Title: Freedom and Love in the State of War

Summary: "The CIA Mutant Division has been hunting mutants for years. Erik Lensherr has been hunting Sebastian Shaw even longer. When the paths of Erik and Charles Xavier cross, will Erik finally lay his demons to rest and in the process save mutants from further persecution? Or will he falter and fail?"

This is going to be a long fanfic, creating a slightly AU world, where Charles is being held captive by the CIA, and trying to protect Erik from persecution. Erik must decide whether rescuing him will take him closer or further from what he wants.

Pairing: Charles Xavier / Erik Lensherr – This is a slash fic, so take fair warning now. :D

Credits: This is a fic that was begun with fellow author: Kaseykc who worked very hard with me to write a story plan for this fic, and came up with some fanastic ideas, and helped me form my ramblings into something that meant sense. Unfortunately I seem to have lost my writing partner at the moment, so am progressing solo in a bid to let this fic see the light of day. The Title for this fiction is the creation of / and belongs to Kaseykc.

Note: I am looking for a beta reader for this fic, if you think you will be able to help me, please send a PM. Thank you. :D

PROLOGUE

Boy?

The earliest memory he had, was of himself alone. All memories that followed after held one common denominator; he was always alone. Mother was always too busy with her own life to give more than a passing thought to what was going on in his. During his younger years, he'd been raised by a succession of others employed to look after him; whether any had actually cared for him was something he'd never been certain of. He'd clung to them like he would have clung to his mother had she ever permitted such behaviour; but none of them stayed long. He had always just been a boy to them; not a son, friend, brother…

Not until her.

Many of his earlier memories, before her, hadn't been happy ones. After the death of his father, an event that Charles had been too young to naturally recall, his mother had abandoned him to seek solace elsewhere. He hadn't understood at the time, but she must have been just as lost and confused as he'd been. Only she had the means to escape, and he'd simply been left to grow up with indifferent staff in the place of parents. It wasn't until he was ten years old that his mother returned for longer than her obligatory short visits, which Charles had supposed were just to check he was still alive. With her she brought a new father for him; a man Charles had never seen before but, supposedly, was his 'mother's special friend' whom she would marry.

Perhaps he should have seen the warning signs; he was a smart boy after all, but he'd been too preoccupied with the prospect of having his mother home more often. It had been too long for him, too long since he'd seen his mother's face with his own eyes for more than a week. It had been too long since he'd woken up to the presence of his mother in the household. His joy was careless and short-sighted. His mother liked his new stepfather, and there were no obvious signs of what was to come for him.

It hadn't been long after their honeymoon had ended and they'd returned to the mansion; his mother now Xavier-Marko, that his stepfather had begun to show his true colours. Whether his mother had known about her second husband's sadistic and violent streak prior to their marriage, Charles had never dared to ask; he couldn't comprehend, if she had, why she would permit the man into her home with her only child. But she played the dutiful wife well, took her husband's side on every little disagreement, and politely looked away when his hand came down to strike Charles' young, sad and hurt face.

It never seemed to matter how many bruises marred his body, how many tears he cried and how much blood was spilt from his tender flesh, his mother was rarely sober enough to see or care.

It was almost a year before he was no longer able to conceal his abilities from his stepfather. It was difficult; not letting things slip, not answering questions that were asked in the mind, and keeping things that were impossible for him to have known, a secret. He supposed that it was because of this that his mother had kept those who had looked after him in flux before they learnt of what made him different. But he wished his mother's conscientiousness had extended to protect him from those within the family. Something he wished all the more after his stepfather's reaction to his inexplicable abilities. One would think it be unwise to beat a child at all, let alone as severely as he'd been, for moving a salt shaker without the aid of touch.

Several days later, his stepfather had decided that, whatever it was that Charles had done with the salt shaker, must be repeated within a 'controlled environment'. Charles, being far too terrified of what this would entail, never attempted to move anything ever again without the aid of physical touch. Sometimes, when he was alone with little to occupy his mind, he would wonder whether or not he had unintentionally projected the idea of the salt shaker moving in order to frighten his stepfather. Maybe he had never moved it at all?

Explaining this though would have only exposed his abilities all the more and so, as a result of fear, Charles chose to take the daily abuse, all the while hoping that someday something would happen which would save him from this barbarity. Throughout his time with Kurt Marko he trained himself to focus on both the world around him and that, which was going through his tormentors mind, an exercise in training his abilities.

One thing he found out, during one of his many beatings, was that, somewhere in the world, Charles had a stepbrother. A boy, slightly older than himself, who was never mentioned and who, he suspected, his mother knew nothing of.

Another time he discovered that Kurt Marko had once worked with Charles' own father but, whenever he attempted to access the memories surrounding their work relationship, he was always stopped; mentally pushed out of his stepfather's mind in a purely subconscious response. Over time Charles faced the realisation that he would likely never truly know how this beast of a man happened to arrive in his life.

His mother, sick of the constant arguing between her son and her new husband, decided to send him away from the mansion and Charles was ever so glad for the escape. A boarding school overseas, in the middle of the beautiful countryside of Shropshire, England, became his home only a few years after Marko's arrival into his life.

Sweet little Raven, had been Charles' saviour; in more ways than one. She saved him from a bleak, emotionally starved childhood, and she saved him from a lack of love and acceptance. Everything that she was confirmed for Charles that he wasn't alone in the world, that there might be others out there like them both; hiding their gifts from the rest of humanity.

He wondered if, like Raven, they were as lost and were wandering the world looking for their place within it. Looking for others like themselves, or simply a place to be safe and hidden away from the hate and fear that humanity was rife with.

He promised Raven, his sister in all but blood, that he would always protect her, always look out for her. And he promised himself that he'd do all that he could to protect others like them, so no mutant – a term he later learned applied to them – would ever have to live their lives in fear and feel like pariahs for simply being as natured intended them.

Child?

Loosing your parent's as a child is like losing the world. But to have them torn away from you, to see them herded through large iron gates like cattle not only left loss, but also anger and an unquenchable thirst for revenge. This need to strike out at the harsh world was baited by seeing fear and terror on his parent's faces, the sense of his soul being destroyed as he watched them be degraded and stripped of their clothes and identity. Their captors had even shorn his mother's head, cutting away her long hair, tearing away her beauty. He had screamed and cried for them, but the world just seemed to look on, and then look away. He had learnt that no matter what his parents might of meant to him, they were just one of many poor unfortunates to the world, at worse simply a reminder of a shameful secret chosen to be ignored. They were all just faces to be forgotten.

But he will never forget their faces, not until he dies. He will make the world remember, for every blood spilt, for every life taken, there must be retribution. He will avenge them, his parents, and his friends, everyone who was taken from him. The task must be his alone, because there was no one left to share the burden with. He was the only one he knew to survive.

Erik Lensherr had been born on the wrong side of a marching army. At least, it depended on your view of right and wrong, he was certainly a victim of persecution, unable to defend himself from his attackers. As the Nazi's grew in power and swept through Germany with heavy steps, crushing everything in their way, Erik had cowered with his family, praying to be overlooked and forgotten, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the men in long dark coats looked their way.

But as hard as his childhood had been, Erik had not resented the start in life his parents had given him. They had loved him, more than anything else, and he knew now how precious a gift this had been. They worked hard and never looked for more in life than what they had been given. For a while, they had been happy, until they had been labelled as inferior and hunted from their homes. Stamped with the yellow Star of David, a symbol that had always meant hope now causing despair, and then branded with a series of numbers; needles cutting mercilessly into their skin, dragging ink over the scars, marking their bodies like meat to be sold. Someone now owned them, but they would not show their face, they stayed behind the cruel soldiers who pointed guns in their faces. They were Jewish; they were no longer worthy of their names.

Erik's mother had been a gentle woman, whose sole occupation in life was to protect her family. Most of Erik's now grainy memories were of her scrubbing floors, her face lined and old before her time, skin tinted grey. Her hands always seemed to be callused and rough, sometimes the skin around her fingertips bled. His father had once owned a shop, but that had been taken from him now, and he was forced to earn money from whoever would employ him. Taking menial jobs back when they were still allowed to be free, with long hours, and hardly any reward. Erik barely remembered his father, except that when he was around them, his mother would turn her attentions from Erik to her husband. Erik's first experience of what love was, that it could withstand even the darkest of circumstances. Love was the only thing in his life that he had been blessed with, and even that had been torn away from him.

What he learnt of his powers within the Nazi concentration camps had not been brought to light by love. But by rage, so encompassing that he could not ever imagine it ending. Erik had seen no way out of the nightmare that was his life, and when he had been brought before the 'doctor', he had already been privy to the rumours of horrific experiments being carried out upon Jewish children. All the atrocities committed were being excused in the name of science and progression. Erik had known that he would never escape that room, nor the 'doctor's' clutches, whose eyes gazed at him hungrily, and whose calm words only spoke of cruelty. A spontaneous display of his mutant abilities had sealed Erik's prolonged doom.

However when Erik had failed to produce his power upon demand, his mother's life had been threatened before him. Still his powers seem to lay dormant, buried deep in his terrified mind, and his inability to be cooperative meant that she was shot dead. Erik had seen the fear in his mother's eyes as she tried to reassure him. He had not wanted her to die that day. He had not wanted her to be worked to death either, digging holes behind the camp walls, starving until she could barely stand, and when finally unable to work anymore, thrown into one of those holes and buried still gasping for air. No matter what the outcome might have been on that day, when he had tried to move the coin across the desk, Erik could never have saved his parents from the death that had been facing them all. He had long ago forgiven himself for that day. But his anger had never lessened.

Anger it seemed controlled his powers. Pulling forth his most painful memories, and turning them back upon the world outside allowed him to change what was around him. Bending metal to fit the world that he wanted to make. The feeling of changing the shape of something so solid and strong was something Erik could not describe, but it gave him short moments of comfort in a life that was filled with torment. He soon came to the realisation that he was not simply manipulating metal, but that he was the metal. That when it moved, it was as natural as moving his arms and legs. The more he practiced, the more he could control, until using his powers became a part of his daily life.

The Nazi doctor kept him busy, testing Erik against different types of metal. Some moved more easily, some required more concentration. He remembered living with a continuous headache, from spending all day emotionally exhausted. But even with his nose ran with blood, and his vision doubled, there had been no reprieve. He was pushed, and when he could no longer achieve what the doctor asked him for, new ways were found to make sure he did. Pain worked just as well as anger, which in turn fuelled Erik's emotions. His most terrifying experience had been pushing the drill away, bending the metal backwards, so that the good doctor could not drill through the teeth in his screaming mouth.

On the day that the British discovered the camp, and the walls fell down, it was too late to save any scrap of the innocent boy that had first walked through the gates. His mother had been a long time cold in the ground, and Erik had never discovered what had happened to his father. He had been captive too long to have survived. But Erik had survived, beaten, changed and altered into something new and strong, he had seized his chance at escape. In doing so he lost track of his tormentors, and realised that when he was strong enough to go looking for them, he would have to search the globe.

Freak?

She'd lost everything because she was different. A freak. Maybe that would never change, maybe only it was circumstances that ever altered. All she knew was, that the day he had offered her a place in the world, she had found a brother, united together through their differences.

Her start in life had been troubled. Her birth had been particularly long, her mother struggling for hours, the labour lasting a whole day and then slipping into a second. The doctors had not known what had caused the complications, they had tried to intervene, but her mother had flatly refused a C-section whilst there was still a chance for a natural delivery. So when she had finally arrived in the world it was with shared relief of all involved.

But her parents soon realised that something was strange with their baby daughter, a few days after bringing her home. Subsequent events resulted in Raven growing up in an orphanage, having frightened her parents beyond repair. This abandonment had signalled the start of her troubles. From the moment she had arrived the other children had treated her with fear, although she had never shown them her true face. They took their lead from the grown ups, who shunned Raven and cared for her at arms length. Her fellow playmates sensing something unusual about her, never strayed to close to her, and she found herself segregated from them all.

It was at this time that she found she could not only change her form, but could take the shape of others also. A skill that had been cultivated by accident, when fear of being caught snooping in the confidential-file room had caused her to form-shift in panic. The door had opened, some words of apology had been said to her, and she had been left to continue in her search for information. A quick glance in the mirror told her that she had taken on the appearance of the orphanage manager, a woman who was of large stature with harsh features. The shock Raven felt at seeing her altered reflection was not as great as she might have expected it to be. It felt natural to be hiding in someone else's skin, as if the power had just been lying dormant waiting to be found. With this new skill, she escaped the place in which she had been so unhappy, and went in search of answers.

Raven too the records about her that had been kept by the hospital, and burnt them along with her past. Her family was still alive, but they did not want her. On the day that her skin began turning blue, her mother had rushed her into the hospital, convinced that Raven was dying. When no cause could be found, the doctors suggested oxygen therapy and repeatedly kept Raven in overnight to try different treatments. The records contained doctor's theory diagnoses and tests that had been run. Eventually she had been discharged from their care, with nothing further to be done. It seemed that her family then tried other sources for help, and there was an entry in her files about her mother's unstable mental health.

It seemed like when science could not help them, her parents had turned to spiritual means. A priest had come to exorcise the demon from Raven, and told them that she was an unholy creature, not human and therefore without a human soul. The exorcism did nothing to help Raven, and the priest then suggested that the only way they would free her, was for her to die. Her horrified parents had then come to the end of the line. Frightened, they had given their child away. Her father had started to lose control over his job, and her mother had struggled to come to terms with having borne a child, and losing one. Raven discovered all of this from her parent's extensive therapy records. They had since separated and had now started new families, forgetting that Raven had ever happened.

She had survived on her wits ever since. Young and afraid, she took the appearance of someone much older, and lived day by day. Eventually after travelling from house to house, stealing what she could to keep living, she had taken a wrong turn and ended up in what appeared to be some kind of country park. Neat lawns seemed to stretch for miles, and the wild trees became tame and planted in lines. The hunger in her stomach drove her onwards towards the hugest house she had ever seen, lights blazing from the odd window, casting a strange glow in the dusk.

Raven had not sought anything beyond what was contained in the family's fridge that night. But when she had been found, her usual trick did nothing to appease her accuser. Charles Xavier remained as self-assured throughout her time of knowing him, as he had been that very night. As young as he was, he had commanded the world around him. She had changed into her true self before him, and in return he had promised her all that she had ever wanted. Somewhere to belong.

Man?

The world was his for the taking. It was soft and weak, filled with masses of small-minded people who seemed to exist for nothing. They had no purpose, other than to breathe in the air, greedily swallowing in what they had no right to and polluting it in their turn. But he had a purpose. He had a vision and the nerves to fight for it. Not since Alexander the Great, who had seen the world as something for the taking, had there ever been a vision to rival his. There was no one who had even come close, because in all of history, there had never been another like him. He was the only one of his kind ready to bring the fight to the front, and remake the world.

Sebastian Shaw had never met his equal, not in all the long years he had been alive. The decades that had passed him by had brought with them no one worthy of his attention. All his contemporaries had grown older and were dying, fading into nothing, having achieved nothing. Their names would be forgotten, their actions and their lives requiring no remembrance from the still living. But Shaw would not fade away; he would not die, not yet. He was the one the world had been waiting for, and the world would be putty in his hands, soft and moulding under his feet. He would take it, smash it into dust, and build it anew, stronger and better than before. But he would not make the world for the humans to grasp at, because this new world belonged to the mutants.

He'd put the inferior in their place. That was what made the world turn, how it had always been. The strong won, and the weak were crushed and stamped out. Humans had once been the dominant force, the top of the evolutional journey to greatness. Now, they were just an ugly blot on the progression of the species. Something to look back on with wonder, and contemplate how primitive life once was. The world had been carrying the weaker beings for too long, and now it showed. Something needed to be done to address the balance.

There should not have been such a divide as mutants and humans, since humans were not even supposed to exist. Mutants had evolved and had left their human cousins in the dust, grubbing around like the beasts they were, fighting over scraps and cowering behind guns and machines. Mutants had evolved their own weapons; they did not need to attach machines to themselves. They were the weapons. The world bent and shaped itself to their needs. Elements bowing to superiority, finally tamed. Everything theirs to control.

All of this, Shaw had known from the moment he could see past himself, and look out at the world. By 1944, Shaw had found a very interesting group of humans, who were busy culling their neighbours at an extraordinary rate in order to create a 'pure race.' Their motives were something that Shaw did not even condescend to try and understand. But he still found himself swept up in the crowd, a bystander to the atrocities committed by humans towards their own kind. He watched, amused by the clear evidence all around him to what he had always felt to be true. The human race had reached its end. But not content to walk slowly towards its demise, it was pushing the undefended members of its patchwork society into early graves.

Shaw watched the people being herded through the Nazi camps with detached distain. It happened every day, all day. He heard the same wailing and crying, the same pleas, and saw the same horror etched on every captive's face. After a while he forgot to recognise the noise as crying, as the look in their eyes as pleading. His grew immune to screaming, pain surrounding him and becoming normal. They would probably all die, every one that was dragged off of the trains that had brought them here, to the dull grey place. He looked on, untouched by the suffering all around him. Why did they not just accept their fate? Why did they always try to fight? Hands reaching out to hold one another, desperate to keep together. But what did it matter how many were killed here in this Godforsaken place? These humans were just making life easier for him. Because all humans would die eventually. At his hands.

However humans had gotten a few things right in their bumbling history through time. There were some things about the world they had created that Shaw enjoyed. He wondered, that for the first few generations, whilst mutants cultivated their powers, it would serve them well to enslave some humans for the menial tasks in life. The ones who were useful could remain, until mutants found their footing in the established order. But until then, Shaw was determined to enjoy the best things in life. He'd have the most beautiful women, the fastest cars, the best cut suits, the best gourmet dinners. He'd stay in the world's best hotels, and travel in private jets. He would surround himself with fellow mutants, and he would begin on a path of destruction, turning human against human, the like of which the world had never seen.

TBC