Charles walked down the long hall to Lilia's room, where he had instructed her to wait. She had not told anyone of her mutation, and Erik and Charles had instructed the others not to bother her about it. Even Erik, who had saved her all those years ago, had no guess as to what mutation she could have that would make her so terrified of sharing it.
He raised his fist to knock on the door, taking a deep breath before doing so. "Come in." She was sitting on the chair by her window, legs curled up underneath her. Her head was resting on her hands as she stared out through the window and she didn't look at Charles when he entered. He sat across from her and stared at her for a moment.
Her hair was pulled into a loose bun at the back of her head. A few hairs were curling down beside the sides of her face, framing it in a way that he couldn't tell was planned or not. There were the ever present scars that decorated her face from a time long ago. And then there were her eyes, the strangest shade of blue, that were flickering about the window even though she was sitting still.
"Are you prepared to train?" she turned to look at him and nodded. "In order to begin, I will need to know what your mutation is." Lilia froze. "Please Lilia. If you want to learn how to control your mutation, then you are going to need to tell me what it is."
Lilia took a deep breath and moved her legs so that she was clutching them in front of her. "I can control…pain. If I were to punch you in the shoulder, then I could take the pain you were feeling and bring it into either myself or someone else. If you punched me in the shoulder, I could take my pain and give it to you. It doesn't matter the amount of pain or the distance. I can't create the pain, or take it away forever."
"Do you know of anything else you can do?"
She shook her head. "I haven't tried to do anything else. But I did make an old man go insane. I don't know how. But I tried to take the pain away and the next day he was insane. I know I did it. He was perfectly happy before. I've also sent animals running. They would be injured and I would be trying to help, only to have them run from me in fear."
Charles nodded. Her mutation had promise. With proper training, she could become one of the most powerful mutants ever; pain is a powerful thing. The person who could control it on a different level than anyone else would be even more powerful. But the fact she was afraid of using her mutation was both relaxing and worrying. He knew she would never use it for evil, but it was clear she didn't want to accept that part of her. Many a mutant would be destroyed by that.
"Are there any physical deformities that result from using your mutation?"
"If I took the pain away from an injury on myself, then that injury never heals. That's why I still have these scars on my face, even though they should have faded away long ago. But the largest is…well, I'll show you."
Lilia stood and turned so that her back was facing Charles. She slowly pulled her sweater up, revealing to him something no one else had seen for years. As he watched, Charles felt sick.
All the way down her back the skin burned a bright red. It was like one large burn that had been cut into and bleed until the blood had dried and dripped down the back. There were places where it seemed like the skin had been completely rubbed off, places where the blood there had dried so long ago it was simply black. And above it all, red tentacles spread out from the spine. They twisted and turned and intertwined as if in some grotesque dance. The tentacles clearly seemed raised above the rest of her skin.
"It started when I was younger, but now whenever I take pain from someone a cut appears on my back or one of the tentacles stretch even farther." She pulled her sweater back down and sat with her back straight in the chair.
Charles leaned forward. "Does it hurt?"
Lilia shrugged. "I know it should, but I've taken the pain away and dumped it into murderers and rapists in prison. I spread it out, so no one person is feeling the same pain I should be feeling. Occasionally I take all the pain back for myself, but I just see darkness and I can feel myself dying. And I know what you're thinking. But it will never heal. I tried when it wasn't this bad. But this scar will never heal."
Charles reached out and took her hands in his, pressing his fingers lightly down. "Does Erik know about this?"
She jerked her hands away. "No. And you can't tell him. He saw me destroyed as a child; I can't let him see me destroyed as an adult. It is my burden to bare; no one else, not even you, can bare it for me."
The fact she already had some control over her mutation, especially when it was something that could so easily take over her, was surprising. Not many people could say they were able to do that with no formal training. Especially with the pain she had been put through simply to get her to use her mutation. She must be terrified to use it, to speak of it. Terrified that she would hurt someone.
Charles leaned back. He could tell that being as close as he and been to her had made her uneasy; he could feel her body violently jerk when he took her hands. She seemed to relax once he was farther away. "It is clear that you have some control over your mutation. But from your story of the old man, I have a feeling that you are able to create paranoia; psionic abilities. You'll need to learn how to use your mind to climb inside of other's heads and find their fears so that you can create the worst for them each. I suspect you did that accidentally with the old man."
Lilia nodded. "I'm willing to train, but I know that I'll need to practice on somebody."
"I am willing, but I feel it would be safer for you not to practice on me. I would need to be there to help you perform the task safely. But before we attempt it on a person, I feel like I should give you a lesson on how to use your mind to get inside of others."
Charles spent the rest of the day attempting to teach her how to use her mind to stand inside of his. It was only when both of them were annoyed that nothing was happening when her voice whispered in his mind. The boy who could bend metal.
Charles started. "You did it." A smile lit up their faces. "You did it!" Lilia cried out in joy before falling into his arms, both of them extremely happy of what she had been able to do.
"Let us have dinner together before retiring to bed; everyone else must already be asleep." Charles and Lilia stood, with Lilia leading the way to the kitchen. Erik was sitting there, his hands wrapped around a cup of water. He turned when they entered.
"You two look happy." He smiled at Lilia and she smiled back.
"I managed to speak inside of Charles' head." She slid into the seat beside him.
Erik cast a glance at Charles, who nodded reassuringly. "What did you say?"
She stiffened. "The boy who could bend metal."
Erik only laughed. "Well, I'm proud I could be the one who could advance your mutation." He hugged her from the side. Charles smiled as he placed a plate of food in front of Lilia.
There was a connection that she and Erik shared that went beyond her connection with normal people. She hated being close to people, hated touching people. She was too afraid to hurt them. But with Erik it seemed as though she melted into him. Like he was part of her. Like she knew she wouldn't hurt him. It was sweet, but worrying. What would happen to Lilia if she accidentally hurt Erik? Would her connection to the world be destroyed and she would only be able to live inside a bubble that no one could touch her through?
A scream erupted through the house, waking everyone from their sleep. Charles searched through the home for who had screamed. His body convulsed as he hit Lilia; he knew it was her. Pain rushed through him before he stepped out of her mind. He hurried to her room, where he already found a small crowd of the mutants around him.
"Go back to bed. Erik and I will handle it." Though they looked upset, the mutants shrunk away back to their rooms, each casting glances back. None of them felt right around Lilia. They preferred to keep their distance.
Erik turned to Charles. "What is wrong with her?" Another scream ruptured the air.
"I searched through her mind and it was filled with so much pain I had to leave. Open the door." Erik obliged quickly.
Lilia was twisting and turning in the bed, her body jerking and arching. Sweat was pouring from every point and her nails were scratching away at the fabric. Her eyes were moving franticly under her eye lids, vibrating almost. But the worst was the amount of blood that poured from her body.
Both men rushed to her side, trapping her flailing limbs to the bed. Charles reached out a hand and pressed it to her head, closing his eyes and focusing.
Pain was pounding through her. It tore through her sleeping body and pressed against the sides, trying to escape into the world around it.
"All the pain that she has sent away came back. Her mind must have let the walls down that normally held it back." he spoke through gritted teeth. "I'll try and find the section of her mind that controls the pain and I'll make it take hold again. Just keep her down!" He searched through her mind and tried to find the place. His body twitched with her screams.
Slowly he was able to find the section, but as soon as he entered the whiteness of that section he realized how much more difficult this would be then he believed. There were walls protecting it from being controlled, with a small hole that the darkness of pain was rushing through. He focused and watched as the hole slowly reformed, drawing all the darkness back through. He pulled himself out and felt her body collapse onto the bed, her blood reaching him.
"Charles?" Erik asked. Charles opened his eyes and looked down at Lilia. Her skin was white, the veins clear everywhere on her skin. They were slowly fading away again, her skin slowly turning back to its original color. "What happened? Why is there so much blood?"
Slowly, Charles turned Lilia over. The shirt she slept in was stained wet with blood, making it easy for him to tear. Her skin was covered with pinpoints, the skin on her back appearing a bright red. The tentacles from her spin burned and her spine still dripped blood.
"What is this?" Erik asked, his voice rough.
"When she was with Shaw, he stripped away at the skin on her back in an attempt to make her use her mutation; controlling pain. As she grew older she sent the pain away to criminals around the world. The injuries never healed and every time she controlled pain the tentacles appeared. She didn't want you to know."
Erik ran his finger along one of the tentacles. Heat was radiating off of it. "What happened tonight?"
"Her mind let go of its hold on the pain and it came rushing back in too much force for her body to handle. She must have relaxed her mind tonight for some reason." Charles turned her back over. Her face was calm once again.
"Will she be fine for the rest of the night?" Erik asked, not taking his eyes off of her.
"I don't know. I managed to fix her hold on the pain, but she may let it go once again. There is no way to tell."
Erik nodded and the two men watched her for a few minutes longer, watching as slept peacefully.
"Go to bed Charles." Erik said. "I would like to stay with her a bit longer."
Charles didn't want to leave her; if anything he wanted to remain with her for the rest of the night so that he could hold the wall in place. But he stood anyways.
Erik stroked the side of her face with his hand. He could remember seeing the same injury on her spine when he had first met her, locked in the cage. It hadn't occurred to him that it would have scared. Her body twitched.
He should have known that she could control pain. The way Shaw had been torturing her, the way he had a man placed in front of her. It made so much sense all of these years later. He could remember the man calming after she had placed her hands on either side of his face when Erik had come to rescue her. Erik smiled. Even after everything terrible that had happened to her, Lilia had still wanted to help someone, even though she already felt so much pain.
Erik adjusted her so that he could peel the blood stained fabric from the bed, piling it into a corner before covering the bed with a towel. He pulled the now ripped remains of her shirt from her and washed as much blood as he could from her. Somehow, she didn't waken. Erik constantly was checking her pulse to be sure she was still alive; he was certain that loosing that much blood would mean death quickly followed.
Once she was cleaned and dressed in a new shirt, Erik lay beside her and took her in his arms. He wanted to be the first once who knew if the pain came back to her. Even if it wouldn't, he felt as though she would be safer with him there. He fell asleep with her head resting on his arm, his other arm wrapped around her middle.
A/N: I am so sorry it has been so long since I uploaded the chapter. But finally Lilia's mutation is revealed. It took me quite a long time to think of what it should be. But I hope you liked it. Please tell me what you think about this chapter, and Lilia's mutation.
Thank you for reading.