---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The train stopped and I was greeted by an old platform. It looked like it had its fair share of trouble. There already were other kids there, sitting on an old sofa. They all looked the same age as me. This was it. It was time to be around people just like me. New school, a new adventure.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One day as I woke up I had a really big migraine and my whole body was aching. That was the first sign that I shouldn't go to school that day. But I couldn't just stay home, it was the last day of school. I'm going to go to high school next year. Away from people that are here. At least some of them. The second sign that I shouldn't go to school that day was that I overslept. I jumped out of my bed brushed my teeth and went straight to school.

I met with my best friend Alex in front of my house. Alex was a tall skinny guy. He had black hair and glasses. He always wore the same jeans with some kind of nerdy t-shirt. He looked just like his dad. His dad was a teacher in our school. We were ten minutes late just because of me. That was the third sign that I should have stayed home. As I was walking through school halls from the auditorium, I felt nervous. For some reason, every single eye in the hall was staring at me. I couldn't figure out why. Even Alex was staring at me the whole ride to school. But I didn't ask him why. That was a big mistake.

I accidentally bumped into Arnold Jackson as I was walking out of the auditorium with Alex. Big bully with a vacuum inside his head.

"Watch it, freak!" Arnold shouted at me.

"Uhhh, sorry" I responded trying not to look at his face.

"Do you want to get your ribs cracked again?!" He said, even more loudly than the first time. Now everybody was looking at us. Great.

"No, I'm really sorry, I will just go out of your way," I said, trying not to starting a fight.

"What's wrong with your eyes? Why are you wearing pink contacts? Were you playing some kind of princess for your boyfriend? Or are you some kind of fucking mutant?!" He shouted as he punched wall behind me.

"I'm not a mutant," I said to him with fear in my voice. Now really every single eye was staring at us. I got nervous.

Then I heard some other jackass shouting at the whole hall. "There's a fucking mutie in the hall!!" Everybody was just staring at me with disgust, whispering things.

I pushed Arnold away and hurried to the nearest bathrooms. I locked myself in a stall, crying, and hoped that nobody followed me.

"I knew that I shouldn't go to school. I knew that I shouldn't go to school." I repeated to myself. I heard somebody walking into the bathrooms, stopping in front of my stall. I expected the worst.

"Max, are you ok?" I heard Alex talking to me. "Dad is waiting in front of the bathrooms so that nobody can walk in."

I was still standing there in silence.

"I know that you're in there so can you please open the door so that I know that you're fine?"

I slowly opened the door and slowly waited for his reaction. He was just standing there staring at me. I knew that look, it was a look of worry. It kind of calmed me.

His dad walked in and asked, "Is everything ok in here?"

Alex responded in a calm voice, "Yes dad, he's fine. At least he looks fine right now, maybe except that weird tattoo thing on his forehead."

I panicked again and I felt tears going down my cheeks. I rushed out of the stall and in front of a mirror to look at myself.

"You know when you were talking to Arnold a sign like a tattoo appeared on your forehead, it was glowing. You should have told me that you are mutant. It was kind of shocking to see you with pink eyes this morning." Alex said as he was walking beside me.

I looked at him again and I shouted, "But I had no idea that my eyes are pink! And now they will kill me." I said while I was looking at myself in the mirror. "Dad will kill me." He recently joined one mutant hating organization. Humanity First, that's how they called themselves. "He already thinks that I'm a weak pussy." I sniffed. I was never a big jock material. I was the exact opposite of that. I was short and small, skinny type of guy. I had a little longer blond hair, blue eyes. There were times when I was mistaken for a girl. But that didn't happen in at least a year.

"Calm down, we won't let them touch you." Mr.Bishop, Alex's dad, said. "You know that you can stay at our house as long as you can."

"Thanks, but if you did that the will just kill you too" I responded.

"Mom won't let anybody anywhere near our house," Alex said reassuringly.

"How?" I asked skeptically.

"Well, you know that she works for DARPA. Her boss is kind of overprotective when it comes to the safety of his subordinates. He is really serious when it comes to mutant hating. He kinda has a mutant daughter that went through some shit when her mutation kicked in." He said that while looking at me. What he said was somehow calming.

"Ok boys, I think that we should get out of here. The principal is not too kind of mutants and it's possible that he called MCO." He said while looking at us.

"Ok then, lead the way to your car Mr.Bishop," I said to Alex's dad.

Speaking of the devil, when we got out of the bathroom we could see some group of men with guns walking towards us. I covered my face with my hoodie as we walked beside them. As we got to Mr. Bishop's car we also saw my dad with other Humanity First goons. I'm pretty sure that I heard my dad say "Kill the freaks!" as we were passing by.

"So they called MCO and these lunatics." I felt tears in my eyes again as I said that. And not just because my dad wanted to kill me. Some of the idiots actually shot at us.

Mr. Bishop shouted, "Take cover boys!!" as he started to accelerate the car. We went really fast really quickly. Then I felt a little dizzy, and my arm was wet. I looked at my arm and saw blood, then darkness followed.

I regained consciousness already at Alex's house. My head was hurting, I could hear some really loud noises from outside. It was Humanity First "protesting" in front of the house. I was still dizzy, my arm was hurting and was bandaged. I stood up and went to the kitchen where Alex and His dad were discussing something.

As I got there they both looked at me and said at the same time, "How are you feeling?"

I could see that they're worried. "My head hurts, my arm as well," I replied.

"You got scraped by a bullet, and you manifested your mutant powers this morning." Alex replied.

"What's that noise outside?" I asked.

"It's the freaks from humanity first. They followed us here. But they haven't raided us. Yet. We should really get you out of here. Because it is dangerous right now, and it will only get worse. We have a family friend in Topeka, so we could hide you there for a bit. But we need to get going right now." Mr.Bishop said.

I could see that he was worried about what's going to happen. Just like me and Alex. "But how are we going to get around the freaks outside?" I asked him.

"That's something we were just talking about when you woke up. I think that we should be able to sneak from the backyard and go with our side project." Alex said.

It was a little bit reassuring to hear a solid plan. "What side project? What secrets are you hiding behind my back." I asked, but I wasn't angry, just a little bit surprised. I never knew about any side project. We were always together, so it is a little bit surprising.

"I and my dad are repairing an older car that we found. It's an old mustang." Alex replied. He sounded happy and excited when talking about it.

"I never knew that you were into cars Alex. How did I never notice it before?" I asked.

"Max, I never told you but I and my dad are both mutants. We are both gadgeteers. Not really powerful ones but we know enough to repair a car, or upgrade it a little." Alex said.

Wow, I was really surprised. I was just staring at him like a twelve-year-old boy that's ogling a waitress.

"I'm sorry that I kept it a secret. I was not allowed to tell it to you." He said looking really genuinely sorry.

"It's okay, I understand. It was probably for the best." I replied still a little bit shocked, maybe a little hurt or betrayed. But it was really probably better that he didn't say anything. Because if my dad overheard us talking about it or if I slipped about it and told him. It would have been really bad and ugly. Then we heard banging, and even more commotion.

"Boys, we're leaving now!" Mr.Bishop said and pointed us to the patio door. We were running to the garage that was in the backyard. And there it was, old black mustang. The paint job was not finished, but if it was going get us out of here than I'm not complaining. Not in this situation.

We got into the car. Opened the big door to the back alley, and went as fast as we could away from this place. Until we noticed one black van. The van was following us. So we sped up. The black van sped up just like us, and I could see someone open the back door on the van. A person with some weird techy gun fired at us.

"Shit. That must be MCO." Mr.Bishop said, trying not to get hit by the gun.

I got really scared. Then I went into panic mode. My head hurt, and I could see lines everywhere. I thought that I was becoming blind or something. I could hear everything around me. It sounded like screaming to me at the moment.

Alex was turned around and looked at me from the front and said. "Whoa, Max, you're glowing."

Then there was a blast. They hit the car. I'm pretty sure that I was screaming and extremely panicking at this point. Yeah, I'm a wimp, sue me. And then it happened. I felt burning on my forehead. I somehow tapped into those lines that I saw and opened a big circular thingie. A portal. We went straight through it and appeared somewhere else. The portal closed right after we got out of the thing.

Mr.Bishop stopped the car. All of us were in shock. Then I asked dumbfounded, "Did I just do that?"

As we recovered from the shock, we were able to tell where we are. We were just a few miles away from Topeka, from safety. Mr.Bishop changed the car number plates. I'm not even gonna ask why he had those. Some things are better left unanswered. It was a good thing that he did that because there was police everywhere in Topeka. I don't know if they were looking for us, but let's be honest they probably were.

We got to the family friend. It took us some time to get there. We went really slowly in the city. And not only because we took the "scenic route". So we're less traceable. Or as Alex called it, we're just killing time. It was already dark when we got to our destination. We stayed in the car while Mr.Bishop went to the door of the house we were parking in front of.

He waited for a minute when an older woman opened the front door. She was pretty and tall. She had long blonde hair, big glasses, and a smile on her lips when she opened the door. We could hear the conversation from the door to the car.

"Hi Mike, so glad to see you. I was watching the news after you called me to be in the loop. Are you guys okay?" She said, in a loving warm motherly tone.

"So glad to see you too Lucy. Yeah, we're fine, but we need to get inside. Then we will talk more in detail about this mess." Mr.Bishop said.

"Okay, bring the boys inside. I'm sure that you're all hungry. We will give you something to eat, let you shower and relax, and then we will talk."

Mr. Bishop walked over to the car. Let us out of the car, and we went into the house while he parked the car in the garage.

We were immediately greeted with warm hugs from aunt Lucy. "Alex it's good to see you again. You've grown so much since the last time I saw you." She greeted Alex.

"Aunt Lucy, as good as it is to see you. Can you please not strangle me with the hug? Thanks." Alex said happily.

Aunt Lucy let him go. She then looked at me, checking me out. And then decided to smile and she gave me a hug. "So you must be the one causing all the trouble? It's nice to finally meet you. Alex always talked about you when he's visiting." She said in a warm voice. "Let me take a look at your arm sweetie. Alex you should go take a shower. I hope you have some spare clothes with you." she ordered us.

And we obeyed, we are not in a mood for a fight. "Yeah I have spare clothes, but Max doesn't," Alex replied and then went to the garage for his bag.

Aunt Lucy took my hand and said "We will think of something for you later then. Now come with me, I really want to check on your arm."

I did as I was told.

We went to the living room. It was a nice big one. They had a big plasma tv on the wall with a stereo system. I could see a DVD player too. Two nice big leather sofas. Wooden floor. Plants everywhere.

There was a girl sitting on a couch watching a movie. She seemed to be around my age. She looked at me, smiled and kept watching the movie. She was just as gorgeous as her mom. She was my height. Slim body, long blonde hair, glasses, blue eyes. She was wearing a tank top and skinny jeans. I don't even know why I noticed such details. I was never a guy who looked at what were girls wearing.

Aunt Lucy brought a first aid kit and ordered me to sit down. She looked at my arm where the bullet hit me. It was completely healed. I was just staring at it. How? I was asking myself.

"So you really are manifesting your abilities." Aunt Lucy mumbled to herself.

As she finished checking my arm both Alex and Mr.Bishop walked into the room. Mr.Bishop went with Aunt Lucy to the next room to talk about some "grown-up things" and Alex went to shower. So there was I sitting awkwardly on a couch with a girl I just met and I don't even know her name.

She looked at me. "I'm Lily Potter. It's nice to meet the boy that kept my mom on nerves the whole day." She said.

"Hi Lily, I'm Max. I'm sorry if I made you guys worry so much about me." I replied. I was now really feeling bad about this whole situation even more. Thanks, Lily.

"Don't worry. I was just joking," she said while laughing.

We were talking a little. About today, what happened. Than about other things like school, movies music. All kind of stuff.

After fifteen minutes of talk, Alex walked to the room and let me go to the shower. Lily showed me around, gave me a towel said that If I need anything I should just ask her. She was a nice person. I think that I made a new friend today.

When I returned from the shower everybody was waiting for me in the living room. The TV was turned off.

Mr.Bishop said, "So Max, we need to talk about your current situation." I sat down and listened to what he was saying. "You are going to stay here for the summer. It's the safest place for you right now. I'm sending Alex to a summer camp, for both of your safety. If you two are separated the harder it will be to track you down. So you will be here with Lucy and Lily, as I understand you already befriended her. That's a good thing. We also need to test you about your abilities. We never quite seen ability just like yours. We heard about someone, but we're not sure. So tomorrow we'll try to get you an appointment with a doctor that we know. But that might be as soon as next week. I will go home and try to find some information about who exactly was attacking us."

"Okay, so is this everything or do you have some more information?" I said while yawning.

"I think that he needs to sleep. It was a rough day for him. And you Lucy, Alex you should go to sleep as well." Aunt Lucy ordered.

"Sleep sounds good. So where will I sleep?" I asked.

"You will be sleeping in my room. And Alex with Uncle Mike will be in our guest room." Lucy said. She then showed me to her room. Her room was pretty big. It had a bunk bed, a nice big white desk with a laptop sitting on it. A small mirror with lots of makeup and other girly beauty thingies. The walls were pastel pink. She had a big walk-in closet. It was a casual girls bedroom. I changed to some spare clothes that Alex gave me and went to sleep.

The next day when I woke up I felt a little bit ill and dizzy. That was probably because of yesterday. It was a really weird and exhausting day. It took me a minute to realize where I was. That I'm not in my bedroom. Not in my house. I was sad and happy at the same time. I went to the bathroom. Cleaned up, I never really realized it until I really looked at my reflection in the mirror. "What the fuck?!" I shouted really shocked at what I was seeing in the mirror.

Lily walked into the bathroom and said a little bit angrily. "What's with all the cursing? Do you know what mom would do if she? Oh." She didn't finish the sentence as she looked at me. "Wow, your face is kinda different." She said really surprised.

"Kinda different? My face changed its shape. I look even more like a girl than ever before. And what's with this silver hair?! What in the world is happening?!" I said still kind of shocked.

"Come to the kitchen, mom is making us breakfast. We will talk to her about all of this." She said as she took my hand and lead me.

When we got to the kitchen Aunt Lucy was finishing cooking the pancakes. She gave us our plates and we sat at the table. Then she looked at me. "So the mutation is kicking in. And it seems that you are an exemplar." She said calmly.

"Yeah, no kidding. But why is it changing my face? And what does exemplar mean?" I asked, a little bit calmer now that there was a plate of pancakes in front of me.

"When a mutant manifests, sometimes they have something called Body Image Template or BIT for short, and the body tries to match the bit, causing the changes. Some scientists believe that the BIT is what our subconscious thinks the person's perfect body should be." She responded.

"So that's why I look like a girl? Can I change this?" I asked looking at them, kind of hopelessly.

"You can't change your BIT. But at least you are not growing fur or tentacles." Lily responded to my question. "I want to check something after breakfast. Okay?" Lily asked me.

"Okay. What do you want to check?"

"That you will know after breakfast." She responded in a playful tone. "I will try to get you an appointment with a doctor that we know. We need to get you tested on what you can do." Aunt Lucy said to me and I nodded. I too want to know what I can do and is happening to me.

It took me almost an hour to notice something. "Where in the world are Alex and his dad?" I asked them.

"They left early this morning. They said that it will be safer for everybody that way." Aunt Lucy said to me.

After breakfast, I and Lily went to her room. She wanted something and I was scared of what she might do to me. I knew her only for maybe a day and I knew what her personality is like. A prankster. She closed the door behind her we sat down and then she looked at me and said. "Take your shirt off."

Wait, what? what did she just say? I asked surprised. "What? Why?"

"Do it." She ordered.

"No! I won't. You are really weirding me out now." I said, totally weirded out by her.

Then she suddenly touched my chest. It kind of hurt and felt weird and itchy. Then I just took my shirt off because of that. I wanted to know why it hurt. "What in the world?" I mumbled looking down at my chest. I was growing breasts.

"I thought so when I looked at you this morning. They're itching aren't they?" Lily said to me.

"What? Why in the world am I growing breasts? And don't tell me that I'm changing into a girl. Oh god. I'm changing into a girl! I don't want to be a girl! I'm not gay!" I said totally in a panic mode.

"Honey, sometimes this happens. It's pretty normal." Lily said to me in a calming voice. Then she went to her wardrobe and searched through it.

I was just sitting on her bed dumbfounded. I wanted to cry.

After a few minutes of searching, she took something out of her wardrobe and threw it to me. It was a bra.

"Wait, I'm not going to wear this," I said to her defensively.

"Yes you are!" now put it on!" She ordered.

This was going on for about ten minutes when her mom barged into the room. "What's going on in here! Why are you two bickering?!" Then she looked at me and said, "Oh, that's why. You have breasts."

"Yes, he's growing them and I wanted him to wear this bra. It will suit him." Lily said.

"I will not wear a bra. I'm not a girl." I defended myself.

Aunt Lucy looked at us, then said. "Hmm, this is a dilemma. But it probably should be better for you to wear it. You will feel more comfortable and it won't be as noticeable trough clothes."

"HA! Now wear it! Or I will put it on you with force." Lily said playfully. She was enjoying this too much.

"Okay. I called the doctor and we have an appointment for tomorrow morning." Aunt Lucy said to me and then she walked away.

Tomorrow will be the day when I will know what's happening to me. I was kind of excited about it. The rest of the day was basically the same. We were watching tv. Talking playing some games on her laptop. She even tried to get me into a dress but I escaped her. This kind of teasing me went on until we went to sleep.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To be continued. Please Like, Share and Comment.

And you can always tell me where to improve if there are some grammar mistakes. Or mistakes in general.