Chapter Two: Langley

There are stares and whispers when they get out of the car. Susan suspects that these people know their true identity and hates them for it. However, she does not let it bother her. There are other, greater problems to face right now. Not to get her hair wet, for instance.

Inside the building they are already being awaited by a plump man with thick glasses.

"Mr. Platt," Xavier grins at the man and turns to the two sisters. "Let me introduce you another two mutants. These are Lucy and Susan Pevensie."

"Good evening," smiles Susan, taking up her usual mask of polite coolness.

"It's an honor to meet you. I've always known that mutants exist. And you two and the others here are…"

"Others?" Lucy's eyes lit up with the sense of adventures that are to come. There are others here, in this very building! More people like her.

Mr. Platt offers the sisters a tour of the facility and Lucy is immediately swept by the idea of exploring a real CIA base of operation. Susan, on the other hand, wants to know what the hell is going on and why they were taken to a CIA facility for training. Susan is no idiot; she suspects some foul play here. As they say, only mousetraps have free cheese. Maybe she will be able to charm answers out of Platt, he does not look like a tough nut to crack.

Lucy sees them through a window first. She sees and somehow recognizes them. Mutants.

The first one she notices is a tall ginger boy with freckles and pale blue eyes that remind her of a sky on a summer day. By the looks he is the youngest of the group. Besides him she sees another boy, who reminds her of Peter. However, this boy has short hair sticking in every direction possible and much more muscular structure. Then she notices the tallest of the group. He has glasses and an air of shyness around him that makes her smile. When she notices his blue eyes, she wonders if it is a part of mutation possessed by people like her. But she is proved wrong the second her eyes land on the other person behind the glass. It is a pretty girl dressed in leather. Her hair is raven black and her eyes are warm brown. Just like those of a young man beside her. His blue shirt is a sharp contrast to the chocolate color of his skin, but Lucy knows that he is a wonderful man with an interesting story to tell. How does she know that? Lucy is not sure herself. And finally, there is another one – a blonde girl with a smile that does not come down even for one second. And Lucy does not believe her.

Susan vanishes somewhere and does not return by the time Platt introduces Lucy to everyone. She is immediately bombarded by standard questions (for mutants, that is) like where she is from, what her mutation is.

When Platt leaves them alone, Raven tugs her to the sofas and they are inventing their cool code names. She gets to witness things even she would have deemed impossible. And she totally forgets about everything else in the world.

Then Alex sends his red energy something flying in all directions, and there is a familiar scream of surprise. As it turns out, one of the disks nearly beheaded Susan.

Susan, who is glaring at them so hard that Lucy can practically see herself turning into an insect under that gaze.

Alex tries to apologize, but Susan, it seems, is out for blood and hisses at him just to shut the hell up and go somewhere where she won't be able to kill him. Lucy doubts that such place exists.

Raven is out of stupor first and jumps up to Susan with shining eyes:

"What is your mutation?"

Susan shrugs her shoulders elegantly and prefers the question to stay unanswered.

"Where were you?" Lucy looks at her sister with mild suspicion. Susan only gives her a dismissive wave of hand and turns her attention to the spectators.

"I'm Susan Pevensie. And you're Raven, Angela, Henry, Alexander, Darwin and Sean. Did I get everyone's names right?" she gives them a disarming smile and immediately charms the lot.

"I prefer Hank," the boy with glasses says, and Susan nods. Hank, Hank, Hank, she has to remember.

"And I go by Angel," the brown-haired girl pips in. Susan, of course, smiles and doesn't comment that the girl looks nothing like an angel.

"And I'm Alex." It seems she has to remember everyone's preferences if she wants them to mind their own business.

Lucy is angry. She was having fun. And then Susan appeared out of nowhere and everything went to Hell.

However, Susan does not try to make friends, no, she retreats to the farthest corner with a book. Some cheesy poems, no doubt. And she stays there. Thank God.

When Magneto and Professor X alongside Agent McTaggert leave the base, and they are relocated to a new room, everything somehow calms down and they play games and just longue around.

It turns to disaster pretty soon. There are people being dropped from the sky, there is shooting and everything shatters and explodes, and children panic.

"Your backs to the wall! Now!" orders Susan, shielding Lucy with her own body clad in a tight black dress that doesn't fit the situation one bit. For a second Susan thinks of herself as a tigress, protecting her cubs, and grins wickedly. No one would hurt Lucy. Never.

There are two mutants in the room – one is an ordinary-looking man who wields wind and the other is a devil out of her worst nightmares. She looks at them, waits for them to make the first move, but they wait for something, too. What, they find out very soon.

"Ah, no telepath. That's bad. At least I get to take this thing off," he takes his hideous helmet off, and looks at them as if he is Father Christmas, who came to give them presents and not a man who killed so many innocents. Susan pursues her lips and studies the man closer. He is neatly dressed, he is not handsome, but his eyes are blue and he has aristocratic features, which make him quite good-looking.

"Good evening," he addressed them. "I'm Sebastian Shaw. I won't hurt you."

He is coming closer to them, and Susan practically recoils back. There is a power in him with which she does not want to come face to face. However, the young woman straightens up when she reminds herself that all humans are dead, that there is no one to protect them except themselves.

The man is sprouting lies left and right, talks about times when humans would find out about them, how they would have to rebel against being slaves. All this Susan knows and understands. And she would have taken the man's hand without any regrets if only there wasn't one little deadly detail, about which the sly man doesn't tell them anything.

She sees a vision of sorts filled with agony and darkness beyond comprehension. She hears the screams filled with pain and cries calling out for President Shaw.

And when Angela takes the man's hand, one part of Susan wants to let the girl go, because she understands the inner turmoil Angela experiences, but the other part wants to grab the girl's hand and to shake her out of her self-pity, so that she would see who is in front of her.

She does nothing, only nods at the girl and gives her a half-smile, just to assure her that she accepts her choice.

And then Darwin agrees to go with Shaw, which is utterly alarming. But then Susan sees the glance Darwin sent Alex, but she is too late to intertwine, to stop Alex from sending his deadly lasers and to stop Shaw from grabbing Darwin by his throat.

Susan only hears Lucy's cry, and the beast inside snaps her out of stupor.

Lucy only feels a rush of ice and sees Shaw getting flung into the wall. Susan's eyes are blazing fire and she gazes on Shaw who can't even move, because there are invisible hands holding him down. Shaw stares at the girl not one bit unfazed. He cannot move, true. But the girl, it seems, cannot move, too. Her hold on her own power is weak. When she would exhaust herself, he would…

Bampf… and nothing.

Bampf and they were gone.

Susan breathed in and closed her eyes. It was harder than she expected. Shaw was strong. Stronger than she is. And the only way she won was the surprise effect on her part.

She is shaking, breathing deep, because it took too much self-control to push the right person and not everyone in the room. Power of absolute destruction is much easier to control, she thinks and leans into the wall.

Her head is throbbing and she wants to wrench it from her shoulders and football it somewhere far, far away.

"Susan?"

It is that girl. What was her name? Something Marta? Moira? Rodgers?

"Yeah?" she looks at the blonde and does not see half of the room. Stupid nobleness, the next time someone would try to save someone else, she would not lift a finger to save either. She may re-think her statement about her being no idiot. Stupid.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I've just returned from a monthly trip to Disneyland. What do you think?" she hisses and then grabs her head, because it hurts. "Does anyone have aspirin?"

When Erik and Charles arrive at the facility, all they see is ruins, smoke, a lot of cars and running people. And then they notice Susan standing beside her sister, Alex talking to Darwin. Sean is solemn, and Hank is whispering something to Raven.

"What happened?" asked Erik, striding up to them.

"Shaw's planning World War Three between Russia and America with nukes, and he wants to be a President."

"How do you know this?" Charles looks at the elder Pevensie girl questioningly.

"He visited us." It is Raven, who answers. "Taken Angel."

"Hostage?"

"Well, not taken. She went willingly," Raven's voice is laced with disappointment and it seems, for a second, that the is disgusted by Angel's choice.

"We shouldn't blame her," interrupts Susan, looking at the blonde girl with motherly gentleness. "It was her choice. And we should accept it."

"It is always about logic to you, isn't it?" screams Lucy, jumping up from her bench. "You have no heart! No heart! There is nothing inside you."

"Please, dear, don't start a scene," Susan smiles at the younger girl brightly, yet her eyes are frozen and dead.

"And where will we go now?" asked Raven.

"In the morning you all are going to head home."

"No," says Sean, nodding at Alex. "He isn't going back to prison. And Hank's house is ruins."

Charles looks at the children and young adults in front of him and makes the decision that changes the history forever.