Charles is torn into wakefulness by a terrible screaming – a piercing noise that resonates through his skull, rattling around, and he clutches his hands over his ears, vaguely aware of Erik mirroring his actions beside him. He recognises the scream, even though he's never heard it before; this is the sound of a Cassidy, coming in at over one hundred decibels and rising. This means that something is wrong.
And then Theresa's screaming stops, and the night air is filled with the sound of helicopters and thumping feet and gunfire and a roar of anger, and Erik grabs at his bicep, his fingernails digging into the soft skin.
"The children," Charles says in horror, and turns in the dark room. "Erik, the children."
They leap out of bed to the sound of cries and bullets and run out into the corridor; there's a flash of a muzzle and the ratatatat of artillery, but the bullets never reach their target of Charles' chest. Instead, the soldier that fired them lets out a cut-off noise of pain, then slumps to the floor. Charles feels as though he should berate Erik as they jump over his body and head towards the screams – but then he thinks of the students, and how one of those bullets could have been fired at them, and he doesn't care.
He reaches out through the mansion as quickly as he can, and finds that most of the students are running haphazard around the place. Logan is on the rampage, claws unsheathed and bloodlust burning in his veins and working methodically through the mansion, destroying any soldier that he comes across. Scott has ensconced himself by the broken window on the first-floor landing, and is shooting at anything he can see moving out in the grounds.
And then there are eight of his children, unconscious and helpless, and he can feel the intentions of these soldiers, and the man who has organised this whole operation and he knows that if Colonel William Stryker gets his way, he will take more than just eight children – he will take Charles' whole world from him.
Logan, keep the children safe. Scott, defend the roof, he shouts, and as they round the corner, two soldiers whip around at the sound of their footsteps and raise their weapons; and Charles lifts his fingers to his temple before Erik can react.
The men crumple.
"Take the front," Charles says quietly, and looks down at the immobile bodies, acutely aware of Erik's still-bare chest pressed to his arm. "But don't kill him."
Erik nods in the dark, and disappears down the stairs in relative silence until the sound of gunfire and screams proves that he's found more soldiers. Charles knows that Piotr has by now collected Theresa and is leading most of the children towards the tunnel entrance and feels a great swell of relief, but he can also still sense three of the students running around, separated and terrified and utterly alone.
It's okay, he says, and head towards where they're panicking further down the next landing. We're coming for you.
There's a flash of red, accompanied by the screeching of metal and the sudden, hot burn of a fireball behind him as he moves, and he knows before looking that Scott has shot down a helicopter from the sky. There's a sense of regret, at the waste of so many lives of men just following orders – but he won't tell Scott or Erik or Logan to stop. Not this time; this time, they've taken it too far.
"Professor!"
Rogue runs straight towards him but stops just short of touching, and her hair is flying everywhere and Bobby and John are hot on her heels, and there's a soldier following them with a tranquilizer gun aimed, and then he's on the floor.
"We lost the others," Bobby explains, slightly out of breath and looking around frantically, and Charles touches his mind to all of theirs and offers them some calm and reassurance even as there's a massive boom from outside and the ground shakes.
I have him, Erik says suddenly, triumphant, and a shiver of a thrill snakes its way down Charles' bare back as Logan appears in the dark behind the students, claws dripping with blood and a crazed look in his eyes.
"Take these three to the others; they're in the tunnels. Make sure that they stay there until I tell you it's clear," he instructs, and he almost expects Logan to argue – to say that he can help, be more use by Charles' side – but he seems to understand the fury in Charles' voice. He takes the students away without a further word and if Rogue is worried about what he's going to do, Charles pretends not to feel it.
And when Erik says that he has him, he really does have him. Charles walks out onto the front lawn and whilst he's aware of all the soldiers held frozen in position, at the vehicles that have ground to a halt and the helicopters that lay crushed into the ground, but all he can really see is Stryker – a man that he's never met before, but already loathes with everything that he is. He crosses the grass to stand beside Erik and study this man, the man who thought that he could take on a haven for mutants and win.
He looks at Erik – at his bare chest, heaving with laboured breaths. At his temple, where blood is trickling down his cheek from a small head wound. At the way that he's looking right back, and his eyes are saying what next?
He looks at Stryker's men held in place by Erik's hand, with their guns and grenade and grappling hooks, and their hatred, and he thinks nothing has changed.
"You were a fool to come to this school, looking for trouble," he says coldly, and Stryker just sneers at him, the lights from his own men and vehicles shining on them in the centre of the grounds.
"If you're going to kill me, just get the hell on with it," Stryker growls, his muscles twitching against Erik's power and his face twisting with repulsion. "You'll only prove me right."
"I'm not going to kill you, Colonel Stryker," Charles retorts, and he can feel Erik's discontent at his decision, but he ignores it for the moment. "My friend here would like, quite dearly, to kill you all – and I don't blame him, not entirely. But I will give you once chance. We will release you, and you and your men will leave this school and you will never, ever, come back again. You will stop with your ridiculous vendetta against my kind, you will abandon any government-sanctioned operations regarding our registration, capture or detainment. And if you ever try to attack any mutant, ever again, I can guarantee that you will regret ever making that decision."
Stryker laughs then, a horrible sound that rattles in his chest and echoes through the otherwise silent grounds. There is no noise now from the mansion; Logan and Scott must have incapacitated all of the soldiers inside.
"And you call me a fool," Stryker taunts. "You already have the upper hand in this war but you're throwing it away, all because of some stupid principles? I can promise you now, I won't be so merciful the next time that we meet."
"Unless absolutely necessary, I balk at the idea of using my power to harm anybody, mutant or human. It goes against everything that I believe in and I cannot see how it would help our cause, to live peacefully alongside you," he says and raises his fingers to touch Stryker's temple, and he tries to jerk away from Charles' touch but is held secure by Erik. "And I've seen the whole of you, seen everything that drives you, and I know that you almost want me to kill you. You think that it would aid your feud against us, and that alone would be enough for me to want to leave you alive."
"I will continue to come for you, until every last one of you is dead or under control."
"And if ever hurt anybody that I care about, ever again, I will show you just how powerful I am," Charles says, very calmly, and raises his hand to touch Erik's elbow.
Release them, he says, and for a moment he thinks that Erik will refuse; but after a brief flash of displeasure, Erik lowers his hand and the soldiers move again stumbling forward and looking to Stryker for their orders. But Stryker is just standing there, staring at Charles and Erik with an indescribable look on his face.
"This is the only warning that you'll get," Charles says, and reaches out to take hold of Erik's wrist. "We don't want a war, Stryker. Now leave."
They'll never stop, Erik says as they turn around, turn their back to the enemy and Charles nods.
That's their choice to make. Stryker isn't a stupid man; he'll come up with another plan before he attacks us again. His schemes for Cerebro have failed, and now he knows that the mansion is protected, he'll think twice before coming for us again on our own ground.
Erik grunts in agreement.
And then there is the terrible, echoing sound of a single gunshot and Erik jerks forward beside him, a gasp falling from his lips. He crumples to the cold grass as blood oozes from his bare shoulder, the bullet gone straight through and out the other side.
For a heartbeat, Charles is frozen, not knowing how to react. All he can see is Erik, bleeding on the floor, and his first instinct is to throw himself to the ground and cradle him, but he's suddenly filled with a white-hot, burning vengeance. He turns quickly back to Stryker, and he's still holding the gun, the barrel smoking faintly.
"Your first mistake was coming here at all," Charles says, utterly furious, and Stryker just glares back at him. "Your second was to come after the students. And you just made your third."
"I'm not scared of what your pet mutant will do to me," Stryker spits, and he cocks the gun again. "I already created one plastic prison to hold a metallokinetic – I can create a world around me that will protect me from another."
"It was never him that you should have been scared of."
He doesn't shout it. He doesn't growl or hiss or snarl or say it in another other than a perfectly calm, collected tone of voice. But in the split second after he speaks, he can see the fear creep into Stryker's eyes. Because Stryker realises, in that moment, that he never asked his name.
The stars are bright over their heads and in the stifling silence, Erik coughs – a sound so painful to hear that even Stryker flinches. There are no powers needed to hold everyone here fixed and silent; they're all waiting to see what Charles will do next.
Charles raises his hand.
(part 5 coming soon)