Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER:

I do not own any of X Men sadly, only my OC Adriana! It is now time for Adriana to meet Hank! Yay!

Adriana's outfit: arriving_at_base /set?id= 113969864&lid =3366325

Adriana POV:

We had been in the car for over 2 hours now. It felt strange. I wasn't used to being in confined space for so long due to living on the streets for the past 4 years. Even now after the years of getting used to it I still sometimes found it hard to believe that my parents would kick out their only child at 15.

During the car ride Charles, Erik and a CIA agent by the name of Moira MacTaggert filled me in on the situation about a man named Sebastian Shaw and his band of rogue mutants wanting to kick start World War III. I had also gotten to know Charles' friend Raven Darkhӧlme who I soon found out is more like a little sister to him and the other mutant he was talking about. Her mutation was fascinating and slightly similar to my own in both how she shape shifts, her physical mutation and how she hides it. I haven't been in my original form in so long. I thought to myself. You can't if you live on the streets though, I would've either gotten lynched, killed or captured so that I could be experimented on.

The car came to a gradual stop and I looked out of the window to see the operation base. It was made up of one huge tan stone building surrounded by acres of clean green fields and deciduous trees, with a rather odd looking satellite to the left of it that looked like a large golf ball atop of a tee. I got out of the car and smoothed down my dress. It was a faded black colour with a mint green, thin belt around the waist and a mint green collar. Charles had gotten it for me as I needed some new clean clothes and he could tell from rooting around in my head that I had admired it for some time now. He had also purchased me a pair of cream peep toe wedges which I also loved. I've never felt so elegant before as the nicest thing I've ever worn is the golden bangle with encrusted diamonds and topaz that's around my wrist, which was given to me by my parents when I was 13. I pulled my duffle bag from the car and pushed my now wavy hair from my face as I had undone my braid 10 minutes prior.

"Welcome to my facility." The agent (who I had dubbed Agent Black) welcomed as I looked on impressed. "My mission has been to investigate the application of paranormal powers and military defence." He carried on leading us towards the building as I fell into step next to Raven behind the others.

"Or offence." Erik interrupted with a sarcastic smile.

"This guy Shaw… Schmidt, whatever you want to call him. He's working with the Russians. We might need your help stopping him." Agent Black continued oblivious to Erik's distaste.

"Marvellous. So we would be the CIA's new Mutant Division, yes?" Charles questioned curiously.

"Something like that." Black responded after a few prolonged seconds.

I was standing between Charles and Raven when I placed my bag down by my feet as the six of us looked up at the impressive white jet hanging from metal cables that looked like it had been brought back from the future. I'd never seen anything like it.

"It's-uh supersonic," a man's voice spoke out interrupting our thoughts, "most advance plane ever built. You should see it in real life…It's incredible." He continued coming into view looking up at the plane in awe. The guy was around my age, maybe a year older with dark brown hair and beautiful blue eyes behind a pair of glasses with a black frame going along the top. He wore light tan pants, a faint blue shirt with dark blue lines on creating a check pattern, with a black tie, a dark red sweater vest and a lab cost. He looked kind of geeky but it suited his tall, lanky build well. He's so handsome. I thought to myself as a light blush dusted over my cheeks.

"Hank, these are the special new recruits I was telling you about." Agent Black informed him gesturing towards us, and then gestures toward Hank speaking to us now. "This is Hank McCoy. One of our most talented young researchers." Black introduced in a proud tone of voice. Charles eagerly walked up to Hank with his hand held out to greet him.

"How wonderful," He mused shaking Hank's hand, "another mutant already here." He continued and I flinched as Hank's face fell slightly. He hadn't told anyone. "Why didn't you say?" Charles finished obliviously looking back towards Black.

"Say what?" Black questions in confusion.

"Because you don't know," Charles said slowly with a crestfallen look on his face as he realises what he just did, and turns to look at Hank, "I am so, so terribly sorry."

Agent Black slowly approaches then looking at Hank stunned. "Hank?"

"You didn't ask, so I didn't tell." Hank shrugs without looking at his boss, and tentatively looks over at us. I give him a shy smile as he continues to stare at me.

"So your mutation is what?" Raven asks curiously walking towards them. "You're super smart?" Raven guesses and he finally tears his gaze away from me and looks at her.

"I'll say. Hank here graduated Harvard at the age of 15." Charles informs us quickly, extremely impressed at Hank's intelligence. I timidly walk over quite keen to see his mutation.

"I wish that's all it was." He tells us self-consciously, and I am instantly sympathetic towards him and want to make him feel better.

"Well we would never to judge you, Hank. Your one of us. Show off a bit." I encourage him with a kind smile hopefully conveying that he's not alone.

"Adriana's right. You're amongst friends Hank. You can show off." Charles reassures him. Hank looks towards us uncertainly before stepping out of his shoes. This is getting interesting. I think to myself when Hank slowly leans down and peels off his socks showing us his feet. Only they aren't usual human feet, as they are formed more like hands. A smile appears on my face as I look at them in wonder, I can't understand why he would be ashamed of them because they're amazing and most definitely handy if he ever wanted to go climbing. Handy? Huh, pun totally intended. Charles chuckles quietly to himself.

"Splendid." He utter smiling down at Hank's feet. Hank looks up at us with an uncertain look but I give him a wide smile with what I'm sure is an amazed look in my eyes, he gently smiles back at me causing me to blush. I feel someone elbow me in my side and I turn my head to look at Raven and she wiggles her eyebrows at me and then nods her head over at Hank and I shrug my shoulders at her and look away blushing, and I swear I hear her silently laugh at me.

Hank looks around at everyone else looking more confident than before saying sorry and gestures for us all to move back. We all take a few step back as he stands under the jet before jumping up and doing a backflip grabbing on to the edge of the jet with his feet. We all give laughs of amazement and Erik finally walks over to get a better look.

"Ta da!" He smiles shrugging at us from upside down. Erik looks up at him in complete bemusement as I walk up to him looking up at his feet and then looking forward into his eyes.

"You're incredible." I tell him with an awed look.

"Really?" He questions with a shocked smile.

"Have you seen yourself?" I asked astounded. "How could you not be?" I carry on rhetorically, both of us blind to the knowing smile Charles and Raven give each other.

I was in my appointed bedroom unpacking what little possessions I owned. My bedroom looked like a stereo-typical military bedroom. Grey walls, grey prickly carpet, grey, bland itchy bed covers, a lumpy mattress, standard chest of drawers and a small desk with a small desk lamp. No personality. At. All. It was definitely going to need a change. It's my first real bedroom in 4 years, even if it is only temporary.

I walked over to the wall on my left focused on it. I wanted a warm color, something to make the room feel homey... Brown. Brown's a warm color. I thought about forests, bark, and hot chocolate all nice, beautiful things that remind me of the colour brown. I watched as the grey walls faded into a dark, rich mahogany brown. I placed my hand firmly on the wall and watched my golden dust ripple from underneath my hand across both ways of the wall horizontally in a tidal wave fashion until they both clashed at one another at the wall opposite, then disappeared altogether. I then continued to do the same to the carpet, making it a thick and a soft cream colour that cushioned my feet. I transformed my double bed into an old fashioned four poster bed with a sturdy, yet soft mattress, a thick warm duvet-the cover a wool and cotton blend-with a white fur throw over the bottom, red thick curtains surrounding the bed and a silk canopy above it. I walked over to the drawers and made them slightly smaller as I didn't need them as much and then I hovered my hand slightly over the top.

Now this was the hard part. It's simple to change things that are right in front of me, my appearance or even transform into animals as their bodies are similar to humans. But creating something out of thin air and then making them permanent is hard as I have nothing to guide me and I'm not strong enough yet, plus not to ever forget the fact that I could create chaos in a second by accident. I changed into my normal form as it makes me stronger and gives me more power and I concentrated. In my head I see the spindle, the turntable, needle, sound box, case, speed regulator, brake and the winding key. I watched in victory as a stunning record player appeared on the drawers in front of me in a smooth, cherry red box. I quickly transformed back and sped over to my duffle on the end of my bag and pulled out my collection of vinyl records that I had collected over the year. They were all mostly Elvis Presley and I was really proud of them. I pulled out Jailhouse Rock from '57 I placed it on the spindle, set the needle at the edge and lowered the volume as I shut the lid. The music drifted out as I made my way over to the bare wall opposite me and right of the door swaying my hips lightly to the music. I was just about to focus again when someone knocked on my door.

"Come in!" I called out as the door opened and Charles walked in.

"Adriana I was wondering-" He cut himself off and stared around my newly improved bedroom in amazement. He looked around speechlessly and then turned to me with wide eyes. "Did you did this?"

"Yep." I admitted with a proud grin. "It's my first real bedroom in so long and it was too dull and uncomfortable before so I changed it. I wanted it to be memorable." I told him.

"Would you mind if I?" He gestured towards his head.

"Sure go ahead." I agreed without hesitance. He placed his index and middle finger on his temple and stared at me without blinking. I'm guessing that he's going over my last hour of memories and seeing how I did it. After a minute he finally blinked and focused on me.

"Incredible," He muttered, "you are so much more powerful than I first imagined… Would you mind doing it again so I can see it for myself?" He asked kindly.

"Yeah it's fine. There was one more thing I wanted to add anyway so…" I drifted off and faced the wall I was facing before he came in. I crouched down and focused on the wall. I saw fire, coal, a chimney, a fire guard and the brick wall moving to make the right shape and slowly a fire place appeared in front of me and I placed my hand on the bricks and my dust vibrated over it making it permanent and the fire started. I looked up at Charles who was silently chuckling in awe.

"Amazing," he murmured, "absolutely amazing." He continued in shock.

"Yeah, being an illusionist has it perks. It wouldn't be so hard if I could control it." I commented with a small shrug.

"Believe me Adriana this is complete control. I believe that you find it harder to do large scale thing because you don't believe in yourself and you are scared of what you are capable of." He hypothesised correctly as I looked down at the floor.

"You're right." I told him. "So what did you want to ask me before?" I questioned him wanting to get off of the topic. He looked at me in confusion before realising what I meant.

"Oh right. Well, I was wondering if you would go and see Hank in the lab, just to have some check-ups done. After living on the streets as long as you have I just want to make sure everything is in working order so you're not in any danger." He stated.

"Okay. I'll go down in just a second." I responded more than willing to see Hank again. Charles smirked as if he just read my thoughts and I blushed as he laughed slightly.

"See you in the morning Adriana." He declared walking out my room. I called out goodnight as he pulled my door to.

I walked back over to my record player and lifted out the disk and placed it back in its cover. I turned off the lights as I walked out my bedroom door and locked it behind me and then continued on down the deserted hallways towards Hanks lab.

I really hope I don't embarrass myself.

I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter as Adriana and Hank finally met, and you found out more about Adriana's mutation as an illusionist1 But you have yet to find out what her actual form is. points to anyone who can guess! Next chapter, in Hank's lab and maybe more stuff, I don't know yet, I'll decide in the morning!

Eloise xx