Spryta and Tyrone walked aimlessly, not heading anywhere in particular but just trying to get as far away from the train explosion as possible…

The last thing they needed was to be asked what happened because no one would believe them anyway…

Spryta and Tyrone didn't exchange as much as a word as they walked into the unknown… the argument from earlier was still fresh on their minds…

Emotions were tense and it was best not to say anything than to say something they might regret later…

Still, it was a great relief to get everything off their chest finally…

They had met under extreme circumstances and since then, it was just hopping from one extreme circumstance to the next…

It was as if the Universe itself wanted them together… forcing them into situations that required they develop mutual trust or drown in their bitterness…

"Do you really think there were people on that train?" Tyrone questioned, feeling like his mutant ability was meant to create disaster…

Seeing that the train was weighing on Tyrone, Spryta decided to offer some comfort…

"That train was a transport train…" Spryta explained lazily "People died but not so much… I would guess about twenty at most…"

"That makes us what?" Tyrone laughed at himself mockingly "Serial Killers?"

"No… humans have killed humans for centuries…" Spryta scoffed, revisiting old memories "This makes us into nothing… what it does is makes the people on the train very unlucky…"

"You talk like someone without sympathy…"

Spryta paused and gazed at the stars above, reaching out her hands as if to grasp one "I use to care about humanity and every little thing they achieved… but after centuries of watching cities fall… eventually, you'll learn to set all those feelings aside…"

"I wish I could set those feelings aside…" Tyrone mumbled, thinking about Jessica and Xandra…

There wasn't a day that goes by that the nightmares didn't make him more hollow inside…

An eternal darkness in his gut that was seething, growing larger by feeding on his negative emotions…

It was so dark that even Spryta could feel it, but she didn't comment… everyone had their own demons to battle, and hers was more ferocious than Tyrone's…

Eventually, Spryta's and Tyrone's walking took them from low-lying shrubs to a dark forest that seemed straight out of a horror movie…

Neither of them was willing to admit that they were lost…

Instead, they continued into the forest like it was the golden pathway to Heaven…

Their stubbornness shining brighter than any light in the night skies…

Tyrone thought Spryta would be able to find one of her famous hidden locations in the forest, but Spryta thought Tyrone actually had an idea of where they were heading…

After all, Tyrone struck her as someone who spent a lot of time outdoors…

A couple of minutes later, the moon was blocked out by dark clouds and the air cooled, signaling an incoming storm…

The shift was sudden but there was not much in the forest scarier than Tyrone and Spryta…

It was easy to walk into the unknown when you knew you were an unknown as well…

Tyrone's eyes automatically adjusted to the darkness, and he could feel his body growing stronger…

Darkness emboldened him… and that was the only part of his mutant ability that Tyrone could identify…

"The night is your friend…" Spryta muttered, raising her hand and sending motes of bright yellow light into the air…

It was as if the stars themselves descended from the skies to light up the forest around Spryta and Tyrone…

Tyrone reached for the light but it just passed through his fingers "I've never seen you do that before…"

"I decided to stop pretending to be the lost lamb you need to feel important…" Spryta replied pointedly, clearly still upset about their earlier tense conversation…

Tyrone frowned in displeasure "I only ever wanted you to be who you are…"

Spryta sighed "Nobody ever wants you to be who you really are... I try to make them smile and tell the truth but they never survive long without pain and suffering…"

"Then show me who you really are…" Tyrone placed a hand on Spryta's shoulder, and they both came to a stop…

The moment was thick with anticipation and desperation for acceptance…

"You sure?" Spryta questioned, finally showing a nervousness that befitted her usual mischievous attitude…

"I am never sure about anything… but it's what I want…"

With Tyrone's confirmation, Spryta spun in place and her size shrunk until she was a little over four feet tall…

Everything about her shrunken appearance screamed childishness and mischief… but she was also very cute…

Her hair shortened into a Mohawk-like style, and shifted from pure blonde to a more reddish color…

Tyrone had seen Spryta in this form before, but it was only through glimpses, while now, he was looking at the real deal…

"This is you?"

"Surprising?" Spryta questioned, walking around as if she was getting accustomed to her own body…

"It's a bit too much…" Tyrone groaned, massaging his head to ensure that he was thinking right "Were you playin' me this entire time?"

Spryta scoffed "You're not that valuable for me to play you… I fed off you as you fed off me… my memories were murky until you came along and sorta, absorbed the darkness inside me..."

Tyrone frowned "Well… I just need to know what skin cream you use to stay so young…"

Spryta giggled at Tyrone's joke and they continued walking deeper into the forest, but this time, the mood between them was much more cheerful…

Another thirty minutes found them almost outside the forest, but Tyrone could not travel any further…

His feet weakened and he knelt on the ground due to difficulty breathing… whatever darkness was tainting his blood had finally made its way to his lungs…

Spryta channeled cosmic energy into her palm and placed her hand against Tyrone's head "You're infected by the Dark Dimension…"

Tyrone shivered on the ground "Can you cure me?"

"If I flood your body with cosmic energy, it will eliminate the Dark Dimension infection entirely…" Spryta explained and just as Tyrone was about to agree, she continued "And then you'd die because you'd be a normal person again, unable to process Cosmic Energy…"

"Any other options?" Tyrone asked meekly…

"What you need is for someone to get rid of the curse causing your ability to stagnate…" Spryta grabbed Tyrone's hands and showed him the tattoos in his palms "You need someone to purify the curse without harming your ability and I know just the person…"

"You seem knowledgeable about a lot of things…"

"With age comes wisdom…" Spryta bragged, flaunting her nonexistent chest "Can you get us out?"

Tyrone shook his head "So far my ability only works when I am in danger… maybe-"

"Shshshsshh!" Spryta hushed Tyrone as she concentrated her senses on the small ruffles caused by fast movements between forest trees…

A pit formed in Spryta's stomach as she became distinctly aware that something was fundamentally wrong…

The air didn't feel the same against her skin…

The vibrations in the ground didn't feel like home…

The magnetic field of the Earth fluctuated almost the opposite of before…

Even her cosmic energy felt like it was thinning…

Tyrone closed his eyes and forced his strengthened senses into overdrive, detecting the disorderly rhythm of footsteps running in their general direction…

"Too disorderly to be soldiers…" Tyrone observed, "And too light to be something dangerous…"

Spryta had much keener senses "The footsteps behind those footsteps are orderly and efficient... soldiers are chasing a group of people… Let's get out of here…"

Spryta and Tyrone dashed in the opposite direction, hoping to avoid entanglement with whatever was happening in the forest…

Tyrone was barely able to keep up with Spryta's speed… and she seemed to only be getting faster the longer they ran…

Still, even as they widened the gap, Spryta could tell that they were still being followed…

It took a lot for her to perceive something as dangerous, but right now, she could feel danger crawling under her skin like a parasite…

For the first time since she met Tyrone, Spryta turned absolutely serious… her eyes turned golden with cosmic energy…

Admittedly, she was now working with a limited supply…

"This way!" Spryta grabbed Tyrone and pulled him left, but Tyrone realized that another version of themselves was heading right instead…

Spryta's ability to manifest illusions was reverting to what it was before her memories became fuzzy...

Too distracted by the running, Spryta failed to notice a river up ahead… Tyrone scooped Spryta into his arms and leaped over the twenty-foot-wide river…

The moment they set foot on the ground, Spryta pointed a finger at the river and it changed into a cliff that held a deep abyss below…

"Fear…" Tyrone shouted, releasing Spryta so he could divert all his energy into running...

Spryta waved her hands and forced the motes of light concentrated in the air to disperse far and wide, allowing her to see several figures moving evasively in the forest…

Spryta stopped and Tyrone snatched a fallen branch from the ground, taking up a baseball stance that showed he would hit the first thing he saw…

"The fear is very close…" Tyrone whispered, tasting the fear in the air…

As for whose fear it was? He didn't know and he didn't care… fear was generally not a good emotion so chaos usually followed it…

SIZZLE

Tyrone and Spryta tensed for battle until they noticed the branch in Tyrone's hands was slowly turning into black mist…

"Your curse doesn't allow you to wield weapons…" Spryta explained, "But it is a weak curse so you can get a couple hits in before the branch dissolves…"

"It's HERE!" Tyrone shouted and Spryta tensed…

The bushes rattled and out came dozens of kids running for their lives… some of the children had unique appearances, automatically notifying Spryta and Tyrone that they were mutants…

Some children were missing arms or legs…

Some had tubes still attached to their bodies, bleeding all over the forest floor…

At least, five children were covered in blood that wasn't their own…

This was something straight out of a horror movie, and Tyrone backed away a couple of steps…

"What the hell is this?" Tyrone questioned, watching as the children just dashed by them, too scared to even take notice…

Spryta just continued to observe with a hesitant look on her face...

She was not allowed to participate in human conflicts…

That was a code engraved into the very fabric of her existence, but for some reason, she didn't feel the impulse to withdraw herself as strongly as before…

"We should leav-"

Spryta could not order an evacuation because even she was startled by what happened next…

HOOKS…

Yes… HOOKS…

Hooks shot out of the darkness of the forest, piercing the flesh of the running children and pulling them into the darkness…

Soon, Soldiers dressed in stealth attire walked out of the darkness, placing collars around the captured children's necks, rendering the small mutants unable to fight back…

The soldiers didn't seem to care that many of the children would die from being pierced by the hooks, they were only concerned about recovering as many children as possible…

-------------------

LAURA HOWLETT (X-23)

Laura dashed through the forest with her fellow mutants…

It was only with the assistance of Gabriella, a Researcher at the Facility, was Laura and the other mutant children able to escape with minimum deaths…

Since then, they had been running for three days without rest…

Some of the weaker children had to be left behind, and even with Laura's best efforts, she could not save them all…

Compared to the others, her combat ability was leagues above…

And what made her especially dangerous was the fact that her limited social skills allowed her to trust her instincts much more openly…

Her instincts were that of an animal that loved to tear others to shreds…

Yet, Laura saw no way everyone could make it through the forest intact…

They had been tracked and cornered… she was sure that the entire forest had been surrounded…

"RRAWGGH!" Laura growled, using her adamantium claws to cut the hook that was just embedded in her shoulder…

During the run that would lead them to capture, Laura picked up the strange scent of a dying mutant in the forest…

However, standing next to that mutant was a scent she had never experienced before – the smell of someone powerful…

"Seguir!" Laura yelled and changed their direction of running…

Within a couple of seconds, Laura and the others broke into a section of the forest that had proper lightning…

She didn't need it but it gave her the opportunity to see her enemies more clearly…

Laura leaped and sunk her claws into the chest of a soldier who had captured one of her friends, and the battle started anew…

It was kill or be killed…

---------------------

Tyrone and Spryta were stunned by the ferocity of the small Laura ripping soldiers to shreds with combat ability unrivaled…

Blood and guts smeared the forest red…

Many of the other mutant children continued to run away, with only a few of the older ones remaining behind to back up Laura…

Each of the older mutant children brought with them an ability that made Tyrone's darkness look non-lethal in comparison…

Spryta and Tyrone were confused by the sudden chaos… but that confusion didn't last long…

The moment one of the soldiers aimed their guns at Tyrone, Spryta reacted on instinct…

She projected the illusion of the soldier turning into a huge bear-like monstrosity, and his comrades were quick to shoot the bear to death…

Similarly, when Tyrone noticed a muzzle trained on Spryta… he tackled the soldier to the ground, and pounded the soldier with his fist until the soldier no longer moved…

The killing was something he was rapidly becoming accustomed to… especially if killing saved Spryta's life…

Spryta projected more bears attacking the soldiers, tricking them into shooting their bullets at thin air, or each other…

Even though her illusions weren't real, Spryta was as lethal as they came…

Tyrone hopped to his feet and used his branch to smack another soldier across the face… the blow was not very hard but the soldier twitched on the ground and died within seconds…

The branch in Tyrone's hands dissolved into black smoke, and he finally realized something…

The curse ensured that any weapon he held would dissolve, but it also had given him a side benefit…

Any weapon in his hands would take some time to dissolve, and during that time, it would release a black smoke that acted as a lethal poison…

With one branch gone, Tyrone was quick to find another…and then another… and another… smacking soldiers as he saw them…

Tyrone leaped and smacked another soldier, but this time Laura took notice of him…

As if being watched by a hungry beast… Tyrone tossed the branch away and raised his arms in surrender…

Laura's gaze scared him more than exploding in the ambulance…

There was a certain animalistic craving in Laura's eyes that showed she was not to be messed with…

When Laura returned her attention to the soldiers, Tyrone turned to see Spryta giggling silently at the side…

Had they not been in a battle, Spryta would have already been rolling on the ground…

"You're scared of a kid?" Spryta mocked, giggling like she wasn't fighting for her life…

"That kid is an animal… I swear…" Tyrone cursed, also losing a bit of pride at his lowly display…

After all, Laura, going from appearance alone, looked younger than Spryta…

Spryta shrugged "All I see is a nice little child…"

Tyrone rolled his eyes, noting it was ironic that Spryta was calling Laura a child when the latter was probably taller than her…

Tyrone grabbed another branch and attacked a soldier, but missed his mark…

Before the soldier could retaliate, Spryta robbed the soldier of all his senses, making it easy for Tyrone to deliver a finishing blow…

However, Tyrone's weakness caused Spryta to divert attention from protecting the children participating in the battle…

BANG

Before Tyrone's very eyes… a child's head was blasted away with a soldier's shotgun…

Blood splashed on Tyrone's cheeks as he remained frozen in place… it was his first time witnessing someone die so violently…

He had seen people get shot before, but it was never a child, and it was never with a weapon that burst the head like a watermelon…

If Death gave him a new perspective on life, then brutality was a second awakening of sorts…

'This is not a game…' Tyrone thought, terrified…

Children were dying… Heck! Even he and Spryta could die here…

This made Tyrone recall the feeling of helplessness as he watched Jessica and Xandra die in the orphanage… he could not make a difference there as well…

Without missing a beat, Tyrone stepped forward, deflecting the weapon of a soldier and swinging the soldier over his shoulder…

It was the only fancy move Tyrone knew… there was no way he could street fight a trained killer, so he used the technique of another trained killer…

Obviously, he did something wrong…

The moment he swung the soldier over his shoulder, Tyrone found himself pinned to the ground instead…

His technique had been reversed mid-air…

The soldier pressed the gun against Tyrone's cheek, ready to pull the trigger, but Spryta would now allow that…

With a flick of Spryta's finger, the soldier noticed his gun was being held the wrong way…

The soldier was quick to readjust the gun, placing it back against Tyrone's head and pulling the trigger, only… the muzzle was facing in his direction and not Tyrone's…

Spryta created the illusion of a flipped gun…

POW

The soldier had essentially killed himself…

Tyrone rolled to his feet and grabbed the gun of the soldier, firing in random directions as a show to intimidate any further attacks…