FlyHigh4Life: Hehe, glad you like it! Hope you keep reading!
BMARIE: Thank you, I will try and keep this updated as often as I can.
Dragon Spirit Fighter: Wow, thank you for that compliment! I haven't read comics (although know quite a bit about characters and backgrounds, such as Gambit and Beast, including Mystique herself) but this is a more, movie-verse way of how I thought her past could be!
Johnnys-my-hottie: Thank you very much for breaking your habit for me! Hehe, I hope you see your name crop up on the reviews list more often!
Racetrack's Goil: Thanks! Yes, it is a rather intense story, as it should be, Raven seems to have had a bad life by the way she acts in the movies. Evidence from her words in X1, "It was people like you who made me afraid to go to school as a child." That's what I worked her story-past on in this fic, she was too scared to keep going because of the people who hated and feared her.
Happosai: Glad you like it! I don't see many Raven centred fics around, not ever seen one about her, past, this seems like a first!
Chapter 16The end of the week drew closer, the weekend, which had not held any significance for Raven in a while, was something she was now looking forward to. After a few days of rest since her fainting spell, she had been offered lessons at the school. Raven accepted almost too gladly. She missed school life, she missed learning. Years ago she would never had said such a ludicrous thing such as missing school, but being alone for so long, sitting in a classroom was a sense of normality that she missed dearly. It would benefit her too; she had missed her exams due to the disturbance of her mutation, at least now she could gain her qualifications, even if she couldn't easily get a job. She wanted to feel the accomplishment, and prove, that even looking as outlandish as she did, she could do well in school.
Raven was just exiting the library with a throng of students after her last lesson of Friday, an English lesson taught by Storm, when she found the young mutant teacher arriving alongside her. Raven quickly snapped bright yellow eyes up to Storm and found herself being gently shuffled out of the student mass and to one side of the corridor. Raven followed silently to the calm directing.
Within the next few moments, Raven found that Storm was now watching her with a bright smile and she looked clearly pleased about something. "Raven. Do you remember the friend of Charles I mentioned the previous week?"
"The one to do with communicating device?" replied Raven, voice sounding a little carefree.
Storm nodded her head, "Correct. He shall be arriving around 2 o clock tomorrow afternoon, I'm sure Charles would love to introduce his latest student."
In truth, Raven did not particularly share the same enthusiasm to meeting this so called important friend of Professor Xavier. She had a shrewd feeling he would be some stuffy pompous old codger. "I'm sure he won't be interested in meeting me," said Raven in a rather cool tone. She turned quite sharply, intending to walk off. However, she was stopped by a surprisingly firm hold on her shoulder. Looking back, she saw that Storm had placed her hand upon Raven.
"You are a wonderfully interesting mutant, Raven. He will want to see you." Storm gave a reassuring smile, "Trust me."
It was the weekend. A bright autumn sun glowed golden rays across the large extravagant gardens, but the air was bitter and nastily cold to the flesh. There was a faint mist hanging low over the ponds that caused the sunlight to shine dustily over the water surfaces. Raven was watching this scene out of her bedroom window, slumped over the window ledge as she gave a tired yawn to the outside world. A hand lazily covered her lips before it limply fell upon the wooden ledge. It was not all that early, it was nearing midday, but the mansion was still in a silence. The majority of students were still probably comatose in their beds. But since Raven's time locked in her room, she never wanted to be asleep for too long, she wanted to experience life around her. Plus, she did not enjoy witnessing her reoccurring nightmares.
Eventually, even viewing the outside world was becoming a little too tedious for her, and she rose up and away from the window to quietly tread out into the corridor and to venture downstairs in search of entertainment. The library wasn't far from here; perhaps she would go and take a look.
The midday sun shone through the numerous tall windows that ran along the high wooden walls of the library. The golden light shone dreamily over the range of tables and chairs that were positioned around the room, all neatly in rows, chairs tucked tidily under their rectangular tables. Dauntingly tall bookshelves ran in long rows down the centre of the room, darkening the further in you looked, like a mysterious alleyway of literature wonders. The library was pretty scarce of students; it only got busy in the evenings and especially not at weekends.
Raven seated herself at the far end of the room, in a section devoted to books on mutants, some supporting, some against, and even some written by Charles Xavier himself. Raven had selected a tall red book titled, 'Beneath the surface – definitions of a mutant' and had opened it upon the table she was sat at. Her bright eyes scanned slowly down the page as she read, giving a thoughtful tilt of her head as the author described possible signs of mutations. This book was rather unbiased, for it never mentioned any hatred for mutants, but nor did it evidently defend them.
As she got engaged into the book, she drifted out of touch with the activities around her, not noticing the time quickly pass, and students walking by her, selecting books, doing homework. She was halfway through the same thick book a few hours later, and she lifted her eyes slowly from a diagram of how mutant DNA manifested when a sound disturbed her. A man had just walked past her table, which she was sat at alone. He seated himself at the opposite end of her table and lowered what looked like a travelling chess set to the table. Raven, feeling rather irritated that he had decided to come near her, was glaring at him over the top of her book.
His previous walk had been the statue of a proud man. The stranger had carried himself with pride in his motions, almost regally. He was a tall figure, clothed in smart attire - razor-sharp creases that went vertically down black trousers and a dark navy buttoned up shirt. Eyes of dark blue were set deep into his lined face whilst hair of fading brown was swept back across his head. When he sat at the table, he made little noise, even as he opened his chess set. Slowly, and carefully he set out the wooden chess pieces, setting them neatly on their squares.
Raven raised a disdainful brow and made a purposely loud sigh.
The stranger slowly raised his eyes to cast a careful look across the table. Raven stared right back at him, her bright eyes meeting his deeply thoughtful ones. There was something in those eyes that made Raven halt however. For those were eyes of somebody who had had previous years of certain hardship, there was defiance in his eyes, strong and glinting, but also the sad wash of affliction. "Am I disturbing you?" the older man asked quietly, voice holding a smooth but powerful tone to it, a distant trace of a foreign accent on his words.
Raven slowly lowered her eyes, feeling a little ashamed for being so haughty, "No, no, it's alright. Go ahead."
But the man did not play his chess game, he continued to watch her from his end of the table, arms folded in front of his chest upon the smooth surface of the table, "I have not seen you here before, a new student I presume? What is your name, dear?"
Raven's eyes flickered upon him slowly, "I'm Raven Darkholme."
The man spread a slow smile to her, nodding his head pleasantly, "My name is Erik Lensherr. I have heard quite a bit about you from Charles."
Raven looked a little surprised to discover this was the important friend of Charles. She had not been expecting such a man. "Oh.." she said quietly, then giving a little smile of her own, "I've heard a little about you too."
Erik gave her a fond little grin, "Good things I hope?"
"Erm.. just things about your work with Charles, you're making some sort of communication device, aren't you?"
"I am indeed, Charles is a great man to work with."
"I don't know anyone else who would help mutants so much," murmured Raven quietly, looking down at her book, "He's a good person."
"He is indeed," said Erik quietly, looking down to his chess set as he picked up a white pawn slowly and rolled it in his fingers before moving it forward. "So.. what is your mutation?" he asked, placing down the pawn quietly before looking up at her.
Raven shuffled uncomfortably in her seat, eyes idly looking at the open pages of her book, "Just my skin.." she murmured very quietly, "I know it's not useful or anything.." she faded out with a slight frown, eyes looking at, but not really focusing on the book.
"Sometimes mutations come upon us in strange ways," sighed Erik quietly, pulling a black pawn towards him.
Raven sighed quietly, closing her book, "I just wish that it was something useful.. like Storm's.. that's a great power. But like this, I can't even go out in public. I'm hated."
Erik raised his eyes slowly to give her a level eyed stare, "You killed your father.. didn't you?"
At the way Raven dropped her head to her hands, he got his answer. He looked down slowly at his board, calmly moving his white bishop. Raven did not want to delve into the shady surroundings about her father's death, and Erik Lensherr was still a stranger to her.. she wasn't going to tell him.. not yet anyway. She raised her eyes slowly to see what he was doing, and was relieved that he had gone back to his chess game instead of staring her out. "So.. how long should it take for the device to be done?" she asked quietly, changing subject.
"Another month I imagine," replied Erik, a small smile lifting his thin lips, he looked down gently at the white king. He then looked over at her, "Would you like to play chess with me?"
"I don't know how.."
"I'll teach you.." he rose slowly and walked closer to her end of the table with such an odd grace that Raven would not expect from an elder man. He sat down gently, setting it up beside her.
"So what's your powers?" asked Raven quietly as she watched the pieces being set up.
Erik gently set up her black pieces for her, speaking as he did this, "I can manipulate and control metal. The power of magnetism. It is how I am helping Charles build this machine, it will be made out of metal."
Raven watched him interestedly for a moment, before looking down at her pieces, "What will the machine be called?" asked Raven curiously, reaching forward a little to study her row of pawns.
Erik picked up the black king slowly, watching it as he twirled it in his fingers. It was quietly put down in front of Raven, "It shall be called.. Cerebro."
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