Carl had been drifting in blessed sleep for such a wonderful stretch of time, that the abrupt awakening felt like he'd been slapped in the face with a trout again. The fishy smell, the flapping tail slapping left, right, left, right was more an offense to his pride than a physical hurt. But it was the only thing his relatives would talk about for the next several family reunions after the incident, as they laughed at his clown act.
Carl once more locked up the memory of being slapped with a fish deep in the recesses of his mind. He refused to acknowledge the whole ridiculous encounter on the banks of the Salt River. Never happened.
Finally able to turn his attention away from embarrassing memories, Carl tried to figure out his current situation. Physically he felt fine, but he was confined in some kind of fluid. His lungs weren't working to bring him oxygen, but he didn't feel oxygen starved. He felt a pulsing from his navel.
Thrum-thrum. Thrum-thrum. Thrum-thrum.
All the clues added together made him aware that he was in the womb. Apparently he had reincarnated with his past life's memories. What a fantastic thing, it was like he'd won the lottery. The idea of losing everything that made him, him, was an uncomfortable idea. So he was very pleased he still remembered himself.
Now that Carl had figured out his situation, he turned his attention to what had woken him up. It was quite unusual for people to be aware in the womb. He explored what his senses told him, then delved into the confines of his mind, combing through his bodies memories of the time just before he awoke, Carl realized the specs for his new body were quite high.
Already, as an undeveloped fetus, he could feel that the bounds of his mind were quite wide. He could indistinctly sense his surroundings with his mind, which is a sensation he'd never had before. Carl guessed that he had some kind of psychic powers in this body.
'I guess psychic powers are my golden cheat.' Carl chortled to himself. 'The reincarnation roulette wheel didn't let me down!'
Carl soon determined what had alarmed his gift so much that it woke his consciousness up. His psychic gifts had sensed a presence next to him. The presence felt opposite of what his mind and body felt like, and his gift had been on the verge of lashing out to protect himself.
Reaching out with his new mind powers to see just what it was that alarmed his gift, Carl was left flabbergasted at the stupidity of his fetus self. The presence that he'd sensed was his twin in the womb next to him.
'Thank goodness I woke up in time!' Carl wiped the sweat off his brow in his imagination. 'My stupid baby self almost attacked my sister!'
Carl sensed that his sister was still upset by the start of the attack his awakening had aborted. Reaching out with his mind powers, Carl started broadcasting a lullaby to his sister, sending feelings of love and comfort through his psychic powers to calm her down. It seemed to work, as her mind started sending back thoughts of love and happiness. After only a few minutes, his sister fell asleep.
'Crisis averted.' Carl congratulated himself. 'That would have been the shittiest way to start a new life, by hurting my dear baby sister!' Carl marveled at the lovely feedback of feelings he was getting from his sister. He was already loving his psychic powers. He swore to himself that he'd be the best big brother ever. He already knew he had the abilities to make sure no sleazy guy took advantage of her.
'Use a shotgun to threaten them? Cliché, and it lets them make a report to the police later. Erase all their memories of my sister so they leave her alone? World class big brother!' Carl plotted imaginary protection scenarios.
Exercising his powers must have tired Carl out, because he soon fell back asleep, joining his sister in slumber. If his fetus mouth had been developed enough, it would be stretched wide in a smile at the excitement of having a twin to share his new life with. Even though his life ended in a tragic accident in his previous life, he was feeling optimistic about this life. Things were already looking up for Carl.
Over the next several weeks Carl spent a lot of his time catnapping. He would often be woken up by his sister kicking him. He was amused by the little brat demanding attention from him. The thought that he was making his sister spoiled by paying her so much attention didn't really cross his mind. What else could he do anyway but run through songs in his mind to entertain her? Until they were born he was stuck with nothing else to do.
Aside from singing to his sister, Carl spent time playing with his mind powers. In his past life, even as an adult, he'd never had such a clear mind and fast thinking ability. He started work on creating a mind palace where he could organize his past life's memories, to ensure they weren't lost.
After thinking about it, all the effort that Carl spent playing with his powers is probably why he spent so much time napping. Using psychic powers before he was born was amazing, but at the same time, exhausting for one so young.
The time finally came for Carl and his sister to emerge into the world, and the less said about it, the better, as far as he was concerned. He decided that the memory of what it felt like to be pushed through the birth canal was another one of those memories to be buried in the deep dark recesses of his mind. Labeled "Never to be Opened".
Carl was pleased that he was able to make sure he exited first. There was no way he was going to let his sister pull the older sibling card. He was going to be the big brother here.
Shortly after being born, as he and his sister lay in his new mother's arms, Carl got quite the shock. He finally learned just who he had been born as. His new name was Charles Francis Xavier. He was born as freaking Professor X in the Marvel Universe.
Holy-Freaking-Shit.
No wonder he had such crazy mind powers, even from when he was a bun in the oven.
His twin sister's name was Cassandra Nova Xavier.
Carl thought back to what almost happened right before he'd woken up his past life's memories. His fetus mind, being the dumb baby that he was, was about to attack his twin. He thought back to what he knew about Professor X from the comics, and Carl realized that if he hadn't woken up, then his powers would have caused Cassandra to be miscarried.
From what Carl remembered, later in life Professor X had found some crazy legend about "Mummudrai" from the Shi'ar. Carl didn't remember exactly what it was beyond some stupid idea that there were some people that had to fight their "anti-person" in the womb before being born.
In Carl's opinion, the whole idea was presented to Professor X by the Shi'ar chick he was banging in order to make him feel better about killing his twin in the womb. Yeah, it sucked that Professor X felt guilty about being such an ass that he murdered his twin, but trying to make him feel better about himself by saying his twin was "evil" and needed to die, was such B.S.
Not to mention the fact that it casts Professor X as such a virtuous person that his "anti-self" was evil, and in need of putting down. When the reality was, his twin was just an innocent little baby in the womb and Professor X's powers caused a horrible accident.
Professor X wasn't some Buddha, exalted above the common mortals. But he wasn't necessarily some evil person either. He was just a baby himself at the time with no control of his powers. But he let himself start to believe he was better than everyone, and the Shi'ar legend let him comfort himself that he was justified in whatever he did. After all, he was such a virtuous person that he had to fight an evil version of himself in the womb. Naturally he's more exalted than others.
'/sarcasm' Carl thought to himself as he considered Professor X's life.
Professor X's firm belief in his moral superiority led to him taking all kinds of shortcuts and abusing his mental powers to make things easier for himself. One example of this behavior that Carl remembered from the comics was when one of the Professor's poorly trained B teams was killed when he had sent them into danger to save his A team.
So the Professor naturally wiped the memory of the B team from his A team so they wouldn't question Professor X's abilities to lead the X-Men. It was totally the most logical choice.
Then drama ensued when one of the B team, the sibling of one of the A team members, turned up alive and found out that his own freaking sibling didn't remember him due to the mind wipe from the Professor. Talk about horrible drama and betrayal of trust. It was a perfect example to Professor X's allies they really couldn't trust Professor X to stay out of their minds, or even to make decent decisions.
Another example was how Jean Grey, through the Phoenix Force, had access to Phenomenal Cosmic Power™, and instead of helping her gain control of it, Professor X was afraid he couldn't control Jean Grey. So he locked up her memories and abilities in order to keep control of her. Which turned out to be a piss poor decision when she broke through the chains shackling her memory. She was understandably furious at his manipulations.
With no training or experience handling that great entity, Phoenix Force, Jean/Phoenix rebelled against everything. She explored the more physical and sensual sides of life. She hooked up with enemies of the X-Men, and she did whatever she felt like doing at the time. Which included a lot of property damage. All because Professor X thought he knew best and didn't trust those around him to handle their shit.
Example after example of Professor X's life made Carl realize that he too would be tempted to abuse the people around him with his strong mental powers. Professor X was supposedly the strongest telepath on the planet, everyone's mind around him must have been an open book. And Carl inherited the same power set. So he had to set some rules to govern himself.
Carl decided that his rules would have more impact on him, and be easier to follow, if he related them to stories and people that he remembered from his past life. Prohibited actions would be linked to story characters he despised so he didn't follow their example. Good things would be linked to heroes to emulate.
Rule 1: Don't pull a Sasuke. (Don't be a traitor.)
The Uchiha in the Naruto comics had eyes that could copy any jutsu they saw, allowing them to steal precious techniques from other ninja. Sasuke Uchiha was so consumed by desire for power so he could get his revenge on his brother for massacring their clan, that he would do anything. Even steal from his allies. Even kill his allies.
But Carl was of the opinion that traitors are scum and they deserve nothing good. No matter what justification existed in their minds, betrayal was betrayal.
And while Carl had the ability to be a bigger asshole than Sasuke could be, he had no desire to go down that route. Touching an ally's minds without permission was verboten.
Rule 2: Don't pull a Dumbledore.
They say "Forgiveness is divine."
'Well, then, that is between you and whatever God you believe in.' Carl thought.
Carl acknowledged to himself that people can change, so a bad person might eventually change for the better. But Carl also firmly believed that maintaining a hierarchy of importance in regards to decisions and people was important so he could live with himself. Not all life was equally important to Carl. If the decision was between the life of a rapist or his sister, he would choose his sister's life. It was a no brainer choice.
The rule boils down to being aware of a simple fact: The crocodile tears and promises to change of a defeated evil guy are worth less than compost. If he's got an enemy on the ropes, and the enemy begs for clemency while their life is in danger of being snuffed: don't believe them, just snuff them. Don't let them make a comeback and do more evil.
And since Carl has reincarnated, then obviously there is at least one form of afterlife. Physically dying isn't exactly the end of a person, so stopping the actions of evil people who harm and murder innocents is not an evil act. It's putting down a rabid dog.
Rule 3:…
'I got nothing else right now. I'll have to come up with something more, later. I can't have only two rules for life.' Carl thought as he was cooed at by his mother. 'Besides, I'm a little distracted here, having just been born.' Carl thought as he fell asleep.
Over the next few years, Carl began to think of himself as Charles more and more, because that's what everyone was calling him. When in Rome. His father was named Dr. Brian Xavier, and his mother was Sharon Xavier.
Charles spent a lot of his extra time training his abilities. He soon discovered that while he had a major gift for telepathy, he also had a minor gift in telekinesis. Well, minor in comparison to his telepathy. He was able to lift tens of pounds while less than a year old. Charles definitely won the reincarnation lottery.
While practicing his abilities, he would entertain Cassandra with his telekinesis. Which led to Charles learning that Cassandra had a major gift for telekinesis. She would get tired of him teasing her by hovering a toy just outside of her reach, and snatch it with her mind.
The first time she snatched the toy away from him using her own massive gift for telekinesis, Charles was quite surprised for a moment, then immensely proud of her for her ability. He let her know about it too, beaming happy feelings to her. He then turned "keep away" into a game between them to train their abilities.
Which led to him discovering that Cassandra had a major gift for telekinesis and a minor gift in telepathy. Charles knew Cassandra's gift for telekinesis was massive, since as a baby with a baby's mind, she was already better at telekinesis than him. She always won the keep away game. Her telepathing her amused feelings to him while he pretended to pout always made her day at having won the game.
Finding out that he and Cassandra had kind of opposite skills, confirmed for Charles that Professor X probably bought wholesale the whole anti-self nonsense. Living with the bubbly, happy Cassandra affirmed to Charles that his sister was not evil.
Except for after certain meals and she would fill up her diaper will pure, concentrated evil. Thankfully Charles didn't have to deal with that for too long, though. Cassandra matured quickly, probably due to Charles' influence and his high priority on potty training himself and his sister. So he didn't have to deal with the evil that is baby diapers for too long.
By eavesdropping on the adults conversations, Charles learned many things of note. Charles and Cassandra were born in the year 1932, just a few years after the Great Depression. His father was independently wealthy and had a PhD in Physics. The Xaviers had not participated greatly in the stock market speculation that led to the stock market crash, and as a result much of their wealth had been secure and not lost. That allowed Dr. Xavier to purchase several properties at rock bottom prices after the crash.
Quite a few families that would have been kicked out of their home or apartment, due to not being able to pay rent, were able to stay while the Xaviers ate the cost in the turbulent time. After a few years, once the economy was getting better, the investment and kindness of not kicking people out was paying off as the people could once more afford to pay their rent, and the price of the properties rose once again.
A little charity and a sound investment left the Xaviers well thought of in the community, and their estate was much richer. A clear win-win. Charles was proud of his parents' well planned out actions. They were financially savvy and socially aware. They made a great profit in a time of opportunity without sacrificing their morals.
As Charles and Cassandra became more mobile, one of the documentaries from his past life about tigers was brought to mind. A key point the documentary made about the development of the tiger cubs was that the rough play and wrestling the cubs engaged in was a way for the tiger cubs to build up the strength they needed for hunting in later life. It built the foundation for their great strength. By the time they were adults they were powerful hunting animals.
As a result of remembering this factoid about the development of the tiger cubs, Charles made sure he was a very active kid. Crawling, and then soon running, everywhere he could. And he encouraged Cassandra to join him in getting around. The mental contact the twins kept with each other as they played added an extra dimension of music and imagination the watching adults never understood.
Charles also worked hard to build up his and his sister's psychic powers over those early years under the same idea that early in life was a key time to build their "mental muscles". He hoped the same principal of his body and the tiger cubs would apply. He made sure that Cassandra joined him in his "games" while keeping it secret from the adults.
Due to the nature of his gifts, Charles worked especially hard at a few key exercises. By the time he was seven, he was able to split his mental consciousness in two. In essence, he had two minds running concurrently.
Using his telepathy, his two mental processes, two minds, would always be in contact with each other to coordinate their actions. That way he was able to have one mind control his body, while the other was in charge of his using his psychic gifts. This would benefit him greatly in the future when he would inevitably find himself in fights with meta-humans. Being able to multitask so effectively would be difficult for an enemy to counter his moves.
This technique for having two minds also made it easier for Charles to endure elementary school. He could pay attention to the teacher and class, and be social, while also studying advanced topics so he didn't feel like he was wasting time in school. His ability to view his surroundings through his psychic abilities rather than his eyes allowed him to read closed books in his bag while paying attention at school. It would also be very useful in keeping track of a battlefield.
Charles also worked hard to practice keeping his mental awareness open when not directly focused on "looking" around. Not to read the minds of people around him, but to be aware of the location of people and mental presences around him, and be aware of their intentions. He hoped it would develop to be similar to Spiderman's spider sense in giving him a little warning system of inbound danger.
He knew he was in the Marvel Universe, and that the upcoming years were bound to be chaotic. There were many groups that would love nothing more than to kill or control him and other meta-humans like him in the coming years. Getting used to being paranoid and aware of attacks was good practice for future defense.
He also worked hard on expanding his telepathic range. If he could be good enough that he didn't need the machine Cerebro as a crutch to exercise his power, then he could be more mobile and not stuck in a single location. He would be able to sortie where he was needed. He also wasn't going to let himself get crippled by no alien, so being mobile for missions and not reliant on a stationary machine to exert his skills was absolutely necessary.
One of the things that Charles was immensely proud about his sister was how extremely intelligent she was. He wasn't sure if it was because of how much they stayed in mental connection with each other, or she was naturally that way. She was extremely mature for her age, but loved being a spoiled brat because he let her get away with it. He couldn't help himself when she busted out the puppy dog eyes.
"Would those puppy dog eyes count as a check in the 'evil' column?" Charles would joke with Cassandra. "It's obviously some kind of mind control!" He melodramatically proclaimed, causing Cassandra to bust out laughing.
"No, silly brother. You just know I'm right. It's my prerogative as a woman to use whatever weapon is necessary to let you realize it." The little imp smirked back, victorious once again.
By the time that Charles and Cassandra were nine, Charles could tell that Cassandra bucked all the typical female stereotypes, aside from being cute as a button. Maybe it was due to her strong telekinetic powers, but Cassandra loved building things, and learning how things worked. She was a hands on (telekinesis on) type of girl.
In late February of 1941, Charles finally mentally spotted the person he'd been looking for in his telepathic scans each evening. He'd been having a hard time finding him, but by scanning through the military network around New York, he'd finally located Dr. Abraham Erskine.
Now that Charles had located him, and determined a time frame for certain events, he could enact his plan that he'd been stewing on for nine years.
Charles immediately dragged Cassandra with him and snuck out of the house at night while covering their absence with mental suggestions to their parents to not pay attention to them not being there. This was an absolutely vital mission. There was no way they could miss this opportunity.
Charles got the timing absolutely perfect. They arrived at the lab minutes after Dr. Erskine perfected the Super Soldier Serum, but before Steve Rogers got his dose. Using a psychic whammy, Charles had Dr. Erskine perform the procedure on him and Cassandra, while mentally keeping everyone away from the lab.
Physically upgrading every aspect of their bodies would have been quite a painful experience if they didn't have their psychic abilities to be able to disconnect their awareness from their pain receptors.
After the procedure, Charles made sure to wipe away the memory of them from Dr. Erskine and the others who helped. A clean operation, with no evidence left behind, so they wouldn't be targeted in the future for having the serum.
When they finally arrived home, Charles was exultant. One of his great worries was finally solved! With the super soldier serum, he and his sister maximized their physical bodies such that they wouldn't go bald due to their strong psychic talents. Sure, the physical upgrades were nice, but having hair was much nicer!
It would be a huge shame to deprive the world of his beautiful blonde locks, and there was no way he would let his sister suffer the loss of her hair. Even in his past life when he was a clueless guy he knew a woman's hair was Important.
On a side note, Charles noticed that the maximization of their bodies to peak performance also increased his and his sister's speed of thought, ability to memorize data, and it increased their psychic abilities a few steps up. It looks like the peak performance claim wasn't limited to the physical, but the mental as well. Which made sense to him, the brain is also part of the human hardware after all.
Charles and Cassandra resumed their daily lives with no one even aware they had been gone. They appeared physically the same after the treatment as they looked before.
Charles wondered if their appearance didn't change much because they had already been quite healthy for their age, unlike Steve Rogers at the time he received treatment. Or if the fact they hadn't been through puberty yet would greatly affect how the serum changed them as they matured.
It also made him wonder if having gone through the process before they were fully grown would give them bigger gains than Steve Rogers, got once they finished growing. Maybe the fact that Charles and Cassandra were already very physically fit and healthy individuals, while Rogers had been a physically weak and sickly person, would determine the end results?
Each individual's "peak performance" was bound to be different due to genetics. So the question of how different people's genetics affected the outcome of the serum was still up in the air.
As for how much Charles would benefit from the serum as a full adult, only time and puberty could answer that.
At any rate, Charles had made sure to memorize the formula and process of administering the serum so he could use it later if needed for his allies. Some of those questions could wait for later testing, when the science and technology was more advanced.
In the meantime he and Cassandra would continue their exercising. Charles soon realized that his increased physical abilities outstripped his exercise equipment. He would have to get his father and mother to buy or have made much more robust exercise equipment. It wouldn't do to let his potential go to waste. Maybe have the puppy dog mind control sister convince them?
Charles continued to mentally monitor Dr. Erskine, and attempted to keep him from being killed by the Hydra assassin's bullets. Just because he got what he wanted from Erskine was no reason to leave him out to dry.
And Charles didn't put much stock in the nonsense of trying to "keep the timeline intact". He was a different person from Professor X, he had different knowledge and priorities. And he wasn't some kind of god to play with reality and make it do what he wants.
The perfect example of this was the results of trying to protect Dr. Erskine remotely through his abilities. Charles' powers range had gotten good enough, he attempted to confuse the Hydra assassin's senses when the assassin attacked the lab while remaining in the safety of his home.
Despite his psychic powers and the advanced strength and speed from the super soldier serum, he was still only nine years old, and untrained. He wasn't prepared to test himself against trained killers just yet, when his life was on the line. And especially when he would be unable to go in person without his sister tagging along. He wasn't prepared to let Cassie get anywhere near assassins when they were still so young.
Charles succeeded in spoiling the assassin's aim when he fired at Dr. Erskine in such a way that when the assassin fled the scene, the assassin he thought he had actually shot Dr. Erskine. Unfortunately the assassin also sabotaged the equipment before Charles realized what he was doing, and Dr. Erskine died in the resultant explosion while attempting to save his equipment and data.
It shook up Charles a bit. He had mentally watched Dr. Erskine's mind slip away into death, which was not a pleasant sensation. He was a little sad he hadn't been able to prevent the doctor's death, but there was no way he was going to attempt to protect him when he and Cassie were still only nine.
The whole episode served Charles as an object lesson in just how wrong things can go when someone tries to manipulate and finagle something so chaotic as combat into what they want it to be. His powers were great and…powerful…'/snicker'…but there were still limits to what he could and couldn't control.
His new life wasn't a comic book, with moral lessons at the end of each issue. He also wasn't under the mistaken impression that he was obligated to let certain events happen while trying to "twist" them into some semblance of the timeline he remembers from the comic books in order for certain people to learn "life lessons". He felt free to make of the world and his life what he could.
But at the same time he wasn't necessarily in control of what would be the results of his actions.
And anyway if Charles remembered right, the people in the comics were miserable from all the stupid drama, hate, and physical threats. So doing what he could to make life better for his family, and incidentally everyone else, was high on his priority list.
So Charles took note of this lesson. In the future if he wants to stop an assassin, especially a Nazi one, Charles won't hold back or pussyfoot around trying to finagle the outcome. 'Swift death for Nazis and other murderous scum is the best method to get the results you want.' Charles nodded to himself.
Rule 3: Don't be Vizzini the Sicilian when death is on the line. Swift death to all Nazis.
If Charles ever told anyone his rules to live by, it would be quite a few years before the movies and shows were made so they would make sense to anyone but him.
Over the next five years Charles focused on his school and training. He wasn't too broken up about being too young to be drafted into the war. As admirable as the men were who made victory over the Nazis possible, it was a bloody difficult conflict that shook up and changed the way the world was. No place for a nine year old at all.
He and Cassie were skipped ahead a few years, so they graduated High School in 1946 at the age of 14. Due to being a few years younger than average he had an easy reason available not to participate in team sports. Which was good, because it would have been too easy to slip up and show that a 13-14 year old was far stronger than he had any right to be, leading to questions. Questions that Charles had no intention of letting anyone realize they should be asked, let alone answered.
Charles had continued to train hard physically with his homemade gym and weights. At 14 years old he was already lifting 700 pounds over his head. Another 100 pounds and he would be as strong as adult Captain America was after receiving the serum. By the time he was fully grown he was sure he would be stronger than Captain America. A little point that Charles felt some secret smugness over.
It wasn't like there weren't plenty of beings stronger than Captain America out there, but the reputation that Steve Rogers gained while being frozen was a little too…perfect. Annoyingly perfect. Like he wasn't also a human being, but something greater.
It would probably be quite annoying to the man himself when he was unfrozen in the future. In addition to losing everything and everyone he knew, he would have to live up to some impossible reputation while dealing with culture shock and a whole host of other issues.
After thinking seriously about the issues facing Captain America, or rather Steve Rogers, Charles gave a serious thought on how to help the man in the future. The man was actually someone to admire. He wasn't originally physically strong, but he had great bravery. He gave his own body to an experimental procedure that would give their country a chance to turn the tides against the great war machine that was the Axis powers. He worked hard to help out in a time of war and darkness. In the end he sacrificed his life to save others.
Charles' grandparents in his previous life had both served in World War 2, so he had a lot of respect for the people that answered the call to serve. He knew the type of men they were. And the type of man Steve Rogers was.
Charles would scoff at helping some kind of heroic ubermensch. But helping a man like Steve Rogers was doable. Charles made plans that would be enacted sometime in the future.
In the summer of 1946 the Xavier family traveled to New Mexico. Their father had a project that he was requested to consult for. Charles and Cassandra were planning on starting college that year, so the family decided they would join Dr. Xavier in New Mexico to spend more time as a family until they started College.
When they arrived in New Mexico, the scientists that Dr. Xavier would be working with had a family meet and greet where everyone could get to know each other.
Charles was enjoying himself in the social setting, joking and teasing his baby sister, when he starting hearing someone loudly thinking about their plans. One of the scientists was paid to steal the project's data and cause sabotage to make the project fail. The scientist planned to cause the nuclear reactor to overheat and cause an accident. He figured in the chaos he could get away with the theft and no one would know what he'd done.
[Hear that sis?] Charles asked Cassandra, linking her in on what he had heard psychically. Because of their abilities, Charles had felt it was pointless to try to hide his memories of his past life from his sister, and had long shown her his memories of his past life, including the comics detailing their lives in this universe. She was incredibly happy she had Charles/Carl, instead of Professor X for a brother. Not only was her life great, she still had her hair.
Charles was pissed. This was the "accident" that killed their father in the comics, leading to their mother remarrying Dr. Kurt Marko, the abusive ass, and leading to Cain, who would become the Juggernaut, becoming his step brother. No way was he going to let his father die, let alone let his kind mother become a drunk because of the abuse the ass Marko would direct her way.
Especially since in this life he had a cute little sister to protect. It didn't matter that she could pancake most any threat on her own, it was his right as a brother to protect his sister. And he was using that prerogative in any way Cassandra would let Charles get away with.
No way was he going to be related in any way with Cain Marko. And without Professor X's interference when Cain Marko tried deserting during the Korean war, it would be unlikely Cain would stumble into finding the gem that would turn him into Juggernaut. Even Cain Marko still became The Juggernaut, Charles didn't have the mental hang-ups Professor X did, so he wouldn't have any problems dealing with Juggernaut in a more effective way.
And without Professor X making Cain Marko feel inadequate, maybe Cain wouldn't turn into such a thug. But if he did turn into the thuggish Juggernaut and became a threat, then Charles would deal with him. Which led to his next rule.
Rule 4: Be like Ji Ning. Return kindness and enmity in kind.
Ji Ning was the protagonist of a Chinese Xianxia novel, The Desolate Era. He was a reincarnate from Earth into the cultivation world. So Charles kind of identified with him. Throughout Ji Ning's life, he always treated his loved people with kindness and cherished them. But he would go to great lengths to protect his loved ones, while he would be ruthless to his enemies.
Being kind to the enemy is being cruel to the innocent. A perfect example is Batman never killing the Joker. Every time Batman let the Joker live, he would break out of prison and kill innocent people, over and over. If Batman had just ended the Joker, many civilians would never have been killed.
[Yeah. His plans would kill dad and many others.] Cassandra replied to Charles in consternation. Charles could feel the shift in her mind as she made a hard decision. [Take care of it, brother. Don't let dad die.]
Following Rule 4 and making his decision to protect his family with Cassandra's blessing, Charles scanned the scientist's mind. Getting enough information about the man and his plans, Charles waited for the evening, when everyone was asleep except for the gate guards. He projected his mind's power to the scientist, putting him in a fugue state where he would be susceptible to commands.
Charles influenced the scientist to write a list of his crimes and what he had been planning, including who forced/paid him to do it. Finally, he finished his suicide note by stating he couldn't go through with it, but he had no other options. After signing his suicide note the scientist went to his room and hung himself. He would be found in the morning when he didn't show up for work.
Sitting up on his bed in the house they had rented for the summer after finishing the gruesome task, Charles immediately noted Cassandra sitting in a chair in his room. He had been so focused on his task, he hadn't noticed her enter.
Seeing that he was finished, Cassandra moved over next to him on the bed, hugging him. She shared her love for him, and trust in him, letting him know he wasn't a monster for ending the life of someone who would take their loved ones away from them.
"Thank you." Charles whispered as a ghost of a smile appeared on his mouth, reassured that she didn't think he was a monster.