For the next hour, Erik waited. He watched while Reaper and Hank wired Charles up to a myriad monitors and take reading after reading. None of it made sense to him; he wasn't a scientist or a medical doctor. He had a rudimentary idea that low readings were bad, as were ones that were way too high. Since no alarms went off, he hoped matters weren't serious.

He installed himself at Charles' bedside, took a hold of Charles' hand and tried to will him to wake up. In his mind, he sat close to the anchor point and searched for his partner, but there was nothing. Charles was unconscious and the anchor was silent and dark.

It was scary.

It also gave him an idea what his partner had gone through when he had ended up in the parallel reality.

Finally Reaper pulled up a seat next to him and told him Charles was in a coma.

"There's brain activity," she said calmly, "I think something... Cerebro... overloaded his system and his brain shut down to protect itself. Hopefully given some rest he will come back to us."

Erik's world shrunk down to a single point, the one where he sat next to Charles and was holding his hand. The words echoed in his mind, painful and too real.

Coma.

Charles was in a coma.

Because of Cerebro.

A cold, dark rage burned through his veins.

"Erik." Reaper's voice was laced with a warning and he met her black eyes. A fine sheen of blue covered them. Compassion.

"I'm fine," he growled.

It didn't sound friendly. Hell, anyone else might have run. But Reaper knew him, had known him for a while now, and they had worked cases together. Rattling her with a few words was hard, and she had a temper, too. He had seen her lose it and he had watched Charles teach her how to handle her gift, which was terrible and wonderful in one neatly wrapped parcel.

"His mind defended itself by shutting down," she reiterated. "Whatever hit him, it wasn't buffered and his body more or less launched emergency procedures. All readings I have are normal. I can't see signs of brain damage."

Erik tried to calm himself, but the words 'brain damage' gave the fury more fuel. He closed his eyes, fighting every instinct to go out there and find whoever had done it, destroy them. He felt the metal sing to him and he forced down his anger before it did something harmful to Charles or anyone else down here.

He rubbed a thumb over the smooth skin of Charles' hand.

::Don't do this:: he murmured to the silent anchor point. ::Don't do this!::

Charles was the professor, he was the teacher, he wasn't the warrior. He wasn't supposed to be in a hospital bed after fending off a telepathic attack. He was supposed to teach the children.

Erik stood and placed a kiss on Charles' forehead. He smoothed back the wayward hair, smiling briefly, then he left the infirmary.
Inside him, the darkness grew. It ate at him, made him blind to everything but the silent anchor and the motionless form of his lover. Whatever Shaw had created, what he had aimed to do with Erik Lensherr, he had given life to a weapon that was no fiercely protective of Charles Xavier, would die for him, would take out an enemy, would confront whoever threatened him. Charles would object, Erik knew. He wouldn't want this. But Erik needed to do something.

And he had a target.

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

When Erik appeared in the maze-like underground level that housed, among other things, Cerebro, people scattered out of is way. There had been students training in the secure facility some had started to jokingly call the 'Danger Room', and which was an appropriate name, actually.

He pushed a hand out in front of him, metal bending and screeching under his will. Cerebro's doors would have opened for him, but he couldn't care less. Anger and rage and pain flowed through him like the beginning of a tidal wave. It was a tsunami in the making and it was about to hit land. Erik was far beyond reason and those few who had seen him had realized that. Sean had immediately made a beeline for Hank's lab.

Erik didn't care about that either.

He stood in the middle of the dome-like structure he had helped build. It was a far cry from version 1.0., it had actually been refitted several times, but the hatred in him didn't care. The rage that drove Erik blinded him. Cerebro was the machine he'd helped Charles and Hank build, the machine that hurt his partner constantly, that drove him to the point of obsession and now had put him in a coma.

He couldn't remember an occasion in his adult life when he had been this close to losing it, wasn't even fighting for control. Only once, as a child, had he given his powers free reign. The very first time.

Back then it had been the beginning.

Today would be the end.

Erik screamed his rage out into the room, his voice echoing off the walls, and he raised his hands, fingers spread wide, and he let the powers flow.

Unrestrained.

Only a small part was keeping him from bringing down the whole house. A very small part that knew that up there was Charles. A man he would never hurt.

The helmet with its snake-like wires was still lying on its side on the grill floor, and at that moment it became the focus of Erik's aggression.

Picking it up without using his hands he tipped out the wires with his mind, launching the detached helmet across and up, flinging it hard enough against the dome's wall to crack the panel it hit.

It wasn't enough.

He was tearing into wall panels, circuit boards and wires. The helmet was crushed into a tiny ball of useless debris. The panels he had put up, honing his skills, were ripped off, the bolts bouncing off the floor. Erik flung out his arms and every panel started to tear itself away from its fastenings, some shattering in place, others clattering to the floor.

His body screamed. He felt the pain physically. He didn't care.

It poured out of him and it sought a target.

Cerebro wasn't really to blame; it was just a device. The mutant who had used it to attack Charles was, but that thing wasn't here. Cerebro was.

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The crash and scream of metal echoed throughout the cavernous lower levels. Outside Cerebro's doors, Hank paced back and forth with his hands over his ears, trying to make a decision. He wanted to march inside, to pull Erik out whatever it took, to stop the destruction half the school could hear. But thinking it through sensibly he couldn't begin to imagine how he would stop such a powerful man, let alone a mutant, from using his innate power he couldn't even begin to match. Besides, judging by the sounds coming from the circular doors he was already too late.

The silence that fell abruptly was as shocking as the first explosion of noise had been. Echoes of sound still seemed to vibrate through the corridors. Hank stopped, too, staring at the doors. The last thing he wanted was to come face to face with Erik. If he was unhappy with Cerebro, chances were that the guy who designed it wasn't going to fare too well, and while he was almost certain Erik wouldn't hurt him, he didn't want to chance a well-aimed punch even if it was thrown in the height of rage. He ran back to the medical wing. Later he would go back and see if the was anything salvageable from the wreckage or whether they would need to start again. Whether Erik would let them. Whether he would help the third time around.

x x x

Sucking in great gulps of air, tears streaming over his face, hair plastered to his head, Erik stared at the wrecked chamber with something akin to pride.

Every panel was hanging warped from the dome or lying twisted on the floor. Wires and cables tumbled from the control panel like some great mechanical creature with its innards ripped out. He had helped create the abomination, he could destroy it. He'd helped build the thing that was systematically tearing apart the man he loved more than life. No more! NO MORE.

Drawing a shuddering breath, he clenched and unclenched his hands. He felt resonance from the abused metal and it was the most beautiful song in his mind. He wanted to reach out and take it all apart, molecule by molecule by atom. Watching the whirlwind of bolts and tiny debris still tearing through the chamber he laughed. It was a breathless, dark laugh, tinged with exhaustion and pain. His body shook from the strain, but he had never felt this alive.

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Hank inched into the room only after he was sure that Erik had left. His eyes widened at the destruction.

"Damn…" he whispered, confronted with the sheer magnitude of it all.

And the realization how frighteningly powerful this man was. They all knew, but for the first time he saw it like this. Not just lifting a sub. Not just manipulating a few hundred missiles. Not creating Cerebro's room. This was a release of power that stunned him.

A shiver raced down his spine.

"Holy shit!" - "Bloody hell!"

He jumped a little at the exclamations and shot the two young men a dark look, pulling back his lips over sharp teeth.

Alex and Sean were staring at what was left of Cerebro, eyes wide, and Sean looked just a little bit terrified.

"Erik did this?" Alex stammered. The usually so confident daredevil mutant had a cowed look to him.

"Yes," Hank answered superfluously.

"But… because of the Professor?"

This time the scientist only narrowed his eyes.

Sean took careful steps into the destroyed chamber. "He's really, really pissed off," he murmured.

"You'd be too if something took your boyfriend from you."

Hank almost laughed. Boyfriend. It didn't describe what those two were. There was so much more to their relationship and he had seen it when Erik had been brought in, more dead than alive, and Charles had nearly broken down. While Erik hadn't collapsed because of Charles, he had shown his reaction just as clearly.

He had torn Cerebro apart.

"Where'd he go?"

Hank shrugged. "I really didn't think to ask, Sean."

The other chewed his lower lip. "Just… should we be worried about him bringing down the house?"

"I doubt he'd really lose it that badly. Unless…" Alex stopped. "Uhm, the Professor is alive, right?"

Hank snarled, a deep rumble coming out of his chest, and the blond took an involuntary step back.

"Hey, just sayin'… I mean… right?"

"Charles is fine!" Hank roared, his temper taking over briefly. "Now get out of here!"

Alex blinked, then held up his hands. "Hey, calm down. It's just… Erik's scary, I know. But this is terrifying."

"Just leave," Hank muttered, pushing them out of the chamber.

He couldn't lock Cerebro anymore. Erik had really made a mess of that, too. Hank spent the better part of the next hour sealing Cerebro's chamber with a makeshift door and adding yellow tape, just to be sure. Normally none of the students wandered into this place, but now, with what had happened and since Alex and Sean would probably spread the news, he wasn't so sure. He added motion sensors and an alarm, just to be safe.

Then he returned to his lab, feeling much more in control of his temper.

tbc...