Manipulation
It was early. Too early.
And Raven was perky. Too perky.
Raven had went into Amelia's room and woken her up. Amelia had tried to convince Raven to let her sleep a little more but the only things that came out of her mouth were a lot of incoherent noises.
They were walking to the kitchen together both wearing sweat pants. Raven was wearing a navy under shirt and Amelia a violet tee shirt (Raven had lent her an under shirt similar to her own but the when Amelia tried it on, more flesh than common decency dictated be revealed was on display –there was a serious height difference between them).
Hank was in the kitchen making breakfast and Raven went over to help him. Amelia sat on a chair by the table and shivered –she should have brought a sweater. "Where's everyone else?"
Hank answered her. "I think Alex and Sean are still asleep, but I saw Charles and Moira talking in the study. I'm not sure where Erik is."
"Why are you making breakfast?"
"I've been up for awhile doing some stuff –Charles let me set up a lab."
"Hmm…" It was too early.
Erik walked in after a few minutes. He was wearing gray sweats. So was Hank now that she looked. They all would have matched if it weren't for her purple shirt. She stood out.
Erik helped him self to a cup of coffee and sat down across from her. There was coffee? She looked around. There it was. She was just too lazy to get up.
Erik was looking at her funny. "What?"
"Nice shirt."
She shrugged. "I like various shades of purple."
"Well it certainly makes a statement."
"You're just jealous."
Hank brought over platters of food. "In some literature, purple is symbolic of royalty."
Raven was her hero and brought the coffee. She poured herself a cup and picked at a bagel. She felt a little bad, Hank had gone through all the trouble but she just wasn't a breakfast food type of person.
Alex and Sean chose that moment to come in (in gray sweats). A few minutes later and they practically devoured more than half the food.
Charles and Moira came in on her third cup of coffee. They weren't wearing sweats. How was that fair?
Charles seemed happy. "Excellent, you're all up. We've been coming up with a schedule for how we're going to do this. First things first. I think it only fair that we split up kitchen duty. And your each responsible for keeping your rooms in order. As for training –if you're not learning about your abilities with me, you should be conditioning physically. We don't know what facing Shaw will be like, but it's best to be prepared on all fronts."
It was decided that Hank and Raven would be in charge of breakfast (Hank because he was most likely to be awake and Raven because she wanted to be with Hank). Charles and Moira would be in charge of dinner (because they didn't trust anyone else with the serious cooking). And Alex volunteered to make lunch (he warned them to expect a lot of sandwiches). Amelia and Sean would take turns washing the dishes (because no one trusted Sean with their food and Amelia was confused when they mentioned the word spatula). Erik didn't get stuck with anything, but no one wanted to complain to his face (well, Amelia had in private but he just told her he was a war-camp survivor so he got a pass).
They were also responsible for their own laundry but Amelia was pretty sure Hank was going to get stuck doing it. Eh –Raven would help him.
Amelia and Charles were outside. He told her he wanted to explore her telepathy. She was currently trying to read his mind –she was failing miserably.
"I can't do this."
"Yes you can Amelia. You've caught glimpses of my mind before."
"Yeah but you were trying to read my mind too."
Charles thought for a moment. "With your empathy –you reach people's emotions… And with your telepathy you get them to do what you want… Try to reach out emotionally and then switch."
"I can't do that –my telepathy only comes out when I give an order."
"You need to control your power. Don't rely on verbal instructions. Your part telepath –use your mind."
"That's a bit rich coming from someone who has to finger himself in order to use his power."
"Finger myself?"
"Yeah –the whole fingers to the temple routine." She wiggled her middle and index fingers at him. "I admit though –I was going for a dirty pun." He gave her a stern look. He wasn't any fun. Erik would have put up a fight. She sighed. "Fine."
Amelia opened herself up. He wanted peace. He wanted everyone not to die. He wanted acceptance. She prepared herself to make him do something but stopped short and squeezed her way into his mind. It was all too much. It wasn't just his thoughts in there –it was everyone else's. She mentally pulled back and gasped for air.
"Amelia! Amelia, what's wrong?"
"How the hell do you function with all those thoughts in your head?"
Charles was apologetic. "I'm sorry, Amelia. I should have realized. It's second nature for me to overlook thoughts that aren't my own unless I try. I'll see about you practicing on someone else."
"Charles I'm curious… Thoughts are the same language people speak… What happens when you don't speak the same language?"
"Well it was a problem early on, but I started taking a few introductory courses of the most common spoken languages… Why is that a problem you'd like to work on?"
"No –it really isn't a problem. I was just curious because when I went inside your mind I could literally hear people talking –usually it's just… that I know what they want?"
"Hmm… Have you ever used your ability on someone who didn't speak the same language to make them do something?"
Amelia was a little guilty. "Maybe, a few times…"
"Interesting…" He became serious. "Amelia there's something I've been meaning to speak to you about." She was in trouble. "I've been inside your head a few times now and I know what you've been struggling with."
She wasn't going to give in that easily. "What have I been struggling with?"
"Temptation. Sometimes you'd like to give into your abilities just for the fun of it. You can't do that Amelia."
"I know that! I haven't done anything –well nothing major. I'm not Shaw!"
"No. But if you're not careful you could be. What you need is a purpose. You have a purpose now but don't let you're boredom get the best of you. You're capable of so much."
She needed a purpose. The only problem was she didn't know what it was she wanted.
Erik appeared out of nowhere. "Charles, Moira's looking for you."
"Thank you, Erik." He turned back to Amelia. "I'm afraid we'll have to pick this up some other time."
Amelia and Charles walked back inside. She caught Erik's eye and had the vague suspicion that he had over heard her and Charles. Damn.
Amelia left Charles and Erik with Moira. They were talking about windows and Sean. That wouldn't be good. She wanted to prolong working out as much as possible so she went to go see Hank's new lab. What she saw when she went in didn't make much sense.
Hank had some type of magnifying glass and was looking at a blue, scaly woman. She looked a little familiar. It reminded her of when Raven shifted…
"Raven?"
The blue woman looked up, looked scared, and promptly shifted back to the Raven Amelia was familiar with. "Amelia… What are you… what are you doing here?"
"Avoiding working out. Is that what you really look like?"
Raven looked scared again. "Yeah…"
"…Cool… Can I see again?"
"Cool?"
"What? Like being blue is a big deal?"
"Amelia…"
"Alright, fine. It's not something you see everyday. But –you're Raven." She turned to Hank for support. "It's not a big deal right?"
Hank looked uncomfortable. "I'm working on a serum to fix our physical… deformities."
Raven looked hurt.
"Oh…" Amelia didn't get it. It was the government-pick guys allover again. So what if they weren't 'normal'? "I guess I should go… work out."
She did work out. It hurt. She had weak upper body strength. And Alex wasn't very helpful. He kept telling her she was 'doing it wrong.' She got pissed and told him she sorry she hadn't had the luxury of being in prison so she could lift weights all day. She'd be sore in the morning.
She couldn't sleep so she wandered around the house. She went outside barefoot and in her pajamas and sat on a stone railing. She heard steps behind her. It was Erik.
"So… You overheard me and Charles, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"What do you make of it?"
"He's right –you do need a purpose."
"And what do you suggest I do?"
"The world is going to find out about mutants. The humans aren't going to like it –they'll resist us, experiment on us –kill us."
"You want me to fight."
"Yes."
Aside from Shaw this was what Erik wanted –a mutant rebellion. "Are my eyes yellow? Is my skin blue and do I have red hair?"
"Is that a trick question?"
"Listen, I'm not Raven –that shit's not going to work on me. Stop trying to manipulate me –it won't work."
"I'm not trying to manipulate you. I'm trying to open your eyes."
Maybe he was just trying to open her eyes but it felt a lot like manipulation.
