A/N: Thank you for the reviews!

Chapter Two - Strike Birds, Planes and Supermen

There wasn't much conversation on the way to California. I'd never been so grateful for the Blackbird's supersonic flight - three thousand miles in under thirty minutes. But those thirty minutes were all I could take. Logan didn't say anything that indicated he was annoyed at having to take me across the country, but the man had a way of letting you know without words...

I kept my eyes on the backs of his hands.

Finally, though, we got there. Logan stopped the jet hovering above Kings Canyon. This side, the sun was just coming up. "Where's your pal then?" Logan asked, a bushy eyebrow raised.

I shrugged, and left my seat. "Thanks for the lift, Logan. Open the landing ramp, would you?"

He did so, and I stepped out into thin air, controlling my descent. I couldn't control my direction, but I could stop myself from falling. Useful if, like me, you were skydiving without the parachute. Logan left quickly, the Blackbird's engines screaming as they passed. I watched it fade into the distance while allowing myself to sink slowly. "Now what?"

Using a swimming motion, I managed to turn a 360 in the air. It's not dignified, but it works, and I was able to scan the sky all around me, then the ground below. Nothing. A bear, but no people. Certainly no mutants that I could see. Maybe he just wasn't here yet.

I picked out a small plateau on the side of the nearest mountain, and sat, waiting. It was a very pretty sunrise. The sky was streaked with gold, pink and fluffy white clouds. There were vapour trails criss-crossing it too, and the first deep umber rim of the sun was just peeking above the horizon. It made me wish I'd brought a camera, and I was so captivated that I almost didn't notice him.

A movement caught my eye. It was Kings Canyon - falcons and other such birds weren't unheard of. But then I looked. And that was no bird. Nor was it a plane. Or Superman.

My mouth fell open. "Oh my…"

Were those…wings? I knew lots of mutants could fly, but he was the first one I'd ever seen with actual wings, and they were- they were glorious. It was a good job the professor had said not to approach him right away, because I couldn't have spoken if my life depended on it. I'm not religious, I've never been, and I tried to deny the word that was resounding through my brain at that moment. But as I watched him fly up the valley, it kept coming back stronger than the last time I'd rebuffed it. Eventually I had no choice but to accept the truth of what I was seeing. He might not be any more divine than me, but he was- An angel. Suddenly I wished I'd paid more attention to Nightcrawler when he started talking religion.

I was so transfixed that he flew right past me without even glancing my way. I don't think I blinked until he was halfway up the valley. I watched as he flew in a wide loop-the-loop, then wheeled, heading back. Remembering what the professor had told me, I didn't move or speak as he passed me again.

But that didn't mean I couldn't follow him. I couldn't fly, but with the wind behind me I didn't need to. I reduced gravity on myself until I was weightless, and then pushed off from the mountain. With the wind behind me my speed made my eyes water. My leather suit with the X-Men had glide panels built into it that enabled me to basically fly as long as the wind was right, which helped with the smoothness of my flight. This way was a little less streamlined, but still worked.

He didn't look behind him as he flew, though I got close enough to hear his wing beats.

I tried to note as many things about him as I could; physically at least. He was blond, and since he was topless I could see that his back was muscular, leanly so. He wore jeans and sneakers; standard fayre for people our age, and I thought he was about my age, or maybe a little bit older. He held something brown in his hand; something that looks like leather, but I couldn't get a close look at it. I looked again at those jeans. Those jeans that were revealing a rather nice-

Mind out of the gutter, Lex...

Heeding the voice of my conscience, I stopped ogling and focused back on the mission the professor had sent me on. This guy needed help. But what with, exactly...? He obviously didn't need any assistance with flying, or controlling his mutation. Which led me to the other problem that most mutants faced at some point in their lives: their families. Odds on, there were always relations who had something against mutants - with Luke and I, that had been our parents. I knew Bobby had the same problem. People like Kitty - whose parents were, I think, quietly proud of her - were rare in the mutant community. So this...angel...maybe his need for help came from that. It seemed unlikely his family remained in blissful ignorance; the wings weren't exactly hard to miss. So did they hate having a mutant in the family? Were they ashamed of him? Was he ashamed of himself?

It looked like I'd have plenty of time to think on those questions; soon enough the wind died down, and I felt myself slowing. Not having that problem, the angel soon outstripped me. I noted the direction he was flying in. East, but too far north for L.A. San Jose or San Francisco maybe.

Gradually, I allowed the pull of gravity to increase so that I floated down to touch down gently on the forest floor. Now to get back to New York. I had to be on the ground to do this, since though it would be safer in the air, it also took more strength than I had to keep myself weightless and transport.

It wasn't like Nightcrawler's mutation; I couldn't just disappear in one place and reappear in another - this was much more dangerous, and the reason, really, that I was at Xavier's Institute.

I open black holes. Not always when I mean to. Like a lot of mutations, at first mine had been triggered by my emotions. And when I got embarrassed... Some people wish they could open a big hole and let it swallow them - I can. Except my holes, they grow. They keep growing, and then they start sucking everything in with their gravity. I'd almost destroyed central London that way once. It was the final straw for my mother.

Luke had stopped me. Before we'd come to America, my brother and I were almost totally reliant on one another. He was the main reason Lord Nelson - along with the rest of Trafalgar Square - wasn't floating in some distant corner of space. Likewise I'd stopped him draining the national grid of electricity a few times. We might bicker constantly, but we also had a deep bond that had seen us through a lot. I couldn't imagine us not being that close.

I took a deep breath and focused. I needed to have all my concentration on this. Nobody really knows what black holes are; even I don't know exactly. But one theory is that they lead to other places - to other universes, other dimensions. It took a long time and a lot of study, but mine now lead to wherever I want them to. I could only open them for a second at a time; just long enough to step through, but not long enough for anything to be pulled in and destroyed.

I held my hands out in front of me, then closed my eyes. Black holes are started when matter collapses in on itself - and everything is matter. I picked a spot in the air and began. It requires an awareness of everything on a molecular level, and going from the world of the sequoia trees around me to atoms and electrons took a lot of work, but I got there. Slowly, I crushed. One molecule of nitrogen, then two, then oxygen and hydrogen. All gone, imploded inward. Within a few seconds, my lift home was open. I stepped into it and California disappeared.

Then New York - thank God - materialised. Upside down.

I landed on my head. I'd have preferred my arse - it's softer at least. And would have provided some protection from the rose bed I landed in.

I rolled over into my back. "Ow..."

There was the faint whirring of an electric motor, and the professor's smiling, upside down face appeared. "So, it went well then?"

A/N: Review please!