I massaged my leg which was horribly scarred as people worked on the estate that was spread out before me. People, humans and others, were tending gardens, herding reindeer, cleaning the steps of the mansion which looked like it was made of ice. They were the people I had helped save, and their descendent. Watching them creating beauty in the frozen north, even with the odd perspective from having a single eye, and knowing that my once strong muscles had wasted away over the years of pain that never went away and my own lameness, made it worthwhile. The people still respected me, worked for me willingly, knowing that I had done everything I could to keep them and their parents alive.

There was a chime from the door. Grabbing my staff, I awkwardly stood up, my lean and aged body covered by warm blue robes, leaned heavily on the rune inscribed hardwood drawing strength and energy from the inscribed hardwood that glowed with power as it fought the festering poisons that were hidden within the scars that covered my body and refused all healing. My wasted face broke into a grin at seeing my old companion. “Kenoes, what are you doing here? I thought you were busy doing my old job in Atlantis.”

The diminutive figure shuffled his feet almost in embarrassment, seeming to shrink into the specially made leather robes. “I've come to warn you, sir, something horrifying is coming.”

“I've seen horror, my friend. What could be worse than the war we barely survived?” I asked, my bones aching in memory of teeth ripping into muscle.

“I don't know. A... friend of mine is a seer. She saw something, the end of everything, or almost everything, she couldn't be sure. She told me and a few friends, the next day she disappeared.” He wiped away a tear. “She said it was coming soon. And then I was ordered to prepare all the weapons of war we had ready, anything that couldn't be gotten in less than a fortnight was to be left behind.” He shook his head sadly. “I was expecting orders to follow behind to keep them resupplied. But I never got them. The army left with only a fraction of the supplies they would need if they planned to returned. A few quartermasters had orders to prepare a supply train to meet with whoever survived, but I wasn't one of them. I had to warn you in person.”

“Thank you my friend. If your seer friend is right, we face a grave future. Fortunately I've prepared for them,” I said.

“You've prepared for it. How?”

“I'm still a quartermaster at heart. We have enough food, weapons and essentials, for every Sidhe, human and spirit living here to survive anything short of the end of the world. Come, let me show you my workshop,” I told him, heading down the long flight of stairs to show him supplies that would support a small city for a year.

**

One of the first things I needed to do upon getting free, was getting a whole new wardrobe. The clothes I'd bought on my first night of freedom were nice, but they had made my skin itchy and red for some reason. They didn't hurt, but I'd spent the first night and most of the day scratching and wishing I had some skin lotion. Two days of trial and error shopping, and I found out I could only wear all natural clothes, including underwear. Looking at the bill for a leather coat, all natural cotton pants and shirts, silk underwear, and leather boots would have kept my Mom happily drunk for a month. Fortunately I didn't have to worry about where the money was coming from.

That done, I had some time to breathe and try to decide what to do. With my powers, I could live very comfortably for the rest of my life, but something about that just struck me as wrong. Maybe it was the dreams I was having, but I couldn't help thinking that just sitting back and relaxing would be an insult to the powers I had been given, kind of like Spider-mans with great power comes great responsibility. But I wasn't about to put on spandex and go off to fight crime.

I also couldn't just go around handing out money and things to people without a plan. That was a good way to attract attention I couldn't deal with. So I did what anyone else would do, went to the library and got on the computer.

I didn't have much of a plan, I just started looking for people in trouble. There were hundreds of stories of people who needed money, cities with large at risk groups, failing neighbourhoods, and more. But they either needed things I couldn't give them, or they were so large I couldn't hope to make any kind of a real impact.

A week into my search I started to feel discouraged, nothing felt quite right but I KNEW the answer was just at my fingertips. Then I found it on an Evolution Rocks website.

In Chicago there was an old place that had belonged to the church called the Cloisters, now it was abandoned and a home for homeless people. A lot of them were mutants. A year ago ER! Made an expose about how runaway mutants were forced there, to be used and abused by criminals, and hunted by the Knights of Purity. The ones that survived became criminals, with a lot of new C and even one or two B listers coming from there.

I don't know why but something clicked, and I knew where I had to go.

After studying some pictures of the area, I went back to the hostel to get my things.

**

I teleported to a tiny backroom of what used to be a religious school in the Cloisters. It was the middle of the day so it would probably be abandoned with the usual squatters out trying to get money. It was bitterly cold, I'd known it was December and was wearing a good winter coat along with a hat and gloves, but I hadn't realized it would be so cold. Growing up in California, and spending the last few days in Texas, hadn't prepared me for what a real northern winter could dish out.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out a handful of pocket warmers. Putting them in my pockets and sliding one each into my boots made the weather bearable, if not comfortable.

Wandering out of the room, I heard something crackling like a fire and people talking. Cautiously ready to teleport if it turned bad, I started towards the noise. Down the hall and in what looked like it was once a music room was a large metal barrel with a roaring fire in it. Five people huddled close to it, the most obvious was a huge guy who looked like he was made of ice, beside him was a kid who could be a girl or a boy whose skin was fluorescent orange and looked at me with big grey eyes. The third, probably a girl had floor length red hair that simply wouldn't stop moving like snakes. The last two could have been twins boys one glowed blue, the other yellow and they were each holding their hands over the fire making their light flow into it. They were all looking at me.

“What the fuck do you want?” Icy growled, his voice sounding like glaciers grinding together.

“Can I warm up? I'm freezing,” I said.

“No room for pretty boys. Fuck off!”

I teleported a few feet closer to them, keeping my hands visible. “How about for mutants?”

They looked at me carefully, not giving me an ounce of trust. After a full minute they shifted a little so I could at least warm my hands.

“You don't look like the type to be down here,” the orange kid, probably a girl from the voice, said.

“Yeah well the MCO and the state of California decided I needed to be put in solitary when they discovered I was a foster kid mutant. I just made sure they didn't know everything I could do and got out. I'm Chris by the way. What about you guys?” I asked.

“Trish. My parents tried to kill me,” the orange girl said. No one else said anything still eying me warily.

“Look, I need a place to stay and I don't know anyone in town. Hell this morning I was in Houston. I'd like some help learning what to watch out for, who to avoid, who might be able to help, and who needs help. You guys need something ask me, all I'll ask for in return is information and maybe a friendly conversation,” I said.

Icy snorted, “Yeah right. No one gives anything for free here, you trying to start a mutant gang? Fuck off, we got enough of your kind already.”

I reached into my pocket pulling out some energy bars for everyone. “I'm a teleporter, I just reach into my hand and pull out something I need. Does it look like I need a gang? I just want to find some people who might understand what I'm going through and not call the MCO screaming in fear.”

“Are you goddamn Santa Clause?” the red head rasped, revealing a nasty scar that looked like someone had tried to hang her.

“Funny you should say that. I'm calling myself Chris Kringel,” I joked.

“No strings?”

“Not a one.”

She grabbed a bar, ripped it open and crammed it into her mouth. When it was all gone, she gave me a small smile. “I'm Carrie. The big guy's Frosty, and we call the wonder twins Blue Boy and Sunshine since they don't talk. Welcome to the Cloisters, closest place to hell we could find without actually dying.”

**

I set myself up in what had probably been a small broom closet, filling it with blankets and other things to ward off the cold. The door was so badly rusted it would only open an inch or two, which suited me fine, I could trust that my stuff wouldn't be stolen too easily, and a flashlight gave me enough light. My irreplaceable diary and photos, went into a metal box and were stored inside a hole in the old crumbling brick wall well hidden by the blankets.

When I grabbed the blankets and flashlight, I'd gotten blankets, coats, ski pants, warm gloves and winter boots for the others. That hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped.

**

“What the hell will I do with those?” Frosty, the not so friendly snowman demanded, when I teleported back with several large bags.

“Wear them so you don't get cold,” I suggested.

He raised one of his big hands that could encircle a basketball. “Idiot. I'm ice, I don't get cold.”

I shrugged, trying not to look intimidated. “Fine, don't use them. Trade them, use them to sit on, give them to someone else, they're a gift.”

Trish and Carrie were hurriedly getting dressed, since I'd purposefully gotten stuff that I thought would be on the large side, they just slipped the ski pants and coats over their multiple layers of pants shirts and thin coats. The twins, simply looked at the offered items and shook their heads, their expressions impossible to make out through their glowing lights.

Trish who I'd found out was only eleven came over and gave me a hug. “Thank you, I haven't felt this warm since summer. I can't give you much for it, but all of this has to be worth at least a couple of hours together.”

“A couple of hours of what?” I asked.

“Sex. I've got a little place where we can light a fire and the blankets are pretty clean.”

I tried to look everywhere except at the young girl in front of me, and noticed that Frosty was looking straight at the fire with an almost scary intensity. I'd never had an offer I wanted less, even if I was growing the proper equipment. “I- I don't think so. I told you I don't want anything.”

“Nothings free here,” Carrie said taking my hand, her hair caressing my cheeks. “If she's too young, I can pay for both of us.”

“NO! I don't want that! Just take them, please. It's not like they cost me anything.

The girls looked at me like I was crazy, Frosty gave me a glance that didn't make me feel like I was the scum of the earth. The twins ignored me, creating a light show in the air between them.

“Do you girls do stuff like that a lot?” I asked.

Carrie shrugged. “We don't have any powers people want to pay for, and we can't get any of the support the norms can. We've got to do something to stay alive. We're all at the bottom of the barrel even for here. The twins are so out of it they can't follow instructions, and Frosty refuses to do anything beyond some protection work and lifting jobs. There's about fifteen or twenty other mutants who stay here, they mostly do anything that will get them some food, cash, clothes, weapons.”

“I didn't think there'd be that many.”

“There used to be more,” Frosty said. “Then the KoP came to town and they like doing training missions here using us as targets. A bunch of us tried to leave, but everywhere else is held by gangs, respectable people, or shit we don't want to even think about. There'd be fights and even if we won, we'd have the police, the KoP or the heroes coming down on our heads shooting to kill. So a lot of our friends left town or came back here. At least here we get a couple of weeks of peace between attacks.”

As he told me that I really couldn't imagine how people could live like this. But then I thought of what I'd escaped from. A month or two more of that and I could picture myself seeing this type of life as an improvement. “Well if you guys need anything, just ask. I know what it's like getting screwed over like that, even before I turned into a mutant.”

That got several skeptical looks.

“I didn't always look like this. My Mom broke my nose before she tried to kill me, that's why I was a foster kid. You can believe it or not. And it can't be any worse asking me for something than working with whoever comes along,” I said carefully.

“”You've got a point,” Carrie said. “Got anymore food?”

I handed her a couple of granola bars. “So what do I need to know about to stay alive here?”

**

“You got anything for the cold?” Angela asked.

Smiling at the fair haired girl who had tightly woven vines and leaves in place of muscle and skin, I pulled out a ten pack of pocket warmers, and a take away coffee. “Best I can do. Do you need some blankets or something? I can get you some tomorrow.”

“This is good, my ski suit is still warm enough,” she said. “You're not like most people here, you know that right.”

“I know. You seem pretty different from most of the others to.”

She sipped the coffee, keeping it close to her face as the liquid warmed her up. “I've only been here for three weeks. I thought, get to Chicago, contact a superhero and become a Robin or some crap like that. I couldn't stay home, Dad had already been beaten up a couple of times, and Mom's boss was letting her know that if they didn't do something about the mutant freak she'd lose her job. With a bunch of brothers and sisters, I couldn't let that happen.”

“Why didn't you join the heroes?” I asked.

“I phoned the hot-lines for the Chicago Crusaders and the Windy City Guardians, tried to get in to see them for three days each, and nothing. Security turned me away, said they were busy with a crisis and since I don't have a phone they couldn't call me back. Then a gang found me sleeping in a doorway and told me to come here or they'd shoot me and leave me for the rats.” She sniffed, whether from the cold or sadness I didn't know. “It's not too bad. I've got it better than some of the others here. I get a big meal everyday helping out some grow ops with their plants. One of them is thinking about hiring me on full time so I'll have room and board, even some spending money.”

“Want me to go with you to the Crusaders tomorrow. Maybe they aren't so busy now, I can take you right to their lobby so you don't have to worry about H1!.”

She shook her head, a little more fiercely than she had to. “I don't want anything to do with them now. I saw what the Knights of Purity do, and the heroes don't do jack to stop them. They don't care about us, only about looking good for the cameras. At least the criminals I work with think I'm useful, and in a week or two I'll be off the street for good. And why would they let someone who looks like me onto their stupid team. None of them look like monsters, I'd probably spoil their goddamn precious image.”

Putting my arm around her, I just held Angela as she drank her coffee, sniffing and wiping her eyes, refusing to cry.

**

A hand enveloped my shoulder from behind throwing me at the nearest wall as I sat around a fire listening to the evening talk. Without even thinking I teleported, changing my direction so that I landed with a painful jarring of my bones on my feet facing my attacker.

“What the hell is your problem?!” I demanded, glaring at some guy with metal hands and metal plates over different parts of his body.

“I don't like pretty boys. And you're in my spot,” he sneered.

“Mitch, shut up. Chris is cool, even if he is too pretty,” Frosty said.

Rex, another boy who looked like a shark growled. “He's like a never ending vending machine. You want to fuck him up and you'll be dealing with me.”

“Is that so,” Mitch said. “OK vending machine, give me a hundred bucks.”

“No,” I said. Giving Mitch what he wanted would make me go from being someone they were starting to trust and value, to being a vending machine they could bully. I still wasn't sure what I was doing in the Cloisters, but that was the last thing I wanted.

The new guy tried to loom over me. “Why not vending machine? I'm not good enough for you?”

“I help my friends and people I like. Not assholes like you. You want to sit down, talk to me for a bit and I'll think about it.”

He didn't like that answer. I made sure I was on the other side of the room as his fist connected with the wall, cratering it. “You're not making me like you, you know that right?” I taunted him.

Mitch jumped over the heads of the group, planning on taking my head off. I teleported again, using my new reflexes to get behind him while he was still in the air and snagged his leather coat bringing him to an abrupt halt and a nasty fall to the floor. He slammed his hand down and my leg was encased in metal.

It couldn't hold me, and I was behind him again pulling a firecracker and a lighter from my pockets. As he got to his feet, I lit the fuse and threw it at him. He flinched back as it exploded, blinking furiously and rubbing his ears, even though the small explosion didn't look like it had hurt him.

While he was blinded I pulled out a bottle of good beer from my pocket and opened it up. “Hey, Mitch is it?” I waited for him to look at me through his red and teary eyes. “I can't hurt you, I'm not strong enough and I don't want to. So lets call it quits and have a drink, K?”

Nodding, Mitch came over and took the bottle. I wasn't ready for the sucker punch to the stomach. He didn't use his full strength because I wasn't killed, but I fell to my knees and had to swallow back some vomit.

“Now we call it quits, Chris,” he said.

“Glad to hear it,” I chocked out.

**

“What the hell are you still doing here? It's been three weeks and you've spent enough to get a decent apartment but you're still living in that old closet.” Rex the shark boy said, taking a sip from his bottle of homemade booze.

“I don't know yet,” I admitted.

“We have a fucking pilgrim. Probably following the voices in his head trying to ass kiss to the angels,” said Inky, a girl who was pure black and could change her shape.

I smiled at that. “I wish. Than I'd have some clue of what to do next.”

They'd slowly let me join their not group, but more like a loose community. Giving money, food and anything else they needed except drugs and alcohol had made me an important resource, none of them were willing to turn down. It also kept me out of the almost daily fights that helped decide disputes and acted as the evening entertainment.

“If I had your looks and powers I'd find some guy and make him my sugar daddy. You wouldn't see me on the street ever again. Silk sheets and a feather bed, that would be the life.” someone said from the edge of the circle.

A bottle was handed to me, I took a sip and only supreme willpower kept me from coughing and throwing up as whatever it was burned all the way down leaving me feeling lightheaded. There was laughing as I practically threw it to Frosty who was sitting beside me.

Catching my breath, I saw a boy handing a needle to Carrie, and the two headed off his hand on her ass. When I got my attention back on the group, Rex was telling a story about how he'd helped a gang beat up a mutant supervillain looking for minions, willing or not. I smiled as he talked about snapping the villains tusk and ramming it through his hand, even though I was disgusted at the violence. Most of the others laughed drunkenly.

Just then someone came running in, passing through the wall as if it wasn't there. “KoP! RUN!” the mutant girl screamed.

Everyone scrambled to their feet, grabbing coats, the alcohol, whatever they thought they had to have. Frosty broke a hole through the back wall so that we wouldn't have to go through the hallway where the sound of stomping metal feet could be heard. That was a mistake, there was the roar of guns and Frosty fell back his chest cracked.

Rex jumped through the hole screaming curses, metal clanged, and the rest of the kids ran through the hole scattering in all directions. Trish stayed back, trying to lift Frosty who was groaning in pain, running to their side, I helped lift the giant iceman. “Come on, lets get out of here,” I grunted, as Rex was thrown through the wall followed by a plasma bolt that burned his chest.

As bullets and plasma bolts tore through the building and kids screamed, I realized we couldn't run for it. Too many kids were going to be caught. Letting go of Frosty, I saw the white power armour that had taken out Rex. Not knowing if I could do it but not having any other options, I teleported behind the machine grabbed it and teleported fifty feet above the abandoned school.

I shouted in fear as we both started to fall. Letting go I reappeared in my little closet, it felt like I'd sprinted up five flights of stairs. A second later there was a loud crash that briefly overpowered the gunfight going on outside. Teleporting back into the hallway, I started jogging towards the nearest screams.

Inky was slithering out of a large net like hand, while a machine gun fired into her face from point blank range. A bunch of kids ran past me, intent on saving their own hides, as Mitch created a steel wall blocking off the hallway. I made my move, appearing just under the girl, grabbed her foot which felt like jelly, and got us both outside before the KoP even knew what was happening.

This was almost worse than the battles in my dreams, I could hear people screaming, they weren't friends really, but I'd gotten to know them pretty well and the KoP was trying to kill them, not even giving them a chance to surrender. I tried to see who I could help next. A suit of flying armour was firing at the ground, There was a shriek of pain and at the end of the block I saw Angela explode.

The world began to spin and I found myself gripping the flying armour around the neck. He couldn't get a grip on me, and my hold was too tight to be thrown off but I couldn't get through the armour plates. As we flew through the sky my fingers scrabbled useless for something I could rip and tear, while he spun, dived and did figure eights threatening to kill me once he got his hands on me. We suddenly straightened out, and I looked up to see we were heading right at a window, from the look of it he was going to fly through it and let me hit the top.

Waiting until the last possible moment, I teleported us downwards. The KoP killer slammed face first into the wall and I went flying through the window getting my arms and scalp sliced up on what little glass remained. Rolling along the floor I hit the door on the other side of the room, groaning as it felt like I'd broken a couple of ribs.

I didn't get a chance to recover, a massive suit of armour broke through the wall, its baseball bat like club swinging to knock down anyone foolish enough to be standing close by. I didn't even try to fight, I was in too much pain and feeling too tired from all the rapid teleporting with heavy robots. I vanished.

The restaurant restroom was empty, so no one screamed when I suddenly appeared. Staggering into a stall, I sat down with a groan and fell asleep almost instantly.

**

When I finally woke up, I realized that I was filthy. My clothes were covered in dirt and rotten plaster dust, I had a couple of tears in my clothes and I hadn't realized it earlier, but there was a bullet hole through the front of my jacket, if I'd still had breasts it would have really hurt.

There wasn't much I could do about it since it was almost four in the morning, and I was lucky enough that this was a twenty-four hour restaurant. I washed off the worst of the dirt, and went to get a bite to eat while I tried to think about what to do next. I also got my diary and pictures putting them in my inside pocket just in case the KoP decided to tear the building down.

Ordering a meal, I grabbed a seat and dug in. A TV was playing in the background, but I ignored it at first. As I finished my burger, I realized that the cashier had vanished along with the old man who had been mopping the floor. That's when I saw the TV was talking about a battle between the KoP and a group of mutant terrorists that had resulted in on KoP killed and one more badly injured, there was no mention of them killing any kids. The worst part was when they showed an up close and personal picture of me grabbing hold of a KoP and teleporting.

I saw the huge white shape of a KoP dropship as I teleported away.

**

When dawn came along, I was at a storm drain that I'd visited once with Carrie and Traci. Turning a corner I saw Frosty, the Twins, Carrie, Traci, Inky, Mitch, and a few others shivering from cold. Frosty had his chest covered in dirty snow and ice almost like a bandage, he was unconscious and

“Where are the others?” I asked.

“Rex and Angela are both dead, maybe a few more,” Carrie told me. “The rest are hiding, probably with gangs and villains they've worked with before.”

Inky oozed over, looking more like a half human slug than a girl. “Thanks, those bullets hurt,” she slurred through a half formed mouth.

I patted her shoulder which was sticky and stained my hand. “Least I could do. What are you guys going to do now?”

“Don't know. KoP's declared war on us and since you killed that bastard who iced Angela, the Cloisters is being levelled.” Traci said, looking up from the hand cranked radio I'd given her a week ago.

The group of homeless kids had never looked very upbeat or optimistic, now they looked exhausted, ready to finally roll over and die.

“Who wants to go to Karadonia with me?” I asked.

That got a lot of snorts and looks of disbelief. Mitch glared at me. “How? And what will we do about cash? I know that place, if we don't have money we'll end up working its mines as slaves.”

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out a thick wad of cash, every bill was a hundred. “Cash isn't a problem. And if you don't mind doing it in relays over a few days, I'll teleport all of us. I got here from Houston in one jump, getting to Karadonia won't be much harder. Then we buy a place, a big one.”

“What's this we stuff and why do we need a big place?”

“Because there are a lot of kids, mutants and baselines who need help. Since no one else seems to give a shit about us, I figure we should start looking out for ourselves. We can hire some tutors learn some stuff, and start selling our services, not to do crime but to actually help people,” I said.

Mitch clenched his metallic fists, looking like he wanted to punch something. “Why the fuck should we help any of those assholes, what have they done for us?”

“The mutants and runaways I want to help aren't our enemies. They're being hurt just like we were. I want to help them, if they need it we'll give them a home. And if anyone tries to hurt us again, we'll come down on them like a ton of bricks,” I said. “You want to make a home, a real home, for yourselves come with me and help out. You want to go your own way, I'll give you money and teleport you anywhere in the country you want to go.”

Carrie, Traci and the Twins looked at each other and looked at the cold grey cement of the storm drain. “We're in,” Carrie said. The Twins nodded as one.

Half of the other teenagers nodded or grunted their agreement. The rest looked at Mitch uncertainly. He sat back biting his lip, gouging the cement with his fingers. “You're not in charge. We're not your lackeys or your damn Christmas elves.”

I nodded. “We'll make some rules to keep order, and everyone helps out. Anyone, including me, doesn't follow the rules or screws around when there's work to be done, gets punished and can be thrown out. We're in this together or we're going to keep getting picked off one by one and living on garbage.”

Mitch grinned and held out his hand. “I always did want a big house on a tropical island.”

**

Six Months Later

Walking through the back alleys of New York in a navy blue all natural trench coat, specially battered and stained to look older than it really was, I didn't look too out of place but I still looked better off than the homeless bums and kids that called the place home. It had taken some research and a lot of questioning but I had a general location of a building that some mutant runaways called home. One kid was watching me very closely, his eyes were almost hidden by a thread bare baseball cap that was so stained it was impossible to guess what the original colours had been. I smiled at him and saw a hint of gold iris's.

“Hey kid,” I said, “I want to talk to someone from Freaks Town.”

“Don't know nothin' 'bout them,” he replied.

I flashed a couple of twenties, making sure only he could see them. “You don't need to take me there, I just want to talk to a few of them. They'll like what I have to offer.”

“You ain't lyin',” he didn't make it a question.

“No I'm not.”

“You try anything bad, we's gonna kill ya. We heard what happen' in Chicago.”

Giving him a big smile, I nodded. “Don't worry, I'm trying to stop that from happening again.”