Lux (C.XavierXOC)

Chapter One

My name is Fallon Knight. I am of average height and have wavy black hair with streaks of white. I receive odd looks for my unusual two-tone hair but it's not something that I particularly chose for myself. I was born to two wonderful parents who both have blond hair and green eyes, so it was quite a shock to them when I was born with tufts of black upon my head.

The white streaks didn't start to appear until I was about five years old. It was around the same time that my dark – almost navy – blue eyes, started getting small flecks of white in them too. Luckily, that wasn't noticeable unless you were really close to me. What WAS noticeable was the iridescent glow that my hands started to emit about a year later.

Even though I was so young, I remember like it was yesterday. I woke up in the middle of the night with a whine, calling for my parents and telling them I wasn't feeling well. I was running a slight fever but I had no other symptoms of anything. My mother sat with me, holding a cool cloth to my forehead to keep my body temperature regulated. The cool cloth wasn't helping me though, in fact, it felt like it was making me more sick. I pulled my hands from under my blanket to pull it off my head and that's when I heard my mother's shriek.

My hands had this odd white pearly shine to them. They looked really pale but I also no longer felt sick now that the cold wet cloth was taken from my head. From that day forward, my natural body temperature was always a couple degrees hotter than your average person and my hands never stopped glowing.

It took a while for my parents to get used to it but they never treated me any different. They always told me they knew there was something special about me from the day I came into the world. They didn't know what exactly but I was always their little ray of sunshine. Now, I literally WAS their little ray of sunshine. I was to be their SECRET ray of sunshine though, so they had me wear gloves all the time. They said other people just wouldn't understand and that in order for me to be safe, I had to keep my hands hidden at all times.

I listened to them of course, as any child would their parents. I wore thin, black, satin gloves everywhere I went and never took them off when I was in public – even to this day. When I was in private or with my parents, I would take them off though. I always thought there were things I would be able to do with this power and I wasn't wrong. I learned that I could manipulate light to make me invisible and I could light up an entire room of darkness if I so chose. My parents loved that particular skill for when our power went out. Living on a farm, it went out often. I was also able to manipulate light particles to change the colours of something if I wanted as well. It was a useless little part of my power but nonetheless fun to play with sometimes. I remember when I first discovered this and kept it a secret for about a month. Then on my parents wedding anniversary, I created the most brilliantly vibrant rainbow over our little farm house.

Life was good. Until it wasn't. When I was sixteen years old my parents died in an automobile accident. It was tragic and I mourned and I grieved hard. My parents were my only friends and when they died, I was alone. It was hard to get to know people when you couldn't show them who you really were. I felt no one would open up to me if I couldn't open up to them. I was the only one like me, so I kept to myself. I was shy and became an outcast in my own town. I didn't let that deter me from my dreams though.

I've been obsessed with science from a young age, rightly so, so when I graduated high school, I used the money my parents left me and went to university. I am twenty years old now and in my second year. My major is physics but I am also minoring in engineering. I am the only female in my classes and receive the oddest looks sometimes. At least, that's what I like to think the looks are for.

I was currently at one of my placements which was a secret CIA facility. I was under the tutelage of Hank McCoy. It was odd having a mentor a year younger than me but he was a prodigy and genius and I was happy to be able to learn from him. I was lucky to even gain a position here as a student placement because most places didn't even want to look at me since I was a woman. Hank had no such prejudices though; he seemed grateful for the help. Hank became my first ever friend.