Fan Fiction ❯ Changing Patterns ❯ Changing Light ( Chapter 5 )

~Higher~
When dreaming I'm guided to another world...
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
'Cause I don't want to leave the comfort of this place
'Cause there's a hunger, a longing to escape
From the life I live when I'm awake

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A iren sat cross-legged, reaching deep into herself to understand this odd language. She felt her two known powers, controlling electricity and what she'd dubbed `Traveling', the later she'd learned could be modified to take her anywhere on a planet and perhaps through dimensions. That was not likely true, but it would explain how she had gotten to this dimension. How her friends had gotten stuck with her, she had no idea, but that could be fixed.

Shrouded in shadows she had found was this odd language that was bothering her to no end. After four days of coming back to this she'd only figured out that the language was the key to controlling her electrifying power.

Erik, she'd by now given up on addressing him properly, had watched, quite interested. He'd even sent his Acolytes on a two-week long break to give her time to figure out her powers.

She tried, again, to tap into her second tongue. Again, she simply went through the dark spot in her mind and came out of her trance empty-handed. She scowled and tried again.

She finally gave up, at least for the time being as Erik entered the room. He said nothing, but Airen dragged herself to her feet and followed him. Even if her attempts to figure out the second language in her head were failing, her experiment with Erik was certainly something to be proud of. He'd grown calm and his headaches had all but vanished. Plus working with her had kept him out of becoming broody, something that she'd expected to happen.

What ever he'd thought of his mood-change he kept to himself, if he'd noticed any difference at all.

Airen followed him to a large open yard. In it, items ranging from cars to tankers were found on the flat metallic surface of the navy ship that Erik had resurfaced a week before he and Airen had met.

He never mentioned what he had planned on doing with it, and Airen wasn't going to ask. He told her where it was and asked for her to take them there. Currently they were using it as a place to figuring out Airen's powers and exactly how far her abilities extended.

Her training ranged from calling electricity from a certain generator and leaving the others unused to teleporting all over the world collecting a small random `proof item' from that specific area.

“Today,” Erik grinned, bringing Airen back to the present. “You're going to Paris. Bring something a bit bigger than a person back.”

Airen nodded. She knew he was building her strength and ability to navigate to a specific area without any real indication where it was. Though she was becoming stronger and more accurate than she believed Erik had yet succeeded in understanding.

Airen closed her eyes and mentally `located' the Eiffel Tower before vanishing.

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< br> Almost immediately Erik became uneasy at how vague he'd been. He knew that she was powerful, but maybe he should have been a bit more specific. He closed his eyes and tried to keep track of where his student was, but opened his eyes when he realized that she was back already.

He looked up and saw Airen grinning both proudly and mischievously. Using her powers she was holding two things that startled him. First was an entire hotel building. Oddly, no one appeared to be inside. The he remembered that it was about 1:00 PM there, so most of the people would be sightseeing. The other thing was the entire Eiffel Tower.

He definitely should be more specific next time...

Airen set the Tower down on the ship and vanished with the building, hopefully to return it, before Erik yelled at her.

He walked over to the huge tower and put a hand on it just to make sure that it was real. Unfortunately, it was...

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Airen, still grinning, came back. She landed next to the tower and looked at her teacher. Her grin vanished as she looked at him. His long hair had fallen over his face, shadowing his current emotion. He was leaning against the Eiffel Tower, shaking his head.

She watched him uneasily, waiting for him to say something.

“Airen.” She stiffened a bit. “What were you thinking?” Airen frowned. What was he thinking?

“Get something big?” She tried. That sent him over the edge. He burst out laughing.

“Big? Could you have gotten any bigger?”

“Not in Paris.” She sighed, not even bothering to hide her relief. Erik shook his head, still smiling.

“Go off.” She raised an eyebrow. “If you can do this already than you should have a break. But take the Tower back first and try not to be seen.”

“Thanks.” She murmured. He nodded and walked back under the deck. She could hear him chuckle as she took hold of the Tower and brought it back to where it belonged.

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Elisa yawned. The ache of training under Wolverine and the X-Men had nearly vanished. All she knew was that she was glad that spring break was here and she was angry that she'd had to get up at 5:00 AM sharp for a two-hour training session.

And the ache was back.

The once skeptical Zenn sat across from her. Now he had evolved into the leader of their group. Jasmyn sat next to him and the two of them began chatting about random things. School, mutants, training, whose powers are better, and Airen.

“Maybe she'll come back today.” Jasmyn said, exited.

“Humph. You've said that every morning since she left. Don't you get it? She probably found a way back and abandoned us.” Zenn snorted. Elise knew how much the mention of their lost friend and leader hurt him.

Jasmyn got up and began engaging herself with her flowers. Go figure, her powers involve plants. These particular ones wrapped themselves around her fingers. “No wonder you can't take care of a single daisy, Zenn. Your thoughts are all doom and gloom. Maybe you should go be friends with Rogue for all that you are the same.”

“And you with Kitty.” Zenn retorted hotly. His own powers were with water. Elise had Empathy. James, the last of their group, came in and saw the argument heat up between the water mage and plant sorcerer. He sat down next to Elise, who was glad of his appearance.

“Lovers' quarrel?” He asked with a wink. Both Zenn and Jasmyn flushed. Elise giggled. James could control the wind. That power suited him as well as Jasmyn because of him blowing a continuous hot wind. Meaning of course he had a constantly flowing mouth.

Wolverine came in just then. “Slackers.” He snorted. He paused and sniffed the air. “Chuck? I smell somethin'.”

(Yes. I feel it.) Xavier broadcasted to the mutants in the room. (Someone extremely powerful is-)

“Is what?” Logan demanded. There was no answer.

“I'll give them a welcome. A wet welcome.” Zenn smirked. He ran outside before anyone could stop him, and was blasted back by an unseen force. Elise, Jasmyn, and James stood up, awaiting the invading enemy.

A tall, muscular and tanned teen entered. Elise tried to figure out what this fellow wanted, but couldn't get as much as its gender from it. It strode in, heavily dressed. With long sleaves, leather gloves and boots, long pants and a shawl and mask covering most of the stranger's face, Elise's Empathy was oddly thrown off. She momentarily wondered how the stranger could withstand the heat with so much clothes on when Jasmyn's plants grew and attempted to ensnare the stranger.

He didn't even try to resist. Jasmyn, sweating with the effort of holding onto the stranger, announced, “I got him!” The stranger bared his teeth in a snarl, `Or was it a grin?' Elise thought. The stranger cocked his head to the left and he vanished out of the tight snare and reappeared slightly to the left of his former prison. Jasmyn's plants were too tangled to be of any more help.

James sent a pocket of wind at the stranger. It would have worked, but he simply held up an arm and gestured, destroying James's hard work.

Logan snarled and lunged for hand-to-hand combat. A harsh voice came from the stranger at this, “Norsen.” All of the lights above and around him began to glow and pure electricity lashed at him. Instead of hurting him, the electricity seemed to dance around the stranger's body. He bared his teeth, but again because everything but his mouth was covered up, no one could see what his true expression was.

Logan knew it would be futile to charge the stranger with all on that power circulating around him. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The stranger continued to bare his teeth. “I am Death! I am here for YOUR SOULS! Mwahahahahahaha!”

Logan backed away, shaken that a madman had this power. Elise felt like she was about to faint. The stranger then pulled his mask off. Familiar gray eyes danced in happiness. “April Fools.” She managed before her friends charged her. She widened her eyes and floated out of reach. “Honestly. One touch could really send you to death.” She scolded. Elise tried to find out if Airen was really mad, but a shield still blocked her emotions.

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(I hope that you taught them better that this, Charles.) Airen questioned as she sent the built-up electricity back to where she'd gotten it.

(I do as well.) Professor Xavier chuckled. (Give them a break. They thought you dead or that you'd abandoned them.)

Airen came back down and allowed her friends to hug her. She thought she'd never see the light of day again. Zenn was the only one who behaved differently. After the others had backed away, he kicked Airen hard and leaned against her, tears coming down his cheeks.

Airen hugged him, wondering what had made him so angry. She decided to ask later.

“Airen, how did you get so strong? Did you find Magneto? Did you fight him? I bet you kicked his butt!” Jasmyn asked, bouncing up and down. Zenn joined the others, waiting for Airen to spill the beans about her travels.

“I'm not certain I can answer all of those questions at once!” Airen laughed. “One at a time.”

“Did you find Magneto?” Elise asked, her eyes shining.

“Yes.” Airen answered simply.

“Did you fight?” Jasmyn asked.

“Yes.” Airen frowned, and rubbed her neck in memory.

“Did you beat him?” Dalton asked casually.

“Yes.” She made sure that Charles couldn't read her mind.

“Did you kill anyone?” James joked, believing that everyone already knew the answer.

Airen stopped rubbing her neck. She shivered remembering Eternity's scream and the smell... “Yes.” She managed.

A shocked silence followed this admission.

“Who was it?”

“Was it Magneto?”

“How'd you kill him?”

“Why did you kill him?”

Airen winced at the flood of questions. “He was a crazy man. He called himself Eternity. He was controlling a friend of mine, trying to make him kill me.” Airen paused. “I destroyed the device that controlled my friend and I killed Eternity with my electric powers.”

James hesitantly asked, “Who's your friend?”

Airen smiled. “His name is Erik.”

“Will we get to meet him?” Elise asked.

“Maybe. I honestly don't know.”

There was another pause. Then James asked, “How did you get so powerful?”

“Erik is a mutant. Our powers are a bit similar so he's teaching me as a `thank you'.”

“And what happened to Magneto? Do you know what he's doing? We heard that the Eiffel Tower vanished then reappeared later. Do you know anything about it?”

Airen laughed long and hard. “I moved the Tower. It was a test of how powerful I was. Did anyone notice that the hotel is facing the wrong way too?” She fell over laughing.

Her friends chuckled nervously. This was Airen, but she was much more powerful. Also, something else about her was different...

“Jasmyn, who's Erik?” Airen managed. She brought them over to the couches. Wolverine, Airen had noticed, had left.

“How should I know?” She demanded, confused.

“You had a crush on `who' that was related to Magneto, also know as...” Airen hinted.

The mention of the `who', Joseph, made Jasmyn blush. “Joseph, who was a clone of Magneto, also known as... Erik!” She shouted the last. Airen winced.

“Ow.” She shook her head. “Plants and supersonic screeches?” Airen joked.

“Wait.” James said, “So you met Magneto, fought him, killed Eternity, and now you're training under him!” He too, ended with shouting.

A headache began to haunt Airen. “Ow...” She said again. “It went something like that...”

“Airen!” Zenn said, very pale now. “Magneto's a killer! You can't trust him! Stay here, with us, so he can't turn on you and hurt you!”

Airen sighed. She'd anticipated that something like this would happen. “I know. But so many weird things have happened. Besides, I'm sure I can trust him. It's weird, but true.” She paused. “It's been nice seeing you. Maybe sometime we'll have a whole day together. I have to talk to the Professor now. Goodbye.

And if I find a way off of this planet, I'll let anyone who wants to leave know immediately.” She ended. Before anyone could argue, Airen had teleported upstairs.

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Just as Airen expected, Xavier had said nothing about her coming back to stay. He'd just asked for her to be careful and to come back soon.

Erik was waiting when Airen came back. He looked both surprised and relieved. He said nothing, but only smiled and said that he'd be going to bed early.

Airen watched his retreating form, worry etched in every part of her body. Usually, he'd ask how her day had been. And he never went to bed early. He and Airen would always think about how they could increase her training without stressing her growing power, or at the least he would complain about not being able to use his powers.

She shrugged. `Maybe he's just tired. I don't know what he's done today.' Airen thought as she decided that going to bed early sounded like a good idea.

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E rik hovered over the ship, silently begging Airen's forgiveness before he flew away.