"I don't know why I didn't think of this hours ago, it's the perfect way to travel around the factory, especially if you're here for only a short while." Charles spoke as he walked towards an unmarked and unadorned door which had a large button situated next to it.
After pushing the button, the door opened up automatically and they went inside, it was a tight fit and Erik couldn't help but star around with wonder as they cramped together in what seemed impossibly a glass elevator.
Once they were all inside and secured Charles pushed one of the hundred buttons that decorated the class walls. Erik felt Alex grasp his arm in shock as they suddenly shot up in the air.
The elevator felt unnaturally fast and unstable and Erik couldn't help the wide smile that burst on his face as the zoomed through the factory.
They zoomed around the many different rooms, never stopping in one place and visiting dozens of places at the same time.
The elevator seemed to be able to go in any which way direction. Whether it be up and down, left and right, long ways and many other different ways that defied to physical realm of possibilities.
Erik could tell that Alex was getting bored quickly. Something he couldn't understand and felt a bit saddened by.
How could anyone ever get bored in such a place?
Out of the corner of his eye Erik watched as Charles Xavier smile and hum to himself, pointing out the little things as they flew by, going into detailed story about this or that. After a while Erik noted that Alex was clearly tuning things out but Erik decided to paid attention with curious and yet frustrated eyes.
It wasn't their gracious host or the factory itself that was frustrating him but his own his conscious that was now deciding to wail on him.
Today had been the best and possibly the worse day of his life. He'd experience so many wonders like nothing he'd ever experienced before, seen things that would make the most rational person speak gibberish and somewhere along the way he found himself halfway in love with the man who made all these wonderful things possible.
Yea, he fucked up.
Erik sighed inaudibly as he stared with unseeing eyes down at the doll hospital. He snorted with laughter when his eyes focused enough to see the little Ompa Loompas in old fashioned nurse outfits tending the badly burned plastic dolls from this morning.
There was no saving them, not without some serious plastic surgery.
Erik stuck his hand in his pocket to touch the stolen candy, his fingers' rubbed guiltily at the piece of sugar and magic. He had the strongest urge to turn to Charles and hand over the candy and confesses everything; vow to give him all of Shaw's secrets and turn himself in to the police and considering how much that would upset his family that was saying a lot.
"Why is this place completely pointless?" Alex said, bored as Charles pointed at a giant mountain sized hunk of chocolate, they could see the Ompa Loompa with climbing gear chipping off huge chunks of the chocolate.
"Candy doesn't have to have a point," Erik pointed out, "That's why it's candy. It's meant to inspire feelings of freedom and happiness."
Alex snorted in disgust, "Whatever man, candy's a waste of time, and chocolate's even worse."
"You only say that because you can't eat it, if you could somehow eat some without going into epileptic shock you'd say differently."
Erik began to squabble with Alex, Charles and the factory forgotten for a moment. Neither of them noticed the way Charles looked at them, the contemplating and sharp calculating gaze.
Alex turned his head from Erik. "I want to choose the next room." Clearly he was done arguing with Erik, neither of them could make the other see his point of view so a cease fire was silently agreed.
Charles looked at Alex and smiled mysteriously. "Go ahead."
Alex glared at them then turned his attention to the hundreds of buttons, he finally decided on one after a few seconds, marked T.V. Room.
The elevator stopped suddenly and zoomed off in another direction, Alex managed to steady himself but Erik wasn't so lucky as he body slammed into Charles.
"Shit, sorry." Erik said and leaped away. His face felt horribly red all of a sudden and he cursed his pale skin as the blush was glaringly visible. He might not be as pale as Charles or even Sean but he did have more fair skin compared to some.
"That's alright." Charles reassured calmly, the smile he turned on Erik made him want to melt into a puddle of goo, as undignified as that was.
Alex snorted, "Pussies, why don't you both get a room, the sexual tension between you two is starting to give me the willies."
The glare that Erik shot him could have peel paint with how heated it was. Erik noticed smugly that when the elevator arrived at their spot Alex made sure that there was at least five feet between them.
Hah, served him right.
As soon as they were all out of the elevator and standing in front of another large vault-like door Charles handed them both these huge bug-eyed goggles. "Here wear these, the light in this room could burn out the retina in your eyes." He slipped on a pair himself and Erik couldn't help but silently coo at the sight, he really was adorable looking with them on.
The guilt was beginning to get heavier as more time passed and Erik couldn't help but wonder if he would be crushed by it before the day was done.
The room was completely white, a few Ompa Loompas were scattered around the room, mostly relaxing and watching a program on a nearby television. What was surprisingly was that Hank was standing behind a control deck in the room, he waved his hand-paw- in the air in a silent hello before going back to paying attention to the chart in his hands.
"Now this is one of the most interesting rooms in the factory, you know those commercials that you see on television? The one's that advertise food? Well I had a thought one day, what if when the commercial advertises the food, the viewer could reach out and take the candy from the screen, like a sample."
"That's impossible." Alex snorted as Erik listened, it sounded impossible but the thing that Erik had learned today was nothing was impossible for this man, only improbable.
"Now that's not true." Charles protested happily. "It was difficult at first I will admit, luckily Hank was here to assist me or else it might have taken me months to figure it out." Charles beamed up at his assistant and for one ridiculous moment Erik felt jealousy well upside of him before he could beat it into submission, it was an ugly feeling and it wasn't like he had claim over Charles after all so any feelings that had developed were irreverent.
"Your delusional." Alex snarled loudly all of a sudden. Erik finally took notice how irritated he was becoming.
It felt more than frustration, Alex was clearly feeling resentful over something and Erik was pretty sure he knew what.
"All this-" he waved his arms around him as if to encompass the entire factory. "-it's all foolish and not practical at all. You're like some kind of toddler or something!"
Charles stared at him serenely, insults didn't seem to faze him at all. "Maybe you should try it sometime Alex, there's nothing wrong with feeling like a child, to enjoy life from a child's view of things."
Alex sneered and crossed his arms in front of him defensively. Erik knew that he needed to quickly defuse the situation before Alex lost it and attacked Charles or one of workers in his anger. Although gazing at the muscles that flexed under the Ompa Loompa jumpsuits he was sure they could take care of themselves just fine.
Erik stared at the teen, as he looked at the glazed eyes and twisted mouth he began to wonder if what Alex was feeling wasn't anger but resentment.
To be allergic to chocolate and then being surrounded by it for this long must have been wearing at the teen's nerves for a while now, not to mention the suspicious way all of them seemed to being picked off one by one. It could be argued that everyone had gotten in their own messes without outside influences but it was still damning evidence.
Erik could sympathize with him but that didn't mean he'd let him attack anyone in some misguided sense of retribution.
"So, can you show us how it works?" Erik gestured to the machine in the middle of the room. "So that there is no confusion about it working or no." He clarified.
Charles turned to look at him and Erik got the uneasy sense that Charles knew what he was trying to do, nevertheless the man nodded in agreement and gestured to one of his workers to begin prepping the machine.
Erik watched in amusement as the tiny Ompa Loompa carried in a huge bar of chocolate, easily ten feet long and four feet across.
"Why's it so big?" He asked, bemused.
"You know how on the television everything's like two inches tall? Same idea."
Erik was still bemused but let it pass while Alex snorted in disbelief beside him.
Once the Ompa Loompa had settled the chocolate bar on the platform in the middle of the room.
Charles then directed them to stand next to Hank behind the controls.
"Ready?" Charles grinned, a slight manic edge to it that Erik and Hank couldn't help but mimic, Alex just rolled his eyes. Charles then pushed the button causing the whole room to light up almost painfully as the giant lights flashed, once, twice – the candy bar was gone.
"It's gone." Erik stated. Hank and Charles chuckled knowingly before Hank began to explain.
"The chocolate bar is actually above us now, in nano t.v. bits." Hank explained as he walked towards the television in the corner where most of the Ompa Loompa were crowding.
Charles seemed fine with Hank taking on the explanation, in fact he seemed excited and oddly proud of Hank as the blue man continued to talk excitedly.
Alex let out a disbelieving sniff as they all stood in front of the television screen but Erik couldn't help but stare intently at the screen alongside the others.
If Xavier and Hank said that the chocolate bar was going to appear on the screen Erik was incline to believe them, at least to the point that they were either proven right or wrong.
"What the heck is that?!" Alex exclaimed, they all watched as a chocolate bar slowly became visible in the screen, the channel on the television was a documentary about some exotic animal, so the chocolate bar was laying on a bed of grass next to the unconcerned animal.
"Take it." Charles told Alex, turning to the young man with a smug smirk lightening on his face.
"Are you insane? It's just a picture." Alex said doubtfully. "You must have set this up already."
"You were the one who pushed the button on the elevator though." Erik said firefly but Alex clearly was going to ignore the logic of Erik's statement.
Charles sighed, "Scaredy cat. Why don't you try then?" He turned to Erik expectedly.
Erik hesitated for a moment, trading a disbelieving look with Alex before he reached out slowly and touched the screen, he hadn't expected to touch anything other then the cold screen so when his hand actually went through the screen as if wasn't even there and went farther in and actually touched the bar and brought it out into the open he could only stare with awe and wonder.
"T-that's impossible." Alex stuttered out, Hank huffed, almost sounding affectionate and grinned widely at them all, proud of the machine he had built.
"It's…it's like magic." Erik breathed out, the candy bar still held loosely in his hand.
"Take a bite." Charles coxed. "It's real. It's just gotten a bit smaller, that's all."
Erik unwrapped the chocolate and took a small bite. Allowing the chocolate to melt on his tongue before swallowing. "It's good."
"Of course, it is." Charles said, Erik would have said that it sounded smug on anyone else but with Charles it just sounded like he was stating a fact and nothing else.
"Do you have any idea the implication of this?!" Alex said loudly as he stared with greedy eyes at the chocolate bar. If Erik was anyone else he would have jumped at the suddenness of it, instead he kept a firm grip on the chocolate bar and stepped back ever so slightly.
Everyone, including the Ompa Loompa turned to look at him but he wasn't paying them any attention.
There was a greedy almost desperate look in his eye as he stared between the chocolate bar that Erik held in his hand and the machine behind them.
"It's a transporter, one of the most revelation inventions ever and you're using it for chocolate." The last bit was said with something close to abhorrence.
"I think he knows what he is doing." Erik said sharply, glaring at the youth.
Alex sneered at him, a wild glaze entered his eyes and Erik felt him heart drop, the others all had the same look in their eyes right before they acted out and got themselves in trouble. He had hoped that maybe Alex would have been spared this but it looked like he had hoped in vain.
"No he doesn't! He's an idiot! But I'm not…no I'm not." He repeated and before any of them could grab him he sprinted towards the machine.
"Don't touch that!" Hank called out, worry and frustration in his voice. Alex ignored him of course and pressed the button to start the process, as soon as that was done he jumped from the control station into the dais.
"Get down from there!" Hank yelled as he also ran to the control station to try to shut off the machine, but it was already too late, light suddenly flashed in the room. Luckily no one had yet to remove their goggles so none of them were blinded for long.
Erik blinked the lights from his eyes as he and Charles stood there kind of dumb struck at the plain stupidity of what Alex had just done to himself.
"He's gone." Erik stated the obvious as they stared at the empty dais.
"No, he's not." Hank said tiredly. "He's floating above our heads as tv waves."
"Let's check the screen then." Charles finally spoke after a moment of silence.
Erik whirled back around to the screen, chocolate bar forgotten entirely. He wasn't worried pre-say but when terrible stuff happened to the others at least he had witnessed what had happened and could at least judge that they would be alright, there was no telling with Alex though since he'd literally turned into light and dust.
"Look." Charles pointed out, Alex was slower to metalize then the chocolate bar but Erik figured that was because Alex was alive while the chocolate hadn't been.
"Wow…this is awesome."
"It's awesome, for someone who's not three inches tall, which you are." Hank growled at the pint-sized boy.
Erik tried to mask his shaky grin as the Ompa Loompa around them began to tap out a beat.
It had begun again.
"Show time." He murmured blow his breath, although he could have sworn that Charles had heard him if the amused hum that the man let out was anything to go on.
Erik couldn't help but be sadly amused as Alex ran around frantically on the television, one of the Ompa Loompa had the remote and was constantly changing the channel which was hilarious in a freaking out kind of way.
It was clear to them that Alex was only now realizing his predicament as a small tiny human.
After all, Charles never said anything about the process being able to be reversed. But for Alex's sake Erik hoped that it could be.
As soon as the self-degrading song was over with Hank reached in and grabbed the hyperventilating boy by his shirt collar and gently pulled him out.
"What now, Charles?" Erik asked as they stared down at Alex who decided that he would retain the right to remain silent.
Charles looked perplexed at the whole situation so it was actually Hank who answered his question.
"How about the taffy puller?" Hank suggested and glared a warning at the suddenly squeaking and protesting boy.
Charles suddenly became animated at the suggestion, a wide grin spread across his face as he stared down at the squeaking boy.
"Yes, that just might work, boys are stretchy. He'll become big again in no time. Hank would you mind taking the boy and making sure everything runs smoothly?"
"Sure." Hank shrugged, Erik couldn't help but think that the worker was going to get some satisfaction in tormenting the boy. After all Hank had seemed so proud of his machine and then Alex went and screwed everything up by acting out, although Erik couldn't help but notice the way that Hank cuddled Alex to his chest as gently as possible as he left the room in a hurry.
So maybe he wouldn't torture Alex to much before fixing him up.
Well that's an interesting match-up.