Yay! I got to 100 reviews! Thanks so much! You guys are the best!
In just the few days they'd been training, the four children had improved considerably in their abilities. Erik was thoroughly impressed, though he would never let that on to them. Being so focused on them, however, had left him little time to practice his own skills. He was able to train on his own in the mornings, but it wasn't the same as having to defend himself in an actual fight. Which led him to his present position, on the lawn of the Westchester mansion once again, surrounded by Alex, Hank, Sean and Raven. The ground was strewn with bits of metal and a couple of guns. The metal ranged from bullets to the metal panel from the roof to coins dropped accidentally through the years.
"See everything scattered around here?" He gestured to the ground.
"Yes," the mutants replied warily after a quick scan where Erik had gestured.
"I want you to throw it all at me. Banshee, use your voice to make it move. Mystique pick up a gun, shoot off as many rounds as you can then pick up another. Hank throw any of those larger metal scraps at me that you can. Alex, I want you to fire at me. Your aim is good enough now to do it. Everyone got it?"
The children stood frozen. Alex managed to find his voice. "You can't be serious. If you mess up then…then we'll kill you! We can't face them without you!"
Erik let out a huff. "I have to train too! And if I don't test my ability to defend myself and you under massive attack we'll all die anyway. I can do this."
The children looked to one another hesitantly. With a shrug, Sean screamed at the ground, causing some of the pieces to jump. As they did, he screamed again, shooting them towards Erik. Once one had acted, the others followed. Soon the air was filled with pieces of metal flying at Erik. He deftly stopped it all. He kept a panel Hank had thrown at him nearby. When Alex fired at him, he used the same trick as Onslaught, swinging the metal scrap around to block it. The deflected beam and hit an oncoming rock, which Hank had picked up once he ran out of metal scraps.
The surprisingly ferocious attack was finished within two minutes. All the metal, scraps and bullets formed a circle around Erik, nothing within a meter of him. It looked like he'd had a protective bubble around him. He had even managed to use the metal pieces to deflect the non-metal that Hank had hurled at him, though the bruise on his shoulder proved that the first rock had taken him by surprise. As he looked at the children, he took in their astonished expressions. It was then that he noticed the ground was further away than usual. He was levitating. He looked up at the children again, grinning widely and maneuvered himself back down to the ground. The children all grinned back at him excitedly.
"Dude, you can fly too!"
Erik chuckled at Sean's enthusiasm.
"And your offensive skills have improved. Well done everybody!" The younger mutants beamed at the unusual amount of praise coming from their usually withdrawn leader. "Take a twenty minute break. Then come back out here. We have more work to do."
That night, they sat at in the kitchen. The excitement of the afternoon had faded as the reality of going to Cuba the next morning set in.
"Okay," Sean started after Erik had made a last run through of what to expect in Cuba. "So Plan A: Get through to the professor, kill Shaw, stop World War III."
"What was Plan B?" Alex asked after a pause.
Sean answered without hesitation. "Get killed in the noble pursuit of getting through to the professor, killing Shaw and stopping World War III."
"Awesome," Alex finished, tone dripping with sarcasm. "Is there a Plan C?"
"Leave." Everyone looked to Erik in surprise. "I'm serious. Any of you who aren't up for this should leave now. It's not going to be easy. We never anticipated having to fight the man who's been training us, nor did we anticipate the amount of power he and Shaw combined possess. If you aren't willing to give 100% to this, if you aren't willing to give your lives, you should leave because you won't do us or Charles any good."
Everybody stood stock still. Erik looked at the children standing before him. Each stood tall, chins held high, more confident in themselves than when they first came to the mansion though understandably frightened as well. Their looks of determination were the only answer he needed. He nodded to them.
"We leave for Cuba in the morning. Everybody try to get some sleep. Tomorrow's a big day."
The children filed off to their rooms. He knew full well that they would be hard pressed to sleep that night. But they needed to rest at the very least.
Erik made his way to his own room. He sat on his bed looking that the Nazi coin in his hand. It was a physical reminder of his promise of revenge on Shaw, not just for his mother and himself anymore but for the horrors Charles must have gone through to have released Onslaught. In 24 hours, that promise would be fulfilled or he would be dead. He clinched the coin tightly in his hand, feeling it bite his palm.
"Fight for us Charles. We're coming for you."
The last few chapters are getting pieced together. As I have it mapped out in my head, there are 3 chapters left to go. We'll see if that changes.
Unfortunately the next two chapters are the ones I'm least confident about. I'm still messing with the action a little bit to make sure it isn't too contrived and, therefore, I have less written of them than I'd like at this point. I'll work diligently, but I also have to get a lot of work done for my actual job (if only this could be my actual job…) so that might delay me too. I promise I will do my best!
Reviews would probably help the process ;)
