Self discovery

[ana]

It was some time before the medical staff would let her go, and when they finally had done all of their tests and observations, Ana found herself ready to collapse. She was desperately thirsty for some reason, probably that she had felt rude asking for more water when they were doing so much for her, but she didn't even slake her thirst before collapsing into bed.

She awoke with a headache, her mouth dry and her eyes crusted with sleep. Looking at her watch, she realised that she'd slept well into the day, and she rose and crossed to the ensuite feeling terribly groggy. Cupping her hand under the sink, the young woman took a drink. Eventually, her belly felt full enough, though she still felt faintly thirsty, and she rose to look at herself in the mirror.

She looked a mess. Her hair was going everywhere and she looked like she should still be in bed. Groaning, Ana pushed her hair out of her face and leant over to turn the shower on.

She had another one of those odd moments of clarity as she was pulling off her shirt, feeling every drop of water resting in the sink, the person walking in the hallway outside, the droplets falling as if in slow motion in the shower. She could even feel the steam rising, and she frowned as she stepped out of her pants and thrust one hand into the stream of water to see how hot her shower was.

Too hot, she could tell, but as she looked down at her hand she realised that she hadn't actually been touched by a single drop of water. They were diverting around her hand as if there was an invisible shield, and she found herself frowning at that as she reached over to turn the cold tap on further. The water still avoided her until it was the right temperature, when she finally felt the pressure of the drops hitting her arm.

"That's odd."

Stepping into the shower, Ana held her hands like a scoop to catch the water, watching as the droplets joined together to form a blob that didn't escape through her fingers as it usually would have.

She pulled her hands apart. The blob of water stretched to form a bridge between them.

"That's not possible."

All the laws of fluid dynamics said that fluids did not act the way that the water she was holding acted. She grasped at it with one hand, holding it like a club, and was surprised to hear not the splat of a bursting water balloon when she brought it rushing toward the wall, but the thud of a solid club hitting tile.

"That is not possible!"

She was actually shaking as she watched the laws of physics disappear in front of her very eyes, the water club still grasped in her hand. Squeezing her hand, Ana felt the object burst and closed her eyes to step under the water, doing her very best to ignore the water all around her as she showered quickly.

As soon as she was dressed, her hair still damp, she headed down to the labs. She was clutching a glass of water in one hand and looking more than a little upset.

"I should not be able to do this."

The staff all looked over at her as she turned the glass upside down and the water stayed put.

"Or this."

She turned it back up and stuck her finger in the liquid, watching as the water dragged out as though stuck to her with glue. Which was completely impossible - you couldn't glue water!

Maybe she was going mad. That seemed pretty likely.

"What happened to the laws of physics?" She almost sounded like she was going to cry, but all that would do was bring more liquid into the environment for her to manipulate.

[magneto]

"She seems to have developed an affinity for manipulating liquids sir," the scientist said as the pair hurried toward the lab, "quite extraordinary actually, I believe suddenness of the manifestation has come as a shock to her system despite her preparations."

Erik nodded but said nothing as they pushed through the swinging doors and into the laboratory.

Ana was still stood there questioning the basic laws of physics while a globule of water clung impossibly the inside of an up-side-down glass.

"You are higher than the laws of physics now my dear," he said calmly, "higher than the laws of man and nature."

He walked slowly, but purposefully toward her.

"You, like many others, are now the future of this world."

[ana]

Something about the situation seemed more than a little ironic.

She'd come to El Dorado because of her passion for science. Her talent for science.

Through a scientific experiment, she'd been given the power to subvert science, to ignore all it had taught her.

It wasn't Ana's body that was suffering a shock to the system, it was her mind.

"This is not right." Drawing the globule of water out, so that it was hovering above her palm, Ana looked at it askance for a moment, watching it form into a perfect sphere.

She hurled it away from her.

It bounced and came back, and she put her hands up to shield her from it. Immediately, the water fell to the floor, behaving the way it should have.

"How can this...? What am I...?" She looked as distressed as she sounded.

How could she go back to science when her own body could disprove some of the most basic tenets?

[magneto]

Erik smiled, a knowing twinkle in his eyes.

"The laws of science Ana, were written by mortal man. Penned by blinkered, narrow minded men who would bind the world in their chains of logic."

He walked slowly but purposefully toward her.

"Who are we to be chained by their laws, their rules?"

He stretched out a hand and one of the metal rimmed clip-boards flew to it.

"We are Gods Ana, and you are a Goddess. Can you not feel it? Just below the skin? The power that waits there to be tapped is what strikes fear into the weak hearts of homo-sapiens, the primal terror that a simple caveman might feel were he to witness the glittering towers of today."

He stopped a few short feet from her, his eyes still dancing with that weird, passionate fire.

"And do you know why Ana?"

He paused.

"Fear! Humanity fears the future, they fear us! Because we ARE their future!"

[ana]

"Can you not feel it? Just below the skin?"

She could. Stretching out a hand to mimic Erik's gesture, Ana... pulled. Tugged at the sources of fluid that she could feel all around her. The water on the floor, the water in the air, they came to her. But she could feel more, and as she pulled at it, her brow furrowing in concentration and a rising pain, Ana didn't realise what it was that she was pulling at until a tinge of pink appeared in the globule approaching her outstretched hand.

She hadn't noticed the way her breathing had changed, the intern that was standing at her side, but now that the young woman looked closely she could see tension around her eyes as she fought the pain, a redness to the pores on her cheeks that looked like someone had been at her with a thousand pins.

"I feel it." It was little more than a whisper.

"I feel it. Oh god!"

The air in the room had grown unbearably dry to the young woman with the newly-created connection to water. Her throat felt parched, but she looked down at the pink tinged water floating just before her hand and shook her head.

"No."

She could not drink it, would not drink it, though her body's adjustment to the mutation made her desperate for it. Though the process had doubtless improved over time, it was still not a natural activation of the X-Gene, and her body needed time to recover. Time she hadn't given it, since she'd felt just fine.

"Oh god, I need water."

Stumbling backward, her back colliding with one of the tables and a rush of pain bringing tears to her eyes, Ana let the ball of fluid drop.

"Please, water."

The intern was wiping at her face, a pink smear of blood on her hands.

[magneto]

Erik nodded and filled a glass from one of the faucets.

"You have exhausted yourself my dear, drink now and rest, you have all the time in creation to explore your new power."

He handed the glass to her and favoured her with a fond smile.

"The discovery of power is always a shock at first, but with time and practise you will discover the wonders that are now your to command. You will see that they are not something to be feared, but embraced."

He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"It was the same for all of us at the start, fear of the unknown, of what we had become, but you must rise above it."

He looked her in the eye then.

"You must be strong."

[ana]

She drank quickly, one hand braced against the bench to keep her upright. It did not seem right, now that it was done. From what she could tell, the only thing that the experiment had done to her was broken the laws of nature. Everything Mr. Lensherr said about being a goddess, rising above, being strong... It all just made her want to weep.

Ana was starting to feel better already, now that she'd finished her glass of water. She hoped that this wasn't a part of her mutation - the amount she'd had to drink so far was bordering on the ridiculous, since she was still feeling a slight dryness in the back of her throat. What if she could never go anywhere now without pints and pints of water to keep her well?

Suddenly the procedure was starting to look like a far worse idea than it had.

"Yes. I'm sorry, I just... Things look very different today."

Ana looked to the intern, who still looked like she had broken capilaries all over her face. Her own face was full of guilt at what she'd unintentionally done.

"I'm... I am terribly sorry."

[magneto]

"I will take time to adjust," Erik said comfortingly, "and you will have to learn control, but that is what the Valley of Shadows exists for. You will be able to explore the limits of your power in safety."

He steered the shaken young woman away from the bloodied scientist and out of the laboratory.

"Rest now, and think on what I have said. You may find that things feel better when you wake. The transformation is a very draining experience."

A guard hurried up, the agitated look on his face conveying the urgency of his message.

Erik waved him away. He would deal with it in a moment.

[ana]

"Yes," swallowing again in an attempt to wet her throat, Ana nodded and let Erik steer her back toward her room. Though she wondered if she needed more rest, it was beginning to feel like a good idea.

As long as she had a large glass of water at her side. She didn't want to wake up parched again.

"Thank-you, Mr. Lensherr."

She realised she'd left bloody water all over the floor of the lab. Just one more mess she'd made.

"I... I won't disappoint you."