Welcome to the Brotherhood Chapter 7

By Cadet Deming

I don't own the rights to the X-Men, Marvel and Fox Studios do so please don't sue. I work in litigation so you wouldn't want to anyhow. Rated T for adult language, situations, and violence. Please read and review-)

Hellfire Club Quarters

Emma had learned over the years that the best way to get to know a man, to really find out who he truly was, was to watch his behavior in the five minutes after she slept with him. Unfortunately, if he turned out to be a self-centered cad after she got horizontal, by then it was too late.

Although she was "experienced" and what many would be quick to label a "bad girl," Emma hated one-night stands. She felt like they were a form of losing her power. She watched Erik, waiting to see what this would turn into.

Erik didn't hastily zip up his fly and come up with lame excuses about needing to be up early even though it was a Friday night. He didn't rush to take a 45-minute shower to wash away the guilt. He didn't smother her in a spooning position and whisper sweet nothings about taking her home to meet his parents.

He stretched his arms behind his head, smiled at her, and simply said: "Thank you."

Emma tried to gauge his mood. She wanted to enter his mind, but didn't want to violate his request for her not to.

"You're welcome I think," she said.

He cocked his eyebrow. "What do you wish me to say?"

Emma steeled herself, or more accurately, iced herself. "I'd say the truth, but people only want the truth if it's something they want to hear."

He sighed and put his arm around her shoulder. "You and I live very complicated lives. Sex seems to complicate things. Especially for women."

She pulled her knees in tighter against herself. "It would be easier if you'd just let me in your head so we could bypass all of this dancing around."

"What do you want from me?"

"You," she said, surprised at her own directness.

"Only if you can handle me," he said.

She met his arrogance with attitude of her own: "I thought I was handling you just fine five minutes ago."

He smiled and kissed her again. She felt back in control, as much as anyone could be in control of someone like Erik.

He nibbled on her neck and whispered in her ear: "You and I are complicated, but I never knew complicated could feel so damn good."

Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters

Regan crept through the hallways of the mansion. She used her power of illusion to keep herself invisible, but still felt exposed. She surmised this must be what witnesses behind one-way glass must feel about picking out criminals in a lineup. They were supposed to be protected, but to have the criminals under the spotlight staring back in their direction must have seemed dangerous.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection on a suit of armor and ducked instinctively. Her illusions only worked inside people's minds. They were useless against cameras or even mirrors.

Regan wondered where Xavier was most likely to be: A bedroom, an office or maybe a kitchen. She wanted to use her telepathy, but was afraid he could feel it. She wasn't powerful enough to stay invisible and send out a signal for other mutants' minds.

She turned a corner and saw something out of a dream. When she'd joked about entering a lion's den earlier, she didn't realize it would turn out to be literal.

A large humanoid padded in front of her. It was hairy and looked simian and feline all at once. Its fur was blue, but not the silvery-bluish grey color of a Russian Blue or Korat housecat. Instead it was an azure shade, like the Mediterranean Sea.

She questioned for a moment if she was hallucinating herself. Maybe this was Karma for all of the visions she had invaded others' minds with, as if Charles Xavier had caught wind of her and was attacking her with her own modus operandi. Sinister had built him up to be a God-like enough figure.

The creature rotated its head towards her. Glasses sat atop its nose, which it pushed farther up on its face with a claw-tipped hand. Its other claw gripped a book titled: "Theoretical Physics."

It asked with a surprisingly sophisticated masculine voice: "Is someone there?"

Regan held her breath. He appeared to be staring straight at her. She used all of her strength to keep up the illusion of invisibility.

He shrugged and turned away, mumbling to himself: "I'll never get used to these overactive senses."

She exhaled and he snapped his head back. His nostrils flared and his ears turned towards her. A throaty growl rumbled from his throat, as bestial as his earlier words had sounded civilized.

"Don't panic! Don't panic! Don't panic!" she thought.

He opened his mouth, baring fangs.

She reached back into her memories and twisted them. Instead of projecting invisibility into his brain, she conjured up a vision of a rust-shaded dog the size of a bull. Regan added the stench of a wet, dirty canine covered in filth. She forced the real creature in front of her to hear a phantom roaring bark. For emphasis she added dripping blood from the teeth of her creation.

The blue man's yellow eyes grew larger and he yelped. He ran out of the room. She used the last of her reserves to ensure that he kept seeing a continuous haunting loop of her creation in his mind for as long as her power would allow.

Regan continued on, hoping to find Xavier before the blue beast came to its senses. She frantically opened door after door, finding nothing but ornate classroom after ornate classroom.

Finally, she reached for a doorknob on a carved oak door at the end of the hallway. She felt a tingle in her brain and sensed, or more like she "knew" that she was near another telepath. It reminded her of the first time she had met Sinister and learned she wasn't "the only one."

She opened the door and Charles Xavier sat in front of her. He looked at her like he was expecting her, but he wasn't what she expected. When she had met him previously, he was a drunk, arrogant graduate student, all big blue eyes and grand gestures. He looked smaller and older than she remembered. There were crow's feet around his eyes, and the beginnings of male pattern baldness circled his forehead.

It took her a moment to realize he was sitting in a wheelchair. The fabric of his pants wrinkled to reveal that the legs underneath them had atrophied.

"I know you," he said, and it sounded like a question and an answer simultaneously.

"We've met before. I'm here to-"

He finished for her: "-Kidnap me."

Regan reached for her guns.

Charles whipped his fingers up to his temple. His lips didn't move, but she heard him scream in her mind: "Beast! Havok! Banshee! Come quickly! We're being…"

Sinister appeared behind Charles and held his fingers to his own temple. "Call them off now," he ordered.

Xavier's eyes clouded over. His body looked unnaturally tense. It was a poise Regan recognized from when Sinister used his telekinesis to immobilize her.

"Call them off now," Sinister repeated.

Xavier projected: "Never mind boys. I thought we were being profiled on the television, but it's just a commercial for comic books. Go about your business again, please."

Regan said to Sinister: "I thought you were waiting in the car."

"If I told you my real plan and you were captured, I'd lose my element of surprise."

Xavier said: "Using your own assistant as bait to keep me distracted. You're low, and an embarrassment to mutants."

Sinister smiled, showing the whites of his teeth. In a way it looked more menacing that when the blue monster she assumed was "Beast" had bared his fangs.

He wrapped his fingers around Xavier's neck. "I'd watch that tongue of yours, unless you want me to make you bite it off. Let's step into your office and get better acquainted."