Prompt Post: ROUND THREE
ROUND THREE IS CLOSED
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<< ROUND TWO | ALL ROUNDS | ROUND FOUR >>
Rules post.
Flat view.
Updates Post (WIPs only)
Fills Post (completed Fills only)
damalur's firstclasskink on Delicious.
Volunteers always welcome.
There may be some delay on posts appearing when there is a URL in the message body as they are automatically marked as suspicious and I ( Read more... )
Charles slouched back into the cushions, his ankle propped up on a stool in front of him. The metal around his wrist was still there, clanking against the arm of the couch. “I don’t really know him.”
“Well you’ve met him. He knew your name.”
Charles nodded, “It’s complicated.”
Raven snorts. There are two War Generals outside that door and one of them knows Charles. She had seen the Generals eyes widen and barely keep back the breathless ‘ah’ when he looked upon her brother. Recognition flashed across both their faces. But it really wasn’t until Magneto helped her brother up and command Azazel to ask the COM for a private office for him and ‘Charles’ to talk that it really sunk in that the crimson dressed man knew her brother.
“Well, can you explain something before they come back?”
“I met him three years ago,” Charles sighed. “At a state dinner at Hank’s. During a long weekend before I earned my masters.”
Raven perked up. “Hank knows Magneto?”
Charles nodded, staring up at the ceiling. “Acquaintances. The Emperor funds Hank’s experiments himself, so he keeps a special eye on all his projects. Erik was sent under pretext to check on his progress, we met. Had a couple of philosophical conversations, we danced, if I remember right he even got me on a horse for a trek through the woods one afternoon. You know, just regular things you do when you meet the ward of the Emperor and deny to tell him your full name under the guise to keep things mysterious.”
Raven’s mind boggled. As horribly English as her adopted family was they were inexplicably terrible with anything of the equestrian nature. She had seen Charles attempt polo to make his Oxford mates happy- it hadn’t ended well. So it had to be a testament to how infatuated Charles had to of been to actually get near another horse. She furrowed her brows. “You didn’t tell him your last name. So does he know now who you are?”
Charles flapped his wrist at her, the metal- well bracelet now- jingled. “By now he obviously must know. I’m sure once I left the party some snub nosed socialite told him he was talking to the traitor’s son.”
Charles sounded bitter. Raven felt great sympathy for him. As the Xavier’s adopted daughter she had her problems with court treating her different, the sins of the father and so forth. But Charles more so. She could hide behind her blue skin and pure mutant blood and society would eventually forgive her, but until the Emperor saw fit to forgive the Xavier family they were pariah even among their own kind.
“So did…” She asked gently.
“No.”
Oh, but how one word could mean so much.
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It was therefore a shock when the Chief of Medicine came scuttling back inside his office. Rustling around on his desk for a large folder, he started setting up some x-ray slides on the light screen beside them. Shooting Charles a fascinated look all the while, like one might a science experiment.
“Mr. Xavier, the General has requested that you look at these yourself before he talks to you.”
Raven assisted her brother in getting up and moving over to examine the slides.
“Are these mine?” He asked.
“Yes. I was given you would understand what to look for.” The COM nodded and reluctantly left the same way he came in. Raven watching him leave while Charles absorbed himself in the slides.
The slides were mostly of Charles’s leg, some of his hips, and one shot of his pelvis. Charles was staring with horrified awe at the shot of his pelvis.
“What exactly are you looking for?”
Charles didn’t reply. His face had gone ashy white, given him a sickly pallor. This was one of the many times that Raven wished she had her brother’s ability. She ran her hand up Charles back, hoping to bring some kind of semblance of life back into him.
The door clicked open behind them.
“Ms. Raven, I would like to talk to your brother alone now.”
Magneto stood in the door, the light from the hallway silhouetting him, turning his scarlet outfit a dark blood red. His helmet in his arms.
“Please.” He asked again.
Raven gently extracted herself from under her brother’s arm. She walked past Magneto, her feet light against the carpet. She contemplated giving him a threatening glance, but the man would have ignored it because his eyes were only for her brother.
***
It wasn’t until they were being herded into their town car that Raven saw Charles again. His face still slightly pale, but his cheeks held a rosy blush. To Raven it looked like he was barely holding onto control. He gave a nervous smiled when he saw her waiting in the back seat for him.
A soldier held the door open as he hobbled in, shutting it behind them and giving the hood a tap. As the car started driving she looked out the back window and saw that an armored vehicle fallowed along as an escort.
“Uh?” Raven stared at him.
“I think I just got purposed to.” Charles said in a small voice.
Raven’s jaw dropped. “And he needed to send an armed battalion for what exactly, to set the mood?”
Charles laughed, rubbing at his temples, he sounded slightly hysterical. “No, no. They’re trying to keep things as quiet as possible.”
“Right.” Raven said sarcastically.
Charles sent her a pleading look, “Have you heard of the Phoenix legend?”
Like any mutant hadn’t, it was like their national anthem. Every mutant fortune teller who ever lived said the same thing; mutant kind would forever be oppressed by humans until the birth of the Phoenix, a child of infinite powers who would lead us to true freedom.
Most figured it was figurative. That every mutant child born meant that we were just one step closer to overcoming Homo sapiens and that we should rise from the ashes of our less evolved species like a phoenix. There were different versions of it, of course, like every fairy tale. There was one that the Phoenix would destroy the world and create one anew for Mutant kind. Raven had never really taken legends or fortunetellers seriously.
Charles was watching her face, he looked like he wanted desperately to listen into her mind.
“Yeah, I’ve heard it before.” She said.
“Good,” Charles replied. “Then it will make it easier for you to understand how it suddenly pertains to me.”
Raven could feel the horror boiling slowly in her stomach.
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She could feel the agony and betrayal coming off Charles in waves. Wrapping her arms completely around him, her mind cursed Magneto.
“I don’t understand. Are they going to take you to the Emperor to wed? Does that mean you will have to be one of his Queens?” And how weird was it that she had to associate her brother with a Queen?
She might have been slightly delirious.
Charles shook his head, his nose tickling her neck. “No, the Emperor is not the most powerful mutant, at least not publicly. Most in court already understand that his General’s are levels beyond his own power. They just wish to bind me legally to Erik as soon as possible before the news gets out, so we will be staying at Westchester.”
It was like a kick to the gut. “But what’s this about a womb? I don’t understand…” She trailed off, suddenly remembering what he said earlier.
The telepath gave a choked laugh, “Yeah, about that, turns out I do have a second mutation. Seems I have some hermaphrodite qualities to my reproduction organs. It seems the Emperor had gotten the full legend after he banishes my father from court and has been keeping an eye on the family for a while now, waiting for a female to be born. They thought it might be you there for a while but then you went and took up your biological family’s last name and ruined all their plans.”
“Oh God.”
“You know this might explains why all my professors were trying to get me married to their daughters before graduation,” Charles mused. “Being the mother of a savior would unduly boost some lucky woman’s reputation.”
“Oh Lord, Professor Hightower. That could explain why he kept calling to see what you and his daughter were doing all through your dinner date. He seemed disappointed you weren’t shagging her in the coat closet.”
That got her brother to laugh. Melanie Hightower had been a horribly boring girl even for Charles. She kept cutting him off whenever he tried to explain his thesis and telling him how ‘wrong’ he was. Girl had been terribly anti-human also, he had always wondered why her father had pushed them to date.
Raven sat holding her brother, hoping that she was projecting how much she loved him. She could be rational about this. While escaping together was something she briefly contemplated, the soldiers and two General would not let that happen. With the Emperor aware of the situation their only escape would be to go into Human society and that would be dangerous, even for a telepath and a shapeshifter.
Hunted down by both species.
They would have to go with the lesser of the two evils, and hope that Erik Lehnsherr knew to do right by her brother.
TBC
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Yeah, I am seriously jacking Canon up here. Sorry guys, I'm a DC girl slowly learning the loving slash that is Marvel, so my knowledge of characters is a bit shifty and what I gleam from the movies. This took a while I know, you would think with insomnia I would be able to have more time to write but that doesn't happen. I promise though to post once a week at least.
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Yes. It was that good.
Write Moar please!
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thank you!
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*Plus, Charles being mistaken for/dressed up as a sister? XD Great mental image, that.*
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Erik's relationship with Charles is something I really want to see you expand on, which, of course, you will bc of the nature of the prompt, lol. Still, I want to know more about the time they spent together and what Erik's reaction was to the fact that he was bonding/starting a romantic relationship with an Xavier. I also wanna know why Erik didn't pursue him after he found out who Charles was, or if he didn't pursue him simply because he never found out who Charles was.
The world you've created seems very interesting, and I'm eager to see more of it. I love that Charles is a professor in this world, and I'm hoping to see some of his students (Alex, Hank, and Sean, perhaps?) make an appearance. :)
(And I think you're doing a good job with characterization. Of course, this is coming from a fellow DC girl who's avoided most things Marvel until First Class came out, so I'm not sure what all that counts for, lol. :) )
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