The Bloodmetal Candidate (Prologue-Ch.9) (New Updates- Ch. 6, 7, 8, &9)
Posted: Tue May 25, 2004 11:28 pm
First of all, let me take a minute to tell you some semi-important things. Semi.
(I just noticed that the spacing is kind of messed up. I tried to fix it as best I could, but forgive any descrepancies [sp] and point them out.)
Obviously, I do not own the X-Men, though I sure wish I did.
Anyway, this story is set in X-Evo settings because I thought the nature of the plot would lend itself to the fragile, dependent nature of some teenagers, especially the ones residing in the Mansion.
Also, some events that may or may not transpire (they're in the works, but haven't actually been written) may seem like rip-offs of Rowena's "Unsung Hero" story, which is a brilliant work. Check it out. However, I actually did not rip this off from Rowena, I just posted it later (much later.) So please assume originality, because I have too much respect for myself and my comrades to steal their ideas, even if it is technically allowed.
I think there was more I wanted to say, but now all I can think of is the deliciousness of this chicken pot pie and Barq's Root Beer. So here's the story.
THE BLOODMETAL CANDIDATE
PROLOGUE
“I am sorry, my old friend of many years, but what you are asking me for cannot be done. You know very well my own life is chaotic enough by its lonesome, and it would simply prove impossible to manage two.”
“We fought together, before the accident that landed me in this wheelchair; we laughed together; we were friends, damnit, and all of that amounts to only dust in my hour of need?”
“Were being the operative word. As an act of chivalry towards a partner of friendships long-buried, I have actually taken the time to talk to you, however many miles away I may be. I’ve taken off the helmet that disables your mind from reaching me and I’ve speaking to you courteously for what may be the last time. This alone is a burden in my hand. Let it suffice and ask for nothing more of my tired mind than a solemn eulogy. If there is nothing more you’ve to say than this impossible request, then I suppose this little chat is over.”
“It is not merely this chat that is over, Erik, and I would expect that knowing such a thing would perhaps drain from you the last drops of remorse and compassion you possess, like a hand drains the last drops of water from a sponge. But it appears that you think little of what has come and gone in your life.”
“Please, Charles, do not insult me! Do not reduce me to a man without a soul or feelings, for I am neither of these things! Do you realize the magnitude of the task you are trying to set upon my shoulders? No man on earth can reach your expectations in this sort of a matter, let alone one such as myself! Please, do not leave me thinking I failed you, or worse still, forgot the past! Please!”
“Goodbye, Erik. Goodbye and good riddance.”
CHAPTER ONE
“Your friendship is a fog… that disappears when the wind re-directs!” Zack de la Rocha’s angry lyrics pierced the solitary silence that enveloped Evan’s room. He glanced in the relative direction of Rogue and Kitty’s shared room contemptuously before sliding the King of Clubs into his World History book and rising from his messy, filthy bed that was in dire need of a washing. Exiting his room, he knocked on the door of the adjacent room- the room from which such massive doses of noise emitted. If that girl lived in any state but New York, she'd be in cuffs by now... Evan mentally muttered.
The music paused, providing a momentary reprieve from the assaulting sounds of Rage Against the Machine. The door opened just wide enough for a makeup-enshrouded face to poke out. “Yes?” Rogue glared. She radiated exasperation; clearly she saw no reason to do homework when one can be losing their hearing in a whirlwind of sonic devastation.
“I think you should play your music louder, Rogue; it’s only fair that people in Anchorage should be treated to the same sounds as all us other Americans,” Evan sneered. Rogue looked away, mentally grasping for the comeback to a verbal ambush. Finding none, she simply muttered, “I hate you,” and slammed the door. Evan waited for a few moments to see if she’d turn her music back on. She didn’t. He grinned triumphantly and made a mental note to thank Scott Patterson, if ever they met, for teaching him such verbal agility.
He felt a pang of hunger whip through his skeleton and he jogged down the steps, two-at-a-time, to give his mouth a new coating of peanut butter. He walked into the kitchen, where a blue, fur-coated demonlike creature had apparently had the same idea, nearly shoveling the peanut butter into his mouth with an ice cream scoop, as though a normal spoon wouldn’t do.
“I’m gonna laugh so hard the day you finally succumb to diabetes, Kurt,” Evan chuckled, reaching into the fridge for something that hadn’t been injected with a generous helping of tiny blue hairs and saliva. He took out some cheese and salami, then reached into the pantry for marble rye bread.
“Fez the kid who’f gonna get a calfium overdofe fumday,” Kurt attempted to return the barb with a mouth full of peanut butter. “Ftupid peanut butter!”
Having made a quick sandwich, Evan reached into the fridge for a carton of milk, then headed up to his room to enjoy his snack while poring over the retelling of the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. As he did, he passed by Professor X’s room just in time to hear shards of sickness and disease escape through the cracks in the door.
The sound of a man vomiting, expelling everything in his stomach from the past few days, is one incomparable to any other sound in existence. It radiates throughout an area, permeating the senses of any within earshot. Evan frowned, staring at the closed door. “Is the Professor sick? He’s never been sick as long as I’ve known him…this is weird,” Evan thought. Nevertheless, he continued on to his room to study, his attention split in two.
CHAPTER TWO
“Pass the potatoes, please,” Kitty asked of Jean, who stared at the potatoes until three of them rose into the air, crossed the table swiftly, and landed on Kitty’s plate.
“Three enough?” Jean smiled pleasantly. Kitty nodded and started eating them happily. “Say, Professor,” Jean began. Charles Xavier glanced up. He had been resting his head on his fist with his eyes closed, a pained grimace set upon his face. All of this had gone unnoticed by the others seated at the table. “Do you think you could make time tomorrow at around six for a little psychic training, one-on-one?”
Through the buzzing chatter of “pass the” and “how was your” at the table, the Professor’s answer somehow cut across the space to clearly resonate in Jean’s ear; whether due to its content or a conscious effort by the Professor, it was unclear. “I’m afraid not,” he said firmly. After uttering this phrase of rejection, though, he dove into a coughing fit, wheezing loudly enough to silence the table. Scott looked worried.
“Are you okay, sir? You don’t look well,” he allowed, cautiously. His mentor’s face was contorted into a divided mix of sickness, fear, and quiet, contained anger. Evan listened closely, remembering what he’d heard the night before.
“I… will be better as time passes, I’m sure. No need to worry. Continue your friendly banter, eat up, eat up. You’ll need your strength-” another two loud coughs which coated his receiving fist with a slick, glossy layer of mucus and spit- “for Logan predicted a tough training session tomorrow. Am I right in this foretelling, Logan?”
Logan picked up his subtle cue to take attention off of the Professor, even without a mental heads-up. He didn’t know what was going on, but he’d find out for himself later. No need to broadcast it to the others. “Sure are, Chuck. A heavy-duty physical fitness session- we’ll be working with weights and balance balls this time to test dual physical capacities- followed by power-free one-on-many combat, old-school style.”
“What, no nunchukas?” Kurt joked. The others laughed. Logan grinned despite his qualms.
“Nope, we’re mastering the basics first before moving onto weapons. Once we get there, though, I’m sure you’ll be plenty satisfied with the array of weapons we’re using. Katana blades, bos, nunchukas, the whole deal. But be ready, right when everyone’s home, to do some serious training.”
“Oh, lovely! So I can roll from grueling soccer practice right into boot camp!” Jean laughed, jesting.
In the midst of all of this chatter, Charles had rolled backward from the table and rolled away to his room, his wheelchair’s smooth motion silencing his departure, while the others looked at the other side of the table where Logan was.
He made his way to the stairs, blotches of pink and violent orange flashing in front of his eyes. He was lightheaded and yet all hell was erupting in his inner organs, a mixture of acid and food turned to magma begging exodus. As the stairs turned into a ramp with the push of a button on the side of the banister, he rolled to his room swallowing hard as he tried to repress the bacterial explosion at the back of his throat. In his room, he opened the door to his bathroom, massaging his temples while silently acknowledging the futility of such an exercise. He stared blankly at the commode, contempt for the inevitable event seething behind his eyes. He lurched forward as it began.
CHAPTER THREE
A hammer struck metal- iron-hard, red-painted metal- with its exact increment of force. Then it pulled back with lightning speed and did it again. And again. And again. And as this was happening, students piled up their books in Bayville High School.
“Finally! Last bell must have taken a late lunch or something!” Todd Tolensky muttered impatiently to Freddy Dukes as Freddy slammed their chairs atop the acidproof science tables. Jean and Evan were busily discussing the comparative influence of hip-hop or classic rock on modern music (not in such dignified terms, but it was something to that effect).
“Nuh-uh! Just look at Afrika Bumbataa with SonicSound and his influence on modern pop culture. Every third song on MTV is a rap song, Jean, admit it!” Evan squealed, pulling his skateboard out of his backpack and setting it down in the hallway.
“True, but for one thing, the other two are pop rock or R&B; and secondly, I hardly think MTV represents the finest of today’s music!” Jean laughed as Evan growled his frustration, both at not being able to win this debate and at the crowd of people barely moving as he attempted to skateboard out of school. The group was a bunch of men in suits with attaché cases and thick-lens glasses, muttering quietly about the formalities and technicalities of a proper human transaction between third-party representatives.
“Maybe not the finest, but certainly the most popular! And isn’t popular choice the definition of a generation, Jean? The 60’s weren’t called the ‘World War One chant’ era because nineteen old guys still sang them day in and day out; Jimi Hendrix was considered a rep for that era because he was the big thing in those days! Get what I mean?” Evan barked, but Jean was no longer listening. Her psychic abilities were on in the background at all times, but during a lull in Evan’s diatribe, she’d picked up a thought from one of the men in suits: “…if Lensherr would just tell Charles ‘yes’, we could get this matter closed up…”
“Does the Professor know anyone named ‘Lensherr’?” Jean queried of Evan, despite a growing doubt that he’d have any idea. Sure enough, he shook his head in absolute bewilderment and followed it up with a quizzical look.
“Should I?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’d you hear a name like that?”
“Uh, I’ll explain later… gotta go, see you for training…” she walked into the girls’ locker rooms with her duffel bag for soccer, leaving Evan free to wonder who Lensherr could possibly be.
The hour was five o’ clock. Evan stared glassily into space as police sirens and curse words filled the air from the TV speaker. Suddenly, a flash of sulfur and brimstone accompanied a sudden popping, sizzling sound as Kurt Wagner appeared in front of the screen. He extended a deformed digit outward to turn off the object of Evan’s distraction.
“Huh? Hey, Kurt, what gives?” he awoke from his semi-slumber groggily.
“Training. Want a lift down to the Danger Room?” Kurt took off his holowatch. He had already put on his battle suit. Evan was still clad in baggy jeans, Skechers, and a Cypress Hill T-shirt.
“Ah, shoot! I forgot all about training! I gotta go change, then I’ll take a lift, for sure!” Evan cried as he dashed up the stairs (four at a time, a new record in the house except for Kurt’s of all twenty-six, though that was slightly shady in its circumstances) to get his outfit on. Kurt teleported outside to wait for him.
Finally, he had his outfit on (mostly) and ran outside. He gripped Kurt’s arm tightly. Kurt closed his eyes and again left a cloud of sulfur and brimstone behind him as the only sign he’d ever been there. They reappeared in the Control Room/ Viewing Station, where Logan and Ororo were waiting for them.
“Where have you been?” Ororo cried out as she whirled around. The “bamf” of Kurt’s power’s activation clued her in to their arrival. “We’ve been waiting twenty minutes!”
“Hey, I was ready half that time ago! I would have been here only moderately late if not for this slacker, who was still watching TV!” Kurt threw his three-fingered hands up in a “don’t look at me” stance.
“Hey, squirrel,” Logan laughed, “you really expect us to think that you were ready before anyone? Just get in there and don’t be twenty minutes late next time.”
As they walked in, Evan burst out laughing and Kurt took up a face of complete indignance. “She thought it was me who was late? The one time somebody is actually later than I am, I get blamed for lateness?” Kurt griped, growling between breaths.
“Naw, man, not just the one time… you’re always late!” Evan sputtered out between periods of mocking laughter.
“Dude, I’m never teleporting you anywhere again when you’re late…” they walked into the metallic Danger Room and awaited Logan’s commands over the PA. Soon, they came, and the reception wasn’t the only thing cracking.
“Um, uh, kids, just…” Logan stumbled and stammered his way through the opening of his sentence. Looking up to the Control Room, the kids could see him standing, looking like he was about to leave. “Uh, light jogging ‘till I come back…” he then hurried out of the control room looking preoccupied. Ororo was already gone. Jean narrowed her eyes, trying to pick up a signal from Logan. She knew it wasn’t right and she knew she shouldn’t be misusing her powers like this, but this was strange behavior coming from Logan. She tried to channel her mind toward him and pick something up.
"Aw, man…what’s gone wrong this time…Oh, God…”
“What’re you getting, Jean?” Scott asked sternly, concern clear in his tone. His eyebrows were furrowed and the rest of the group stood behind him, awaiting a response.
“He’s not thinking clearly. He’s worried and stressed out to the extreme… he was thinking what could have gone wrong this time… what did he mean, this time? Nothing else seems to have been going wrong around here lately, has it?” Jean asked. Most of the group shook their heads and shrugged. Evan looked hard at the ground.
“Evan, do you know something? Has something been going on that we should know about?” Scott asked. His tone was resting somewhere between an interrogative demand-question and the kind of tone parents ask kids in that semi-serious way. “Evan?”
“I heard the Professor throwing up the other day. He must have been sick or something,” Evan murmured, his voice low, his eyes shifting from Scott’s to Jean’s to the unforgiving steel floor. “I figured it was just a minor thing like we all have sometimes.”
“Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to, like, train with you, Jean,” Kitty suggested, trying as they all were to be strong in the hour of chaos. “He was too sick.”
“So could this just be a continuation of his sickness?” Kurt asked, hopefully, meekly. “Maybe he’ll get over it soon?” His traitorous eyes broadcast the doubt his words were more than happy to shroud.
“If it were just that,” Jean began, then stopped. It was as though she was stuck between voicing her thoughts and her suspicions and trying to keep with them what little morale remained. “If it were just that, then why would they be so worried? Scott was a little sick last month and nobody came sweating, rushing to his aide. The Professor can handle sick spells, Kurt. It must be something else.”
“Then what?” said absolutely nobody.
“Then what?” thought the collective group.
CHAPTER FOUR
The students waited around the door of the infirmary impatiently, an impending feeling of doom settling on them like a cloud of unwelcome dust. Logan, Ororo, Hank, and the Professor were all within the doors enshrouded by fogged, semi-smoked windows.
“So, we still don’t know what happened to him…” Evan stated simply, as though wishing to say whatever struck him first. “Do we?” Jean still had her eyes squeezed tightly closed, concentrating as hard as she’d ever concentrated to mentally penetrate the minds of those inside. Logan’s thoughts did little good as his mind whipped spasmodically from one thing to the next impulsively, like a man stricken with ADHD. Ororo’s thoughts were prayers for the health of the Professor and another young girl who was never named. Who was this girl? It seemed slightly irrelevant. Hank was thinking in medical terms, identifying symptoms. That was somewhat helpful. He was considering multiple drugs whose names Jean scrawled hastily onto a notepad to look up later, so that they could discern the purpose of. And the Professor, suffering though he was, still found it within him to protect his mind from outside intrusion. Jean tried to use their thoughts to piece together their conversation, which seemed to be mainly Hank’s lecturing interrupted occasionally by Logan or Ororo murmuring “mm-hmm” or some other such meaningless phrase. It was clear their minds were elsewhere, even to Hank.
“Well, you say this is the third time he’s vomited this week? I would say it’s a fever had it been three times in two days, but it seems unlike a typical fever to persist for that long in a man of Charles’s condition- or, that is, his typical condition, before this started. Which reminds me, when did he start showing signs of illness?”The non-yes-or-no question shook Logan from his mind riot.
“He had a nasty cough about two months ago, but that was it. It died down and immediately sleep deprivation came to replace it. We tried a few pills, but nothing worked, and we chalked it up to his mutant gene somehow interfering. But at this point, we’ve got no idea what’s causing all these symptoms, nor whether they’re separate or part of the same illness. And you say you’ve got no better ideas, aye, Hank?”
“Right now, I’m ready to say they’re separate and that they were all just overly persistent- a call that agrees with my education and strongly clashes with my instinct and better judgement. I’m going to recommend that he skip dinner tonight, as well as any late-night snacks or beverages. If it’s food poisoning, he’ll probably be unable to keep much down.”
“What about tomorrow? He’ll be starving, then.”
“I guess I go by what my mother fed me in these instances. Saltine crackers and popsicles to eat, water and flat soda to drink. If he still expels it, I’m going to look into food poisoning treatment. I wish I could tell you something definitive, but right now it looks like we’re going to have to just wait this one out and improvise a little bit.”
“Ah, fine…if that’s all we can do, I s’pose it’s all we can do, right?”
“Right.”
Jean opened her eyes and immediately closed them again. She had seldom felt so exhausted, so spent. She was completely drained of any energy, mental or physical, except for a tiny sliver which she spent to murmur to Scott, almost inaudibly, “need sleep”. He cracked a slight smile and helped her up, and practically carried her to their shared room, where she succumbed to the temptations of slumber only moments after making contact with her bed. Scott shut the door gently behind her and left to rejoin the group.
“So, we now know absolutely nothing more?” Rogue commented in a flat, dry voice that didn’t indicate so much a question as a finalization.
“Jean learned lots, I think,” Scott replied, to which Rogue raised a skeptic eyebrow. She closed her makeup-laden eyelids, somewhat tired herself.
“Right, then, but all we have fa now is just a list a’ names a’ medicines and the like and a very tired telepath who ain’t sayin’ nothin’ till she wakes up?” Rogue smiled grimly, opening her eyes to reveal a questioning, interrogative glare.
“I suppose it would do us zero good, in the meantime, to look up these drugs and see if their uses could give us some further insight into our mentor’s condition?” Scott snapped, angry at Rogue’s apparent nonchalance toward the ordeal. Rogue shrugged and picked up the notepad, which Jean had failed to take with her in her numb state. She looked with an inquisitive eye at the list, scanning it and moving her finger downward as she read each name.
“Will do, Captain Happy,” Rogue yawned. In truth, her nonchalance and lack of any interest in this affair was her thickest layer of makeup. Inside, she was a wreck, worrying about the first person to take her under their wing after her powers took form. She was simply covering up with it because she was not supposed to have feelings. Perversely, she remembered an old Soundgarden song at this- “Boot Camp”. It was all about being conformed and quieted into the person everyone wanted you to be or thought you were, regardless of what was true of you. The last lines stung: There must be something else; there must be something good…far away. She refused to endorse the idea of leaving the place that had become her home in their hour of need. She couldn’t selfishly hide from her troubles and leave the others to deal with them alone.
Clutching the notepad, she walked into the computer room. She tossed it onto the wooden counter next to a computer and sat down. Bringing up “yahoo”, the homepage, she entered the first drug’s name and hit “search”. The first entry was the usual irrelevant porn site, but beyond that she saw what looked to be an official, authorized site. She clicked on the link, then followed a menu to “what does it treat?”.
Her façade crumbled as she broke down into sobs.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn! Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn!” Given the religious implications of the 25th of December, could there really be a Christmas gift from hell? Hannah contemplated, amazed at her ability to think through such a testosterone-pumped tantrum. If ever there was, I’m sure Jay’s boom box would be it. Zack de la Rocha’s lyrics sound proletarian enough, but he doesn’t seem to give a care in the world about the working-class student trying to do her homework. Hannah Redges stood up from where she had lain, tapping the eraser end of her pencil against a piece of paper and rolling her eyes around as she mentally puzzled out a sentence in Latin. She pushed aside the door to her room as she brushed a few stray brown hairs away from her eyes. She knocked on her brother’s door as she started to pull her hair back in a ponytail.
The ‘burn’ song stopped momentarily as the door to her brother’s room, which appeared as a transplanted victim of the Cat in the Hat- minus the big cleaning machine at the end- slid open reluctantly. “What?” Jay snapped, his steely gray eyes narrowed exasperatedly. His thin, almost gaunt features reflected such a mood. Even his black, oily hair seemed peeved.
“Y’know, Jay, it’s actually a common misconception that all teenage boys are rude and obnoxious with messed-up rooms. And in fact, most of them don’t even listen to really loud crossbreeds between the Insane Clown Posse and Nirvana.” Jay had failed to inherit their mother’s attorney-like way with words and was taken aback by such an improvised assault on his mini-counterculture.
“If you’re gonna insult my music, do it right. Rage would be more like a mix between Public Enemy, Soundgarden, and Linkin Park, even though they existed before Linkin Park,” Jay defended weakly. “Leave me alone,” he added grumpily, seeing the bemused expression on his sister’s face. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“I want silence so I can do my homework. You’re a junior too, so why don’t you have any to do?” Hannah inquired sharply, raising an eyebrow. Her features weren’t quite as rigid as Jay’s, she having been leaning toward her mother’s appearance. Jay was, by process of elimination, similar to their father in appearance, but that was known strictly through process of elimination. Hannah yanked downward on her baggy orange “Equality Means Everyone” T-shirt so that it just hovered over the belt of her long jeans, the ends of which crumpled around the ankles from length and blanketed her black basketball sneakers- though, not the ones she wore in practice or games, to make sure they remained in prime condition.
Jay stiffened up suddenly. His lips pursed tightly and his eyes widened and shot downward to avoid her gaze, though his head didn’t budge as though his neck had turned to rock. “Fine, music’s off,” he mumbled before slamming the door in her face and audibly stomping off to riffle through papers for that elusive handout sheet.
Hannah laughed at Jay’s troubles. She had only to translate four sentences in Latin before she could do whatever she pleased. He had always been that kind of student- she’d come home and start doing her homework, whereas he’d be doing it at breakfast the next morning. In a way she envied his ability to relax a little and live life. By the time she finished, she’d be lucky to have any daylight left to take a walk or play a game of basketball outside. He, an avid mountain biker, would spend about two to three hours every day just cruising through the woods that was literally right up the street. Then, once it was finally dark and he couldn’t bike without serious risk anyway, would head inside and practice bass guitar for another hour. Somehow he’d then end up remembering his homework and rush to get it done. Hannah was unsure how she would like that lifestyle. Would she trade in her risk-free, placid life for one of half bliss and half stress? Would it be better to get the higher highs and lower lows than just the same rotten flat of a routine?
She’d probably never know. She was too scared to embrace anything new that suddenly came bounding into her life, preferring to try and ignore it. For example, when she learned that her father was actually not related to her, she simply considered it an interesting fact, not letting the agonizing, torturous questions be asked of who her father really was.
She strolled back to her room. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d let this happen. She’d let herself think about her father. Who was he? Why did he disappear? She often saw him in dreams- or, at least, what she thought he might look like. She imagined his appearance as a slightly fuller version of Jay- Jay had somehow ended up almost skeletal, but Hannah was somewhat average, so he must have been somewhere in between average and rail thin- but the what was the centerpiece of her daydreams. Was he a working-class blue-collar man with sizeable muscles who came home tired from physical work every night and treated himself to a family dinner, a beer, and a sports game? Was he a white-collar guy who peered over thin glasses at financial reports and Variable Interest Entities before heading home to a Fifth Avenue apartment, where Easy Mac, a thick work of fiction, and the nightly news awaited him? Was he a professor-type, his face often hidden beneath gigantic textbooks as he lectured endlessly to a class of ‘whatever, dude!’ frat boys and came home to a live-in, neo-hippie girlfriend who meditated every day at two and prepared him vegan dinners every night for so long that he eventually gave in and stopped eating meat? What was his name? Her mother had returned their name to Redges, but Hannah often wondered what they would be called otherwise. Her mother was reluctant to talk about it, so Hannah tried to stray away from the topic. Eventually, though, she’d have to know. Of all the demons that haunted her, this was the most painful one- and the only one that she did not have control over. If her mother didn’t reveal her father’s identity, nobody would.
Nobody.
Bile instantly sopped through his covers, drenching the blankets and his upper body in bloody vomit. His eyes instantly welled up with tears reflective of the excruciating pain he was in. His stomach felt as though impaled with a million toothpicks, slammed through its tender walls from the outside. His tongue burned with a dull sort of feeling from the complex acids that had been subpoenaed up from his inner organs. His vision returned, albeit fuzzy and dull, and he was sure that anyone who saw him would think that he was a ghost or a drunken man. But he was not; Professor Charles Xavier was very much alive and very sober- and very, very sick. He had to wonder whether it was worth it to stay like this, to see this quiet, lingering fall from grace to its damning end. He could easily just down sixteen too many of the pills Hank had entrusted him with the administration of, and get the same end result as if he waited the full projected six months of vomit, blood, fatigue, and finally expiration. He thought of the teenagers who watched his struggle and his fall from grace. Why not spare them the same pain I’m going through? Why not spare myself the pain? Why give Death that satisfaction?
He reached for the bottle of pills. Five trembling skeletal digits clutched the vial and it began the fragile dance, like a divine wind in the penultimate exodus of life force from his being. His mind, once a thing so grand as to manipulate entire armies, was numb and tired. Charles Xavier could sense that this was the right time, the right thing to do. His life was over.
And then somewhere within the dark, somber chambers of his desensitized mind, one last, sharp, piercing alarm bell sizzled and crackled and exploded a supernova, a black hole in his psyche. He fell into a wrinkled heap of his soggy sheets, Rogue’s shrill, animalistic cry playing off the cavernous walls of his mind like the disappointed moans of the world he could have helped.
(I just noticed that the spacing is kind of messed up. I tried to fix it as best I could, but forgive any descrepancies [sp] and point them out.)
Obviously, I do not own the X-Men, though I sure wish I did.
Anyway, this story is set in X-Evo settings because I thought the nature of the plot would lend itself to the fragile, dependent nature of some teenagers, especially the ones residing in the Mansion.
Also, some events that may or may not transpire (they're in the works, but haven't actually been written) may seem like rip-offs of Rowena's "Unsung Hero" story, which is a brilliant work. Check it out. However, I actually did not rip this off from Rowena, I just posted it later (much later.) So please assume originality, because I have too much respect for myself and my comrades to steal their ideas, even if it is technically allowed.
I think there was more I wanted to say, but now all I can think of is the deliciousness of this chicken pot pie and Barq's Root Beer. So here's the story.
THE BLOODMETAL CANDIDATE
PROLOGUE
“I am sorry, my old friend of many years, but what you are asking me for cannot be done. You know very well my own life is chaotic enough by its lonesome, and it would simply prove impossible to manage two.”
“We fought together, before the accident that landed me in this wheelchair; we laughed together; we were friends, damnit, and all of that amounts to only dust in my hour of need?”
“Were being the operative word. As an act of chivalry towards a partner of friendships long-buried, I have actually taken the time to talk to you, however many miles away I may be. I’ve taken off the helmet that disables your mind from reaching me and I’ve speaking to you courteously for what may be the last time. This alone is a burden in my hand. Let it suffice and ask for nothing more of my tired mind than a solemn eulogy. If there is nothing more you’ve to say than this impossible request, then I suppose this little chat is over.”
“It is not merely this chat that is over, Erik, and I would expect that knowing such a thing would perhaps drain from you the last drops of remorse and compassion you possess, like a hand drains the last drops of water from a sponge. But it appears that you think little of what has come and gone in your life.”
“Please, Charles, do not insult me! Do not reduce me to a man without a soul or feelings, for I am neither of these things! Do you realize the magnitude of the task you are trying to set upon my shoulders? No man on earth can reach your expectations in this sort of a matter, let alone one such as myself! Please, do not leave me thinking I failed you, or worse still, forgot the past! Please!”
“Goodbye, Erik. Goodbye and good riddance.”
CHAPTER ONE
“Your friendship is a fog… that disappears when the wind re-directs!” Zack de la Rocha’s angry lyrics pierced the solitary silence that enveloped Evan’s room. He glanced in the relative direction of Rogue and Kitty’s shared room contemptuously before sliding the King of Clubs into his World History book and rising from his messy, filthy bed that was in dire need of a washing. Exiting his room, he knocked on the door of the adjacent room- the room from which such massive doses of noise emitted. If that girl lived in any state but New York, she'd be in cuffs by now... Evan mentally muttered.
The music paused, providing a momentary reprieve from the assaulting sounds of Rage Against the Machine. The door opened just wide enough for a makeup-enshrouded face to poke out. “Yes?” Rogue glared. She radiated exasperation; clearly she saw no reason to do homework when one can be losing their hearing in a whirlwind of sonic devastation.
“I think you should play your music louder, Rogue; it’s only fair that people in Anchorage should be treated to the same sounds as all us other Americans,” Evan sneered. Rogue looked away, mentally grasping for the comeback to a verbal ambush. Finding none, she simply muttered, “I hate you,” and slammed the door. Evan waited for a few moments to see if she’d turn her music back on. She didn’t. He grinned triumphantly and made a mental note to thank Scott Patterson, if ever they met, for teaching him such verbal agility.
He felt a pang of hunger whip through his skeleton and he jogged down the steps, two-at-a-time, to give his mouth a new coating of peanut butter. He walked into the kitchen, where a blue, fur-coated demonlike creature had apparently had the same idea, nearly shoveling the peanut butter into his mouth with an ice cream scoop, as though a normal spoon wouldn’t do.
“I’m gonna laugh so hard the day you finally succumb to diabetes, Kurt,” Evan chuckled, reaching into the fridge for something that hadn’t been injected with a generous helping of tiny blue hairs and saliva. He took out some cheese and salami, then reached into the pantry for marble rye bread.
“Fez the kid who’f gonna get a calfium overdofe fumday,” Kurt attempted to return the barb with a mouth full of peanut butter. “Ftupid peanut butter!”
Having made a quick sandwich, Evan reached into the fridge for a carton of milk, then headed up to his room to enjoy his snack while poring over the retelling of the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. As he did, he passed by Professor X’s room just in time to hear shards of sickness and disease escape through the cracks in the door.
The sound of a man vomiting, expelling everything in his stomach from the past few days, is one incomparable to any other sound in existence. It radiates throughout an area, permeating the senses of any within earshot. Evan frowned, staring at the closed door. “Is the Professor sick? He’s never been sick as long as I’ve known him…this is weird,” Evan thought. Nevertheless, he continued on to his room to study, his attention split in two.
CHAPTER TWO
“Pass the potatoes, please,” Kitty asked of Jean, who stared at the potatoes until three of them rose into the air, crossed the table swiftly, and landed on Kitty’s plate.
“Three enough?” Jean smiled pleasantly. Kitty nodded and started eating them happily. “Say, Professor,” Jean began. Charles Xavier glanced up. He had been resting his head on his fist with his eyes closed, a pained grimace set upon his face. All of this had gone unnoticed by the others seated at the table. “Do you think you could make time tomorrow at around six for a little psychic training, one-on-one?”
Through the buzzing chatter of “pass the” and “how was your” at the table, the Professor’s answer somehow cut across the space to clearly resonate in Jean’s ear; whether due to its content or a conscious effort by the Professor, it was unclear. “I’m afraid not,” he said firmly. After uttering this phrase of rejection, though, he dove into a coughing fit, wheezing loudly enough to silence the table. Scott looked worried.
“Are you okay, sir? You don’t look well,” he allowed, cautiously. His mentor’s face was contorted into a divided mix of sickness, fear, and quiet, contained anger. Evan listened closely, remembering what he’d heard the night before.
“I… will be better as time passes, I’m sure. No need to worry. Continue your friendly banter, eat up, eat up. You’ll need your strength-” another two loud coughs which coated his receiving fist with a slick, glossy layer of mucus and spit- “for Logan predicted a tough training session tomorrow. Am I right in this foretelling, Logan?”
Logan picked up his subtle cue to take attention off of the Professor, even without a mental heads-up. He didn’t know what was going on, but he’d find out for himself later. No need to broadcast it to the others. “Sure are, Chuck. A heavy-duty physical fitness session- we’ll be working with weights and balance balls this time to test dual physical capacities- followed by power-free one-on-many combat, old-school style.”
“What, no nunchukas?” Kurt joked. The others laughed. Logan grinned despite his qualms.
“Nope, we’re mastering the basics first before moving onto weapons. Once we get there, though, I’m sure you’ll be plenty satisfied with the array of weapons we’re using. Katana blades, bos, nunchukas, the whole deal. But be ready, right when everyone’s home, to do some serious training.”
“Oh, lovely! So I can roll from grueling soccer practice right into boot camp!” Jean laughed, jesting.
In the midst of all of this chatter, Charles had rolled backward from the table and rolled away to his room, his wheelchair’s smooth motion silencing his departure, while the others looked at the other side of the table where Logan was.
He made his way to the stairs, blotches of pink and violent orange flashing in front of his eyes. He was lightheaded and yet all hell was erupting in his inner organs, a mixture of acid and food turned to magma begging exodus. As the stairs turned into a ramp with the push of a button on the side of the banister, he rolled to his room swallowing hard as he tried to repress the bacterial explosion at the back of his throat. In his room, he opened the door to his bathroom, massaging his temples while silently acknowledging the futility of such an exercise. He stared blankly at the commode, contempt for the inevitable event seething behind his eyes. He lurched forward as it began.
CHAPTER THREE
A hammer struck metal- iron-hard, red-painted metal- with its exact increment of force. Then it pulled back with lightning speed and did it again. And again. And again. And as this was happening, students piled up their books in Bayville High School.
“Finally! Last bell must have taken a late lunch or something!” Todd Tolensky muttered impatiently to Freddy Dukes as Freddy slammed their chairs atop the acidproof science tables. Jean and Evan were busily discussing the comparative influence of hip-hop or classic rock on modern music (not in such dignified terms, but it was something to that effect).
“Nuh-uh! Just look at Afrika Bumbataa with SonicSound and his influence on modern pop culture. Every third song on MTV is a rap song, Jean, admit it!” Evan squealed, pulling his skateboard out of his backpack and setting it down in the hallway.
“True, but for one thing, the other two are pop rock or R&B; and secondly, I hardly think MTV represents the finest of today’s music!” Jean laughed as Evan growled his frustration, both at not being able to win this debate and at the crowd of people barely moving as he attempted to skateboard out of school. The group was a bunch of men in suits with attaché cases and thick-lens glasses, muttering quietly about the formalities and technicalities of a proper human transaction between third-party representatives.
“Maybe not the finest, but certainly the most popular! And isn’t popular choice the definition of a generation, Jean? The 60’s weren’t called the ‘World War One chant’ era because nineteen old guys still sang them day in and day out; Jimi Hendrix was considered a rep for that era because he was the big thing in those days! Get what I mean?” Evan barked, but Jean was no longer listening. Her psychic abilities were on in the background at all times, but during a lull in Evan’s diatribe, she’d picked up a thought from one of the men in suits: “…if Lensherr would just tell Charles ‘yes’, we could get this matter closed up…”
“Does the Professor know anyone named ‘Lensherr’?” Jean queried of Evan, despite a growing doubt that he’d have any idea. Sure enough, he shook his head in absolute bewilderment and followed it up with a quizzical look.
“Should I?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where’d you hear a name like that?”
“Uh, I’ll explain later… gotta go, see you for training…” she walked into the girls’ locker rooms with her duffel bag for soccer, leaving Evan free to wonder who Lensherr could possibly be.
The hour was five o’ clock. Evan stared glassily into space as police sirens and curse words filled the air from the TV speaker. Suddenly, a flash of sulfur and brimstone accompanied a sudden popping, sizzling sound as Kurt Wagner appeared in front of the screen. He extended a deformed digit outward to turn off the object of Evan’s distraction.
“Huh? Hey, Kurt, what gives?” he awoke from his semi-slumber groggily.
“Training. Want a lift down to the Danger Room?” Kurt took off his holowatch. He had already put on his battle suit. Evan was still clad in baggy jeans, Skechers, and a Cypress Hill T-shirt.
“Ah, shoot! I forgot all about training! I gotta go change, then I’ll take a lift, for sure!” Evan cried as he dashed up the stairs (four at a time, a new record in the house except for Kurt’s of all twenty-six, though that was slightly shady in its circumstances) to get his outfit on. Kurt teleported outside to wait for him.
Finally, he had his outfit on (mostly) and ran outside. He gripped Kurt’s arm tightly. Kurt closed his eyes and again left a cloud of sulfur and brimstone behind him as the only sign he’d ever been there. They reappeared in the Control Room/ Viewing Station, where Logan and Ororo were waiting for them.
“Where have you been?” Ororo cried out as she whirled around. The “bamf” of Kurt’s power’s activation clued her in to their arrival. “We’ve been waiting twenty minutes!”
“Hey, I was ready half that time ago! I would have been here only moderately late if not for this slacker, who was still watching TV!” Kurt threw his three-fingered hands up in a “don’t look at me” stance.
“Hey, squirrel,” Logan laughed, “you really expect us to think that you were ready before anyone? Just get in there and don’t be twenty minutes late next time.”
As they walked in, Evan burst out laughing and Kurt took up a face of complete indignance. “She thought it was me who was late? The one time somebody is actually later than I am, I get blamed for lateness?” Kurt griped, growling between breaths.
“Naw, man, not just the one time… you’re always late!” Evan sputtered out between periods of mocking laughter.
“Dude, I’m never teleporting you anywhere again when you’re late…” they walked into the metallic Danger Room and awaited Logan’s commands over the PA. Soon, they came, and the reception wasn’t the only thing cracking.
“Um, uh, kids, just…” Logan stumbled and stammered his way through the opening of his sentence. Looking up to the Control Room, the kids could see him standing, looking like he was about to leave. “Uh, light jogging ‘till I come back…” he then hurried out of the control room looking preoccupied. Ororo was already gone. Jean narrowed her eyes, trying to pick up a signal from Logan. She knew it wasn’t right and she knew she shouldn’t be misusing her powers like this, but this was strange behavior coming from Logan. She tried to channel her mind toward him and pick something up.
"Aw, man…what’s gone wrong this time…Oh, God…”
“What’re you getting, Jean?” Scott asked sternly, concern clear in his tone. His eyebrows were furrowed and the rest of the group stood behind him, awaiting a response.
“He’s not thinking clearly. He’s worried and stressed out to the extreme… he was thinking what could have gone wrong this time… what did he mean, this time? Nothing else seems to have been going wrong around here lately, has it?” Jean asked. Most of the group shook their heads and shrugged. Evan looked hard at the ground.
“Evan, do you know something? Has something been going on that we should know about?” Scott asked. His tone was resting somewhere between an interrogative demand-question and the kind of tone parents ask kids in that semi-serious way. “Evan?”
“I heard the Professor throwing up the other day. He must have been sick or something,” Evan murmured, his voice low, his eyes shifting from Scott’s to Jean’s to the unforgiving steel floor. “I figured it was just a minor thing like we all have sometimes.”
“Maybe that’s why he didn’t want to, like, train with you, Jean,” Kitty suggested, trying as they all were to be strong in the hour of chaos. “He was too sick.”
“So could this just be a continuation of his sickness?” Kurt asked, hopefully, meekly. “Maybe he’ll get over it soon?” His traitorous eyes broadcast the doubt his words were more than happy to shroud.
“If it were just that,” Jean began, then stopped. It was as though she was stuck between voicing her thoughts and her suspicions and trying to keep with them what little morale remained. “If it were just that, then why would they be so worried? Scott was a little sick last month and nobody came sweating, rushing to his aide. The Professor can handle sick spells, Kurt. It must be something else.”
“Then what?” said absolutely nobody.
“Then what?” thought the collective group.
CHAPTER FOUR
The students waited around the door of the infirmary impatiently, an impending feeling of doom settling on them like a cloud of unwelcome dust. Logan, Ororo, Hank, and the Professor were all within the doors enshrouded by fogged, semi-smoked windows.
“So, we still don’t know what happened to him…” Evan stated simply, as though wishing to say whatever struck him first. “Do we?” Jean still had her eyes squeezed tightly closed, concentrating as hard as she’d ever concentrated to mentally penetrate the minds of those inside. Logan’s thoughts did little good as his mind whipped spasmodically from one thing to the next impulsively, like a man stricken with ADHD. Ororo’s thoughts were prayers for the health of the Professor and another young girl who was never named. Who was this girl? It seemed slightly irrelevant. Hank was thinking in medical terms, identifying symptoms. That was somewhat helpful. He was considering multiple drugs whose names Jean scrawled hastily onto a notepad to look up later, so that they could discern the purpose of. And the Professor, suffering though he was, still found it within him to protect his mind from outside intrusion. Jean tried to use their thoughts to piece together their conversation, which seemed to be mainly Hank’s lecturing interrupted occasionally by Logan or Ororo murmuring “mm-hmm” or some other such meaningless phrase. It was clear their minds were elsewhere, even to Hank.
“Well, you say this is the third time he’s vomited this week? I would say it’s a fever had it been three times in two days, but it seems unlike a typical fever to persist for that long in a man of Charles’s condition- or, that is, his typical condition, before this started. Which reminds me, when did he start showing signs of illness?”The non-yes-or-no question shook Logan from his mind riot.
“He had a nasty cough about two months ago, but that was it. It died down and immediately sleep deprivation came to replace it. We tried a few pills, but nothing worked, and we chalked it up to his mutant gene somehow interfering. But at this point, we’ve got no idea what’s causing all these symptoms, nor whether they’re separate or part of the same illness. And you say you’ve got no better ideas, aye, Hank?”
“Right now, I’m ready to say they’re separate and that they were all just overly persistent- a call that agrees with my education and strongly clashes with my instinct and better judgement. I’m going to recommend that he skip dinner tonight, as well as any late-night snacks or beverages. If it’s food poisoning, he’ll probably be unable to keep much down.”
“What about tomorrow? He’ll be starving, then.”
“I guess I go by what my mother fed me in these instances. Saltine crackers and popsicles to eat, water and flat soda to drink. If he still expels it, I’m going to look into food poisoning treatment. I wish I could tell you something definitive, but right now it looks like we’re going to have to just wait this one out and improvise a little bit.”
“Ah, fine…if that’s all we can do, I s’pose it’s all we can do, right?”
“Right.”
Jean opened her eyes and immediately closed them again. She had seldom felt so exhausted, so spent. She was completely drained of any energy, mental or physical, except for a tiny sliver which she spent to murmur to Scott, almost inaudibly, “need sleep”. He cracked a slight smile and helped her up, and practically carried her to their shared room, where she succumbed to the temptations of slumber only moments after making contact with her bed. Scott shut the door gently behind her and left to rejoin the group.
“So, we now know absolutely nothing more?” Rogue commented in a flat, dry voice that didn’t indicate so much a question as a finalization.
“Jean learned lots, I think,” Scott replied, to which Rogue raised a skeptic eyebrow. She closed her makeup-laden eyelids, somewhat tired herself.
“Right, then, but all we have fa now is just a list a’ names a’ medicines and the like and a very tired telepath who ain’t sayin’ nothin’ till she wakes up?” Rogue smiled grimly, opening her eyes to reveal a questioning, interrogative glare.
“I suppose it would do us zero good, in the meantime, to look up these drugs and see if their uses could give us some further insight into our mentor’s condition?” Scott snapped, angry at Rogue’s apparent nonchalance toward the ordeal. Rogue shrugged and picked up the notepad, which Jean had failed to take with her in her numb state. She looked with an inquisitive eye at the list, scanning it and moving her finger downward as she read each name.
“Will do, Captain Happy,” Rogue yawned. In truth, her nonchalance and lack of any interest in this affair was her thickest layer of makeup. Inside, she was a wreck, worrying about the first person to take her under their wing after her powers took form. She was simply covering up with it because she was not supposed to have feelings. Perversely, she remembered an old Soundgarden song at this- “Boot Camp”. It was all about being conformed and quieted into the person everyone wanted you to be or thought you were, regardless of what was true of you. The last lines stung: There must be something else; there must be something good…far away. She refused to endorse the idea of leaving the place that had become her home in their hour of need. She couldn’t selfishly hide from her troubles and leave the others to deal with them alone.
Clutching the notepad, she walked into the computer room. She tossed it onto the wooden counter next to a computer and sat down. Bringing up “yahoo”, the homepage, she entered the first drug’s name and hit “search”. The first entry was the usual irrelevant porn site, but beyond that she saw what looked to be an official, authorized site. She clicked on the link, then followed a menu to “what does it treat?”.
Her façade crumbled as she broke down into sobs.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn! Burn, burn, yes ya gonna burn!” Given the religious implications of the 25th of December, could there really be a Christmas gift from hell? Hannah contemplated, amazed at her ability to think through such a testosterone-pumped tantrum. If ever there was, I’m sure Jay’s boom box would be it. Zack de la Rocha’s lyrics sound proletarian enough, but he doesn’t seem to give a care in the world about the working-class student trying to do her homework. Hannah Redges stood up from where she had lain, tapping the eraser end of her pencil against a piece of paper and rolling her eyes around as she mentally puzzled out a sentence in Latin. She pushed aside the door to her room as she brushed a few stray brown hairs away from her eyes. She knocked on her brother’s door as she started to pull her hair back in a ponytail.
The ‘burn’ song stopped momentarily as the door to her brother’s room, which appeared as a transplanted victim of the Cat in the Hat- minus the big cleaning machine at the end- slid open reluctantly. “What?” Jay snapped, his steely gray eyes narrowed exasperatedly. His thin, almost gaunt features reflected such a mood. Even his black, oily hair seemed peeved.
“Y’know, Jay, it’s actually a common misconception that all teenage boys are rude and obnoxious with messed-up rooms. And in fact, most of them don’t even listen to really loud crossbreeds between the Insane Clown Posse and Nirvana.” Jay had failed to inherit their mother’s attorney-like way with words and was taken aback by such an improvised assault on his mini-counterculture.
“If you’re gonna insult my music, do it right. Rage would be more like a mix between Public Enemy, Soundgarden, and Linkin Park, even though they existed before Linkin Park,” Jay defended weakly. “Leave me alone,” he added grumpily, seeing the bemused expression on his sister’s face. “Anyway, what do you want?”
“I want silence so I can do my homework. You’re a junior too, so why don’t you have any to do?” Hannah inquired sharply, raising an eyebrow. Her features weren’t quite as rigid as Jay’s, she having been leaning toward her mother’s appearance. Jay was, by process of elimination, similar to their father in appearance, but that was known strictly through process of elimination. Hannah yanked downward on her baggy orange “Equality Means Everyone” T-shirt so that it just hovered over the belt of her long jeans, the ends of which crumpled around the ankles from length and blanketed her black basketball sneakers- though, not the ones she wore in practice or games, to make sure they remained in prime condition.
Jay stiffened up suddenly. His lips pursed tightly and his eyes widened and shot downward to avoid her gaze, though his head didn’t budge as though his neck had turned to rock. “Fine, music’s off,” he mumbled before slamming the door in her face and audibly stomping off to riffle through papers for that elusive handout sheet.
Hannah laughed at Jay’s troubles. She had only to translate four sentences in Latin before she could do whatever she pleased. He had always been that kind of student- she’d come home and start doing her homework, whereas he’d be doing it at breakfast the next morning. In a way she envied his ability to relax a little and live life. By the time she finished, she’d be lucky to have any daylight left to take a walk or play a game of basketball outside. He, an avid mountain biker, would spend about two to three hours every day just cruising through the woods that was literally right up the street. Then, once it was finally dark and he couldn’t bike without serious risk anyway, would head inside and practice bass guitar for another hour. Somehow he’d then end up remembering his homework and rush to get it done. Hannah was unsure how she would like that lifestyle. Would she trade in her risk-free, placid life for one of half bliss and half stress? Would it be better to get the higher highs and lower lows than just the same rotten flat of a routine?
She’d probably never know. She was too scared to embrace anything new that suddenly came bounding into her life, preferring to try and ignore it. For example, when she learned that her father was actually not related to her, she simply considered it an interesting fact, not letting the agonizing, torturous questions be asked of who her father really was.
She strolled back to her room. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d let this happen. She’d let herself think about her father. Who was he? Why did he disappear? She often saw him in dreams- or, at least, what she thought he might look like. She imagined his appearance as a slightly fuller version of Jay- Jay had somehow ended up almost skeletal, but Hannah was somewhat average, so he must have been somewhere in between average and rail thin- but the what was the centerpiece of her daydreams. Was he a working-class blue-collar man with sizeable muscles who came home tired from physical work every night and treated himself to a family dinner, a beer, and a sports game? Was he a white-collar guy who peered over thin glasses at financial reports and Variable Interest Entities before heading home to a Fifth Avenue apartment, where Easy Mac, a thick work of fiction, and the nightly news awaited him? Was he a professor-type, his face often hidden beneath gigantic textbooks as he lectured endlessly to a class of ‘whatever, dude!’ frat boys and came home to a live-in, neo-hippie girlfriend who meditated every day at two and prepared him vegan dinners every night for so long that he eventually gave in and stopped eating meat? What was his name? Her mother had returned their name to Redges, but Hannah often wondered what they would be called otherwise. Her mother was reluctant to talk about it, so Hannah tried to stray away from the topic. Eventually, though, she’d have to know. Of all the demons that haunted her, this was the most painful one- and the only one that she did not have control over. If her mother didn’t reveal her father’s identity, nobody would.
Nobody.
Bile instantly sopped through his covers, drenching the blankets and his upper body in bloody vomit. His eyes instantly welled up with tears reflective of the excruciating pain he was in. His stomach felt as though impaled with a million toothpicks, slammed through its tender walls from the outside. His tongue burned with a dull sort of feeling from the complex acids that had been subpoenaed up from his inner organs. His vision returned, albeit fuzzy and dull, and he was sure that anyone who saw him would think that he was a ghost or a drunken man. But he was not; Professor Charles Xavier was very much alive and very sober- and very, very sick. He had to wonder whether it was worth it to stay like this, to see this quiet, lingering fall from grace to its damning end. He could easily just down sixteen too many of the pills Hank had entrusted him with the administration of, and get the same end result as if he waited the full projected six months of vomit, blood, fatigue, and finally expiration. He thought of the teenagers who watched his struggle and his fall from grace. Why not spare them the same pain I’m going through? Why not spare myself the pain? Why give Death that satisfaction?
He reached for the bottle of pills. Five trembling skeletal digits clutched the vial and it began the fragile dance, like a divine wind in the penultimate exodus of life force from his being. His mind, once a thing so grand as to manipulate entire armies, was numb and tired. Charles Xavier could sense that this was the right time, the right thing to do. His life was over.
And then somewhere within the dark, somber chambers of his desensitized mind, one last, sharp, piercing alarm bell sizzled and crackled and exploded a supernova, a black hole in his psyche. He fell into a wrinkled heap of his soggy sheets, Rogue’s shrill, animalistic cry playing off the cavernous walls of his mind like the disappointed moans of the world he could have helped.