Charles was using Cerebro to find mutants whose powers recently activated and would be good fits for the school. He was so immersed in his search that he only noticed someone else was in the room, too, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder.

He flinched, before removing the helmet to turn his chair around. He was expecting to see one of the X-men, maybe a student, so he was shocked to be faced with a complete stranger. The woman looked absolutely normal. She looked like the type of person you exchange a few words with but then completely forget about their existence in a few minutes. Charles instinctively reached out with his mind, and that's when he noticed the first unusual thing about her: there was nothing there for him to see. It wasn't just that there was some sort of mental shield blocking him from reading her thoughts, like with Emma, he simply couldn't feel anything, like she wasn't even there. He supposed she had some sort of mental power.

"Hello," he said, keeping his voice calm. "Can I help you?"

Simultaneously he attempted to send a mental warning to the team, but again, it felt like his message just got lost in a void, never reaching its intended recipients. The woman smiled at him but made no comment about his failed attempts at telepathy. Maybe she wasn't even aware of them.

"Hello, Dr. Xavier. It's an honor to meet you in person."

She had a very pleasant melodic voice.

"It seems like you have the advantage of knowing who I am, while I don't even know your name."

"My name doesn't matter. But you may call me Nemina if you insist on names."

"Very well, Nemina. Can I ask how you got in here and why?"

"I walked in."

"The door was locked."

"Locked, unlocked, doesn't matter. As for why am I here, I saw your speech on TV last week. Very well-constructed and logical, I must admit."

"Thank you."

"You spoke about how humans and mutants can peacefully co-exist. About why humans shouldn't fear and despise mutants."

"Yes, that was the main topic of my speech."

"Do you truly believe that? Do you believe that what you said is the truth?" She seemed truly curious.

"Yes, I do. That's what I designated my life to, to help establish a world where there is no fear or hate between humans and mutants, a world where we can live together in peace."

"You really mean that. Interesting."

She put her hand on the armrest of the wheelchair and leaned closer to Charles.

"Then you surely won't mind if I showed you something that might offer a bit more… perspective to your views?"

Charles was truly intrigued by now. He knew that he probably should be afraid or at least nervous, but all he felt was curiosity and an urge to listen to the woman, to understand her, to get to know her, as well as possible.

"Go ahead, show me."

"Very well."

She reached out and lightly pressed her index finger against Charles' temple. Her hand was very cold.

Suddenly he wasn't in Cerebro's room anymore but in a different room. The walls were painted light pink, covered with posters, and he could barely see the carpet under the piles of clothes and books. As he looked around, he noticed the teenage girl lying on a bed, flipping through some sort of magazine.

"Her name is Anna Rose Brooks. She is fifteen."

Nemina's voice spoke up, but she wasn't in the room. Even Charles wasn't really in the room, not physically at least. Nemina continued speaking in a cheerful, even tone.

"She knows every Janet Jackson song by heart, she still bites her nails when she's nervous, she hates peas except for when they're mashed and she has a crush on a boy named Teddy. They go to the same school, but he is a year older."

The girl dropped the magazine and turned on her back, staring at the ceiling while humming a song Charles didn't recognize.

"She's fourteen weeks pregnant, but she still believes that she's a virgin. A telepath named Jack Miller rapes her every Tuesday evening when her parents are at the book club, then he makes her forget all about it. In a minute, she will feel a strange compulsion to open her window, and that's when it'll all begin. She will experience it as if this was the first time, she'll try to fight and scream, then she'll bargain and plead, but nothing will stop him, not now, not next week, or the week after that."

The humming suddenly stopped, as the girl stood up and slowly started walking towards the window.

"Should we stay for this part, too? Do you want to see it?"

"No, please. Can't you help her?"

The pink room disappeared and Charles was facing Nemina's emotionless face again.

"I can't help her. No one can. She won't even remember it, so there is no way for her to report him or seek help. And she shouldn't fear mutants anyway, right?"

"This is different." He said, trying to remain calm and collected despite the disturbing scene he just witnessed.

"Of course. How about this?"

This time they were on a busy street, with dozens of people rushing to be somewhere, occasionally they bumped into each other and either started cursing or apologizing. A car alarm had gone off somewhere nearby, its shrilling sound almost lost in the cacophony of honking, shouting, and chatter.

"Look at the man in the red coat."

It took him a moment, but he finally spotted the man, who was walking a bit slower than the others, happily dangling his briefcase.

"Arnold Toldi, forty-eight. He's in a very good mood, as you can see. He is headed home to his wife Amy and their twin daughters. He has excellent news to share with them. You see, today he had the misfortune of getting a pretty important promotion, a promotion that was wanted by someone else, too. Emmanuel Nowak, thirty-nine, was the other applicant for the promotion. Also an empath. Everyone likes him. He's sitting right there, on the café's terrace. He ordered a latté with three sugars, just the way he likes it. But he isn't here for the coffee, he's here to watch the show. Now watch Toldi closely. It will start any minute now."

The man suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. A few passersby bumped into him, slightly pushing him out of the way but he didn't seem to notice it. He dropped the briefcase, as his eyes dilated, and his whole body started shaking.

"He's afraid. He doesn't know why, but he can feel it, stronger and stronger until he soon loses control of his actions. Fear is such a strong emotion. It can override every rational thought in your brain, reducing you into an animal, running purely on instincts."

Toldi started screaming, his voice like a wounded animal, and he ran, blindly, pushing everyone out of his way, fleeing from something, until he ran onto the road without a moment of hesitation, right in front of a car. The driver hit the brake, but it was no use, as the man's lifeless body was crushed by the tires. The red car that was following the previous car couldn't stop in time either, colliding with the vehicle in front of it.

"The driver of the second car is called Isabella Rossi. She's six months pregnant. She will miscarry on her way to the hospital, and commit suicide a week later."

Charles glanced at the empath, who takes a last sip of his latté then walked away. The street disappeared.

Charles shook his head as if he was trying to shake the images out of it. His voice was slightly trembling when he spoke up.

"I know that these things sadly happen. There are evil mutants, just like there are evil humans. But there are good mutants and good humans, too."

Nemina's smile was filled with pity, and she answered like she was talking to a child, a child who couldn't understand something very simple.

"True. These two mutants are bad people. They would have probably committed horrible acts without their mutations, too, but I doubt that they would've been this successful in doing so. But let's leave the evil ones behind for now. I'll show you one of the good ones."

They were in front of a school, according to the bright letters above the building's door. St. Judas High School. The street was strangely empty and quiet, with no one in sight. After looking around Charles noticed a few random piles of clothes on the ground, and the terrible feeling of recognition filled him. He knew where he was. Nemina's voice confirmed his fear.

"The town of Sanford, sixteen years ago, on October the 20th. The day of the Sanford Chemical Accident. 256 dead. The tragedy of the decade, that's what the headlines called it. A terrible accident, that destroyed hundreds of lives. But it wasn't a leak from the localplant now, was it? You know that very well."

The loud vrooming of a motorcycle broke the silence. Charles knew who was arriving. Logan parked right in front of the school and rushed inside.

"You sent him here, after learning of the accident. Now he's going to search the school, and he will soon find James "J" Williams, a fourteen-year-old boy who is the cause of this so-called accident. As we're speaking his body is still releasing deadly toxins from his body, that destroy every human within its reach, turning them into dust, except for your fast-healing feral, of course. Should we go inside? I think they will finish talking soon, and we can get there just in time for the execution."

Charles forced himself to answer her.

"No need. I know what happened."

"Yes, of course you do. You and Logan know the truth, but no one else. You forbid him from ever telling about it to anyone, even your team. Then, you manipulated the humans into believing this was a result of a chemical leak."

They were back in Cerebro's room and Charles made himself look Nemina in the eyes as he spoke up.

"It had to be done. The boy couldn't control his powers, so Logan had to kill him before there were any more victims."

"But why lie to the media? The truth is such a beautiful thing, why conceal it?"

"If this ever came out, there would have been chaos, outrage, and fear. Hundreds of innocent mutants would have been hurt or even killed. The humans would never see us as anything else than dangerous. I had to prevent that, for the greater good."

"Don't the humans have the right to make their decision about mutants based on the truth, the whole truth?"

"Many of them aren't ready for that yet."

"So it's okay to lie to them? To manipulate them?"

Despite everything, she didn't sound accusing or angry. Her voice remained calm and emotionless throughout the whole conversation, which Charles found deeply unsettling.

"It was an accident!" he shouted. "The boy just manifested his powers, he didn't mean to hurt anyone!"

"Oh, there seems to be a lot of accidents when it comes to mutant kind. Let's watch another, shall we? This should be a bit more personal."

They were in a hospital room this time. A man was lying on the bed, hooked to several machines. His eyes were closed and he wasn't moving at all, except for his chest slowly rising and falling. An elderly woman was sitting next to his bed, reading some sort of sci-fi book aloud.

"Cody Robbins, thirty-two years old. But in his mind he's still sixteen, going on a date with his crush, Anna Marie. She was his first kiss and the last one too. That kiss put him into this comma. The woman is Johanna Robbins, fifty-nine. She comes here every afternoon to reread Cody his favorite books. She still believes that one day he'll wake up, but he never will. Cody's father wanted to take him off life support two years after the accident, but Cecilia didn't let it happen. They divorced over this, and now all she has is this vessel of the boy her son used to be. And all because of a kiss."

They were in the woods, near a campsite. But the scene in front of them wasn't happening in modern days, around the 1910s based on the attires. There was a crowd watching three figures, but Charles only recognized one. It was Logan, younger than he looked now, probably before he reached the age when he stopped aging. He was holding a girl in his arms, and as Logan moved to get a better grasp of her body Charles could see the three unmistakable wounds on her stomach. The blood was slowly soaking through her clothes and she looked terrified. He only got a glimpse of the third person, a young man with terror on his face, who decided to run as fast as he could the moment he realized what had happened.

"Rose O'Hara. One of Logan's many accidents. Barely nineteen, freshly engaged. She and Logan were childhood friends. All she did was try to stop Logan from killing that boy you saw. Such a gentle soul and this is her reward."

"He loved her," Charles exclaimed as he watched a sobbing Logan hug the girl's limp body close.

"He did. Yet he killed her. I know, he didn't mean it. But after how many accidents do we say enough is enough? You put the dog down if it becomes dangerous, it doesn't matter that they aren't being wild intentionally or not."

"Mutants aren't animals."

"No. Something much worse."

An underground garage. There was a man tied to a chair in the middle of the room, his face already swollen and purple from a previous beating. Two thugs were leaning against the wall, smoking.

"José Vázquez. Fourty-four. His only sin is being a good brother. You see his sister married one of the local gang leaders a few years ago. Gave him two sons, but the husband wasn't very nice to her or the kids. So she asked her brother to help her. And the fool did. She and the kid had only been gone for two days before Mr. Hermández, the husband, figured out José had something to do with it and had him brought here."

The door opened and a tiny little old woman walked in. She was wearing sweatpants and an oversized jacket, her grey hair cut short and her glasses slightly crooked. She looked like any grandma you meet in a supermarket or on the street. Harmless. Kind. Fragile. She was even smiling at the hostage, but that smile was anything but kind.

"Rosaline Mary Baker. Seventy-two. She used to be Dr. Rosaline Mary Baker, a respected surgeon, idolized by her interns and the thankful patients. But then they started noticing strange things. Medically unexplainable things. A few too many deaths for it to be accidental. The complaints started coming in. Civil suits. Rumors. Finally, the hospital's ethics committee decided against her and she was fired. After a few lost lawsuits, the state revoked her license to practice medicine. She was in debt and desperate and Mr. Hermández was more than happy to hire her after she demonstrated her powers. You see, she can manipulate the human body. Every muscle, bone, organ, or cell is a slave to her will. You will get to see a proper demonstration of it soon."

The woman walked up to the tied-up man, and as she kept smiling she grabbed his injured face and turned it towards herself. Vázquez moaned in pain.

"It's so nice to meet you, Mr. Vázquez. I know your sister, such a lovely woman. And your nephews! They look so much like her. It would be an awful shame if anything bad happened to them, so why don't tell us where they are and nobody has to get hurt?"

The man spit on the ground. There was some blood in the saliva.

"Go to hell, puta. I don't know anything."

Charles didn't expect the slap, and neither did Vázquez. It couldn't have hurt too much, given Mrs. Baker's physique, but it still wasn't something you expect from an old lady.

"See? Now you made me hurt you. But don't worry, there won't be any more hitting or kicking. I see these gentlemen already did a fine job with that. But you're a stubborn one, aren't you? Wouldn't give them what they wanted. So that's why I had to wake up in the middle of the night and come here. Let me tell you, I don't like to be disturbed during the night. Sleep is very important. So I'll try to be quick. And the quicker you tell me where your sister and the kids are, the quicker I can go back to sleep."

The man wanted to answer, but she raised her hand and he let out a strange gurgling sound.

"Is that a bad tooth you have? It aches from time to time, doesn't it? Let me take care of it for you."

The man's mouth was gaping and he was gasping and moaning as a single bloody tooth fell on the concrete floor.

"There. All better now."

"Humans usually have thirty-two teeth. You now have twenty-seven. Twenty-seven chances for me to cause you pain."

She gently caressed his face as more teeth fell on the ground.

"But teeth are boring, and the dentist will cost you a fortune if you get out of here alive, so shall we change it up a bit? What about bones? An average adult has two-hundred-and-six bones. A gold mine of opportunities. The smallest is only three millimeters, it's called the stapes. Breaking it would barely cause you any pain compared to what I'm planning on doing, but don't worry, you can keep your stapes nice and unbroken. I don't want you to experience hearing loss after all. You need to hear my questions, and then answer them. So here is a question: where are Maya and the kids?"

Vázquez was heaving, blood trickling from his mouth, slowly dropping into his lap.

"I don't know lady! I swear!"

She tut-tutted at him.

"Wrong answer."

Suddenly the man started screaming his lungs out, even though seemingly nothing happened to him.

"This was your biggest bone, the femur. Don't worry it'll be easy to set it back, I made sure to give a nice, clean break. Those thirteen years at med school weren't completely useless after all. So back to Maya's whereabouts. You were saying?"

"Por favor, I don't know, I really don't know."

"I'm sorry, but I don't believe you."

There was a loud popping sound, followed by Vázquez screaming in pain. Mrs. Baker's smile widened.

"That was your Achilles tendon. You know, named after that Greek hero? Ah, I used to love Greek Mythology at school. Not that the nuns approved," She chuckled, "It was too scandalous for them."

Her attention returned to the tied-down man.

"Anyways, it hurts like a bitch when it ruptures, right? Not that I ever experienced it, thank god, but they always scream so loud when I do this to them! Should we do the other one now?"

"Please, please, lady no more! Please, I can't..."

"Oh, no need to beg. I already told you, I will stop as soon as you tell me what I want to know about Maya. And don't even bother lying, we can confirm if you told the truth within a few hours, and I really, really dislike liars. Nasty things happen to them, even worse than what I did with your Achilles tendon. Ruptured organs, broken bones, dislocations. The possibilities are endless, and I can keep you awake and alert through all that pain. So are you ready to tell me?"

"I can't. She's my sister. He was beating them, I just-,"

Pop. Scream.

Charles felt like he had to vomit. Nemina must have sensed his discomfort, because she spoke up.

"Don't like what you see? I thought you said all mutations are beautiful. I guess pain does have its own beauty. Mrs. Baker certainly seems to think so."

"She could have done so much good. Why this?"

"We all make our choices. But some people's choices make bigger differences. Don't worry about Mr. Vázquez. He'll soon break and admit where Maya and the kids are. When it's confirmed that he was telling the truth, they lock him up, and a few days later Mrs Baker tortures him to death in front of his sister. It will last for hours. As she said, the possibilities are endless."

This time they didn't even return to their real location, instead Charles found himself in vision after vision, without a moment's rest between them. He saw hundreds of mutants, his friends, his students, his team members, his enemies, and total strangers committing the most vile acts against humans. Nothing was an exception, nothing was too horrendous for them. Rape, murder, torture, genocide and so much more, and Charles saw them happen, heard the victims scream and cry, and he also saw the aftermath of his kind's actions, the grieving families, the destroyed lives, and so many tears. All through his visions, Nemina's voice stayed with him, commenting on each event, and arguing her case.

"All these lives were destroyed because powers were given to those who didn't deserve, who couldn't contain it. And yet you defend them. You even teach them how to use their power to its full extent."

"I teach them to use it for good."

"But how can you be sure they will only use it for good? How many of them turned on you, abandoned your ways, and used their power as they saw fit?"

"It's still better if they know how to control it, then at least they have a choice and don't hurt people by mistake. And even if some of them use their gifts to do wrong, there are those who protect humans from them, and they can protect them because they know how to best use their powers."

"Protect them? You can barely protect yourself against your own kind. How many X-Men had died while fighting other mutants? X-Men, the best of the best, the ones with incredible powers, yet they still get injured and even die when they go against other mutants. How can they protect humans from them when they can barely protect themselves? How can humans feel safe when mutants have to fear mutants?"

Vision after vision. Logan, Pyro, Erik, Remy, Bobby, Sabertooth, Raven, Alex, Proteus, Emma, and so many more.

"They aren't all bad."

"I never said they were. They aren't bad, they're dangerous. Not the same thing."

"They can do so much good with their gifts."

"And so much damage, too. I don't think the two balance each other out."

"They can make the choice to use their powers for good. They deserve that opportunity."

"But do they always have the ability to decide? There are accidents. There are rash acts, especially with the ones who gain their abilities at such a young age. What's a small mistake for a human child, can be a genocide for a mutant one. And mutants aren't immune to illnesses, at least most of you aren't. What if they become mentally ill? Schizophrenia, DID, PTSD, dementia, or Parkinson's. They could be killing hundreds without even realizing what they're doing. They are vulnerable people, who possess god-like powers, powers they can't possibly handle."

"There has to be a way to avoid this."

"There is, and you know that."

Charles couldn't answer that, but Nemina continued talking.

"What about you, Professor? How many memories have you altered, how many thoughts have you stolen, how many people did you force to do as you pleased?"

"That…I only did that when it was absolutely necessary. I did it for the – "

"Let me guess, the greater good? You love to use those two words so much, Professor, yet you're afraid to do what's ultimately needed for the greater good."

The last vision didn't take place on Earth. They were in space, and Charles saw as an entire planet dissolved in flames in front of his eyes.

"The D'bari IV planet and its five billion inhabitants' last moments. I know all five billion names. I know what they dreamed of, what they prayed for, who they loved, and what they feared. All gone in a matter of minutes. The Dark Phoenix could destroy them because it found the perfect host, a mutant, strong enough to handle its presence, your beloved student, Jean Grey."

"Jean gave her life to stop the Phoenix."

"But not before five billion sentient beings died. Sure, they weren't humans, but how long before something similar happens to your planet too? How long before it will be too late to act?"

They were in Cerebro's room once again. As Charles raised his arm to shield his eyes from the bright light he noticed the wetness on his face. Tears.

"What do you want me to do?"

"You know what you have to do."

"But all those innocents…"

"Weren't many of these humans just seen innocent? Did they deserve their fates? Sometimes, Charles, innocents also have to pay the price, for the greater good."

Charles buried his face in his hands, defeated. He knew she was right. Suddenly he felt Nemina's lips on his forehead.

"I trust you that you'll do what's necessary."

Charles didn't hear her leave, but by the time he looked up, she was gone. He only hesitated for one moment, before turning back to Cerebro and placing the helmet on his head with shaking hands. He closed his eyes and found every mutant, old, young, unborn, and with one simple thought, he annihilated them. But he wasn't done. He also searched for the men who carried the gene, so there wouldn't be any more mutants, ever. Once he was done with them he let his mind wander through Cerebro. There were only humans, good ones, and bad ones, but most importantly, all of them were safe now.

He took off the helmet and turned his wheelchair around. There was one more mutant he had to take care of.