Perfect Synergy
"Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity." - Joseph Addison
You'd be surprised at how fast time passes when you don't have much time left. That actually sort of sucks too, you'd think that time would go slower so you could appreciate it more. Not like I haven't appreciated it. I have to the best of my ability. It had been three months, give or take a couple of weeks, since we arrived at Charles' castle, he hates it when I call it that, and all we had done as a collective whole was get into shape. Maybe Charles was relying on us to work on controlling our gifts in our spare time. Personally I was forbidden to do anything of the sort. I ignored that. I practiced day and night. No one knew that there was anything wrong with me and I hoped to keep it that way for as long as possible. According to Charles my condition was progressing dangerously. With any luck I'd last another month. Oh well. No skin off my back. Still, the date was October 23rd, 1962. Three days before my birthday and nearly a week until Russia was to drop their nukes off in Cuba. Everyone was on edge, even if you couldn't see it, you knew they were. That day was the day we were supposed to be challenging the boundaries of our powers. I was outside sitting on a wall wearing a pair of grey sweats and a grey sweatshirt I had altered so it was just a cropped piece of cloth to cover my chest. I had even ripped the sleeves off. Before me was a boy I was severely attracted to and the old momma Charles. They just got back from a run. Hank looked at me and I gave him a small wave. He waved back before discussing something with Charles.
"If you want to beat me this time you have to set the beast free." Charles said to Hank as he crouched into a running stance and as Hank removed his socks and shoes. "On your marks," Hank crouched beside Charles, "get set," Hank glanced at me, "go!"
They both took off like rockets but it was Hank who was taking the lead. Without shoes to hinder him he flew across the lawn. It was incredible how fast one boy could run. And if I wasn't mistaken I could distinctly see him coming up into my peripherals all the way from where he had started barely a moment later. He had taken an entire lap around the house and was coming up behind Charles. With a smile on his face he tapped Charles tauntingly on the shoulder causing him to stop and turn. The telepath laughed, grasped Hank's hand, and shook it. They were too far away for me to hear anything so I ran over to them. I waved to Raven who was working out inside. She smiled and waved back. Poor Raven who had mastered her gift at an extremely young age had no need for these specified training sessions.
I continued over to Hank and Charles as Alex joined them. Wow were we a sight to see, all in matching grey sweats. I ran towards Hank and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Even before my lips removed themselves from his skin I felt the warmth beginning to form there. Cute.
"With feet like those all you need is a red nose. Right bozo?" Alex joked, clapping Hank on the shoulder as he spoke. According to the schedules we all got it was time for Alex's training to begin. Raven was scheduled to the gym all week, Alex had that day, the first half of the next, and the first half of the day after that, Sean had the second half of those two days and the beginning of the day after that, and Erik had the last half of the last day. That still gave us an extra day to relax, calm down, and to get ready for the prevention of war. Charles had that much faith in us, perhaps a little too much.
"I'm done here." Hank muttered before walking away from the situation. When I didn't follow him he stopped and looked back, beckoning me silently. I chuckled to myself. I ran to catch up with him, twining my fingers in his. We passed by Raven again and we both waved. To tell you the truth she looked absolutely miserable. I broke away from Hank to approach the glass. My blonde friend looked at me funny as I did so. I used my breath to write her a message, it was simple and to the point. I traced a small heart with my finger causing my lovely girl to smile back and making the 'I love you' hand I knew she wasn't nearly as miserable as she looked. I turned back to Hank.
"I'm going to go roast some pigeons, I'll see you later?" I wasn't really going to roast pigeons, which is extremely fun so don't knock it until you try it, I just wanted to go see what Charles was going to have everyone else do. Hank didn't really object. I got up on the balls of my feet and nuzzled my nose against his. How he hated it when I did that. I laughed at his sour expression and ran back to where Charles was standing/talking to Alex.
They both looked at me as I approached them. "Come to play with the cool cats?" Alex asked, clapping me on the back.
I gave him one of my sarcastic looks. "Now why would I be here if I wanted to do that?" When he looked like he wanted to punch me I just smiled all sickly sweet. But when he actually punched me I laughed. I loved that violent guy.
"Now, now." Charles said in an attempt to calm his unruly mutant children. He stepped between us and led me away. "You should be resting."
I couldn't resist, I tapped Charles in the chest with my fist. "Mother dearest, I'm sticking to you like glue."
"You should still be resting." He insisted.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head and I made talking motions with hands and mouth. "Nya nya nya." I whined just before bounding back over to Alex and pummeling him. I didn't see it but I knew Charles was shaking his head at me, like I was dog that had knocked their owner over in excitement.
How I regretted going with Charles to observe Alex's session. The only thing I could do was extinguish. And let me tell you, there was a shit ton to extinguish. I don't know how Alex managed it but he was able to catch concrete on fire as if it were dead grass.
"Sorry..." Alex mumbled every time Charles commanded him to exhibit his flammable talents. And every time I was running the length of the bunker with my trusty extinguisher thinking, 'Meet your death you fire heathens!' Of course, Charles read my thoughts and chuckled as he watched me celebrate triumphantly when I put out a flame. Extinguishing was fun when you imagined that you were crushing little fire spirits.
Just as I finished vanquishing the last clump of demon, Charles decided to call it a day. I looked at my wrist to see what time it was when I realized that I'd taken mine off. I looked to Charles. "Time?"
He then looked to his own wrist."It's about time for supper actually! I didn't bother to get any groceries or anything..." His hand reached up to hold his chin with his thumb and the knuckle of his first finger. At a distance you might think that Charles resembled a piece of Greek artistry, but he wasn't. He was just telepathic Charles Xavier.
"I'll go." I offered. "Point me in the right direction and I'll walk."
Charles looked at me like a two year old that had just burnt his favorite suit to a crisp with their fire breath. And believe me, that was totally possible. He looked confused and slightly upset at my suggestion. When he acted like this I really missed my mother. She was a gentle little soul, barely 5' 4". She married my father just before she popped out Lucas. Shortly after she was pushing his buns out of her oven like there was no tomorrow. Her name's Alexandra Fuller. And I got all of my physical attributes, minus the height, from her. My father, and all of my brothers, had red hair and blue eyes. Pure Scottish boys. Really I just missed my family. I missed my father, Timothy Dugen. Missed my brothers, Lucas, Devin, Cole, and Collin Dugen, Gabe Dugen-Fuller, and little Scottie Dugen-Fuller.
You're probably wondering why half of us have one last name and the other half had another name tacked onto the end. See, all of my older brothers were born before or during WWII, the war my daddy fought in. When the war had just ended when she was pregnant with me and he told her to reclaim her last name. He had seen so many good men go down, young men who never got the chance to get married and carry on legacies of their own. He didn't want my mother to get forgotten to time like some of those men might. As a collective whole my parents decided it best to combine their last names so their children would carry on their namesake, both of theirs. I admire them greatly for it. I have a very unique name thanks to him.
A hand in my face brought me back to my fatal reality. "Maxine? Are you still with us in there?"
My eyes recognized Charles to be the one distracting me, I practically snarled and nearly chomped his hand. He should know better than to call me Maxine. Though he never called me anything else. As he snapped his hand out of the reach of my canines he smiled.
"Sorry about that, my dear. It was the only way to break you from your trance. The grocery store is about three miles east on the main road. Easy to find, great selection. Take someone with you, will you?" He asked/ordered. Charles had that charm about him, he asked you to do something and he may as well've commanded you to do so. His voice practically exuded that charisma that made you want to please him.
I nodded. "Alex can come, if he isn't too tired." I teased. I threw a wink in my second favorite blonde's direction before turning to go get changed. Again, I know I'm a tomboy and all but it didn't sit well with me to wear sweaty, stinky, charred, grey, sweat pants into town. My nap sack was in the corner of the bunker, good thing too. No chance of me getting lost this time! Just the slight chance of making things deliciously awkward! I stripped down to my underwear and slowly picked out the change of clothes I brought with me. Pair of grey leggings, white tank, and a faded denim jacket. I looked over my shoulder to see the expression on Charles and Alex's faces, Alex was smirking and Charles was looking everywhere except in my direction.
I smirked as I dressed. Boys were easy to read. Once I was dressed I turned back around, gave Charles a wink, and motioned for Alex to follow me. Charles still wouldn't look me in the eye but Alex obliged. He jogged over to me and wrapped a muscled arm around my shoulders. And he was really sweaty. After we exited the bunker I shoved Alex away from me.
"I'm enforcing a restraining order against you, until you take a shower you are not allowed to be less than ten feet away from me." I joked with my hand covering my mouth and nose. Alex gave me one of his devious looks in response before picking me up and draping me over his shoulder. "You are in violation of your restraining order! The cops will be busting down your door any minute!" I started yelling, playfully of course.
I felt Alex's shoulder shrug under my weight, guess I didn't weigh that much to him. "Not the first time I've had to deal with the cops." Shit, why am I so stupid? I smacked myself in the face with the palm of my hand.
"Sorry. I forgot." I mumbled into his shoulder.
"It's fine, not like you said anything terrible."
"Thanks." I muttered as I lightly tapped the back of his head with my elbow. Then it hit me. He was climbing a, seemingly, never ending staircase with me on his shoulder without slowing down. What is this guy packing? Before I could ask we had arrived at the door that led back to the house. Not that we were separated from the house, the bunker was just 10,000 leagues under it. Charles mentioned something about a zany uncle preparing for the end of the world. Gotta love the Cold War.
Alex placed me on the ground without even bending over. I felt like a toddler being taken off their parents shoulders. "I'm going to go change, you stay in the foyer so there's no getting lost." He informed me as he pushed open the steel door. The steel door led to a small closet of sorts but with two entrances. He pushed open the other door as I carefully disguised the steel door back into the wood. Charles had secret doors like this everywhere. If you applied pressure to certain parts of the foundation the wood would get pushed away from you, to the untrained mutant you'd think this was just poor structure giving way, to the trained mutant you would then push the indented wood to the left or right, depending on the secret door.
I nodded to Alex's statement and we both exited the closet. Good thing no one was around because two young folk coming out of a closet at the same time probably seemed a bit risque. Not that I'd pull anything with that guy. Totally my type meaning he was out of my reach. Alex saluted me and took the stairs leading up to the bedroom floor two at a time. I waved back until he was out of site. That's when everything came crashing down. There was a reason why I was trying to keep myself busy. The second I was alone all I could do was think. I used to love being alone. Now I decided I kind of hated it. I hated everything. I hated everything that happened to me, I hated being the only one who didn't belong, I hated everything. I punched the nearest wall. It was wood and my fist went through it pretty easily.
"Fuck it all." I muttered at my bleeding hand. Wooden slivers poked out from the spaces between my knuckles and the shattered wood raked a few gashes on my forearm. I watched as my newly self healing body pushed the foreign substances out the way they entered and I watched the tissue beginning to weave over the injuries I just made. It was really disturbing. As was my life, as was everything. As I walked away from the wall I had injured I saw a telephone sitting on a table. I practically pounced on it. I lifted the speaky-heary thing to my ear to check dial tone, it was connected. I quickly dialed my parents house in New Mexico and prayed that someone was home. After four rings, someone picked up.
"Dugen-Fuller residence." A very familiar little boy said into his mouth piece.
"Scottie?" I asked, just to be sure.
"Max? Is that you!" Scott beamed.
I chuckled. "Yeah, it's me."
"Where have you been mom's been going berserk!"
"What do you mean?" I asked as I twirled the phone cord.
"We got a call from Saffron saying that you'd gone missing from school and that some people saw you being dragged off by two guys and they looked like they were part of the mafia of something!" My little brother said frantically. Jesus shit, I forgot to call them back then. My bad.
I sighed, realizing my goof up. "I was recruited by the CIA two and a half months ago." I admitted. I wasn't supposed to tell anyone about that but I was getting tired of being restrained. And if I couldn't tell Scottie, who could I tell? At that moment I decided to guard my mind with my electrical field. Sorry Charles.
"What? Why?"
"For my powers, y'know, that weird junk I can do with my fingers." I tried to joke slightly before getting right to it. "And about that..." And that's when I told him everything that happened. Though I hadn't known Scott all that long he was my closest sibling. He deserved to know the truth.
After twenty minutes my story was done. I could hear Scott trying not to cry on the other end. I didn't want to hurt them, but I couldn't be home to spend my last few days, weeks, however long, with them. Scott understood that, my brothers and my dad would too. I was mostly worried about my mom. She'd try and find me and then she'd drag me back home.
"I'm with some really good people right now Scott and we're the only ones that can save the world. Be sure to tell mom that because she's going to go ballistic and we both know it." I told him, choking back tears myself.
I heard a distinct sniffle from the other end. "Yeah, like when I accidentally lit all our stockings on fire last year at Christmas." He said with a shaky laugh. "She was real pissed then."
"Mhmm." I said before wiping my runny nose on my sleeve. "Now I've got to go, take care. Tell mom and everyone that I love them."
"I will. Love you, miss you." Scott practically sobbed.
"Back at ya kid." I imagined myself kissing my little brother on the head, reassuring him that everything would be alright. Too bad I'd never be able to see my brother ever again.
I heard him put down the phone but I could still hear him on the other line. "Mom?" He yelled with a shaky voice. No response. "M-Mom?" He sobbed. My brother was breaking down into tears and I couldn't even do anything about it. There was no bully I could beat up, no cut I could bandage, no puppy I could hand him to forget, no nothing.
"What is it honey? You okay?" My mothers sweet voice said somewhere in the distance.
"I-it's Max." He sniffed.
I could practically feel my mothers relief. "Your sisters okay?"
Another sniff. "She's with the CIA. But..."
"But what?"
"She's dying momma... Max is dying..."
I couldn't listen anymore, I slammed the phone back down and I fell to my knees sobbing. All this time I was avoiding telling my family because the second I did was the second this all became real. Painfully real. And it was real, I was going to die in the prime of my years, one year shy of 18. I didn't know I could hurt this much. I imagined my mother and Scott sitting there in front of the telephone crying their eyes out. Mom huddled protectively over him, trying to tell him it'll all be alright but now able to get a sound out. I imagined dad coming home and seeing them in a puddle of their own tears, I imagined him asking about the boys overseas, if they were all okay. I imagined the look on his face when they told him that it was me, not my brothers. I imagined the holes in the walls that he would punch in his anger, his anger that he could do nothing to save his little girl. I imagined him calling my brothers individual commanding officers and demanding to speak to his sons. I imagined each painful, tortured, expression of my older brothers faces when they were told of little Maxine's demise. I imagined all of it, every tear, every cry, every swear word, every wall punched, every one of the strong Dugen's being reduced to the sadness I felt in my heart. It was so painful. My chest felt like it was going to burst.
"Whoa, Max? You okay?" Someone asked behind me. I turned to see that it was Alex. I also noticed when I turned that all of the lights were flickering like crazy. My unstable emotional state translated to everything around me.
"I'm perfectly fine."
Never in all my life had I spoken such a terrible lie.