Issue 1 Downtime

After the incident in the car park, bear heads out to the lighthouse to find Mira.

Once she gets there, she sighs and starts circling it, realizing she has no idea where Mira would be found. Or even how to enter the lighthouse.

"Mira? Are you here?"

From behind her came a voice.

"You were looking for me?"

Bear, startled, turned around.

"Yes, yes I was."

Bear has a million thoughts, before taking a deep breath.

"You can tell me all about how a girl who used to glow can now repair things instantly. And why she is testing it with a bat and other people's property."

Bear gritted her teeth.

"Yes, she still glows."

"cosmic energy? She just learned to use cosmic energy? Or did you give her a little Nudge?" Bear voice was raising.

Bear slid down, rubbing her throwing arm.

"So, you showed her how to do something she was already capable of? I hope?"

"And now, she's decided the best way to test her new abilities is to take a bat to other people's cars!"

Bear was frustrated, pretty obviously.

"Yes, she did." Bear said, glaring.

"And there it is. You don't think that there's a problem that she decides the proper way to test her new powers is to destroy other people's things!"

She kept the part about it being her boyfriend's things to herself.

"Yes, she did. True, she then fixed it. That's not the point! The point is that she decided to do it in the first place! That is not a good train of thought!"

She took a breath.

"And if you were still you, you'd think the same thing!"

She immediately regretted saying that, looking away.

"If I were still me. That's what you think of me...that I'm not me anymore." she said, her voice icy cold.

"You're the bloody Phoenix now! You are a dozen levels above any of us, been across the universe.."

Bear was almost crying.

"..and I can't even convince a younger kid to develop their powers in the danger room, rather than in the car park with a baseball bat.."

"Calm down, little one," Mira said, soothingly. "Tell me all about it."

Bear wiped a tear from her eye. Smiling in spite of herself.

"You know, I remember when you first came to XU. Just starting out, just coming to terms with being a mutant.. And now I'm the little one."

"Yeah, the simple, old happier days. When everything was easier."

Bear sighed.

"Do you believe in destiny? Or do you know better now?"

"Well, the universe really messed up with me."

Bear hesitated, before continuing. She hadn't even gotten into this with John.

"Almost everyone else here has one ability, that they can focus on. Me? I got a handful of little, I'll fitting things that make no sense. I'm the weakest superstrong person on campus, the least powerful telekinetic, the worst able to use super-senses. And then I got the Legacy virus. and rather than help out with improving what little I already have, he universe saw fit to toss me a little x-Ray vision. Yay."

Bear briefly thought of The headmaster, wiping another tear.

"Thanks for the pep Mira. I've told myself that as well, before."

She hesitantly hugged the Phoenix, less exuberantly then she would've under normal circumstances.

"But I wanted to know why I was that way. So, about two years ago, I went to see Dr. bowen."

"That there was a sound, logical reason I am like I am- I'm a chimera. My body has at least two, maybe three or four, different sets of DNA, depending on the location. Most of my arm, my hands, my head.. It's all different. I am literally a bad patchwork."

"Dr. Bowen asked the same thing. We looked at my family history, kidnappings, signs of genetic tampering, supervillains... Remember when Dr.Bowen was gone unexpectedly for a week, left Sara in charge of the lab? He was in Wundagore, yelling at the high Evolutionary. When he got back, he came to see me in my room, alone."

"That.. There was nothing wrong with me. When my mom was pregnant, several fertilized eggs clumped together, and started growing as one embryo- me. It's really rare, but it happens."

She sniffles, wiping away another tear.

"It would have been easier if someone did it on purpose, I think."

"I know.. This was a long time ago. I should have opened up sooner with someone.. But I continued on, training, studying, spending way too much time in the danger room and in my workshop, not having much of a social life.. Because I needed to. Because I was determined to make what I had into something that matters in a place like this, with werewolves and ex-SHEILD agents and mystics and goddesses."

She turned away, guiltily.

"And the Phoenix."