The only reason we're even letting you go is to avoid a scene," Shine said. "I'm sure you'd like us to have one, wouldn't you? But no. You can believe all of you will find yourselves portalled either out of the country or into police custody if you even try to trip someone. Now, get out!" She threw the last part.

She had fully intimidated the Mutates. They ran for it without waiting for Magneto to say so.

"Oh, and FYI, Jackass," Shine said, "the next time you try to crash a church event, don't have your followers send threats in advance to show to the police." She held up a paper. "Still think this wasn't your own fault?"

Magneto looked at Storm and Gambit, who looked ready to back her up.

"I'd go while de offer stands," Gambit said.

"Indeed." Storm's tone was icy.

Wally just crossed his arms and glared.

Kurt hopped down from the ceiling.

"They are giving you mercy, even now," he said. "Vhere is your shame?"

Magneto looked at him, then at them. "I will go, this time," he said murderously. "But do not think this is over."

"Don't push your luck, Erik," Shine called after him, as he started to fly away. "You can fight us all you want, but you are fighting God now. And even if you strike us down, you will never beat Him, and precious in His sight is the death of his saints. You have enough sins on your soul--you do not want to add that one."

Magneto didn't answer her, he just left.

"Why couldn't we take 'em?" Gambit asked.

"Thought you were against arresting mutants, Remy." Shine was still in a savage mood.

"Well...yeah, but fighting is fine," Gambit said.

"You think we were going to fight him and it wouldn't end in that?" Shine scoffed. "No way. The police will attack them as soon as we indicate who they were. I didn't like playing that card, but we had over 6000 people here to think of. Thankfully, they at least are unharmed. We must get back to the house.... I can't bear to think of the others dealing with this alone."

"If only I knew Jubilee and Kevin would be found in time, I would feel easier about it," Storm said.

"Wolverine knows that he's doing," Wally reassured her. "They'll get them, no worries."

* * *

In fact, the problem was resolved faster than even that.

Psylocke got a call from Magneto telling her to return the kids.

"Why?" she said. "We have leverage."

"Because I have been informed that if we continue this, the government is going to be told where to find us and how," he said. "And at this moment our forces are not organized enough to prevent this from happening. We are dealing with a teleporter, someone who can instantly warn anyone. We cannot fight this, yet."

Psylocke frowned. "Yeah...fine.... How did she--?"

"You failed," Magneto said, scornfully. "How did you fail? There were three people there. You had at least 2 dozen."

"Because Mystique is a tougher opponent than you'd expect," Psylocke said. "And it turns out some of those kids and Morlocks had powers we didn't predict, that's how. It wasn't my fault."

"Fail me once, shame on you. Fail me twice, shame on me. I never should have trusted you," Magneto said.

"Wait," Psylocke said. "I might have a way around your teleportation problem. It's going to take time, but if I provided you with a solution..."

Pause.

"I may forget this...if you can make good on it."

"Give me a chance."

"Fine...this will be your last one. In the meantime, return the children. It's not worth the hassle. We'll have to wait for a better time."

Psylocke sighed.

She turned the plane around and actually intercepted the Blackbird part of the way back.

Rather than give the X-men a chance to fight her and her crew, she had them put the kids in parachutes and drop them out of the plane.

The X-men caught them, to their relief.

But Logan was still mad the others got away.

* * *

Morph was relieved when he heard the situation was dealt with.

What a nightmare. He'd been losing his mind with worry for the last couple hours.

Even now, he wasn't entirely sure he was okay.... Too many people were hurt.

He felt guilty too. He'd been kind of harsh to Mystique the day before, albeit unintentionally, and now this...

He should have cut her a break. She ended up being right anyway--Magneto wouldn't leave them alone...

But Mystique didn't gloat at all beyond her one comment. She seemed upset still.

It was shameful, Morph thought to himself. Hadn't he learned anything from the past several months?

And how were they not smarter than this?

"You seem uncharacteristically downcast." Mystique finally took note of the fact that he wasn't trying to lighten the mood.

"It's not exactly like there's anything to joke about," Morph said.

Mystique raised an eyebrow. "So there is a limit to that optimism? Good."

Maybe he had that one coming...

"I guess I owe you an apology, huh?" Morph said weakly. "You were right about Magneto."

"No," Mystique said. "I was foolish to think that idea would work..." She bit her lip. "I thought nothing would happen, after all day of nothing. We were sitting pretty for it."

"You can't blame yourself for that," Morph said. "We left you here.... We were stupid."

"Magneto played you," Mystique said. "But there was no real way to predict what he'd do.... Psylocke was probably watching the house...waiting to see how many of us were there.... Telepathy allows for too much leeway..."

"Starting to see why you hate that power so much," Morph admitted. "But if Jean or Xavier had been here, couldn't have happened. So, still on us."

Mystique sighed.

Morph couldn't understand why it was bugging him so much to watch this.... Since when did he concern himself so much with Mystique?

Maybe it was just guilt.

She did look kind of sad and pathetic though...like a wounded puppy.... Maybe it was just that.

Oh...that was it. She wasn't trying to act tough. Seemed like the situation had shattered her ability to do so, and she had not been able to put it back together yet.

Mystique was so much in shock that she hadn't yet noticed she wasn't acting composed. She could only think about how horrifying the whole experience had been.

Cindy's injury bothered her. She couldn't shake that image.

She hugged her sides. "Pyro is a fool..."

"Yeah..." Morph said. "I can't believe that. Even if it wasn't intentional, what kind of crazy person uses fire to intimidate a kid?"

"I'm shocked that you didn't end that line in a joke about pyromania," Mystique said.

Morph slapped his forehead. "When you're saying the obvious puns and I'm the one who's not in the mood for jokes, you know it's been one crappy day."

"Even if I make bad decisions," Mystique said, out of nowhere, "I wouldn't hurt a kid like that... not on purpose...not because I wanted to..."

She shivered.

"Who said anything about that?" Morph said.

"You said I can't pick a side." Mystique sounded a little hollow. "It's true...I almost thought about switching sides. Psylocke offered. But I saw she was lying...and they were going to take the kids. Not something I do...not if I could help it.... Seemed better to play the hand on the side of the X-men for now than try to win back their favor when it was probably a trap anyway. Turns out I was right about that. I suppose it's despicable to even consider the other option...but it's not what I wanted to happen...it's...just..." She stopped again.

"I don't know if.... Maybe that's bad, but at least you didn't go through with it," Morph said uncertainly.

"An X-man wouldn't even think of it," Mystique said bitterly.

"An X-man wouldn't get anything out of it, probably," Morph said. "Who knows...? It's hard to not take the easiest option...I guess.... I mean, I guess it's about what's more important to you--survival, or saving other people. I think it's harder to watch other people suffer and do nothing than it is to suffer yourself...but maybe that is an X-men attitude."

"I didn't want Cindy to get hurt," Mystique said quietly. "I didn't set her up. That may be hard to believe...but..."

"Uh, not really. I saw Sabretooth try to kill you and Kitty. Didn't really cross our minds that you guys could have been protecting the kids right about then," Morph interrupted. "What are you talking about anyway? No one is saying you set her up."

Mystique was silent.

Then in a low voice, "They'll say I did. They'll say I did something to get out of it..."

"Did you?" Morph said.

"No," Mystique said. "It was in my interest to make sure the kids survived. We needed each other's help. None of us had enough power on our own.... They took Proteus out first thing, I knew that immediately.... It was just a matter of logic, but Cyclops will certainly think otherwise..."

"Scott's an idiot anyway," Morph said. "And you're a little loopy still if you think the others are going to assume that. We saw what happened. Mystique, no one is accusing you of anything."

Mystique looked up finally, like she was realizing what he was saying. She seemed scared...

Morph suddenly understood.

No one ever gave Mystique the benefit of the doubt...ever.

Not once...probably. Except maybe for Shine, and no one listened to her.

In fact, the others rushed to blame her for everything.... It had been mildly annoying to Morph before, but he'd brushed it off as their stress-related irritation, and, as a team member, he could do that.

But to an outsider? Someone like Mystique? What did it seem like?

Her hostility suddenly made perfect sense...too much sense.

And, for once, clearly she was bothered by what happened, but she was still assuming she was going to be blamed for it...

That was just soul crushing.... Morph wanted to smack both himself and the rest of the team for being so thick-headed.

Forgetting who he was talking to, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Seriously, no one is going to blame any of you guys. You're the victims here, all right? Just relax."

Mystique gave him the strangest look, like he'd just said something in Latin.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Morph realized that she might not be used to this kind of treatment and pulled back. "Sorry, just trying to help."

"Well, don't." Mystique suddenly was retreating behind that wall of indifference again. "It is what it is."

Moment over, Morph supposed.

"Kinda surprised you're not more mad at us, actually," he said. "Most people in your position would be."

"Waste of time," Mystique said.

That was taking on a new and very unpleasant meaning for Morph.

Waste of time? As in she just didn't care--or she fully expected no one to care if she was mad.... No one did, did they?

Was this what Shine had been saying all this time? About what people couldn't understand?

This was too much to think about. He needed some space to mull it over...

Thankfully, right then Shine herself walked in.

"Oh my gosh!" She rushed over to Mystique.

"Don't hug me!" Mystique cried. "I'm bruised all over! I swear I'll break your wrist."

Shine stepped back. "Sorry," she said, holding her hands up. "I was worried. I heard it went bad here. Raven, I'm so sorry. We were so stupid..."

"Oh, don't you start now." Mystique seemed finally back to normal. Shine seemed to relax her a little. "You don't need to act pathetic about it too."

"Who else did?" Shine asked.

"Uh, you heard about...?" Morph changed the subject.

"Yes..." Shine's face fell. "Is she okay?"

Hank looked in from the next room. "She's as comfortable as I can make her for now. Time will tell. I think she'll live, but scarring...and discoloration...well...we'll have to see. Mutants like her are hard to judge. The burns may heal with the scales and peel off and be like new, or...it may work more like normal skin and be permanent..."

"If we had the advanced medicine of the future, there might be more to do about it," Shine sighed. "But here...well, prayer always can do wonders."

"What about Magneto?" Morph asked. "Did he ever show up?"

Shine looked at him and smirked oddly. "Oh, he showed up."

"He had the nerve?" Mystique was stunned.

"Oh, he regretted it," Wally said, looking in. "How ya doing, Misty?"

"Stop calling me that," Mystique said.

"Want me to use Raven also?" Wally asked.

"No!"

"So what happened?" Morph said.

"I think we should tell you that later," Shine said. "I have to check on the kids.... Kitty was the only one not hurt, barring her exhaustion. She passed out for a while, but she's okay now. That mutation of hers is a blessing, if you ask me. Forget the burden part."

"Yes...that is the only reason we survived," Mystique said. "And if Magneto got her, no one would be safe...and the other kid?"

"They're okay," Shine said, "thankfully.... Trinity may be grounded for the rest of her life...but..."

That was a real concern.

How Trinity explained to her parents why the phone line was down and she had to call them from a radio phone, and how she'd been caught up in a fight between mutants, no one was quite sure.

If she hadn't included the detail about hitting someone with a frying pan, she might have been grounded till the kingdom came.

As it was, Pam Grayson was horrified that her daughter had had to resort to that kind of violence.

But...

Well, Ted was not so horrified...kind of part horrified, part proud.

"I mean, I hate that it happened at all but that's my girl at the same time," he said. "Maybe she can handle herself."

"You think this is a good sign?" Pam was appalled. "We can't let her keep this mutant thing up."

"It's no use, Pam," Ted said. "Her heart's in it now. We pull her out now, she'll start going behind our backs.... Maybe the best thing to do is just to accept the situation and let her decide. Been thinking about what that lady said, about choosing people's callings.... We can't do it. She has to do that for herself."

"But she's still so young. She's a baby," Pam said.

"I don't know--I knew what I wanted to be when I was 16," Ted said. "Maybe some things you just know, and if she knows, she knows..."

They still had a long talk with Trinity when she got home, finally, about the conference, as well as everything else. But in the end, to her astonishment, they told her that no further punishment was mandated. She hadn't gotten into this one by her own fault, so there was nothing to punish.

And Ted asked her seriously if she thought the risk was worth it.

Trinity had to answer honestly.

"I was scared out of my mind, Dad." She hugged her sides.

Pam hugged her also, shaking her head.

"But if I hadn't been there, maybe things would have gone even worse," Trinity said. "I helped save my friends.... I hated it...and..." She closed her eyes. She didn't want to explain about Sabretooth. He was already arrested again, and it was too much to explain how he'd even gotten out. And it was still a secret about Magneto and the X-men. "The mutants can be scary. But they stood up for me too, and each other. Some of them. They're like anyone else. Some are good and nice, and others are bad. But this feels important. I just can't see myself giving it up now."

She glanced at them nervously.

Pam sighed.

Ted cleared his throat. "Your mom and I decided to leave it up to you. We're not crazy about what keeps happening over it. But we figure it's not our place to stop this if it's God's will.... We want you to be careful...but...you'll be an adult in a couple years anyway, and you'll go ahead then, and we'll get no say, so...might as well support you while we still can call some of the shots. How do these mutants keep finding each other?"

"It was over the conference," Trinity said. "Like I said...maybe it'll settle down once it's over...but...I mean...they're all risking their lives..."

"No one should have to let their daughter make a choice like this," Pam said, upset. "It's not fair."

"But it's not fair," Ted said. "War isn't fair either.... You have to decide what's right, Trin.... If we stop you now, what was the point in teaching you that your whole life? Just didn't expect to get tested on it like this. But you have to try not to take any stupid risks."

Trinity nodded.

"This is worse than the gang violence at schools..." Pam muttered.

"Overall...not actually sure it is," Ted said. "Statistically."

"Oh, Ted!" Pam said. "They're mutants! They can do worse than pull a switchblade!"

"I guess...maybe you should start carrying pepper-spray," Ted said.

Pam gave up.

Trinity had the strangest feeling, though, after that conversation, that in a way, she was never going to be a kid again, at least, not the way she had before. If she was choosing to do something like this, and her parents were allowing her too...who was responsible but her now?

She talked to Will about it via phone, finding it hard to process.

"I felt like that once I moved to campus," he said. "Not that it was as dangerous... Never thought you'd deal with it in high school though, sis. I never thought I'd say this out loud, but I'm kinda proud of you. You're tough."

"I was terrified," Trinity said. "And...I'm still freaking out."

"Yeah, but you just have to stick with it, don't you?" Will said. "That's how it is, you know? With some things. How's the girl by the way? The one from school."

"She's okay.... We didn't talk that much, but she seems cool," Trinity said. "Powerful...I guess."

"Yeah, some people kept wondering about her," Will said. "Word of advice, sis...don't go broadcasting how many mutants you know. Even I've got some funny questions, and all we had was the same chem class and biology one semester. I don't want anyone to pick you out as a guru."

Trinity didn't have the heart to tell him it might be too late for that. At least...Psylocke knew who she was now.

She couldn't understand, actually, why she was so determined not to be dissuaded.

The experience had shaken her, but not her resolve. It was like her resolve and her emotions about it were two different parts of her and not connected at all.

Maybe that was what it was like to have a calling.

[From what I've read, it's a lot like that. Finding your calling, your passion, it's something you'd do no matter how dangerous it was. I have things like that in my life also. I also know many Christians who just accept risk as part of ministry. I go to a church that has violence in the area on a monthly basis sometimes, and I know of worse locations. But that's just how it is, like Daniel just went about praying once praying to God became illegal. Some things you've already decided you'd die for, so when the time comes, you just do them, no matter what. There's precautions to take, but they can only go so far.]