Chapter 10: Swaying as the Room Burned Down

"They've been gone for a while." Annabeth commented, drumming her fingers against the chair as Percy leaned against her shoulder. She had explained to him the events of the day, after which he had claimed that he wasn't going to sit in his room like an invalid any longer.

She had tried to convince that he wasn't fully healed, partially because she was concerned that his powers would be revealed.

"They'll just think I'm a mutant."

"They will until Jean Grey thinks to check her monitors and sees that you don't have the gene."

"Annabeth, I'm not going to lay on my bed, twiddling my thumbs, while you go and confront an insane mortal with mutants that you don't know. You wouldn't, and I'm not going to. We stick together."

She bit her lip.

He looked at her with those seal-eyes that she'd always had a hard time saying no to. "I'll try not to use my powers in front of them. I'll use Riptide, because they haven't noticed your dagger."

Her hand touched the side of her hip where the comforting weight of her dagger would normally be. "I don't wear it much, now. But they haven't noticed it when I do. Percy, the last time a demigod told a mortal about the godly world without cause Zeus struck them down. "

"What's life without a little risk?" Percy said, with his cocky, skater-boy grin that she had hated as a kid. Seeing her expression, he sobered. "We'll be fine, Annabeth. You said we probably won't have to fight. Just an extraction, right?"

Searching his face, she knew that he knew that it wasn't ever something so simple. Not for them. But she saw the buried desperation—please just let it be so simple.

She humored him. "I guess."

It didn't look like a day where everything could possibly go wrong. The setting sun shone its rays through the window of one of the many rooms in the school, the room that they waited in. It had plush, plaid chairs adorned with maroon and green—a very unfortunate combination that was more reminiscent of the nineteen-forties than the two-thousands. She supposed this would have been a sitting room, back when this was Charles Xavier's family mansion.

She imagined that it would have been very lonely in this large house. If her two-story apartment could be hollow, packed with a wicked stepmother and two brothers, this place certainly could.

About an hour after Cerebro, she felt much better, though her head still hurt her slightly when she stood up too fast or tried to use her telepathy. Ambrosia helped as well, but not as much as she was expecting. She wondered if that was because it was a mutant ability instead of a demigod ability. Was her mutation somehow separate from her demigod abilities?

A low buzzing in her mind told her a telepath was approaching. She sat up and stopped leaning against Percy. He, too, slipped into an alert position. Her hand went to her knife that wasn't there, and she still felt naked without it, despite her added weapon of telepathy.

Charles and Jean entered, and Annabeth relaxed. Percy did too, but only slightly.

The Professor and Jean's eyes both darted to their position, close to each other on the same large chair, but blessedly, didn't comment. "There's something happening at the train station." Jean said.

"It's Magneto." Charles said calmly, though she noticed worry behind his eyes. Jean's lips tightened for a moment.

"I'm coming." Annabeth said.

"I assumed you would say that." The Professor said with mild exasperation, though she could tell he was pleased.

Percy stood. "I'm coming too."

Jean frowned slightly. "You're not fully healed—"

"He's fine." Annabeth slung her arm around his shoulders and they both stared at the other two, daring them to argue. Confronted with those grey and green glares, Jean raised her hands in surrender.

"He's trained in direct combat. We both are." She continued, throwing a glance at Percy.

"Where did you learn?" Jean asked the question, but Charles leaned forward slightly.

"Summer camp." Percy said vaguely. "Learned combat techniques, that kind of thing. It's how we met."

"We're wasting time." Annabeth said. "I hope you have something faster than the thing we came here in."

"Oh, we do." Charles said with what Annabeth would have called a wicked smile if he hadn't been so dignified. "Shall we?"

"If you stick your head out the window one more time, I swear I will take your pen and stab you with it." Annabeth said through gritted teeth. This had a special meaning due to the nature of the pen in question.

Percy pulled his head out of the car window very quickly. "You're no fun, Beth."

"Seaweed Brain—"

"Sorry, sorry!"

The car they were in was the fastest Annabeth had ever been in, constructed in no model she had ever seen before. It was clearly custom-made, and she had a sneaking feeling that Hank McCoy, the builder of Cerebro, had something to do with it. She was surprised she had never heard of him before.

Percy quite liked it. Apparently, he had only had a hard time with the Grey Sisters taxi because of their insane driving, and honestly, even Annabeth had gotten slightly nauseous in that drive.

Normally the ride to the train station took an hour, but in this it would take less than ten minutes. Soon enough, they drove right into the middle of a police blockade. Traffic moved slower the closer they got, and soon they rammed into a solid perimeter of police cars.

"I'm sorry ma'am, but you can't go farther. I'm afraid you're going to have to turn around." A police officer said, her face stone.

Jean opened her mouth, but Charles laid one hand on her shoulder, touching his other finger to his temple. Annabeth felt him touch the woman's mind, and the police officer's face went blank. The car behind her moved to the side, letting them through, while the woman's face remained strangely blank.

"This will take too long." Annabeth said, stuffing down a trickle of unease. "You'll have to do that to every car. Let me get out and scout around."

Charles didn't say anything, absorbed in his work. Percy scowled at her. "Absolutely not."

"They won't be expecting me. He knows about Charles, and probably Jean. I'm an element he hasn't planned for." She planned on getting out of this car no matter what Percy said, but she would prefer that he was on her side.

"Fine." Percy grumbled. "But you do your mind-thing and tell me if something goes wrong, got it?"

Annabeth nodded, opened the door quietly, and slipped out. Another police officer moved in front of her, but she made herself invisible to their eyes. It was surprisingly easy. Humans saw what they wanted to see, anyway. This was just making it a bit easier for them to miss her.

Soon enough she made her way to the back, moving mortals' eyes away whenever she sensed them seeing her until she was to the left of the person who was clearly Magneto. She personally had never been a fan of capes, but, well, to each his own.

To his left was the beast that had attacked Annabeth and Percy on the drive back to New York, and behind him was a different man carrying an unconscious Rogue on his shoulder.

Fury rose inside her, but she pushed it down, using it to give her focus. Annabeth reached out towards Magneto telepathically, the slight ache in her mind reminding her of when she overused her muscles.

When she tried to enter his mind, she hit a wall, and her powers dissipated. It was a complete void, like she had never been a mutant. She moved closer to him physically this time. It must be the helmet.

She jumped as the car she had been hiding behind lifted into the air. The shouting police officer grew silent.

Annabeth backed away from it as fast as she could without making too much noise. This whole plan depended on her stealth. As they came crashing down, narrowly missing some mortals, she darted behind a different, now-destroyed vehicle.

The mortals raised their guns, and Magneto jerked his head. They flew out of their hands and moved to point at their owners. She knew, with a certainty, that they would be made to fire.

Eyes narrowing, she entered the Beast's mind.

She was at once buffeted by the surges and torrents of emotion and instinct inside him. He was barely human anymore—just hate and lust and rage. The tiny part of him that could still think was held back by the greater part of him that was animal. He called himself Sabretooth, which was fitting, if slightly dramatic.

She was sickened, finally understanding how being a mutant could change you if you didn't control it. Ignoring her nausea, she wrenched control of his brain, and she was in two bodies at once.

She had never done this before, and her control wasn't as certain as someone like Charles' would be. It didn't help that she could feel the man throwing himself at her, trying to break free from the cage she had put him in. Fortunately, his mental strength didn't compare with his physical.

She moved her claws—his claws—to Magneto's throat, and just as she was about to contact the skin, his body was wrenched backwards with a dog collar. It was cutting into his throat, and she could feel the pain.

Magneto looked intrigued and looked right at where she was hiding, but he couldn't see her. He couldn't see—

"It seems you've found a new pet, Charles." He said, thrusting his hand up. The destroyed cars flew into the air and left her wide open for him to see. It was strange, to feel herself choking, but to know that she could breathe just fine in her own body.

He smiled dangerously at her and held out a hand—and o her horror, Annabeth moved forward. She was being pulled by the metal in her dagger.

Frantically she moved to take her belt off, but the old man frowned reprovingly. "Ah-ah-ah," Her earrings yanked towards him like he was the strongest magnet in the world. "Wouldn't want to ruin those ears of yours, would we?"

She was now directly in front of him. "Another telepath." He mused. "How interesting."

Annabeth tried to move, and felt a cold barrel of a gun against her skull. "Release him." He commanded.

She gritted her teeth and did nothing.

"I've heard that a bullet in the head at this close of a range is quite a painful way to die." He said mildly, but then his tone hardened. "Do it."

She closed her eyes. Dying would be useless, and even if she contacted Percy, he couldn't be fast enough. With a groan of relief, she gave Sabretooth his mind back. She felt sick—hopefully she wouldn't need to be in there ever again.

Magneto looked her over, and she glared at him. He twisted his fingers, and her Camp Half-Blood necklace that still had her father's graduation ring snapped off her neck. He moved it between his fingers and slowly looked up at her.

"Fascinating necklace."

"Interesting bed-sheet." Annabeth retorted, her heart racing. "Did you dye it yourself?"

He smirked at her. "It makes a statement."

She drew her knife and threw it at him in one smooth motion, but it stopped when it was about to pierce his chest. He didn't seem to be bothered by it.

He searched her with too much interest. "Oh, my dear, you are wasted with Charles." He said quietly. "Are you sure you want what he does?"

"As opposed to mass genocide?" She smiled at him. "I think I'm okay."

His calm exterior twitched. "You have no idea what I've seen." He snapped. "They'll do the same to us."

"Let her go, Erik." The man who resembled a frog turned, and Annabeth was certain it was Charles.

"Hello, Charles. Why not come out where I can see you?" He didn't move his gaze from Annabeth's face.

"What do you want Rogue for?"

"Can't you read my mind?" He looked amused. When Charles didn't respond, he said, "You want both of them back? You'll have to kill me." Finally, he looked away from Annabeth, searching the cars.

After a pause, he spoke louder, his voice goading. "This girl seems eager to do it. Where do you find your strays?"

"She's of no use to you." The Professor spoke through the other man.

"We both know that you don't believe that." He studied her in a way that made her feel like a specimen on a table. She hated that she just stood there, but the cold barrel still pressed against her head and she knew that the man wouldn't hesitate to use it.

Magneto raised his voice. "New deal, Charles."

The Frog-Man turned to look at Erik.

Erik continued. "You get back the girl—Rogue, was it?—and I keep this one. An exchange."

A door slammed, and Percy stepped out of the car. Annabeth closed her eyes. Really, it was lucky that he had been able to keep silent this long. His eyes were cold steel, a hurricane crashing onto the beach.

"Another one!" Magneto smiled.

Percy twisted his hands, and the water from the nearby fountain roared out of its barriers and lifted above Magneto, raising higher and higher.

"Does that helmet keep you from drowning?" Percy asked, face expressionless.

A gun swiveled and pointed at Percy.

"Do it." Percy's eyes darted to Annabeth. "The water's above a mile in the air now. Do you know the damage that much liquid can do from that high? I don't, but I've always wanted to find out."

Magneto stared; the amusement gone from his face. "Shall I call his bluff, Charles? What do you think killing me will accomplish? If they pass that law, we'll all be in chains with a number burned on our foreheads."

"It won't be that way." Charles whispered through the Frog-Man.

"Shall we let him kill me and find out? It would be much easier for me to take the girl. What do you want her for?"

Annabeth tried to keep her face expressionless. What had she been thinking, trusting Charles? Nowshe and Percy were going to die—

"I'm afraid not, Erik."

Annabeth's panicked thoughts ground to a halt. What?

She and Percy met eyes, and she could see the strain. He was powerful, but he couldn't hold this for much longer. She spoke in his mind.

'Will it kill him?'

Percy subtly shook his head. He didn't know.

Magneto grimaced at Charles' answer. "Pity." He waved a hand and the gun and knife clattered to the ground.

Percy looked at her, a question in his eyes. She shook her head, and he moved the water to crash back down into the fountain.

Erik turned to leave, motioning for his followers to do the same, and Annabeth watched as Rogue was moved into the helicopter. Magneto stopped just as he was about to enter the helicopter.

"Kill her." He said to Sabretooth.

The man—the beast—bounded at her, a predator's grin on his face. She automatically went for her knife but it was behind her, and she knew there wasn't enough time. He reached towards her, his claws aiming for her chest—

She let down her barriers and screamed.

Sabretooth collapsed to the ground, holding his head and whimpering. She'd sent the equivalent of a missile into his brain, but she wasn't skilled enough to make it hit just him. The police officers looked like they hadn't been hurt too badly, but they all looked at her with fear.

She could kill Sabretooth, she realized. She could go into his mind and rip his neurons apart.

Annabeth looked down at the writhing man. She had already spent too much time in his head for one day, she decided, and the beast wouldn't be down forever.

The daughter of Athena looked up and caught Magneto's eyes. He was looking at her with something almost like respect, and something else...

He'd looked at her necklace, and he'd recognized it. He'd wanted her instead of Rogue—why had he wanted her?

He smiled a knowing smile at her, and the helicopter lifted into the sky. Annabeth's hair whipped around her as it gathered wind. She ran to Percy and embraced him, and she saw her knuckles were white.

Because Magneto knew, and Charles didn't. The playing field was uneven, and she found herself not wanting to run anymore. This was a war that she couldn't leave behind. If they wanted to win, then Charles Xavier needed to know, too.

THE END OF PART ONE

A/N Someday, Annabeth and Hank McCoy are going to have a long, sciency talk.

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