Darkwind: Thanks! I'm glad it was wow. It's what I aim for. ;)

Bookaholic27: Oh good! That's a relief. I always worry about my portrayal of Erik. I wanted to do some of the Charles-Onslaught conversation, but I couldn't find a good place to add it in. And, spoiler alert, Onslaught doesn't make any appearances in this chapter outside of being referred to. I'll try to put something in the next chapter. I need some Onslaught talk to happen. I just need to figure out how to make it happen.

Icanhearthedrums: Haha! I really really really wanted to keep angry Charles in, but it wasn't working with the rest of the chapter. I was so sad to delete it. Hopefully slightly ambiguous Charles is good enough for now.

Guest: Thanks!

Jayswing96: I know, I hate ending on cliffhangers, especially since my updating is sporadic with school, but here's the…un-cliffhanger? Is that a thing? It is now. I'm glad you're enjoying the story despite the long wait between updates!


Chapter 11: A Beggar not for Money but for Time

It had been ages since he'd last spent more than three nights at Westchester without mortal peril being involved. Old habits die hard, though, and Erik found himself waking before dawn every day to go for a run. His ribs still hurt, but it had been long enough that McCoy had grudgingly told him it wouldn't jar them out of place again and he needed to be in top form when they confronted Phoenix in a few days.

As he ran, his mind wandered. He'd thought they'd be sitting on their hands, but as it turned out Charles had known far more about Phoenix's plan than he'd let on.

The groups had gathered together in one of the bigger studies that Charles used for school-wide lectures. It wasn't as awkward as they'd thought it would be. Over the past few weeks, they'd eaten together, shared living quarters, and trained as a unit. Things were still tense and arguments were still frequent, but no violence had broken out, which seemed to be a good sign.

Everyone silenced as Charles cleared his throat.

"I know we've found ourselves meeting together far more often than we'd prefer, but explanations must be given and it's easier to give them all at once. We have a formidable enemy to face in the coming days and working together is the only way we will be able to defeat her."

"How can we defeat her if we do not know her plan?" Azazel asked.

"Ah, but we do know her plan."

"Do enlighten us then, Charles," Erik said. He'd been trying to pry it from Charles since their talk, but the telepath was as stubborn as ever.

Charles cleared his throat again and glanced around the room before checking the brakes on his chair.

"You're stalling," Erik said, giving his best unimpressed stare.

"I'm not," Charles shot back a little too fast before grimacing when he realized he'd given himself away. "Very well," he continued with a sigh. "Phoenix intends to utilize the electromagnetic potential of your machine and add a vast amount of psionic energy to it."

"That doesn't sound so bad," Sean said.

"The result will be the formation of a self-sustaining sun that will grow to encompass the planet within hours. All life will be burned away allowing Phoenix to create a new world and populate it with creatures of her own making, assuming she survives."

Silence fell, broken only by Sean's small "Oh". Even Magneto found himself taken off-guard, playing the fish out of water opening and shutting its mouth desperately trying to find air (or in this case words) yet coming up empty.

"H- How do we stop it?" Hank asked.

"That's what I've been trying to figure out. Unfortunately, my knowledge of physics and engineering is rather limited and without knowing what the machine actually looks like, I don't know how to disable it. All I can do is predict the modifications she's making to it."

"What if I could recreate the plans?" Magneto cut in.

Charles blinked. "Could you?"

"Try not to look so shocked. It was my idea to make the damn thing. I looked at the plans for long enough and I helped design it. I'm not an engineer, but I know my way around the mechanics of it."

Hank brightened. "Together, we may be able to put together a replica of the blueprint and determine the modifications. Charles, what progress have you made there?"

"I know what functions she needs it to have; I just don't know how she'll make it perform them."

"With the blueprints and Magneto's knowledge of the machine, we can figure that out."

"That's all well and good," Toad cut in, "but how exactly are we going to get to where we need to be to execute the ever so specific sabotage-the-machine plan? It's not like Phoenix is going to let us waltz in without a fight. She took on the entirety of the Brotherhood and won. What do you think she'll do to us especially with the additional reinforcements of the people she has working for her? It's not like she's building doing this by herself."

"Her workers we can handle," Mystique said. "It's her we need to keep occupied." Eyebrow raised, she turned to Charles. Charles, surprisingly, looked to Emma. The White Queen startled, looking between the adoptive siblings like a rabbit caught between a fox and a wolf before schooling her features with a disbelieving laugh.

"I can't take on Phoenix," she said, her frown betraying the bitter aftertaste the words left in her mouth. "I could barely hold out against her last time. If you recall, that ended with a stab wound and a ruined shirt. I liked that shirt."

"You weren't only facing Phoenix then, though, were you?" Charles asked. "You were protecting everyone's minds."

Emma's eyes narrowed. "What are you thinking?"

"Onslaught and I will take on Phoenix. We'll need the assurance that she won't pull her favorite trick while we're doing it."

"You want me to block her ability to pull people apart?"

"Precisely. If you can restrain certain of her abilities-"

"-you'll be able to fight her more easily. Plus she'll be distracted by me-"

"-making it easier for me to defeat her."

The back and forth of telepaths conversing orally was dizzying. Erik had never considered what it would be like for the two to strategize together, unconsciously reading each other's minds while speaking aloud, keeping just far enough ahead of each other to make it hard for any non-telepath to follow. They reveled in it. Emma looked brighter than she had since her injury and Charles had a gleam in his eye Erik rarely saw outside of their chess games. He tamped down on the surge of jealousy.

"Can you do it?" Charles asked. "If you knew the mechanism and could concentrate all your energy on the one task?"

"Of course," she sniffed. "Her mind is strong, but if I only have one thing to do…can you really handle the rest of her?"

"If anyone can do it, it's Chonslaught," Sean chimed in.

Charles winced and pinched the bridge of his nose as the room silenced. A gleeful grin spread over Mystique's face as she turned towards her brother.

"Chonslaught?"

Everyone else oscillated between skeptical raised brows and held back laughter. Even Magneto found his stoic façade breaking with a touch of withheld laughter on his lips.

"What have we said about naming things, Mr. Cassidy?" Charles said.

"But it's such a good name!"

"Yes, Charles," Erik said. "Why would you have kept such a fine moniker to yourself?"

"It's neither here nor there. Onslaught and I will be able to handle Phoenix."

The much needed break from the gravity of the situation dissolved, bringing back the issue at hand.

"We've heard that before, Charles. More than once," Hank said. The challenge seemed to physically pain him, but he held his ground.

"With Onslaught-"

Hank shook his head. "We've seen Onslaught. He's powerful, but even he doesn't have that kind of power."

Charles smiled, one of those endearing, arrogant smiles that he pulled off so well. "You've seen Onslaught while I was fighting against him and you've seen him when I was unknowingly suppressing him. You've never seen us work together. I can assure you, it's quite impressive."

"Okay then," Mystique said, giving her brother a wary look, "do we have a plan?"

"It would appear we do. Shall we disperse-"

"Wait." Everybody froze at Magneto's booming voice. He'd been quiet, surprisingly so for a strategy session. Letting the others take the reins had given him the much needed opportunity to observe his friend, though, and there was still something amiss. "How do you know this is her plan? We're all taking a leap here and you have disturbingly specific details for someone who hasn't been able to penetrate her mind."

"Ah, I'd…hoped that might not come up." The telepath was fidgeting again.

"It has. How did you know?"

Charles glanced around the room then visibly steeled himself. "I know because…she- she took it from my mind. It was originally Onslaught's idea."

"You're not serious," Bobby said, breaking the second stunned silence of their meeting. They were on a roll.

Charles winced. "I'm afraid so."

"I thought he wanted peace!" Mystique said, voice raised. "Back in Cuba and Alkali Lake, he did all that to control everyone for peace. As messed up as that is…I mean…how do you go from peace to destroying everything?"

"I suspect the same way Phoenix did. Telepaths see everyone's minds, the good and the bad. Why do you think I cling so tightly to the good? If I didn't, I'd lose my mind. My hopelessness and disdain towards humanity…it's all part of Onslaught. He needed a Plan B and destruction was it. Once he had his own body...without my influence, those ideas had time to grow. By the time we reintegrated at Alkali Lake, he had solid plans about destroying all life and starting over. Phoenix has been around for far longer. It's not surprising she'd have no hope left to fall back on."

All these years as Charles' friend (or enemy depending on the day) and still there were new things to learn. Charles looked broken open at the admission. His voice had the desperation that only came with honesty. Erik should feel disturbed. Instead, he felt…relief? All his years of trying to talk sense into the telepath, attempting to get him to see the worst in humanity, and it turned out he already had. His hope wasn't naïve. It was a defense mechanism, protecting the world from destruction. One mutant bent on humanity's demise was plenty.

Hank looked at Charles, the hesitant scientist once more. "Do you- since he's part of you again, you don't want-"

"I'm not going to go on a rampage of world destruction, if that's what you're asking, Hank. We aren't two separate entities anymore. His radicalism is tempered by my moderation. Is that all? If so, I believe we have work to do."

And that had been that. They'd fleshed out the plans a little more. Mystique was training a team to protect Charles and Emma while they fought on whatever psychic plane they fought on. Azazel and Alex were working with the mutants who would be coming with Magneto and Beast into the facility itself. Since the meeting, Magneto had spent hours on end with McCoy trying recreate the machine so the scientist could figure out what modifications would be made. Only then would Hank be able to decide what he'd need to do to deactivate the machine.

There was no doubt the machine would be up and running. It was just a matter of how functional it was. Charles assured them that they had time. He could ascertain that much from waves of feeling he could sense from Phoenix. He didn't dare enter her mind and risk exposing how much they knew of her plan though. Knowing what they knew, they could estimate when they needed to be ready. They'd cut it closer than Magneto liked, but at least they'd be prepared.

The sun was just rising when he got back from his run, breathing a little harder than he was accustomed to and wiping sweat from his brow despite the chill that came with early spring. He slowed as he approached. Charles was sitting out on the patio that had been added to his office sipping tea with a blanket over his lap. The telepath was watching the pinks and oranges of the morning sky. The sun wasn't yet over the treeline, but it would be soon. Charles shot a sideways glance his way as he approached and offered a tentative smile. That was enough invitation for Erik.

"You're up early," Erik said as he approached.

Despite their breakthrough, Charles had very obviously been avoiding Erik. It wasn't difficult with Charles continuing his continued obsession with figuring out the machine modifications and Erik spending a majority of his time training or with McCoy . They'd played a few stilted games of chess, but one or both of them usually begged off citing fatigue from the day's activities. It was a step in the right direction. That didn't mean Erik wouldn't rather be sprinting.

"I had trouble sleeping. I thought since I was up I might as well enjoy the sunrise. It's good to see you returning to your old routine."

Erik sat on the ground next to Charles' chair, knees to his chest. Only with Charles would he take the lower position. "I'd forgotten how peaceful it could be here. Back at the Brotherhood facilities, there was always training to be done or guard shifts to be taken. We never got to truly appreciate the simple things."

"You should never waste a sunrise," Charles said, his voice distant. "You never know which will be your last."

A frown broke on Erik's face and he looked up at Charles, whose eyes never left the horizon. "It's going to be alright, Charles. We're going to get through this. Waiting is the most difficult part."

Charles smiled softly. It had been far too long since they'd been this open with each other. "Perhaps. But one never knows how much time one has left. Time is the last thing that should be taken for granted, yet so many neglect it. If we fail, the world will die in the blink of an eye. How many will have truly appreciated their time here? How many will remember the last day they saw begin?"

"Charles-" Erik said warily. A pit was forming deep in his stomach. Charles looked resigned…almost pained as his drained the last of his tea. Flipping through his index of Charles' expressions, he couldn't find a match. "What aren't you telling me?"

Charles took a breath, snapped out of whatever place his mind had gone to, and plastered a smile on his face. "I'm sorry, my friend. I didn't mean to be overly philosophical. Everything will turn out as it should. I simply came out to appreciate the sunrise. You know how rarely I'm awake for them. Feel free to stay. I need to get back to work."

The man had gotten good at maneuvering his chair. He was gone before Erik could protest. Erik sighed and turned back around. The sun was just peaking over the trees now, the bright pinks cascading into blue. It wasn't until Charles was out of sight that he realized the telepath had never answered his question. That left him far more shaken than Phoenix ever had.


Remember back when Phoenix broke free and set a bunch of stuff on fire and she took something from Charles' head? I know, it was months ago, but think hard. Well, that thing that she took was this plan.

I've been calling Charles and Onslaught "Chonslaught" in my head since I started "A Spark Neglected". I had to include it somewhere.

I have exactly no knowledge of physics and engineering. I have no idea how Magneto's machine would work. I took a leap and hoped for the best. I don't know how it would create a sun, but Onslaught did it in the comics, so clearly it can be done. Speaking of which…

Comic references: When Onslaught first popped up, his big plan was to create a second sun. No way could I have come up with that plan myself. I've had this in my back pocket since 2011 when I couldn't work it into "A Spark Neglected" and had the idea for the trilogy that followed. I'm glad it's finally off my chest.

Lastly, I was positive I wouldn't get this out before my conference next week, but I did (go me!), so yay! That said, I have a conference coming up and a ton of papers to grade. I'll do my best to get an update (trust me, I'd rather be writing this). As always, reviews help. And thank you guys who are still hanging on for being patient. This story is my baby and I really want to finish it, but school and life are getting in the way.