Credit: A HUGE thanx to Cacheral for the beta, plus, help with the title. YAY! Go Cacheral! WOO! Lol, sorry…Also thanx to Phoenixphantasy, the potential beta, who was lucky enough to escape my reign of terror.
Disclaimer: I own only Sparx. Marvel characters belong to Marvel.
Main Character(s): (OC) -Marissa King/Sparx. Magneto, The Brotherhood. Some Angel too, in later chapters.
Fandom: X-Men (MOVIEVERSE)
Rating: K+ (I think I managed to get through the whole of this chapter without swearing once; I deserve a medal for that:D)
Status: in-progress
F/N: Possibly AU, as I haven't yet decided which time period this is set in. And, um, this chapter is incredibly long. I was tempted at first to break it down in to several chapters, but I thought it was better for the story if I structured it properly for once! lol!
Italics: Marissa's thoughts
---: Alternate time period (e.g., a few days back, a few days ahead, or a few hours ago, etc.)
Summary: (OC, AU?) Having been stuck living a meaningless and dissatisfied life, Marissa King AKA Sparx is captured by Magneto to truly discover what the meaning of having a cause to fight for can mean and the downfalls it brings.
Chapter One-Thunderstruck
Tonnera
With an exasperated grunt, the young, irate teen walked in to her lush, lavishly, decorated bedroom, flung her rucksack across the floor, and slumped down on to her considerably large bed. Toying with her copper bangs that had now fallen into her eyes, she sighed loudly and sat up. Marissa King was tired, weary and mostly just angry to the point of screaming her head off. Her father, the head master of Westbridge Private School, had just induced his fed up daughter with another one of his mandatory discourse on the benefits of the Worthington's Mutation Correction injection. Over the past few months, she had received not one, but many speeches like this, forcing his opinion on to her weary mind that she, along with every other mutant shouldn't waste another second in getting the cure and ridding themselves of this horrid infestation that would only be the downfall of any and every person who was unfortunate enough to be cursed with this 'disease'.
Her father had close relations to Warren Worthington II, the producer of the cure that he was trying to get his daughter to take, and the fact that his son attended the same private school as Marissa did not help things at all. The truth that she was a mutant had been known to her Marissa's parents for almost half a year now and ever since that disastrous day she had been bugged, nagged, and nitpicked to take the cure.
---
It was a frosty January mid-day, and the electricity in the house had been cut off from the idiotic builders outside who had decided their third round of beers was probably more important than the antarctical temperature inside the house that was freezing Marissa and the housekeeper senseless. While sitting in her bed, trying hard to cover herself with her many blankets to insulate her bitterly cold body, she noted that was typical behaviour of her father, to be in such a rush to get to his special school board meetings that he would end up hiring some last minute company straight out of the phonebook without a second thought as to whether they would even get the job done.
Cursing to herself, she got out of her bed that she had been tucked herself into in a vain attempt to stay warm for the past few hours. Marching down the long flight of stairs, she strained to keep her eyes open from being up all morning from the bitingly cold January chill. She located the house's cable box, a large, intricate, cupboard full of millions of little colourful wires that screamed "touch me and I'll electrocute you." Holding the pliers she had found carelessly discarded around the front of the front doorway, she touched a blue wire that she had decided to randomly pluck. But after a second's hesitation, she thought to herself, what am I doing? I'll just end up causing more damage to the stupid electricity and then I'll have to wait even longer for it come back on. After a second's hesitation, she carelessly tossed the pliers to the floor and made up her mind to go outside, track down the moronic builders and shout the odds at them. No sooner than she had moved her hand away from the wires and stepped away from the cable box, did she feel a slight buzzing sensation in her fingers and the lights in that room flutter back to life. She held her hand to face.
That was weird.
She glanced outside the window to see if the builders had by some miracle actually managed to get the electric working again. There was no one outside.
Pure. Luck.
Just as she was about to go on her rampage, her head snapped up from the sound of giggling coming from the garden.
Is that Shannon?
Marissa instantly forgot her intended riot and marched straight towards the French doors towards the sound of her little sister's laughter. Stepping outside on to the patio, her eyes scanned the courtyard for the troublesome 7 year old.
She then spotted her little sister's kite dangling loosely from the branch of an oak tree to the far end of the patio. Looking up, she realised Shannon was in that tree, sitting on a considerably thin branch, leaning forward and trying to claw at a bright pink and blue kite that seemed to be dangled along with a nest and lots of leaves.
"SHANNON!"
Marissa strode over to the tree, irritated with impatience of the young girl who had been told to firmly stay in the house whilst their father was at the meeting.
"What are you doing up there?" she demanded.
Shannon's smiling face looked down at her big sister with a big grin.
"My kite got caught, and then this magpie tried to steal it!"
"Shannon, come down from there, you'll fall over and get hurt!" Marissa yelled.
"Actually, I can think he may have been trying to get back his nest…" Shannon said to herself, still trying to reach for the kite.
"Dad's told you a million times you can't climb trees, especially when there's no-one around! Do you really want to get in trouble with Dad?"
"Magpies keep jewellery in their nests don't they? Do you want me to see if there's anything interesting in there?" she replied, pointedly ignoring Marissa's threats.
"Why are you even trying to fly your kite? There's no wind."
At that moment a big drop of water drop on to her shoulder.
Thank god it was water.
With a sigh, she started to yell again. "See? It's even starting to rain! You can't fly your kite now!"
"You don't need some nice weather to fly a kite," she replied matter-of-factly.
I'm gonna get into so much trouble for this.
"Fine. If you fall off and break your knee, I'll be laughing."
"Yeah, well, so will I, cos you'll get into trouble with mom and dad."
She stuck her tongue out at her big sister and went back to trying to grab at the neon pink kite.
With an irritated sigh, Marissa spun around and stalked straight back to the house. At that moment, She honestly couldn't care less whether she got in to trouble, or the electricity didn't come back on all day, or her father came back with an injection branding the name 'Worthington Labs', or even if her sister dared to fly her kite in the rain…
But then again, if she caught a cold, she would never hear the end of it from her father, and even if she never reached the kite, she would probably end up getting seriously injured.
A roar of thunder overhead made Marissa pause at the french doors, and after a moment's hesitation she sighed and turned around and revved herself up for another coaxing session with her sister to try and get her down from the tree. The rain that was now coming down quite steadily had already drenched her hair through and her nightclothes. Just as she was about to yell for the numerous time that day, a flash of light from the murky grey skies above her caught her eye. A vibrant bright crack of lightning that was frighteningly close tore through the skies with speedy precision. A flash of fear went straight through Marissa.
"Oh my god…"
The sudden realisation that a metal bucket was dangling from a tree of the branch went through her like a jolt of electricity. Shannon had hung the bucket full of bird seeds days ago in a vain attempt to draw some blue jays to the tree because she couldn't be bothered to actually put together a proper birdfeeder like her father had suggested, in an effort to exert her creative side.
And now Marissa could visualize the horrifying image of cracked tree and a horribly hurt Shannon, due the conduction of that metal bucket.
"SHANNON!" She screamed at the top of her voice.
The young girl immediately looked up with a look of shock as to why her sister would scream so urgently loud. With a blank look on her face, Shannon sat up on the branch, showing no intention to move from her spot, what with having no idea what was going on.
With each recurring bolt of lighting, the volts kept getting closer and closer to the tree, just as the rain was coming down heavier and heavier.
Marissa barely had time to blink as she saw the lightning fly towards the tree with deadly aim and frighteningly sudden speed.
She couldn't run. Her feet were glued down the stone patio, unable to even register what was going on.
At that moment, Marissa couldn't quite place what strange obscurities she felt. She knew she was horribly scared but at the same time, the fluttering shock of what was happening ran through every nerve on her body, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Her eyes shut themselves; she couldn't watch.
All she did remember was the mind wrenching desire to draw the lightning away from Shannon, the yearning feeling to allure it anywhere but towards her little sister. There was a strange sensation around her, almost as if there were forces at work attracting her to the deadly lightning, almost magnetic.
Thedesire to rear it remained strong. If she could just reach out and pull the shocking sharp light to herself…
And then she opened her eyes, only to see something that convinced her her eyes must have been deceiving her. If she hadn't been annoyed over and over that morning, she may have believed just for that split second that what she was seeing only a result of being blinded by rage and irritation.
She wasn't convincing herself.
Marissa was staring directly in to a river of lightning that was now flying straight towards her. Somehow, it had managed to divert itself from the tree, putting Shannon out of risk, but now Marissa at great danger.
The bright white shock flew straight out of her without warning.
At that moment, she felt shock flooding every pore in her body to the very ends of her toes, leaving the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She felt almost...an electrifying sensation, as if she was absorbing the lightning itself. Mustering up all the courage she could, she slowly opened her eyes to find herself bathed in an intoxicatingly vivid glow that surrounded every part of her body. The luminescence seem to be throbbing with every second, and eventually, it started to slow down and wear away. After a while it had died down completely, leaving Marissa standing there on the patio with nothing but a quite literally, thunderstruck look on her face.
Still standing rooted to that one place on the stone ground, Shannon came running over with an equally shocked look on her face.
"Marissa…"
Taking a surprising amount of energy, she slowly tuned her head around to face her little sister.
"You're a…mutant?"
Shannon wide eyes stared at her older sister in disbelief and astonishment. Marissa finally found the energy from her aching stiff neck for a fragile nod. She stared down at her hand, millions of little shocks and sparks still vibrating from the skin on her hand. After a moment's shocked silence with nothing but the patter of little rain drops around them, Shannon's face then turned from that of shock and amazement to smugness and complacency.
"I'm soooooo telling Dad."
---
Slowly, she got up from her pale lavender sheets, she walked over to her immense dresser, sat down and stared at the mirror and items in front of her. Everything on her dresser, perfumes, make-up, jeweller, just filled her with exhausted weariness and reminded her of her comfortable and rich life she'd been consumed in during the whole of her meaningless life.
And it was meaningless.
Every where she went, she would hear the same opinions, the same quotes, and always from the same people.
It was like living in an electric bubble. Every time you'd hit the surface you'd get electrified and thrown back into the mix for ever daring to be rebel. It was driving her insane.
In a rich high school where everyone's thoughts were the same, dressed the same, and spoke the same. The limited variety of people was enough to make her explode, what with the restraint of having to bite her tongue on more than several occasions when the issue of the mutant cure came up. There was never a single clashing point of view or any challenging objections. As much as it got on Marissa's nerves, everyone one always agreed with everyone else. Much like her father, no-one believed that mutants were people, too. Their solution to the 'problem' was to either lock them up and throw away the key, or use the cure to rid themselves of the so-called disease.
Marissa didn't feel the need to hide what she was from everyone lese. Although some people may have found themselves to scared to reveal themselves publicly, Marissa had on more than one occasion almost blurted it out. The idea of chastisement from her father for revealing somehow managed to hold her back, but she wasn't sure if she could hold back any longer. Mutation wasn't something that bothered her. That was partly because she wasn't one to apologise for something that wasn't her fault.
But also because it made her different from everybody else, like a sort of firm indication that she wasn't like everyone else. It was almost as if it what she'd wanted all her life.
And on these several occasions she had been tempted to flash a defiant eye in the direction of the adversary, but only on one of these occasions had she actually said anything.
---
"I'm just saying, if mutants can't keep themselves under control, then someone else had gotta do it for them, right?" Jaimeson Merrick was another one of the oblivious, deludedly ignorant and rich smart arses that ruled supreme over Tonnera City, even if he was just a junior in the making. The remarkably average popular jock that everyone seemed to stick to like magnet, was carrying on like a single mutant wasn't within an earshot radius to hear every word that was flooding from his oblivious mouth.
"They've got to be restricted, they've gotta be put in their place, let people know where they belong, right?"
From all the students surrounding him, there was a unison of nods and agreeing hums.
Unbeknownst to Jaimeson, an irritated level four mutant with a high anger threshold was taking in every word with increasing fury and incense. Seated at the far end of the wide lunch tables the young people were now seated at, she firmly set down her glass of ice tea.
"And where do they belong, Jaimeson?" She had her arms folded with a feigned interested look on her face.
Jaimeson didn't hesitate for a second.
"Behind bars of course! I thought that would be obvious, even to someone like you, Marissa."
"I guess that must be your idea of a solution to a problem, then. Get rid of it and ignore it in the hope that it'll never be an issue again? That's really mature of you Jaimeson," she finished sarcastically.
After an amazed look at this sudden outburst and a second's silence, he challenged her.
"Is there something you want to say, Rissy?" he asked with a smug smile.
"Don't call me that you obnoxious, fat headed swine," she shot back.
A few shocked gasps and laughs escaped the confining table.
"You know you've been acting really weird lately king." He only ever used to use her father's name to remind her that although she would try to divide herself from everyone else, she was indeed actually very similar to them and had the same background as they did.
"You seem to have something you're hiding from the rest of us. Anything you wanna get of your chest, Rissy?"
"Is you remarkably prejudiced drivel intentional or just some horrible mistake?" she shot back.
A few more giggles errupted.
"There's no mistake about it, Rissy. Mutants are dangerous."
After an awkward silence that went uninterrupted for a good few painful seconds, Marissa got up from her seat, scooped up her back from under her chair and headed straight for the door without a single glance backwards. On the way out, several hushed whispers and looks a caught her as she passed, as did the smug look on Martin's face.
A lesson well learnt, Marissa decided that the best place to keep her opinions were to herself.
---
On the way from the refectory, her head felt like a millions vibrating little sparks were actively trying to get loose and explode somewhere, anywhere. The desire for venting out her anger on any passing human in the hallways was too great to compress. It wasn't helped by the fact that the odd rumble from below the schol floors were suddenly errupting. For as long as she could remember, there had been some muffled noises, almost like explosions coming from underneath the school. Excitable students claimed it was some sort of lab undrneath the school, although her father on more than one occasion had quickly reprimanded her for thinking the same things as the gossipers and would just pass it off as 'technical adjustments.' Marissa was always skeptical. The bangs were always too loud to be 'technical adjustments', what not with the fact that overnight some chemicals and aparatus would go missing from Mrs Menon's chemistry labs, as if some anonymous group of experimenters were 'borrowing without asking' the school facilities. The very thought amused Marissa.
But back to the matter at hand, Marissa felt ready to make a maximized power pack out of the west side of the school that she was now angrily striding down. Rumours had been flying around like crazy that she was a mutant, thanks to Jaimeson and his minions. It had been commonplace knowledge for a while now that Marissa King was mutant, and Marissa knew it was only a matter of time before she would get expelled for 'unforeseen circumstances'.
The heat was now getting to her, everyone she passed, she could see the look in their eyes. Suspicious, shifty glances that just couldn't escape Marissa's mind. She could feel the energy being summoned up inside her now, ready for discharge.
Now matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't calm down the vigour in her. Marissa knew it would only take something as small to trigger her off, like a shove-
"Hey! Watch where you're going!" A girl from Marissa's biology class bumped straight in to her, on purpose without a doubt. She walked off with glance backwards before muttering 'mutie' under her breath, but clearly audible from where Marissa was standing. And that was it. Marisa could feel her resistance to hold back diminish. If only it weren't for the one person who had shown her a single kind gesture that whole, might she have been able to suppress it.
"Marissa? You dropped your bag-" Warren Worthington III didn't have time to finish the sentence, as soon as he tapped her shoulder, his copper haired friend barely had time to realise who he was before she spun around, for him only to see a flying bolt of electricity flying straight for him.
"Stay back!" she screamed as the electric white light threw a surprised Warren into the air and hurled him to the ground. Screams echoed down the hallway as Marissa stared in petrified horror at her injured friend who was lying frighteningly still.
Before the shock even had time to sink into her, she was thrown off her feet by an unexpected eruption from the wall on her right. Clusters of wall flew everywhere, accompanied by smoke and debris. Her body lay still for a few seconds, the fire alarm sounding distant in her ears, amidst the new screams from the unexpected explosions.
Slowly, Marissa mustered up all the energy she could to open her eyes and forced herself to sit up. She was buried underneath pieces of pinewood and bits of metal as well she realised. The smell of the fumes and smoke clustered her nostrils making her cough roughly. Ignoring the pain in her neck, she slowly looked around the hazy air.
Did I do this?
Violently coughing, Marissa strained to see clearly, trying not to let her rage and confusion blind her as well as the smoldering fumes that now polluted her mind . She frantically looked around her only to find several figures staring down at her. A slim blond boy with a cocky smile slanting across the left side of his face, a much more larger man who was twice the size of any regular man in height and width who also appeared to have some strange headwear, and unless the smoke and dust had gotten to her head, awoman with mauve skin and scales and piercing yellow eyes. Now they all stared down at Marissa as if they'd found something of great worth and their hunt was over.
From all around her she could hear screams as everyone was scrambling for their lives at the sight of these people who could only be mutants. Trying to find her voice from the rawness the smoke had applied to her throat, she screamed out loud.
"Who are you people?" she demanded in between coughs.
From out of the debris and smoke came a dark, caped figure with strange type of headgear that Marissa couldn't quite place. Once he stepped into the hazy light, Marissa's eyes widened as she realised who he was.
No-one could mistake the terrifying mutant terrorist Magneto, who was known for his ruthlessness in murdering a mass number of humans, he was practically the most feared figure by humans because of his cold-bloodedness and brutality that had resulted in hundreds of lives being taken on Alcatraz Island.
He walked slowly to Marissa standing parallel to the others who stood over Marissa.
His eyes transfixed on the shocked teen who was in bewilderment of what was going on around her. Narrowing his eyes, he spoke to her in a tauntingly fluent, smooth spoken tone.
"Marissa King… I hear you've got quite a spark in you…"
A/N: Don't you just love Marissa? She's such a grouchy cow…lol!
And a great big virtual hug and kiss for anyone who reviews! Revies really make my day. Even mean ones.
-- I mentioned that Cacheral rules, right?
xXx Shy FX