Hey guys, ImaginaryArtist17 here, I would like to thank you for your continuing support! Believe me, it means the world to me. Now, I present to you a new chapter, hope you all enjoy!
"Come on, what can you do Laurien?" Raven called from across the coffee table.
Laurien smiled from behind her glass of Coke as the eyes of the other mutants in the room turned in her direction. The past few days had been a rollercoaster of nerves and anxiousness, but now that she was there with all the other people like herself, she felt oddly comfortable. They all seemed nice enough, with the minor exception of Alex Summers, who looked had her up and down with his eyes when they first met and promptly gave her an eight out of ten.
After they all introduced themselves, Charles and Erik left them to their own devices with the promise that they would be back in an hour or two. The room that they were sitting in seemed to be specially made up for the young mutants, with a mini bar harboring more varieties of soft drinks than Laurien knew existed, a pinball machine and what Charles had called a 'groovy' set up of chairs.
The conversation was shy at first, as no one but Raven and Hank seemed to have previously known one another, but as the night continued, the discussion topic changed from small talk about the weather to debates on what they could do and what code names they should call themselves. This seemed to be a thoroughly appropriate endeavor considering, as Raven stated confidently, they were all government secret agents now.
Darwin, Angel, Mystique and Banshee were all named in relation to their mutations, and it was still up for discussion regarding what Hank would be called, as he didn't seem too enthusiastic at Alex's suggestion of Bigfoot. Laurien and Alex were also still yet to be titled.
"She's like a sexy poltergeist, throwing shit around the room." Sean, or rather, Banshee chuckled, but was soon interrupted as a pillow threw itself at him of its own accord, smacking him directly in the face. The rest of the room laughed aloud as Sean tossed it back at Laurien teasingly.
"Why don't we call you that?" Raven suggested.
"The Sexy Poltergeist?" Laurien questioned, scrunching up her nose as the group kept giggling.
"No, just Poltergeist."
"It's not very far from Banshee though." Laurien appealed, motioning towards Sean for his input.
"I don't mind having a partner in the afterlife." Sean drawled, as he pulled on the bubblegum in his mouth in long strands. "We can haunt mansions together."
"I think it fits." Darwin chimed in beside her. "What's the verdict?"
As Laurien paused for effect while she considered the nickname, they all comically held their breath as they waited intently for her decision, before she finally nodded and was met with a chorus of raucous cheers. Laurien laughed at their enthusiasm, her vision flashing gold as she suddenly realized that she hadn't had this much fun with others her age in a long time.
With Laurien's secret agent alias decided, Darwin then turned to Alex. "What about you Alex, what's your gift?"
Alex shook his head, "It's not– I can't do it in here."
"Can you do it out there?" Darwin inquired, and they all started chanting his name louder and louder until he gave in with a gruff sigh and made his way out of the room by the shattered window from where Sean had displayed his powers earlier. Excitedly, they all rushed to the where he had disappeared and peered around the opening to look at him.
"Get back!" He yelled.
They obeyed, disappearing back into the room, but then stubbornly stuck their heads out again.
"Get back!" He repeated, but when they didn't budge, he let out an exasperated sigh and turned back towards the clearing. Suddenly, bright red rings spun out from his body like fiery hula hoops, shooting out and slicing diagonally through the metal that was the statue of some random guy, the top half of the body falling with a dull clatter to the grass. They all cheered loudly as Alex stepped back into the room, his pale cheeks reddening from the praise. After the clamor of noise calmed down a bit, Raven's face lit up in a grin as a genius thought dawned on her.
"Havok!" She exclaimed, drawing all of their attention to her in surprise at her outburst.
"Sorry?" Laurien asked, voicing what they were all thinking.
"That's what we should call him! Havok!" She explained, and with a few seconds of deliberation, the others joined in her excitement.
Angel turned to grab her drink and raised it high in a toast. "To us, the mutants!" They all lifted their glasses in turn, Sean perhaps a little too enthusiastically from his seat as his Coke spilled from his glass onto the floor, leaving a terribly visible stain on the white carpet.
"Aw, shit. My bad." He mumbled, as the others giggled at the prospect of how much Moira was going to lecture him later. Not wasting a moment, Laurien set down her drink on the side table and made her way over to the site of the spill.
"Here, Sean, get out of your chair for a moment, please."
He complied, moving away as Laurien focused her concentration on the fine black leather armchair before it soon lifted into the air by itself and set back down right over the area of the spill as if nothing was there at all. Sean breathed a sigh of relief before suddenly picking her up in his arms and spinning her around the room.
Laurien let out a gasp of surprise as the room spun before her eyes in a fantastically dizzying fashion, every now and then the others came into view and quickly disappeared as she went round and round to the sound of joyfully childish laughter. Sean soon set her down before going to join Alex on the other side of the room as he tested Darwin's skill of adapting. As Laurien tumbled onto the couch in her wobbly state, she could see them whacking at his rock solid form with the legs of one of the chairs from the back of the room.
"Hank, show Angel and Laurien what you can do." Raven said playfully, drawing Laurien's attention back to the others on the sofa.
Hank nodded shyly at Raven's command, though he hurriedly took his shoes and socks off, to reveal feet that looked more similar to those of a chimp than of a human. Bracing himself, he then leapt into the air at an impressive height and latched on to the overhanging lighting fixture with his feet.
"That's incredible, Hank!" Laurien gasped, mouth open wide in amazement, and looked to her left to see that Angel was doing the same. Hank grinned a bashful upside-down smile before Raven declared that they needed music immediately. Without missing a beat, Laurien flicked her wrist at the record player, lowering the needle onto the disc and before long, an upbeat tune erupted from the speaker.
Raven suddenly grabbed her hand and dragged her willingly up onto the couch to dance as Angel spread her wings and hovered next to them. In all her life, Laurien had never been to a party such as this, where people were just so blissfully carefree and unaware of the dangers of the outside world looming towards them. It made her feel strange. She was almost always on her guard, as she had been her whole life, and to let go for even a little while felt so foreign to her.
As she stood on the couch, she realized that none of the people in that room had ever dealt with something that could destroy them from the inside out. It genuinely scared Laurien to think that they may never again feel this whole, this safe, for the rest of their lives. It brought down her mood to the point of her eyes turning from a bright gold, to a dark grey in a matter of seconds, and Raven seemed to notice.
"Are you all right, Laurien?"
Laurien snapped out of her troubled reverie to see Raven's concerned good-natured face, framed with a glowing halo of perfect golden blonde hair, looking at her. God, she was envious of that hair, her own wavy caramel locks could never reach the same amount of volume and flare as hers.
"Yeah," She said, feeling herself smile, as Raven seemed to have that effect on people. "I'm fine, I just must be still feeling a little bit dizzy from earlier."
"Woah, I didn't realize your eyes did that before now." Raven suddenly exclaimed. "How do you do it?"
Laurien opened her mouth to answer before she was interrupted by a loud shrill voice from behind her.
"What are you doing?"
She spun around to see that the source of the voice was a disapproving-looking Moira behind the remains of the broken window, with Charles and Erik standing behind her. Alex, Darwin and Sean abruptly stopped their experiment as Hank jumped down from his perch on the lights to face her, the mutants all staring at the three adults like children who'd been caught misbehaving by their parents.
"Who destroyed the statue?" Moira demanded, furiously.
"It was Alex." Hank replied in a small voice, as Alex looked around at him accusingly.
"No. Havok." Raven announced stepping off the couch. "We have to call him Havok from now on. And I was thinking," She pointed at Charles. "You should be Professor X, and you," She turned to Erik. "Should be Magneto."
Her declaration was met with silence from the two, until Erik muttered a barely audible "exceptional" that brought Laurien back to a few days ago back in her apartment when he had uttered the same thing to her. Seemingly at a loss for words, Moira rolled her eyes in exasperation before turning to leave.
Charles stayed for another moment, looking at all of them in discontent before saying the five words that seemed to crush the party into smithereens. "I expected more from you."
Laurien saw Raven's face fall dramatically as Charles left, leaving the once joyous gathering in an uncomfortable silence. Unable to figure out what to do next, as their vivacious festivity was slowly being diminished into a guilty memory, they all decided to leave the messy lounge to go to their rooms for the night.
As they walked down the hallways to their rooms that were all side by side, Laurien could feel the disappointment radiating off of Raven in waves. She felt the need to let her know that it was all right, but she didn't know for the life of her how to go about it, as she had always had issues with the whole social aspect. When the group started to break off to their respective rooms with bids of goodnight, it was eventually only Raven and Laurien left in the hallway.
"Well, goodnight." Raven murmured, as cheerfully as she could, but Laurien could instantly tell that she was failing.
Almost out of nowhere, a bout of courage swept over her and she replied, "You know, Raven, I don't care what Moira and Charles said, that was the most fun that I've had in a long time, and it meant a lot to me, so thank you for that."
Raven's face almost immediately broke out in an elated smile and she surprised Laurien when she threw her arms around her in a tight hug. Still shocked by the sudden act of affection, Laurien patted her back awkwardly in what she hoped was an acceptable response, before Raven let go of her, still smiling.
"Charles can be a little bit of a stick in the mud sometimes, but believe me when I tell you that we will be having many more times like that." Raven stated hopefully. "It's only going to get better now that we're all together."
Laurien grinned at the prospect. "Goodnight." She called, as Raven disappeared into her room with a small wink.
Laurien turned to her door and as she opened it, she was met with a waft of freezing cold air on her sweaty face as she realized that she had left the air conditioning on while she was away. Despite the comforting warmth of summer, Laurien always found that she always enjoyed the winter months better, as she could have an excuse to snuggle up and read a book instead of go outside. One of the things she hated most was not being able to fall asleep due to the hot weather, so consequentially, she always preferred her rooms cold.
Feeling suddenly exhausted from the day's shenanigans, she headed for the bathroom to wash up before bed. After splashing water on her face and drying herself off with a towel, something in her reflection in the mirror made her pause. Laurien brought her face up close to the mirror, inspecting every little bit, as she wasn't quite sure what had caught her eye.
She had an angular face, arched eyebrows and faint freckles that were scattered across her nose and high pale cheekbones that she'd inherited from her mother. As she took her hair out of it's bun, the long wavy caramel locks framed her face adequately, but not spectacularly as it fell to the small of her back. Her eyes were large and inquisitive, but always seemed to give her feelings away when she least wanted them to.
"Een groot open boek." She mumbled to herself bitterly as she continued searching.
Her chin stuck out more than it should, but that was a usual occurrence as her father had the same chin. "You win some you lose some," he used to always say with a small shrug. Laurien's top lip curved a soft cupid's bow as the bottom one was dented from her biting it too much in her moments of anxiousness. She had been so nervous in the days leading up to her meeting the other mutants that she had basically chewed her lip raw.
She couldn't seem to figure out what had caught her eye earlier, so she decided to give up on the mystery and finished up her nighttime ritual before snuggling up in the nice bed the CIA had given her. It was interesting to remember that only a week ago, one mention of the CIA or the American government would've sent her packing to a new state, but now she was under their protection and feeling safer than she had been in years.
As she turned off the lights and got comfortable in her bed, she found that the fact that she was starting to trust these people scared her to her core, more than any ghost story could. She hadn't come anywhere near that with anyone in a decade, and with good reason. While she recognized that her leap of faith had been a resounding success so far, a nagging question still haunted her. How long would it last?
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