It would have been so easy. So very easy to just take the coin, and push it through Shaw's head, to save himself and everyone else. Couldn't anyone else see what was going to happen? If Charles' control slipped one little bit, Shaw would let all the energy out that he had absorbed from the nuclear reactor, and they would all die. Charles would die.
Wouldn't it just be easier to kill Shaw so that the rest of us made it out alive? No, Erik. There must be another way. Charles' voice echoed through his mind and he gritted his teeth. He had the helmet on and so it was not telepathic contact but rather a memory. A thought that he knew would be on Charles' mind, as he could see the whole encounter. He stuttered in his monologue, paused and took off the helmet.
"What would you have me do, Charles?" Find some other way to cause the threat he poses to go away. Erik gritted his teeth. Yes there was a way to make the threat go away, but it wouldn't end well, at least not for himself. "Okay. Let him go." Erik promptly placed the helmet back on his head and prepared himself for the massive attacks that he was about to intercept.
Shaw broke out of Charles' control with a wicked grin and moved towards Erik with the grace of a panther. "Your little friend left you to die. How does that make you feel? Does he even know what you plan to do?" Erik threw metal bars at Shaw, trying to keep him at bay without using himself as the thing that he was throwing around. "Oh. He says he has no clue what you were planning. Really Erik, did you think that it would work?" The metal bars that Erik had surrounded the man with suddenly collapsed into a cage around Shaw. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he gritted his teeth as he felt Shaw's energy press against his constraints.
"Erik!" He could vaguely hear Charles' voice, his actual voice, not his telepathic one. But he couldn't answer, couldn't break his control. He tried to bring up the memory of his mother and the menorah, but it wasn't strong enough. His hold on the metal casing around the man was still failing. He was still going to lose.
A happy memory, he desperately searched his memory for such a thing. Charles' laughing face suddenly popped into his head and a stream of memories from their time at the manor, from their previous mission together when Charles' had been so brilliant and he couldn't help himself from smiling.
He could feel Shaw's strength and the nuclear energy that powered him slowly slipping away. At the same time, he knew that he was growing weaker and weaker. It seemed that they would both go at the same time. It was oddly poetic, in an ironic sort of way. Erik had set out to kill Shaw, it had been his only ambition for his entire life, since his mother had died anyways, and he was throwing it all away for this one man. This one crazy, beautiful, brilliant man, and he couldn't find it in himself to blame Charles for the death that he was soon going to find himself facing.
He didn't have time to question why he felt this way, or what the feeling was called, because it was then that Shaw broke out of the casing that he was put in and Erik was blown backwards, once again up against the wall with the force that was exerted. Shaw was panting and red-faced, but the look on his face was as threatening as it had been when he had been a little boy, ripped away from his family and experimented on. For a moment Erik was lost in his terror, but quickly regained his senses as he ducked out of the way as Shaw angrily threw a beam at him. He could have caught it, easily. But he needed to save his strength if he wanted to retain that tiny chance that he could somehow make it out of this situation alive, that he would somehow have the chance to tell Charles..
To tell Charles what, exactly? Shaw finally caught up to him and picked him up, with strength that was only a little bit more than that of a regular man. Excellent.
"You stupid boy! I taught you everything! I gave you your power! I gave you purpose! We are on the same team! We believe in the same things!" Erik looked down in disgust at the man. Did they believe in the same things? After a moment of thought, he realized that, yes, their thought processes on humans were scarily similar. Erik shuddered; disgusted with himself and who he had come to be.
"I may have blindly had the same principals up until now." Shaw had moved to choking him and the words came out strangled but Erik continued with a dogged persistence. "We are nothing alike." He kneed Shaw in the stomach and Erik found his feet as Shaw fell to the ground. Erik kicked him again in the face. "And I would not join you even if we were." He kicked Sebastian swiftly in the face. "You killed my mother."
The man on the floor groaned and got up coming after Erik once again. "Just like I'm going to kill you." He took a swing at the metal-kine who swiftly stepped aside. It seemed that he still had more energy than the older man.
This action continued a few more times until Shaw was panting and clutching his left arm. His face muscles spasmed and Erik could easily surmise that the man was having a heart attack from using too much of the absorbed energy at one time. Not leaving enough to use for normal bodily functions. Erik grinned sadistically. "It seems that my fortune is a bit better than hers, as you will die before you have a chance to shoot me. Not that you-" It was then that he sensed that the man did in fact have a gun. There was no time for him to dodge the bullet, and he didn't have enough strength left to deflect it. The bullet entered his ribcage and exited out the side, puncturing a lung.
Erik immediately moved to stop the bleeding, gasping and staring at Shaw disbelievingly. How had he missed such an obvious metal object? His idiocy had resulted in what would probably be his death. He leaned against the side of the submarine and stared at the dying man who was smiling at him. "Damn, you're right, you're not gonna die like she did. This is gonna hurt a hell of a lot worse." Erik kicked at him with what was left of his strength and the man slipped into unconsciousness.
Charles burst into the room and stared at his injured friend. "We have to get out of here. The Americans and the Russians. They're. They're firing at us." Erik shuddered and drew another gasping breath, stumbling away from the side and through the wreckage to get to Charles. As he progressed towards the exit, he could feel blood seeping through his uniform and could hear Charles gasp when he saw it. "Oh Erik. We have to get you help. I'm so sorry." Erik shook his head.
"Don't apologize." Erik gasped out as he started to lean against Charles. "Get me outside. I need to stop… the attack." Charles turned to him with large blue eyes. Concerned eyes, like he actually cared, which was probably because, for some whacked out and insane reason, Charles actually did care for him. (As the insane, I need looked after because if I'm not I may do terrible things if you don't look after me, best friend type of caring.) But it was not the caring that Erik felt, no never that, nowhere near as deep as that was.
He would have chuckled at Charles' puzzled expression if his lung wasn't collapsing and he was barely getting enough air as it was. Erik realized that it was probably a good thing that he still had Shaw's helmet on, because in his lucid state he probably would have been projecting at a disturbing level and some of his thoughts about the way that Charles was supporting his weight, the way he seemed so concerned for him, and the longing that he could possibly return Erik's feelings, were things that he didn't quite want the telepath to know. Especially if this was going to be his last impression of him, if Erik was going to die on this sandy godforsaken beach, he was going to go out with whatever dignity he could, especially in Charles' eyes.
Once they were finally out of the submarine, they only had moments for the other mutants to stare at their leader (or their enemy, depending on which mutants they were talking about, but really, Erik wasn't too sure who exactly was the enemy or not, considering the fact that Shaw had probably died by now) and the man he was carrying, for that was when both navies that were out in the bay decided to launch what seemed like hundreds and hundreds of nuclear weapons at them. Erik had to scoff a little bit, even though it made a burning pain lance through his side. Couldn't one bomb have done the job? But then, Erik forced himself to think, maybe they weren't entirely stupid, and were just trying to overload his power.
"Azazel!" Erik barked out and the red man popped in next to him, seeming to now adjust to Erik as his leader. Some sort of pack leadership change thing must apply here, Erik thought to himself blearily. "Start transporting people back to Charles' mansion. You know where it is, right?" He stared intently at the man, and he nodded hurriedly. "I'm going to be able to stop the bombs, but the people on those boats are still going to be interested in coming onshore and killing us for themselves when their first choice of attack… doesn't work." Erik panted a little bit and Charles' grip tightened a little bit. Azazel looked questioningly between the two of them. "NOW." Azazel started with Moira and was back within a matter of seconds, taking person after person.
Erik turned his attention to the present challenge and concentrated on his happy memories, all of them from the moment of his birth to now. The memories of his mother, the memories of Charles, the care in Charles' eyes when he saw that he was hurt. Then he focused on his anger. On everything Shaw had ever done to him, on every single wrong the Nazis had done to his people, humans had done to him along the road to where he was.
Even in his injured state, the buildup of power was enough to disable the bombs and make them drop into the sea. He stood by himself for a moment and Charles literally jumped for joy. Without support he quickly collapsed. "Erik! We did it!" He then turned from the sea to see his friend slumped over. "Erik? ERIK! Stay awake. Azazel is coming back for us. Come on." Everything that was in Erik's line of vision was blurry and his head lolled back and forth from the slight shaking that Charles was giving him to try to keep him awake.
"Which of you should I take first?" Charles' head snapped up at Azazel's deep voice.
"Erik first. Take him. He needs to get medical help. Hank can help him, but only if we get him there quickly." Erik moaned and shook his head.
"Charles first. Get him out of here, that's an order Azazel." Azazel nodded at Erik and grabbed ah hold of Charles. Taking him to the manor first despite his protesting.
"Hank!" Charles' voice echoed throughout the manor. "Get the lab ready! Erik was shot!"
Azazel went quickly as he could back to Cuba, back to his new leader who he knew might not be his leader for very much longer if he did not get him back to that lab that Charles was speaking of. He found the man bleeding in the sand and picked him up, taking him right to where he assumed the lab was, and found a bed ready to place him.
Erik could barely make out shapes and his breath was becoming shallower and shallower. "Charles. I have something to tell you before I…" The telepath moved quickly over to him, shaking his head.
"You're not leaving me Erik. Not like this." Erik chuckled drily a little bit which prompted a coughing fit which splattered blood over everything. He believed that he did not have much time left, but he needed to get his confession out. The little while that he had been alone on the beach gave him some time for thought, and he knew that for some reason (it wasn't logical at all, more of an emotional push for the move) he absolutely had to tell him how he felt before he died.
"How would you prefer me to leave you?" He grinned and could see Charles grimace which made it fade, his teeth were probably covered in blood anyways, a gruesome sight more than a comforting one. "Charles…" He shuddered as the doctor peeled off his uniform. "Charles, I love you." His face went blank for a minute and Erik felt his chest squeeze with pain that was not part of whatever the doctor was doing to him.
Had he expected a positive reply? What an idiotic venture. Now Charles would have his last memory of him be of some idiotic and embarrassing rambling that was of no consequence. Erik cursed himself as he felt his world go black and let his eyes close, surrendering himself to unconsciousness or death, whichever was welcoming him. At least he would not have to deal with the rejection and embarrassment that he would surely face if he were to see or speak to Charles again.
Perhaps things had worked out for the better.
Okay. So. I'm just going to end it there. Unless you guys say differently, because I have a plotline that this could follow, but I kind of think ending it here is just as well. Tell me what you think, please and thank you!