Memories
Power to Kill
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The girl was leaning back in the hammock, moaning.
"I can't believe my dad sent me here! It's so boring."
The boy next to her flung down his mop and flopped down next to her.
"I don't get why he sent me! It's not like I knew half the neighbourhood was going to crash the party!"
The quiet boy who never really spoke looked up.
"Oh, poor you. Your dad sent you here as punishment for throwing a party that wrecked your house. Lucky you."
They looked at him.
"Go on then. Why are you here?"
He shrugged.
"My half-sister was kidnapped and almost murdered by a crazed psychopath. My baby brother's basically at boarding school for the super smart. My girlfriend will die without regular blood transfusions. And three weeks ago, my mom died. I don't even know how it happened. All I know is one morning she's shouting at me to get out of bed and get ready for school. The next I get Dad coming in all serious and he tells me Maman died and I don't have to go to school for a while. My dad's best friend is in a coma and we don't know when he'll wake up. The guy who's like a second father to me has cleared off and as far as we know, he's not coming back. Laura –my half-sister- has cleared off to a school on the other side of the country. Eva, my other sister, won't do anything except sit quietly in the library and ask when Maman's coming back. My dad decided I needed to get away from home. So he sent me here. He thinks home is 'unhealthy'. He's right in a way. All my stuff has memories of Maman. She wasn't supposed to die… She was meant to live forever…"
He curled back into his nook.
"The last thing I ever said to her was I wished she was dead. And all she said in return was 'I love you.' I think she knew that would be the last time she'd see me so she wanted it to be a good memory. It didn't work. All it did was made me feel worse."
They sat in silence for a long time. Then the girl spoke.
"I… I'm sorry about your mom. Was she ill?"
"No… Well, not in the way the medics called ill. I mean, we had a scare when Laura was taken… Maman… She… They all thought she was dead… She had just got better…"
"Was it a relapse?"
Curt paused.
"In a way. But not to what happened before."
And the boy spoke softly.
"What's wrong with your girlfriend?"
"She's got… a blood condition. She needs fresh blood. She hates it, because the blood that protects her the most is the one that makes her feel the worst. She throws up when she gets the transfusion and then she's sluggish for hours. And she hides all the time, because she doesn't want to show her face outside."
"You really are going through hell right now, aren't you?"
Curt shook his head.
"No. Hell is worse. Hell is a whole lot worse."
"I take it he doesn't talk from personal experience?"
"Let's just say, he was very good at 'accidentally' overhearing conversations between his parents."
Beast looked down at the girl whose face was covered in sweat as she tried to hold up the various shards of metal. He glanced over the readings and then tapped the microphone feed into the main Danger Room.
"Akira, you can desist levitating the miscellaneous magnetic objects and come up to the control room please?"
The objects fell to the ground and she wobbled a bit as she walked to the door. Logan raised an eyebrow.
"What's wrong, Hank? You're giving me that 'uh-oh' face you get any time something huge happens."
"The readings are wrong."
"What?"
"Look. Here's the data of Magneto manipulating metal. And here's Akira's."
"They look the same."
"No. They're not. Magneto –I assume you're familiar with wave-particle duality?"
"You think I've been able to live in a house with you for years and not know what wave-particle duality is?"
"Good, good. Well, Magneto manipulates the waves. Generates magnetic fields by playing about with waves and suchlike. But Akira… Logan, she's individually manipulating each individual photon. That's the reason she has so much trouble controlling her powers. She's working at sub-atomic levels. Photons and photo-electrons! And now!"
"What?"
"Logan… She's not using magnetism to levitate the metal."
"What!? Then what the…"
"I've run a rough scan and her data threw up matches to both Graviton and Gravity."
"Huh?"
"Graviton? Evil insane scientist? Almost destroyed entire Avengers lineup?"
"Hank, bear in mind I can't remember all the evil insane scientists who almost destroyed the Avengers. Who's Gravity?"
"A sterling example of a new superhero."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Logan, Akira's not just manipulating photons, she's manipulating gravitons as well."
"In accordance to the Theory of Everything?"
They turned to see Akira standing in the door, looking tired but pleased.
"You know, the theory that states that the fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces are all the same?"
Hank's mouth dropped open.
"Ah. Yes. Genius. Forgot."
Akira limped into the room and started trying to peer at the screens.
"Can I see?"
Once again, Logan grinned at the miracle of a telepathic language course. Three weeks, and the girl whose English had only really expended to greetings was now discussing advanced physics with Hank. Luckily, they'd decided to use Zillah for the teaching rather than Logan. Otherwise Akira would probably know more than a couple swear words.
Hank was pointing and explaining, and Akira kept firing questions at him. Then she frowned.
"Why can't I hold things up for long? Magento can. But I can't."
"Maybe your mutation works differently. You're expending energy on every particle, individually manipulating it."
"I… I try to picture what I do… But I can't. It's as if sight prevents me from seeing the things I need to interact with."
She slumped down.
"I don't think I'm able to understand what I need to. I… I thought I did… But now I'm not as sure…"
She looked exhausted.
"I… I can't think right! I've had images in my head about the subatomic world and they're all wrong!"
Hank gently steered her out of the control room, probably to take her to the medical room to let her rest. Logan had noticed that. Akira got exhausted as soon as she began using her powers. If only they could get Magneto or Polaris –Polaris for preference, but she wasn't really answering calls right now– to come and help her. Short of forbidding Akira to use her gifts –which kind of ignored the whole point of the school– there was nothing he could do to prevent her continual exhaustion.
Hank came back in and sat down.
"Logan, I'm worried. Akira's powers are slowly tearing her mind apart. She can't comprehend the true nature of it and she has to understand it to make it work. It's not instinctive. She has to control everything and it's too much for her."
Logan swore.
"Then how on earth did she…?"
"Phoenix. I'm not spoiling it for you. But take a guess."
"You don't mean that…?"
"Sadly, yes."