Game of Survival [Book One]

4

Reaper stood in front of Psylocke with a smile on his face. He had been studying him for a few days, wondering what it was that made him tick. After he got inside of his head, it was easy for him to figure it out. Of course, Psylocke was unaware that Reaper had played around his mind, the joys of practicing mind reading for hundreds of years.

"What?" Psylocke grumpily asked while sitting at the table, a plate of untouched food sitting in front of him.

With a shake of his head, Reaper sat down in the chair across from Psylocke. That's where he continued to stare at him, watching him as he played a Game Boy one handed. It was the only form of electronics the mutants could get in the middle of nowhere while the war was brewing. By now, they had gone through handfuls of batteries just to make sure that none of them were bored. But, to them, it was worth it.

Finally, Psylocke looked up at Reaper, his eyes locking on his. "Okay, seriously, what?"

Reaper cocked his head to the side and asked, "Do you always feel like no one understands you, or is it just when you're around the human mutants?"

Human mutants, that's what Reaper had always called the mutants that were more like humans than actual mutants. They were the ones who cared about others safest as well as how the world would end up. Reaper had never been one of those, though there were certain... reasons to change parts of him, he always told himself that it was him or them. Since he couldn't die, it was an easy choice.

"What are you talking about?" Psylocke asked, a spark of how the hell did he know what I was thinking crossed his face.

"Oh, come on," Reaper said with a playful laugh. "You can tell me the truth. I'm not exactly one of them," he said, motioning his head towards the direction the sound of fighting was coming from. In the next room, Polaris was trying to get Ira to work past his anger. While Polaris and Warlock tried to help Ira keep from morphing into a beast, Reaper was preoccupied by Psylocke who was getting up from the table, tossing the untouched plate of food into the trash.

With a sigh, Reaper got up from the table, teleporting to the doorway Psylocke had planned on leaving through. Psylocke's hand quickly flew to his chest as his heart rate increased. "Jesus! What the hell are you doing?" He yelled out of anger from being scared.

A smile danced across Reaper's face as he took a step towards Psylocke. His hand rose slowly before reaching for him. "Your face is so..."

Before Reaper could finish his sentence, Psylocke swatted his hand away. "Don't touch me," Psylocke said in a quiet, deep voice.

Letting his hand drop, Reaper took another step towards him, entering his mind as he did before. I can see when you're watching me while I help your friends train. You can't say you don't like what you see, Reaper said inside his head.

"Get out of my head," Psylocke angrily said as he shoved passed Reaper and walked out of the room. He didn't want Reaper to know that what he said was true. He did like what he saw. When Reaper trained with his friends, he couldn't help but stare. It was the first time he had ever had any sort of emotions towards anyone.

The idea terrified him.

Taking in a deep breath, Psylocke walked into the room that the others were training in. he looked over at Polaris who was pinning Ira to the ground. Ira looked exhausted, but he would keep going. That was the type of person he was. He didn't care if he would die. Ira knew that if he tried his hardest, he'd be satisfied.

"What's up?" Inferno asked from next to him.

With a shrug, Psylocke said, "Just seeing how it's going in here. Where's Morph? I thought the two of you were supposed to train together."

"No idea," he said with a sigh. "He left this morning saying he was going to get groceries, but he hasn't returned."

"Shouldn't we go look for him?"

"If you want to, you can," Inferno said as he looked over at him. "But think about it. If Morph is in trouble, that means we would be too if we went looking for him. We don't need to die before we even get a chance to fight."

With a roll of his eyes, Psylocke turned away from Inferno and walked out of the room. Only a few feet away from him was Reaper, watching him closely. He quickly turned his face away from Reaper to hide the pink that was starting to cluster around his cheeks. Playing it off as not wanting to be around him, he shot him an angry look before teleporting to his room. Once he was inside, he let out the breath he had been holding in.

While he tried to get himself under control, Morph was dancing along the sidewalk, groceries shoved into the backpack that hung on his back. Headphones were deep in his ears as he shuffled his feet and swayed his hips. Every few blocks he had to slide to the side of the sidewalk to avoid a human, and easy task for him, but it was starting to kill his mood.

"OHMYGOD!" A girl's voice screamed from behind him. As he turned around, he noticed a teenage girl holding a pen and notebook in her hands. She was clutching both hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Gently pulling one side of the headphones out, he gave the girl a look of confusion.

"You're Maxum Greer!" She screamed as she ran towards Morph, the pen and notebook extended out to him.

Morph let out a short laugh when he remembered that he had transformed into the famous singer to go grocery shopping. "Hi," He said with a smile.

"Can I have your autograph?"

"Of course. Who am I making it out to?" Morph asked as he started signing the notebook, not really caring if it didn't match Maxum's signature. The only thing he was worried about was his cover being blown, but then again, he knew that no one could call him out for being a mutant unless he were to change in front of them.

"Sara. My names Sara," she said with a smile that spread from one ear to the other.

After signing the notebook and writing a small note to the girl, he waved goodbye and continued walking down the sidewalk. When he thought he was far enough away from the unexpected fan of Maxum's, he put the headphone back into his ear, and went back to dancing. It didn't take him long to get back to the warehouse they had called home. However, when he arrived, he was surprised to see Reaper leaning over Psylocke, his hand against the wall as he leaned his face closer to his.

This was one thing he knew he was going to have to act like he didn't see.