Chapter 21:Complications

It had been nearly a week since we'd all escaped from Sinister's little trap, and it felt like half the mansion was just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Frankly, it wasn't a psychological climate that was all that conducive to recovery, but why complain when it'll only encourage more harassment? By which I mean comforting. People are so strange.

I looked up from the book I'd been half-heartedly perusing at the sound of a knock at my open bedroom door.

"Pietro." I acknowledged, closing the journal and setting it aside.

"Francis." He replied in a slightly teasing tone.

"You knocked." I observed, raising my eyebrows, and wondering who'd managed that. He shrugged, playing nonchalant, then frowned when he saw what I'd been reading. "Does your Dad know that you have that?"

"Of course not." I replied. "Nor will you tell him."

"Hmm. We'll see." He took a seat next to my bed. "So… How're we feeling?"

"We don't feel." I answered bluntly. He smiled.

"You know what I meant."

"I should be up and about in no time. That's according to Hank- Who doesn't really have a clue." I informed him with a sigh. "I never thought I'd actually miss your old job."

Pietro shrugged. "We had good coverage."

"That and they were used to treating freaks." I added. He narrowed his eyes at me in disapproval, and I continued. "Treating godlike aliens and psuedo-cyborgs on a regular basis made treating a lab-made mutant like me a cake walk."

"Who told you that?" Pietro asked flatly, then grumbled at the look I shot him. "Tony."

"Got it in one." I confirmed, enjoying his discomfort. "How fares the search for dear sister?"

"Can't you see for yourself? Marie tells me you've been making great strides with your telepathy." Pietro asked. I did a so-so hand gesture and he sighed. "It's about the same for Vater's search. I offered to use my Agency resources to assist him but, well, you know Vater. Can you pick anything up?"

I shook my head. "She kicked me out of her head the moment that she recovered. Arawn—Apocalypse was there with her, helped her remove the breathing tube, and there was some milky-eyed mutant nurse that seemed to be a subordinate. That's all I really know about her whereabouts."

Pietro leaned back in his seat, considering the information.

"Are you sure that's all?"

"Fairly certain, yes." I confirmed as Sean and Jubilee crept into the room, trying not to be disruptive and failing. Pietro spared them a passive glance, watching Jubilee hunker down with a couple of slightly faded, antique dolls near the foot of the bed before returning his attention to me.

"What did the room look like?"

"It was a basement, and no, I don't know what color the clay was or anything like that. It was all either painted over or covered." I told him, annoyed. "Perhaps, being a telepath allowed the Shadow King to realize the possibility of another of us peeking in through the eyes of one his hostages.

"No need to get tetchy, Fluke. It was worth asking." Pietro remarked mildly, producing a familiar red rubber ball from… somewhere. Show-off. "Here. Thought, you might like to have this back." He said, holding it up as if to toss it to me. I reached for it. "Here." He bounced it off the edge of the bedside table, keeping it just out of reach. "Ooops. Let's try again." Bounce. "Come on." Bounce.

Jubilee giggled at his antics. I glared at him.

"Pietro!"

"You're right. It's not funny anymore. I'll stop." He agreed. "Here." And bounced it away again.

"Stop it!" I did not whine. Pietro's an ass for implying so, and Sean's a follower.

"Hey. Come on." Sean said, trying to play the peacemaker.

"Okay, okay." Pietro agreed… and bounced it off my bloody hand! Sean laughed.

"Heh, heh… Now that was kinda funny." He admitted. I crossed my arms over my chest. Pietro sighed and tossed the ball so that it landed perched on my folded arms.

"Oh, don't pout, Bambino. I'm sorry." He apologized. I squinted critically at him then glanced over at Jubilee.

"He is not a role model." I stated with finality. She didn't seem to care, already having shifted her attention back to the dolls that she was playing with.

Charles paused in his leisurely stroll down the garden path to lean on the railing, looking up at the old satellite dish as he waited for Erik to make his way over to him. The magnekinetic had just finished some basic training outdoors with Raven and Cecily, despite the bleak, overcast weather.

The light was unusually dim for the time of day, making everything seem a bit more dramatic and monochrome. It created a subtle, unsettling parallel with the dreamscape that Erik had been forcing himself to overlook, and he had clearly been looking forward to rejoining Charles.

"That was fast." Charles commented with wan smile, feeling a gloved hand come to rest on his back. Unlike Erik, he wasn't bothered much at all by the parallel, having spent more time in various manifestations of the astral plane prior to our imprisonment.

"I'm keeping you on your toes." Erik joked.

Charles gave him an amused look.

"Shouldn't you be taking it easy?"

"We've been over that already. I feel perfectly fine." Charles replied mildly.

"Ah." was Erik's unusually accepting response. Charles hooked his cane on the frost-covered railing and turned to face him.

"How was training?" He inquired conversationally.

"They're improving. Slowly." Erik remarked, still gazing out over the grounds with a more typical coolness to his manner. Charles sighed and turned back to the fence.

"They're only children, Darling." He gently reminded the other man. Erik's eyebrow twitched at the term 'Darling'. Charles' lips thinned. His gaze flickered over Erik's face and away again, quickly enough that he would've missed it had he not been paying such close attention.

"We both know that isn't true." Erik countered, reaching up and adjusting Charles' navy blue scarf. Charles swallowed as the other man leaned closer resting a strong hand on his shoulder. Charles didn't reply. Instead his hand darted towards his cane but he winced when his wrist was caught in too firm a grip, hovering mere centimeters short of the handle.

"None of that." The imposter chastened.

"Who are you?" Charles demanded, noticing that up close 'Erik' was merely a colorless imitation. The shape-shifter's eyes flickered up to meet his. Well, not completely colorless.

"Temper, temper." The imposter chastened. "Relax Professor. I'm not here to harm you."

"I couldn't sense you… You felt—"

"Yes, I know. You sensed what you were expecting to, merely a reflection." He explained, his amber eyes studying Charles' face before he added. "So I wouldn't bother doing what you're considering. You'll only do yourself harm."

"And Erik?"

"I wouldn't know." The double admitted. "I only needed to get close." Then the corner of his azure lips quirked up in amusement as he looked at something over Charles' shoulder. "Oh, there he is." He observed sounding noticeably more Welsh. Then he grabbed Charles by the collar and pulled him round to use as a human shield.

"Charles?" Erik called, thrown slightly off-kilter by the sight of his duplicate.

"I'm alright." Charles responded, stumbling as he was pulled backwards a few steps. Erik was staring at his captor. The other Erik's dark hair was paling to a light platinum-blonde. It fanned out into a mess of short spikes as he shrank down from Erik's height to roughly Charles', his features sharpening into a familiar youthful face. Charles frowned and looked back towards his captor as much as his position allowed to see Arawn wink at him.

Erik narrowed his eyes, seeming to take it as a personal slight.

"Thought I'd slip into something a bit more comfortable." Arawn quipped at Charles' incredulous expression.

"You said that you wanted to talk." Charles prompted ignoring the subtext.

"I do."

"Fine then, let me go."

Arawn snorted.

"Sorry, Professor Xavier, but your kin do have an unfortunate penchant for killing me."

"He won't kill you if you let me go." Charles returned, hopefully. Erik shot him a look that contradicted the assertion. "Don't Erik!"

Erik nodded begrudgingly, still looking murderous.

"Let him go." He requested. Arawn raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.

"I'd rather play it safe, actually. Dying does hurt ever so much." He countered, wrapping an arm around Charles' waist and ignoring the angered snarl that it provoked from Erik. "Don't bother." He dismissed. Erik darted forward to stop him but the space around Charles and Apocalypse warped, seeming to fold around them, and then they were gone.

"Gh!" Charles stumbled forward as the world around him reordered itself. Arawn released his grip and wandered over to sit in front of the ancient stone fireplace.

"The dizziness will pass in a moment." He announced, watching Charles brace himself against the stone wall and squeeze his eyes shut. "The headache can't be helped, that'll last quite a bit longer, but it can't be helped... Or so I've been told."

"Wh—By whom?" Charles inquired shakily, blinking his eyes to try and clear his vision. Arawn looked amused by the non-sequitur.

"Mostly Le Fay, but Sinister might have complained about it as well. None of your lot seem to take the transition well."

"Le Fay?" Charles echoed dazedly.

"Far before your time." Arawn dismissed with a wave.

Charles shook his head, forcing himself to focus. "We're in a castle…"

Arawn nodded patiently.

"How far away have you taken us?"

"France, but never mind that. It's inconsequential." Arawn answered with an impatient wave. "Your sons caused us quite the mess. It's like nothing I've ever seen before, and that is quite a thing."

Charles drifted over to one of the worn wooden chairs and sat down, pulling off his cap so that he could rub at his sore head.

"I don't understand..."

"Nor do I." Arawn admitted. Charles squinted at him. "I know. Not what you meant." Arawn said chucking a bottle of water at him. "Francis and Pietro are time-travelers, yes?"

Charles nodded, taking a drink from the water bottle.

"It's not as simple as that, but I'm not here to discuss the physics of it. The world they've come from is closer to us now than it should be. Bits are falling through. I don't know what it is that they've done, but your friends have disrupted the balance."

"We changed the timeline…" Charles said, trailing off as he considered the assertion.

"This is separate. –or maybe it isn't. I don't know, as I said. I doubt that anyone's done this before." Arawn replied. "And I'm not the only one who's noticed it, that young augur of yours has noticed it too."

"She's not technically mine." Charles stated, surprising himself. Arawn raised an eyebrow at him, his challenging expression only emphasizing Charles' sudden feeling of guilt. "Don't know why I said that…" He mumbled, then frowned. "I thought you were working for Amahl Farouk."

"Technically, I am." Arawn responded drily. "That doesn't mean I don't have my own priorities."

"He wants me dead."

"Yes." Arawn confirmed with a half-shrug. "We all have our hobbies."

Charles' jaw clenched. That was what this was for Apocalypse: his work with the enemy, capturing me, capturing the other X-men, even killing Jamie Moss -all because he was bored.

"You'll understand when you're older." Arawn drawled, undaunted by Charles obvious disapproval. "But regardless of my perceived sins, you should consider what I've told you. This needs to be fixed, and it's your lot who're responsible."

"I don't know what's happening." Charles told him. Arawn nodded and held out his hand to him. Charles eyed it warily, before glancing up at his youthful face. "How long does it take, for human life to seem so worthless that war becomes a game?"

Arawn scoffed.

"The innocence of youth. It isn't about worth. I have lived so many lives, over such a very long time. I might just be the very first of our kind." He explained. "I'll continue on indefinitely, but all of you just flash by so quickly. Many, more or less the same, and friend or foe, I know that you're all already dead. No, it's not about worth at all. In a good year, I come across one or two that're worth remembering." They stared at each other for a long moment. Then Charles finally accepted Apocalypse's hand and let himself be pulled to his feet. He was suddenly glad that the other mutant's mind was more or less masked from him.

"Oh, don't look so depressed. You've got far more relevant things to trouble yourself with." Arawn rebuked and pulled him closer, teleporting them to the edge of the mansion's grounds and releasing Charles to collapse gracelessly on the frost-covered lawn. "If you vomit I am done with you."

As if in reply, Charles rolled into a crouch on his hands and knees, beginning to cough and dry-retch. Arawn grimaced.

"Telepaths." He remarked, then his head snapped up as he caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Mere seconds later, Peitro was holding him by the lapels of his coat. Raven, Erik, and Cecily were running towards them from the gravel path.

"You alright, X?" Pietro inquired, glaring down at the amused smile that spread across Arawn's face.

"Uegh… Fine." Charles grumbled roughly, collapsing onto the grass.

"Not a scratch." Arawn agreed. Erik ran over to crouch beside Charles, worriedly brushing his hair out of his face when he rolled onto his back. Charles grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze, reassuring him that he really was fine. Cecily slid to a stop a few meters back and grabbed Raven's hand reflexively when she recognized Arawn, looking like deer caught in headlights.

"Relax, Luv. I'm not here for you." Arawn said, shifting his gaze back to Pietro's face. "You seem to have quite the grudge. Shall we have a little chat about it, or do you have some hidden move up your sleeve that I don't know about?

"You took my sister." Pietro spat. The metal buttons on the shifter's wool coat were shaking forebodingly under Erik's influence.

"That's debatable." Arawn countered, ignoring the threat. Pietro just continued to stare into his face. Arawn tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing thoughtfully as Pietro's gaze flicked down to the vibrating metal he reached up to grab Pietro's arms but was immediately thrown backward into a tree by Erik's magnetism.

"Vater." Pietro acknowledged, straightening his trench coat.

"Erik!" Raven exclaimed, rushing forward as Apocalypse teleported over to Erik and grabbed him by the scruff, teleporting them up into the sky and dropping him unceremoniously into a large cluster of thorn bushes. He then reappeared beside Cecily, who let out a little shriek and leapt away.

"Well… I might as well." He reflected, reaching out to grab the frightened teen, but Raven tackled him and punched him hard in the jaw. They both disappeared to reappear in mid air a second later, but when Arawn attempted to shove her away, Raven caught his ankles. She landed on her back in a reverse somersault, slamming him face-first into the ground. He pushed himself up off the ground as she recovered and teleported just in time to avoid her kicking him in the chest. Appearing behind her to grab her by the shoulders and slam her forward into a tree. Then Pietro blurred forward and threw him into the thorn bushes as well, to Erik's satisfaction.

"Sakandros!" Arawn cursed, and disappeared… right after Erik broke his nose. He reappeared by Pietro who grabbed him by the throat before he could attack.

"Fuck speedsters." Arawn coughed. Pietro however did not move to attack any further, causing Arawn to frown up at him in confusion.

Charles sat bolt upright when he caught Pietro's thought, and through him, so did Apocalypse.

"No wait!"

Erik reached out to take hold of the metal on Arawn's person, sensing where this might be going.
Apocalypse nodded to Pietro, whose form rippled faster than the eye could track, creating a burst of wind that knocked Erik away and broke his concentration. The moment that he'd stilled, Arawn reached up and grabbed his arms, teleporting them away.

A/N: Okay, yeah that was a wierd one. I hope you guys liked it. 'Sakandros' according to my frustrated bout of googling is supposedly 'Twat' in ancient greek. Feel free to correct me on that if you feel the need. I don't even speek modern greek. Anyway, thanks for reading this. Feedback is always nice. Hint. hint.