I am not dead! This took so long to write. Also Chris lacks an outfit. I have zero I repeat zero fashion sense so I really don't know what his uniform would look like. Any suggestions?

SpiritofHogwarts Thanks. I'm very happy that I'm your favorite fanfic writer.

Chocoholics Unite That would be super awkward. I'm glad your having just as much fun as I am.

A few days later, Magneto had changed his focus from teaching me how to use my power to teaching me how to deal with warzones. Specifically, he wanted me to learn how to deal with the bloody dead bodies that litter said warzones.

On my first day, I felt a bit nervous. He had only told me that the goal was to kill 3 guards that were armed with guns in 3 minutes. If I wasn't trying hard I could stop them in a minute or less. Something was up.

I breathe deeply.

Still he's not going to harm me.

But what does this have to do with tolerating war?

No idea. Let's find out. Rebellion said

I'd rather not. Insecurity said

I of course ignored that portion of my mind and soon the sequence began. The guards materialized and I attacked them turning around their bullets and firing them all backward. Which led me to an unpleasant surprise. I could actually smell blood. I could see it too. Red sticky warm blood covered my clothes.

I heard Magneto's voice from the console room." When you return bullet fire don't stand so close to the enemy."

Blank faced I nodded at this.

Before all the simulations were bloodless and the guards simply dematerialized after I defeated them. In this case the word killed is a far more fitting description.

I was already acquainted with blood from my previous experiences but that didn't mean I didn't want to puke my stomach out. I stepped away from the bodies trembling.

So this his plan. I'm supposed to stay in this room for some time and we'll probably do this over and over again until I gain a resistance to the sight of blood.

In that case, I should stop holding my nose and breathing through my mouth. That defeats the purpose.

I instantly regretted this. The smell was so strong that I could feel my nostril cells dying. I felt a bit faint as well. I remembered the location of the panic button.

No, I am not pressing the panic button. I'm going to face this.

The first minute was a terrible stomach churning experience and the second was only slightly less terrible.

It was only two minutes but it felt like an hour. So when the room door opened I bolted forgetting my pride even though Magneto could see me.

Once I got out, I felt much better. I'd never been so happy to breathe in air before.

I drank a bit of water ran into the bathroom and puked my guts out. Although there wasn't any real blood on me I showered and threw my clothes from that session into the trash Magneto told me about how I'd done fairly well and that I had to go back in. I hated that idea.

No, I loathed the idea. Once he said the words 'go back' I wanted to run into the forest and hide. But I went along with it because if I didn't go willingly he make me. He'd just need to make the floor swallow me and my escape would fail. Plus, even if I did get out the palace into cover he'd force me out. I knew that.

To keep me from getting distracted this time he made it so that whenever I killed one guard a bunch of others appeared. I had to kill those and once I did that there were others.

And of course since there were more bodies the blood's smell grew stronger. But I was so busy not getting myself shot by bullets that it took my attention away from the smell. That didn't mean I didn't notice it all.

I did freeze at one point as it was simply too much. The fighting I could take but the room had gotten so bad that when I breathed I tasted the blood. I saw myself under a pool of blood inhaling the terrible plasma with my every breath. I stopped for a second and my right shoulder burned.

"Ugh!"

The guards stopped shooting and I looked at my shoulder. My mind wasn't done playing tricks on me. It looked like my shoulder was gushing blood from like some sort of sick parody of a fountain that had blood instead of water.

I reported. "I've been grazed."

Which lead to Mystique sewing the wound back up in the infirmary. She left and Magneto took her place.

Here we go.

"What happened?" He said without skipping a beat.

"I-I"

"You were perfectly capable of handling the setting I set. I'd even decreased the difficulty to account for your phobia."

"I hesitated."

He didn't say anything and left the room. He was disappointed in me. That was a fairly new and unwelcome feeling. I said that I loved being praised for what I did right and I didn't mind being corrected earlier but I hated this. It was just as jarring as being slapped in the face.

I sighed and headed back to the VR room. At the end of this experience, which took place in only an hour I felt emotionally drained with severe nausea. Once we left the room, I decided to drink some tea.

After this, my regular training would begin. I was glad it was going to get started because it would distract me from the images that were in my head.

Once I finished, I knew I had a bit of time before I had to train again. I went to my room and started to once again start throwing knifes.

If I thought about what had just happened I wouldn't have been surprised to see that Magneto had entered my room. Think about it. I was a teenager that been put through an enormous amount of emotional stress who had went into his room alone with knives weeks after confessing that I had problems with pills because I felt a need for escapism.

I didn't have the pills but there was more than one way to skin a cat. I didn't think about it though and when I heard him sigh in relief it confused me.

"This needs to be done." he said "You have to not be so sensitive."

I throw a knife and it landed perfectly.

I sigh "I understand that."

Still even though I hate it. It has to be done. But that doesn't mean I like it.

I had nightmares every night for three consecutive nights. I also shook the base during each of these nightmares. I thought they'd be annoyed because of how frequently it happened but, no one ever mentioned it. The only time it was mentioned was when I was heading to the training room and I saw Mystique

She told me. "Don't forget to pack dishes in bubble wrap when you put them up today. And lock the cabinets."

"Why? Oh right. Sorry about that." I said

For once, she didn't seem to be angry with me.

"No one knows how to control their mutation from day one."

They had dealt with it before themselves which was why they weren't not upset with me.

On my first night of nightmares, Magneto found me in my room shaking in my bed and he directed me to the kitchen. I took a seat in a stool by the kitchen island. He took out two mugs poured tea in both and handed me one.

I took a sip. I asked "Why do you help me with my nightmares?"

He said. "You need my help. I've had my fair share of nightmares myself."

Really? I thought

He smiled to himself sadly "That's how I became so skilled at making this tea."

"What do you have nightmares about?"

He rolled up his left sleeve of his shirt and revealed to me a tattoo with the numbers 24005. I wasn't a historian but I knew where those came from. Only people who were at Auschwitz had those tattoos.

My mouth opened but I had nothing to say.

Magneto survived the Holocaust.

Everything started to become clear to me. Why he'd go to any lengths to protect mutants. Why he was so wary of humans. Everything made sense.

"My mother was shot in front of me and my father was killed before we arrived."

I'm sorry had to go through that."

"Your tea's getting cold." That was all he said to me. For a while, he simply stared at his cup.

Magneto survived Auschwitz. That would make anyone hyper vigilant.

He finally says "You can see why I feel so strongly about protecting our kind."

I nod.

"I never want mutants to experience what I did. And I'm prepared to fight to make sure that doesn't happen."

When I listened to him talk like this it was impossible for me to not respect him. He doesn't stick out. He could pass for human as I could. And his first instinct was to fight while mine was to hide.

"When I was your age mutants weren't known to the world. So I was able to make many mistakes until I knew better... You on the other hand don't have that luxury. This is life-or-death and you currently walk a fine line. Do you understand this?

"I understand." I had thought along those lines myself sometimes.

"For your sake, I hope you truly do." His voice softened there for a moment before he continued.

"Your concern for your mother will complicate things. Your love for her could be your undoing."

I get that mom loathes mutants. If she found out I wouldn't put it past her to try to kill me and report me herself when that failed.

"When you talk to her never ever forget what she'd do if he knew that you are a god among insects. Never forget what you are."

God among insects? I really don't think humans are our inferiors. Sure they don't have a mutation but that's really harsh. Why would I think I'm superior to anybody?

Five more days of my exposure training continued. Like with many things Magneto was right. It did get easier. The key part to remember is easier not easy.

Still, I went from going into shock after killing some guards to mild cringing.

I found Magneto was reading the newspaper El País one day as I entered his office.

"You know Spanish?"

He didn't look up from the paper. "And 7 other languages."

"You know 8 different languages?"

"That's what simple arithmetic would say."

Can he go an hour without saying something like that? Probably not.

"Still that's interesting why did you pick up so many?"

"While pursuing Shaw I traveled widely."

He continues "You don't know any other languages besides English."

"I don't."

"We'll soon fix that."

Which lead to me learning my first foreign language. Despite his very rigorous and challenging teaching method I found that I enjoyed speaking in Spanish. When we were alone I'd talk to him only in Spanish because there was something exciting about it. He of course corrected my every mistake (and I do mean every mistake) so I learned quickly.

I started calling him sir too and I didn't mind. He was my teacher and I wanted to show respect. I already respected him. Before all this started in my general day-to-day life I was a respectful teen. So calling him sir wasn't a stretch.

The thing about the change was it wasn't forced. He knew things I didn't, had far power than me and had other characteristics (besides his anger problems) that I wanted to adopt. It's all textbook psychology really and while I wouldn't have wanted to hear this there was the fact that I had never had a dependable adult in my life. When something made me afraid I could talk to someone. When I did things well he cheered me on.

I had two responsibilities follow orders and do my best. This was a huge game changer for me.

Some three months after I coerced into coming with him it made little difference to me that man I was learning from had kidnaped me in the first place.

What was important was that I finally had someone in the world who support me- not the me I created for them to know but my real self. Someone I didn't have to hide from. Someone that knew me so well that I couldn't lie to them. It really was no surprise that I started to like him as a person.

Not in that way. I can't believe I have to clarify this but I liked him in the way that a child likes their parents. In this case it was a mixture of childlike awe and curiosity that hadn't quite been destroyed by my old life mixed with the occasional dose of terror because Magneto even if you knew him for a while could be terrifying.

That's just how he was. So anybody who spent time with him learned to deal with it. I did just that. On another note I'd went back to secretly observing his morning training sessions. I didn't wear my keys this time but he knew. He just didn't say anything.

I kept thinking about what could have happened and as I did I started to feel relieved things happened as they did. Left alone I could have easily got kidnapped or killed and or caused a lot of property damage and hurt some people or even killed them. I'd shaken up Magneto's large palace imagine if I were back at home...

Instead of any of these scenarios playing out, I was being taught how to control my mutation by one of the most powerful men in the world safely out of the reach of any anti-mutant fanatics. My mother was being taken care of and I was learning and being challenged every day.

I kept thinking about it and eventually I felt extremely embarrassed about how petulant I'd been in the beginning.

Life isn't about doing what you want. It's about doing what matters.

And ensuring mutants don't get killed in a genocide is far more important than me being with my mother. Even if I do miss her.

After this I became any teachers dream student polite, hard-working, and eager to please. I wanted to learn which made me easy to teach. I was also very interested in how the Brotherhood worked because if I was going to have something like this impact my life so much I ought to know a bit about it.

Magneto encouraged my interest and greatly enjoyed the respect and admiration I gave him. He also liked how I'd willingly listen to his plans that were in motion. I didn't see why anyone would think that his plans were boring, they were amazingly well thought out.

When does he find the time to do this?

It wasn't a one-sided lecture either. He'd asked me why he'd make certain moves etc. By doing this he taught me some of the basics of strategy. I thought I already knew how to strategize before but Magneto was on another level. My idea of thinking very far ahead was planning five years into the future which was nothing by Magneto's standards.

Magneto was doing everything he could to move the future in the direction he wanted, laboriously working toward his dream for mutant kind. I personally didn't have any large goals beyond become an engineer, take care of mom, and get married to someone I loved.

These were the goals I'd written down in my Journal of Interesting Things (yes that's its name. I was 8) that was at my house.

My reward for good behavior was that I got a laptop. It was extremely expensive and I was to keep it in its case when I wasn't using it. I didn't even want to think of the consequences of losing or breaking it.

Magneto didn't trust me enough to let the laptop have internet and did a very good job of "encouraging" me to not try anything with it. I did get a few e-books to read some related to what he wanted me to learn others were just for fun.

I often experimented with my mutation in my free time. I worked on getting stronger shields, greater control and mastery of what was taught to me that day, and sometimes I simply played with my electricity for fun. Whenever the man saw me at play / work he would generally say what I was doing wrong as he always did. But if I were doing something well he'd tell me so and I felt so I happy that I was getting better.

In one of my rare moments of boredom I started to levitate a metal bar in the air. I sent it back and forward above me while I sat on a couch.

I hear sudden crash and I jumped on to my feet. My grasp on the bar disappeared and it flew 10 feet in front of me hitting and from the sound breaking something.

I saw Toad walk into the room.

"Hey sorry about that crash. I dropped some plates. I" He suddenly stopped speaking.

I look ahead and then I see that a vase is broken. It was Chinese porcelain with an elegant white and blue flower design. It also looked very expensive.

I look back to Toad's position and see nothing but air. This was why we couldn't really be friends no matter how much we talked.

Really Toad? Well I'm in trouble.

Still I couldn't exactly delay telling Magneto. He had to know. If I didn't tell I'd be lying to him. I hadn't lied to him before but I knew the consequences wouldn't be pleasant.

So I swept up the vase and went to his office secretly hoping that he wouldn't answer when I knocked. I hoped that he was somewhere where I couldn't go like his lab or maybe he was training in the VR room.

Luck obviously wasn't on my side. "Come in."

My stomach dropped to the floor. Still, it was too late to go back.

I entered sat down and told it to him straight.

"I broke the vase by the living room"

And I've been I'm trying so hard to stay out of trouble. This isn't going to be fun.

I brace myself for the worst.

"Hm shame I liked that vase. it was made by an artist that wasn't recognized until after her death."

That's it?

He didn't seem angry at all. And he wasn't. "How did this happen?"

I told him the story.

"Do pay more attention next time. I encourage you to use your mutation but I also want you to be careful about where you use it." Leniency? Reasonableness from him? What had the world come to?

I was so confused that day. In fact, I think he let me off the hook just to screw with me. He thoroughly enjoyed doing that. Well, that and he had bigger fish to fry.

Things were pretty normal until it happened. By it I mean that one day out of the blue the amount of power I wielded doubled with no real explanation.

Now your saying doubling? That can't be that bad. Two times not much is still not much. It doesn't work that way. A mutation isn't simply a way of being able to do things like read minds or control magmatism it is a key part of the mutant shaping their perception in too many ways to count.

My training allowed me to control my ordinary amount of power without an issue as long as I wasn't told to do anything too elaborate but I was in no way ready for the amount of power that I could access doubling. That meant I lacked coordination because I overestimated how much effort I'd need to do something. I needed to figure out my limits all over again.

This all start of course started with the standard shifting of the base. I was asleep during this. There was no nightmare this time. Unbeknownst to me, I'd twisted the metal in the ceiling so tightly that the ceiling could've gave from above me.

So the next day I woke up in a guest room and Magneto filled me in. I had no clue about any of this and it terrified me. I'd almost killed myself?

And that wasn't all. I'd apparently almost stabbed Toad in the heart. It missed by inches but he still had to get stitched up.

"What? I-I almost killed Toad!" I felt so disgusted with myself. I could live with monsters getting hurt by me but this? I was a danger to everyone I knew. I was a danger to myself.

The wall behind me bunched up and I felt true terror once again. I needed control without it I felt so helpless and scared. The only thing I truly had power over was uncontrollable too?

Magneto ironically told me to "Calm down." I quickly nod my head at this and started thinking of a nice calm beach with a tide periodically sweeping on the shore.

The period of the tide hitting point x aka how long it takes for it to hit point x per cycle is 2 seconds. Thus the frequency is...

Don't worry about the physics terminology used here. I was a nerd as you know and loved simple harmonic motion. So using it in my daydreams is not surprising.

There was another crash from behind the bed.

I keep my focus and moments later I open my eyes.

"What just happened?" I sound far more scared than I wanted.

"Your mutation seems to have fluctuated overnight." I looked around and saw that the lamps were bent out of shape, the walls were bent out their frames, and the floor behind me suddenly had a 10-foot-deep depression.

We went downstairs towards the lab while I tried to ignore two things: my guilt for almost killing Toad and my fear which wasn't helped by how the walls would suddenly bunch up as if it were grabbed by a hand when I walked past.

"It's not your fault."

I said "But if I weren't here Toad wouldn't have stitches." I'd just seen him before we got on the s0tairs and he flinched away in fear.

"Toad will be fine. Stop being so harsh on yourself. Your lack of control is why you need to be here as no one but I can keep your fluctuations in check."

That does make sense.

Once we entered the lab he put me through several tests to see what was wrong. Nothing came of it. It wasn't link to stress and it seemed that the only thing we could do to fix it was for me to train harder and regain control.

That sounds a lot easier than it actually is. Before training was terrible but once the fluctuations started it was hell. I understood why it had to be so hard I needed to not be so dangerous. Still it was terrible.

I had to relearn everything how to fly without hitting my head on the ceiling, how the sense details about the metal around me because I was so overwhelmed by the influx of information that it was as if everything was blurry. After all this, I still wasn't much closer to be having control.

And of course after what happened with me not really stabbing him but stabbing him Toad was afraid of me. Okay afraid is an understatement. He was terrified of me. Finally, my tremors would last all day sometimes.

Everyone was afraid of me in some way or another except for Magneto of course. Perhaps Mystique thought that I'd finally get some revenge for what she put me through in training and Sabretooth probably thought that I was a time bomb. At the time, I wouldn't have disagreed with them except for the part about me hurting Mystique that would never happen. I didn't do revenge.

Magneto on the other hand seemed to be having a ball. He was curious in very scientific way about my instability. He hadn't had anything like it when he was my age. I guess it helped that I wasn't a threat to him too.

Still despite what was going on I put my nose to the grindstone and worked as hard as I could to get back what I lost. Besides training getting harder it also it was also longer. Our sessions actually started at 5 a.m. then we'd work until breakfast and then work until lunch and then dinner after that of course I had no energy and slept.

I still remember vividly how on one day I had worked and worked until I couldn't work anymore. I collapsed onto the floor and saw that he looking down at me before he said as he always said "Get up."

When it came to training there was no mercy. We were there to get results and regardless of how I felt like I wanted to die right on the floor I picked myself back up and continued.

At the end of one before breakfast session I headed to the dining room. I'd gotten within 20 feet of the room when I heard indiscriminate yelling male and female. The male voice was obviously Magneto I could tell that and the female voice had to be Mystique by process of elimination. Still I couldn't make out what they were saying.

I argued with myself a little bit before I decided to go in anyway figuring that I could slip in undetected. Magneto even if he was yelling at Mystique wouldn't let me eat later.

"He's more trouble than he's worth. He could kill us all by accident." Mystique said.

"Mystique you are very good at your job but if you cannot follow orders I can find someone else to do it for me. I will not stand-"

And that's when I walked in. As soon as I did everyone's eyes were on me. I felt so very uncomfortable.

"Leave." That was all the older man told me to do. I didn't hesitate to do just that.

Are they talking about me? Mystique wants me out?

Cynicism said Don't be so PG this is the Brotherhood and by out surely she means...

Death.

Exactly. We know too much and we're too powerful for them to just let us go.

Optimism said You know Magneto I would never let that happen. That would totally mess with the plan that he has.

Did you just say something not stupid Optimism? Cynicism says

Optimism said Yeah, it's my third time this month.

Logic said You know the month started today and we just woke up so that's impossi-

Cynicism tapped him on the shoulder Don't try to explain this to him. It'll go in one ear and out the other.

Yay, I'm smart like a phone! Optimism started jumping up and down.

Okay then… we really need to stop feeding him all that sugar. Logic said.

So I went to my room that was just fixed and waited. And waited. Still I wasn't afraid because I knew where the power resided in the organization. Mystique while she's very influential didn't make the final decision Magneto did.

Still it was kind of unnerving that Mystique was of doing this at all.

So I played chess added the hardware that Toad had recommended to my laptop and even got ahead on some Spanish. After that and 3 mental chess games my teacher showed himself.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that." He closed the door behind him.

"Why you apologizing to me if Mystique did it?"

"Part of leading is taking responsibility for your follower's behavior and beyond that I should have taken the talk in a more private place so that you wouldn't hear it."

"So is she still going to still be here after all that?"

"Perhaps. If she left it would be her choice."

I stared up at the ceiling. "Mystique I heard her say that I'm dangerous… and not in the good way."

"We're all dangerous in some way."

"And for some in ways more obvious than others. I'm having real trouble believing that either of us are as dangerous as my mom."

"I believe you have your words in reverse."

"I stand by what I said."

He laughed very hard at this shook his head at my 'youthful ignorance' as he put it and ruffled my hair. I was in shock.

ChrisAlster . exe has encountered a problem and needs to shut down. Would you like to send an error report?

He then started laughing at my frozen expression. "Don't' worry about Mystique. I'll handle her."

He said he had to get back to Mystique and also said that the dining room was clear and that expected me to be ready to work in 20 minutes.

We left my room and as we were walking down the hallway saw her on the stairs. While I was fairly skilled by then still I knew that if she wanted to harm me she could and then do something cool but scary like twist my neck with her feet instead of hands.

So I did the smart thing and hid myself behind Magneto like a scared child.

Mystique gave me a very nasty looking expression but continued up the stairs and I went downstairs after they both left.

I have no idea what they said to each other but by the end of the day at dinner she wasn't there.

I didn't care about Mystique leaving but I did feel very isolated. Once again I'd unwillingly destroyed my bedroom. I went back to Magneto's study. It was becoming a habit. Overall, he really was an interesting person to spend time with assuming you are A a mutant and B respectful. If you weren't those things...

I didn't come to talk and instead idly molded a steel ball.

I softly say "Maybe Professor X."

"What was that?" The man had the ears of a bat!

I answer "Oh, I was just mumbling a random thought. Nothing important."

"And this random thought was?" See I can't hide a thing from the man even the slightest bit of vagueness was detected.

I brace myself and say quietly "I was wondering if your friend had a point about restraining someone's mutation."

He got out of his chair walked to where I was sitting and glared down at me. I'd never felt so small in my life.

My heart began to race.

"You were born with power beyond your imagination and the talent to match. And you ungratefully want to reject your nature and run?"

I hadn't considered it but since we shared a mutation rejecting mine or looking like I rejected my mutation in this case was the same as rejecting his. So he was offended. To me being a mutant was just another trait like the color of my hair or the fact that I'm from Chicago. To him his mutation was his identity. It was everything to him.

I had nothing to say. He seemed so angry with me.

Seconds later his features softened.

"You're afraid."

I am.

"I just don't want to hurt anyone." I whisper as I looked up at him.

"I know you don't. And you won't. This like anything else is only temporary. Rejecting your mutation rejecting yourself changes nothing. We have to deal with this constructively."

That made sense.

"It might not happen quickly but it will happen. In the meantime, don't worry so much about it. I'll make sure this gets resolved. And if anyone that give you a hard time about it tell me."

"Okay." I left the room.

As I ate my chocolate ice cream I felt like all the pressure that was on me had vanished. I knew he'd do something about it. After all, I did just see Mystique and him get into an argument about me. It felt so strange to not have to deal with my problems by myself. But, it was a good type of strange.

Chris, I didn't know you had family from Stockholm. Not the most epic of chapters but I like this one. I wanted to touch on the fact that while Chris seems like a rebellious kid he really isn't. He's a kid that wants a degree of security in his life. He doesn't have much security in his life so he attacks all threats to said security with extreme prejudice. Otherwise he's that one very polite kid in school that won't call their teacher by their first name even if they ask him to, the crosses his t's and dots his I's type.