Chapter 8: Earth and Water

The day didn't really change. Ethan left Emma's house in the morning and when he came back they eat and then he took a bath to later come out and find Emma ready to work. He walked over and sat down.

"Why do you help me?" he asked her before laying down.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean, what can make you do this?" he repeated himself. "What is it you want me to do with that favor that can make you use a lot of your strange to do this." Emma didn't look at him as she didn't answer, making him add, "I'm great full, just wondering why."

"Why is none of your business." Emma told him. "Now lay down or we can skip this." Ethan shook his head and lay down. Emma sat by his head as the past time. Then the living room disappeared.

Ethan, in the age somewhere between eight to eleven, run through the halls of the mansion. He however didn't seem happy. He was more like he didn't want to run, but he had to. He ended up at the hall entrance, there he stood above the stairs and saw his father with a boy coming in. The boy had blindfolded as he follows Charles.

"Ethan!" Charles call and he run down to meet his father and the boy. "This is Scott Summers. Would you like to show him what the talk about?" Ethan look at the boy. He couldn't read him with his blindfolded, but he felt he was like him. A mutant.

"Hi, Summers, my name is Ethan." the boy didn't move. "I'm going to show you something, so don't be scared." he told him before he began to use his powers. For Charles, Emma and the grown-up Ethan it look like the boys just stare at each other. Scott thought the blindfolded and small Ethan right at him.

"What are you showing him?" Emma ask Ethan and look at him.

"I show him a world he needed to see." he answered."I show him a possible further there we lived in peace with the humans, all of us." The scene change and now Ethan, Scott and Jean was in the danger room. They fight and Scott had his new glass on so he could shoot blasts from his eye without hurting the wrong people.

"Ethan! Behind you!" Jean call to him and he turn around in the moment as Scott shot the thing that try to attack him.

"Ethan, Jean!" Scott yelled. "We need to cover each other, make a formation to cover each other's backs!" he ordered. The small Ethan grown but Jean just nodded. They did the formation, but it turned out it didn't work that good. Ethan left the formation to take the machines off and the game had ended. "What was that!"

"What? I won the game." Ethan told him.

"No, you didn't listen to me and risked putting Jean and I in danger."

"I would never put Jean in danger, I simple had hope you would protect her long enough for me to end this game." Ethan said.

"Well you just did!"

"You not my boss, Summers!"

"Scott, Ethan!" Jean yell and they look at each other. The picture change and Ethan was alone in his room as Ororo came in. She sat down beside him at his bed and lay a hand around him. She didn't say anything, not in the beginning.

"How are you?" she asked.

"It just sucks." Ethan answer her. "He is not the leader and I am sorry to tell you, but I will not follow his order like Jean can." Ororo look at the boy.

"You right, Scott is not to be the leader. You are the one, Charles son." the scene change again. Ethan was now in his father's office. Alone, waiting for his father to come.

"I don't understand." the grown-up Ethan said. He turned to Emma. "Which power can this be?"

"You have six doors left, I would guess four is element doors and one the illusion. The last can I not read." Emma said as Charles enter the room.

"How are your training going?"

"Good." Ethan answer. "Cyke is just over ruler, he thinks he is the leader."

"Who is the leader then?" Charles ask. "I team need someone to look up to, on with experiences that can guide them."

"I'm not going to follow orders from Summers." Ethan told him.

"Would you like to give them instead?" Ethan shook his head. "What do you want?"

"I don't know. I want my mother, I don't want to be in this freak place and train every day. We are not going anywhere anyway!"

"Ethan, have hope in the humans. They will accept us one day and then we need to show them that we have control." Charles told them.

"Whatever, I'm not going to continue this training. I do it on my own."

"You jump of the X-Men?"

"I'm not an X-Men, dad. I never was and I never will be." Ethan left the room and left his father alone.

"Still having that thought?" Emma ask.

"I'm not my father, neither am I my mother." Ethan answer."I'm not an X-Men, I will never be."

"So, which power? I can feel that you know it, but I need you to say it out loud. To accept it."

"Earth," Ethan said."My whole life people has expect me to be leading the X-Men as my father's son. But it's not my role to take over the team. It's not that I'm supposed to do." the scene become all white and they were back in the endless room. Ethan felt the jump in his heart.

"I think it's enough for-" Emma was cut off as the scene change and they were in a forest. It was a cold snow forest and Emma could recognize the place as well as Ethan.

"Why are we here?" Ethan ask.

"Seems like your mind isn't ready to leave jet. We are deeper down now, I can feel it."

"Emma, are there a risk that we won't come out from here?"

"There is a change, but it's not big. Your mind will just have to decide when it's finish, but for now. I think we will have to close one more door before we leave." Ethan nodded and they look around.

Not older than Five-Ethan run through the forest. He was not fast but he was at least not planned to be slow either. He tripped through the forest and it was like he was running from something. Suddenly he tripped and roll down the small hill. He rolled right into a blond girl, which he felled and dragged with him down the hill. As they landed on the ground, at the hills end, he had landed above the girl and his lips was cruising hers. As the girl realize that happened she turned to a diamond form and knock him off. He fell back and look at the diamond girl. She looked at him a while before she walked away, he still shook look as she walked before he came to his feet and run after.

"Nice first impression." Emma muttered as she walked after the kids.

"Now you see it wasn't my fault." Ethan said and follow. The kids walk to a river. The girl back in her human form and they boy silent going after, forgetting he had been running. The girl was going to drink from the water, but had her eyes on the boy all the time. She was careful then she sat down to drink. The boy who was thirsty walk closer and touch the water, making the girl stop drinking. He took some water to drink and she began to drink again. That's what they did, drink and not speak.

"Why does we see this memory?" Emma ask Ethan.

"I believe you have a connection to me, if I like it or not you were a change in my life." Ethan said and the scene change."Water." Ethan said and felt the jump in his chest.

Ethan open his eyes and look up at Emma. She opened her eyes right after he did, he could see her light blue ice eyes. He felt good there he was on the floor. Like he was home, not with his father and not with his mother. Just home. There he was supposed to be.

"We should go and get rest." she told him and stood up.

"You never answer me." Ethan stop her. "Why do you help me?" she smiled and kiss his cheek.

"My secret for now." she answer him and left. Leaving him with questions in the living room. He had a weird feeling about her. He wasn't supposed to like her for what she has done, but something told him she cared about him and that he wanted to have her close. Like it was normal to have her close.

The sun was in the sky as Ethan had decided to leave for a while. He found the small town he had been living in for a little while. It wasn't big, but it had a food place and it was nice to be in a place he once called home. He had lived there with his mother for a while, as they had been on the run from his father.

Ethan found the small dinner cafe and walk in to take a seat. He ordered and got a newspaper. He wasn't ready for who was coming when the doors opened and the person walk over to him to sit across the table.

"So, it's here you are." he look up to see Mystique taking a seat. "Your father told me you had left for a while to train and meet a friend. I guess my instinct told me right." Ethan roll his eyes. Why would his father tell her that much and why would she come after him?

"What do you want?" he asked and put the newspaper to the side and look at her. "I was having a nice time before you came, mother." She bended forward to have her head in her hades. Smiling at him she responded.

"Well, Magneto want you to join the Brotherhood." she told him, making Ethan snort. Of course, she was here on order. Why would she come for him? She had given him up and she wouldn't possible take him back if she didn't have a reason. "Who is helping you? Your so call forest friend?" Ethan smile. He remembered he had try to tell her about Emma as a kid, but she didn't believe him of course and he gave up trying.

"You still don't believe she is real do you?" Ethan said. "Well, she does help me and you can forget that I will join your group of idiots." Her eyes narrow.

"Listen, Magneto doesn't like that you might have help Rogue go to the X-Men, he let you be for this long because you weren't interfere. But he might come after you now." she told him. "I only want to help you, so I will tell you know to contact him and join his side."

"Erik has no right to decide over me, so I say let him come. But he should know; I won't let him boss me around." Ethan said and stood up. "I'm not afraid of him, and he has no chance against me here. Not now."

"Your father and I are worried about you, why do you think he told me you had left?" Ethan laughed.

"You don't care about me, why would I believe you? What could Eric possible do against me."

"He can hurt you and use you against your father. I know, your father told me about you closing the doors, but that need to influence you." Ethan didn't say anything and Mystique figure it out. "You are losing your powers, aren't you?"

"I have a call to make, want me to say hi to dad from you?"

"Charles doesn't need to know about this mother and son meeting, does he?" she asked him in worry. Ethan shook his head and roll his eyes. So, his father didn't know she actually left to find him. What a shook.

"You should be happy I still have my love for you, mom." Ethan told her and was going to the door, but she tried to stop him.

"How are your siblings?" she asked, but he ignored her and left. He took his phone and call his father. He didn't answer, but Ororo was fast to pick up.

"Ethan, hi! Everything as it should?"

"Yes, how is it with you guys?"

"Quite a mess, Evan is everywhere with his camera. Other than that, fine. The girls seem to get closer as does the boys and the whole team. Can I leave a message to your father?"

"No, it's fine. I just wanted to know how everything was."

"They are all happy for now, but I think Logan want to send them to a training camp."

"That's sound fun." Ethan said and laugh. "I will have to go again, but say hi from me, will you?"

"Of course, see you soon." Ethan hang up and drive back to the forest.