Perfect Synergy
"There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish." - John Keats
"Well, Max, join the party!" The black man said from the couch while his long arms motioning to the small gathering around him. I smirked and I dropped my bag by the door. Not much of a party, and there was nowhere to sit. Wasn't that just pleasantly awkward! Luckily for me, Raven had scooted over to the left side of the couch and her neighbor was all the way against the right. She looked back at me and patted the spot next to her. I took that as a full out invitation to hop over the back of the couch and land smack dab in between the two occupants, which I executed perfectly. The boy shifted away from me, I hadn't actually planned on staying there long. I planted my feet at the edge of the cushions and lifted myself up so I was sitting on the back of the black couch. The two people next to me relaxed into the positions they had been in before I had ruined their two-some. Everything was back to normal. Well, if you considered seven mutants in the same room something normal.
"Soooo..." I started. "I know all of your names, just not to each face." I mentioned, not so subtly hinting that they should each share their names.
Luckily for me, the redhead seemed to get what I was trying to say. He got up from his chair and extended a fairly large hand out towards me. I grasped it firmly. "Sean Cassidy." He said in a southern drawl. A southern gentleman? Smashing.
The blonde who was sitting in the chair next to Sean's spoke up next. "Alex." He grumbled with a slight nod before taking a swig from his Coke bottle, which was the only thing that grabbed my attention.
"Hey, that's a little bit rude. I'm the guest here. Where's my drink?" I complained lightly. Everyone let out a small laugh while Sean headed over to the bar. He crouched down behind it and opened something. When he stood back up, his whole six and a half feet (slight exaggeration), I saw two Coke bottles in his hands. He then grabbed a glass from below the counter, poured one of the Cokes into it, opened whatever he got the bottles out of, placed a couple of ice cubes in the glass, then walked back over to the sitting area with the drinks in tow.
He handed me the bottle. "For the lady."
I smiled at his kindness. "Thank you, Mr Cassidy."
"Not a problem." He assured me, sitting back down in his chair with a smile, sipping his drink as he went.
The girl I assumed to be Angel gave Sean an 'I can't believe you just did that' look before looking back at me. "I'm Angel." She said with a smile, confirming my assumptions. "And don't be fooled by Sean's courtesies. He just wants to get into your pants."
At Angel's blunt statement, Sean choked on his drink. He didn't get it on any of us but we all laughed regardless, well, all except for the blue-eyed boy next to me who looked terribly nervous. I nudged him with my leg. "You okay?" I whispered.
He said nothing but he did nod in response before turning to look out the courtyard window as if there was something extremely exciting about the statue all of a sudden. As he turned I caught a glimpse of a blush creeping across his cheeks. He was so freaking adorable.
"Hey! I do not want to get into her pants! I was just being a gentlemen and I was going to get a drink then anyway do why not hit two birds with one stone?" Sean practically howled at Angel while playfully noogieing her. Angel just laughed. Most girls I knew would've gone into a hissy fit because a guy was messing up their hair. Ruining the hours it took to get their hair to look like poodles with all that hairspray. I'm glad she wasn't like that at all.
The man next to Angel was next to speak. "Now now, calm down." He said to the two still bickering over Sean's intentions. "We're all friends here."
With one last playful shove from Angel, their small fight ended.
"Great, I'm Darwin, by the way." 'Darwin' said cheerfully with a wave. Then he saw my confused expression and his face fell a bit. "Something wrong?"
"Charles didn't mention a Darwin being a part of the division." I said truthfully, and he hadn't.
"My real name's Armando." He said, his face lighting up with a brilliantly white smile. Wow that was just a bit blinding.
I snapped my fingers in understanding. "The world makes sense again." That got a small chuckle out of a couple of the young mutants around me. Once we were all done laughing everyone turned their attention to the silent boy next to me. He looked at us like he was a deer caught in the headlight's of our massive 18-wheeler.
"I'm... I'm, uh, H-Hank McCoy..." He muttered while fidgeting in his seat.
I placed a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Hank."
His posture eased slightly. A smile even teased the corner of his lips.
"And I'm Raven!" Raven beamed from the other side of the couch. I turned to look at her sarcastically.
"Yes, darling, I know." I placed a kiss atop her head, gave it a pat, and then returned my attention back to the others.
But Raven wasn't done. "While we're all here, we should think of code names. We're government agents now; we should have secret code names." She paused to gauge everyone's expressions. "I want to be called Mystique."
"Damn," Sean said playfully from his chair. "I wanted to be called Mys-tique." He said, clearly meaning for it to be taken as a joke when he put the extra emphasis on the last syllable.
"Well, tough, I called it." We all started to turn our attention away from Raven but we were suddenly drawn back to the fact that she had turned into an exact replica of Sean, arching her, now his, eyebrows.
There was a 'Whoa' a 'What' and a 'Hot Damn!' from Darwin, Angel, and myself respectively. I looked at Sean who was taken aback and was so shocked that he shot back, causing the chair he was sitting on to balance on the back legs.
"And I am way more mysterious than you." Raven said in Sean's suddenly smooth voice. The one way you could tell that she wasn't really Sean was by her posture. It was way too proper to belong to that lanky guy. She turned back into herself and we all applauded, even Sean. Girl was damn impressive. "Darwin, what about you?" Raven directed at the man across from her.
He didn't take long to respond. "Well, uh, Darwin's already a nickname and, you know, it sort of fits. Adapt to survive and all." He paused momentarily for effect. "Check this out." He got up from his seat and started walking behind the couch.
I leaned down to whisper in Raven's ear, "Did his pecs bounce when he said, 'adapt to survive and all'?"
"I think they did..." She whispered back. We chuckled to ourselves and went back to watching Darwin, who, at that point, was next to the fish tank, looking at us smugly. He then plunged his head into the water, causing the fish living in it quite a fright. We watched closely as the skin between his eyes and ears became gills. He opened his mouth and with his magnificent smile successfully breathed with them. That was easily the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life.
Darwin then lifted his head from the water, shook it, was met with applause, and then grabbed a towel that was lying on a small table behind him. "Thank you, thank you. What about you?" He asked Sean as he returned to the couch.
Deep in thought, Sean leaned forward and touched the pads of his fingers together. "I'm going to be... Banshee."
"Why would you want to be named after a wailing spirit?" Hank asked innocently.
A playful smirk colored Sean's face. "You might want to cover your ears." He warned as he slinked out of his chair and crouched down in front of the coffee table, facing the courtyard. We all hesitantly brought our hands up to our ears as Sean inhaled for about (exactly) seven seconds. I counted. He then leaned his head to the right, then to the left, looked up and let out an extremely high pitch whistle. The window to the courtyard shattered into a million tiny shards. He had whistled like any normal person would to sing along to a tune on the juke but his had the power to make my brain practically vibrate in my skull. We all laughed in disbelief of his rad power. He then pointed to me. "Your turn!"
I smirked. Time to show off! "I guess I would have to be... Synergy? Yeah. Sounds cool." I decided. Though I was thinking about it the entire time everyone else was going, I liked to pretend I just came up with it on the spot. Raven gave me an odd look as I started rubbing the pads of my fingers together, as did everyone else. But when sparks started to fly off my skin, they seemed to understand. Hank stared at my hands in utter scientific amazement. I then sent a concentrated burst at the light fixture above our heads and the light blew. Shards sprayed in all directions and I used my power to manipulate electrical fields to coax them all away from my fellow mutants. Showing off, good. Accidentally getting small sharp fragments in everyone's eyes? Bad.
"That was absolutely fascinating! C-can you do anything else?" Hank asked in an innocent yearning to obtain more knowledge.
"Well..." I paused. "I've only done this once before so I don't know if I can do it on command." I said lamely. I then opened my hand out in front of me and concentrated, hard. The lights around us began to flicker and a ball of electrical energy formed in my hand. I then closed my hand around the energy and we were surrounded by darkness. I had absorbed all of the electrical energy within a few yards into my body. And, if I was correct, I should've been glowing about then.
"Holy shit!" Sean said from somewhere in the room. I assumed he hadn't moved but who knows with that kid.
I opened my eyes; I hadn't really known that I shut them. I was right. There was a distinct blue hue emanating from my skin. Everyone started laughing and I returned my stolen energy back to the facility. The light returned to the fixtures and I could see everyone's beautiful faces again. Oh dear God what is that- oh that's just Sean. My bad.
"I think the Angel should go next." I said, motioning towards the girl across from me.
She seemed to like that idea. Angel stood up from her spot very delicately. "My - uh - stage name is Angel." She said with a bit of regret in her voice as she shoved off her jacket. Sean whistled. "It kind of fits." She said smugly. The first thing that caught my eye was the tattoos on her shoulders. She turned around and then I saw two more tattoos on her back. It's almost like they're alive... wait a second; they're lifting up off of her skin! Holy crap that's cool!
"You can fly?" Raven said excitedly beside me.
"Uh huh. And um..." Angel said as she scanned the room before her eyes settled on the bronze statue in the courtyard. She turned her body towards it, inhaled slightly, and spat a small ball of acid that landed on the head of the statue. That was... awesome and disgusting. I like it. We laughed in admiration of her gift. Someone said 'disgusting' while laughing but there was no bite to it so Angel didn't seem offended.
"I would've called you Spitfire." I said truthfully, shrugging my shoulders. Angel took a second to contemplate the idea; seemed as though she liked the name too. Still, she smiled, proud of what she had done, tucked away her wings, and put her jacket back on.
After making sure she was covered she turned to Hank. "What's your name?" Clearly implying what he wanted his super secret agent name to be.
Hank didn't reply. His lips pressed together and his brow furrowed. Was he embarrassed? We had all been put on the spot, so he wasn't alone. I looked at him watching his feet; they were uncomfortably trying to hide underneath the couch. Does his mutation have to do with his feet?
"How 'bout Bigfoot?" Alex said teasingly from his seat. If Hank wasn't so insecure about himself I'm sure that he would've played along, but he genuinely seemed like he was going to burst at the seems with either embarrassment, or fear.
"Well, you know what they say about guys with big feet." I said with plenty of spite in my voice. I didn't appreciate bullying.
Raven leaned forward a bit to look at Alex's feet. "And, uh, yours look kind of small."
Everyone, besides Alex of course, gave a good you-just-got-burned laugh. Hank even smiled a bit. I nudged him with my knee and he gave me the most adorable smirk I had ever seen.
"Okay, now." Darwin said calmly in an attempt to settle down the unruly youngsters around him. "Alex, what is your gift, what can you do?"
"It's not- umm... I just can't-" He paused. "Uhh... can't do it, can't do it in here." He answered with an uncharacteristic nervousness to his voice.
"Well, can you do it out there?" Darwin asked, clearly curious what he could do. As we all were.
"Why don't you do it out there?" A very eager Raven said from beside me. "Come on!" She then said when he still seemed adamant on skipping on his show-and-tell.
That's when it started, "Alex, Alex, Alex," Darwin started to chant, and everyone, except for Hank, joined in.
"Alex, Alex, Alex!"
Finally, he gave in, getting a 'Yeah!' from Sean. Alex stood, placed his soda on the coffee table, and walked over towards the shattered window.
"That's the spirit!" Darwin encouraged.
Still, something seemed edgy about him. "Get down when I tell you." He warned us just before stepping through the window. Cautiously, we followed him. We all crowded around the broken frame to watch Alex who had retreated into the back right corner, out of our sight. We leaned out the window.
"Get back." He warned, and we obeyed. But we quickly stuck our heads back out again. Alex had started concentrating until he saw us again. "Get back!" He said with a bit more bite to it. This time we didn't obey and continued to watch him. "Whatever." He grumbled. He then rolled his shoulders slightly and flexed all of his muscles. His core began to swivel in circles and he was suddenly surrounded by red rings. Without really having any physical hold on the he threw the rings out into the night sky; one skimmed past the broken window so we all ducked, one impacted the CIA building on the second floor, and the last one he sent right at the statue. That poor statue. The red ring successfully cut the statue at an angle from shoulder to hip and the two pieces had caught fire where Alex's powers had split it. Not even watching the top half of the statue drop to the ground, we were awe struck. The three boys were sort of dumbfounded while Angel and Raven were jumping up and down and clapping and I was tipping an imaginary hat to him.
Alex looked back at us and smiled, clearly feeling better about his powers now that he knew he had our approval. A very proud Sean walked up to the energy wielding mutant and clapped him on the back.
"That was amazing!" He laughed.
In all of the commotion, I realized I never learned Hank's mutation. "Hold the phone!" I practically screamed, startling everyone. They all looked at me so I continued. "I want to see what Hank can do!"
Hank looked at me with scared eyes and was completely red in the face. I probably shouldn't have called him out the way that I had but, oh well. What's done is done.
"I-it's not that great..." He mumbled while biting his lower lip. I gave him a reassuring pat on the back. If nothing else I was going to make Hank feel better about himself over the next few months. That much I was sure of.
"Come on, Hank. Please?" I cooed. I may have gone to an all-girls school but I was still pretty good at getting boys to do whatever I wanted.
He blushed even more, but he looked as if he was going to comply. Hesitantly, he bent over and took off his shoes. Next came his socks. With the removal of his footwear I was able to see why he was so self-conscious about his feet. They weren't feet at all, they were hands.
"Hooooooly sexy Jesus! That is awesome!" I yelled ecstatically.
Hank gave me a shy smile before heading out into the courtyard, carefully avoiding the broken glass. Practically exploding with curiosity I followed him. He gave me a quick glance before he jumped up and began scaling the side of the building even though there were no grooves in it. He was practically free climbing thirty feet of glass and doing it like a champ. He made it all the way to the top of the building, looked around, and began his descent. The only difference about the trip down was that he had started from the corner and was rebounding off of each wall as he made his way to the ground. Lord. Who could be ashamed of being able to do that! Once he landed I rushed over to him and squeezed him in a vice grip of a hug.
"That was pretty bad ass!" Sean said excitedly from behind us. I turned to see that everyone was standing there in the same shocked state as when Alex had show cased his talent. Suddenly they all burst into applause. I looked back at Hank and laughed at his humbled expression. He really was the most adorable guy I ever had the pleasure to meet. From his shy blue eyes to his wickedly awesome hand-feet, he was my definition of perfection.