"Mutants. They are the enemy of our kind..." Those were the opening words of a presentation courtesy of the so-called 'Friends of Humanity'. They were really more of a cult-like far-right terrorist group, complete with chaotic Anti-Mutant rallies, assaults on innocent civilians, framing innocent humans as dangerous mutants, and even an alleged murder. Even if the public eye had a very poor opinion of mutants, it was a surprise to anyone sensible that they were allowed anywhere in the New York metropolitan area.
"They are wicked, vile creatures. Deviants. Abominations. Shall I say… demons. Take a look at this picture here." The image on the screen behind the speaker, who was a short, balding man with messy white hair and a beard of the same nature, changed to a rather brutal art piece of a blue skinned woman with neon red hair, fierce yellow eyes, and not a stitch on her skin. "Does this look like one of us? Does that look like me? Does that look like any of you?" He laughed heartily. "The answer is no!"
The picture changed again to another vulgar display, this time an Egyptian hieroglyph crudely showing a shadowy demon sexually assaulting a woman and then bearing a blue-skinned baby boy similar to the woman from the previous slide. "As you can see, these… these demons… have muddied our gene pool for as long as we humans could draw."
The slide changed again.
"See, there's a demon."
And again.
"Demon."
Again. "Demon. Demon. Demon. Demon, demon demon, demon demon, demon! All of them! Every single one of them demons! They are dangerous and wicked demons! Spawn of Satan himself!"
"Question." Before the speaker could continue on his tirade, a man in the back of the audience raised his hand.
The presenter turned and looked at the man. Despite the fact that he appeared to be in his late thirties, just at the edge of his physical prime, he was bald and wearing a tight black suit with a short blue tie. "And just what is your name, mister…?"
"Professor, sir. Charles Xavier. I would like to ask… just what if these mutants aren't as bad as you say?"
"Really? What makes you ask that?"
"Well…"
The man next to Charles buried his face into his hands. "Oh no… not another one of these." He groaned just barely too loudly. As a contrast to the man sitting next to him, he had an unruly mane of light colored hair and wore a maroon-colored trenchcoat with matching slacks. This fellow was named Erik Magnus, a close associate, if sometimes a regretful one, of Charles Xavier. His full name was Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, but just Erik Magnus fit better on paperwork.
"You aren't a… sympathizer, are you?" The presenter sneered from the podium.
"No… it's just… I've met some of them… and they're not… exactly… like demons?" Charles struggled to keep face among this now deathly silent crowd. Sweat rolled down his forehead and he felt eyes from everywhere in the room drill into his skull. If they knew… well, that was not important. What was important was that he got his point across.
"No further questions until the end, please." He grimaced and went back to his sermon on why mutants were the spawn of the devil.
'Charles. You can't keep doing this.'
Those words rang inside of his head. Only instead of his own voice, he heard his best friend's. Charles was a mutant whose power, just one of his many, was to read minds.
'Augh… I was so close that time… I know I can change their minds, Erik.'
'I mean you can't keep doing this to yourself. Every time you stand up in front of a crowd, you fall apart faster than our goddamn apartment. Especially in a situation like this.'
'Erik, you know how much this means to me.'
Erik sighed. 'Yes. I do. But I just… I hate seeing you in such a wreck…'
Charles set his hand on top of Erik's, the warm, callused hands of Magnus contrasting the cool and baby smooth digits of Xavier.
'I'll be alright. I've… I've gotten what I needed from this.'
The two of them looked into each other's eyes knowingly and then turned their heads to face the front of the room, saying nothing more.
After another seemingly endless hour of rambling from the demagogue, the pair were finally able to leave the stuffy auditorium. Erik was just left wondering how much of that hot air spewed from the mouth of that horrible orator. They both power walked through the building until they reached the doors. They then proceeded to push the doors open and walked straight on home.
From the outside, their apartment building was… dilapidated to say the least. It was one of the only apartments in the city that openly served mutant tenants, so it most likely wasn't going to be prime real estate. Charles and Erik, like almost every other mutant, have been disowned from their rather high-class families, without any prospect of coming back. Meanwhile they were working as associate professors in a community college. If they were normal men, they most likely would be full-time professors and could afford to own their own homes at their age. But they were not normal men. Although very few people knew their secret, almost everyone who didn't know seemed to give them strange looks. Their powers didn't affect their appearances too much, minus Charles' premature baldness, so the two of them chalked it up to humans having some sort of 'mutant detector'.
The second they stepped inside and the door shut behind them, the two of them opened up a plastic bag that each of them had in their pockets, and then tossed off every article of clothing they had before placing them in their bags. That was a particular quirk of mutant nature: besides their powers, everyone who carried the 'X-gene' carried at least some level of intolerance to clothing, usually resulting in mutants becoming nudists once they develop their powers. Charles and Erik were obviously no exception to this, now standing shoulder to bare shoulder. Charles' body was just as bald and smooth as his head, thin with only slight muscling. Erik, however, had many more signs of physical hardship over his life. His body was covered in a thin layer of hair set on top of a much thicker layer of scars and calluses, muscles toned from years of physical training and hard labor. If one knew he was a mutant, than they would guess he knew a bit too much about close calls.
Since he was out of sight from the outside world, Erik opened up his hand, causing the apartment key inside his pocket to fly into his hand. Erik's mutant power was to control the force of magnetism, and therefore control metallic objects from the size of an iron atom to quite possibly a large office building, if not much more than that. Charles was thankful that Erik was smart enough to use his powers for good, and didn't think of what he could do if he was in a particularly bad mood. After all, Charles liked to actually sleep during the night.
Before long, Erik thought something was up. There was usually a lot more chatter between them when they were going from place to place. "Charles, you haven't said a word the entire walk here. Is something the matter?" Erik inquired to his colleague.
Charles sighed and looked downward, shaking his head. "Have you heard the news? About that poor girl?"
Erik was fuzzy on the details. "The mutant from Caldecott County? Her name was… Anne Marie, correct?"
"Anna Marie White, Erik. She lost everything just because she was outed as a mutant in a fight."
The moment he heard 'lost everything', Erik knew the same thing happened to hundreds, if not thousands, of mutants happened to poor Anna Marie. "Expelled from the best school in Mississippi, disowned by her parents, and thrown in state prison. A case that if I'd never heard it again, it'd be too soon."
"Agreed." Charles looked around the room, populated with mutants of every color, age, gender and power, all nude from head to toe and free to be themselves, showing off their abilities confidently and without judgment from others. "You know, not everyone is as lucky as us. To have a place to call home as a mutant."
"This speech again…," Erik snarked and rolled his eyes. He wasn't a telepath like Charles was, but he knew his best friend like an open book. After talking of all that negativity, the smile returned to both of their faces, reminiscing about their old dream that they had since they met as younger boys.
"Erik… you know my dream. To open my own school where we can teach mutants how to be more than what the public sees them as. To teach them how to control their powers rather than contain them, and to teach humans to not be afraid of their mutant brothers and sisters. And in time, I hope that humans and mutants can coexist in peace thanks to our work. You should know because it's your dream too."
Erik chuckled and smirked. "Well, that was definitely one of your better articulated speeches. Certainly better spoken than that man at the podium. Remind me why we paid to attend that?"
"Because… because I thought I could change a simple mind easier than a stronger one. Besides, that man looked more demonic than any mutant I've met."
The pair laughed together at Charles' joke. "Come. Let's head back to our rooms."
"You take the lead. You're the one with the room key." The two of them headed up the stairs until they reached their floor's mailbox. Erik unlocked his mailbox and extracted a large, messy pile of envelopes from the box.
Soon they both reached the door to the apartment. Once Erik opened the door, the telepath flopped onto his bed while the magnetic mutant sat at the apartment's desk. The apartment was rather modest, and was kept in much better condition than the rest of the complex. It looked almost like someone ripped a chunk of another apartment and placed it into this one.
Erik rifled through the letters and sorted them into piles on the desk one by one. "Junk mail, junk mail, bill, bill, magazine, bill, wrong address…"
One letter in particular, addressed to Charles, caught Erik's attention. The magnetic mutant's eyes widened in shock to the size of dinner plates as he just simply glanced over the contents of the letter. "Holy… Charles, you might want to read this sitting down..."
"What? What is it?" Charles jumped off the bed, ran up to Erik, and opened up the letter fully. After looking it over, he read the contents of the letter out loud for his friend to hear.
'Prof. Charles Xavier,
As his appointed personal representative and executor of his will, I regret to inform you that, as of June 10, your stepfather, Kurt Marko, has passed away at age 73 due to complications from brain cancer. He was a kind and caring man, with a love for the unique, especially seeing it in his children. He will be dearly missed by all who knew him.
I am also to inform you that as the only descendant living and accounted for, you are the sole heir to and recipient of the Marko-Xavier estate and all of its property, including the approximately $30,000,000 (thirty million) US Dollars and the 76,654 (seventy-six-thousand-six-hundred-and-fifty-four) -square-foot mansion under the Xavier name.
Once again, it is my deepest regret that Kurt passed away. He was a dear friend of mine, and I know he cared for you deeply. I sincerely hope you can make the best of this situation with your father's grand estate. If you have any further questions or comments, contact at the return address.
Best wishes,
Amahl Farouk'
Charles just sat in his chair, frozen, with the letter in his hands and jaw hanging wide open.
"Charles… do you know what that means?"
"I… we…" The telepath was at a loss for words.
"We can make our dream, your dream, come true, Charles! Imagine just what we can do with those kinds of resources! Thirty million dollars and a gigantic mansion! We can-"
"Erik." Charles interrupted sternly. "I need… I need time to process this…"
He understood immediately. "Oh. Well… I'm sure this must be… difficult for you. You can talk to me once you're done thinking this through." Erik stood up, walking to his bed. He reached out with his hand and attracted one of his favorite books, an old mystery novel that he used a metal bookmark to keep his place. He laid down onto his firm bed and started reading.
Charles did much of the same as Erik. Only, instead of using a book to escape, there were only his thoughts and nothing else. From the outside, it looked like he was staring blankly at the ceiling, but the picture inside his head was much more complex.
In his mind's eye, memories were flying at him rapidly, as if he was standing in the middle of a highway and he was invisible to the passing cars. The day he learned of his biological father's passing before he was born, the day he met his stepbrother Cain, the day he met Erik, the day the three of them signed into the army… the day his mother lost her life in a car crash… it was all coming back to him at once.
Slowly, tears streaked down Charles' smooth face. His deep brown eyes became reddened with those tears. All Erik was able to do was listen.
Charles could not speak. He could not speak to his best friend, or to anyone else. His vocal cords were too busy crying to form truly comprehensible words. So he stuck with what he knew best: thinking. 'Erik…'
'Yes… Charles?'
'Tomorrow… let's call in to take some time off from work… and then… I think we should take a trip upstate.'
'That would be lovely.' Erik peeked from his book at his friend. A weak smile was slowly starting to reach the telepath's stressed, tear-stricken face. And slowly it reached his own.
Charles wiped away his tears and drifted to sleep.
Tomorrow would be a brand new day. For Charles, for Erik, and, hopefully, for mutantkind.
