"In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he came…"

Part 1: The Long Teary-Eyed Letter

Dear Kirsten,

I am sorry for having left Xavier's academy so suddenly. Things just started falling apart for me. Then, when that precognition student was killed, the blame began to fall on me, remember? Sadly, even she didn't see it coming. Rather than risk the strong possibility of being punished for it, I thought it better to remove myself from the situation. You may not have noticed, but many students were growing weary and fearful of me, suspicious of my every word and deed. All because I had a history, accidental or intentional, whatever way you see it. It was too much for me to bear.

I'm especially sorry for leaving you. I remember the times we spent together, hanging out by the lake, the water lapping onto our toes as we chased each other down the beachhead, the sand cushioning our falls every time we tackled one another. Or the times we skated on the frozen pond, circling each other, or dancing together on the thin blades of the skates. Not to mention our first kiss on the basketball court. I will cherish forever these memories and regret not being able to create more of them with you. I loved you, and I want you to know that. Included within is your favorite rose, use your power to bring it back to its former beauty.

I suppose I should tell you what I've been doing since my late night flight from the academy on Scott's motorcycle (By the way, please apologize to him for me. I've included money to replace it). I traveled to Granite City to seek out a new life, immediately searching for lodgings. I don't regret leaving, except for you, given how poorly my fellow students had treated me up to that point. My only other friend was Richard Leonheart, the Titan, so I had little to lose by leaving.

Due to my youth, few were willing to let me stay; landlords turned me away from their apartments. I was too young to be trusted, a rogue with only a motorcycle to his name. My prospects grew even thinner when the ones who were originally willing to allow me to stay discovered that I had no money to pay for a room. I suppose they thought me a troublemaker, and who could blame them? After all, I was fifteen, alone in the world, seemingly a runaway, a motorcycle my only possession, and I hadn't the papers to even prove it was my own. Seemingly, I was a runaway, a dangerous and possibly violent teenager who probably stole everything he could get his hands on, the motorcycle included. Plus, weird things tended to happen around me.

If you recall, my powers were not very well developed, for I was a bit of a late bloomer. Among the psychics of our school, I was a joke. I could read minds, but only random, intangible and incoherent thoughts and only at bizarre instances. And my psychokinesis powers were a joke. It was known that I had them, for one time when I was extremely angry I caused everything in the room to lift off the ground. Yet, I couldn't access the power at will, I could not teleport, shaper-shift nor phase through matter. I was the most worthless among the Psychokinesis class. You see, people fear what they don't understand, and my classmates couldn't understand why I was such a pathetic excuse for a mutant.

My only refuge had been in the training I did to learn various martial arts, but particularly, that of using the sword and the body's own agility, called Kenjutsu and Ninjutsu respectively. But, as a lost art, many of my fellow students frowned on me for it. They just couldn't understand why I would wish to study such useless talents. At first I was a joke at this too, but I worked tirelessly, and my teacher, who I had to travel many miles to train with, was a very patient man. Soon, without his knowledge, I had learned to combine what little talent I had for psychokinesis with my swordplay, surpassing him faster than any student he's ever trained.

You remember my final test right? My master challenged me to face off against himself and three other subordinate to him, and I was able to stave off all four of them at once. I succeeded, and my master awarded me the eighth-dan ranking, the highest rank I could achieve anywhere but in Japan. It was a proud day for master and student, yet still, I gained little respect from my peers.

But anyway, I finally found a place to stay right next to a brothel. The landlady there was, well, promiscuous, to say the least. But she was kind enough to allow me to stay. I didn't understand why she trusted me when all others had not, but the thought barely hung around, for I was just grateful for the room. But soon I found out why, for it seems that she found me attractive, in some form or another. She was soon making advances towards me, offering me sexual favors, but I relentlessly rejected her.

Then one night, she burst open my door and screamed that any occupant of her home must offer themselves to her whenever she desired it; such was believed by her to be an unspoken agreement between tenant and landlord. I tried to fight her off but ended up obliging.

Before she could seal the deal, however, I discovered raw, untapped power within me. I summoned a chair from the room to hit her, and then I manipulated the matter around me until I disappeared completely. She ran out screaming like she had seen a ghost. On subsequent events, when she stormed into my room, the door unlocked because I had given up trying to keep her out completely, I manipulated the matter of my bed until I had phased through it and lay under it, hiding from her. She grew deathly afraid of me, but could not evict me, for an unprovoked fear that I would retaliate.

Some nights, when my sleep was not disturbed by the crazed landlady, I would awake to the screams of some girl in the alleyway between the brothel and the apartment. Looking out my window, I would see some man forcing himself on a woman. Often, but not always, it was the women employed by the business that would be the targets, by men who were unwilling to pay for their pleasure. I'd look down to see other curious heads poking out their windows, some of my cohabitants just naturally wondering what's going on, others the perverts who want to watch the proceedings. , but none of them willing to give any aid to the girl in need.

On one such instance, I awoke to a particularly more violent sounding rape, especially in the girl's screams of agony. In this case, a girl actually was murdered when the man was finished with her, her naked bloody carcass propped up against the wall of the bordello. I knew that there were children within the apartment compound, and that they were too young to see such things. So, I left the building and ventured into the alleyway. Her body was battered and bruised, dried blood pouring from her upper legs, her chest ripped open by a knife, hearts carved into her breasts. I moved her body to a better location, then wrapped it so that the woman could preserve a bit of decency in death, since she didn't get any in life.

It was these events that shaped me into what I would become, for something stirred within me. If society wasn't going to save these people from these dark crimes of passion and lust, then I would. I adopted an ironic name and made a commitment to stop such crimes from occurring, my personal vendetta. No longer am I called Psymind, I did well to be rid of such a stupid name. Now, the evils of society cringe in fear of the name Asmodeus!

With Love,

Erick Marcus, Asmodeus