The Best Deceptions: The Aftermath: A Whole New World (Backdated)

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After a long nap Molly wakes up and comes face to face with the people who saved her.



Molly lay curled up on one of the beds, sound asleep, her arms wrapped around her pillow. She was covered in dirt, and looked like she'd been playing in the sandbox instead of having gone toe to toe with a guy in a suit of armor.

Her eyes darted back and forth behind her eyelids before she suddenly bolted up in bed, her frog hat tipping precariously to one side, hair wisping out all around her like she'd just touched one of those electro balls.

"Mom!" she shouted, then looked around, searching for the big Transformer guy. He was going to hit her.

But she got him, right? Jerkface.

Kurt, sitting in the corner, stood up hastily and stepped towards her bed. "It is all right, Molly. You are safe now, and so are your parents."

Molly's eyes got really big, not from fear but from wonder. She saw the blue man around but now he was really close. Mom and dad sometimes had friends over that were different colors but they were never blue! And now there were two blue men! Her mouth fell agape and she forgot what to say for a moment or two before she remembered.

"But...what about Transformer man? And the bad pink lady?" And then another important question also came up.

"Are you brothers?" she blurted quickly after, looking between him and Beast.

"Hey, she's awake!" Angel's voice quickly followed Molly's last question and the redhead tried her best not to bust out laughing. Because, despite everything that was going on, the question and how it was asked was just hilarious to Angel. Looking at Hank, she asked, "Doc, you want to field some of these ... especially the brothers bit, you know?"

Even though she was pleased to see the younger girl awake, she didn't rush forward, worried about crowding her with all these strangers around.

Hank smirked and shook his head as he shined his penlight in the young girl's eyes. "Only brothers of a cause, Miss Hayes." He paused and knelt on the floor before her bed, "How are you feeling?"

Molly squinted at the light between trying to get a look at the blue man in front of her. He had fur too. So neat! He wore a white coat so it looked like he was a doctor, which would explain why he was shining a light in her eye. Reflexively, she stuck out her tongue, because usually there was a stick thingy when the doctor checked her out.

"If ull guh," she said, staring up at the ceiling.

"Dude. Your tongue is so important for concussions," Monet said coming back into the room and laughing at the girl. "Also, I got no idea what you're saying but major points for being cool with my boyfriend." The supplies in the safehouse alternated between the coldly functional and the less so. The box of snack-pack sized biscuits and the dozen or so juice boxes fell into the second category and Monet had liberated them from the kitchen. She tossed one of each onto the bed next to Molly, offered one of each to Jan and settled back to drink orange and mango fruit flavoured drink and eat chocolate chip biscuits.

Jan accepted the food and grinned at the young girl, who really needed needed a shower but seemed unhurt. Unafraid, too, which was good considering not everyone had a favorable reaction to those who didn't look entirely human. And while Jan wasn't going out of her way to show her wings at the moment, she wasn't exactly hiding them either. "Hey Molly, I'm Jan!" she said.

Hank put away his light and smiled, "You'll be okay aside from the bruises. When we get you back to somewhere more civilized we'll sick a nutritionist on you though- you seem slightly malnourished."

"Were you running from those people for long?" Kurt asked her gently.

Molly kept staring at Jan curiously, craning her head to see if she could see what she really saw as she quickly gobbled up all the food that the laughing lady gave her, waving back to Jan. "Hi!"

Trying to see behind Jan's back drew her attention away from the Blue Guys for a moment but she eventually looked back up to them, chocolate smudged all over her face from her "meal." The question made her bite her lip.

"I...think I might get in more trouble if I say," Molly said, glancing away sheepishly.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers and I'm talking to strangers so I'm already in trouble so I think I might be very grounded already so if I say anything then I might not get to go back to LA," she said, making a face.

"So can I see my mom and dad now? You're nice but they really, really, don't like it when I talk to strangers."

Angel didn't say anything, just looked over at Kurt for guidance. Molly was younger than she was but not by enough to make talking like an adult to her seem - not stupid. She was perfectly content to help where she could but let the adults take the lead.

"As soon as they wake up", Kurt promised her. "We do not know what was in the gas that was used, and it has not yet worn off."

"But it's okay, they'll be awake soon! They're totally fine." Monet said. She'd also found a couple of cards, uno and monopoly. "In the meantime, I've found some uno cards and monopoly? Aaaand, there's some cards but I betcha Hank counts cards and it's not like I'm ever cheating on purpose or anything but I can tell when you're bluffing."

Shaking his head, Hank rested his hands in his pockets, "I'd never do that unless there was a good reason, Monet." The blue doctor made his way to the door, "I think I'm going to go check on the elder Hayes'." He nodded to Kurt, "Keep an eye on her."

"I could teach you to win at poker, Molly", Kurt said cheerfully, "as my older brother taught me. But I think your parents might not approve."

Feeling a little more convinced (they seemed cool and sounded all smart AND they helped save them from, y'know, the evil Mary Poppins, so she believed them a little more), Molly's eyes lit up as the idea of the forbidden thing.

A slow grin appeared and Molly leaned in towards Kurt, glancing around a couple of times just to make sure daddy didn't poke his head out from somewhere.

"That's okay, they play poker too," she whispered.

Kurt grinned back at her. "Then as long as you promise not to tell them, or to play for money until you are much older, I will teach you."

~X~



Gene and Alice Hayes wake up and demand to see their daughter. Discussion is had about Molly's future.


She was lying flat, with something over the top of her, constricting her movement. For a moment she panicked, then realized she could feel smooth cotton under her hand. Bed. She was in a bed. A hospital? The panic flared again at the thought they might have been caught. Molly, where was her daughter?

"Molly!" She tried to call the name but managed only a dry croak instead, so she tried to feel for her child's mind. She immediately regretted it - the sense of disorientation increased and she had to swallow hard to quell the nausea. "Gene?" she called in an almost childish tone. "Where are you?"

From the other room, the sound of Alice's voice woke Gene, and he staggered sideways out of the bed. What had happened? Was this a government facility? SHIELD? Gene shook his head, trying to clear it from the fog that seemed to infuse his entire brain. For the first time in years, the building wasn't alight with the mind glows of other people, and it disoriented him.

"Alice? Alice, I'm here!"

The sound of her husband's voice spurred her to pull herself upright, despite the dizziness. "In here!" she managed as she heard him stumbling in the hall outside and he mostly crashed through the door. "Are you hurt? That woman..." Memory started coming back, harsh and bright. "Oh god, Molly. Did she take Molly?"

Now showered, groomed, and dressed in his whitest lab coat (which contrasted brilliantly with his blue fur), Hank opened the door to the room. "Mister and Misses Hayes, glad to see you're awake. I'm Doctor McCoy."

"Screw the pleasantries, 'Doctor'," Alice snarled as she struggled to get out of bed. "Where the hell are we and where is our daughter?"

Hank held up one of his large hands with his palm facing the frantic parents. "You're safe, and so is Molly for that matter. She has some of our staff keeping her company and an eye on her as well. Now, if you'd please try to calm down there are a couple of things I need to check now that you've regained consciousness."

"They're keeping her company." Gene's voice was almost a sneer. "Let me tell you something, McCoy. If so much as one hair on my little girl's head is out of place when we have her back, I will make it a personal mission to make the life of every person connected to this place an utter hell."

Alice's head was still spinning, but she managed to echo her husband's threat as a whisper of psi-speech: ~Whoever you are, you'll give us our daughter back. Now.~

Hank's friendly smile turned into an understanding smirk, "I know where you're coming from. If I woke up in a strange place and the last thing I knew was that my son was in trouble...." The doctor nodded toward the doorway, "Come along, we'll run the tests once you've seen Molly."

"You won't run a damn thing, 'Doctor', unless your version of the Hippocratic oath is substantially different than the one that I took." Gene Hayes suddenly felt the shifting ground beneath them stabilize. McCoy. Henry McCoy. He was a world class researcher, who was well respected in the medical community. More importantly, he was attached to Xavier's, a program that Magneto had once been associated with. Whoever had them, it wasn't SHIELD or likely any other kind of mutant hunting organization. If they played by the rules, they had some protection under the law, and that was how Gene had spent his time, looking at every possible protection those laws could provide him and his family in case something happened. Using Gene as a support, Alice managed to get out of the bed and standing. "Molly first. Then we'll discuss the situation," she said, squeezing her husband's arm.

They followed McCoy into a living room, where a number of individuals were seated, Molly included. She looked well enough, which calmed Alice's immediate fears, but the number of people in the room gave her pause. This wasn't going to be a situation they could just make go away, as she normally did. "Molly, are you all right?"

"She seems not to have been harmed", Kurt tried to reassure her. "And no one will allow her to come to harm here."

Angel looked up as she slapped a card down on the table so she could slid it over to Molly - though she knew that the card would now be the last thing on her mind. "Just fine and kicking my butt at cards!" she offered helpfully.

Molly had been playing Go Fish with the biker people (they wore all leather, so they had to be bikers, right?) and had breakfast. She was really hungry and ate too much eggs but they were really good. When she saw her mom she jumped out of the chair and sprinted toward her, nearly knocking her over with a hug.

"Mom! I'm okay!" she said, nodding eagerly. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "The two blue men are not related, I checked," she said. Her eyes widened.

"And they have their own fairy!" she said, pointing to Jan with a huge, excited grin, jumping up and down. "It's so cool!" "As you can see, Molly is just fine, if not a little worse for wear." Hank smiled as the parents were reunited with their child, a pang hit his heart, perhaps it was time to return to Scotland.

Monet nodded. "And she plays a mean game of Go Fish. You should see it."

Alice smoothed her hands over Molly's hair, surreptitiously checking for signs of trauma at the same time. Molly seemed fine, her usual effervescent self. But... "Who are you people?" she asked, voicing the question she and Gene shared.

"We are an independent group, for the most part", Kurt told her. "We call ourselves the X-Men, and we handle certain problems that the police might have trouble with. Such as your pursuers."

Hank nodded as the two confused adults looked around the room for confirmation, "My compatriot is being truthful, the X-Men exist to help people who find themselves faced with difficult situations. I believe one would agree that the situation you are in more or less fits the description. As a secondary function, we have a school where young mutants learn to control their abilities and- in addition to receiving an excellent fundamental education- learn to use their abilities toward the betterment of man-and-mutant-kind. At least, that's the abridged version of our origin, we've existed in the shadows for many years now."

Gene stiffened slightly. They'd heard rumours, from other members of the Underground. From what they were saying, it was true. Certainly, they'd seen the coverage of Apocalypse's attack on New York, and the vague glimpses of black clad mutants during various disasters. Xavier must have started it following Magneto's departure, in a pale imitation of the Brotherhood.

"We- there was a fire. Threats to take Molly." He said, carefully constructing the lie. "We ran, but we don't know who was behind it all."

"We do", Kurt said simply. "Well, perhaps not what caused the fire, but we know who wanted to take Molly and I promise you, they are already back in custody."

"The woman in the wheelchair and those children?" Alice's hands tightened on Molly's shoulders. "But why would they want our daughter?" Then she furrowed her brow. "No, wait, she said she needed to rescue Molly, that she was being abused, I remember that now." The haze from whatever had been in the woman's gas attack was beginning to clear, even if the headache remained. "The media said she 'rescued' mutant children, but Molly... She tested negative for the X-gene, she's never manifested any powers. What would that woman want with her?"

Molly giggled a little too innocently when he said Go Fish, remembering the other blue man's offer, when her mother spoke up.

"But I did get powers!" she said. She put her hands on her hips proudly and symbolically.

"I threw a truck at the robot guy," she said with an accomplished nod, lifting her head. She wished she had a cape or something to help with the look. But she soon furrowed her brows dejectedly.

"Then I got really sleepy. That kind of sucked, though." She got powers! How could she fight crime if she got sleepy?!

Gene stared at his daughter. "I don't understand. Spontaneous mutant expression is so rare as to be almost impossible." Unless it had something to do with both of her parents being mutants, and the x-gene being incorporating across her entire genetic structure, as opposed to what was the generally accepted slot for dominant mutation.

"Well, as you said, Mister Hayes, it's rare, but not unprecedented. Molly has tested positive for an X-Factor in all the tests I've run- in fact, her physical strength surpasses even my own capabilities within the realm of brute force, and I assure you I'm quite strong. A side effect of her abilities, which I believe she will grow into as things progress, is that she seems to only be able to use her powers for so long before she gets, shall we say, tuckered out." Hank smiled, "Molly Hayes is a mutant, just like her parents. And who knows, perhaps the lab technician made a mistake back on the West Coast- it does happen."

Molly looked up at her mom. They looked worried again so she tried to make them feel better.

"I can show you! I'm pretty sure I'm Supergirl," she said with a big, beaming grin. "Like the rest of you guys!" The way she made it sound, though, was more heroically speaking than having powers and stuff. Mom and dad were doctors, and the bikers saved people. She was super-awesome-holy-moley-excited about it.

Alice could almost sense the pent-up strength in her daughter's frame through her grip on the girl's shoulders. Super-strength? How could they train her with that? As a doctor, Alice had read the medical reports on various problems faced by those manifesting enhanced strength, the accidental property damage, learning to judge new limits, the injuries caused by shaking hands without thinking or getting too enthusiastic about a hug, as children do... She looked over at Gene. ~What are we going to do with her?~ Aloud, she cleared her throat and gave a wan smile: "It's great, honey. Really. And I'm grateful to all of you, for protecting her. But we ought to go..."

~We're supposed to... let someone know.~ Gene answered, carefully shielding the link between them so any attempts to telepathically eavesdrop would be difficult. ~But Molly's too young for that, and we're going to have to keep moving for months; years even. Every mistake she makes getting used to her powers will put us all in danger, and that much closer to a SHIELD prison cell.~

"Yes, we appreciate your help. But, well, there's a lot to do after everything that's happened, and the sooner we start sorting things out-"

"Is there any reason you guys need to run?" Angel spoke up. She'd been cleaning up from their game of Go Fish but she'd been listening in the whole time. She turned around and rested her chin on the back of the chair. "I mean, no offense, but you two were totally unconscious which can't be good for you. And, hey, Molly's pretty neat. We totally wouldn't mind if you guys stayed for a while. We might even be able to answer anymore questions! Well. Big Blue would, anyway. I just play a mean game of Go Fish."

Molly's eyes lit up. "Dude! Can we?" she said. The bikers were cool and she wanted to ask if she could touch the fairy's wings and the blue man's tail. She was pretty sure she saw a tail. And he was going to teach her poker so he automatically became awesome.

"Please?" She really didn't want to go back to that Island. Especially if they had to go on that highway again.

Alice frowned. "I don't want to seem ungrateful, but even with that woman arrested, it's not safe for us any more. As mutants, you should know how it is - it's Molly's safety I'm worried about. There's so many dangers out there for a young mutant..."

"Many indeed", Kurt agreed. "But running is no life for a child. Where do you intend to go from here?"

"We have some friends we can contact. A couple of them live in out of the way places, enough that we'll be able to take stock and see where we stand." Gene said, holding on to the link with his wife. ~Alice, we can't take Molly. Not yet. It's too dangerous and besides, she's still too young to understand how the world really is. If these people are Xavier's, she'd be safe for a few months, and even better, will get a first hand look at just what these 'X-Men' are up to.~

"But what about Molly?" Jan asked, agreeing with Kurt. A life on the run sounded like a pretty horrible way to live, especially for someone who was as energetic as Molly seemed to be. "You're going to drag her around, here and there? Do these friends of yours have kids? Because I can't think it would be fun for Molly to be all by herself all day while you guys hide out." Not to mention Jan was pretty sure they'd have a hell of a time making the kid stay put if she didn't want to stay put, or at least there would be quite a lot of property damage involved.

Alice hesitated, torn between her concern for Molly's safety and the mental reassurances of her husband and the reasonable words of the two young women in leather. She could sense their sincerity even without a telepathic probe. ~It.. makes sense,~ she admitted to Gene. Looking to Kurt and Hank, obviously the 'experts' of the group, she asked: "This place of yours, you said it was a school? For mutants? So you can teach Molly how to handle her powers?"

Hank stepped forward to field the question, "At its heart, the Xavier Institute is and always will be a place of sanctuary for young mutants who are learning to use their abilities. Because of this, we do teach classes and occasionally have field trips to various places, so I suppose, yes it is a school. But we offer much more than that. With us, Molly will receive an astonishingly well rounded education and will have her choice of colleges, if that's the route she- as so many of our other graduates- elects to pursue it." Hank knelt down next to the young woman, resting a hand on her shoulder, "And she'll be with people her own age, and educators and experts who have dealt with the same adjustment issues she will over the next few years. What's more, it's honestly the absolute safest place she could be right now. Even with Miss MacArthur-Jacobs in custody." He turned to Molly, "Ultimately, it should be about what she wants though, don't you think?"

Molly was a little confused about what was going on. They wanted her to go to another school?

She frowned. "Wait...am I in trouble?" she said. Was it because she hit a guy with a truck? He totally deserved it.

"Why can't I go with you? What about LA?"

She liked the bikers and all but if it was because of that...they didn't see it. He was going to hurt them so they didn't know. So if she was getting trouble she didn't really like that idea. One of the guys in her class had to go to military school once cause he was being bad.

"Can we have a moment alone with our daughter please?" Gene said, and waited patiently for the X-Men to leave the room before he sat down next to her. "Mol, there's a lot of things changing right now, and the biggest one is you. We didn't know, but your new strength and abilities means that you're a mutant. That means you're going to need to learn to control those abilities, so you don't hurt someone accidentally, and let people know about your powers. Your mom and I need to do some things to clear up what's happened the last little while, and we need to find a place to live were we'll all be safe as a family."

He noticed the look in her eyes and sighed. "You didn't do anything wrong, kiddo. Remember soccer camp last year, when you went away for three weeks so you could concentrate on learning how to be better on the field without distractions? Well, that's what I want you to think about this as. A place that you can study hard and help learn about your new powers while we sort everything else out. You'll be back with your mom and me before you know it."

Molly's eyes trailed down and she pressed her lips together, her tiny hands half curling into fists before straightening. She didn't really think about it that way, hurting someone that wasn't bad. She had only done it once and kind of didn't know how she did it. But they didn't seem like she was in trouble, so that was good. She didn't like being grounded. That really sucked.

She slowly glanced up.

"Do I have to wear a biker outfit? It looks itchy."

That got a laugh from Alice, despite the wrench in her chest she felt as she looked at Molly. "Not if you don't want to, honey," she said, slipping her arm around her daughter's shoulders. "And when you're ready, we'll have a brand new home for you to come back to. And you can call and write to us as much as you like."

Molly nodded. "Oh. Good," she said. She looked up to her mom. She was trying to look like she was happy but she could tell she was still sad too. But they sounded like they wanted her to go, and she really did want to learn how to beat up bad guys.

"Okay..." she said, turning around to wrap her arms around her mother's waist, but carefully, just in case.

"I'll go."

Now that she wasn't in trouble, maybe it was going to be better than she thought. Hopefully they had other kids to play with, though. She didn't know if the blue guys knew how to play soccer. But maybe the fairy did!

Lulled by future prospects, Molly released her mom's waist, waiting for the next step.