Soon after the metal gun incident, we landed. I didn't fail to notice how as soon as we landed the airplane's time changed from 4AM to 8AM.

That probably meant there was some sort of network, maybe even internet. Useful.

From this, I could also gather that we'd traveled East. How far East? I had no idea. I just knew that going West from Chicago meant the numbers went down while East meant they went up. I'd need to get a book with information on the time zones to figure out any more details.

They'd certainly not allow me near a computer if I couldn't even keep my phone. But a book, they'd probably let that slide.

But, even then what good would that do I? I didn't even know where my mom was. I was not leaving unless I could guarantee that she was out of harm's way, after all she was the only reason I left peacefully.

Small steps, Maine wasn't built in a day.

I shook my head.

Damn it, this lack of sleep is really hitting me hard.

This shaking also attracted Magneto's attention. Luckily, he didn't bother asking about it, probably blaming my lack of bed rest.

If he'd simply asked I'd have been in trouble. I just couldn't lie to the guy. I instinctively knew that I couldn't. The day I did lie to him successfully would be the day the universe collapses on itself.

A pale figure with an uncomfortably hunched back and piercing sulfur yellows eyes walked out the pilot's cabin.

I knew Mystique from the little bits of data I cobbled together from my local library's historical archives, but I didn't know anything about this person. Unless, of course, this was just Mystique in disguise.

That only added to my irritation. I liked gathering data before a fight. I liked knowing my enemies better than they knew themselves, anything less was unacceptable to me. I didn't like walking into a situation blindly and having to fumble around in the dark, still don't by the way.

Magneto introduced the man who apparently piloted the plane. "This is Toad."

I wondered about what the name's hidden meaning was. What, exactly, made him like a toad?

While I pondered this, I nodded and said, "Hello." No need to make enemies this early.

I didn't bother looking out the window and followed the men to the exit.

The first thing that hit me was intense surprise at the amount of metal I sensed just outside the door.

I thought I was hallucinating until I stepped out of the plane and saw that Magneto's house was constructed entirely out of metal. No, 'house' is far too modest. This was a grand castle fit for a king, nestled in a sea of vibrant green forest.

The humidity almost knocked me down. I quickly scanned the area around and found that we were also on an island.

Judging by how I couldn't see any land in the distance, nor feel any boats nearby, I concluded this to be a very isolated island.

Wait, an isolated island with internet access? How did he make that happen? And what keeps the metal from rusting?

I mentally shook the thoughts away.

Well, swimming's out, I thought.

The fact that It's metal will definitely work for and against me.

I looked down at the balcony below. To build this castle, he'd have had to hold all arches below at the same time while placing the roof of the building on top. Each arch had to be at least a few hundred tons.

If he had managed to make this whole thing on his own… At that moment I realised he was even more out of my league than I thought.

Thoroughly impressed, I suddenly noticed that I'd been standing on one of the steps on the ramp for far too long. I tried to move on from gaping at the building to descending the plane's stairs, and soon had another thing to add to my I hate list. Namely, how amused Magneto was by my surprise and how he didn't bother hiding his smug look when he said, "I built this place several years ago."

"How long did it take?" I asked, trying not to sound too flabbergasted.

"A month," he replied, so smug he couldn't help but grin a little. I would've been surprised by the rare slip of self control if I wasn't already so surprised by his actual answer.

For a second I didn't say anything. I couldn't stop my jaw from dropping. "A month? It takes seven for an ordinary house to be built. This thing's massive!"

He didn't say anything and his back was turned, but I knew he thoroughly enjoyed my shock.

I could barely fathom how one person could do this.

"Well, I can do it in one," he said, and turned to look at the house. What he said next cut right through my shock, stopping me in my tracks. "And in time, so will you."

I was silent all the way to the house. All this time I had felt so attacked, so cornered by Magneto, I hadn't even thought of what he wanted me for. Of course I knew him wanting to train me was an option, but I honestly had no idea what would become of me. There was still a chance that he just wanted to imprison me in a place so I couldn't thwart his plans. After all, I had the perfect powers that someone could experiment on to find something that can harm him.

I couldn't help the rush of emotions coming over me, but at least I could stop them from showing on my face. I kept my steps even and my expression blank as I went through shock to relief to dread and everything in between. I was sure that if I had tried to talk at that moment, nothing would've come over my lips.

Soon we arrived at an unnecessarily grand hall and I had enough stimuli to distract myself with. I tried to take in as much of the building and mentally drew up a map of whatever I could see.

Toad went down the stairs, presumably to a basement. In a corner of my brain, Irealised that if one were to spill water in this building and slipped, they'd surely break a bone.

Instead of going the same way as Toad, Magneto and I went down a hallway. The building became more and more like a maze to me as we went through halls and made turn after turn. Eventually we stopped at a simple, nondescript door made of- you guessed it- metal,.

The older man levitated some keys to me and I caught it with my hands out of habit. I used my abilities in my daily life, yes, but I wasn't comfortable enough to use them in front of people all the time. Not that that was at all surprising, I had a secret to hide.

Knowing him as well as I do now, I'd say he was thinking that the fact I wasn't very comfortable using my abilities in the open was another flaw that I would have to get around.

"Be up by 10." He said.

"Will I be able to contact my mom?" I was hoping he'd say I would. I needed to know she was okay.

"Perhaps." He gave nothing away. He used the same tone of voice as he did when he first entered my room back home.

"The key part being if I'm good, I assume?" I gritted my teeth while speaking these words.

Ugh, I sound like a little kid.

How did I go from freely romping about a city to asking if I could call my mom?

"Privileges do need to be earned," Magneto answered.

I have to earn the 'privilege' of talking to my mom? Does this guy even hear himself? No, of course he does, he's just too in love with his own voice to notice how crazy he sounds.

I took a deep breath to avoid saying what I thought. To be honest, it was hard even by my standards.

"I need to know she's okay," I said.

He waited a moment before saying, "And how would that let you know that she was unharmed? Mystique can replicate voices."

No, you are not distracting me.

If the subject were anything else I would've loved to have a long and wordy conversation full of small talk about the little what if's and maybe's. But, my mom's safety was not in that category.

I answered quickly. "However, is she a trained calligrapher? My mom has a very specific hand."

There was a pause. I honestly felt like it was the first time I'd been sent to the principal's office all over again. I tried not to fidget as he thought of what to do with me.

Finally, he answered. "There's a pen and paper in your room. Keep in mind, I will read whatever messages you send."

I almost let the relief show on my face but managed to catch myself in the nick of time. "I saw that coming," I said with a shrug.

Hell, if I were him, I'd read the letters too. The difference between us being that I wouldn't tell anyone about it. He simply didn't care.

After this, he showed me to 'my' new bedroom. I immediately sat down at the desk and stared at the blank page of paper. I tried to calm my shot nerves and assess the situation logically. What did I have, what did I want, and what could I do to get it?

Hidden messages are out of the question. Codes would go over her head. Divulge too much of my situation and the letter won't even get sent.

I thought for a few moments before penning the following:

Hey mom,

I can't stop thinking of you so I am writing this. How are you? I know you love the good word so tell me, where are you in your yearly rereading of the Bible? Also, how do you feel about the part you're on? I'm always surprised by how you pick up shades of meaning I don't consider.

I'm fine, of course, and I've been pondering on how things around me work. You know me, I need to know how every little thing around me works.

I hope this letter gets to you soon.

Your son,

Chris Alster

A completely honest letter.

I thought I would probably end up writing too much of the truth and having to rewrite the letter. However, I was surprised to find I'd managed to avoid any mention of me being kidnapped by a man who controls metal on my first time.

I didn't realize it then, but it wasn't just luck. I'd been refining my ability to lie and distract others for years. First to hide my knowledge, but after I'd gained my abilities, I had needed to lie to and distract my own mother so much that it was second nature.

I wrote my letter in the neatest cursive I could, to encourage her to do the same. The last thing I needed was a typed message. Anyone could write that.

You see, people like reciprocating. The fact that I didn't hammer this out on my phone would make my mother feel mushy and sentimental and she'd want to respond in kind.

Not that I would've hand-written the letter in any other situation. But Mom didn't know that.

After this, I looked around the room. It was small, with a drawer, twin sized bed, desk, nightstand and bookcase full of books. A door lead to an equally modest bathroom.

The first stop on my examination of the room was the bookcase. Most of the books were classics, unsubtly picked for me, like Pride and Prejudice. Smiling wryly, I wondered if Brave New World was present as well, but if it was I couldn't find it. I almost did a victory dance when I spied an encyclopedia. Halfway through the motion of grabbing it, I realised it only covered the letters V-Z, and sighed. Useless.

The bookcase wasn't bolted to the floor as I had half expected. Actually, after a quick investigation I realised none of the furniture was. It made sense, I could probably use my powers to break anything free if I really wanted to.

The drawer was next. The drawers were all empty save for a set of brand new clothes that even still had the tags on them. I would have to check them for bugs later. I removed all the drawers to check for bugs on the drawer itself, and didn't find any. Still, that didn't mean they weren't there.

The desk contained empty sheets of paper, a notebook, writing utensils and miscellaneous office supplies like staples and tape. Nothing surprising, but still, all of these things could be quite useful to me if I used them right. Again, I didn't find any hidden devices.

The nightstand was quite simple, with two drawers. They were empty, but on the nightstand were a lamp and an alarm clock. No bugs, I moved on.

The bed was quite comfortable indeed. I laid down, for the sake of my investigation of course, and closed my eyes. I sighed deeply. Now that I finally had time to relax a little, I noticed how much my body ached from sheer stress. My shoulders felt like I would pull a muscle at any second.

You know what? Maybe checking the bathroom can wait until tomorrow.

I had been keeping up appearances, trying to keep it together for just a bit too long. Studying for as long as you can is a good idea, but not if you don't take breaks. And mine was long overdue. I tried to relax and stop thinking about the situation at hand, but my mind had other plans. The fact that I didn't know what was to come of me meant I couldn't just kick back and relax. I didn't feel safe. This wasn't home, it wasn't even a prison. You at least had a release date to look forward to while in them.

I deliberately cut off my thoughts and started on a breathing exercise that had helped before. What would make me feel more calm in this situation?

If only Mom were here.

"Chris, you'll be fine. I'm sure you can get out of this."

I didn't bother paying attention to what piece she moved. "Mom... I'm not sure. You didn't see what I saw today-"

She cut me off. "I don't need to. I know my baby can handle this." She kissed me on the forehead.

I smiled at my mother: still sane, capable of playing chess even.

"Magneto's only a man Chris, Remember that." She smiled. "And men can be beaten."

Dream Mom was also capable of coming up with complex plans for escape, despite the fact that my real mom wouldn't know about half the things she talked about.

A bit unrealistic, but necessary. Something about hearing my ideas come out of her mouth kept me from giving up. We continued to cull through the stupid or impossible plans.

Which also happened to be all of them.

I sighed and took another chocolate chip cookie. She had always been a great cook.

I looked at my mom. "I'll be back with some more information that we can use for planning."

When I woke up the alarm on the nightstand said it was 9:30AM.

I intentionally avoided thinking about how the clothes in the drawers were my exact size, showered, and quickly got dressed.

Just as I started wondering what to do next, I heard a knock at the door.

I opened it up and saw Toad, who seemed surprised that I was awake.

"Good morning," I said. Toad gave no reply.

As we walked down the hall, I decided to try again. "So, what's your ability?"

In response, Toad managed to jump twenty feet away from me without bothering to get a running start.

"Woah! That's really cool."

I wasn't lying either. He had to be much stronger in his legs then he looked. The amount of force needed to propel his body so far… it was unreal.

I didn't know it at the time, but Toad definitely appreciated the admiration, because he rarely got any, and so he opened up slightly.

"What about you?" he asked, speaking to me for the first time.

I bent my old house keys into little spheres and made them orbit around us.

"I control magmatism."

Toad's eyes widened as he watched the orbits of the spheres. "Like- like Magneto…"

"Like him, yes." Here we go...

He turned to me, eyes wide. "You his kid?" I sighed.

"Nope. We just happen to have the same mutation." I barely managed to keep the irritation out of my voice. I knew this would happen months in advance, yes, but that didn't make me any less annoyed. I intensely disliked the idea that I'd be linked with someone that I so strongly disagreed with automatically. It significantly cut down my number of potential allies, even more than simply being a mutant did. It would be like someone named after Adolf Hitler running for presidency.

The conversation ended quickly after that. As it turned out, we got to breakfast exactly on time. Good thing, since I didn't even know there was a deadline. I took a seat next to Toad, who was unfortunately the person I felt the most comfortable with.

Why? Because at least I knew he was afraid of me. There were three other people eating breakfast, namely Magneto, Mystique and a large feral mutant with brown and yellow fur.

As I listened, I caught that his name was Sabertooth. Mystique and him spoke of assignments that they had but never said exactly what they were.

I bet you can guess who put them up to that. After breakfast, I was told to do the dishes, which I did, and then I followed Buckethead to the training room. We walked through corridor after corridor until I started to wonder if he was leading us in circles.

I broke the silence with, "I wrote the letter."

I handed it to him. He read it three times.

Once for comprehension and twice for any hidden messages. I held my breath.

"You don't ask once for her location." He finally says.

"If you wanted me to know you'd tell me."

That was true. I figured asking for her location would either lead to the letter being trashed or her being moved somewhere very far away. Either was bad, but I knew how desperately she needed stability to recover.

"Plus, It's not like you to give up a huge advantage like my mom's location. You strike before your opponent can in chess so that probably extends to this. If I know my mom's location I can at least make a plan. Without it- not so much," I continued.

"You're not wrong there. I am purposefully keeping the location of your mother a secret. In fact, I bet you don't even know where you are."

I sighed. "Don't remind me."

There was a pause as we continued walking.

He looked at me. "Though I did like how you worded it. I'm sure that you know exactly what part of the Bible your mother is in by now. She rereads it every year, apparently. So even if Mystique did copy her handwriting you'd know the letter is false."

I gave a small smile at this.

Nice catch.

"It's my fail-safe."

I wonder if he'll reject it because of my security measures. No, he'd appreciate the ingenuity.

Why did I think this? Because that's what I would do in his position.

"You don't trust me." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Nope," I said.

This was the awkward moment when I realized that this had to be the most open conversation I've had in months. And I had it with my kidnapper, not my mother or even a friend.

"Neither do I." He looked down at the paper once more, "However, there is nothing wrong with the letter so I'll have it sent."

There was another pause.

"I'm curious, though. It's not the most secure of fail-safes. How can you be so sure we can't guess or find out where in the bible your mom is at?"

I shrugged. "My mom and I are really close. It'll probably be some combination of inside jokes and just knowing what she'd consider important."

We finally arrived at a large, mostly empty room. On the floor, there were several hundred metal bricks on the ground, stacked in neat rows.

The training was quite simple, I had to pick up bricks with my powers and keep them hovering in the air. It seemed simple enough, an obvious test of endurance and control. The bricks were about as small as a package of sugar, but they were also surprisingly heavy.

I felt very silly when I dropped the bricks for the first time. I had lost count long before I dropped them, but I'm sure Magneto knew exactly how many I had managed to lift. I felt disappointed, I knew I could lift more. I'd even lifted my car on occasion!

I could only stare as the bricks fell down, clanging loudly. Magneto broke the silence with a stern, "Focus."

He has my mom. If I slapped him I'd be the epitome of selfishness and idiocy at the same time. Even if he does deserve it.

I breathed in and tried again. This time I swear to myself not to lose count as I added brick after brick. As I tried to lift the 974th brick, however, I could feel my control slipping, and before I knew it I had to start over again. The feeling of losing control was incredibly annoying. It was like I was carrying rocks and all of a sudden, the rocks turned to liquid and slipped past my fingers. So frustrating.

We continued training for what felt like forever. By the end, my brain felt like it had been scrambled. I could only think of my bed, but unfortunately, we weren't done yet. It was time for the next training exercise.

That's right, the next exercise, not a water break and taking five.

This time, there was a bit of danger involved. Magneto would levitate all of the bricks above me and then fling some in my direction at random. I had to use my powers to stop them, or else I'd be hurt.

It was actually quite easy at first. The bricks moved in my direction and I quickly caught them with my power. Just catch and hold.

Surprisingly, this time I actually lasted the full 1500 bricks. I couldn't celebrate yet, though. Magneto hadn't told me to let them go yet, and my arms were already aching. I continued to hold the bricks up.

As I had caught the last brick, my arms had started shaking. I tried to stop the tremors but found that I couldn't, and started panicking a little. I'd almost always been in direct control of my body, and I had certainly never shaken this badly before. Even so, I tried to hold the bricks for just a little while more. Soon, I was shaking and sweating all over.

"I- can't-" The fact that I showed this amount of weakness told of how urgent the situation was.

Magneto didn't agree. "You will."

I pressed on, but every part of my body was throbbing in pain. At some point I just couldn't do it anymore. I collapsed in a heap of limbs, the bricks falling with me. I watched them fall toward me with a detached calm. The fact that I was in danger didn't even register.

Luckily Magneto didn't want me to die just yet. Instead of crushing me, the bricks halted in mid-air, not even an inch from my face.

I pushed myself out from underneath them and stood up, wheezing.

"How heavy do you think an individual brick is?" Magneto asked.

Wow, priorities, I thought absentmindedly.

"I- I have no idea." I breathed.

"About 5 pounds. You're doing far better than I expected. Do you realize that you lifted the weight of almost three cars without any real training?"

Is this going to be a regular thing?

No, that didn't matter. All that mattered were the goals Magneto was trying to achieve. And isn't how you stop those who won't listen to reason with brute force?

I finally regained my breath. "There's a huge difference between the 4,500 pounds I lifted the first time and the 7,500 pounds I lifted the second time around," I said. I didn't even bother turning it into a question. I knew Magneto would explain anyhow, he just liked the sound of his voice too much.

"That comes from your inability to multitask. Currently, your ability to lift metal is inversely related to how many things you lift at once." He said, annoyingly sounding wise and knowledgeable. Of course when it came to our powers he was, but It still rubbed me the wrong way.

Anyhow, for those of you who didn't pay attention in their algebra lessons, this means the more seperate pieces of metal I lifted, the less metal I could carry overall. For instance, if my limit for one piece of metal was ten pounds, I wouldn't be able to carry two pieces of five pounds each at the same time. It'd be less. In short, multitasking took a killer amount of mental energy from me.

"We'll soon fix that." There was no room for debate in that sentence, none, nada, zilch.

A question popped up in my mind.

"So I really stopped those bricks from killing me?"

The man gave me a smile that told me that somewhere in the world, a puppy had died.

"For a few seconds yes."

So you deliberately let me think I was going to die to see if my power was going to go any further.

The sad part was that I wasn't surprised. I was, however, very glad that we stopped for lunch directly after this.

Archived author's note:

A few months ago I watched this video called 'Magneto Defeated By a Wooden Gun' and used that as inspiration for the main characters' struggle of mistaking a gun for a bent rectangular prism. After all, there are plenty of stupid moments to go around.

The writing in the video is so bad that it's funny. Mr Fantastic points a wooden gun at Magneto and convinces him that he lost his powers. But, then he tells him that he still has them. And somehow Magneto doesn't think 'If I have my powers I can leave."

No, he gets arrested by cops with metal guns and handcuffs, put into a metal cop car and soon ends up in a prison with metal bars.

No I'm not lying, someone literally wrote this and somehow it made it on TV.