Magnetized

Ellery sat in a plush, beige colored chair located inside a containment chamber. Deep breaths pushed calm thoughts through her mind. She could hear and feel the hum of an engine in her head; imagined the slick grease on her fingers. Her body felt a little more at ease, but far from calm as she waited.

Phil assured her as he left her to the silence that the chamber was for his team’s safety. It’s not good if you get nervous and start unscrewing bolts, Ellery. Another round of breaths ended the trembling in her fingers. She glanced around the room again. Gun metal blue walls patterned with hexagons. The polymer material would withstand a small explosion, but mostly, it was silent.

She relished the silence while she waved her steady hand over the metal pen Phil left. It was bulky, silver, and contained a black shield logo in the center. Swiping right over the pen tore it a part, revealing it’s ink and springs; swiping left put everything back together again. Round 32 of putting the pen back together, the door slid open. Fitz stepped into the room. Ellery ripped the pen apart again before she looked at him.

“I suppose I owe you an apology,” Fitz said. His eyes turned toward the floor, his hands fidgeted in front of him.

“You can look at me,” Ellery said, ripping the pen a part again. “I’m not Katherine.”

“That’s why, I’m afraid, I owe you an apology. Your files were given to us unseparated.” He squirmed again before sitting down and meeting her gaze. She put the pen together again.

“You need me to separate the info?” Ellery smiled. “Happens all the time. One of the places that picked me up didn’t understand the word ‘twin’ and almost blew my head off when I couldn’t manipulate thought processes.”

“It’s rare, I’ve only heard of one set of twins having powers.” Fitz said.

“And they brought down Sokovia. Everyone knows about the Maximoff siblings; we’re not like them.” Ellery said. “I have been hunted my entire life; Katherine can blend in at will.”

“You’re the technopath and she is the telepath slash empath,” Fitz said, jotting down the note.

“The photo of me in the blue in your folder is actually Katherine. You can tell by the almost unnoticeable scar beneath her left ear.” Ellery points to a jagged lightning bolt. “I did that to her on our seventh birthday.”

Fitz’s eyes widened. His mouth fell open in the unspoken question. How?

“I got angry. It was the first time I moved metal. The screwdriver my uncle was using to put together our swing set went flying through the air and caught her.” Ellery sighed with the bout of nostalgia.

“So, you developed first?” Fitz asked.

Ellery nodded. “Katherine hated me for it. Our mom told stories of what our father could do. Moving anything and everything metallic, but he couldn’t make machines run like me.”

Fitz wrote and sorted as she reminisced. Talking about her childhood was easy. Things were good for a time; developing her powers, learning to use them, and hearing about her father. Katherine didn’t join her until they were ten years old, and she worked twice as hard to catch up. First, she manipulated the cat to attack the mailman; second, she convinced the child next door to steal money; but the straw that broke Katherine was talking her high school bully into suicide. The bully kept a smile on her face as her wrists bled. Katherine realized she could do whatever she wanted, and make others feel happy about it.

Everyone except Ellery.

“What happened then? Why did you split up?” Fitz asked.

“I am as unbreakable as the steel I can manipulate,” Ellery confessed. “She couldn’t break me.”

Ellery was sixteen when she found her house ablaze. Sirens blared, lights flashed, people screamed orders. Katherine watched emotionless while Ellery begged for answers. Their mother was asleep upstairs. They were orphans.

“I couldn’t live in foster care. Not with my abilities, but we didn’t have any family.” Ellery left out the part where she did try for six months. Katherine needed the stability, but the boys in the house expected more. The knives in the drawers saved her life, but she had to leave.

“Katherine ran with me for a while. She got caught; I brought down a tin workspace and ran. I’ve been on my own ever since. Running whenever someone discovers what I can do.” Ellery shrugged.

“Last I heard of Katherine a group plugged me to a machine, forced me to watch horrible images, and tried to carve my skin. They said I had no choice, Kat was already with them. I turned their machines on them, unplugged, and ditched every credit card, bank account, and friend I ever made. It’s a lot easier to find people to pay under the table, to keep to yourself. But I don’t know what they did to my sister.”

Ellery stopped moving her hand across the pen. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Fitz put his hand over hers. There was sincerity in his eyes, and she felt safe.

“How long before we land?” she asked taking her hand away from his.

“About an hour or two. There’s a cot here,” Fitz said as he pulled out a square of the wall. “Get some rest.”



“What’s she like?” Jemma said, brimming with excitement.

A small group gathered around the interface control room. Research halted on Katherine when word of Ellery made its way around the carrier. Jemma wanted to see samples of her blood and tissue for comparison. Everything in the file hinted that Ellery was born gifted, not thrown into a vat of chemicals.

“She’s like May, without the kickass moves,” Skye said. She grabbed one of the tablets and scrolled through finding the photo of Ellery.

“No,” Fitz said, shaking his head. “She’s scared.”

Jemma’s face twisted as she watched her friend’s brilliant mind become infatuated with this new girl. This new, gifted, beautiful girl. She never liked his attention being on others, but she had no right to be angry. Her attention had been on Tripp since he’d come aboard the helicarrier.

Something about Ellery haunted Fitz. He could see she understood him in the garage before the roof opened like a tin can. She understood biometrics, but she chose a life as a mechanic forced into solitude. No, Fitz had the strong suspicion that Ellery was holding back.

“What she did with that building…” Skye said. “It was something out of a movie.”

“What was so great about her?” Jemma said, crossing her arms.

“She faced off against a two ton battering ram while holding down the tin roof being peeled off by some sort of device I’ve never seen before,” Fitz said. “It was incredible.”

Since joining the team, Skye saw a lot of phenomenal things, but nothing was as mind blowing as this girl. Her strength seemed limitless, and she was smart. “She overcame the mind control tech Hydra uses. Katherine recognized us as soon as she saw us.”

Fitz opened his mouth, but the words were sucked out before he could speak them.

“Her name is Ellery,” Coulson said. “Her twin sister is Katherine. Thanks for sorting that out, Fitz.” Coulson nodded in his direction. “Both are powerful, but neither can best the other.”

“Ellery can manipulate metal and electromagnetic fields. She is basically a human magnet who can also bind metals together plus shield her mind.” Fitz said. “Katherine is a Telepath with empathic abilities. According to online tabloids more than one ‘mean girl’ committed suicide in the Tarrs’ neighborhood. Rumor has it, Katherine made them do it.”

“Katherine is the one we received the report on. We’re landing to regroup, assess Ellery, and to get back to the search. If the rumors are true, we can’t let Katherine continue.” Coulson didn’t have the heart to give the death order yet. “We need to bring her in alive. There might be hope.”

“I think I know where to find her,” Ellery said as she made her way down the hall. “You need a new password for the jail cell too.”