Hunger can be kept at bay, so can thirst but despair? It creeps through the strongest minds, seeks cracks in defences like winter ice, expands allowing the crack to widen. Revealing itself in all it's glory, efforts wasted, people lost, opportunities for redemption snubbed, the mind suddenly aware of how fragile everything *was*.
Cerebro was a perfect piece of machinery, of technology far beyond it's time, it was a pity he began treating those that came here like the machinery he relied on. How could he have known when he'd first used the machine what cost it would have on him. Nothing comes without a price and that price had been control over his own darker urges.
His Id, the one who used and controlled all those around him, the one who'd convinced him to use Jean, that he'd never be found out. She'd never leave him, she *needed* him, it was a lie, a betrayal he could still feel if he tried hard enough.
When he remembered the first time she'd come back from a mission and had sought his advice afterward, she'd felt the urge to kill. To destroy their enemies, to use her mind to crush the personality, to rip their bodies apart. Instead of helping her solve the problem he'd used her urges, kept them alive in her mind. Fed her darkness, used it to keep his plans going, even as his own powers had begun to falter. His mind increasingly torn in two, his subconscious fighting all the way up from the bottom of his soul. Having to use more and more time to control it, to use Jean's powers as a bridge to his own.
All that had led to this, where he was searching for Jean, desperate to find her, needing to bring her home. Her comforting presence bolstering his own mental walls, without her to shore up his defences against the darkness that lay inside his soul. He doubted he'd be same man in a year if he couldn't get her to return, he'd be like Erik, worse even.
*But* the sibilant voice echoed in his mind, *You already ARE.* Charles took a moment to steel his mind before continuing his search for Jean, squashing the voice down, closing off the darkness in his mind. Locking the door of his mind, before he shut it the images of Kitty and Pete floated through, along with Rogue's face bloodstained and pale. The sibilant whisper fading in his mind as he controlled his thoughts again, *You GAVE her to an animal, a MONSTER you helped to create Charles. He *KNOWS* Charles, he *KNOWS*.
The whisper locked away, shut down, destroyed for now but it was ever present, ever waiting for the right moment to speak like the original serpent.
Clearing his head he swept the central states, passing so many unfound children, feeling his mental touch for a second and shuddering internally. Never stopping until he was tired of looking through memories of fields and farmers. Of children who could morph, change the winds, had green hair and yellow skin, anger at their parents and families who didn't understand them.
He was about to pull away, rest for a while when he caught the mental scent of Scott, a cry so low he almost missed it. Swooping in like a hawk he dove for the tiny thread of thought, blurring his form until there was no sensation but speed. About to stop when he fell into light, light so bright, so penetrating he felt his soul shrivel under it. A word was the only thing he felt before being thrown mentally out of range, *NO!*. The power of it burning through his synapses, seeing it's destructive power echo through his mind. Bringing the past back to life for him, Erik with arms held wide, a young face and promises of care. The school opening it's doors for the first time, seeing a young Jean and Scott, Emma with her English manners, Ororo her face so scared about what she'd been persuaded to do here.
Everything was laid out scattered for the mental winds, all of his carefully guarded secrets laid open. All the hurts remade and felt afresh, Erik arguing with him over policy. Leaving him when the accident occured, trying to convince him that the only way was one of tolerance, of understanding. Erik had shaken his head and called him 'deluded', that he would turn to his way of thinking eventually.
The deals he'd made in Washington, the things he'd promised to keep his school safe, organisations that would crush his dream if he didn't co-operate. All the faces of those he'd knowingly sent to their deaths, of Logan's own troubled mind and the knowledge of his hand in Wolverine's creation.
It had left nothing closed, opened every door, destroyed the mental blocks he'd been so careful to seal. Every pain every hurt opened up for him to feel again, the core of him knew who had done this. Jean, Jean had found her power, her true power, the destroying angel, the Pheonix. He'd been a fool to think he could have controlled her for so long, but he'd needed her as much as she'd loved him.
Deep down, well beneath the litter of memories and pain remembered the door crumbled and fell away, flowing through the lower levels of his mind. A freedom finally being given to the thoughts and nightmares of a man holding onto his sanity by justification. By collateral damage, by friendly fire, by acceptable losses, death by mistake and bad information. The darkness spreading thin over everything, adding a little grey to a memory, spite and childish jealousy adding spice to events. It was out, free, there were no blocks anymore, nothing to keep his desires from being fulfilled. He had the power to create his Utopia so why shouldn't he? Why shouldn't he bend those who couldn't think for themselves? Make them understand that mutants were just like them, human beings needing understanding and care. They were human weren't they? A different race yes, but not a different species? Erik wasn't right about that, he'd had human parents, just like the children here but what about the baby Kitty was carrying? Would that be classed as human or Homo Superior?
The machinations of his mind reached out through the connections he had in Cerebro, people whom he had no contact with before suddenly knew his name. Members of powerful groups felt his influence, men who killed on command dropped like flies, blood coming from their eyes and noses. His mind flayed across the globe like a loosed bansaw in a woodmill, destroying randomly, people stopped hating mutants in their neighbourhood and concentrated on one, Erik Lenscherr - Magneto. Before the night was over Erik would be dead at the instruction of the one man who'd ever truely loved him.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Now we see a little something of Xavier what exactly is he upto in that big round room?