Chapter 4
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The sun was at its zenith now, so about 2 pm. Emilia was now walking around in the park, trying to relax while looking at the blooming flowers and trees. It was the beginning of spring, she was far more certain of it now. She decided to accept her circumstances, she could only plan for the future if she did. Now that the reality of the situation started to set in, a wave of melancholia rolled over Emilia. This time it was her own. She imagined not being able to see her sister and parents anymore and teared up a little. She cleaned her eyes with a brief sob escaping her. Even though she wasn't especially close with her mother she knew the woman cared about her, even if she would rather swallow a cactus than show it. Her father's silly stories about living with Buddhist monks for months and how he believed karma and souls could be measured by cards and throwing sticks. She felt a pang in her chest at the thought of not hearing any new stories from him. Then there was her sister, Emma, yeah her parents were creative like that. They were always close, growing up with a mostly absent father and a cold mother that left raising them to hired nannies. They still chatted almost daily after Emilia left for college. Emma would be fine, she was a far more mature woman than her, even if she was the younger one. It stung to admit it but she felt it was the truth. Emilia forced her attention onto the colourful petals and greenery, attempting to shift her thoughts from such a depressing direction. Telepathy. That was a better distraction. That was what she guessed her 'power' was. What could one use telepathy for in fiction? She was trying to jog her memory to remember everything she could about the subject. She decided there were five major ones: Communication: Telepathy can allow people to communicate with each other mentally, even if they are physically far apart or unable to speak out loud. Mind reading: Telepathy can also allow people to read each other's thoughts. Manipulation: Telepathy can be used as a tool for manipulation. A person with telepathic abilities could influence the thoughts and actions of others, either to their benefit or to control and manipulate others. Empathy: Telepathy can allow people to feel the emotions of others, creating a deeper understanding of other characters and their motivations. Psychic battles: Telepathy can be used in intense psychic battles between telepaths, with each telepath trying to gain the upper hand by invading the other's mind or blocking their abilities. She was sure she could do Mind Reading and Empathy. Those were the 'thoughts' that she heard and the waves of emotions she felt. She wasn't sure she could use more intrusive variations of either, where she would dive into the mind of someone instead of just standing there like a net. Catching stray thoughts. The same with empathy. Hiding emotions would be harder and she seemed fairly sensitive to underlying emotions, and more muted ones if she focused. She could also sense minds and auras around her. With increased range if she focused. She guessed ordering that paedophile to stop breathing counts as both intrusive and offensive manipulation. That was good, if this world was indeed Marvel she would need every tool she had to stay alive. Well safe would be a better word, and free is the best. Many of the organizations that would seek to capture mutants wouldn't be happy if their test subject died. It was hard getting new ones and all that. It would be best to avoid that, she thought glumly. Back to planning the future. Money, a place to stay and information. These were the things she needed. The order wasn't strictly necessary. If she applied her Telepathy liberally all three should be doable. She didn't want to try mind neither mind-diving or copying memories. Both have some severe dangers if she didn't do them very carefully and expertly. She would need far more experience before attempting either. Her mind and personality are being rewritten because she mistakenly copied more than she should have, along with memories of going catatonic as she lost her mind in the psychic landscape of another mind. Neither sounded like a fun end. They weren't even deaths, she would just disappear. Not much different from how she imagined death before appearing here. Her death was different, so different that it was alive in a sense. Which was a weird thing to say. Death was alive. But it was true, as the abstract entity called "Death" representing the concept of Death was real here. Along with innumerable gods and goddesses of death, along with demons and eldritch beings that would eat her soul or enslave it without batting an eye. She dried her eyes with her sleeve again. Damn flowers and their pollen, triggering her allergies. They were lucky they were pretty. She liked pretty things. A cold spring breeze swept away an array of colourful petals along with verdant green leaves. Emilia shivered, hiding her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, but she still appreciated the sight. Her mood brightening a bit, she returned to her most pressing concern. Namely money. Should she go the swindler route, the beggar route or just try to manipulate people into forgetting their wallets? The beggar route wouldn't work, she was still far too well dressed for that. Even if waking up in a trash-filled alley yesterday didn't help, her clothes were still fairly expensive and it showed. So it was between the last two. For the swindler route, she would need to talk to people a lot while for the last route, she would need to get a better handle on her abilities. She considered her options for a solid minute. How could she train her abilities or at least get a handle on their current limits? She didn't believe they were at maximum power. Mental strength should be trainable, and so should dexterity. While many in her position would curse at not being as powerful as Professor X or Jean Grey she was happy. You can hide a rock on a sandy beach but you can't hide a mountain. She was 22, by this age Jean Grey could toss mountains with her mind and crush the professor in a psychic duel, though that was with the phoenix buffing her up to the nine heavens. If psychic abilities followed basic logic, having less overall strength should make her more dexterous with her abilities. In telepathy, she would have to go the control route and focus on stealth. She couldn't protect her mind from someone so powerful hammering it with brute strength, she would need to hide it from them and blend in with other people. In the movies nobody used their powers creatively, neither did they have tricks or anything. Just brawling. Even if it was mental brawling or throwing stuff at each other. That looked better on screen she guessed. Maybe if there was a version of Professor Xavier he would be a true master of telepathy, knowing every trick that exists whole also having pure psychic power barely equalled by any on earth. If he did exist here he would be one of the most dangerous humans alive, she decided. Avoiding him would be paramount to staying free, even throwing herself into the arms of SHIELD would be better. Power tended to corrupt, and a single man had to power to mould any person on earth to his whims, bending minds, rewriting personalities and memories, now that was near absolute power. She didn't want to find out what that looked like in a person. Her wish was promptly crushed by an immense sense of danger she felt. Like a rat hearing the wildlife fleeing from an apex predator. She felt what was coming towards her, not physically but psychically. She focused desperately to pull her powers in and hide. *I'm a normal person, I don't have powers, I'm not even here, Ignore me* she chanted in her mind foolishly. The beast she felt was upon her a massive psychic presence that encompassed the whole of New York and spread far and wide. She couldn't sense it spread actively, that was only the sensation she got from it. It examined people, searching deeply inside of them before disinterestedly withdrawing its feelers from them. It rolled over every living being. Examining. Analyzing. Judging. Recording. It finally reached Emilia. She held her breath, as her heart thundered in her chest. She felt it beat in her neck and ears. She never felt this panicked and terrified before. She never felt this vulnerable and out of control. Her frustration was hidden beneath her much greater fear. The feelers never came. They never invaded her mind and body to analyze it, to decide if she fit their criteria. Now that they were closer she could passively examine them closer. They were crude and simple things. They searched for humans, searched for something in them, and decided if it was what they wanted, if not they ignored them but if it was then they recorded it. It was like the sub-routines of a massive program. When she briefly felt what they were searching for inside the humans she instantly realized what this terrifying monster of a psychic presence was. It searched for the X Gene of humans and decided if they were mutants. Methodically like a machine. It was exactly that, a machine powered by one of the strongest telepaths Earth has ever seen. The Cerebro, the machine designed and built to enhance Charles Xavier's psychic powers and help him search for mutants. The whole experience barely lasted half a minute, the machine examined every living human inside New York on a genetic level in half a minute. Yet it ignored her, it had acted like she didn't exist. She was either a natural at psychic stealth or she didn't even register to it as a human. She wanted it to be the first but maybe it was the second. That idea opened a whole new can of worms that she quickly stuffed back into the can and sealed it shut. Throwing it into the back of her mind. She didn't have time to doubt whether she was still a human or not. Well, that proved that there were others with powers at least. Previously it could have been just a normal Earth with a perfectly normal Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, just without any superpowers and stuff. She was lucky the Cerebro searched mechanically and it wasn't just enhancing the powers of the Professor. He could have easily noticed that she was different, she guessed. She needed to get to training her abilities after she got an idea of its current limits. After about two or three hours she sat back down on a bench and started revising what she's learned. She has been walking around trying to test the range of her abilities first. Her range seemed to increase the more she focused on it, passively it was about 50m and she could push it to about 200 if she was fully focused on just sensing around her. It was nowhere near any of the 'big' telepaths range but she was satisfied, finally knowing something concrete about her abilities. Next, she tested how much effort it took for her to influence people's choices, just changing which direction they wanted to go in an intersection and things like that. The was one old lady she wanted to influence so she would throw the trash beside the bin but she didn't succeed with the limited amount of 'push' she used. She didn't want to force it, she didn't know if there were side effects of making people obey her orders using brute force and the old lady was just trying to keep the park clean. From this, she came to understand that there were people with stronger minds, and they could resist manipulation to an extent. It was easier to influence a choice they didn't care about. Consequently, the hardest thing to do should be to make them kill themselves. She did that already though. Maybe the man was suicidal? Or maybe her being so furious at him had a part in it. The Empathy and Mind Sensing abilities came to her almost naturally, she could mute them, focus them on only a few people, and decrease or increase the intensity. She didn't know if she could use them for anything else than sensing people around her. Both would give her a better idea of people she could sca- ugh liberate money from. Yeah. She usually wouldn't be considering stealing money, but when the alternative was sleeping on a bench and starving it didn't take long for her to make up her mind about it. So for now she needs to find someone fairly wealthy. Preferably soft-hearted or forgetful. She spent the next 30 minutes searching for a target. She found her first target near a recreational centre. He seemed like a middle-class office worker from the clothes he was just now putting on. She didn't see him as he was separated from her by a few walls, but she could sense him. She felt he was hurried, fearful of being late for dinner with his fiance. Well, that was kinda cute. She sent not an order like before, instead, it was a suggestion. *Leave behind 200$,* and he did. As the man hurriedly checked himself over he also took out his wallet, seemingly checking if he had any money. He followed up by taking out a 200$ bill and placing it down on a bench before putting on the final layer of his clothes and hurriedly leaving. Emilia made sure to push a suggestion to any others in the room to ignore the bill, but also herself as she made her way over there. This was something she tested before. If a person wasn't aware of her presence before it was fairly easy to keep it that way, even if she was standing right in front of them. If she held the suggestion they ignored her. People almost walked into her. Cameras still showed her so she should be careful, as that was a prime way of announcing that she was a mutant to the government. She slithered in and out between the men. Does this count as voyeurism? She didn't know. Not that she cared overly much about the muscular men clothing themselves around her. For now, she was only focused on the bill that would singlehandedly double her wealth. She was soon outside again on a bench, 200$ richer. Her breathing and heartbeat just now started to return to normal levels. It seemed she was still worried about her powers failing her when she needed them the most, but they didn't. That was good. Very good. She could become effectively invisible to the normal human and only seen by technology or superhumans. Like some kind of reverse vampire. Fuck, those were a thing too here, weren't they? Let's hope Blade and his vampires weren't a thing in this universe. Just as the sun was setting Emilia made her way towards a fairly affordable hostel. She asked a receptionist for directions to one. She made sure with her empathy that she was telling the truth too. Over the past few hours, she has 'collected' about 900$. That was both a lot and very little. A night in this hotel would cost 300$. Hopefully, she could wash her clothes without charge but this was New York so who knew? Tomorrow she would need to go shopping and continue her scamming spree afterwards to be able to afford the next night here. She wanted clothes and a smartphone. She needed to set aside money for food too. Her appetite seemed to increase. She felt like she hasn't eaten in days after she overexerted herself once today with telepathy. What kind of telepath used food as the energy source like this? Well, at least it satisfied her logical side. She wasn't pulling psychic energy out of the ass of an Outer God at least. She quickly got a room from a frowning receptionist. Her thoughts were quite clear on her needing a shower so she quickly obliged once she got to the room. After once again shoveling down food enough for 2 grown men she went to sleep. For the first time with somewhat solid ideas about her future.
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The sun was at its zenith now, so about 2 pm. Emilia was now walking around in the park, trying to relax while looking at the blooming flowers and trees. It was the beginning of spring, she was far more certain of it now. She decided to accept her circumstances, she could only plan for the future if she did. Now that the reality of the situation started to set in, a wave of melancholia rolled over Emilia. This time it was her own. She imagined not being able to see her sister and parents anymore and teared up a little. She cleaned her eyes with a brief sob escaping her. Even though she wasn't especially close with her mother she knew the woman cared about her, even if she would rather swallow a cactus than show it. Her father's silly stories about living with Buddhist monks for months and how he believed karma and souls could be measured by cards and throwing sticks. She felt a pang in her chest at the thought of not hearing any new stories from him. Then there was her sister, Emma, yeah her parents were creative like that. They were always close, growing up with a mostly absent father and a cold mother that left raising them to hired nannies. They still chatted almost daily after Emilia left for college. Emma would be fine, she was a far more mature woman than her, even if she was the younger one. It stung to admit it but she felt it was the truth. Emilia forced her attention onto the colourful petals and greenery, attempting to shift her thoughts from such a depressing direction. Telepathy. That was a better distraction. That was what she guessed her 'power' was. What could one use telepathy for in fiction? She was trying to jog her memory to remember everything she could about the subject. She decided there were five major ones: Communication: Telepathy can allow people to communicate with each other mentally, even if they are physically far apart or unable to speak out loud. Mind reading: Telepathy can also allow people to read each other's thoughts. Manipulation: Telepathy can be used as a tool for manipulation. A person with telepathic abilities could influence the thoughts and actions of others, either to their benefit or to control and manipulate others. Empathy: Telepathy can allow people to feel the emotions of others, creating a deeper understanding of other characters and their motivations. Psychic battles: Telepathy can be used in intense psychic battles between telepaths, with each telepath trying to gain the upper hand by invading the other's mind or blocking their abilities. She was sure she could do Mind Reading and Empathy. Those were the 'thoughts' that she heard and the waves of emotions she felt. She wasn't sure she could use more intrusive variations of either, where she would dive into the mind of someone instead of just standing there like a net. Catching stray thoughts. The same with empathy. Hiding emotions would be harder and she seemed fairly sensitive to underlying emotions, and more muted ones if she focused. She could also sense minds and auras around her. With increased range if she focused. She guessed ordering that paedophile to stop breathing counts as both intrusive and offensive manipulation. That was good, if this world was indeed Marvel she would need every tool she had to stay alive. Well safe would be a better word, and free is the best. Many of the organizations that would seek to capture mutants wouldn't be happy if their test subject died. It was hard getting new ones and all that. It would be best to avoid that, she thought glumly. Back to planning the future. Money, a place to stay and information. These were the things she needed. The order wasn't strictly necessary. If she applied her Telepathy liberally all three should be doable. She didn't want to try mind neither mind-diving or copying memories. Both have some severe dangers if she didn't do them very carefully and expertly. She would need far more experience before attempting either. Her mind and personality are being rewritten because she mistakenly copied more than she should have, along with memories of going catatonic as she lost her mind in the psychic landscape of another mind. Neither sounded like a fun end. They weren't even deaths, she would just disappear. Not much different from how she imagined death before appearing here. Her death was different, so different that it was alive in a sense. Which was a weird thing to say. Death was alive. But it was true, as the abstract entity called "Death" representing the concept of Death was real here. Along with innumerable gods and goddesses of death, along with demons and eldritch beings that would eat her soul or enslave it without batting an eye. She dried her eyes with her sleeve again. Damn flowers and their pollen, triggering her allergies. They were lucky they were pretty. She liked pretty things. A cold spring breeze swept away an array of colourful petals along with verdant green leaves. Emilia shivered, hiding her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, but she still appreciated the sight. Her mood brightening a bit, she returned to her most pressing concern. Namely money. Should she go the swindler route, the beggar route or just try to manipulate people into forgetting their wallets? The beggar route wouldn't work, she was still far too well dressed for that. Even if waking up in a trash-filled alley yesterday didn't help, her clothes were still fairly expensive and it showed. So it was between the last two. For the swindler route, she would need to talk to people a lot while for the last route, she would need to get a better handle on her abilities. She considered her options for a solid minute. How could she train her abilities or at least get a handle on their current limits? She didn't believe they were at maximum power. Mental strength should be trainable, and so should dexterity. While many in her position would curse at not being as powerful as Professor X or Jean Grey she was happy. You can hide a rock on a sandy beach but you can't hide a mountain. She was 22, by this age Jean Grey could toss mountains with her mind and crush the professor in a psychic duel, though that was with the phoenix buffing her up to the nine heavens. If psychic abilities followed basic logic, having less overall strength should make her more dexterous with her abilities. In telepathy, she would have to go the control route and focus on stealth. She couldn't protect her mind from someone so powerful hammering it with brute strength, she would need to hide it from them and blend in with other people. In the movies nobody used their powers creatively, neither did they have tricks or anything. Just brawling. Even if it was mental brawling or throwing stuff at each other. That looked better on screen she guessed. Maybe if there was a version of Professor Xavier he would be a true master of telepathy, knowing every trick that exists whole also having pure psychic power barely equalled by any on earth. If he did exist here he would be one of the most dangerous humans alive, she decided. Avoiding him would be paramount to staying free, even throwing herself into the arms of SHIELD would be better. Power tended to corrupt, and a single man had to power to mould any person on earth to his whims, bending minds, rewriting personalities and memories, now that was near absolute power. She didn't want to find out what that looked like in a person. Her wish was promptly crushed by an immense sense of danger she felt. Like a rat hearing the wildlife fleeing from an apex predator. She felt what was coming towards her, not physically but psychically. She focused desperately to pull her powers in and hide. *I'm a normal person, I don't have powers, I'm not even here, Ignore me* she chanted in her mind foolishly. The beast she felt was upon her a massive psychic presence that encompassed the whole of New York and spread far and wide. She couldn't sense it spread actively, that was only the sensation she got from it. It examined people, searching deeply inside of them before disinterestedly withdrawing its feelers from them. It rolled over every living being. Examining. Analyzing. Judging. Recording. It finally reached Emilia. She held her breath, as her heart thundered in her chest. She felt it beat in her neck and ears. She never felt this panicked and terrified before. She never felt this vulnerable and out of control. Her frustration was hidden beneath her much greater fear. The feelers never came. They never invaded her mind and body to analyze it, to decide if she fit their criteria. Now that they were closer she could passively examine them closer. They were crude and simple things. They searched for humans, searched for something in them, and decided if it was what they wanted, if not they ignored them but if it was then they recorded it. It was like the sub-routines of a massive program. When she briefly felt what they were searching for inside the humans she instantly realized what this terrifying monster of a psychic presence was. It searched for the X Gene of humans and decided if they were mutants. Methodically like a machine. It was exactly that, a machine powered by one of the strongest telepaths Earth has ever seen. The Cerebro, the machine designed and built to enhance Charles Xavier's psychic powers and help him search for mutants. The whole experience barely lasted half a minute, the machine examined every living human inside New York on a genetic level in half a minute. Yet it ignored her, it had acted like she didn't exist. She was either a natural at psychic stealth or she didn't even register to it as a human. She wanted it to be the first but maybe it was the second. That idea opened a whole new can of worms that she quickly stuffed back into the can and sealed it shut. Throwing it into the back of her mind. She didn't have time to doubt whether she was still a human or not. Well, that proved that there were others with powers at least. Previously it could have been just a normal Earth with a perfectly normal Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, just without any superpowers and stuff. She was lucky the Cerebro searched mechanically and it wasn't just enhancing the powers of the Professor. He could have easily noticed that she was different, she guessed. She needed to get to training her abilities after she got an idea of its current limits. After about two or three hours she sat back down on a bench and started revising what she's learned. She has been walking around trying to test the range of her abilities first. Her range seemed to increase the more she focused on it, passively it was about 50m and she could push it to about 200 if she was fully focused on just sensing around her. It was nowhere near any of the 'big' telepaths range but she was satisfied, finally knowing something concrete about her abilities. Next, she tested how much effort it took for her to influence people's choices, just changing which direction they wanted to go in an intersection and things like that. The was one old lady she wanted to influence so she would throw the trash beside the bin but she didn't succeed with the limited amount of 'push' she used. She didn't want to force it, she didn't know if there were side effects of making people obey her orders using brute force and the old lady was just trying to keep the park clean. From this, she came to understand that there were people with stronger minds, and they could resist manipulation to an extent. It was easier to influence a choice they didn't care about. Consequently, the hardest thing to do should be to make them kill themselves. She did that already though. Maybe the man was suicidal? Or maybe her being so furious at him had a part in it. The Empathy and Mind Sensing abilities came to her almost naturally, she could mute them, focus them on only a few people, and decrease or increase the intensity. She didn't know if she could use them for anything else than sensing people around her. Both would give her a better idea of people she could sca- ugh liberate money from. Yeah. She usually wouldn't be considering stealing money, but when the alternative was sleeping on a bench and starving it didn't take long for her to make up her mind about it. So for now she needs to find someone fairly wealthy. Preferably soft-hearted or forgetful. She spent the next 30 minutes searching for a target. She found her first target near a recreational centre. He seemed like a middle-class office worker from the clothes he was just now putting on. She didn't see him as he was separated from her by a few walls, but she could sense him. She felt he was hurried, fearful of being late for dinner with his fiance. Well, that was kinda cute. She sent not an order like before, instead, it was a suggestion. *Leave behind 200$,* and he did. As the man hurriedly checked himself over he also took out his wallet, seemingly checking if he had any money. He followed up by taking out a 200$ bill and placing it down on a bench before putting on the final layer of his clothes and hurriedly leaving. Emilia made sure to push a suggestion to any others in the room to ignore the bill, but also herself as she made her way over there. This was something she tested before. If a person wasn't aware of her presence before it was fairly easy to keep it that way, even if she was standing right in front of them. If she held the suggestion they ignored her. People almost walked into her. Cameras still showed her so she should be careful, as that was a prime way of announcing that she was a mutant to the government. She slithered in and out between the men. Does this count as voyeurism? She didn't know. Not that she cared overly much about the muscular men clothing themselves around her. For now, she was only focused on the bill that would singlehandedly double her wealth. She was soon outside again on a bench, 200$ richer. Her breathing and heartbeat just now started to return to normal levels. It seemed she was still worried about her powers failing her when she needed them the most, but they didn't. That was good. Very good. She could become effectively invisible to the normal human and only seen by technology or superhumans. Like some kind of reverse vampire. Fuck, those were a thing too here, weren't they? Let's hope Blade and his vampires weren't a thing in this universe. Just as the sun was setting Emilia made her way towards a fairly affordable hostel. She asked a receptionist for directions to one. She made sure with her empathy that she was telling the truth too. Over the past few hours, she has 'collected' about 900$. That was both a lot and very little. A night in this hotel would cost 300$. Hopefully, she could wash her clothes without charge but this was New York so who knew? Tomorrow she would need to go shopping and continue her scamming spree afterwards to be able to afford the next night here. She wanted clothes and a smartphone. She needed to set aside money for food too. Her appetite seemed to increase. She felt like she hasn't eaten in days after she overexerted herself once today with telepathy. What kind of telepath used food as the energy source like this? Well, at least it satisfied her logical side. She wasn't pulling psychic energy out of the ass of an Outer God at least. She quickly got a room from a frowning receptionist. Her thoughts were quite clear on her needing a shower so she quickly obliged once she got to the room. After once again shoveling down food enough for 2 grown men she went to sleep. For the first time with somewhat solid ideas about her future.
The sun was at its zenith now, so about 2 pm. Emilia was now walking around in the park, trying to relax while looking at the blooming flowers and trees. It was the beginning of spring, she was far more certain of it now. She decided to accept her circumstances, she could only plan for the future if she did. Now that the reality of the situation started to set in, a wave of melancholia rolled over Emilia. This time it was her own. She imagined not being able to see her sister and parents anymore and teared up a little. She cleaned her eyes with a brief sob escaping her. Even though she wasn't especially close with her mother she knew the woman cared about her, even if she would rather swallow a cactus than show it. Her father's silly stories about living with Buddhist monks for months and how he believed karma and souls could be measured by cards and throwing sticks. She felt a pang in her chest at the thought of not hearing any new stories from him. Then there was her sister, Emma, yeah her parents were creative like that. They were always close, growing up with a mostly absent father and a cold mother that left raising them to hired nannies. They still chatted almost daily after Emilia left for college. Emma would be fine, she was a far more mature woman than her, even if she was the younger one. It stung to admit it but she felt it was the truth. Emilia forced her attention onto the colourful petals and greenery, attempting to shift her thoughts from such a depressing direction. Telepathy. That was a better distraction. That was what she guessed her 'power' was. What could one use telepathy for in fiction? She was trying to jog her memory to remember everything she could about the subject. She decided there were five major ones: Communication: Telepathy can allow people to communicate with each other mentally, even if they are physically far apart or unable to speak out loud. Mind reading: Telepathy can also allow people to read each other's thoughts. Manipulation: Telepathy can be used as a tool for manipulation. A person with telepathic abilities could influence the thoughts and actions of others, either to their benefit or to control and manipulate others. Empathy: Telepathy can allow people to feel the emotions of others, creating a deeper understanding of other characters and their motivations. Psychic battles: Telepathy can be used in intense psychic battles between telepaths, with each telepath trying to gain the upper hand by invading the other's mind or blocking their abilities. She was sure she could do Mind Reading and Empathy. Those were the 'thoughts' that she heard and the waves of emotions she felt. She wasn't sure she could use more intrusive variations of either, where she would dive into the mind of someone instead of just standing there like a net. Catching stray thoughts. The same with empathy. Hiding emotions would be harder and she seemed fairly sensitive to underlying emotions, and more muted ones if she focused. She could also sense minds and auras around her. With increased range if she focused. She guessed ordering that paedophile to stop breathing counts as both intrusive and offensive manipulation. That was good, if this world was indeed Marvel she would need every tool she had to stay alive. Well safe would be a better word, and free is the best. Many of the organizations that would seek to capture mutants wouldn't be happy if their test subject died. It was hard getting new ones and all that. It would be best to avoid that, she thought glumly. Back to planning the future. Money, a place to stay and information. These were the things she needed. The order wasn't strictly necessary. If she applied her Telepathy liberally all three should be doable. She didn't want to try mind neither mind-diving or copying memories. Both have some severe dangers if she didn't do them very carefully and expertly. She would need far more experience before attempting either. Her mind and personality are being rewritten because she mistakenly copied more than she should have, along with memories of going catatonic as she lost her mind in the psychic landscape of another mind. Neither sounded like a fun end. They weren't even deaths, she would just disappear. Not much different from how she imagined death before appearing here. Her death was different, so different that it was alive in a sense. Which was a weird thing to say. Death was alive. But it was true, as the abstract entity called "Death" representing the concept of Death was real here. Along with innumerable gods and goddesses of death, along with demons and eldritch beings that would eat her soul or enslave it without batting an eye. She dried her eyes with her sleeve again. Damn flowers and their pollen, triggering her allergies. They were lucky they were pretty. She liked pretty things. A cold spring breeze swept away an array of colourful petals along with verdant green leaves. Emilia shivered, hiding her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, but she still appreciated the sight. Her mood brightening a bit, she returned to her most pressing concern. Namely money. Should she go the swindler route, the beggar route or just try to manipulate people into forgetting their wallets? The beggar route wouldn't work, she was still far too well dressed for that. Even if waking up in a trash-filled alley yesterday didn't help, her clothes were still fairly expensive and it showed. So it was between the last two. For the swindler route, she would need to talk to people a lot while for the last route, she would need to get a better handle on her abilities. She considered her options for a solid minute. How could she train her abilities or at least get a handle on their current limits? She didn't believe they were at maximum power. Mental strength should be trainable, and so should dexterity. While many in her position would curse at not being as powerful as Professor X or Jean Grey she was happy. You can hide a rock on a sandy beach but you can't hide a mountain. She was 22, by this age Jean Grey could toss mountains with her mind and crush the professor in a psychic duel, though that was with the phoenix buffing her up to the nine heavens. If psychic abilities followed basic logic, having less overall strength should make her more dexterous with her abilities. In telepathy, she would have to go the control route and focus on stealth. She couldn't protect her mind from someone so powerful hammering it with brute strength, she would need to hide it from them and blend in with other people. In the movies nobody used their powers creatively, neither did they have tricks or anything. Just brawling. Even if it was mental brawling or throwing stuff at each other. That looked better on screen she guessed. Maybe if there was a version of Professor Xavier he would be a true master of telepathy, knowing every trick that exists whole also having pure psychic power barely equalled by any on earth. If he did exist here he would be one of the most dangerous humans alive, she decided. Avoiding him would be paramount to staying free, even throwing herself into the arms of SHIELD would be better. Power tended to corrupt, and a single man had to power to mould any person on earth to his whims, bending minds, rewriting personalities and memories, now that was near absolute power. She didn't want to find out what that looked like in a person. Her wish was promptly crushed by an immense sense of danger she felt. Like a rat hearing the wildlife fleeing from an apex predator. She felt what was coming towards her, not physically but psychically. She focused desperately to pull her powers in and hide. *I'm a normal person, I don't have powers, I'm not even here, Ignore me* she chanted in her mind foolishly. The beast she felt was upon her a massive psychic presence that encompassed the whole of New York and spread far and wide. She couldn't sense it spread actively, that was only the sensation she got from it. It examined people, searching deeply inside of them before disinterestedly withdrawing its feelers from them. It rolled over every living being. Examining. Analyzing. Judging. Recording. It finally reached Emilia. She held her breath, as her heart thundered in her chest. She felt it beat in her neck and ears. She never felt this panicked and terrified before. She never felt this vulnerable and out of control. Her frustration was hidden beneath her much greater fear. The feelers never came. They never invaded her mind and body to analyze it, to decide if she fit their criteria. Now that they were closer she could passively examine them closer. They were crude and simple things. They searched for humans, searched for something in them, and decided if it was what they wanted, if not they ignored them but if it was then they recorded it. It was like the sub-routines of a massive program. When she briefly felt what they were searching for inside the humans she instantly realized what this terrifying monster of a psychic presence was. It searched for the X Gene of humans and decided if they were mutants. Methodically like a machine. It was exactly that, a machine powered by one of the strongest telepaths Earth has ever seen. The Cerebro, the machine designed and built to enhance Charles Xavier's psychic powers and help him search for mutants. The whole experience barely lasted half a minute, the machine examined every living human inside New York on a genetic level in half a minute. Yet it ignored her, it had acted like she didn't exist. She was either a natural at psychic stealth or she didn't even register to it as a human. She wanted it to be the first but maybe it was the second. That idea opened a whole new can of worms that she quickly stuffed back into the can and sealed it shut. Throwing it into the back of her mind. She didn't have time to doubt whether she was still a human or not. Well, that proved that there were others with powers at least. Previously it could have been just a normal Earth with a perfectly normal Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, just without any superpowers and stuff. She was lucky the Cerebro searched mechanically and it wasn't just enhancing the powers of the Professor. He could have easily noticed that she was different, she guessed. She needed to get to training her abilities after she got an idea of its current limits. After about two or three hours she sat back down on a bench and started revising what she's learned. She has been walking around trying to test the range of her abilities first. Her range seemed to increase the more she focused on it, passively it was about 50m and she could push it to about 200 if she was fully focused on just sensing around her. It was nowhere near any of the 'big' telepaths range but she was satisfied, finally knowing something concrete about her abilities. Next, she tested how much effort it took for her to influence people's choices, just changing which direction they wanted to go in an intersection and things like that. The was one old lady she wanted to influence so she would throw the trash beside the bin but she didn't succeed with the limited amount of 'push' she used. She didn't want to force it, she didn't know if there were side effects of making people obey her orders using brute force and the old lady was just trying to keep the park clean. From this, she came to understand that there were people with stronger minds, and they could resist manipulation to an extent. It was easier to influence a choice they didn't care about. Consequently, the hardest thing to do should be to make them kill themselves. She did that already though. Maybe the man was suicidal? Or maybe her being so furious at him had a part in it. The Empathy and Mind Sensing abilities came to her almost naturally, she could mute them, focus them on only a few people, and decrease or increase the intensity. She didn't know if she could use them for anything else than sensing people around her. Both would give her a better idea of people she could sca- ugh liberate money from. Yeah. She usually wouldn't be considering stealing money, but when the alternative was sleeping on a bench and starving it didn't take long for her to make up her mind about it. So for now she needs to find someone fairly wealthy. Preferably soft-hearted or forgetful. She spent the next 30 minutes searching for a target. She found her first target near a recreational centre. He seemed like a middle-class office worker from the clothes he was just now putting on. She didn't see him as he was separated from her by a few walls, but she could sense him. She felt he was hurried, fearful of being late for dinner with his fiance. Well, that was kinda cute. She sent not an order like before, instead, it was a suggestion. *Leave behind 200$,* and he did. As the man hurriedly checked himself over he also took out his wallet, seemingly checking if he had any money. He followed up by taking out a 200$ bill and placing it down on a bench before putting on the final layer of his clothes and hurriedly leaving. Emilia made sure to push a suggestion to any others in the room to ignore the bill, but also herself as she made her way over there. This was something she tested before. If a person wasn't aware of her presence before it was fairly easy to keep it that way, even if she was standing right in front of them. If she held the suggestion they ignored her. People almost walked into her. Cameras still showed her so she should be careful, as that was a prime way of announcing that she was a mutant to the government. She slithered in and out between the men. Does this count as voyeurism? She didn't know. Not that she cared overly much about the muscular men clothing themselves around her. For now, she was only focused on the bill that would singlehandedly double her wealth. She was soon outside again on a bench, 200$ richer. Her breathing and heartbeat just now started to return to normal levels. It seemed she was still worried about her powers failing her when she needed them the most, but they didn't. That was good. Very good. She could become effectively invisible to the normal human and only seen by technology or superhumans. Like some kind of reverse vampire. Fuck, those were a thing too here, weren't they? Let's hope Blade and his vampires weren't a thing in this universe. Just as the sun was setting Emilia made her way towards a fairly affordable hostel. She asked a receptionist for directions to one. She made sure with her empathy that she was telling the truth too. Over the past few hours, she has 'collected' about 900$. That was both a lot and very little. A night in this hotel would cost 300$. Hopefully, she could wash her clothes without charge but this was New York so who knew? Tomorrow she would need to go shopping and continue her scamming spree afterwards to be able to afford the next night here. She wanted clothes and a smartphone. She needed to set aside money for food too. Her appetite seemed to increase. She felt like she hasn't eaten in days after she overexerted herself once today with telepathy. What kind of telepath used food as the energy source like this? Well, at least it satisfied her logical side. She wasn't pulling psychic energy out of the ass of an Outer God at least. She quickly got a room from a frowning receptionist. Her thoughts were quite clear on her needing a shower so she quickly obliged once she got to the room. After once again shoveling down food enough for 2 grown men she went to sleep. For the first time with somewhat solid ideas about her future.
