Marie started first, after all she was the one who saw the flyer in the gas station. This is what I get for letting her out of the SUV to use the bathroom.

Okay, so far we haven't been thrown in jail this time. Yet. After all, I know better than anyone else that I don't look like the kind of guy to have two teenagers tagging along with him. Huh. For some reason it just seemed normal back in Sunnydale.

Back to the subject. Marie saw the flyer for a concert in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Some band called the DarqueWalker. I have got to learn how to say "no" to that girl. So that's what we were doing standing outside of a warehouse on the edge of Tulsa in the middle of the night. I swear to God I was the only one out there over the age of thirty-two, assuming that I am over thirty-two. When we finally got in the place was packed, but there was still enough room to move around.

Then the lights cut out. I froze with one hand around Marie's arm, keeping her by my side, and the other one firmly on Darrel's shoulder. I was not about to tell the Professor or Captain Banks that I had lost either of them. I relaxed slightly as the music started. One by one spot lights came up. First on the boy playing some kind of electric keyboard, then on the girl with the bass guitar. Next to get lit up was the drummer, although I'm pretty sure that ain't the only kind of lit up that girl gets. We still couldn't see the singer, but from the sound of the voice it was a young woman.

Damned fine set of pipes. Would have sounded better singing one of those "my baby left me and my dog died, but I'll be okay" country songs, but she was really pounding out the tune. Something about lost innocence and a dark queen. Then a spot light hit her.

The girl was a statue of living gems, breaking up the white light and sending it back out in colored shards. Her skin looked like diamond where her tight black leather outfit let it show through, her hair had to have been ruby. But it was her eyes that stood out. They were emeralds that seemed to pull in the light and dominated her face. And there was no way in Hell she was a normal human.

The teenagers closest to the stage didn't seem the least surprised by the lead singer being a mutant, but then again they looked like groupies to me. Over the music I could hear some of them screaming "DarqueWalker" and a few others were chanting what I guess was her stage name. Who the hell would name their kid "Treasure"?

I relaxed a little, figuring that if the lead singer was so obviously a mutant that this place had to be safe to turn the kids loose. Bad idea. Treasure had moved on to the next song, an oldie that even I knew. "All She Wants To Do Is Dance." The show had only been going on for about ten minutes when all Hell broke loose.

It was one of those new hate groups. Sort of like the Klu Klux Klan only they went after mutants and their families instead of blacks.

Like I said, all Hell broke loose. The goons with FOH on their clothes had guns, knives, clubs, and chains. I yanked Maire and Darrel through the crowd until we got to the back wall, but we couldn't find a way out. I made my own, popping my claws and slashing through the cinderblock wall. Darrel yelped when I shoved him through followed by Marie.

I thought about following them for about three seconds when someone behind me screamed. I turned around to find the girl who'd been playing bass hovering in the air over the platform that had served as a stage with her electric blue hair whipping around her head and her fists glowing the same bright color. The boy on the keyboard had some kind of energy disks hovering around his hands. I couldn't see the drummer anywhere, but Treasure was standing where she had been when the attack came.

She tossed aside the microphone, stand and all, then came a blinding flash between her hands. Treasure jumped into the fighting with her crystal staff whirling. I headed in to help her and the rest of her band when the drummer stepped out of the swirling smoke.

"Help me clear the kids out of here," she shouted over the noise. The glazed look in her eyes that I had taken for a drugged-up haze turned out to be a side effect of her mutation.

I never did find out how many of the kids we yanked out of that rave were mutants. But when it was over and the FOH shits had turned tail for home, I was left with Marie, Darrel, and DarqueWalker.

Treasure turned to regard us with those cold emerald eyes. "You three are like us."

"Yeah," Darrel said with a grin. "Can I just tell you how cool that thing with the staff is?"

The gemstone mutant smiled faintly. "Thanks. For the compliment and the help."

"Trey?" murmured the drummer. "You know we can't stay here anymore don't you?"

"Yeah, Smoke," Treasure sighed. "I know. Our equipment got trashed anyway."

"So, ummm, who are you guys?" Marie asked.

"I'm Treasure," Treasure said. She pointed to the drummer. "She's Smoke."

The bassist waved slightly. "I'm Blueflame."

"I'm Disc," muttered the keyboardist.

"I'm Logan," I rumbled then pointed to the kids. "She's Marie and he's Darrel. You kids might as well come with us up to New York. There's a school there for mutants."

DarqueWalker traded looks. Treasure seemed to take some kind of silent vote. "Yeah, we'll come."

I just grunted and waved one hand toward the SUV as I lit up a cigar. They split up to get their stuff.

Turned out that Treasure had a motorcycle of her own and the others shared a van. Good thing, too. Four more people in the SUV might have gotten a little dangerous.

Anyway that's how the carravan that arrived at Xavier's a week later got together. I admit, I floored it a couple of times. If I had to spend one more day listening to that Disc kid make one more jailbait crack I'd have gutted him.

~Fin