"She’s not really using her powers all that much. Given the nature of them, I think she could probably expand them from simply removing herself from people’s minds to changing what they see. But any way, she seems to spend more time sneaking her way out of things then confronting the situation."

"Sometimes the best way to confront a situation is to creep around behind the scenes. Direct approach isn’t always the best way to handle things. Besides which, it’s the nature of her mutation; deception as opposed to confrontation. I don’t think she belongs in combat situations. She’s had enough of them. Try concentrating more on stretching the her abilities. I haven’t had a lot of time to work on that with her, besides which I have that conference in Washington this weekend. I have a couple of exercises that I think might help."

***

This morning, there was only Scott waiting for me at the danger room. I don’t know if that’s good news or bad. He wasn’t even in his usual battle dress. Just slacks, T-shirt and the ever present red shades.

"I guess this means, I don’t have to go around tagging people again today." Well, I was getting tired of that any way.

"Well, The professor had a few ideas to try and since he has to get ready for the conference, he left it to me. Jean’s helping out tomorrow. This is more just to test the parameters of your powers."

I had two words for that. Oh joy. And they don’t have any sort of happy feelings attached to them.

***

Two days later I had headaches that had Excedrin written all over them, but I also had some idea of what I could do and what I couldn’t. I couldn’t make people see me as something else, yet, but I could completely eliminate all trace of my presence, provided my level of concentration was high enough. I could block a person seeing me, or hearing me, or basically any of the senses at one time, or in most combinations of them, but only when I’m with in range, or know the person is there. I have a range of about 500 yards and it’s actually easiest at mid ranges. As I get closer, it’s harder to get a mind to skip over my presence. I can’t stand right in front of a person faded out and expect them not to notice me. I guess it kinda works like when your a bit out of it and you just don’t notice things. I project some sort of influence that strongly encourages the mind to not notice me. The harder it is not to notice me, the harder it is for me to make a person not notice me.

What’s fun though, is that I can get a person not to notice things about me. I spent an hour walking around with a sombrero on that I borrowed from Jean and Scott from their honeymoon. I wonder if this mean’s I don’t have to worry if I forget a towel when I have a shower. Of course, there’s still the security system. Tomorrow, I get to spend the whole day faded out. At lest this means I don’t have to drag my but out of bed so early. I just have to make sure no one can get in my room. I wonder if I could go back to tag the opposition. It was easier.

***

Two weeks of playing the invisible woman and I’d had about enough of it. After begging Scott for a few days, He finally let in and let me join with the regular training sessions with everybody else. Of course the first one I was in was a Sentinels program. I’d watch a few of them and the minute it started I knew I was in deep kim-chee. I have very little in the way of offensive capabilities. They used me as bait. Well, it’s my own fault, I wanted to play with the big kids and lets face it, my biggest weakness is technology. A fat lot of good fading out did against a bunch of big robots.

The next day I ambushed Bishop and asked him what the team had in the way of fire arms. I needed something offensive, for my own good. Sneaking up on someone and slapping them silly only works on small numbers and if they aren’t robots. Well, we headed to the armory, which was pretty empty. Let’s face it, who need’s a gun when you could fling around large heavy objects, hurl lightning, reflect what they shoot at you or say blast them with an optic beam. Even Wolverine was better off then me. Although hand to hand I was fine. Looking around, I picked up a hand gun, checked it out, put it back down and went to check out some of the more esoteric weaponry. They had a few impressive laser cannons that looked like they could take out a Sentinel if they wanted. Gathering a selection of various weapons together, Bishop and I headed down to the Danger room, set it up as a firing range and settled down to the business of learning how to fire the various guns.

After explaining each weapon to me, he showed me how to clean the ones that needed cleaning and general maintenance. Most of it was already drilled into me, but a few things were new and I knew they’d stick in my mind. After about an hour of going over the various thing a person should know before they pick up a gun, it finally came time to see if my aim was as good as I remember.

Picking up the hand gun, I stood in a classic two handed stance and started to fire shots of at the target. All my training came back to me in an instant. Gently squeeze the trigger, don’t jerk or pull. I remembered the sound filling a room, the smell of gun smoke in the air. The sight of blood spilling from a body, as it fell to the floor.

***

Bishop was standing a few feet away, watching as bullet after bullet, struck the target a good distance off. She was a good shot. Even shots, steady hand, good eye. She’d probably make a good marksman if she ever wanted to. After about seven shots, Charity stopped. Hitting the main control button to pull the target forward, Bishop watched the paper flap slightly and come to a stop in front of Charity. Stepping into her lane, he started to congratulate her on her shooting when he noticed that she was still standing in her two handed stance. Her hands had started to shake ever so slightly.

"Charity?" The shaking in her hands became more noticeable and tears started to well up in her eyes. Placing gentle hands over hers, he eased the gun out of her grip and placed it on the table in front of him. Abruptly, Charity came to herself and wrapped her arms around herself, as if a chill had run up her spine.

"May be this wasn’t such a good idea. I guess I’m not really cut out for this type of stuff after all, well, I’ve got to go now, see you later." This came out all in a rush, as she quickly turned around and practically ran from the room.

***

In my room, I sat on the bed, arms wrapped around myself and trembled. I couldn’t stop myself from shaking. I’d been doing pretty good lately. Nightmares had basically left me alone and I could distance myself from my past. But picking up the gun, brought it all back to me. Faceless hoards pointing at me. Countless voices screaming at me, accusing me, condemning me.

I knew that I had some serious demons, but they had been quiet for a while and I thought I might have some peace in my life. No such luck. Getting up from my bed, I changed into some sweats and headed to the Danger room. Nobody was there so I set it for a basic gym. Letting go at the punching bag, I started to vent my frustrations. Everything I’d done had been in the name of my father and what he believed in, what he’d made me believe in. You can’t just wipe away ten years of your life like it never happened. Letting loose a round house kick that would have knocked the sense out of the bag if it were alive, my thoughts went round and round, worrying at my past and what I’d done.

My father had brought me and Mom into the cult when I was ten. I was put with the rest of the children and taught the same as the rest of them. . .   How to hate, how to act on that hate, how to use that hate to kill. I’d learned hand to hand, how to fire various firearms, everything a good little assassin should know to destroy the mutants who claimed the rights of humans, that they were an abomination in the sight of God. By the time I was fifteen, I was out with the squads; finding, killing, destroying anyone who had the filth of inhumanity on them, not realizing my own humanity was lost every time I pulled a trigger, threw a knife or set a bomb. Finally, I ended up a mutant myself. I wanted to die, I knew I was supposed to die. After an hour of wailing into the bag, my arms felt like lead and I couldn’t kick above somebody’s waist. But my mind still wound itself around things.

Jason risked his life and because of it, died, so that I could be free of the hate that had infiltrated my soul. Much as I was grateful to him, I didn’t make the choice myself. I NEVER made the choice. My father dragged me into this cult, I was trained and then ordered. I made no choice to follow, I did what I was trained to do. Jason took me away and again, I didn’t make a choice. I just stayed where I was and did what was expected. I made a choice to die and that was taken from me. And so I lived. I don’t regret that they saved my life. But again, I had no choice. Going along with this training was because it was expected.

I eventually sat down in the gym setting, too exhausted to move much further. Back up against a wall, my knuckles bleeding slightly since I hadn’t put any gloves on, and my hands still shook. My legs faired better, protected by the material of my pants. I was furious at my father and the choices he had taken from me. And then the voices of those I’d killed came back in my head and I realized I’d done the same thing to them. I had taken away there choices. It doesn’t matter, what happened to me, I had taken the choices away from them, even as my father had taken choices away from me. It was a cycle. Like abuse. You can’t blame the abuser, because he too was abused. But somehow the cycle has to end. And for me it did. When Jason chose for me. He made a choice to get me out and himself with it.

At that moment, Logan walked in. Also is sweats he looked ready to repeat my performance at the bag. I hope he didn’t have demons on his back driving him as they drove me. He noticed me in the corner almost immediately. Coming over, curiosity and mild concern in his eyes, I held up a still slightly unsteady hand for a lift up. Grasping my hand and pulling me up, cause to be perfectly honest, I don’t think I could have done it on my own, he asked if I was all right.

"I’m fine, just overdoing things a bit."

"Guess that means you don’t want to spar this afternoon?" The look I gave him was enough to freeze the human torch, but it got my mind on a slightly different track than earlier.

"Very funny. I’ll be here as soon as I get a healing factor spliced into my DNA. Always wanted one of those." I was trying to joke, but I don’t think I was very successful. Besides which, I was really starting to stiffen up. I was in pretty good shape but two hours of trying to knock the stuffing out of a punching bag was beyond my current limits.

"You sure yer gonna be fine?" Thinking for a few moments I pondered the question. Was I ever gonna be fine?