Mutant (Fassavoy)

31 - Chat

Michael woke up some time later. He woke up on an extremely comfortable bed in a room he didn't recognize. He sat up and noticed James sitting at the edge of the bed, waiting for him to wake up. 

"James?" Michael's voice was raspy when he spoke. 

"Michael!" James grinned. "How are you feeling?" 

Michael made a disgusted face. "I feel drained." James nods at his response. 

"Where are we?" Michael asks. 

James chuckles a bit. "Right. Welcome to Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters. We are sitting in the actual school for mutants." James smiles. 

Michael raises his eye brows. "Whoa! Wait. Really?" 

James nods with a large smile on his face. McAvoy suddenly remembers something that makes his grin fall slightly. 

"Charles and Erik want to speak with us. And they said to prepare ourselves," James said to Michael after a second. 

Michael shrugs. "They probably just want their powers back." Michael spoke like it wasn't a big deal. But James could practically feel the fact that whatever Charles and Erik wanted to speak about, it would be bigger than just 'we need our powers back now, thanks!' 

- ⊗ -

With their hands intertwined, Michael and James sat down on the couch of the lobby. The school was filled with a bunch of kids and wasn't even half-full. 

The kids were in class now as it was the middle of the day. Michael had been asleep for a solid nine hours. 

Charles and Erik sat across from them on another couch, though their hands weren't intertwined. They were, however, sitting very close to each other. 

"...Nice job back there, Michael," Erik complimented with a flat voice. 

Michael felt this as an accomplishment. He had just gotten a compliment from Erik Lehnsherr, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the multiple universes that existed. 

He doesn't usually give compliments, you should feel lucky. Charles said telepathically to Michael, smiling slightly. Michael grinned back. 

James, who felt a sudden ping of jealousy, squeezed Michael's hand ever so slightly. 

"Thank you," Michael said to Erik. Erik nodded once at him.

"Now," Charles started, "I want to talk to you two about a few things. I said it at the beginning of this and I'll say it again: I am truly sorry for putting you through this all. And I thank you for doing all that you did. I know it was hard." 

Charles paused. "But now we come to the stuff I didn't tell you." 

Michael and James shared a glance. 

"I sincerely want to apologize for not being entirely honest with you two." 

Erik leans back against the couch and watches James and Michael's faces for their reactions. 

"You two are half-mutants. And incredibly strong ones too. Half-mutants have Gene 9 instead of Gene X, like mutants do. And when you both had the dream you had about me and Erik running from our previous captors, I was able to flip a switch on both of your minds to... activate your powers."

"What about Ellen?" James asks, interrupting Charles. 

"Ellen has already been told about her half-mutations. She was informed by Kitty a few months ago when this all started." Erik is the one to reply. 

"And as I'm sure you're aware: 1/2 + 1/2 is one whole. That means if you two are together and using your mutations a lot, any other mutant or half-mutant will feel a pull to wherever you are-"

"How was I able to use telepathy?" Michael asks, the question randomly coming to his mind. 

Charles hesitgaytes to answer.  "There are certain things called mutant pairs. Me and Erik are one, and our minds are connected. You and James are also one, so in a time of need (and hence forth on) you have the small ability to use a little amount of telepathy." 

"And no, mutant pairs are not like soulmates," Erik says after seeing James' face. 

"Is that it?" Michael asks after a short silence. 

"One more thing. Because of certain rules, we have to go to your world and make sure everything is fixed up and no one remembers what happened." 

"What?" James says, "Why?"

"Because if people in your world know about us, then something bad will start up. Research to end our species, war, planet destruction, bad things will happen if they know we exist. So we hide from them and make sure they never find out we exist."Charles answers. 

"You're going to make us.. forget?" Michael asks, his voice suddenly sounding like a small, innocent child. 

"Not you," Charles says. "Everyone except you two, Ellen, and the small child Ellen found because Ellen messaged me through Kitty and said she didn't want the young girl to forget." 

"So like in Men In Black." James says. 

Michael rolls his eyes playfully. James and his movie references. 

"What the hell is Men In Black," Erik asks. 

James shakes his head. "It's nothing." 

- ⊗ -

Charles, James, Erik, and Michael all appear in a circle back at the set of X-Men: Dark Phoenix. 

Ellen runs up to them, the small girl following behind her. "You're back! Hello Charles, Erik." 

The four men all smile at Ellen. "Ellen, you know the rules about cross-universe-traveling. Get the girl back and stay close to us." Erik spoke. 

Ellen nods and leads Nina toward the group of four. 

"Whenever you are ready, Charles." Erik says. 

Charles puts two fingers to his temple and closes his eyes. After seconds, he opens them again and nods. "It's done." 

Charles and Erik turn to James, Michael, Ellen, and Nina. 

"I guess this is goodbye." Charles says. "Thank you again for going through the things you did. I have a feeling we'll talk again soon. Feel free to contact us if you are ever in trouble." 

With that, Charles and Erik disappear back to their world. 

James turns to Michael. "It's over," he says to the other. Michael takes James' hand. "And we both made it through. Together."