PROLOGUE —
( Focus on my voice. )

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nineteen fifty-eight

Five-year-old Lydia Xavier sat in her bedroom in the mansion, quietly giggling to herself as the glowing green magic danced around her body. She watched as it shot up into the air, a small butterfly forming before beginning to flutter its wings and fly around the room. Lydia shrieked when it came flying towards her, only to go straight through her small body. She then held her hand out to her side where soon enough, the butterfly landed on her palm. She smiled brightly as the butterfly turned into a ballerina that began doing continuous pirouettes.

There was a knock on her door and Lydia stopped the magic as her much older half-brother and non-biological sister, Charles Xavier and Raven Darkholme walked in. They looked down at the younger girl with curious eyes as Lydia stood up.

"Charlie! Ravey!" The small girl exclaimed as she hugged her brother's leg, then hugged Raven's.

"Lyds, why are you so happy?" Charles smiled at his sister — his only biological family member left alive.

"Charlie, look." Lydia let go of her sister's leg and held her hand out. Soon enough, a small green-coloured puppy playfully ran around her bedroom and began jumping on her bed.

"Woah," Raven looked at Lydia's mutant abilities in awe, having never seen something so beautiful in her life.

Charles smiled at his sister and then bent down to her level, turning Lydia's attention back to her brother. "Wasn't that amazing?" The girl exclaimed with a bright smile.

Charles smiled and nodded, his eyes watering at how proud he was of his sister. "It is amazing, Lyds."

"Aww, Charlie is crying," Raven said in a baby voice as she smirked. Charles gave the girl a playful warning look.

"Does that mean I'm special like you two?" Lydia curiously asked.

Charles smiled and nodded. "Yes, you are like Raven and me, but you were always special to us." He then ticked his sister's stomach and she dropped onto the ground with a giggle as she rolled around.

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nineteen sixty-two

Nine-year-old Lydia sat at her school desk, paying no attention to what her teacher was teaching as she had already learnt that and much more through Charles. Lydia's gaze kept flickering up to the clock on the wall to see when school would finish. At least half an hour left. She sighed and looked back down towards the blackboard that contained notes on science.

"Ugh, when can I go home? I'm hungry," a boy who was seated behind Lydia asked.

Lydia turned around to face him and smiled lightly. "Thirty minutes," she replied.

The boy gave her a dirty look. "I didn't say anything, you weirdo."

Lydia frowned and turned back around. "What is wrong with her?" Some other girl asked from somewhere behind Lydia. This time, she didn't turn around to face her, but instead, looked around the classroom as the girl and many other kids in the classroom began to speak. "Why doesn't she have any friends?" "Why doesn't she have any parents?" "Why does she always sit by herself?" "She's so weird."

Lydia's breathing began to turn erratic as the voices grew louder and louder, a pain in her head forming as more and more voices began to fill her brain. They were the voices of kids from other classrooms this time — some of them daydreaming and others focussing on the subject they were learning. Lydia could no longer concentrate on the teacher — the voices were too loud and too disturbing. She placed her head in her hands and squeezed her eyes shut and focussed as hard as she could on blocking out all of the voices, but to no avail.

"Is there a problem, Lydia?" the teacher asked as she slowly began to walk up to the girl, but Lydia couldn't hear her. How could she when there were hundreds of voices speaking all at once in her brain? Lydia began to whimper and tears ran down her cheeks as she tried her hardest to block out all of the noises. Suddenly, a hand was placed upon her shoulder and Lydia let out a loud cry as a wave of green magic shot out of her body and caused her teacher, who had been the person to place her hand onto Lydia's shoulder, crash into the wall. The children all screamed out in terror as all of them scattered out of their seats and ran to the back of the room. The teacher looked up at Lydia in fright who had stared at what had happened in horror before sprinting out of the classroom and down the hall.

The voices were still loud while Lydia ran away from her classroom. She had no idea where to go until she found an empty janitor's closet that she ran inside of and locked the door behind her before sitting on the ground and placing her hands over her ears.

"Lydia! Open this door up right away!" She could hear her teacher ordering from the other side as she began to knock on the door. "Lydia, I will call your brother!" Lydia couldn't even hear her teacher speak. The only thing she could hear were her classmates on the other side of the door talking about her.

"What the hell is she?"

"Is she an alien?"

"What is wrong with her?"

"She's a creep."

All of a sudden, her classmate's voices stopped.

"Lydia," a quiet voice spoke, almost like a whisper. The voice sounded familiar, but with the other voices plaguing her mind, it was hard for Lydia to concentrate. "Lydia, it's Charlie. Focus on my voice only."

"What is wrong with me?" Lydia whimpered out loud, still hearing the hundreds of other voices in her head.

"You can hear everything, can you? Everyone's thoughts."

Lydia nodded. "I can hear them all."

Charles sighed, "I didn't think it was possible for someone to have more than one mutation, especially considering your first one was ergokinesis which is quite a powerful mutation to conceive."

"Charlie, please, please help the voices stop," Lydia whimpered.

"Okay, just concentrate on my voice," Charles began, his soothing voice calming Lydia down slightly. "I want you to just focus on my voice, so I want you to do that for me. Just focus on my voice, Lyds." Lydia squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to drown out all the surrounding voices and focus on his voice only. "Pretend it's the only thing in the world and it's something you desperately need. Concentrate on it. Can you do that for me? Can you concentrate on my voice only?"

Lydia screwed her eyes shut, concentrating on Charles' voice and his voice only. Soon enough, the other voices plaguing her mind faded away and turned to nothing, and she was left with an eerie silence. Lydia slowly stood to her feet, wiped the tears from her eyes and opened up the door. Charles was on the other side, a small smile on his face. Lydia noticed in an instant that all of her classmates and her teacher were frozen, something Charles had learnt to do over the years.

"You did it," Charles smiled down at his sister.

Lydia smiled back at him as she pulled him into a hug, making her relax in an instant. Then she remembered what she did and pulled away quickly. Lydia guiltily looked up at her brother. "I may or may not have accidentally thrown my teacher across the classroom when she touched my shoulder," she told him lightly.

Charles threw his head back and laughed. "Of course, you did," he told her, before waving his fingers in front of his temple. "Don't worry, I have that all sorted out," he said with a cheeky smile before clearing all of their minds of the last ten minutes, leaving Lydia's classmates and her teacher standing in the corridor in confusion, wondering how they got there.

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