CATACLYSM || X-Men

13| god only knows

Cuba, 1962

With Raven guarding the only entrance to the hull of the plane, Rose left Moira and Charles inside to help the group through. She stood beside Erik, before she pulled him back a little to perhaps catch the others by surprise.

    "Hey Angel!" she gave the girl a nod, who only glared back.

    "Rose," Alex hissed.

    "Just get ready," she replied as she took the few steps between the two groups, lifting her hands in the air. "Hey man," she spoke to Riptide. "Sorry about— Well, you know, before," she let out a fake nervous chuckle. "How about we talk about this?" she offered, but Angel's wings had already been revealed, beating against the air as she rose a few feet above the ground. "Well, you can't say I didn't try," she shrugged. "Havok!" her yell made the boy shoot the red beam at Riptide, while she kicked Azazel's legs from under him, but he teleported before she could do anything else. Angel had long ascended into the air, and she briefly saw her fly towards the ships as Beast and Havok disappeared with the red teleporter.

    "Always trying to make peace," Erik commented as Riptide generated the wind force in his hands again.

    "Peace is for losers. This is personal," she replied, turning to Riptide, before she flicked out her hand, generating the same as he was, except full of blue sparks. He looked shocked, perhaps nervous, only fuelling her sick malicious amusement. "Yeah, that's right. I learned."

    Pushing her arms towards the mutant, he was knocked back into the sub before Erik pulled the metal of the side to tie him to the ground. He struggled before Rose placed her hand on his neck, draining his energy.

    "Handy," Erik complimented.

    "Let's hope it's equally handy when you find Shaw," she told him, following him through the submarine until they got to the control room.

    "This is it," Erik told her, pointing to the needle thats as starting to hit too high for their liking. Placing a hand on the controls, Rose felt her hair standing on end, her blood sparking with electricity, coursing through her body as she absorbed whatever she could. Meanwhile, Erik turned off the redirection of the power to the nuclear reactor, just as Rose felt herself let out a whimper at the amount she was starting to keep in her system.

    "Hey, let go. You have to let go," he told her, attempting to reach out to her.

    "Go find Shaw," she snapped to him, lifting a hand at the door that led further in, taking away his option to stay. "Just do it, I'll be fine," she almost yelled, and Erik watched her skin started to glow a bright white. "Take him out or I will!"

    Erik found the second room empty, still hearing as the power hummed in Rose in the other room.

    "He's not here, Charles. Shaw's not here! He's left the sub," Erik spoke, feeling Charles's mind push against his own.

    'What? He's got to be there! He has to be! There's no where else he can be! Keep looking!' Charles's voice insisted, but now full of concern and anger, Erik picked up one of the side tables, and threw it at the screen embedded in the wall.

    "She's absorbing too much and he's not even here! There's no one here, Goddammit!" he yelled.

    He heard a thump, and once he snapped his head towards Rose, he saw her having fallen to the ground, still glowing with the power she absorbed. Before he could rush over, however, a panel slid to the side behind him, and once he turned back, he saw Shaw standing, watching him.

    "Erik, what a pleasant surprise."

    Charles lost both Erik and Rose, though her mind lingered, quietly thrumming in the back of his brain.

    "What?" Moira asked beside him, but Charles was still trying to focus on at least one of his friends inside the sub.

    "He's gone into the void and I can't reach him," he replied. "Rose is gone. I can't connect to her."

    "Rose?" Raven asked as she overheard the end of his reveal of information.

    "I can't reach either of them," he turned to her, both of their eyes showing too much of their concern.

    "I'm going after her—"

    "Raven, stop! There's no way you are going in there!" Charles exclaimed, peaking the interest of each of them on the beach too.

    Inside the sub, Erik and Shaw were facing off. Now fuelled by the potential death of the only person who had cared for him as much as his own parents, he knew what he had to do. Shaw, on the other hand, was too arrogant to realise this might be his end.

    With the touch of his finger on Erik's forehead, the man was launched back into the wall of the small room, cracking the glass. On the beach Charles let out a yell at the sudden reappearance of Erik's mind, the others stopping their fighting over who would go in as a rescue team, and instead paid attention to him.

    'Erik, whatever you do you can keep doing it. It's starting work.'

    The man inside the sub looked up, noticing the crack in the glass, before he looked back to Shaw. Getting up, he pulled the metal behind the mirrors through.

    "It's working!" Charles exclaimed, happy to have at least one of them back. 'I'm starting to see him. But I can't yet touch his mind,' he told Erik, who pushed his hands towards Shaw.

    Seeing his movements, Shaw used the energy he had absorbed to fix Erik to the side of the chamber.

    "I don't want to hurt you, Erik. I never did. I wanna help you. This our time. Our age. We are the future of the human race. You and me, son. This world could be ours," he explained, Erik seeing the glow of Rose through the hole his head had made. She was moving, the glow diminishing as her body used up the power to heal her system that was at war with itself, trying to contain the energy.

    "Everything you did, made me stronger. Made me the weapon I am today. It's the truth. I've known it all along. You are my creator," Erik spoke, looking to Shaw as with subtle movements of his fingers, a copper wire reached towards Shaw's helmet.

    Rose had gotten up, spotting the hole in the wall.

    "You and me, son," Shaw repeated, feeling that he had done a good job.

    Arrogance is lethal.

    "You shouldn't call him son," Rose spoke loud enough for Shaw to hear, turning as Erik's wire grabbed onto the helmet, and pulled it off.

    "Now Charles!"

    Entering his mind, the telepath froze Shaw, Rose blowing off the side of the room to make enough space for her and Erik. At the release of the energy, she fell to her knees, letting out a sigh.

    "I almost killed you," she told him, his eyes confused. "I didn't see you in here, I just saw him, and I almost killed you," she breathed, looking up at him. Reaching his hand down, she took it, letting him pull her onto her feet.

    "Are you all right?"

    "I don't know. Hurry up and get out of here. I don't know if I can hold it, or if I'll just explode, quite like the bomb he wanted," she answered, her hands still glowing a dim white, and her eyes were a striking neon blue, a stark contrast from her usual brown.

    She was too caught up in trying to control her own struggles to see Erik turn, and look to the helmet in wonder. She missed as he apologised to Charles, but she didn't miss the glint of the helmet as he put it on his head.

    "Erik—"

    "I'm sorry, Rose," he spoke, fixing her to the side of the room, moving two thinner pieces to cross her hands onto her chest, so that she couldn't move or stop him.

    "Erik!"