Aegis

Chapter 1

It was a chilly, autumn morning in New York City and the sun had just begun to crest the tall skyscrapers that seemed to cover every inch of the sprawling city. The streets were already crowded, the city alive with the hustle and bustle of the day once again. People went about their business, no one paying any attention to the young, slightly smaller-than-average girl with soft grey eyes and blonde plaited hair that was dodging and weaving through the crowd with such experience that could only come from years of traipsing around in the swarming crowds of New Yorkers.

She ducked into a coffee shop and ordered her usual vice: hot chocolate with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles. The guy behind the bar nodded in her direction. 'Hey, Autumn. How are you?' He greeted her in a familiar way.

'Hey, Elmo. Good. How's business?' The girl replied, sipping at her searingly hot drink.

'Slow. Can't you convince some of those people you know to come in now and then?'

'Elmo, the people I know probably want to kill me. So, unless you want to lose a valuable and frequent customer, no,' she shot back, finishing off her drink. She licked her lips and passed the cup over to him as he finished bussing the counter.

'Who've you been pestering this time, Autumn?'

'Just Don and the rest of his gang. You know, the lightning bolt guys?'

'Autumn, please, please, please, please, please tell me that you don't mean Don Graff, the notorious drug dealer. What did you do this time? Blow up one of his warehouses, or something?'

'Yep,' she replied casually. Elmo's jaw dropped and he dropped his cloth. 'You know, if your jaw drops any lower, you'll probably end up dislocating it.'

In that moment, as Elmo was shutting his mouth, two men walked in. The first one was tall, with closely cropped dark hair and a cold, hard expression. He had the sort of looks that any woman would have a hard time resisting, but his behaviour displayed a certain kind of indifference.

The second man was shorter than the first, with thicker and more unruly hair. His face looked softer and kinder with a warmer and more inviting expression. This man was also attractive, but in a different, subtler way.

The pair headed towards the bar and took a seat on either side of Autumn. Elmo raised an eyebrow, as if to say 'Who are they?', and Autumn raised one back at him, as if to say 'How am I meant to know?'. Elmo sighed, picked up the cloth from the floor and asked both men what they'd like.

'I'd like to get on with this, if that's agreeable with you Charles?' The tall one said.

'Erik, I wish you weren't quite so brash sometimes,' The smaller man, Charles chided, holding his hand out to Autumn. 'A pleasure to meet you, my dear. My name is Charles Xavier. This is Erik Lensherr, my associate. We were wondering if you could help us.' At this Autumn visibly gulped. Did they want to talk to her about what had happened at the warehouse the other night? Or did they want to talk to her about her the other thing?

'Autumn. Pleased to meet you too,' she said politely, shaking Charles' hand firmly. Erik merely grunted and Autumn had to resist the urge to push him off his bar stool. Charles was right. He really was brash.

'We have a proposition for you. We know all about your...problem, Autumn. About what happened 6 years ago. Now, there's no need to worry my dear,' he said soothingly, noticing that Autumn's breathing had picked up and her eyes were already scanning the shop for possible points of escape. 'We are like you, actually. We'd like to help you.'

'In what way are you like me?' She asked cautiously, already suspicious of these strangers. They worked for the government, which had already made her suspicious, but the fact that they knew about her past, about what she could do and had done, was even more startling than when Elmo had kissed her under the mistletoe last year at the coffee shop's annual Christmas knees-up.

'We are mutants. We have special gifts, just like you. As you can see and hear, I am talking to you, but no sound is coming from my mouth. I'm what you'd call a telepath, my dear." Autumn stared at Charles with wide eyes and an open mouth.

'You might want to close your mouth, or you'll catch flies,' Eric snapped, waving his hand and levitating a metal pot of sugar over towards him. If anything, Autumn's eyes became wider and her mouth dropped even further towards the floor.

'How did you do that?' She enquired, her voice filled with a mixture of awe and disbelief.

'Simple. I'm a metal bender. I can manipulate metal. Charles is a telepath, though I assume that he's already demonstrated that.' Autumn closed her mouth but her eyes were still wide open. Suddenly she noticed that everyone in the room had stopped moving. All their actions were ceased; A man was caught in handing a wad of cash over to another shifty looking man with a dodgy-looking moustache; Another man was stuck getting up from his booth. And to top it all off, Elmo was still bending over the coffee machine, long after the coffee had squirted out into the cup.

'May I inquire as to what you want from me?' Autumn asked politely, slightly irked that they had frozen her friend. Still, if they allowed her enough time to grab a sharpie and do what she did best, she would be satisfied.

'We would like you to join us in a project called Division X. It's a group of mutants who are helping us to stop World War III,' Charles explained slowly. However, this just seemed to confuse Autumn further. 'There is a man named Shaw – or Schmidt, depending on who knows him – who wants to start World War III between the USSR and America. We intend to stop him. And we'd like your help to do it.'

'All right, I'll join you. But you have to know now that I can't control either of my powers. They don't work when I want them to, and they can be dangerous, especially when they go haywire. In fact, how many others will there be?' Autumn asked, nervous of the answer. If there were too many then someone would be hurt when her powers eventually went haywire, which was an absolute given. She'd never been able to last more than 2 months without her powers going haywire at some point or other.

'There are already 5 others at Headquarters. There's just one other that we need to pick up along the way, and then we can be going. Do you need to get anything before you go?' Autumn thought of all the useless bits of tat that she had collected over the years. There was nothing that she truly treasured apart from the denim coat that she had been wrapped up in when she arrived at the orphanage, and she was currently wearing that.

'No, there's nothing whatsoever. But, can I say goodbye to Elmo first?'

'Make it quick,' Eric grunted out. This time, instead of resisting the urge to push him off the barstool, Autumn gave him one firm shove and he toppled to the floor, landing in a heap.

'Autumn. Eric. Please. Do try to get on. We have a 5 hour car journey ahead of us and I don't think that my sanity will be able to stand you two bickering for that length of time,' Charles groaned. Then Autumn and Eric groaned at the thought of having to spend 5 hours in each other's company.

All of a sudden, everything in the shop began to move again. Elmo stood up and pushed and stopped the machine before turning round to see Autumn ducking under the counter. He also noted that Eric was picking himself up off the floor and wondered what and happened. Then he decided that where Autumn was concerned, it was much better not to know sometimes.

'I guess you're leaving then,' Elmo said, startling Autumn. 'I may not be a mutant but I can tell that somehow you guys managed to have an entire conversation and that I'm now going to have to give you a very emotional send-off because there's no one else who likes you enough.' They both cracked a grin at this last bit and Autumn punched his arm lightly.

'Some friend you are, Elmo. But yes, this is goodbye. Not forever, I hope,' she whispered, wrapping her willowy arms around his lean figure and resting her head on his chest. His arms encircled her slight and bony body and he stroked her hair with his free hand.

'Ok, well I give you permission to go, but only under the conditions that you eat properly and you give that tall guy hell. He looks like the kind of guy who'd shoot you, as opposed to shake your hand.' Autumn chuckled lightly.

'Yeah, he does. And who said I needed your permission anyway. I'm old enough to look after myself,' she added indignantly.

'I'm sure you are,' Elmo, ruffling her hair affectionately before placing a kiss on her forehead and ushering her towards the two men waiting for her, one of whom was getting very impatient.

'I thought I told you to make it quick,' Eric grumbled, trying to steer Autumn out of the coffee shop as she waved to Elmo, who in turn waved at her and gave her the thumbs up.

'He's family,' she retorted simply, before latching on to Charles' arm, and he guided her through the bustling crowds to a sleek black saloon. 'Oh, nice car. It's a Chevrolet Impala, if I'm not mistaken' she exclaimed. Eric grunted in surprise.

'So she knows about cars, Eric thought. 'Probably the only thing she knows about, though.' He was startled out of his thoughts by a hand continually waving in front of his face. He looked down to see Autumn with a smirk on her face. He quickly grabbed her hand, twisted it behind her back and pinned it there. Or at least he did until he was blown backwards by some inexplicable force. Surely, it couldn't have come from the little girl that had been annoying him, could it? He carefully extracted himself from the pavement and walked over slowly to where Charles and Autumn were staring at him, slack-jawed. 'What the hell just happened, Charles?' He growled addressing his question to the young man with brunette hair.

'Ah...well – um...you see – ah, how to explain? Autumn may or may not have the power to create a force field when threatened or in danger, though I myself am not quite aware what just happened. Would you care to explain, Autumn?' The young girl glanced between the calm brunette and the fuming one, whose knuckles had turned white in the tight fists they had formed.

'And you didn't think to explain this to me earlier?' He all but yelled. Suddenly he spun towards the blonde girl, who flinched at the force of his gaze. 'And yes, perhaps you would like to explain.'

'Well, when I feel threatened, as Charles said, I have the tendency to create a force field. Except, as I explained, I can't really control either of my powers, and so sometimes the force field tends to just...blast outwards, knocking away the danger,' she explained plainly and simply. However this just seemed to anger Eric more, so she skilfully positioned herself behind Charles, using him as a barricade against Eric's wrath. 'Sorry,' she said in a timid voice.

This apology seemed to quell some of Eric's anger, and he unfurled his fingers, wiggling them to allow the blood to flow through them once again. Autumn peeked out from behind Charles and allowed herself a small smile of victory as Eric turned, opened a door to the car and slid into the seat. Charles, being the gentleman that he was, opened the back door for Autumn and she slid into the comfortable seats in the back before thanking Charles and shutting the door. Charles slid into the driver's seat, and pulled on his seatbelt.

'Autumn, put your seatbelt on,' a voice commanded her, though surprisingly enough; it wasn't Charles who spoke, but Eric. He glared at her when she didn't immediately buckle up and she snapped out her trance long enough to do as he said. Charles pulled away from the curb, and as they trundled through the city, Autumn couldn't help but think that she was finally doing what she had always dream of. She was finally escaping. But what was she escaping to?