CHAPTER THREE —
( I thought I was the only one. )

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A little over a week later and Lydia, Charles and Raven were headed to the CIA Headquarters in Virginia where Charles was going to tell the main agents about mutation in today's society. Moira was a little confused as to why Charles was now being accompanied by a ten year-old girl instead of his 'mother', but he quickly explained to her that their 'mother' had to run some errands and he had to look after Lydia.

"The advent of the nuclear age may have accelerated the mutation process. Individuals with extraordinary abilities may already be among us. Thank you very much." Charles turned off the PowerPoint presentation and then sat down besides Lydia.

"MacTaggert, you really think that some crackpot scientist is going to make me believe in sparkly dames and vanishing men?" Stryker asked Moira. Lydia's hands clenched up in anger at what he called her brother, before Charles grabbed onto her hand to calm her down. "You just bought yourself a one-way ticket back to the typing pool. This meeting is over."

Moira went to stand up. "Please sit down, Agent MacTaggert." She frowned lightly at Charles before sitting back down. Charles turned his gaze towards Stryker. "I didn't really expect you to believe me, given that all you could think about during the presentation was what sort of pie they were serving in the commissary." Lydia placed her head in her hands and went through the man's head herself. "Isn't that right, Lyds?"

Lydia stared at Stryker and then nodded. "Well, he isn't wrong."

"They are serving Apple Pecan," Charles told him. "Which just happens to be Lydia's favourite." He then turned towards Moira. "We haven't been entirely honest with you, love. I'm sorry. You see, one of the many spectacular things our mutation allows us to do is that we can read your minds."

"I've seen this before in a magic show," Agent Stryker laughed. "Are you gonna ask us to think of a number between one and ten now?"

"No, Agent Stryker. Although, I could ask you about your son, William, who you were thinking about, which is very nice," Charles smirked. "But I think I'd rather ask you about the Jupiter missiles America are currently placing in Turkey."

All of the agents looked at the duo with wide-eyes. "They are goddamn spies. You brought goddamned spies into this facility!"

Lydia stared at everyone with her mouth agape as all of the Agent's in the room began to yell at each other, so she quickly stood up and placed her hand towards the roof. Green shot out from her hand and spread across the roof with little bits of green glitter beginning to fall down, much like snow, and then stopped when it got close to everyone's heads. Everyone looked up at the sky in awe, and Lydia smiled at everyone. Raven then stood up and turned herself into Agent Stryker, and he stared back at her with his eyebrows raised and mouth agape.

"How's that for a magic trick?" Charles grinned.

"Ta-da!" Lydia waved her hands.

A man sitting at the back smiled. "Best I've ever seen."

"I want them out of here and locked down until I can figure out what to do," Stryker ordered.

"My facility is off-site," the man at the back spoke up. "I'll take them."

↠↠↠

The man, whose name was Jordan, took the trio to the upstairs garage. Charles held Lydia's hand so that he could keep an eye out for her, especially considering she showed the Agents in the previous room what she could do, and because it also makes him feel like he's protecting her. Jordan kept rambling on about how he knew people like them existed when Charles placed one hand against his temple and began to contact Moira.

"I've always known that there were people like you three out there. I've been the laughing stock of this agency for years, but I knew it!"

"Yes, well done to you," Lydia sarcastically said.

"You are gonna love my facility," Jordan grinned.

"That's going to have to wait," Charles told him.

"Why?"

"Agent MacTaggert has a lead on Sebastian Shaw, and if we don't move now, apparently, we're going to lose him," Charles said and Moira's car stopped in front of them.

"What?" Jordan asked.

"Charles can't only read minds, he can communicate with people, too," Lydia explained to Jordan.

"Moira and I have just had a lovely conversation." Raven hopped into the car and Lydia got in after her.

"Yes, we did," Moira said.

"That is incredible!" Jordan smiled. "But I cannot take you anywhere else without permission from upstairs."

Charles turned to Jordan. "Would you like to see another magic trick?"

He looked at Charles with wide eyes. "Yes!"

Charles placed his fingers against his temple. "Get in the car."

"Great idea." Jordan hopped into the spot besides Lydia and Charles got into the passenger seat before Moira took off.

↠↠↠

Lydia, Charles, Moira, Raven and Jordan all stood on a ship that was heading straight towards Sebastian Shaw's yacht. The US Coast Guards sent out smaller boats and headed towards the yacht, just as Charles and Lydia went through the mutants in the boats minds and watched as a woman in white threw a man off of the boat.

The Coast Guard ship that they were on sounded out a loud horn. "I knew I should have left you at home," Charles mumbled lightly to Lydia.

Lydia sighed. "I'm perfectly fine, and you can't leave me by myself all the time."

"I know, but you're only ten. Dad would be disappointed in me if he knew I was letting you join me in these sort of situations," he said.

"But he's not here to make these sort of decisions, you are," Lydia told him. "And I'm here now, so there's not really much you can do at this stage."

"This is the US Coast Guard. Do not attempt to move your vessel. Stay where you are," the speaker from the ship sounded.

Lydia went through Shaw's head to see if he was going to react harshly at the smaller ships heading their way. "They have two telepaths," the crystal lady spoke and then proceeded to block out her head and Charles'.

Lydia and Charles both groaned in frustration. "What is it?" Moira asked.

"We've lost Shaw," Lydia responded.

"There's something blocking us. This has never happened before," Charles told her. "I think there's someone like us on that ship."

"Not even I have learnt to block you out of my head yet," Lydia said.

"Like you?" Moira questioned.

"A telepath," Lydia responded.

"I could actually feel her inside my mind," Charles turned to Jordan. "I'm very sorry, but I don't think I'm going to be much help tonight. You're on your own."

A man who was on the yacht began to move his arms around and mini tornados formed from his hands. He sent them out towards the boats and Lydia watched with her eyebrows raised as the smaller boats were flown into the air and flipped over.

"Get inside," Jordan told them quickly.

Charles held onto Lydia's hand again and pulled her along as they hurried down a set of stairs to get themselves inside the boat when a large pain spread across both of their heads. "Stop, stop, stop," Charles quickly told them as he gripped onto his head.

Lydia let go of Charles' hand and grabbed onto her own head, feeling someone's loud thoughts and raging emotions take over her mind, causing her focus on controlling everyone's thoughts to stay out of her head fade away. "Charles, Lydia, are you okay?" Raven quickly asked.

"There's someone like us out there." Charles quickly ran up the stairs and towards the deck of the ship, Lydia following quickly behind him. They walked towards the edge and watched as the yachts anchor flew up into the sky. "There," Charles pointed out. The long chain and the anchor flew up and then smashed down into the yacht, destroying the ship. Lydia went through the man who was doing that—Erik's—head.

"He can control metal," Lydia told them.

A submarine came out from under the yacht and began to swim away, so Erik used his metal abilities to try and pull it towards him, but it only succeeded in pulling Erik along with it.

"Let go!" Lydia called out to him.

"You have to let it go!" Charles called out. "You've got to put someone in the water to help him."

"Let go, Erik!" Lydia yelled.

Charles urgently looked around and then quickly ran towards the side of the ship and dove into the water. Lydia watched frantically as her brother swam over towards Erik and dived down into the water to try to get him to stop. "You can't pull it back. You'll drown," Charles' voice went through his mind. "Please don't do this to yourself. You're going to die if you don't let it go."

Lydia immediately let out a big sigh of relief when she watched both Charles and Erik pop up out of the water, and then let herself and her mind calm down as the two calmly conversed with one another.

AUTHORS NOTE
Here's a meme my loves lol