Chapter 9
Charles Xavier looked up from his crouched position on the ground. He could feel the piercing pain in his side as he slightly opened his eyes to see the ground covered in debris. He sensed only one person in the room with him.
"Eric," he said slowly as he struggled to sit up. All he heard in response was hard breaths full of terror. Charles laid his body back down on the debris in an attempt to give up what he started. Instead, he slithered his way towards his old friend slowly and forcefully.
He leaned his shaky hand forward and clutched the crumbled objects toppled over Eric Lehnsherr. He leaned on his elbow and struggled to lift them off of him, but to no avail. He stumbled but managed to hold himself up with his palms. Between his fingers, he felt something warm and dripping. He bent his head down to see blood finding it's way from under the debris. It was the blood of Eric.
Charles reached his hand out in an attempt to do what he had been trying to do a minute ago. But he suddenly felt Eric's hand jumped up and grab his tightly. A sense of failure leaped to Charles' mind instantly. Charles couldn't even move the muscles in his hand, but it didn't bother him at all. "Hold on Eric. I am going to get all of this off of you."
"It's hopeless," Eric said in a weak tone. Charles looked at his eyes for a long moment. They seemed gray, distant.
"It's hopeless," Charles heard his eighteen year-old friend say clearly.
"Eric, we can do this together. We can change the world."
"How Charles? How?"
Charles looked at his friend again and saw the years that passed in their lives. Eric's eyes were tired, hopeless.
"Tell Cyclops that he has perfect aim," Eric said as he let out coughs. That had been the last thing that Charles remembers seeing. Cyclops had saved Eric before the sentinel could finish it's work. But then it went after Scott, and Charles didn't know what happened after that. It all seemed blurry to him.
"You can tell him yourself," Charles said, full of faith.
"You……know," Eric paused between the half breaths that he was taking and forced himself to continue, "that I never wanted it to go this far." Charles knitted his eyebrows at his comment. "I am truly sorry about Jean."
Charles bent his head down in mourning towards his dead X-men, student, and most importantly, his daughter. He closed his eyes and scrunched his face up slightly.
"It doesn't have to be that way," Charles said calmly and persuasively. Eric just turned around, back towards him.
"You speak of peace," a nineteen year-old Eric spoke with doubt dripping from every word he spoke. "And if it goes too far, what will happen then?"
The young Charles stared at his friend blankly for endless moments. He closed his eyes.
He winced at the look on his friend's face. Drained. Charles was fully determined to get this debris off of him. He sat on his stomach and pulled and pushed. He managed to get some of the debris off. Just enough so he could see Eric's damaged leg. The blood didn't stop running out of it.
"Hold on Eric," Charles said as he took off his now dusty jacket and pressed it over his leg to stop the blood. He was loosing too much. He wrapped it around his leg and tied it very tightly.
Eric just silently shook his head. He closed his mouth, which increased his breathing from his nose. Charles didn't know what to say to comfort his old friend. He was always giving meaningful and good advice to his children. Everyone believed he knew everything. They believed that he held all the answers, that his path was the righteous one. But at this very moment he was speechless, to his own brother. He held no answers, and he felt as if the path he had chosen was covered by immense fog.
He focused on his friend's eyes as his eyebrows knitted together in concentration.
"I am Charles Xavier," Eric mimicked jokingly as Charles let out a small laugh. "Be my slave," he said with a smile as he put his hands towards his temples, brushing a few strands of his brown hair back.
"Look at me," Charles said, playing along. "I'm so strong, I can control metal! Give me your car……" he said as he held out his hand then brought it towards himself. "Oops…never mind."
The two started with their laughter. Eric put his arm around Charles' neck and had him in a headlock now. When he let go Charles smiled at him widely. "Hey Eric, why don't you and I build a machine that can use my mind for something useful. Such as……"
"Finding other mutants," Eric finished. "Why not? I do need a girlfriend you know."
Eric looked over at Charles and did not even struggle one bit to give him a small smile. Charles knew the memory he shared with him would calm him, get his mind off of everything happening at the moment.
Charles looked at their hands that were cuffed in a tight handshake and nodded his head slowly.
"No matter what," Charles spoke full-heartedly in his young voice. "We will always be friends."
"Charles, if we were fighting against each other in a deadly war," Eric began, "I would pull you over to shake your hand and maybe chat a little."
Charles smiled and let out his hand for Eric's. Eric slapped his hand into Charles's tightly and shook it slightly. He tapped their cuffed hands with his free one and smiled.
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The feeling of being lost had not fluttered in Phoenix's system lately. All she felt was power and control. Complete control. But at this very moment she felt something different.
Something was sinking into her bones like skin soaking in ice cold water. It was not because of Jason's lips on hers, but something else.
Her muscles were sore and her body was in pain. It wasn't coming from the inside, but it was as if she had been injured in a battle. She had gone to the woods for a short time to practice her battle skills, but she had never injured herself. She tried to ignore it and diverted her attention back to kissing Jason. She opened her eyes, not to see Jason's face attached to hers, but to see a vision she had seen before.
The red beams were so powerful this time and her arm could not take much longer. The beams started digging through her skin as she let out screams and could hear this man laughing in her face.
Scott took his hand and punched her in her stomach as she fell to the floor once again, helpless. He took her head in his hands and lifted it up as he twisted her head to the side, and a loud crack could be heard.
Jean buried her lifeless head in her hands and turned around to flash fiery eyes at Scott. She got up and looked behind her to see a dead corpse lying on the ground. She smiled and walked away as the body disappeared from her thoughts and her eyes shut tightly at the slightly cold touch of Jason's lips.
She continued kissing Jason as he pushed his mouth harder against hers. She knitted her eyebrows in frustration at the man in the nightmares that she knew was part of her past. She knew that he was an arch nemesis of hers that was after her because of her great power. Power to control the world. She also knew that this man needed to be destroyed.
She had believed she did a good job when they had come to the island to fight, but she knew they were still out there somewhere. More of them that worked with this man were also out there. When Jason told her that they had left him to die as they saved themselves, she was disgusted. They were after her fiancé too. Soon they will know not to mess with her and learn her true power.
She felt Jason's hands holding her waist tight and his hands on the bare skin of her stomach, moving their way up. She felt his lips on her neck now. She slightly shifted in her position at the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Phoenix suddenly let out a loud cough. She pushed Jason aside and got off the couch to stand up. She started coughing uncontrollably with no idea of why she was. She could not stop her coughing, for it was suffocating her. She felt Jason's hands tap the top of her back to help her, but that only made it worse.
She pushed his hands off her and bent her head down to try and stop the pain in her lungs. She let out her last cough before they abruptly stopped. She put her hand on her chest. She had never felt so weak before.
"Where did that come from?" Jason asked curiously. Phoenix just shook her head. Jason shrugged it off as he neared her again. "Now, where were we?" he asked rhetorically as he pushed her lips against his. Phoenix looked at him for one second and sent a telekinetic shove against his chest to send him flying across the room with a couple of objects toppled over him. Jason pursed his lips in anger and got up with his fists tightened. But then he relaxed them as he worked his magic. Magic that goes by the name of illusions.
Phoenix looked around a candlelit table on the deck of a ship. She looked out onto the clear blue water to see her reflection. All she could feel was emptiness. But then she felt smooth hands caress her arms from behind.
"Promise that you will always be there for me," Jason said.
"Of course my love," Phoenix said.
"I love you," Jason said as he kissed her cheek.
"I love you too," Phoenix said.
Phoenix looked around the room that was the living room now. She smiled at Jason and walked over to him to give him a long kiss. Jason nodded with satisfaction. Scott!! Jean's mind rang that name in the deep part of the back of her head over and over. Phoenix backed away from Jason and he looked at her confused.
"What's wrong my love?" Jason asked as he ran a finger down her cheek.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Phoenix said as she walked back to her room silently.
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Cyclops tried to ignore his soar muscles as he broke out into a fit of coughing. The immense smoke was filling his lungs and he could barely see in front of him. He watched as flames of fire sprouted through the building with intensity and sparks flew everywhere. The room had a thin border circled around a giant hole in the center filled with debris from the ceiling. The small, but powerful missiles the machine had thrown caused it to become that way. These machines were large in size and they were obviously targeting all mutants.
Cyclops had saved Magneto before the deadly machine could finish it's work. Then the Brotherhood and the X-men spread out to fight off several of the machines. When the missiles punched a hole in the ground everyone had disappeared except for Cyclops and Sabretooth, who had been on the far sides of the room.
Cyclops was fighting for a reason he was oblivious of. Millions of questions should be running through his mind at the moment about this whole situation, but weren't. All he could really think about was Jean. He was so distracted by the memory playing in his head of seeing her at the island and knowing she was alive that he did not realize a piece of what's left of the ceiling ready to fall on him.
Suddenly, he heard Sabretooth let out a loud roar as he grabbed Cyclops' arm to raise him off the ground and to throw himself along with Cyclops upon the wall in the corner of the crumbled room.
"Thanks," Cyclops said in a surprised tone. Sabretooth shoved him against the wall with one hand and just growled back at him with his sharp teeth.
Cyclops followed far behind Sabretooth to see where the machines had gone. The machines would not stop attacking and they had a high percent chance of becoming extinct if they do not find out where they were hidden behind all the smoke. And Cyclops would not allow it. Not when the X-men needed him, not when Jean was alive.
The smoke suddenly cleared out when the sentinel approached them in the air. It stood there staring with it's yellow eyes. Cyclops shot powerful red beams from his eyes at the machine. It jolted back a few feet but then approached even closer to shoot an imitation of Cyclops' power. The red beams shot at Sabretooth and Cyclops as they flew backwards.
Two more of the sentinels came beside the first one, only tracking two mutants, and were ready to do what they were built to do. Destroy.
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Joe examined all the mutants who were moved to the higher levels to witness his beautiful machine in action. "The process shall begin now. Starting with you," he said with a wide smile as he pointed to a worn out looking mutant.
"Bobby, we have to do something," Rogue said, feeling helpless. Bobby looked over to her with his tired and hopeless blue eyes.
"We can't do anything Rogue," Bobby said as he bent his head down. Rogue sighed silently and closed her eyes in pain at seeing something so immoral.
"Rogue," Joe said with a smug look on his evil face. "Bobby. You know your friends are handling the attack with the sentinels better than I had imagined."
Rogue and Bobby stared blankly at the mutant being strapped down with tight buckles and chains that they were all still wearing. The table began moving forward as machines started working. The sound of the machines was deafening but the sight of the mutant being pushed forward towards them was even worse.
"Torture," Joe said with a small laugh.
The drill began to dig through the mutants skin as his screams rang through the air like sharp knives. Another machine began to lower itself into the top of his arm. This one looked like a spinning wheel with sharp spikes. The table suddenly sank into a pool of salt acid sand.
Rogue creased her eyebrows in horror and turned her head away. Bobby wanted to comfort her with all that he had at the moment, but he just couldn't. All he could do was watch her be terrified, as he was at the moment. He tried to look at anything else in the room and his eye suddenly caught a corner full of water.
Why would Joe need water? But before Bobby's mind could ponder any more questions, Joe lifted his hand to move the water as he brought it into the mutant's mouth. The mutant choked on the water and tried to spit it out. When the water escaped he broke out into a fit of coughing and his face was purple and red.
Bobby's heart started beating faster with fear at every second. He took his eyes away from the tortured mutant and set it in the same position as Rogue. Away from where they were about to be.
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Mystique looked over at her son that she had fallen down with when the sentinels attacked with a powerful missile that caused the ground to crumble beneath them. What luck to have fallen down with her son, who knew the truth now. Or maybe it wasn't luck at all, maybe it was fate.
She lifted her curvaceous body off all the debris and examined the room surrounded by objects blocking their way out. She couldn't see anything behind them or ahead. She looked over at Kurt for a few moments with eyes full of regret for not being the one who raised him. She heard him moan and open his eyes slowly as she busied herself with trying to figure out a way to get out.
Kurt changed his position on the ground to now be sitting in a position where his knees touched his chest. He looked over to Mystique with innocent yellow eyes then focused his eyes on something else and began to say holy words.
Mystique froze in her position for a moment then started pacing the room slowly, ignoring what Kurt was saying. Then Kurt stopped.
"Vhy did you abandon me?" Kurt asked with a little anger. "Has zis fight against humanity become so important to us zat ve forget about our own family?"
"We are trapped here and you are worrying about that?" Mystique replied bitterly. "Can you not teleport us out of here?"
"And vhere vould zat be?" Kurt asked half-heartedly. "I don't even know vhere ve are. And I cannot teleport somevhere vhen I cannot see vhere somevhere is." Kurt and Mystique also knew that he could not teleport back to the room they were in because they did not know what was left of the room. Mystique glared at him. He looked down and began saying another prayer.
"That's not going to help," she said cruelly about Kurt's prayers. Kurt did not look up and continued saying the prayers, but a little louder this time.
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"In an attempt to make peace with mutants by our new president, the mutants staged an attack on him," the newscaster spoke with a mono-toned voice. "Also endangering many other innocent lives in the process. Back to you Hugh."
"Thank you James," Hugh, the newscaster in a helicopter, said as the camera taped the burning building below them. "It is believed that the fire raging over the convention center where the gathering was held was the cause of mutants. This center contained many historical events and importance in which, many people believe, was destroyed and tarnished by the hands of mutants. And now, back to Famke and Halle," he said quickly as the helicopter flew away when a loud noise came from the building.
"I am here with a crowd of protestors. Apparently, they think mutants should be locked up and put in a place away from them because they are dangerous. Here, I'll get some opinions from one of them," Famke said formally as she put the microphone to a man in the crowd.
"They have sabotaged our way of living," the man spoke with arrogance and hatred. "Now they are after our vice president when he only wanted peace. This is what happens when we want peace. We become vulnerable when the other side was never asking for it."
"Thank you," Famke said as the camera diverted towards Halle who was with another part of the crowd. She pointed her microphone towards a woman in the crowd. "Ma'am, would you like to put a word in?"
"They are planning to overrun everyone and we just can't allow it. We will not allow it."
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Author's Note: I breathe reviews and I'm dying here!!! So save someone's life out of the goodness of your hearts. I thought everyone would get a laugh out of the newscasters names!!! :) I just wanted to say thanks to my sister who gave me one of the ideas for this chapter. Thank you.