With thanks to Voodoo for reviewing! And if it's odd that you want to read more of Charles and Erik's bitter, bitter conversations then I dread to think what that means of me for wanting to write it.
"Can you teleport all of us at once?"
Azazel considered for a moment, then shook his head. "No. Too many," he declared. Eight of them stood just outside the gate: Alex, Hank, Ruth, and Sean had joined Erik, Emma, Azazel, and Angel. They formed a strange collective.
Hank watched the women, fascinated, though not as Alex and Sean were. Emma and Angel showed serious amounts of skin: legs, arms, midriffs. Ruth wore jeans and a dull sweatshirt. She immediately sized up the scantily clad women and raised a scathing eyebrow.
Not everyone's eyebrows scathed. In fact, it was a pretty rare talent. Ruth was not so very many years older than the others but had a way about her that made her seem like someone's mother.
"Take us first," Erik said, "then come back for them."
"How do we know you'll come back?" Sean asked.
"He will," Erik replied, dismissive. "Let's—"
"Hey—" Alex began.
Ruth interrupted, "He will come back." Her certainty helped, but did not dispel all doubt. They needed logic and she delivered it like a swift kick between Erik's legs: "They may not need us, but he needs Charles. On various levels, no?"
Erik narrowed his eyes. There was hardness in him, a toughness none of the others could match before. He was used to intimidating them. Even when they were all friends, not even Sean argued with Erik. Ruth looked right back at him and shrugged.
"Azazel," Erik said. He reached out to Emma and Azazel. Azazel took Angel's hand and they disappeared in the blink of an eye.
"Uh, Ruth?" Sean asked.
"Sabra," she said.
"Huh?"
"My codename," Ruth reminded them. It was the name she with which she introduced herself to Erik's little group. "Sabra."
"Sabra," Sean tried again, "I think I'd follow you to the end of the world."
A puff of black smoke heralded Azazel's return. He looked at the four remaining mutants and held out his hands. "Comrades?"
Ruth moved first, taking his hand and reaching for Hank's, and the others followed her lead. Only she among all of them had not been there that day last year, had not been on the beach, and something about Azazel seemed off.
Emma, Angel, and Erik were haughty. Ruth didn't care for them. Just like Erik, she played nice because she wanted this to go well. It mattered to Charles because he cared for Erik—no accounting for taste—and it mattered to Ruth because she didn't want those metal monsters coming after her friends or the children. But Azazel seemed pleasant and that didn't sit right.
She took his hand and the next thing she knew her feet hit a new floor. Her surroundings were simple enough: white walls, gray-blue carpet, flat lights overhead giving a faint buzzing. It was an office building, fairly commonplace but for the bodies on the floor beside them.
Sean stumbled. One of his feet had landed on someone's arm. It crunched—lucky he didn't need that arm anymore. Hank steadied him.
Ruth's attention was drawn elsewhere, to the small fireball flying at them.
She swatted it away like a gnat. It burst against the wall.
Alex retaliated, built up energy like spinning a hula-hoop and threw rings of red energy at Angel.
"Nyet!"
Azazel smoked across the room in a blink, grabbed Angel and teleported once more. Alex's rings blasted a hole in the wall; not a half-second sooner and they would have blasted Angel herself. And not lost a wink of sleep, Alex thought, her spitting fire at them!
"Hold," Ruth commanded.
The lads obeyed, although Hank growled threateningly. Angel, Azazel, and Emma likewise paused behind Erik and Ruth glared at the man under that helmet.
"Magneto." It was a command: she wanted an explanation.
"It was poor timing, she had not aimed at you," Erik replied.
His tone warned her to let it go.
Ruth considered. She disliked what had happened now, distrusted Erik and this situation seemed more like a set-up than an accident. It wasn't about revenge. She was responsible for the boys. Getting rid of those machines mattered, but not at the risk of life and limb. If they left right now, Erik and his would do the job. That was their other purpose, seeing that Erik did this without killing.
Without killing anyone else, anyway.
On the floor, on that ugly gray-blue carpet, lay two bodies. Their uniforms bore the logo of a security company. Erik's people had killed the guards.
Ruth nodded. "No more 'poor timing'," she warned.
"They saw us," Angel replied.
"Then you were not careful enough," Ruth retorted.
"Angel," Erik murmured. "Enough. Let's go."
"We still need to figure out where to go," Emma observed.
"I guess reading minds is out," Sean commented. He was clearly uncomfortable around the bodies and he wasn't the only one. Hank didn't like them much, either, and Angel made a point of not caring that clearly announced she felt otherwise.
"We'll be looking for a large space," Hank said. "The one Ruth and I took down, you couldn't store that in an office."
He glanced at Erik, who nodded to confirm that the machine they encountered had been bigger than an office, too. "Scout," Erik told Azazel. "Go room to room if you have to."
Hank stood by the elevator shaft, the one Alex sheared open. He peered down for a moment. "Banshee."
Sean joined him. "Yeah."
"How far down do you think that is?"
Sean began to lean into the elevator shaft, then paused. "If you let me fall and die, my ghost is coming back for you."
Hank grabbed the back of his shirt. He was easily strong enough to hold Sean if something happened, and Sean trusted that at least enough to send a quick wave of sound out. "At least a hundred feet," he reported.
"What is that?" Ruth asked.
"Over thirty meters," Hank explained. He turned to Erik, forgetting he was holding Sean's shirt until Sean gasped and yanked at the fabric choking him. "Sorry." Hank released him. He deserved the filthy look Sean gave in return. With a motion to Erik, "Can you get us down there?"
Erik nodded. "If I saw the point—the ground floor?"
"No," Hank replied. "Same place any respectable arch-villain conducts his disreputable business."
"In English?" Angel requested.
Erik, however, understood. The elevator rose to meet them as he explained, "We're going into the basement."
