Chapter 20: Connected by Blood, Understood through Experience....

Music. Rhythms, flows-- cadences complimented and formulated around a voice, a story. An expression of inner intensity made palatable. A source of motivation, sadness, excitement, tranquility. Music is variety of expression made real. Music is.... power. Quite literally after the way Bronte's day in training went.

He'd found his trigger. In many ways much more profound than his inherited one directional feral rage. Something less about cutting loose-- and more so about letting go. If that makes sense. It probably didn't.

None of anything made much sense to Bronte-- all he knew was, true progress had been made. He entered the Storm-State. The music of coming from the stereo below ground acting as a catalyst in his mental evolution. A catalyst in his urge to act. To save Gabbie.

Realistically, she didn't need saving. They could heal from anything most of the Mutants in the training area could dish out. Even so, he reacted. It felt good. It felt amazing to go all out at his own volition-- it felt empowering on the other side. To go from being the helped, the victim, the weakling, to being empowered.

After the events of in the Gymnasium came to a close, the rest of the day didn't matter much to him. He was too deep in his own mind. Set ablaze, motivated-- hell excited. For once, his Mutant power didn't feel like anger issues on steroids, or the ability to feel the pain of a thousand men and not die. It felt... liberating. Explosive. Chaos controlled.

His hands wouldn't stop shaking-- even as he called his parents. The storm still terrified him, even after he witnessed it writhe and wriggle in the palm of his hands. He didn't tell his mother or father-- he got the idea that they didn't enjoy talking about all things Mutant. Their conversations were mundane, recaps of their week, how the outside world was. With his dad he spoke about sports. The Nets were getting stomped. With his mom he talked about his siblings-- they missed him. His younger brother Junior had even been caught sneaking into his room to make beats. They were fine.

It was a good counterweight to the wildness he experienced in his new short-term home. Possibly long term....

After the call had come to a close, so had his usual day. And as he lay in bed, he found no tiredness keeping his body strapped to the mattress. No not at all. It felt like Lightning still rode the fibers of his muscles. Pumping them with explosive energy that needed to be burned-- needed to be expressed in its most basic form.

He tried to ignore the pull, but even his breaths felt livened in new ways. Every inhale seemed to take in the entire building and fill in ways he couldn't properly enunciate.

"I need to move..." He thought as he sat up in his bed. Immediately after, he was on his feet. They felt funny.

He headed towards the door, stopping after the smells of old leather, blood and fur filled his nose. Along with an impossibly rich cologne.

Laura and Daken had guard duty over his door.

He turned around.

His room a box of shadows on shadows. All that stood out was the white of his bedsheets that glowed faintly under the midnight moonlight creeping in from the window beside his bed.

A memory of his first meeting with Daken always entered his mind when he looked at windows.

"If I throw you, will you heal?"

"Yes." He replied to the memory and approached the window.

Seconds later and the night air was fresh on his skin as he climbed down the side of the Institute. Each window he passed housed a Student in their rooms, deeply asleep.

First window, Danielle Moonstar. Her rich black hair was tied up into a bun that left the moons rays to fall on her rich bronze skin. Beside her bed, he found a bow laying in plain sight.

Next few windows went as follows. Sam-- his room was a dented metal box. Rahne-- who had a Husky and Bloodhound sleeping calmly at the foot of her bed. Roberto, and then a few students he didn't know the name of.

He was only forty or so feet from the ground. Another window welcomed him as he settled down on the next frame that jutted out of the brick wall. Black curtains covered the window, leaving only a sliver of space to see inside.

Dark. Glowing markings marred the walls. There was no bed, only a mat on the floor. He moved to see more only for the window to slide open blindingly fast followed by a hand gripping his arm and flinging him inside.

He hit the cold ground inside the room flat on his chest only to feel cold steel at his back when he moved.

"B-Bronte....? What are you doing?" A Russian accented female voice came from behind him.

"Illyana..." Bronte said in a forced excited tone, "What's up with you? Where's your bed at?.... it's looking real simplistic..... and demonic in here."

"Bronte." Illyana said again.

"Yea my bad-- I'm not gonna lie I was creeping." Bronte concluded.

"Why?" She asked suspiciously.

"No reason, I was just on my way to the gymnasium and the windows were in my face... you know?... Bro seriously, why are you sleeping in a set for The Exorcist?"

Illyana sighed and removed whatever cold hard object was pressing into his back. He rolled over to find her familiar high cheekboned expressionless face. She was in a nightgown. Black and silky. It would've looked nice if not for the metal armor covering her arm. Kind of ruined the aesthetic.

"Get up." She said as she reached a hand out to him.

Bronte took it and let her pull him to his feet.

The two stood in silence for a moment before she spoke. "Why are you going to the Gymnasium?"

Bronte looked serious suddenly, "I need to enter the Storm-State again."

Illyana nodded in understanding, "Fair enough."

The silence returned, leaving Bronte to look around the room. Aside from the glowing insignias in the walls, there were also claw marks-- burns, torn up papers. It looked more like a prison than a bedroom. Then he found something that stood out by her door.

Big, grey and covered in LED Lights.

A lightbulb went off in Bronte's head, "You..... did you know music was my trigger?" Bronte asked, after remembering she was the person who placed the Stereo so close-- she even stared at him as she started up the music.

Illyana shrugged and tucked her straight blond hair behind her ear, "I had an idea."

"Why?"

"You are always playing with music..... tapping your pens..... bouncing your feet-- beating your knuckles on the lockers. And during the Basketball game..... music was playing. Sometimes magic requires us to be in a certain headspace. Like I said, I had an idea." Illyana explained.

"You observe a lot of things, don't you?" Bronte asked suddenly.

Illyana continued to stare at him, her blue eyes stood against her ghostly pale skin like ocean colored rings over porcelain, "Only things I have trouble understanding."

The room shook suddenly as Illyana's door was busted open. In the doorway, Sam stood. The pinkinsh orange energy of his fiery blast shield coated his fists as they vibrated so fast his arms were a blur and his dirty blond hair was a ruffled mess.

"Illyana?! You..... ok?" Sam suddenly took in the room. After hearing the slam, he thought she'd had another episode-- a night terror. Instead, he found something else entirely.

Illyana in nothing but a form fighting night gown. Under the moonlight her milky skin shined like diamond and contrasted strongly with the person she stood barely a hands distance away from.

Bronte Connors. In nothing but basketball shorts and one sock. His curly hair was tied at the back and a thin sheen of sweat lined his muscled frame.

They both looked at him as he stared.

"Well I'll be...." He whispered, "Am I..... interrupting something?"

"Yes." Illyana replied casually.

"No." Bronte said.

The two looked at each other in confusion, "Girl what the hell?" Bronte whispered.

"What?" Illyana said.

"You weren't doing anything but staring at me."

"You were staring at me."

"Because you were staring at me!"

The two argued as Sam watched on, more confused than before. "I thought you two weren't getting along."

Bronte stopped talking to Illyana to look at Sam, "C'mon, Cannonball. Me and Illyana been good."

It was Sam's turn to raise an eyebrow, "Oh?"

"We have?" Illyana asked, the slightest bit of emotion made it's way to her voice.

Bronte looked at her like she was stupid, "Of course..... you just do some weird shit sometimes..... like whatever that was." He said, referencing back to their "staring contest".

"Then you are weird too." Illyana said flatly.

"That's fine-- oh let me borrow your stereo. Please." Bronte said.

Illyana shrugged, "This is fine."

"See Illyana-- that's what I'm talking about! This is how friends operate." Bronte walked past her and grabbed the Stereo.

As he headed back towards the window, Sam spoke again.

"You guys are really cool again?"

Bronte shrugged, "Yea, it's not like only days ago she tried to take me to hell and have me killed.... that would be super disrespectful. You know what I'm saying?"

"Funny." Illyana said flatly.

Bronte waved her off jokingly with the stereo in hand, "Yea I get spicy sometimes."

He winked at Illyana as he jumped out of the window. And then he was gone.

"Well..... I'm going to head back to bed-- wait, where is Bronte going?" Sam asked.

"...I don't know. Probably back to bed." Illyana replied.

He couldn't see her as she faced the window, but he could've sworn he heard the faintest smile in her voice.

***

The Gymnasium was silent. Dark. Cold. He didn't mind. None of said factors bothered him. He could see just fine, and something told him, intense weathers didn't have much of an effect on him.

He set down the stereo at the end of the Gymnasium. And as he clicked the Stereo, that familiar exhilaration and excitement he felt in his bedroom returned in stride. He played with the volume, base and treble until it fit his liking, then he twisted his way to a channel holding music he felt like listening to.

Something with a heavy beat. A simple sample empowered by soulful overlays and matching lyrics. He stopped at a basic channel and found a familiar beat blaring through the Stereo, followed by one of the best song intro's he'd ever heard.

".....Human beings in a mob... what's a mob to king? What's a king to a god? What's a god to a nonbeliever who don't believe in anything?"

Kanye West. If there was ever a time to listen to someone who seemed high off their own intensity at all times. Yea that works.

Bronte left the stereo and stepped onto the Gymnasium floor. He stood in the silence, listening to the heavy beat of his heart. His feet tapped calmly to the music, slowly picking up and running through his entire frame until he was calmly bouncing on the balls of his feet. The sound of his heartbeat in his ears faded as the winds generated from his feet swayed and swirled around. Slowly the bounces became leaps and bounds until he found himself jumping twenty feet into the air with a burst of lifting winds.

It began to rain outside. The music drowned it out. The music. It made him shiver, it made his insides tingle as if he were on fire.

He hit the ground a final time. His hands shook harder than ever, and as he looked down at them, his hair burst from the rubber band that held it in place and began to glow. A pure and energetic shade of white that matched his eyes. He could see the sweat on his forearms freeze, as if awaiting his command to move. Small sparks of lightning ran over his skin, bursting the beads of sweat and giving them a faint glow.

There it was.....

And he was all there.

He opened his hands.

The dark room lit up in the presence of burning light.

And then, a storm was brought to life inside the Gymnasium....