Summers' bike hit the kid full on and I'm the one that went flying. It took me a second to get back up and shake off the already fading pain. That's when I went to check on the kid. I figured she was dead. After all that turbo-charged bike of One-Eye's has to weight about a ton. But it was the bike that was scrapped.

What was left of it anyway. It looked like the kid was...absorbing the metal. There were only patches of skin showing through the metal and wires covering her body. I guessed she had been born black from the dark cocoa color, until the metal seemed to grow over the few patches left.

She turned and looked up at me with blank metal eyes. I guess she was afraid because she was shaking like a leaf, but I wasn't sure because all I could smell coming off of her was overheated metal and burned cloth.

"Easy, kid," I said quietly. "I ain't gonna hurt you. The name's Logan."

"S-s-s-silver," the girl stammered. "I'm Silver." She stood up slowly as if she were trying to adjust to the new weight of her body. "I'm...I'm sorry about your bike. I didn't think anyone would be out this far."

"This ain't exactly the safest place for a kid alone," I told her. "Come on. I've got some friends near here."

She blinked. It make a sound like when my claws come out, only softer. "Why are you being so nice to me? I wrecked your bike. I'm a mutant."

I grunted. "Because I'm one and so are those friends of mine. You coming or not?"

Silver blinked again, but she followed me on that long hike to Xavier's school. Not a word of complaint out of her either.

Guess being made outta metal makes her a tough little thing.

Things went pretty well, I suppose, when I showed up after three years on the road. I don't figure I'm ever gonna find what I was looking for after all this time. But I had to give it a shot.

Scott was pissed that his bike was wrecked, but he'll get over it. Jean was a little surprised that I bothered coming back at all, and more surprised that I was heading this way before I ran into Silver. Ororo just kind of smiled at me, and took Silver off to show the kid around.

That just left me and Marie. Rogue. She had spent those three years growing into the name that everyone else used. But she was still my Marie.

"Here," she said softly as she pulled the chain with my dog tags from around her neck. "Figure you want these."

I closed my hand around hers, folding her slim glove-covered fingers around the tags. Why? I ain't got a clue, but I told her to keep them. "They look better on you."

The smile she gave me made something clench in my chest. I jerked my head toward the door. "Go on, you got a class, Marie."

After a few minutes alone I went looking for Silver. It wasn't hard to find her -- all I had to do was follow the scent of warm metal. She was down in the medical room trying not to squirm as Jean gave her a good going over. For some reason my brain started to detail everything that was different between Marie and Silver.

Silver's name fit her right from the get-go. Silver had the small slender body of all little girls before they became women, like a little piece of sculpted silver in fact. Hell, the kid couldn't be more that thirteen, if that old.

Marie, on the other hand had looked all woman from the get-go. She'd still had some growing to do, but the curves were all there. I called her "kid" because otherwise I'd have gotten thrown in jail with all the other perverts. Well, originally. When I found out what her mutant power was, I called her "kid" to keep from getting myself killed. But what a way to go.

I shook my head to clear away those thoughts and concentrated on Silver and Jean. "How's it going?"

"She's absorbed three syringes," Jean said flatly.

It was then that I noticed the thin fabric between her precious stethoscope and Silver's back. I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped.

Silver just shrugged. "I don't like needles."

To be honest it took more than a week to get Silver to string more than five words together, and she still wouldn't say anything about her past. I didn't mind that she seemed to have made herself my shadow. She was quiet. I'd over heard Jean talking to Ororo, wondering if Silver was mildly autistic. I may not look like a fella who reads a lot, but even I know what autism is, and Silver was way too alert to fall into that group.

For some reason Silver was in the briefing room while Jean and the Professor were discussing her mutation with the X-Men. For some reason Rogue and I were there too.

"I think, given time and a little effort," Jean had said, "that Silver should be able to purge the metal from her body."

Silver blinked. "Why?"

"So you could look normal if you wished to," Ororo explained gently.

Silver shook her head and held up her hand. "Watch."

The metal on the palm of her hand surged upward and began to twist around as Silver scowled in concentration. After a few shifts and a dissatisfied grunt from Silver a small, perfect replica of Ororo stood in her hand, all of two inches high. She reached up with her other hand and pulled it away. She set it on the table and her face scrunched up again as she focused on the miniature, metal Storm. The tiny statue danced across the glass surface until it stood in front of the original and curtsied neatly.

Silver let go once the statuette was standing straight again. "I already figured out how to purge the metal. I just don't want to."

"Why not?" Xavier asked quietly.

"Because I'll look like I did before, and because nobody can hurt me when I'm like this." She stood up and left the room. If the door hadn't slid shut behind her she would have slammed it.

"That went well," Scott muttered.

"Shut up, Scott," Marie snapped as she stood up. "There's obviously more to that girl than you think, so just shut up. She doesn't have to purge the metal if she doesn't want to."

Come to think of it, Marie would have slammed the door, too.

"It seems that Silver is more powerful than we thought." Professor Xavier glanced at me as if he expected me to throw a tantrum like the girls. He continued his little lecture when he understood that my mouth was staying shut. "The ability to absorb, expel, and manipulate metals is rather unusual."

"I'm worried about what could happen if Magneto got his hands on her," Scott said. "I know he's still in prison, but how long can that really last?"

I shook my head. "I'd be more worried about what would happen if Silver decided to 'expel' a piece of metal really fast."

That's when we heard the security alarms go off. That's what Ororo told me they were, once all the hubbub was over anyway. I just chased the others back up to the main levels.

Now the students at Xavier's aren't supposed to get involved in the fighting. That's just for the grown-ups with the silly costumes. But the real X-Men had all been down in the sub-basement when the attack came.

Actually only a few of the kids were in on the fighting. The others were trying to get the younger kids out of the way. And the kids fighting were calling each other silly codenames, just like their teachers. I heard Iceman, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Jubilee, and Boomer, of all things.

The kids were doing real good against Sabretooth -- Jubilee and Boomer from a distance while Nightcrawler kept teleporting out of range and Shadowcat became a ghost every time Sabretooth took a swipe at her. Even Iceman's shields and ice balls were helping to slow him down.

But Silver just stood right in Big Ugly's path. She was trembling again. And for the first time I smelled something from her other than metal. She smelled like terror. Marie was yanking on her arm, yelling for her to run, but she couldn't move the younger girl.

Then somehow Sabretooth was past not only the kids but the X-Men, too, and there was no way I could get to my girls before he killed them. He swatted Marie aside as if he didn't care if she absorbed part of his power.

"Hello, little girl," he growled right into Silver's face.

Silver stopped shaking. Her eyes were locked on Marie's slumped, unconscious body then drifted over to the wounded X-Men and the retreating children.

"Mr. Creed." Her voice was dull as she looked up at the massive mutant.

I kept running toward them until I saw Silver raise her arms. I hit the dirt, instinct giving me a damned good guess at what she was going to do. I was way, way off.

The metal did come out of her fast, but she never separated herself from it.

"I'm not a little kid anymore, Mr. Creed," she was saying quietly as lance after lance of metal launched from her body into Sabretooth's and his claws raked futily against her metal hide, ripping away her clothes. "You can't hurt me. You can't hurt me. You can't hurt me. And you're never going to hurt anyone again."

All the metal in her flowed down the length of those lances until it twisted and pushed out of Sabretooth's body like some nightmarish seed growing into a tree.

Silver collapsed once all the metal was gone. Jean rushed over to check on her and Marie as the others started to pick themselves up. One look at Sabretooth told me he was dead and gone for good this time. Not that there was much of him left. I turned around when Jean gasped behind me.

Looking down at Silver's flesh-and-blood body, anyone could have seen why she would rather keep all the metal wrapped around it. I was right -- she was black, and she might have been a beautiful little girl once upon a time. But she was covered in scar tissue. Hell, half her face had been ripped away by what looked like claws and her left arm was gone from the elbow down. Her legs were in just as bad a shape. She should have died from those old wounds.

Silver was thrashing around in bed, threatening to wake the others up, so I walked over and touched her smooth unscarred cheek.

"Shh, Silver," I whispered. "It's all right. Yer safe."

Her good eye blinked open. "L-L-Logan?"

"It's me, kid. Take it easy," I continued to whisper. "Jeanie said ya took a shock to yer system throwing out all that metal at once."

"Did I get him?" she whispered back.

"Yeah, kid, you got him."

Her eye drifted shut and a sad smile twisted her lips. "I got the bastard, Mommy."

"I found out where Silver came from," she said, her normally musical voice sharp with anger that was echoed by the raging weather outside.

Scott pulled the folder over in front of him and opened it. "Chyni Westlake. Toronto, Canada. Ten years old. Found beside the mangled remains of her mother. Claims of a monster killing her mother dismissed as post-traumatic delusions. Vanished from critical care ward. Investigating detectives ordered to drop the case. It was blamed on a wild animal attack."

"It was two years ago," Ororo complained. "Someone should have at least been looking for the child!"

"Nothing we can do about that now," Rogue said as she pulled the file away from Scott. "Says here she ain't got any family."

"She does now," I growl with a glare around the table just begging somebody to deny it so I can pound them into the floor.

"Indeed she does," Xavier responds. "About that display in the front yard?"

"Gone," Jean quickly assured all of us. "I'm having several small shipments of metal delivered so that Silver can rebuild herself again. I didn't think she'd want the last batch back."

"Do we know what her powers are now?" Scott asked, returning fully to fearless-leader-mode.

"It appears to be a combination of osmosis and control of magnetic forces. Her body naturally seeks to coat its cellular structure with metals."

After that little piece of useless information the meeting split up. Marie and I went to the medical facility to take Silver up to the room she'd been assigned. She was quiet when I scooped her up to carry her. I'd figured out about two minutes after she woke up that she couldn't walk on those mangled little legs without the metal shell supporting them. Silver just hid the ravaged side of her face against my shirt as we got out of the elevator and started up the stairs.

Marie was always right ahead of us, opening the doors. She stopped at the door right before mine and opened it right up. It suddenly struck me that Marie's room was just on the opposite side of my door from the one we were going in now.

"The better to protect us," Marie drawled as she flipped down the the comforter and sheets. "Anything you want before we bring up your dinner, Silver?"

Silver only shook her head as I laid her gently on the bed. Hell, I practically tucked the kid in. I ran my fingers gently through those short black curls of hers. "You get some rest, darlin'. You need anything, you just think really hard at Professor Xavier."

"Kitty and Jubes promised to make you something really sugary for desert," Marie commented as we went out the door.

And putting up with M's attitude problem was worth it, just to see the look on Silver's face when I pryed open that first crate.

"Titainum," Silver whispered as she reached for it.

I didn't even have to help her grab it. The silvery metal just seemed to flow out of the crate and coil around her arm. I can't say it surprised me that she started with her face, but it was just a kind of half mask that remade the left side. The rest flowed down and formed an obviously unnatural arm that looked more mechanical than organic. After all Jean had only managed to get a little of the good stuff. I didn't even ask, I just popped the top of the second and again the metal flowed to her as if of its own will. For a moment even my adamantium claws started to twist toward her as if drawn to become part of her.

The tempered steel from the second crate froze in midair as Silver stared in terror at my twisted claws. She let go of the steel completely and changed her focus to the claws. Under her demands they smoothed, straightened and gently resettled into their usual slight curve.

"God, Logan," she whispered as my claws slid back into my forearm with a metal on metal hiss, "I didn't realize what...I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that."

I reached out and mussed her hair gently. "Don't worry about it, kid. You just put yourself back together."

Silver favored me with a rare sweet little smile as the steel resumed its little trip to her body. After a few minutes Silver stood up on her perfect steel legs.

For a while I thought about taking off again, but then I'd do something stupid like look into Marie's big dark eyes or watch Silver try to figure out how to be Chyni again, and I'd stay.

Besides, Scooter still hadn't finished his new bike for me to take.