By ten o'clock, every night, no students were permitted to leave their rooms. The boys lived on the second floor while the girls lived on the third. Leaving your room and your floor would result in severe punishment. Still, at eleven o'clock on the dot, I heard a knock on my door, sending a jolt through my heart and body.
I lept out of bed and stepped toward my door. With each step, that distortion from our connection made the room feel like it was spinning. I put on a nonchalant facade as I opened it. Illyana was on the other side with folded arms, covering the band name on her black T-shirt. Her pajama pants had the same Jack Skellington symbol copied and pasted.
"Hey," I whispered.
"You ready?"
"Yeah."
Illyana led the way. She and I tip-toed through the boy's floor until we passed by Ty's room. I could hear him talking to a girl inside his room, presumable Tandy. I realized then that these rules and their consequences were hardly enforced or perhaps Ty and Tandy just didn't care. Regardless, I felt a little less anxious about being caught.
Illyana and I walked up the steps until we reached the fourth and final floor, which had a half-staircase that led to the roof of the building. However, just like the entrance on the first floor, there was a camera guarding the door to the roof. Illyana and I stopped outside of the camera's sightline.
"Damn it," she said after clicking her tongue. "I thought only the entrance had cameras."
"Well, we're mutants. A good number of us could probably find a way down from the roof, so it makes sense," I told her.
"Yeah, yeah. I guess. Looks like we'll need to find another way. Perhaps we can enlist the help of Kitty."
"Or, you can just watch and learn, but we gotta be fast." As I spoke, I held my palm toward the camera. When I closed my hand into a fist, a temporal bubble formed around the camera and it was frozen in time while Illyana and I were unaffected.
"The camera is frozen, let's go." I ran up the steps and Illyana followed, just before my ability expired, we pushed the door open and got blasted by the cool, night air.
"Well, that was pretty easy," I chuckled as I spoke, looking over at my escape mate.
"So you can make time bubbles? Pretty sick," Illyana said.
"I mean, it's not that impressive. It's only for a few seconds."
"Wow, Mr. Popular is so modest."
I paused for a moment. "Mr. Popular?"
"You were the dodgeball MVP. Didn't your friends tell you that's a big deal? Especially for a newbie. It also helps that you're..." Illyana looked me up and down. "...not bad looking."
She wasn't exactly being straightforward; yet, I still found myself feeling flustered. She'd taken notice, smirking ever so slightly before changing the subject.
"So, teach me how to use my powers."
"Yeah, yeah... Uh..." I stammered, realizing then that I had never thought about how I would teach her. However, after a moment's passing, I realized something: I unconsciously possessed her body's muscle memory.
Without realizing it, I started rubbing my face, lost in thought. Ever since I got my powers, I never even tried to see what exactly I could do with them. Sure, I've been getting powers through that weird arcana thing... but I should also have some natural abilities, right?
Illyana's memories were as clear as my own, her powers and mine were similar, she too could send her body through time and space, though through different methods. As I swam through her sea of memories, I saw her firing temporal projectiles from her hands; if she could do it, then so could I. Thus, I could reteach her.
I extended my hand toward the edge of the mansion and aimed toward the starry sky. A pinkish, violet started to boil over in my palms before I fired a beam of what looked like light but was actually temporal energy.
"Holy shit... It worked..." I mumbled, looking at my own glowing palm.
"Uhm..." Illyana leaned into my field of view, pointing to herself. "I think you forgot the part where you teach me."
"Well, I wanted to try it out myself first..."
Illyana furrowed her brow, looked at my hand, and took a step backward. "You mean, you've never done that until now?"
"Nope. I just did what you did in the memories I watched... I sort of have your muscle memory now."
"Do you think that's why you and I seem to be connected somehow? Our powers are similar?"
"That's looking like a very likely possibility," I extended my hand once more, looking at Illyana. "Put out your hand like this."
Illyana did as I said, aiming her palm toward the stars alongside me. "Now imagine if there was a network inside of your body. Your powers course through that network, but you have to consciously focus on that energy and bring it to your hands in order to harness it."
"So like blood going through my veins?"
"Gross. But sure. Imagine your heart is pumping temporal energy and you are consciously sending that energy through your blood and into your fingertips."
Illyana's eyes were closed; she couldn't see the moonlight-colored light emanating from her fingertips. Its size and intensity outshined mine; she opened her eyes and released that energy shooting it into the sky and parting the clouds.
"Hmm... Like that?" she asked me, smirking arrogantly.
"Yeah... I think so. Looked pretty good to me."
All it took was for her to perform the spell once and she was able to do it on command. Her blasts littered the sky like shooting stars, even my wimpy ones were lighting the night sky. After a while, I started getting the hang of it, and I too was able to fire large blasts; though mine weren't as big as hers.
"You're getting pretty good at that," she teased.
"Yeah, I'm realizing that our powers, despite being similar, are also very different. Your powers are sorcery while mine are..."
The word I was looking for was divine, I am the God of Time, Chronos, after all. However, I wasn't ready to tell anyone about that part of me just yet.
"My powers have nothing to do with magic. That said, I have to change my technique a little if I want to unlock their full potential."
Illyana hummed as she followed along. "I understand. It's like how you can solve the same math problem with a different formula."
"Exactly. Your formula works, but I think there's a better one for me," I looked at the stars as I spoke. When I looked back at Illyana, I noticed her staring at her hands with a bittersweet smile.
"Thank you, Shai... I can't thank you enough. I've felt like part of my life was taken from me for the longest time. If hadn't run into you, who knows if I would have ever learned about Xavier's meddling..."
"It's no problem, really. I'm glad I could help."
Illyana exhaled humorously with a smile. "No ulterior motives, hm?" she teased.
"I mean, I knew that helping you would help me learn more about my powers. It's only been a few days since I've heard them at this point."
Illyana's smile faded. "Right. Your parents didn't want you, I take it?"
"Nope. Heard it's a common thing around here."
"Pretty much. That or they accidentally killed their parents upon discovering their powers..."
"Jesus... That's horrible."
"Yeah."
There was a silence between us. Without saying anything, we both sat at the edge of the roof, looking out into the almost infinitely spanning wilderness ahead.
"Is it weird that I don't hate my parents?" I asked her.
"No... After all these years, part of me still loves mine. Even after they abandoned me and my brother. I often wonder if they ever miss us. Do they ever regret their initial reaction or for abandoning us."
"I thought the same," I told her. "I nearly went back home the first day, hoping things would cool off... But part of me feared being at the other end of my father's gun again, so I kept running."
Illyana looked at me with glassy eyes. "He pulled a gun on you?"
"Yeah, my dad really hates mutants. It's funny, he's a big Spider-Man fan... What's the difference between him and us mutants? We both have powers... If it's true that his came from a spider bite, why does that matter? In the end, we're both humans with incredible powers."
"Sometimes..." Illyana paused. "I think humans just need something to hate. Someone to blame."
"You're right about that," I told her, still looking ahead. "I think I hate Spider-Man," I said jokingly.
Illyana playfully scoffed. "He is weird and very annoying," she said with a laugh. "But a kind man. He's treated us with the most kindness out of all the others."
"Really?"
Illyana nodded. "He said he knows how it feels to be the little guy and that he'll always swing by if we need his help..."
Sighing, I rested my back on the roof and gazed at the moon. "I guess I'll have to hate someone else... Iron Man. I heard he's a dick."
"Iron Man is a massive dick! I can't stand him." Illyana threw herself back beside me, placing her arms behind her head as she joined me in star gazing.
Illyana and I talked about heroes we liked and disliked for a while until a resounding silence took over. I glanced over at Illyana, compelling her to glance at me. There was only about a foot of space between her face and mine; it was then that I realized that the strange displacement I felt around her was nearly nonexistent. I brought up magnets before and how I couldn't tell whether or not she and I were being pulled toward each other or away. At this moment, I knew for a fact that she and I were finally being pulled together.
"I'm glad we met," I told her.
"I feel the same. Same time tomorrow?"
"Same time tomorrow," I confirmed with a nod.
Once more, time froze around me but this time I didn't hear Chronos speak to me. However, I could still see words hovering in my field of vision. My 'Social Link' with Illyana leveled up and was now level two. Alongside my new level, I was granted even more power. My new ability was called Temporal Rewind, allowing me to rewind time around an object or person.
Just like how I can send myself backward through space and time, I can now do it to others.
Time resumed; Illyana and I were still locking eyes. Part of me felt guilty, we were getting so close and I was profiting off of it, getting stronger the closer we got. But it's not like I was only hanging out with her for that reason; in fact, I didn't even realize our relationship would 'rank up'. I did, however, wonder how she would feel if she ever found out about my Social Link System.
Lost in thought, I failed to notice Illyana leaning in close until her lips locked with mine. It's safe to say that I was dumbfounded. My voice was muffled by her mouth as she pinned down my tongue with hers. She was aggressive and experienced, unlike me; I would be lying if I said I wasn't scared but equally into it.
She pulled away from me, leaving a trail of saliva between us. "I'm sorry, I've been thinking about doing that for the last five minutes."
"Wow..." was the only word I could muster up before she and I headed for the stairs.
Once we made it back inside, she and I went our separate ways. Funnily enough, I ran into Roberto of all people, walking up the stairs with a bag of chips from the pantry, which was also closed at ten o'clock.
He looked at Illyana, then he looked at me, then back at Illyana.
"No fucking way," he said with a mouth full of nacho cheese-flavored chips.
"What? We were just talking," I lied.
"Dude. There's black smudges all over your face. You two were totally swapping spit just now."
I started rubbing my face, only to find that the residue from her makeup did in fact stick to my skin, which was now on my hands. I looked over Roberto's shoulder, only to see Illyana looking back at me like a devil. She knew what she did.
She marked her territory.