I am on fire! Four chapters in four days.

Arctic Fox from Afar: Yes, it is very complicated, finally I find someone willing to admit that!

I loved writing this chapter but it was very hard. I hope I've manged to capture the voices of the characters well. But, as Sailor Moon says "Well, I can only do my best."

Why was he different? I though. Why did I let Magneto get under my skin earlier? I'd just completed my schoolwork and any other questions I had were already answered. Which left me with the one I couldn't answer.

I looked up to my ceiling. However, this did nothing but waste time.

I settled into my bed and decided to sleep on the question.

This literally meant sleep on it. I was a lucid dreamer and thus could control my dreams. Dreams allowed me to think about problems for hours at a time uninterrupted.

I'd just shut my eyes when my windows flew open with a loud bang.

I sleepily rubbed my eyes and berated myself for forgetting to lock the windows and wasting heat.

I did not expect to see Magneto entering the window.

"Your an extraordinarily hard person to find."

"That's the point. Besides, if you have to rely on me being stupid enough to announce to the world where I lived you really need to reevaluate your strategy."

As you can see, I was not thinking straight at the time. Magneto wasn't someone who could kill me with an eye blink. He was an obstacle to sleep, like an alarm, that needed to go away.

I saw his eyes wandering my room.

When I asked him about him about it in the future he said:

"You see Chris someone's room shows a lot about who they are."

Mine said a lot. It was neat, simple, and covered in books. A picture of my mom and I from my younger days was framed on my drawer.

"On the Origin Of Species by Darwin an interesting choice."

I wasn't insane and I figured that if I became too snarky I'd be a very dead man. But, certain ground rules had to be set. I bowed to no man.

"Let's work on things in their relative order of importance. How did you find me?"

"And why should I answer that?"

"I'm willing to answer questions honestly if you do the same."

"And if all my questions are already answered?"

"Then we stare at each other for hours. You discovering my identity has tipped the scale in a way that I will not passively accept."

"Yet you're perfectly OK with my presence, despite the fact that I could kill you if I wanted."

Oh, an underlying threat. I was wondering when that was going to happen.

I shrug. I was very fond of those. It was noncommittal and an air of confidence tended to scare off bullies.

"Every bit counts the difference is- I can do something about this in the short term." I made the calculated decision to absentmindedly float my hammer by my door.

A large enough smash would alert my mom, plus it had the added bonus of making me look nonchalant.

I enjoyed this. The posturing and games were just as fun as achieving a goal.

There was a pause. I knew I was stubborn enough to simply ignore the man. Though, I doubted he'd see the point of pushing for this victory when taking a slight loss will help in the long run.

I was very right.

"Your little program for underprivileged adults, it was mentioned in the papers."

No good deed goes unpunished. If my pass rate wasn't so high we wouldn't have been mentioned at all.

A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link. Though with that reasoning, I'd give my friends and enemies the same level of scrutiny. One because they want to harm me the other because they knew confidential things. That level of paranoia would kill me.

I nod my head. "Plausible enough to be true. Either that or you're a damn good liar. And I've analyzed all sort of speeches from liars"

"Even Clinton?"

"Especially Clinton." I enunciated the former president's name. "'I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

"Really? What tipped you off?"

"Unnatural speech patterns. Everyone makes the same mistakes. He said "that woman" not her name that's distancing. Well, you don't distance yourself from something if you're not threatened by something."

I pause "There was the lack of contractions used too. 'Did not' is something you'd expect from someone who was new to English. Not a native. I'm not even going to begin getting into the details of the body language. I'd be talking for hours."

I pause then said " Tell me did a woman named Jenny try to make the story about herself?"

"Yes, I almost didn't finish the article thanks to that."

I laugh.

It's a shame you kept reading. The one time I rely on luck..

"For someone who insisted on answering questions in their order of importance you're eager to small talk." He threw my words back at me.

I shrug unaffected. I had a plan for getting control of the conversation in the works.

"Just hitting my quota for the day."

Magneto now was the exasperated one. I enjoyed this tiny advantage greatly.

"Pleasure to be of assistance"

"No time like the present -well that implies that the the future is a real thing."I smirk at that.

"You believe the present is all we have." He correctly infers.

"Well, the only reason why we expect the sun to rise is because it has always done so. Who's to say a black hole can't appear randomly in our part of the universe? It's happened in other ones. So yeah I think the present is all we have and that the present is a result of a ton of factors from the past."

He paused then said "Perhaps. And your thoughts on mutation.. I assume you read the newspapers."

I did not rise to the challenge. I knew he was trying to ruffle my feathers. I wouldn't let him win this time.

"I don't base my opinions on what I read in newspapers. Especially not something so politically polarized. Too many interest groups trying to make people think one thing or another. Instead, I use my knowledge of science and closely read any studies written after 1962."

"Why 1962 in particular?"

"The scientific community suddenly had a major change of heart. Mutations were not natural byproducts of changing times, but things to control etc. I honestly believe that is not a coincidence."

The older man smiles at something I didn't know.

"Seeing as that shift occurred directly after the Cuban Missile Crisis -it's probably related somehow. However, I'm not stupid enough to hack government servers for this information."

The fact that he seems to know far more than I do is quite unnerving.

I decided to focus on answering the question. I did say I would answer them. I took all my promises seriously. Yes, even the ones to probably genocidal terrorists.

"Anyway, obviously I have no problem with it. Things change, life adapts to the environment. There is no life without growth and change." The older man nodded at my points.

"I notice you were very neutral with your response. Expected from someone with your upbringing. I'm surprised you managed to not kill the people at your church for their stupidity. I certainly would've at your age."

"I-OK. Or maybe I'm neutral because your very vocal about your beliefs. I don't do confrontation at one in the morning." I used humor to of course hide my surprise.

He's been watching me. But, for how long? No, that's irrelevant. He probably knows everything about me down to the what dose of chlorpromazine my mom takes.

This is far too close for comfort... and now I pivot.

"What about you?"

"I thought you said I was vocal about my beliefs. You'd know them by now."

Excuse generating -something I'm good at.

"Eh editing on live TV is a thing. I'd rather hear it from the source. The people who control newspapers are human and are terrified. That will obviously make objective reporting impossible."

Magneto decided to float out the window I follow quickly behind before stopping at my window.

Sure, he was trying to isolate me and I knew it, but if he wanted to harm me I would've been in pain. Plus, not following would not make me any better off. The man knew far too much about me for my own comfort.

But he can fly. I don't know how to do that.

I form a metal disc from my hammer hop on top of it and apply the same techniques I used to control metal at a distance.

He wouldn't let me die so there was really no downside to trying this.

The first thing I thought was

How does he make this look so easy?

I'd been on solid ground my whole life. I hadn't even been in a boat despite the abundant lakes nearby.

So the wobbles my disc made ate up my attention. There was so much information that I had to take into account now. Making a sharp turn was hardly a problem when it was simply a disk but I certainly didn't want to fall off and die from the fall.

A few moments later, I'd managed to steady myself and looked around for the older man.

If I were religious I would've prayed as I launched myself forward.

My mouth split into a smile as I started moving toward the older man. I leaned forward on my right leg to steady myself as I flew. There was nothing that simply compared to the freedom I felt.

The same thought I had when I got my first car came back to me.

I can control this. I don't need to rely on anyone else.

I can go anywhere. This is amazing. The world is literally at my disposal.

There were wobbles and I compensated for those by shifting my weight.

As I caught up to the older man one thing occurred to me.

How do I stop?

Just as I was about to pass the man, the disk slowed so I was traveling at the same speed as him. This and the fact that my disk was no longer wobbly alerted me to the fact that I wasn't in control anymore.

I wasn't stubborn enough to fight for control over my disk. I'd not get far if the knife incident was anything to go by and the fact that I wasn't trying to avoid impending death meant I could focus on what the man was saying.

"Chris" My spine chilled at that moment. Yes, obviously he knew my name, but having him say my name was unnerving.

"My goal is simple I will not allow the humans to destroy us."

Images of my mother appeared in my mind. I highly doubted she'd harm me. She drummed to the beat of whatever congregation she belonged to yes, but never consciously laid a finger on me. This was the case no matter where she went.

Of course, that didn't stop the other member of the church from beating me when they felt I committed some 'sin'. But immediately after she found out about this, we'd leave that church forever.

Strykers group of cronies were crazy yes, but about harming mutants and didn't recommend abusing your children (yes, even they had standards). Compared to the others, they were quite mild.

Her love gave me hope for her and through her for humankind.

"Humans already kill themselves for resources. Think of what they'd do for survival."

I thought about it- and I didn't like it not one bit. From my silence, I he already knew I was definitely thinking about what he said.

"The decimation of the Native American population, the colonization of India that destroyed it so thoroughly that millions live in poverty today, the same people that you work with today would without hesitation report you to the government if they knew."

There was a hard edge to that sentence as if he was speaking from experience.

It's possible. He's around that age. If he was anywhere near Europe during WWII...

I wisely didn't ask about that.

"Mutant kind will not roll over and die. Not without a fight."

There was something about this man that told me he'd be willing to do anything to achieve this.

"So you want a war" I summed up.

"I want us to win the war. It's coming and it is inevitable."

There was another pause. I considered the probabilities of the scenario Magneto proposed. It was far too likely for my taste.

"There are millions of us. A tenth of one percent of the population is still six million. I can stop armies and in time so will you. There are others like us, who can walk through walls and control minds. The humans stand no chance and that is why they are afraid."

I stared at the man for a few seconds before redirecting my attention.

"You don't believe me. I can see it. You've heard it all and you're comparing me to all the other charlatans you've heard. Well, what's the result of your analysis?"

I rechecked every calculation I had. However, I could find nothing amiss.

"Your not lieing to me at all."

"No, you wouldn't of believed me if I did."

A familiar tone interrupted what was probably the most important conversation of my life.

I reach to answer, but the phone separated into pieces in the air.

"As I was saying"

I shook my head "No. This is important."

I yanked back the parts and put the phone together with a force I'm sure Magneto didn't expect. Without wasting a moment, I redialed.

"Ms Dean is something wrong?"

I paused.

"OK. I'll help carry her home. No, don't worry about any legal issues she's just sleeping right? If you think she's waking up don't make any sudden movements. She has a hell of a right hook." I hang up.

I turn to the older man. "I don't carry this phone around for show."

I stare down at the houses below.

"Let me down. I have to-"

"Mystique will handle it."

"That does not make me feel any better. Mystique can look talk and act like me but she certainly can't guide my mom through an episode." I glare at the fact that we were still in the same place, despite my request.

Using my eyes and rudimentary trigonometry, I figure that I could make the jump from the disk to a nearby house.

I'd just hung both legs over the edge when he said "If she knew what you truly were would she do the same for you?" That stopped me.

"No." I shook my head and drop quietly onto a roof. From this I scaled down a tree to the ground and started walking away.

"You could leave her."

I pause.

"Start a fresh no longer bound by an undue burden."

I kept walking.

I'll get on the bus and get there as soon as I can.

For several moments I continue walking oblivious to the fact that he was still following me. That was how angry I was.

He flies into my life and expects me to follow even as he belittles the only person I care about.

When I did notice, I say "Are you insane? You're on everybody's most wanted list."

At least walking around in pajamas won't get me arrested.

"I didn't mean leave her in that way. Obviously. Regardless, I can't allow you to leave."

I saw the man arms reach out to and for once I glad we were too poor to get me braces.

"What do you mean by that?"

Ironically enough, his communicator rang.

I rolled my eyes at the parallel thinking out a plan.

I eyed a nearby gas station with interest.

"It is exactly as I said boy. Your not leaving."

"I'm not boy my name is Chris. And why not?"

I heard my voice floating from the communicator telling my mom soothing things. I wanted to tell my mother to not listen that she wasn't me, but that would only make things worse. If she'd made it to Ms Dean's house, then this had to be extremely serious.

Magneto soon answers "I wanted to reason with you. But it seems you're too stubborn to listen. I've read that most anti-psychotic medications were lethal at 5x normal dosage."

I got the picture.