Evie closed her eyes – mostly so that she couldn't see the others' intent gazes – before she took a deep breath as she conjured up an image of the sea in her mind. She layered the deep ocean colours in her mind's eye, adding vibrantly coloured fish that swam amongst the reefs while in the distance was a shimmering underwater castle.
There were gasps from all around, and Evie peaked out to see the others apparently staring vacantly into space; but she knew they were all witnessing the vision she'd cast onto their eyes, tricking their minds into thinking what they were seeing were real.
"So, yeah." Evie shrugged as she released them from the vision she'd cast, and the others refocused on her in awe. "That's what I can do."
"That's beautiful." Raven said admiringly as she clapped again, the others joining in as they nodded.
"How did you make us see that so vividly?" Lisa asked curiously, and Evie shrugged again.
"Well, it's just my mutation." Evie answered. "And I love art, so it wasn't too difficult to detail the image in my own mind."
"Even then, you must have a natural creativity to create such a realistic world." Darwin observed.
Evie blushed, embarrassed by the attention, while Hank agreed, "It was like a matrix - an environment that you molded into your own image."
He tacked on the explanation at Sean, Alex, and Evie's blank expressions; and the three nodded as they understood while Raven interjected brightly, "Matrix! You should be called 'Matrix'!"
Evie shrugged, not really minding what she was called at the moment. It was so… different to have people in awe at what she could do, to praise her and compliment her. It felt like she belonged – something she hadn't felt in ten years.
So it was with a rather warm happiness that Evie smiled back at the others, before she turned to Hank as she asked, "What about you, Hank? What can you do?"
Hank blinked, before looking away awkwardly as Raven piped up, "He's got really dexterous feet and really cool agility; plus, he's really strong."
"Wow." Evie answered enthusiastically, possibly a little over enthusiastically as she sensed Hank's insecurity.
"That's incredible." Lisa enthused, clearly also sensing the sensitivity of the subject. "I'm really not physically strong, so I envy that."
She gestured to her own, admittedly bone-thin limbs, and Hank gave her a small, shy smile in thanks.
"So, what do you want to be called?" Angel asked, when Alex piped up mockingly between laughs, "How about Big Foot?"
Evie shot the blond male a look; as did Lisa and Raven, the latter of whom also added scathingly, "You know what they say about guys with big feet. And, uh," she glanced down at Alex's pointedly, "yours are kind of small."
"Oohhhh." Sean laughed, while Darwin interjected as pacifist, "Okay, now."
Angel was laughing with Lisa, and Evie suppressed a smile as she saw Raven and Hank glance at each other shyly – there was something potentially growing between these two; something sweet.
Clearly it was new and as yet unspoken, however, so Evie kept her observations to herself as she instead turned to Darwin as the eldest in their group asked, "Alex, what is your gift? What can you do?"
Evie turned to Alex again, curious, especially as Alex hesitated.
"It's not..." He answered evasively, scratching his head a little nervously. "I just… I just can't do it. I can't do it in here."
Lisa cocked her head curiously, while Darwin asked curiously as he pointed to the courtyard, "Can you do it out there?"
As Alex hesitated, the others started encouraging, "Come on!"
"Alex!" Darwin began to chant, and they all joined in. "Alex! Alex! Alex! Alex! Alex!"
Alex finally held his hands up in surrender, and they all clapped instead as the young man stood up.
"That's the spirit!" Darwin cheered as Alex headed for the broken window.
"Get down when I tell you." Alex ordered as he leapt over the shattered glass, while the others all got up as well to move for a better view by the window.
"Someone's bossy." Lisa muttered, but she joined the others to watch. They lined up at the broken window, peering out the side to where Alex had positioned himself in the corner of the courtyard.
"Get back." Alex warned when he noticed them, and they all drew back… before peering around the window again to watch as Alex tensed.
He saw them, and he insisted, "Get back!"
They didn't even bother to move this time, simply staring openly and Alex muttered under his breath, "Whatever."
Evie's eyes widened as a strange red light began to appear around Alex's middle, and then her jaw dropped as red beams, plasma circlets of some kind, began to shoot out from around Alex's upper body.
The plasma blasts flew out a little wildly, looking like Frisbees as they flew out from Alex's chest area, and the group all ducked slightly in case they were hit as Alex fired off several more beams before one sliced right through the statue in the middle of the courtyard.
He stopped as the statue's top half went toppling over, the cut edges on both it and the standing lower half burning, and Sean crowed in amazement while Darwin called, "Oh, yeah!"
"That was brilliant!" Lisa added, earning a surprised look from the blond male.
But Alex smiled a little as the group all laughed and clapped again, the young mutants all feeling the rush as they each finally felt like they had found somewhere they could belong.
Evie giggled as Raven hugged her while they laughed and cheered for Alex as he returned to the room, looking a little embarrassed but pleased, and she let herself relax as she never had before, surrounded by her new – and first – friends.
Soon, of course, things started to go… a little downhill.
It was clear they were all getting too excited, their inhibitions down now that they could be and making them more reckless than normal. And they didn't even have real booze, just hyped up excitement that exploded into a rush of adrenaline.
Normally, Evelyn hated when people partied and trashed a place – of course, she might be biased since she was usually the one who had to clean up after such people – but… somehow, she didn't want to care. Not this time.
Not when she'd finally found people in the world who could like her for her.
So she sat, laughing as though drunk – which she sort of was, on pure, unadulterated happiness – while music blasted around the room as Raven and Lisa danced on the sofa and Angel danced in the air as she flew around the room; Hank literally swung from the lights on the ceiling, hanging upside down by his feet; and Sean and Alex smashed tables and chairs, basically anything they could find, on Darwin's body as the man changed his skin to be made of some kind of strong rock.
"Come on!" Darwin was taunting as everything that hit him broke while he was left unscathed. "You can go harder than that. Harder!"
"What are you doing?!"
The stern and incredulous shout was like a bucket of cold water on the group of young adults; they all flinched at the sound before whipping around quickly toward the source.
Raven's smile dropped for a moment while Evie gulped as she saw Moira, Charles, and Erik all standing in the courtyard, staring in disbelief into the trashed room through the broken window.
Hank almost fell from the ceiling in his haste to get down, saving himself last minute as he twisted nimbly to land on his feet, and everyone else gathered in a sheepish group before the window.
They were all suddenly feeling and looking like naughty children who had been caught by their parents with their hands in the cookie jar – after breaking the jar, Evie thought as she glanced around at the destroyed room.
"Who destroyed the statue?" Moira demanded, one hand on her hip while she pointed at said statue in the courtyard.
Evie cringed, while Hank said quickly, "It was Alex."
Lisa grimaced and Alex shot Hank a look of utter disbelief, while Angel snorted as she struggled to keep her laughter in check.
Evie bit her lip, sensing the mood better than some of the others who like Angel didn't seem to yet understand how much trouble they were in.
Unfortunately, Raven was one of those who hadn't quite yet come down from her excited high, and the blonde interjected brightly, "No, 'Havok'. We have to call him 'Havok'. That's his name now."
She then turned to the three older adults outside as she added enthusiastically, "And we were thinking, you should be Professor X," she pointed at Charles, "and you should be Magneto."
She pointed at Erik, and Evie wondered how Raven could be so blithe when it was very clear from Charles's face that he was more than a little unhappy… and very disappointed.
But perhaps, the worst was the look on Erik's face as he deadpanned while looking at Raven's pointed finger, "Exceptional."
And it wasn't just how he looked at Raven – it was how he was looking at them all.
Evie's heart sank as she saw the resignation on Erik's face; he'd been expecting something like this. Or rather, and perhaps more accurately, he hadn't been expecting much from them. For all his talk about her abilities, it was very clear to Evie in that moment that Erik didn't believe in the slightest that she was ready to face the world yet. That he didn't believe any of them were ready; were anything more than children.
And somehow… that was a bitterer pill to swallow than Charles's disappointment.
Because at least Charles had believed something greater out of them. At least, they were in the wrong for letting him down on that belief. Erik… him treating them like naive children… it felt a lot worse to feel like they had proven him right.
Erik glanced at her briefly before he left, and Evie averted her eyes as the older man walked out of the courtyard, Moira following him.
Charles stayed to look at Raven sternly, and he said in a tone that left no room to guess how he was feeling, "I expect more from you."
Raven's face fell, and she blinked back tears as Charles turned and followed Erik and Moira away.
Leaving a heavy silence behind.
Evie sighed as she sat, curled on the sofa beside Raven, while Angel and Lisa sat morosely on the other side of the sofa.
Alex and Darwin were playing the ping ball game in the corner of their new 'recreation' room. It was clean and as nice as the first room… except it felt more like being grounded than when they'd been sitting in nervous excitement in the first room. The room they had trashed.
"Oh! I didn't know the circus was in town."
Evie glanced over to see two CIA agents standing on the other side of the glass window, clearly in the midst of patrolling the courtyard when they'd paused to have fun at her and her friends' expense.
"Hey, come on, honey." The agent mocked as he fluttered his hands at Angel. "Give us a little..."
Angel glared, and the agent asked, "No?"
He turned to where Hank and Sean were seated across from the girls, and he taunted at Hank, "Come on, let's see the foot."
Hank stood up, and the agent mocked as Hank walked towards the window, "There it is. Come on, Big Foot, let's go. Hey."
Hank pushed a button on the side of the wall, drawing the curtains on their window automatically as the agent pretended to whine, "Hey, come on. Hey."
Hank just saluted humourlessly as the curtains shut the agents out, before he returned with heavy steps back to his seat on the sofa.
Evie clenched her hands on her knees, while Raven glanced at Angel as the shorter woman sat stiffly on the sofa.
"They're just guys being stupid." Raven tried to comfort the upset Angel, but Angel snapped back sharply, "Guys being stupid, I can handle. Okay? I've handled that my whole life."
Hank and Sean sat moodily as Angel bit out, "But I'd rather a bunch of guys stare at me with my clothes off, than the way these ones stare at me.
Raven just slumped her shoulders as she pointed out quietly, "At us."
Angel pursed her lips, turning away, while Lisa sank her head into her knees and Evie looked down at her hands.
A part of her agreed with Angel – she'd handled guys being stupid for years, even more so when she'd started working at 'Viva Grande'. And in some ways, Angel was right – it was easier to handle the way those men had stared at her there, than the way these men looked at her like a freak. Like they had.
She curled in on herself as she clamped down on her memories – it wasn't going to help living through those ones again, and it certainly wasn't going to make her feel any better. Evie sighed as she wondered, not for the first time since Erik and Charles had left the compound earlier that night, if she had made a mistake in coming here after all…
Thump.
Evie frowned as she heard a faint whooshing noise, followed by a slightly louder thud, coming from somewhere outside their room.
At first, she wondered if she was just hearing things, but then the others looked around with small frowns as well. Lisa had lifted her head and she was staring towards the roof with a puzzled frown, while Darwin looked up from his game with Alex.
"What was that?" Darwin asked slowly, and the group went silent for a beat as they listened intently.
The same noise sounded again, and then again, the thuds getting a little louder every time – as though whatever was causing the sound was getting closer. They all looked up in confusion while Darwin muttered as he walked back towards the group, "I don't know, but something doesn't feel right."
Lisa was already up and hovering by the window, as though she were debating something. Guessing her thoughts, Evie touched the girl's arm as the others all gathered around the window as well, and the blonde murmured, "Don't - we don't know what it is yet and you might get hurt."
Lisa looked at her with troubled eyes but the teen nodded before looking back at the window as Hank pressed the button again to open the curtains. The group peered out warily as one, all of them tense and uncertain.
It was silent as a grave, but Evie couldn't shake the feeling that it felt more like the calm before a storm. And she wasn't the only one.
"There's nothing out there." Hank murmured, but Darwin pointed out, "Don't tell me you don't feel something's wrong."
Hank couldn't reply, and Evie gasped as she saw something appear high up in the sky.
"Look!" She pointed at where they could just make out some kind of shadowy figure in front of the moon, and Darwin asked slowly, "What is that?"
It looked like two figures hovering in the sky, completely black and outlined only by the full moon behind them. But surely, they were seeing wrong… surely it wasn't...
Evie's eyes widened as suddenly, the shadow shifted, a part of it disappearing while the bigger, lumpier part abruptly fell down towards the ground… accompanied by a terrible scream.
"Oh, my G-!" Lisa began, her dark hazel-brown eyes going wide with absolute horror.
It hit Evie a moment too late what the figure was when the man fell with a loud thud right in front of their window, his yell getting cut off abruptly as he died instantly upon hitting the ground.