They really need to add an automatic update feature to this site...

Enjoy this super long chapter! Lots of everyone in here… And what's this? Only a slight cliffhanger? Gasp! I must be losing my edge!

As for all of your questions in the last chapter-this one will answer most of them, but there are still a few I'm working on.

Hopefully the fight scene in this chapter will make you happy, The Singing Duck!

...Oh, and the chapter title is actually the truth... kinda. We have about twenty more chapters left in this story.

The Perks of Being a Telepath

Chapter 38: The Beginning of the End

One second, it was completely dark and utterly silent.

The next, Charles was aware of screaming, shouting, and the feeling of his hands wrapped around someone else's throat.

It felt empowering, knowing that he had the power of life and death in his hands. He could kill whoever this was with a simple twist of his fingers.

Finish her off, Charlie. You can do it.

The sound of Onslaught's evil growl resonating in his mind was more than enough to snap Charles out of the bloodlust that had taken over his mind. He blinked, his vision clearing, and with a sinking feeling of horror, Charles realized that it was Raven he was choking.

He dropped his hands and backed away as Raven fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

"I'm sorry."

Raven looked up at the sound of his horrified whisper, her now yellow eyes wide in terror.

Charles was about to say more when a blinding pain sent him to his knees with a cry of agony.

Did you really think you could win that easily, Charlie?

He was no longer in the hospital room—he was once more back at the Westchester mansion. Only it was different, this time. Almost transparent, as though Onslaught was having as much difficulty holding Charles as Charles was holding him.

Onslaught stood a few feet away, looking, for once, confused by what was happening.

Charles didn't give him the chance to get a feel for his surroundings, racing forward and tackling Onslaught to the ground.

The strength and suddenness of Charles' attack caught Onslaught off guard, allowing the former the chance to land a few good punches in before the latter fought him off.

Charles backed off, not wanting to give Onslaught the chance to pin him down.

They circled each other, like to hungry dogs fighting over a scrap of meat. In a way, that analogy was accurate, only instead of meat, it was control over Charles' mind.

Onslaught leered at Charles.

"Give it up, Charlie. You're never going to win this."

"You won't either. Even if you defeat me, you'll never convince Erik and Raven you're me."

"Who says I was going to even try?"

The full meaning of what Onslaught was getting at terrified Charles.

"You're not going to just kill them!"

Onslaught shrugged.

"If they're not with me, then by definition, they're against me."

"I'm not going to let you kill them."

"You don't have a choice."

Charles scoffed.

"You obviously don't know me as well as you think."

Onslaught's eyes widened in mock surprise.

"Don't be absurd. I know you as well as you know me."

Pain exploded in Charles' skull and he sank to his knees with a groan.

Onslaught let out a laugh.

"You see, Charlie-boy, you're not strong enough to win this. You never have been. You know why?"

He took a few steps forward so he was looming over Charles. He leaned down, so his mouth was inches away from Charles' ear.

"You are too weak. You can't do what needs to be done in order to win."

There was a loud shout of pain in the distance, sounding as though it were coming from a long tunnel. With a growing feeling of dread and anger, Charles recognized it as Erik's.

The idea that Onslaught was hurting someone Charles cared about was enough to give him a second wind.

Onslaught's cocky demeanor faltered as Charles swallowed his pain and shakily got to his feet, determined to end this once and for all.

"You think that pain and anger is the way to solve things, but you're wrong."

An image of Erik, trying and failing to lift a submarine with nothing but sheer rage, floated through Charles' mind.

Onslaught let out a laugh, but it was forced.

"Do you remember what happened the last time you tried to convince anyone of that load of nonsense?"

Missiles, flying through the air. A sharp, sting, followed by a deep, overwhelming agony and then nothing. Shocked silence.

Charles took a shaky breath.

"None of that would have happened if Erik hadn't let his anger rule him."

Onslaught shook his head.

"Are you really naïve enough to believe that? After everything you've seen?"

Are you really so naïve as to think they won't battle their own extinction? Or is it arrogance?

The conversation from so long ago echoed in Charles' mind, and he realized, he finally had an answer for Erik's question.

It wasn't naiveté, nor was it arrogance. It was simply faith that being the better man would pay off. And it did, in the end. Erik had given up his dark past, had given up his anger, and had done so much good in the world. While the mutants were still fighting for their survival, they were no longer fighting each other.

Charles shook his head.

"It's because of everything I've seen that makes me believe that anger and pain aren't the answer."

He was abruptly cut off by Onslaught tackling him. Caught off guard, Charles was thrown to the ground, pain spiking in his battered body.

"I'm stronger than you are, Charlie. And when I'm done with you, I'm going to kill your little friends, nice and slow. They're going to die, knowing it was you that killed them."

"You're wrong!"

With something resembling a growl, Charles threw Onslaught off him and rolled to his feet. Already, the darker half was on his feet, getting ready to attack again.

Suddenly, Charles remembered something Erik had thought, before he had been thrown back into his own mind.

Sheer, physical strength was useless here. It was the power of the mind that mattered.

And in the end, Charles knew his powers were stronger than Onslaught's, because he wasn't ruled by the horrors of their past.

Onslaught pounced. Charles closed his eyes, calling on every single ounce of his power left in him.

He felt Onslaught slam into him, shoving him to the ground. Charles' breath caught as he kicked out with his feet, pushing his darker half off him.

A large, swirling vortex had opened up a few feet away from the battling telepaths. Onslaught stood only a foot away from the opening, his eyes wide in horror.

"You wouldn't."

Charles shook his head.

"I'm not as weak as you think I am, Onslaught."

Onslaught paled. Before he had the chance to say anything else, Charles gave him a mental shove with his powers. Onslaught fell into the vortex, which vanished instantly.

Charles staggered, falling to his knees, as the Westchester mansion disappeared. In its place, was the hospital room.

Raven was unconscious against he far wall, blood seeping out of a cut on her forehead. Erik was closer, looking barely conscious. He looked warily at Charles.

"Charles?"

His voice was rough, betraying the pain he was feeling.

Charles nodded, feeling as though he had just had the breath knocked out of him. He had done this. He had caused all of this.

Erik looked relieved and he all but collapsed against the ground.

"It's good to have you back."

He was losing the battle to stay conscious. With a sinking heart, Charles helped him along, not wanting him to suffer anymore on account of him.

There had been too much of that already.

Charles didn't really remember how they wound up at the airport hangar with Hank and Angel and at this point, it didn't really matter.

It was awkward, to say the least. For one, Hank let out a loud, angry growl upon seeing the two people he disliked the most, and for another, Erik was glaring at the newcomers with an expression of intense dissatisfaction.

Charles closed his eyes and counted slowly back from ten, wishing that his head didn't hurt this much and that he could at least muster up some sort of control over his powers. They kept cutting in and out, like an out of range radio, and it was discomforting, to say the least, to have blissful silence one moment, and then the angry thoughts from the other four people in the hangar invading his mind the next.

When Charles opened his eyes again, Hank had folded his arms across his chest and was glaring, looking so much like Erik in that one moment that it was all Charles could do to keep from laughing.

He mentally sighed as he addressed the two newcomers.

"What do you want?"

If his tone was borderline rude, Charles didn't care. All he really wanted was to sleep, but apparently, that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

It was Azazel who answered.

"Ve come in peace."

Erik snorted.

"Because you two have such a good track record of that."

Charles knew he should have intervened, should have made Erik at least somewhat contrite for that, but he didn't. Erik was right. Rude, yes, but definitely right. And at the moment, the telepath was petty enough to let it go at that.

Angel spoke up.

"We had no idea that Emma was working with the CIA. We honestly thought she was on our side."

Azazel nodded.

"Ve vant to stop fighting."

Hank snorted.

"Yeah. Sure you do."

Erik shook his head.

"If you want to stop fighting so much, why were you here in Texas in the first place?"

The other two mutants' faces went carefully blank at that question. Charles noticed instantly.

"Answer the question."

His soft voice brought startled looks, reminding the two rebel mutants that there was a telepath in the hangar. Granted, Charles was completely powerless at the moment, but Angel and Azazel didn't know that.

Azazel answered.

"Ve heard of ze other mutants and wanted to recruit zem."

"For whom?"

"For ze mutant cause. But we never got ze chance."

"Why not?"

Azazel looked at Angel, clearly uneasy about the next round of answers. Charles didn't need his powers to know that something bad had happened.

"We are not the enemy here. We just want to know what happened."

Erik cast an uneasy glance in Charles' direction, which the telepath studiously ignored. They weren't the enemy.

Azazel let out a weary sigh.

"Emma told us zat you and Magneto vere here."

Glimpses of the beach in Cuba and the CIA prison cells flashed through Charles' mind. Clearly, these two weren't happy that Erik was broken out of the CIA without them, nor were they too happy with Charles for stopping Erik on the beach that day.

Azazel was looking at Charles with a pointed expression on his face. Clearly, it wasn't Erik that these two were holding a grudge against.

Angel was talking again.

"There was another mutant with her. They had a plan to show humans that the mutants were still alive, still fighting, even after the events in Cuba."

Suddenly, it all clicked in Charles' mind.

"You were going to kill the President."

Erik's gaze widened almost comically as he looked away from Angel and Azazel and locked eyes with Charles, obviously coming to the same conclusion.

Angel nodded.

"Yeah. And we were also…"

Her voice trailed off awkwardly, but Charles didn't need to read her thoughts to know the rest. They were going to get rid of Charles, their other enemy, as well as punish Erik for betraying them.

It all made sense. Well, except for the part about Cain being alive and, apparently, a mutant.

The world was spinning angrily once more and it was all Charles could do to keep from falling against the wall.

Erik was talking again.

"So why are you here now? Your plan obviously worked, so what do you want with us?"

Evidently, he wasn't too happy about the news either.

Angel shook her head.

"It wasn't our plan, Magneto. We went along with it, but it wasn't until after that we realized that we were forced into it."

Charles blinked. Persuasion hadn't been apart of Emma's ability. She was able to read minds, yes, shift into diamond form, and inflict pain and torture on others, but she hadn't been able to force anyone into it.

Apparently, Angel was more intelligent than Charles gave her credit for, because she followed his train of thought.

"It was the other mutant. He made us do it. He made us want to go along with it."

That's impossible, was Charles' first thought, for he knew that Cain hadn't been a mutant. It was part of the reason why Kurt had chosen Charles to inflict his torture on.

Then again, given everything that Charles had learned over the years about genetics and mutations, perhaps Cain was just a late bloomer.

Of course, then again, Cain shouldn't have had the chance to develop a mutation, because he was supposed to be dead.

Charles mentally sighed.

Angel was speaking again, the conversation continuing on while Charles had been momentarily distracted.

"We just want a safe place to hide for a while."

Erik snorted.

"You should have thought of that before you decided to kill the President."

Angel was upset.

"We didn't have a choice, Magneto!"

"You always have a choice!"

"We were influenced by a telepath!"

To be fair, that was a legitimate excuse, though Charles wouldn't technically count Cain as a telepath. He wouldn't technically count Cain as anything until he had the chance to figure out what exactly Cain could do.

Azazel spoke up.

"You know better zan anyone what a telepath is capable of."

He spoke his words to Erik, though his lingering expression of suspicion was cast toward Charles. Charles realized he probably should have felt more offended than he actually did at that implication. It was fair, given the circumstances in which Erik had mysteriously left their little band of rebels and the way Emma had betrayed them all recently.

Hank let out a warning growl.

"The Professor isn't like that."

Angel and Azazel had twin expressions of disbelief on their face, while Erik looked as though he was trying to formulate a response that didn't end in blood and death.

Charles intervened before Erik could finish his train of thought.

"You are always welcome at our mansion."

Hank and Erik looked at him in shock, Angel and Azazel with surprise.

Hank shook his head.

"You can't be serious, Professor!"

Charles understood where the youngest mutant was coming from—after all, Azazel did attempt to kill him in Cuba, and Angel nearly succeeded in killing both Sean and Alex—but at the same time, Charles couldn't turn away someone asking for refuge. Even if it was two people who clearly didn't trust him.

"I assure you, Hank, I'm quite serious."

Erik glared.

"No."

The simple refusal simultaneously amused and infuriated Charles.

"As it is my home, I am at perfect liberty to offer it to whomever I choose."

Erik clenched his jaw and the planes around them rattled ominously. Charles merely stared calmly back at him, unimpressed.

"That is completely uncalled for and you know it."

Something akin to a growl emitted from Erik's chest and he abruptly turned away. The planes stopped vibrating, a fact Charles was grateful for.

He turned back to the other two mutants, who had been watching the exchange with fascinated looks.

"I will never turn away a mutant in need of safety. However, if you are to stay with us, then you are going to have to follow my rules."

Angel looked relieved and immediately nodded. Charles wasn't surprised—she had never had the strongest backbone in the world, and had a history of following others blindly.

Azazel, on the other hand, merely looked unsatisfied. It became clear to Charles that the teleport was only doing this because of Angel. The red mutant clearly didn't trust telepaths, or really anyone for that matter.

Charles let out a weary sigh, too exhausted to deal with yet another mutant with trust issues. Erik was more than enough for one night.

"You don't have to decide now. But whenever you're ready to join us, the mansion will always be open to you."

When Erik opened his eyes, Charles was gone.

Raven was across the room, slowly getting to her feet. Blood seeped from a cut on her forehead.

She let out a hoarse cough that made Erik wince, looking around. Her eyes settled on Erik, unasked questions shining in her eyes. Erik didn't need to be a telepath to know what those questions were.

"He's gone."

Erik whispered the words, not wanting them to be true. They had just gotten the real Charles back… and now he was gone. Vanished, into thin air.

Raven looked as though she had just been struck.

"He can't be!"

"He is."

Numb disbelief was replacing Erik's shock, making him sound emotionally detached. He couldn't get beyond the fact that Charles had just left. It wasn't right—it wasn't what Charles did. He stayed to fix things—Erik was the one who ran when things got too damn hard.

Raven shook her head.

"You're wrong."

She got up and stormed out of the now destroyed hospital room, obviously determined to go find her brother and prove Erik wrong. The metal bender wished that she was right, that Charles was just outside the room, but knew it was false hope. He had seen the look on Charles' face right after he had defeated Onslaught—the tortured, self-loathing look that meant Charles was blaming himself for everything that went wrong, regardless of whether it was the truth or not.

No, Charles was gone, and Erik was left to pick up the pieces. Which meant dealing with Raven when she came back in, heartbroken that her brother was truly gone, and then Sean, Hank, and the other mutants who were all hoping for their beloved telepath to come back.

Charles, what have you done?

Almost as if in response, a piece of white paper taped to the windowsill caught Erik's attention.

Slowly, Erik stood up and made his way over to it, alarmed at how weak his limbs had become since the CIA breakout. They barely supported him, and the short walk over to the windowsill left him exhausted.

He collapsed in an ungraceful heap underneath the window, reaching up and ripping the piece of paper off the glass.

It was from Charles, which Erik had more or less been expecting. The telepath didn't have it in him to leave without saying so much as a word of good-bye.

That's my job, Erik thought darkly.

He gently unfolded the letter.

I'm sorry for everything I've done. Don't come after me. –Charles