Disclaimer: . Argh.
THE SHADOW KING
Chapter Ten: Define "Insanity"
This was the single most important day in Erik's life and it was absolutely silent.
He felt like the rest of the world should be able to intuitively know. Like they should be able to see the path the world could take as easily as he now could. The earlier metaphorical snares and overgrowth suddenly cleared of the way, the rest of the steps simple, stretching out in front of him in perspective until it solidified into one solid, obvious goal on the horizon line.
He didn't expect fireworks. Fanfare. No, he could very easily supply those on his own. Looking down at the clumsy mess of limbs on the floor, arranged in such a way only people without any control of themselves could manage, Erik knew something was missing.
Something drastic.
In the rush of adrenaline and the frantic pace of his hummingbird heart, he couldn't for the life of him figure out what.
Then three solid thumps on the other side of the door jolted him, the impact shaking the frame just enough to make the panel shed a few more shards of mirror and send a twist of emotion up into Erik's gut. An emotion he was stubbornly not calling guilt. He'd completely forgotten Charles.
He never did find the button to open the hatch but the broken mirror showed the inner workings of the door nicely. It only took a small twitch of his fingers to pull the gear and the door slid away, a gust of violent wind forcing itself though the gap impatiently.
Standing just on the other side of the crooked threshold was the girl from earlier, Ororo... and only her. She peered up at him with wide, entirely white eyes, the unnatural wind shooting through the ship and shifting all the broken glass on the floor. Ororo looked up at Erik, muscles tensed in question, then she looked down at the thoroughly dead Shaw.
"You killed him?" She asked in a trembling voice that was trying so hard to be mature even as she was forced to swallow thickly at the end.
Erik paused, his brain taking an extra second to really accept his own answer, "Yes."
Ororo nodded once, then, apparently finding that admission reason enough to trust him, she darted forward. She twisted one dark skinned hand into a buckle on the side of his leg like he might disappear and peered back up at him with eyes that were losing their white, the wind dying down with them.
Even as Erik was trying hard not to alarm the obviously traumatized mutant girl, the adrenaline in his veins was blunting any gentle motion he attempted to make. His hand came down clumsy and sharp on her shoulder, making her jump. He pushed on, there was nothing he could do about it.
"The man you were out there with..." Was all he had to say and Ororo's shoulders hitched up in a soundless gasp. Then she was off, speaking in an accent Erik found vaguely familiar. The tones of someone of the middle east or Egypt perhaps, softened close to an American accent.
"No, but... Charles he... he's not. N-no well, not him. I shouldn't be... He's not... him. That is..."
Erik shifted his other hand to pull her small fingers from his leg gently and knelt down next to her, clasping her hand in both of his like a caught butterfly. He wanted the information she had, even though every instinct in his body told him to run off down the submarine and pull the place apart until he found Charles, but now was not the time to be uniformed. He couldn't force it out of her either. He knew this look in a child. He'd seen it in the mirror.
As much as she was trying to put up a strong front, the tremble in every movement was evident. This wasn't something he could scare from her, instead he tried the opposite approach, fixing her with that same look he remembered Charles teasing him for. The telepath had called it his pre-speech look, the one he was forced to use on their recruiting trip if Charles's puppy dog eyes failed, which they rarely did.
This was a stare of utter confidence. A stare that said, I am Erik Lehnsherr, I am infalliable. I am unbreakable. I am capable of anything... but so are you.
Charles actually said it was quite frightening to watch, he'd only been mostly joking.
"Calm." He said evenly, and Ororo nodded, "Now tell me. Where is Charles?"
She pinned her lips together for a moment, took in a breath that seemed loud as a jet engine and said the only thing Erik could not have expected.
"You can't trust him." She whispered.
Before the pure strangeness of the statement could really sink in, another voice broke into the natural echo chamber that was the submarine, drawing his attention up.
"Telling lies, Ororo?" Charles stood at the end of the room, looking more tired that Erik had ever seen him, dark hair curling and sticking to his forehead with sweat, strikingly pale in a way Erik couldn't blame on the now blinking lights. He also looked disturbingly pleased with himself. Charles had been known to have moments of pride in his own abilities to be sure, but this... this was arrogance.
Erik seemed inclined to agree with Ororo's advice.
"You're not Charles." Erik said, standing up and tucking the white haired girl behind his leg.
Charles paused in his advance across the room, halfway through pulling the glove of his hand. It was a deliberate stop, not one of surprise. His eyes shot up to Erik, looking displeased, before leaning to look over at Ororo.
"That was a mean trick you played, Ororo," He said evenly, freeing both of his hands from his gloves and tossing them to the off-kilter floor. "I thought we had an agreement. You help me out, I keep you not dead. Did you not find that fair?"
Erik didn't have to look back to see that Ororo had buried her face in her hands, as if that would be any sort of help. He pushed a hand out, intending on grabbing onto the various metal parts of Charles's uniform to at least be able to shake the confidence out of whoever this was.
Instead, he found nothing to grab onto.
Not-Charles looked at the hand motion with raised eyebrows, amused. "Troubles, Erik?" He tugged at the yellow face of his jacket, displaying the tears and holes where the metal used to be. "I freed myself of those when I woke up, of course there's still plenty of metal around for you to use, couldn't do anything about that. It's the principle of the thing, you understand."
Erik let the jabs slide off him, raising his chin as he tried to sort the situation out. Shapeshifter... maybe. Telepath... Charles had been saying there was one around. Was this an illusion, but, no he still had the helmet.
"I will ask this once," Erik said calmly, "Who are you?"
A smile broke Charles's face at that and he shrugged, "That's still up for debate. Controlling a telepath is so much more exciting than possessing everyone else, even mutants. I'm not quite sure where I stop and Charles begins..." He contemplated it as if it were some fascinating riddle to play with before continuing, "but don't get your hopes up, Erik, I am still firmly in control. I stepped in with an advantage... which I should also thank you for."
The hull of the submarine groaned as Erik clenched his fists, stepping out into the room with an unmistakable intent it only made Not-Charles grin all the wider.
"If it weren't for you," He pressed fearlessly, "I would have never had the leverage I needed. Do you have any idea what it's like being inside someone's head when they die?"
"Be quiet." Erik was closing the gap quickly, voice far more calm than he actually was, everything metal in the room melting as he walked past it.
"When the person you're controlling dies, in that second, every boundary, every wall, every guard a telepath has ever put up just... flinches." He said cheerfully even as Erik was only a few angry steps away, "It also hurts like nothing you could ever truly imagine. You're such a good friend, Erik."
Erik's hand was wrapped around Charles's throat even before he could remember getting there. The flinch of his blue eyes was almost enough to make him let go, to almost make the white hot anger which had consumed him fade. Then, like gasoline on a fire, that arrogance slipped back onto Charles's momentarily shocked face, eyes slanting over to look at Erik, daring him to go further.
"Come now," Not-Charles spoke in a voice muted by the pressure on his collar, strangled down to a harsh whisper. The grip wasn't as much bite as it was bark and Erik was torn between wanting to change that. "You wouldn't hurt us. Your only friend in the entire world? You're not that far gone yet."
Erik's breath came in with a livid hiss, teeth bared, but whatever he wanted to do, it was immediately stopped. Both Erik and Charles snapped over to look at the outside wall, identifying the circumstances in their own unique ways.
The ships were bright point of awareness now, his achievement at killing Shaw and his current anger widening his abilities to a degree Erik hadn't been aware he was capable of. He could feel the turn of the propellers, each individual piston in the massive engines, and he could feel the guns, aligning and preparing to fire.
"Arrogant bastards..." Charles whispered, as surprised as Erik was... in that he really wasn't surprised at the event, but in the timing.
Twisting in a move that would force Erik to either break Charles's neck or let go, he was suddenly free, quickly disappearing down the bent hallway with nothing but a challenging look tossed over his shoulder. Erik cursed loudly and followed, all the way through the corridor and back out onto the heated sands of the Cuban beach.
Free from the cocoon of metal that was the submarine, Erik's senses grew wider, flowing out over the children and what remained of the Hellfire Club. He could easily sense the children stumbling forward to try to greet them, instantly relieved to see them alive, letting their guard down. Erik couldn't let them do that. He lashed out with a hand, shoving them back a foot by the metal of their uniforms, giving them a dark warning glare before he stepped between them and Charles. As if he could do anything to stop the unknown telepath if he decided he wanted to hurt them, but it sent a clear message.
The telepath ignored them completely anyway, heading straight toward the edge of the water, eyes locked on the ships. He only looked away once, as he passed fearlessly past Angel, Azazel and a recovering Riptide.
Not-Charles gave them a feigned, twisted look of compassion, "Oh don't get your hopes up. Shaw is very, very dead."
A light of understanding sparked in Azazel's eyes and he lurched forward a step, "Telepath..." The red mutant looked very much like he wanted to advance further, but he found himself unable to do so.
"Really," Charles said with a laugh, "You've been most accommodating and I do thank you for that, but did you truly think I was going to let him blow up the world? What idiot thought that plan would work anyway?"
Erik clenched his fists at the exchange, the slight shift of sand and the feeling of uniform metal warning him of Raven's approach next to him. Her steps stuttered due to a limp she'd acquired somewhere, but she seemed to not want to entertain the weakness.
"Charles? What is..." She managed to get out before Erik's hand shot out to grasp her arm. She jumped at the sudden contact snapping her attention over, "What's going on?"
Obviously hearing the exchange, telepathically or otherwise, Charles looked over his shoulder again, amused at the outright panic creeping into Raven's stance.
"That's not Charles. It's another telepath." Erik trapped all of the rage and uselessness inside himself, pushing the words out in a dead monotone. He couldn't spare the time or effort on that. He was already halfway split between keeping track of the humans readying to fire and wringing out what little knowledge about telepathy he had for some kind of solution to this possession.
The children had crowded closer in a sign of injured solidarity, but they heard what Erik said just as well as Raven did. The reaction washed through all of them, fueling the smirk on Charles's face, easily seen across the expanse of sand between them.
Erik had been so concentrated on so many things, on the warning growl bubbling out of Hank's throat, that he mistook the trembling in Raven's shoulders for fear instead of the anger it was. She launched forward a few steps, only her limp and Erik's grip on her arm keeping her from doing something foolish.
"You give my brother back, right the fuck now!" She screamed the words, straining against Erik's grip.
Not-Charles laughed shortly, looking over at a still frozen Azazel and Riptide like they were old comrades in on the same joke.
"I'm sorry, that won't be happening." He said with a tilt of his head, arms held behind his back in that proper stance that was usually so very Charles, "Besides, I don't know if he'd want to come back now that he knows you have every intention of leaving him when this is over."
The tension against Erik's grip suddenly slackened, Raven gasping like the comment physically hurt.
"Stop!" Erik barked the order out, halting Hank from reacting to the statement, meeting the blue man's angry snarl with a dark glare of his own. He waited until Hank's temper coiled down before sweeping the same look over the others, "Charles is still in there, we must give him a chance to fight this."
"Unlikely." Not-Charles scoffed.
"Silence." Erik turned the ordering tone on the telepath, and for once, the telepath seemed to obey though it was more out of curiosity than fear. It didn't last long.
"Oh, Erik..." He spoke in his most disarming innocent voice, "I think you're mad at me. What are you going to do, shove a coin through our head again?"
"I said silence!" Erik bellowed, all authority, "You don't deserve your mutation. You use it against those of your own kind and for what? Enjoyment?"
"No! For revenge!" Not-Charles didn't seem quite as amused anymore, all of them feeling a suppressing wave of dark thoughts not their own, the air seeming suddenly cold even though the sun still shone brightly. The telepath dropped his hold on the other mutants, ignoring them as they crashed to their knees, muscles not responding as they should. He shook his head at Erik, disappointed, angry, "I thought you, at least, could at least comprehend this if not appreciate it."
Erik continued staring at him with a damning look, shutting out all else. "We have nothing in common, you're just a two bit telepath who took advantage of someone far your superior in a moment of weakness."
The air dropped another few degrees, but it was an unnatural cold. It was the cold shiver you got when someone was staring at you across the room, the sinking feeling of dread when you realize you've misplaced your most prized possession.
"Erik, man, what are you doing." Alex whispered under his breath. He didn't get an answer. This was a dangerous game to play, Erik knew. It was also the only game he had. Clinging in the back of his mind was a conversation that seemed years ago. Charles talking about how emotions effected someone with his abilities, how he could be swayed or distracted by them.
Erik held no hope of actually effecting the telepath in any way, but if he could offer Charles any handhold, he would.
"You have your revenge, Erik," Not-Charles said darkly, "I deserve mine."
"Revenge for what?" Erik scoffed, knowing it was a sore subject and thus an advantage even though he had no idea of what it was precisely, "You're mad."
"I am. not. mad." The words came out with a force that seemed to even surprise the telepath, the children dropping around him, gasping and falling to their knees, hands clamped around their heads. Erik tensed but, thankfully, whatever it was quickly subsided, leaving the children breathless but fine.
"Fourteen years ago," The telepath said, waiting until he had full attention from everyone there, "Charles Xavier murdered me."
"Not a good way to prove you're not crazy," Sean grumbled, Alex and Hank making equally disbelieving faces until they noticed how the comment had turned Raven and Erik still.
"You." Erik's expression was halfway hidden under the helmet he'd come out with, but you didn't really have to see it to know his current opinion. Raven too was no mystery, her scales actually standing out starker, more pointed along her skin.
"Oh, you've heard of me then," Not-Charles said, smirk returning, "How nice."
"How are you alive?" Raven growled, telegraphing her urge to set that mistake right as soon as possible.
"I very well would have been, mostly was," He answered pridefully, "if I hadn't had a hold on another mind at the time, I would have been. Instead, I transferred myself to that mind and waited there. I was weak, my own body was dead. I spent four years with nothing but a blurred self awareness. I deserve retribution."
The ships that had previously looked entirely harmless on the horizon line, nothing more than gray squares drifting across blue, started to shift into recognizable formations. Charles gave them a quick look, seeming to find it funny for some reason.
...Then the sky was full with missiles. Each of them scooping up into the sky with gray tails of smoke anchoring them to their originating ship, interrupting the sunlight overhead. All of them looked up, dread still waiting to kick in past the morbid urge to stare at the oncoming weaponry.
Erik shot forward into motion first, palms lashing out at the sky just as the missiles arced over the top of their parabola and started heading downwards. Then they halted.
Not-Charles laughed shortly, the only one who hadn't looked worried at any point, pacing up the sand like it was a vacation instead of a hostile war zone. He stopped next to Erik who was busy keeping the missiles from descending any farther.
"I will admit this," He said to Erik, not concerned about the spectacle anymore and seeming all the more smug for it, "Charlie did teach me one thing. You see, we telepaths are only linked to our bodies by habit. We can exist as consciousness, as a higher life form bound to nothing but our thoughts. We only die whenever we see fit and I have no intentions of doing that any time soon. I am essentially immortal."
Erik's arms shook as his concentration was pulled apart by a loose thread, teeth gritting at the effort. Charles stepped closer, looking from the missiles to the man.
"I'll tell you what, if it makes you feel better, I'll do something for you." He said enigmatically, "You take care of the humans here, and I will go solve the root of the problem."
The missiles slipped, Erik snapping a look over to the telepath, words grinding out between his teeth, "What are you going to do?"
The Shadow King tipped his head smiling almost benevolently, reminding Erik abruptly of Shaw. The missiles slipped another few feet.
"Charles has so much power in this head of his. He kept it dormant, he was too scared to use it, too naïve," He said wistfully, "It's power I now have access to. At the beginning of every war is a government full of the ignorant. I'll teach them what it means to start a war with us."
Erik realized this was the second time that day that he'd been agreement with a madman. The realization sat bitterly on the back of his tongue.
Charles backed away, taking Erik's silence as an agreement, and gestured at the teleporter with a crooked finger. It was obvious Azazel was once again not moving of his own will, the telepath wasn't in control of his expressions or his mouth and you didn't have to speak "Russian to know that he was cursing.
"You can't do this!" Alex put on his best adult voice and stepped forward, spurring the rest of the children on to do the same, but all it took was a look at them and they found themselves robbed of the ability.
"Don't be difficult." Not-Charles chastised, digging his fingers into Azazel's arm. Before he nodded at the teleporter he turned a smirk at Erik,"It was nice to meet you Erik. Do yourself a favor and stay out of my way."
Just before the splash of sulfur and smoke took over the space, Erik drug his hands together, clashing the missiles against each other in midair. Then, with a speed born from practice, he lunged for Azazel and barely hooked his fingers against the mutant's sleeve... but it was enough.
With the sound of air rushing in to fill in a suddenly empty space and the stark change from beach bright sun to a dim fluorescence of a government complex, Erik was somewhere else. Before he could even properly adjust to the new location, The Shadow King was stepping forward and addressing the ring of startled military officials with a slanted smile.
"Now then, which one of you just gave an order to kill us, hm?"
-
AN: Geeeze guys so sorry for the wait. I won't spout all my reasons but I assure you, it's getting better now. Or it will tuesday. Thank you all for patiently waiting and for all the comments. Especially that EPIC one from Frozenlaughter (you are awesome) which actually kicked my butt into gear this afternoon. I will be responding but I figured I'd jump the inspiration while it's here.
I have a feeling this chapter is super rough. They usually are, and I'm too cowardly to get a beta, so I do apologize, but I didn't want to make you guys wait another day for me to do another couple read throughs.
Have a good day guys and thank you again for the comments, as slow as this chapter was, if I didn't have those comments I dunno if I could gotten past my block this quickly.
