Fractals

Fractals Chapter Thirty (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEOMANOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *freezing * InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena get huge glomps of thanks for archiving/hosting! ProPhile: There will be smut again, I promise! Morgan: *GLOMP * Readers/Reviewers: I think my brain froze… *sniffles * Subtropical people freeze easy, lol. Anyway, thank you a zillion times over for reading/reviewing! And the ducks are eyeing you so watch out…

“If you don’t mind,” Professor Xavier said as lightly as he could manage, “I have a very important meeting at seven and I’m afraid I need to leave soon.” He hoped Emma caught the time change and was calling the Institute even as he spoke. He felt a little twinge somewhere deep inside his thoughts and knew she was mentally pinching him for yet again altering plans. _*Stop it, *_ he sent to her. _* We’re adults, not teenagers. *_
_*Duh, *_ she replied, the irony clear in her tone, even mentally.
“Ah, the lovely Miss Frost is with you, I take it?” Magneto said seemingly apropos of nothing. “You always get the same look on your face when you’re talking to people mentally, Charles, as if you smelled something rotten but are being far too polite to let on. Brandy?” He smirked and held out the bulbous snifter. “It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“Actually,” Professor Xavier replied, taking the proffered drink, “I was thinking about the last time we drank together.” He locked eyes with his oldest…friend was not the word anymore, he thought… with Magneto. “It was three years after my accident.”
“I remember, Charles,” he said smoothly, taking a sip of the brandy in his own snifter. “We were very young then. We didn’t know better.”
“I sometimes think we are no better now than we were then. Eric, I has asked you before to reconsider things, to step back and look at the possible outcomes, both those that benefit you and those that do not. I feel this decision to out mutants to the world is foolhardy.” He set the glass down on the nearby end table and folded his hands in his lap. “I feel that you are rushing into this to prove something.”
“Of course I am,” Magneto replied blandly, draining his snifter and setting it to one side. “I’m proving that mutants will not remain in the shadows, that we are _Homo superior, _ that we will not be made to be fourth class citizens and fodder for hatred, fear and worse!” His fingers curled into fists and his eyes narrowed. When he thought of the possibilities, the numbers forever marking his arm burned. “You of all people should know exactly what will happen.”
“No, Eric, I do not. I cannot tell you the future. Even that ability is rare amus. us. We need to let this media frenzy die down and we can return to life as normal.” He wished now he had drained the brandy as Magneto had. He could feel Emma batting at his shields, anxious to be gone, though he was not sure why. He did not feel danger and he knew she could breach his walls should she need to, so he effectively blocked her out once more.
“Life as normal?” Magneto spat. “Hiding, pretending to be…normal? Pretending to be something we’re not? No.” He seemed to grow taller as he gazed down at Professor Xavier, anger radiating from his very being. “We are the next step in evolution. They fear us because they do not understand us. We will not,” he jerked sla slammed his fist against the end table, setting the Tiffany lamp to rattling, “be hidden! We are not vermin! We are not refuse!”
Professor Xavier narrowed his eyes and, exerting his will, sent a chair skittering across the room to kneecap Magneto and force him to sit. “Your passion,” he said after a moment, “is admirable. Your tactics are not. This media event you have planned will only serve to alienate us. I do not consider this a cowardly act, to remain secret. It’s self preservation. It’s a foolish man who flaunts his riches, after all.”
Magneto raised an indignant brow. “Says the man who lives in a mansion.”
He snorted softly at this. “Touche.”
“Charles,” Magneto said quietly, years stripping from his voice, “for decades, I have been angry with you, thinking you a fool for being so prosaic and kind to mere _Homo sapiens _... “
Professor Xavier raised a brow. “And you still do. Though the hate… it is different now.”
Magneto did not reply, but leaned back in his seat. “I’m dying, Charles. I had hoped my granddaughter would help me but she will not. I have found,” he paused, “another source. Incubus has grown unreliable and I cannot trust him to do me no harm.”
“Perhaps Kitty would have been more helpful if you had not tried to kill her and effectively murdered her cousin.”
Magneto snapped to life. “There it is,” he snarled. “The condescension. The self righteousness… You never changed, Charles!”
“But,” the Professor said quietly, “you did. You do.” He unlocked the brakes on his wheelchair and rolled backwards, preparing to make his way past Magneto, silently grateful he used a polymer based chair rather than the old fashioned metal sort. “Good evening, Eric.”
“Good evening,” he paused, then spat the name as if it were bile, “Charles.”

Emma was fairly jittering in her seat when Professor Xavier swung into the car, his collapsible wheel chair easily folded and following.1 “Thank God,” she groaned, starting the car. “Let’s get the Hell out of here!”
Professor Xavier raised a brow. “What’s wrong? You’re not usually so nervous.”
Emma snorted inelegantly. “I’ve felt like someone is watching me for the past twenty minutes. I can’t pick up anyone on a scan and I didn’t exactly *see* anything, but I know there’s someone out there, just past the trees.” She shivered unwillingly and could not suppress a twitch as an acorn bounced off the hood as they passed under one of the many oaks lining the long drive to Magneto’s personal residence.
Professor Xavier frowned. He could feel it, too, but he could not pick up anyone actively paying attention to them. “Our nerves are getting the better of us,” he began, only to have the rest of his words jerked from him in a whoosh of air as the car was forcibly stopped.
Emma’s sharp, short scream of surprise was cut off by the crashing of glass. A huge hand burst through the windshield and grabbed her throat, shaking her. “Shut. Up!”
Professor Xavier inhaled sharply. “Viktor, release her.” He closed his eyes and pushed his will onto Sabretooth. It felt like working through molasses but after a moment, Emma inhaled sharply, then coughed. “Move,” he ordered.
Emma narrowed her eyes. “I’m not as nice as he is,” she croaked, her throat aching. With barely a flicker of her eyelid, she sent Sabretooth flying several feet back. “I told you,” she snarled as sheked ked the car into motion again, “We were being watched!”
They did not get far. The car made a grinding noise and would not move. Sabretooth held them by the rear fender and Mystique appeared in front of them out of the shadows. “Your presence is requested,” she purred, yanking the driver’s side door open. “A present.” She slipped something over Emma’s neck before the other woman could react. Professor Xavier felt invisible hands at his throat, slipping a similar collar around his neck. A faintly green mist dissipated and he knew it had been Incubus. “Now,” Mystique said pleasantly, “let’s get you inside before it gets too dark. Don’t want the nasty creepy crawlies in these woods to get you, now do we?”

1 Most newer chairs can be folded down for ease of transport and are really rather light.