Generation X, The X-Men and all related characters are the 
property of Marvel Comics. No copyright infringement is 
intended.

This story and all original characters are the property of the 
author.
________

To Hell and Back: Part Four
 


She didn't like the X-Men.

There was no real cause behind it. No reason for it. Maybe 
over the last five months she'd become distrustful of strangers.

Nah. She'd always been distrustful of strangers.

Jubilation Lee glared at the man before her. Tall and dark, he'd 
introduced himself as 'Paris' and he seemed to be doing his 
best to put her at ease. All he was doing was making her even 
more nervous.

She'd listened to his talk about training her in the use of her 
powers to fight Apocalypse and she hadn't been impressed. But 
it looked like the only real choice she had... Where else was 
there for her to go? Her family, her friends; they had all been 
killed in the culling. And even if one or more had survived they 
wouldn't want anything to do with her. She was a mutant, a 
member of the ruling elite. She was someone to be afraid of. 

She was twelve years old.

Jubilee didn't let up her harsh gaze for an instant, even as she 
heard footsteps approaching. Paris was waiting for her answer 
and she didn't want to give him one. But they could only stay 
here so long before back-up arrived to take the camp and any 
remaining prisoners back. She had to make up her mind and 
then get out of there. It wasn't even a tough choice. Join the X-
Men bratpack and learn how to use her powers, or start 
wandering the streets pilfering food and supplies from others 
and hoping the Infinites never found her. Or the Cadre. Or the 
Mardri. Or the Elite. Or the humans. Or the rebels.

Some bloody choice.

Serve Magneto.

Starve on the streets.

So why couldn't she make up her mind?

"You coming, chica?"

The familiar voice startled Jubilee out of her reverie. She 
looked up and saw two of the most welcomingly familiar faces 
she'd seen since - well, since the last time they'd been the two 
most welcomingly familiar faces she'd seen. "Ange?"

Angelo and Claudia approached calmly, barely affording a 
glance to Paris. "We're heading out," Angelo said. "Back up 
troops will be here soon. You coming?"

"You serious? You mean that?" Jubilee could barely hope they 
had.

"Course we do. You're family, Lee." Angelo smiled and took 
her arm with one had. "Now let's get moving. I don't want to be 
here when the Infinites arrive." He gave Paris a bland smile. 
"Nice meeting you. Thanks for the rescue and all."

"Wait! Jubilee, have you really considered our offer?" Paris 
asked.

Jubilee shrugged. "I don't do the whole revolutionary thing, ya 
know? I think refugee is more my style. Maybe minor rebel. 
You guys," she added with an expression so innocent anyone 
who knew her would have run for cover, "are *way* out of my 
league. Adios."

She let Angelo and Claudia pull her away then, keeping up 
with the quick pace they set heading out of the camp and away 
into the city. Jubilee knew they wouldn't be safe for a very long 
time - maybe never again. But for now, it felt right.

"Have I mentioned recently," she asked, "that I'm glad I met you 
guys?"

Angelo grinned and tousled her hair with one hand. "We're 
glad we know you, too, amiga."

"What did that X-Man want, Lee?" Claudia asked. "What offer 
was he talking about?"

Jubilee filled them in as they walked. The section of the city 
surrounding the gene-pens was empty at the best of times - 
after all, who wanted to be near something they spent most of 
their lives trying to avoid? - so they were more or less free to 
talk. The few people who did happen across them were usually 
human servants or workers who went out of their way to avoid 
them after seeing Angelo, whose grey, somewhat droopy skin, 
showed him to be either a mutant, or someone with a really bad 
skin condition - either way, someone to be avoided.

When she finished talked Claudia and Angelo exchanged a 
look she couldn't quite decipher, but said nothing, merely 
hastening the pace even more. The tall metallic and concrete 
structures surrounding them cast odd shadows on the ground 
and in the deepening twilight took on ethereal forms. A 
chimney became a great bird of prey, ready to swoop down and 
tear them limb from limb, tear at their flesh until its hunger and 
bloodlust were sated. The glint of the fading remnants of 
twilight off a window became an Infinite watching them, 
readying his weapon to strike when they didn't expect, when 
their guard was furthest down. Every alleyway and doorway 
became the den of some unspeakable monster, waiting for its 
prey to walk right up to it's entrance so it could reach out and 
feast without stepping out of its home.

Jubilee walked faster.

They were heading out of the city. By the time night had fully 
set they'd be out of there and into what had once been the 
suburbs. Not that they were any longer - in perhaps the most 
ironic actions of his regime Apocalypse had struck at the 
suburbs, not the cities. Ironic and smart. He destroyed the 
people working in the cities, and the people who may have 
stood up against him, without destroying the economy of the 
city. The factories and manufacturing plants, everything 
necessary to keep a country up and running, remained 
untouched.

Smart man, that En Sabah Nur. Almost scary, how smart he 
was.

Angelo was going slower now as they reached the edge of the 
city, and since he had one arm wrapped around Jubilee's 
shoulders, she too slowed down, although she was so scared of 
the nightmare images she imagined that she wanted nothing so 
much right then as to run away from them - even if they did 
only exist in her mind.

It was getting too dark to see clearly and the moon hadn't risen 
yet, so she couldn't see whatever it was that had caused Angelo 
to slow down. He carefully pressed two fingers across her lips, 
signaling her to keep silent.

As they kept going and Jubilee's eyes adjusted she saw what he 
had seen: a guard. Her breath caught in her throat and she 
tensed, half frozen, but Angelo only tightened his grip on her 
shoulders and tugged at her a little. She followed, never taking 
her gaze from the guard. Any second now he would shoot, or 
call for reinforcements - would freedom really be that short?

But the guard did nothing. He looked right at them, he had to 
know they were escapees - every guard in the city probably 
knew what had happened at the gene-pens by then - and 
leaving the city without the proper papers was illegal anyway. 
But the guard did nothing.

Jubilee was convinced she didn't breathe until they were out of 
the city and far out of sight of the guard, although Angelo 
would later tease her about panting like a dog trapped in a car 
on a hot day. They holed up in one of the houses abandoned 
after the bombings - one in fairly good condition, too. Claudia 
started a fire, saying that with all the refugees and escapees 
camping out in the suburbs no one would ever know it was 
them and using what food she had brought with her from the 
gene-pens, made what could pass for dinner. It was a small 
meal, what she had brought would have to last for the next day 
or two until they found something else, and was over with 
quickly, but it was the first meal that hadn't been thrown 
through the bars of their prison by mocking guards. That made 
it a feast.

While Claudia cooked, Angelo and Jubilee had scrounged 
through the house, looking for blankets and clothing. They had 
little luck. Everything of real use must have been taken months 
and years ago. Then Jubilee had an idea and checked the last 
place Angelo would have thought to look - the clothes dryer. 
No blankets, but there was enough clothing for all three of 
them, even if the sizes were a bit off. Shedding their former 
clothes - torn, muddied and stained, and in Jubilee's case, 
outgrown - was like shedding a much unwanted outer skin. 
Somehow even that small change made Jubilee feel cleaner 
than she had in months.

Claudia kept the fire going for a while longer, eventually 
letting it die out. Sheltered by the dark and curled against 
Angelo's side Jubilee finally dared ask, "Why didn't he see us?"

Neither asked who she meant. "I'm an empath," Claudia said 
softly. 

Jubilee's eyes widened a bit. Empaths and telepaths were the 
most feared of all mutants because they could control your 
thoughts and emotions. She'd once heard her mother whisper 
about a telepath who had reached inside a man's mind and 
made him see the most horrible things he could imagine. The 
man had died of a heart attack. No one had made a fuss. He'd 
only been a human.

Empaths were different though. They couldn't control your 
thoughts or your memories or make you see things that weren't 
real. They could just feel emotions. Maybe Claudia had made 
the guard afraid of them. "How?" she asked.

"I made him feel sorry for us," Claudia explained. "I took all 
our fear and our sadness and I made him feel it. Then I took the 
little part of himself, buried far, deep inside, that sympathized 
with people like us, and I made it bigger until he felt so sorry 
for us it was all he could do not to cry. So sorry for us, that he 
didn't even try to stop us from leaving."

Jubilee could feel her eyelids drooping and all the words were 
getting fuzzy. "My mom said 'paths were even worse'n 
'pocalypse, cause they could mess with who you were. But you 
didn't. You just took what was already there and made it 
bigger."

She felt a hand brush the hair away from her face. "I think your 
mom was wrong about a lot of stuff, chica," Angelo said softly.

"M'too." Jubilee said nothing further as she drifted off to sleep, 
warm and safe and free.


To be continued in Part 5