Fanfiction Collection + EPub Links

Plot: At 14, I found out that I had the same abilities as a mutant who called himself the 'Master Of Magnetism'. A normal life thanks to that is out the question. At times, my life feels like a cosmic joke. But, if there's anyone who can handle an impossible task it's me.

Pairing: Undecided

NOTE: Earlier chapters are good, the later ones might not be so much so

At 14, I was more practical than most ȧduŀts. At the time, I didn't know it yet. I just figured that since I was going to be an ȧduŀt who'd need to provide for myself soon, I should look into my options. I thought that was normal.

I sniffled as I put my hands in the pockets of my hoodie. The air felt crisp as it hit my face. Did I have paper tissues in my bag? The cold told me I'd need them, Chicago was definitely entering winter. I sighed. If I ever moved to another place it would have to be a warmer one.

I crossed the road. My mother and I lived just one block too close to school to get on the school bus. If only we lived just a few streets further, then I wouldn't have to deal with this weather… Still, it could've been worse. At least I wasn't in any danger.

My thoughts were disrupted as a loud bang rippled through the air. One could call it karma. Never talk about being safe if you don't want to jinx yourself. I froze where I stood, gripping the shoulder strap of my bag tightly as my heart raced. From the sound I could tell the gunshot was close and on the ground. A few city blocks over to the left, maybe. More bangs came a few seconds later, this time with not a second in delay. Likely a response to the first. Probably a gang fight. With that conclusion, I exploded into action. I ran as fast as I could and only stopped when I was standing in front of my home. My hands shaked as I fumbled with my keys. Where was that damn key? My heartbeat spiked as the keychain slipped through my fingers.

The shots continued and they were getting closer. Now they didn't sound so far. I cursed my old keys. But put them back in. Wait, these weren't even the right ones! I'd taken the keys to our shed! There was a buzzing and then a crunch. I looked to my left and saw a hole where the wall of our neighbor's house used to be.

Damn it, if they were going to fight over territory they could at least hit each other!

The sight of the hole in the house reminded me that I really, really needed to go inside. Now. That could've been me.

Why did Mom have to go to work early today? I was so screwed. I couldn't even go inside now. I'd left the damn key inside! Panicked, I turned the doorknob and fell into the entrance of the door. I slammed right into the tile floor face first. I didn't even realize I was leaning on the door so hard! Nonetheless, I slammed it behind me and locked up tight. Then ran into the basement and huddled down in a corner.

The slow pops of the first shooter stopped while the quicker ones continued and continued. A pistol versus a semi mostly likely. Then, it stopped. Maybe they ran out of ammunition… Maybe someone died.

I checked my watch. 7:45. I'd have gotten to school by now, had I not been interrupted.

Fuck this, I'm not going.

Risk detention and getting shot at? Nope.

Now that the initial threat was over, my brain started working again, and I noticed something strange. How the hell did my garage keys open the door? Did I switch them out without realising it? Perhaps I had the key to my house all along? I decided that had to be the case. Doors don't just open with the wrong keys.

A ringing came from my pocket. I took out my phone and blinked at the bright screen. One of my teachers.

"Chris?" I heard a slightly nervous woman say.

"Miss Davern," I replied.

"Are you alright?" she asked. "You always walk to school, so… "

"Well, I think I'd be screaming if I were shot," I said, smiling somewhat. .

"Not funny, Chris. Listen, I can swing by and pick you up."

I paused for a second. "Miss, the shooting was only a block away from my house. I don't even want to breathe wrong. What if their buddies show up?"

"But you'll miss your quarter one exams..."

"So? I don't want to risk my life, Miss. And I don't want to put anyone else in danger either."

"But it's mandatory!" she argued, as if I hadn't just talked about a life-and-death situation.

"I can just take it later, right?" I said, confused.

It was silent for a beat. "Chris, you're one of the best scorers in our district," she said lamely.

Are you fuċkɨnġ kidding me?

"Don't care."

"Well, you can't just skip school, Chris!"

"The house next door got shot through. I'm not going anywhere."

The line was silent for a beat. "I'll drive by to pick you up in an hour. You should feel better then. You're a good kid, Chris, you don't skip school."

I do when it could mean getting shot!

I sighed. "Fine, but I'm not paying for the gas."

"Very well."

An hour later I once more grabbed my things, and got into her car.

A thought occurred to me then. I paused before the car door. "Wait, how'd you even get my address?"

"Your files." she said, one eyebrow raised.

I narrowed my eyes. "And they just let anyone have those?"

"No, of course not, but I'm your counselor."

I frowned. "Very secure set up they have there then. Must be Fort Knox." I sighed, then asked "Did they even confirm who you were beforehand? The new receptionist doesn't even know everyone yet."

There was silence as she frowned. Then she said, "If it makes you feel any better, my school gave out graduation yearbooks with everyone's address on them."

"They didn't." I just couldn't fathom the idea.

"Stranger danger wasn't exactly a thought then." she said.

"It's 9:30 and breakfast has already been served…" she said carefully. "Have you…"

"No," I answered as I got into the car. I already knew what she was going to ask.

"Oh." The expression on her face told me enough of what she thought of that.

I looked her in the eye and schooled my expression. "What, are you going to recommend they call Child Protective Services, and take me away?"

"I'm a mandated reporter Chris," she said, and started driving. Mandated reporters are those in the community who are legally obligated to report all suspected child abuse. Though the issue I have is, why would you throw someone in jail for not having the money to care for their kids? Being poor isn't a moral failing.

"And? My mom doesn't hit me darn it. There's nothing for you to report."

"But, can she care for you?" she asked, glancing at me.

"What evidence do you have to prove she can't?"

"It's hard to get evidence since you never talk to anyone. But what I do know is that you're too skinny even for your age and you rarely socialize. You get into these fights with other kids, too."

"Your point?" I said matter-of-factly. "Are you ȧssuming I'm mistreated due to these things alone or is the combination of me being poor and having all of these characteristics? Would you be this suspicious of my mom if we had more money? What if I have a fast metabolism and I'm shy? What if I'm anorexic? Why must you ȧssume my Mom's a bad parent?"

"You're taking this very seriously." She seemed surprised.

"You're accusing my mom of neglect. She could go to prison for that." I glared while looking out the window. "At least make sure you have some evidence for your claims first."

Didn't say anything for a few minutes after that. Normally, a trip to school wouldn't take so long, but it seemed the gods of the traffic lights weren't on my side. As we waited at an intersection, she began to talk again.

"You really have a lawyers' disposition, Chris. Your mom's a single parent, if she lives here she probably doesn't make much anyway. Is it really a surprise I asked? Maybe you should consider…"

I decided to ignore everything that came out her mouth after that.

What does she know anyway? I bet she commutes here from the suburbs. Thinks she can be a hero and save some 'poor, at risk youth' as though. I let my eyes roll.

I lack direction without her 'superior' wisdom. God, people love telling poor people what to do. It's none of her business.

We drove over to a fast food place and she ordered something for herself and asked what I'd like. I got pancakes with hash browns and orange juice. Still, I decided to wait until later to eat it.

"You don't have to wait until we arrive at school if you're hungry."

I'm only hungry because I missed school breakfast, and I missed that because a shooting happened. What do these guys learn at college? Do they think all impoverished moms starve their kids? Jeez.

"I'd only spill the syrup. I'll wait."

She reluctantly accepted.

We went inside. I placed my bag in a box and handed it to a guard before going through the metal detector.

After eating, I was sent to take my district wide test. I quickly started working on it, surprised at how easy the test turned out to be. No wonder American schools were so behind, we were doing algebra at 14 when others did it at 10.

Well, that's it for the math section. On to the next one.

Honestly, I wasn't sure what I expected out of ninth grade. Not much, that was for certain. Even so, it still managed to be one big disappointment. The work was too easy and a lot of kids acted horribly in class, starting fights and such. My Spanish class didn't even have a teacher! If I really wanted to, I could probably get into a better ranked school. After all, my test scores were pretty high.

But that didn't happen, because my mom didn't see the point. I could walk to school here or take a long commute across the city for the other one. So I went to my neighborhood school and I didn't complain. Not all kids were jerks, and I didn't want to leave behind the few friends I managed to make. They were all older than me, and were already there. We could look out for each other this way.

But by the second month, I was starting to get more and more annoyed. I never actually learned anything since school lacked any advanced classes where I had a chance of learning. And the instant teachers found out I actually knew and understood the material, they tried to have me teach people. What about my education? I wasn't there to do their job.

Additionally, some kids, especially the 17 year olds who were still in the 9th grade, did not tolerate anyone smarter than them. They could tolerate the teachers, but to have another kid younger than them be so much better than them? My existence was an insult. It was a good thing I had friends. I got into quite a few fights.

Really it was all more of the same. This had happened in every single grade I'd been in before, why expect different now? Still, for once I actually wanted to do something about it.

So I searched for alternatives and decided to take the GED. Taking this test would certify the equivalent of four years of high school without me actually taking four years to do it. The plan was simple, drop out, take the test and be done.

Mom wasn't at all concerned about taking me out of school. Nor did she worry about me not passing the GED. She had no qualms about signing the paper that said that I was dropping out.

I'd like to think she was confident in me but… To be honest I didn't think she cared much either way. She never did expect much out of me. Work, school? It was all the same to her so long as I was a morally upstanding person who would one day have a wife and kids. I guess such feelings would've been nice and even a relief if I hadn't been an academically inclined kid, but as it stood, the lack of concern actually hurt a lot. There was no pressure, yes, but here was no encouragement either.

My teachers took up the slack for parental concern and warned me to not do it. I'd been called to a room during lunch and they were all there. Even my counselor. They'd heard about me printing various paperwork from the very nosy but maternal librarian and had gathered together to prevent me from making a major mistake. I certainly wasn't the first kid they'd scheduled an intervention for, but I was certainly the strangest case. There were no signs, no warning, no boasting to my friends about how I'd leave and never come back. I had great grades. Had Ms. Clark not noticed I would have simply vanished, one day in class, the next not.

Unlike my Mom, I had to explain myself to them. Well, I didn't have to, but the concern they clearly had made me feel obligated to do so. Sure, it was nagging, but it felt nice to know someone cared. That I was seen. If I had felt this way before I probably wouldn't have gotten to that point. But, I understood why I wasn't quite on their radar. I didn't start fights, I wasn't part of a gang, and was in no danger of failing any classes. So they reserved resources for more serious cases.

So I explained myself. I told them that while I was dropping out, I planned to take my GED and be done with it all. I had taken a practice GED and had passed it almost perfectly on my first time.

The librarian said "We know you'd pass Hon but, why? Did something happen? Did something happen to your Mom? Because if you need to work extra hours to keep the light on, you could tell someone. Leaving school is the nuclear option. A lot of people when they leave, they don't return."

She continued " It's a lot easier to be swept in the wrong things when you don't attend regularly. Even smart kids like you, it is so easy to be pulled into less scrupulous things when you're not in class. When the only teens around you for hours are the ones not attending classes."

"And we don't want that for you." My counselor finished.

They were right. One's peer group is a great predictor of future performance. There's a million studies on it. My friends were all chess fanatics that dabbled in things like fixing computers. None of us started any trouble ourselves.

It wasn't a planned thing. Around 2nd grade, the idea that being the smartest kid in class wasn't a good thing took root. But a lot of the smarter kids didn't quite get that early on. So we were bullied. Some of us started to not care about school at all, the rest of us began hanging out with each other and the clique formed over time. In my tight-knit friend group, being smart was normal. Having high scores on tests was normal. So I didn't feel weird when I was around them. Leaving school, spending hours on the streets during school days alone, would change things. They didn't want to see me on a tv news broadcast.

"I understand. I- It's great you guys care, but my Moms already filed the paperwork. It's not because of money, but I will definitely help out more." I started to explain.

"Then why?" My math teacher Mr. Rodrigez asked.

"I'm-I'm not learning much. I guess it's because I'm not seeing myself progress much here. I know everything I need to. So why stay?" I look away towards the door that I certainly wanted to escape through.

A breath was taken and I met the gaze of my teachers once more. "I won't get into anything. I promise. Thank you for taking the time to gather here, for me. I appreciate the concern but it won't be necessary."

They, being ȧduŀts certainly did not agree and continued to offer alternatives. My math teacher even offered to get me transferred to a better school that was further away. There were magnet Schools that I could attend so long as I had the test scores to get in, and I certainly had that.

That was how he managed when he was in a similar situation in the '80s at my age. It wasn't easy being the only Hispanic kid in most of his classes, but it kept him out of trouble. The violence was even worse back then. Now he had a wife and kids and many of his childhood friends had criminal records.

That story made me think. Maybe I was making a mistake. After the intervention, I went home to talk it over with my Mom. She didn't see the point of the whole thing. Why go to all the trouble for a new school? That would be a lot of commuting. She also didn't like how she'd have to go through another process to enroll me into another school. This was on top of me not being able to help out as much with bills if I went to the school as well. The commute time had to come at the expense of something. She liked my original plan more. So I continued on that course.

A week after being withdrawn from school I took the bus to a center to take the test. I found that the test was fairly straightforward.

I had bȧrėly taken another breath when my thoughts were brought to a halt. A… How do I describe it? An awareness, I suppose, encased my body. I suddenly knew where all the pencil tips, phone batteries, and zippers were without looking. I just knew. My breath stopped as I clutched my pencil and tried to calm my heart.

Seconds turned into minutes. I glanced around carefully, but no one seemed to notice anything wrong. Just me, then. I couldn't help the smile that pulled at the corners of my mouth. The awareness soon expanded to every piece of metal within a 2 mile. It felt so, so, so damn nice. Like the scalp massages my Mom gave me as a kid. A tingling sensation went through my scalp and down my shoulders.

I was so entranced that I didn't bother summoning up the energy to glare at a neighbor who was copying my answers. I knew he was looking at me, but I couldn't bring myself to care.

Luckily, these things had a tendency of working themselves out. The pencil the guy held did a sudden arc on and through his answer document. After that, it stayed in the air, spinning erratically. He looked at it as though he was staring at a ghost in the face. The other test takers were too busy with their tests to care.

Then it all stopped. I was abruptly returned to normal. The weird but calming feeling went away. After I processed the shock of being dropped back into normalcy, I noted that the pencil was still flying around. I had a guess about why this would be the case. And I knew I had to do something if my guess was right and I wanted to live to see my 20th birthday.

This has to stop. How-

Just after I thought this, the pencil dropped out of the air.

That was too strange for me to write the incident off as a coincidence. As I easily took the rest of the test, in my mind I worked out that I was obviously a mutant. It made sense, the sudden awareness of things far away, the pencil spinning after I was annoyed at someone. I realised that even the key incident a few weeks prior fit the description. The puzzle pieces were all clicking together in my mind.

It was a good thing powers had kicked in now. What would I have done if I had had to enter a building with a metal detector? Sure, they could have thought it was the machine's fault, but they could've also figured out that I had powers over time. How many times would an excuse of technical difficulties work if I had gone to school each day and the machine only acted strangely around me? How dumb would the guards have to been to they think it was only coincidence? After all, with all the mutant horror stories on the news, even a small red flag would set off alarm bells for most.

After the test, I walked out with only one thing on my mind. This had to remain a mother was too enamored with sermons laced with hate to let me stay with her if she found out.

I was no fool. I'd read the stories. 'Mutant Terrorizes Town!', 'Mutie Girl Kills Boyfriend!', 'The Mutant Evil!' Sensationalist titles grabbed headlines, but when you thought about it, the stories were ridiculous. Yes, of course the teen decided one day to destroy the town he had lived in his whole life. Of course that girl decided to attack the love of her life. Of course the man murdered his entire family on purpose! Because, as we all know, terrorism and murder are things people always do suddenly. There are never any warning signs and people always suddenly switch from loving their family to murdering them with ease. There's no way it could be an accident, caused by getting powers they didn't understand. Yes, I'm obviously being sarcastic.

And yes, of course we totally needed to hunt down mutants brutally. Everyone knew the only way to solve our problems was with a gun. And if that didn't solve the problem, you just needed more guns.

Regardless of the lack of logic, at least these articles gave me some insight into what the consequences of failing to hide my abilities would be. They'd ship me away and say I was 'being handled' as the article called it. I couldn't let anyone find out.

Then another, more terrifying realization bashed in the head. My powers, they were all related to metal, everything I had sensed in the classroom was metal. And the only one who has powers similar to that…

I was not panicking, I was not panicking. I only walked out of the center and into an alley to throw up because I had an upset stomach caused by bad food. That was totally plausible even if I didn't eat anything that day, right? Oh, who was I kidding? I was so screwed.

Unfortunately, I was a special case. A mutant who called himself 'The Master Of Magnetism' shared my abilities. Whatever happened to the other mutants would only be magnified in my case. I'd be interrogated for information I didn't know, and if they were extraordinarily dull they'd think he was my father. If I was lucky I'd eventually figure out which vein to slice with my -plastic of course- knife and end it that way. What? I'd be imprisoned for life anyway. No point in drawing it out.

'I'd kill myself to spite the FBI'. Huh, that phrase could be on a t-shirt.

The obvious conclusion was that I needed to learn to control my - gift. Burden? I couldn't even tell my mother. Thanks to her zealous following of William Stryker and his radical interpretations of the Bible, she'd think I was a demon. Or that I'd at least made a deal with one.

I headed home.

I need a job.

I had the brains to be a doctor or lawyer, yes, but that would take too long. I needed something I could train for quickly so I'd at the very least not become homeless if I had to run. My powers could expose themselves at any time.

Given this need for short-term results and my new affinity for metal I decided to become a mechanic.

My mother managed to get me a job at a lab working security. Yes, even the working poor network.

The hours were long, which the pay was bȧrėly enough to compensate for. Even so, I loved that job. I spent hours reading in the dimly lit camera room. Being paid to read, it was perfect.

I found a small steel pipe in an abandoned lot and spent much of my time shaping it into various miniature models of things in my books as I read. If I lacked material to read I'd often play with it like clay for hours on end. This honed my abilities considerably.

The more I read the more I wanted to know. On my scarce off days I could always be found in the junkyard. There, away from the pressures of living I could simply be and enjoy the metal that jumped at my requests.

Once I'd acquired a small sum of money, I bought the cheapest car that looked like it could still drive. I was never one to shy from a challenge and by February it was restored to its former glory. In the end, I sold it back to the junk yard manager, who was very surprised that I'd managed to fix it.

The profit wasn't a lot considering how long I had spent on the car (the car had every possible problem a car could have), but I thought long and hard about what to do with the extra money.

I came to the conclusion that I couldn't tell my mother. I didn't see why someone who worked as hard and earned as little as she did would give all her extra money (as well as some that would've gone to bills) to a church. They were literally taking food out of our mouths and shamed my Mom for not contributing. Some 'loving community' they were.

Besides, this was exactly what I wanted in the first place. I bought another car with the money and spent the rest of the money on the repairs. In a few weeks, I finally had my own personal haven. Somewhere that was actually mine.

One night, I looked outside the window smiling. I turned back to my bookshelf in the back of my car and my fingers touched the covers of my books.

Now they'd never be burned in a fit of fanatical fervor. Never again.

No one can take this away from me. I'll always have somewhere to go.

I buried myself in my blankets and started reading with a flashlight.