Once again you and the rest of the mutants were sitting in a room in the CIA base. Much like the one you were previously in, but this one had a window. You silently sulked in one of the couches, apparently you weren't allowed to wander around the base, so you were asked, cough ordered, to stay in the room.

"I didn't know the circus was in town." You were broken out of your sulking when someone outside broke the silence.

"Hey, come on, honey." The other man looked at Angel, "give us a little..." he motioned towards flapping with her wings. You were too tired to mess with their emotions to make them leave, fortunately, Hank had it under control. "No? Come on, Big Foot, let's go." Hank sighed and flipped the switch to close the blinds.

"They're just guys being stupid." Raven soothed to Angel.

Angel looked up to Raven, "guys being stupid, I can handle. Okay? I've handled that my whole life." You glanced at Angel and sent her some reassuring emotions, "but I'd rather a bunch of guys stare at me with my clothes off than the way these ones stare at me."

"At us." Raven corrected. You all nodded and looked down in shame. Having these powers was cool and all, but it came at a cost, and it didn't seem like any of you were prepared to pay said cost.

There was a crash and the somber atmosphere was immediately replaced with a tense atmosphere. "What was that?"

"Something doesn't feel right." You sent your reach outside of the walls of your room and physically recoiled from shock.

"What is it (y/n)?" Raven noticed your flinch.

"There's an attack outside." You whispered, "they're attacking the base!" you ran to open the blinds and froze when you saw the red man disappearing and reappearing, causing guards to fall from the sky.

"Nope!" Hank declared as he shut the blinds.

You snapped yourself out of your reverie and just barely managed to make eye contact before the blinds shut. It was enough for you, you let yourself fall to the floor as you exchanged emotions with the red man. You traded his anger for your calmness. 'You don't want to kill them, you just want to stun them.' You didn't have telepathy like Charles, so it's not that he actually heard what you said, but he could feel it with your emotions. You could faintly hear in the background someone shouting at you to get away from the window, but you were too engrossed in your work to even care. You kept up the constant exchange of you taking his fury while feeding your own calm emotions into him, you couldn't see out of his eyes, but you had a feeling it was working, because there no longer was a constant barrage of death.

Someone grabbing your body snapped you out of your reverie. Alex had grabbed you away from the wall as the wall on the other side crumbled. The glass you were in front of shattered only a moment after you and Alex were out of the way. The entire gang was huddled against one wall of the room. On your right, a man with tornado powers was steadily advancing, on the left, the red man stepped into the room through the window.

There was a banging on the door in front of you, "you want the mutants? They're right through that door. Just let us normal people go. We're no threat." You felt tears prickle at your eyes, they were selling out you and your friends to save their life. You didn't blame them, but it still hurt.

The door burst down and a third man walked into the room. You quickly glanced at the three intruders and noticed that the last man was clearly the leader. "Where's the telepath?" he demanded. You tried to get into his emotions to convince him to back off and go away, but for some reason, when you tried, it was like a barrier was keeping you from entering his mind.

"Not here." The red man replied.

"Too bad. Well, at least I can take this silly thing off." The man took off the metal helmet that he was wearing. You quirked an eyebrow when the helmet came off and you could feel all his emotions. That helmet was clearly no ordinary helmet. "Good evening. My name's Sebastian Shaw. And I'm not here to hurt you." You glanced dubiously at your friends and then back at him. If he wasn't going to hurt you, then what did he want? "My friends, there's a revolution coming. When mankind discovers who we are, what we can do, each of us will face a choice. Be enslaved or rise up to rule. Choose freely, but know that if you are not with us, then by definition, you are against us." You narrowed your eyes, so this was what he was after. He wanted to recruit you guys. You tried to get in his mind to convince him otherwise, but you were at a loss as to what emotions you could play with, so you just let yourself sit back. "So, you can stay and fight for the people who hate and fear you. Or you can join me, and love like kings and queens." He put out a hand as if waiting for someone to break away from the group and join him. You sent him an emotional arrow of pure hatred that seemed to actually affect him, as he winced for a moment. There was no way any of you guys would go leave with him-wait what? Angel stepped away from the group and took Shaw's hand. You felt your jaw drop. Why?

"Angel?" Raven's voice was wavering.

"Are you kidding me?" Alex demanded.

You sent yourself into Angel's emotions and felt the determination and anger towards humans. Of course. The sort of offer Shaw just gave her was clearly what she would want. And the event that happened minutes ago probably fueled some of that anger.

"Come on. We don't belong here. And that's nothing to be ashamed of." Angel explained to the rest of the gang.

"Stop, I'm coming with you." You gaped as Darwin walked over to join Shaw and Angel.

"Good choice." Shaw smirked, "so, tell me about your mutation?"

"Well, I adapt to survive." Darwin answered, "So, I guess I'm coming with you."

"I like that." You wanted nothing more than to slap that smirk off of Shaw's face, but you didn't have to.

"Alex!" Darwin shouted as he turned himself into a rock and protected Angel. Alex unleashed a barrage of red energy towards Shaw who somehow was able to contain the energy without dying. In fact, he collected the energy into a small ball of concentrated seething energy.

Once again you found your mind at a loss for words. Obviously he was a mutant, but that is a scary skill if you've ever seen one.

"Protecting your fellow mutants? That's a noble gesture." Shaw gave a sinister smile and held Darwin up by his neck.

You threw your mind into Shaw's and frantically siphoned the anger out of him and into yourself while replacing it with a more amiable emotion.

Shaw faltered and glared at you before he placed the helmet back on his head. You forgot about that helmet. You shouted in frustration as you helplessly watched him take the ball of energy and force it into Darwin's throat, "adapt to this."

You watched in horror as Shaw's gang, including Angel, disappeared with a flash of red smoke. Then to Darwin who rapidly tried to deal with the fiery energy inside his body as he went from metal, to rock, and then finally exploding with fire.

"Darwin!" you wailed, even though you had only known him for a little bit, his death was still a huge toll on you.