Telky (Charles Xavier Love Story)

Chapter 5

Charles was staring too long at his awful coffee, as the tea was just as bad.

"Charles? Is anything wrong?" Seraphina asked him, sliding into a seat across the table. Charles looked up at her.

"I'll be blunt about this. Hearing about your nightmare, it made me think that the screaming I heard in my own dream was yours-but not in the physical world. It was in my head," he said. Seraphina gave him a confused look. 

"Do you think I'm slightly telepathic as well?" 

Charles nodded. "It's a locked ability, obviously. It is up to you if you want to free it, but until then we'll never know how powerful it is."

Seraphina thought about such a weighty decision. She supposed others would leap at the opportunity to be more powerful, but she was also inclined to think it may be under lock and key for good reason. Maybe her brain wasn't strong enough to handle two such extreme gifts. "I think about it. This is certainly not a light decision."

"No, no of course not. I'll do my best to help either way," said Charles. Seraphina smiled at his ever present hospitality and caregiving nature.

"Schach?" she said abruptly.

Charles gave her a look. "English?"

Seraphina laughed. "Chess?" Charles' raised eyebrows lowered as he smiled widely and began to get up.

"Of cour-"

He cut himself off as the board and pieces moved by themselves, levitating over to the table they were at. He looked back at the German woman before him.

"I've been stretching my muscles," said Seraphina simply with a smile.

Almost a half an hour later Raven walked in, shortly followed by a tired Erik. While Raven went about her morning routine, Erik paused at the table, watching the match. He could already see that Seraphina would lose. Then again, she never had an affinity for the game. Sure enough, the final play ended it.

"Check mate."

"Oh, I am bad at this game," Seraphina said, then looked at Erik, "I never quite believed you when you said it because you've known me almost my whole life. Biased opinion and all that." Erik chuckled before moving again to get cereal. Hank walked in shortly after everyone was sat down.

"I, um, have something to show you all. Particularly Charles, but I'll explain when you are all done," said Hank. The three of them all being curious, finished the morning meal quickly after and left to get ready for the 'something', and the rest of the day in general.

"I, uh, call it Cerebro." said Hank, gesturing to the spherical room with the small platform leading to a control panel and an odd helmet with wires. Charles laughed lightly with his hands in his pockets.

"You-" he laughed again.

"As in Spanish for brain." Hank finished.

"Yes." Charles finally said with the smile still on his face.

"Ok, so, uh, the electrodes connect Charles to the transmitter on the roof. When he picks up a. ." Hank coughs, most likely not used to being the focus of attention. "mutant, his brain sends a signal through a relay, and then coordinates of their location are printed out here."

"You invented this?" Raven asks, shocked and amazed.

"Yeah." Charles put the helmet contraption over his head, and Seraphina had to stifle a laugh at how ridiculous it looked.

"What an adorable lab rat you make, Charles." Erik commented. Seraphina gave him a look and a nudge in the ribs for sounding so demeaning. She knew he was mostly joking, but his lack of people skills really made conversation difficult.

"Don't spoil this for me, Erik." Charles warned with a smirk turning the corners of his lips up slightly as he tried to keep a straight face. In reality Charles knew he must have looked extremely odd.

"Oh. I've been a lab rat. I know when I see one."

"Please don't bring that up." Seraphina said quietly, so Charles couldn't hear. Raven on the other hand, caught the other woman's words and was confused. Raven decided to ask later, brushing the thought aside.

"Ok. Great." Hank looked over the helmet with a frown. "Are you sure we can't shave your head?" Hank inquired. Charles sent a look his way that firmly said 'I would kill you if you did'.

"Don't touch my hair." 

"Ok. It's working." Hank added after a minute of turning things on. Within the first minute the coordinate printer started to spit out locations and addresses.

For the next few days Charles and Erik went out to find some of the closer mutants. The first to be brought back was Angel, a young woman around Raven's age with insect like wings. Seraphina didn't mind her company, but she thought her speech was rather slurred and Angel's past job bothered her. Oh well, we all do what we can to eat.

The next was Darwin, an amiable taxi driver who was closer in age to Erik, Charles, and herself. Darwin was easy to talk to and she found a quick friend in the dark skinned man.

The next recruit, however, was a different story. For this particular young man, Charles and Erik took Seraphina with them.

They headed to a prison where an Alex Summers was, apparently there for destruction of property and other things. The guard they passed said he preferred solitary confinement, which was more of an indicator he couldn't control his mutant power.

Alex sat still on his bunk when the door to his cell opened up and Seraphina walked in. He backed up slightly.

"Hello Alex." she said.

The first thing he noticed about her, other than her hair, was her accent making it somewhat harder to understand her English.

"I'm here to take you with me, to more people like you and I." Alex frowned.

"I don't want to go to an institute."

"I never said anything of the sort. I said like you and I. I know you have had issues with your ability in the past, and I do as we speak, but where I want you to follow me to, there are others. More mutants."

Alex stared at her. Mutants. That's what he was. Since he unleashed that blast of power, he had hid in this prison trying to avoid this power he had.

"Prove it."

At first, Alex noticed nothing different. Then, out of his peripheral vision, he noticed the other chair in the room floating in the air before landing gently. His eyes widened, and suddenly he wanted out of the white prison.

"I'll come." Seraphina smiled.

"Welcome to the CIA Alex. I'm Seraphina Fischer, and the two men outside the door are Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr. Pleased to meet you." she stuck her hand out. Alex was hesitant, but eventually he shook her hand and following her out the door. 

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Translations:

Schach? - Chess?

How was this chapter? Was it pleasant to read, or not at all? I want to make sure that you all can picture what Seraphina and the others are doing and saying, so that they're no motionless statues in your mind. I've had that happen and it was really hard trying to picture a character in your mind's eye and not have him/her do anything.