So I should be writing an essay right now; however, I am clearly not, in favour of writing about something far more interesting and exciting: X-Men yo.
On the off-chance that some of you are actually reading this, I ask that you give my Wattpad a wee glance, if you can spare the time (the link is on my profile). I only have the one story up just now and it's nowhere near completed, but it's something a little different for me and it's much harder to get readers on that website than on here, so I'm hoping someone will pick it up soon and I'm not just writing and posting for nothing - of course I would enjoy writing it just for myself but posting it online without anyone actually reading it is just plain sad.
Anyhoos, this story!
DISCLAIMER: Oh, the things I would do to own anything about X-Men.
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Chapter 7 – Mutations
I lay on my side, my shoulder protesting ever so slightly, as I frowned at the wall in front of me. When I'd awoken, the first thing I realised was that I'd fallen asleep in a chair and woke up in my bed. It didn't take long to put two and two together to get "Alex carried me to my bed", but it took a while to come to terms with it. The second thing I realised was that I'd only suffered from one nightmare, instead of three, which was completely unprecedented. It had been a weird night; having someone carry me to bed was... I wasn't quite sure how to describe it, or how I even felt about it. There were a lot of emotions, contradicting and coinciding, and it was all very confusing.
With a sigh I rolled over onto my back and crossed my arms over my stomach, now staring at the ceiling. As soon as I'd moved, I heard one of the girls' beds shift and then the unmistakable sound of Raven's excited whisper. "Evelyn!" My head fell to the side to see her and Angel on the latter's bed, grinning over at me. I quirked an eyebrow questioningly. "So, you were gone for a few hours last night," she began, lifting her eyebrows suggestively, "What were you doing for that long?"
I narrowed my eyes at her weird behaviour. "I was in the rec. room," I replied slowly.
"Was Alex there the entire time?" Angel blurted, resulting in her receiving a slap on the arm from the blonde girl.
At my confused look, Raven sighed and explained their queerness. "I woke up when the door opened and saw him carrying you back to your bed," she said, grinning again by the end of it.
I stopped myself from asking for more details, questioning why I would even want them, and sat up, shrugging. "I was there for a while before he came in, and we just stayed up talking and playing on that game machine for a while. Then I fell asleep in a chair and he took me back here."
The two of them shared an unreadable look and shook their heads, getting up for breakfast. "C'mon, Miss Innocence," Angel sighed, "Let's go."
I was beyond confused, but got changed anyway into my jeans and a shirt of Raven's that was a little bit too low-cut for my taste – but what could I do? – deciding it was best for me to ignore whatever was going through their heads for a while. I pulled my brown waves of hair over my shoulders to try and cover some of the exposed skin, but it didn't really do much to help.
"Evelyn." Raven's soft call got my attention and I looked over at her, seeing the fond smile on her face and the amused sympathy in her eyes. "You look fine; stop worrying."
I nodded, frowning slightly, and pulled on a pair of shoes. In a moment of carelessness, I spoke as if to myself, but unfortunately loud enough for the two of them to hear. "Showing so much skin reminds me of the asylum." I froze as soon as the words left my lips, staring wide-eyed and panicked at the ground. I didn't want to talk about the asylum. I wanted it to leave my memories and stop holding me back.
"Don't worry, it's hardly noticeable compared to all the leg I'm showing," Angel joked, extending a coffee-coloured leg that was only covered from her hips to just underneath her bum.
A nervous chuckle escaped me, thankful for their awareness of my unease. However, I couldn't help but think that Sean would have just made a flirty or playful joke that would have relaxed me instantly. It was interesting how different people had different ways of affecting or helping me, and I noticed that since I was getting to know them better now, I could decide which of them would help me most in my next moment of weakness and go to the best one – that was a comforting thought; it meant that I was one step closer to repairing myself completely.
We made our way to the rec. room, filling the hall with amiable chatter and quiet laughter. At a break in the conversation, Raven suddenly stopped and turned to us seriously. "Alright, tonight we're gonna reveal our mutations. I can't wait any longer. You two in?"
"Finally," Angel sighed. "Yeah, of course I'm in."
They both turned to look at me and I nodded eagerly. "Definitely."
Raven bounced on her toes excitedly and then we continued walking, the two girls in front of me starting up conversation again while I sank into my thoughts. I was finally going to learn what everyone's mutations were, and then we'd finally be able to formulate a plan of defence against the agents in the possible case of them confronting us in an unpleasant manner. Tonight was going to change everything – the fun would end, and the planning would begin. Not only would learning everyone's mutations help with the agents problem, it would also prove useful when dealing with Shaw, whenever the time came. Since we didn't know his mutation now, a plan would have to be kind of improvised on the day, but we would cross that bridge when we came to it.
I blinked, realising that we'd arrived at the rec. room. Raven and Angel glanced at each other and then bolted to some spare seats, grinning madly at each other and then me afterwards. Rolling my eyes and ignoring their behaviour again, I took the only seat left next to Alex on one of the couches. "Hey," he greeted, his deep voice reverberating in my ears.
I sent him a brief smile, aware of our over-excited audience, and quietly replied, "Thanks for carrying me back last night," as the others started up a conversation.
The corner of his lip twitched and he looked into his lap where one hand massaged the other. Then he glanced quickly at me as he said, "Anytime," before looking away again, clearing his throat.
There was going to be no end to my confusion in this place.
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The sky was dark beyond the unnaturally lit facility, a couple of agents making their rounds in the courtyard like shadows, save for their loud conversations and laughter. I was sat in the corner of one of the sofas, with Raven and Hank on my right and Alex in an armchair on my left. Next to him was Sean, and then Angel and Darwin sat on the sofa opposite me. The noise of the agents slowly died away as our conversation fell into a comfortable silence, soon to be broken by an excited bounce from Raven.
"We should think of codenames," she announced. "We're government agents now, we should have secret codenames." I turned to look at her, smiling slightly. "I wanna be called Mystique," she declared.
"Damn," Sean groaned, "I wanted to be called Mystique." We all chuckled at his silliness.
"Well, tough, I called it," Raven retorted. I looked back at her just as an explosion of blue spike things erupted from the middle of her face and washed down her neck, her shoulders, and the rest of her body, leaving behind a perfect replica of Sean. I jumped back slightly, seeing Hank do the same in the corner of my eye, my eyebrows hitting my hairline.
"Woah," Darwin exclaimed before he and Angel started chuckling, obviously impressed.
"And I'm way more mysterious than you," Raven-Sean said in his voice before the spikes washed over her again and she returned to the Raven we knew. The group clapped for her as my mind worked quickly, noting just how helpful her mutation could be in a tricky situation with the agents. "Darwin, what about you?" she asked, looking over at the young man.
"Well, uh, Darwin's already a nickname and, you know, sorta fits," he mused. "Adapt to survive and all." I was incredibly curious at this point. "Check this out," he said as he pushed himself onto his feet and sauntered his way behind the couch and over to the fish tank.
We all shifted so that we could see him properly as he leant over the tank and dunked his head in. Within seconds, he'd grown gills on the side of his head and the group let out exclamations and chuckles again, clapping when he flapped the gills slightly and turned to look at us. Then he lifted his head and shook the gills away, thanking us as Hank complimented him, "That's incredible." I'd have to talk to Darwin and see what else he could do.
"What about you?" he asked Sean.
"I'm going to be," the ginger trailed off, thinking hard. "Banshee."
"Why do you wanna be named after a wailing spirit?" Hank asked, frowning slightly.
"You might wanna cover your ears," Sean said, pushing himself off his armchair to crouch down in front of our bottles on the table.
I lifted my hands up and pressed them flat against my ears, sharing a confused but curious look with Alex. I looked back to Sean as he sucked in a deep breath, glanced at us all, and then let it out in a high-pitched whistle that had me grimacing and the window in the wall shattering noisily. He stood staring at it dumbly, as we slowly started to laugh and clap at the display, very impressed. I knew exactly how I'd use Sean in a fight.
"Your turn," he announced, pointing to me with a grin.
My laugh faltered and I swallowed, wiping my suddenly sweaty palms on my jeans. Was I going to be able to do anything to show them my mutation?
"I've been dying to know what you can do," Darwin said, smiling encouragingly at me.
I nodded and stood, pressing my now trembling fingers against my thighs so that no one would notice them, and made my way over to and through the broken window. When my feet touched soil, I bent down and dug my fingers deep, then curled them inwards and lifted the chunk of earth out of the ground. Turning back to my fellow mutants, I glanced up at their curious and expectant faces and cleared my throat. "I haven't had much practice," I warned them.
"Why not?" Sean frowned.
"You don't get much recreational time in an asylum," I replied, lowering my gaze to the soil and focusing on it. The others went quiet in front of me, waiting for some sort of show that I didn't know if I could put on.
Suddenly feeling frustrated with myself, I closed my eyes, concentrated hard, and really tried to find the pulse, remembering how it felt from previous interactions with it. And then it was there, thrumming in the back of my mind. Willing a flower to grow, I imagined the stem breaking out of a seed, stretching and twisting out of the soil and into the air as it thickened and colourful petals blossomed atop it. Then the thrumming grew stronger and I heard a few gasps and chuckles from my audience before they started clapping.
"Awesome," Raven praised.
I opened my eyes and found myself face to face with a beautiful flower. A breathy laugh escaped me and I looked up at the others excitedly, seeing the emotion reflected in their gazes. Then I felt something prod my back and I whipped round to see four, thick roots standing in front of me, twisting and twirling as if they had a life of their own. "Holy shit," I muttered.
Blinking away the shock, I knelt down again and returned to soil to the hole in the ground, watching the flower's face angle itself as if it was watching me. Then the roots quickly slithered back into the ground and I turned away, moving back to my seat with a grin.
"Nicely done, Evelyn," Darwin said.
"How about Antheia?" Hank proposed nervously. "She's the Greek goddess of flowers."
I nodded, satisfied with the name. "I like it. Thanks, Hank," I smiled, receiving one in reply, and then looked to Angel. "Show us what you got," I said. Unintentionally, I glanced over at Alex to see him looking slightly tense and agitated. I nudged his foot with my own and he looked up at me quickly, confused. I had no idea why I wanted his attention or what I had planned on doing when he gave me it, so I just settled with a small smile, which he returned gradually.
"You can fly?" Raven's exclamation snapped me out of my daze and I looked away from those captivating, blue eyes to see that the black-haired girl was showing us her mutation. How had I missed that? She was stood with her back to us, the pattern that had once been tattooed on her back extended behind her like bug wings – surely that should have been easier to notice than the different tones of blue in Alex's eyes?
"Uh-huh," Angel replied, knocking me out of my thoughts again. "And, um..." She turned to face the shattered window, leant forward, and spat out some sort of acid sphere that landed on the top of the statue's head with a burst of flames and a strong sizzle. We laughed and clapped, and once again my thoughts were preoccupied with formulating strategies of attack and defence, incorporating Angel's mutation now.
She pulled her jacket back on and looked to Hank. "What about you?"
I leant forward in my seat, looking past Raven's body, to see Hank shift nervously and avert his gaze from us. A frown creased my forehead when, for a second, I thought I glimpsed shame.
"How about Big Foot?"
I turned to look back at Alex, who was smirking at his own joke, in confusion and dread – one mean remark did not make someone an evil person, but I thought that both Alex and I had experiences with evil people, experiences we'd rather not recreate since we knew just how horrific they'd been; if this was how he was going to face what was considered a 'normal' life outside of prison, he'd find himself on a slippery slope leading to him turning into the kind of person we both loathed and feared our entire lives, because that would be the kind of shell he would adopt as protection from vulnerability.
But I looked closer at the smirk that twitched, as if he struggled to maintain it, and the dark eyes that held regret even before he met my gaze and it intensified so much that his smirk dropped, and I was overcome with relief at the revelation that he knew exactly what he was doing, and he wasn't happy with himself, which meant that he would hopefully try to avoid the easy way out of adjusting to our situation. He wanted to make it hard for everyone else so that he wasn't the only one struggling blindly, so that he wasn't the only one feeling weak and fragile, because he was Alex Summers, this big, bad, prisoner-turned-hero, and he was supposed to be tough and unyielding and ultimately stronger than anyone else.
I had to admit, I could see where he was coming from. I'd been playing it up that I was capable, steady, and mentally stable the duration of my stay here, hoping that the other mutants would be able to see me as some sort of guardian angel or something, when, in reality, I was traumatised, terrified, and immeasurably unstable. It only took one cruel look from a guard and suddenly I'd be back in the asylum. Everything I did or thought linked back to the asylum – the food here was better than that at the asylum; the agents reminded me of the guards; the pristine floors reminded me of the medical room where I was given help for my pains; every time someone pressed a button I would flinch; sometimes I felt just as trapped here as I did in the asylum; and the fear of being tossed back into my cell was constantly nagging at the back of my mind, relentless and ruthless.
"Well, you know what they say about guys with big feet," Raven spoke up, startling me from my thoughts and breaking my gaze with Alex. "And, um, yours are kind of small."
By the way the group reacted, laughing with Raven and at Alex, who also allowed himself a chuckle, I knew that it was a fairly light-hearted joke, but I had no idea what it meant and so I merely settled with a small smile, avoiding anyone's gaze.
"Alex, what is your gift? What can you do?" Darwin asked.
As everyone turned to look at him, he seemed to deflate slightly, lowering his gaze, scratching the side of his head, and stumbling over his words. "Uh, it's not, um, I'm –" he shook his head, gesturing hopelessly. "I just can't do it. I can't do it in here."
"Can you do it out there?" Darwin tried, pointing out the broken window.
"Why don't you just do it out there?" Raven asked.
"Come on," Angel insisted, with Sean echoing her, before the lot of them started chanting his name encouragingly, the ginger slapping his hand on the armchair in time with their voices.
Eventually Alex held up a hand to make them stop, reluctance written all over his face, and stood up, placing his coke bottle on the table as he marched outside, the group's cheers following him as we went to stand by the window. "Get down when I tell you," he said as he walked.
Sean instantly imitated him, snickering to himself, while the rest of us simultaneously leant out the window to see Alex standing in the courtyard, shaking his hands a little. When he noticed us, his face hardened and he said, "Get back." We must have complied for about a second in total before leaning out again, too curious to risk a good view. "Get back!" Alex tried again, more forceful this time. Upon realising we wouldn't budge, he turned to look at the statue in the middle of the courtyard, muttering, "Whatever" to himself.
His performance was so unexpected that it seemed to be over in the space of three seconds. First he clenched his fists and leant his torso back a little as rings of red energy materialised and circled around him, then he moved himself as if swinging a hula hoop as the rings strengthened and started emitting a high-pitched, charging sort of sound, and finally he sent the rings spinning off into the courtyard wildly, one of them slicing the statue in half, leaving behind a trail of flames, while the others were sent careering into the walls of the buildings.
For a moment we were in awe, the only noise being the dull thuds of the statue fragment rolling around, but then everyone suddenly burst out laughing and cheering and clapping, appreciating the awesome spectacle. After a shout of "Let's party!" from Raven, the majority of them turned and jumped back into the rec. room; however, I had never seen such a display of raw power before, and I was transfixed on the effect it had on the statue. My feet carried me over until I stood inches from the flames, my eyes wide and thirsty for the sight.
"Don't touch it," Alex's voice said quickly behind me. "It'll be hot." As I studied the absolute smoothness of the damage, I found myself speechless and amazed beyond belief. He came and stood next to me, shoving his hands in his jacket pockets. "So, uh, this is my curse. I've frightened a lot of people with it."
I nodded, swallowing. "I can see how."
"You can?"
"Alex, this is…"
"Yeah, I know," he said bitterly.
"No." I looked up at him in wonder. "This is incredible. I mean, I knew mutants could be powerful, Charles is the perfect example of that, but his mutation is psychological, you know? It's not- It's not physical, it can't do proper, physical damage, not like you can." I shook my head, looking him up and down as if I could see his mutation fermenting within him. "I had no idea."
He blinked, looking slightly lost for words. Then, "That I was so dangerous?"
I frowned. "That you were so impressive, so in control."
His eyes betrayed the emotions that ran rampant. At first he was shocked, probably by the fact that someone was actually complimenting his mutation when he thought it was too dangerous; then there was reluctance, as if he didn't want to believe that I was telling the truth; then there was a sad longing, and I knew that he wasn't really going to take my words onboard, instead maintaining the belief that what he could do was a curse rather that a gift; and then there was pure bitterness. "You've got it wrong," he muttered, shovelling his hands into his jacket pockets. "I'm not in control at all."
I frowned up at him and he clenched his jaw, his eyes burning with self-hatred. "Alex," I said softly. "You're able to utilise that strong a force whenever you want to, and keep it at bay when you don't; I think that's enough to call you controlled."
He shook his head, eyes downcast. "You don't understand."
Without thinking, I reached up and placed my hand flat against his upper chest, the tips of my fingers resting against his collarbone, the beat of his heart thumping underneath his skin. "I spent the last seven years in a mental asylum; I know an uncontrolled person when I see one, trust me."
For a moment, the corner of his mouth lifted up in grim amusement, and my heart drummed loudly in my ears when his hand came up to rest over mine. Once again, he seemed unnaturally warm, and it wasn't until then that I could pinpoint the cause of it: his mutation. But the moment was soon ruined as his smile turned sad once more and he dropped his hand, turning to the others. "Let's join the party."
I couldn't help the sinking feeling in my gut as disappointment washed over me, but I knew that I wasn't going to get better after a few nice words from someone, so I couldn't expect Alex to either. It was going to take a fair amount of time for both of us, and it couldn't be rushed or forced, but I wondered if it would be made easier since we were in similar situations – we'd have to find out if we'd help or hinder each other in the long run; at the moment, however, we could just wordlessly enjoy the other's understanding, and push forward blindly together.