Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Category/Rating: Drama, PG-13.
Warning: The story that the Prof. tells here is BS.
Summary: Some random thoughts of Professor Xavier, set just after Ascension, part I.
Note: Hello! School's been crazy, but it just settled down for a second, so now I can write. Project: Wagner is still going on (I'll be publishing more for that pretty soon), I am sleeping a little more (Yee!), and I just banged this sucker out in time for Halloween. Booga booga! Enjoy. :D
== I Am Death ==
Of all the things I told my father I'd like to be when I grew up, I never said, "One of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Quite frankly it's a little scary, being forced to hack things to pieces with a glorified scythe. And to be honest, the whole idea of walking is terrifying me. Everything is moving far more quickly than I'm used to. It's dizzying. Worse, I'm stuck in my own head, watching this horror play out in front of me, unable to do anything about it.
This is one of those times that I wish desperately that I had better control over my own body. Mind you, it's an empty wish --- I haven't walked since I was a young man. It was a bad accident. I remember I'd made a joke, and my girlfriend was laughing. Her lipstick was blood red, and her teeth were shining like pearls. She leaned her head back and cackled at the moon. I was behind the wheel, and pleasantly drunk. We were driving along a country road somewhere in Wales.
The path turned. I didn't. We ended up in a ravine, rolling end over end. The noise was terrible. I woke up in hospital, with some doctor young enough to be my brother leaning over me and telling me that I would never walk again. "And Suzie?" I asked. "She didn't make it." I couldn't stop crying, not even when my father arrived. He'd told me a hundred times to keep a stiff upper lip and be a strong man, but I blubbered like a child. He said nothing.
I took Suzie's life. Everyone else said it was an accident, but I knew they were just lying to make me feel better. Being a telepath has its advantages … or disadvantages, depending on your point of view.
I've been making up for that night ever since. I wanted to give young people the chance to live, not take it from them. So I started this school to make those with unusual gifts feel safe, to accept who they are. I did it to protect the innocent and keep these children off the streets. They all know that they can come here and there will be a bed for them, some hot food, and if they want to stay, an education. And they are good, all of them. They have the decency not to ask me how I lost the use of my legs, and I've never said. They look up to me, and that feels right. Normally I am in control of things.
But now I am fully paralyzed, because I can't even get a word out. I'm watching my body do these mad things, like a puppet on someone else's string --- killing Sentinels like some avenging warrior god, attacking Jean Grey, who I regard as practically my own daughter --- and there is nothing I can do.
I hit her with a psychic blast. The feeling is not unlike shooting a cannonball out of my mouth. I want to scream. I want to kill Apocalypse myself. Oh, I would give him what for, that slippery wanker! Some of that anger courses through my arm and that electric scythe appears again. Most likely it will be used against Jean. I'd beg for her to strike me down, but it's not working. And my telepathic messages are all getting blocked --- I'm actually hearing a busy signal. Please, God, if you exist, don't let me hurt Jean. I can't kill my little girl.
If only I had been alive in ancient Egypt. If I was there with En Sabah Nur when he was abandoned for being different, I could have been able to help him. This whole thing might have been prevented.
And all of this is so damned literary it's killing me. I've really been made a Horseman of Apocalypse. Not a Horseman of THE Apocalypse, mind you, but I suspect no one's looking into this too deeply. Mystique, Storm (Damn it all! Why?!), and Magneto are the other three. They probably didn't sit around with cocoa and draw straws to see who would be Pestilence, Famine, and War. But I know which one I am.
I have always tried to be a bringer of hope, I think. I have given people lives. But tonight … tonight, I am Death.
*FIN*