Slings and Arrows of Grave Misfortune

Posted on Fri May 21st, 2021 @ 11:05am by Charles Xavier

1,057 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Episode 1: X-Odus
Location: X-Mansion
Timeline: June 21, 1990

Hypnogagia is the term given to the state of consciousness between sleep and wakefulness. The mind is active yet not fully conscious. Neural activity ramps up but not enough to awaken just yet. There is merely an awareness of ... of what came before, a sliver of what was transpire, perhaps a glimpse of what was to come.

Images flashed through Xavier's mind. His students, their faces, their psyches, all of them calling out in agony. And not just one of them. All students, each individual a chorus of voices crying for aid, as though each one had become infinite variations of themselves and then crushed back into one. The cacophony reached a crescendo of wailing before popping under the strain.

Or maybe that was Professor Charles Xavier's mind.

A final spike of adrenaline surged through his body, his autonomous nervous system forcibly pulling his mind from the Astral Plane back to terra firma.

Charles did not merely wake up. When his mind resumed physical control of his body, his consciousness exploded into bodily awareness like a cognitive nuclear reactor nearing a meltdown. The scream that shot out of him was not only vocal but mental. Psionic eddies mingled with soundwaves as Professor X called back to the team who until what seemed like a moment ago had been calling out for him.

"My X-Men!"

Telepathically, he stretched forth his mind. ~To me, my X-Men! Answer me!~

But his mind could not touch theirs. Not one of them.

Scott. Jean. Hank. Bobby. Warren. Alex. Lorna.

Somehow ... they were lost.

While Xavier wore the headpiece for Cerebro, his custom-built computer system that utilized next-generation tracking and monitoring capabilities to detect mutant activity, it was inactive. Evidently he had been asleep for some time, perhaps hours. Using the psionic jolt necessary to reactivate Cerebro, it slowly dawned on Charles that he could not recall why he had been using Cerebro in the first place.

Was it a mission? The logs for the day were blank, indicating that he had not conducted any search functions for the past 24 hours. But that did not make sense. Cerebro beeped as it reactivated. It was time to find out where his students were.

Immediately Charles felt his psychic awareness grow beyond the mutants in the school around him. There were thousands in New York state alone, but none of them matched the psionic signatures of his precious seven. Expanding outward, his mind systematically roamed the various regions and areas of operations they had conducted before.

New York City.

San Francisco.

East Germany.

Antarctica.

The thought that they had perished briefly crossed his mind, but Professor X refused to consider it at any length. Cerebro was not perfect. There could be gaps in its detection system. He was being too narrow or too broad in his scans. That had to be it.

Nevertheless, Charles had to admit that Cerebro was not being helpful. He disengaged from its interface and went to the war room computer in the adjacent section of the second subbasement. From there he began searching the flight logs for the Blackbird, the team's jet.

Charles could barely believe it. According to the flight logs, the Blackbird had never left, yet the camera system showed the hangar was empty. What could possibly have wiped Cerebro's search logs as well as the war room computer? Something had systematically erased every possible record of where the X-Men had gone.

Even from Xavier's mind.

That should not be possible. And yet here it was staring Xavier in the face. Folding his hands around his face, Xavier let out a meek, baleful whimper. Something had taken everything from him in one fell swoop and it had done so without leaving so much as a trace.

"What am I going to do?"

A blip sounded off from the war room computer. Charles looked up from his grief and felt a spark of hope ignite within his soul. Reaching forward to accept the prompt from the radar system, he was welcomed with the sight of the Blackbird returning home.

"Blackbird, this is Home Base. Do you you hear me?"

No reply. Charles tried again.

"Blackbird, this is Professor X. Do you hear me? Please respond!"

Nothing but silence on the channel.

According to the radar, the Blackbird was about 200 miles inland, traveling north by northeast. A direct flight trajectory would have put its point of origin somewhere in the South Pacific, but there was no way to be certain.

At least Xavier knew where the jet was. As overwhelmed as he was with relief and joy, he did not require Cerebro to send his mind outward. Charles closed his eyes and visualized the Blackbird in his mind. Immediately his perception leapt from his body to search out the incoming aircraft at the speed of thought.

What he perceived onboard deflated him greatly.

Not seven souls, but one. Cyclops. And his lifeforce was fading. He had fought a great battle. Though his physical injuries were not life-threatening, they would require treatment and recuperation to fully recover.

That which greatly concerned Xavier, more than the fact Scott was alone, was the imprint upon his mind. The X-Men's team leader had been subjected to intense psychological warfare and possible torture.

Left catatonic on the deck of the Blackbird, he was in no position to fly. The aircraft had been set to autopilot with its Return to Base command serving as Scott's only lifeline.

Charles went to the lift that would take him to the first subbasement. At current velocity the Blackbird would be making its landing approach in less than 20 minutes. That would be just enough time for him to fire up the autodoc in the surgical trauma ward before returning to the hangar. While he had faith in the autopilot, Charles intended on performing a remote controlled landing himself.

The rest of the X-Men were missing, but Xavier had Scott. He would make sure he did everything possible to ensure the young man's well-being. If he knew anything, it was that Scott's resolve to find his friends would burn as strong as Xavier's own.

But they would not be able to do it alone. Once Scott was safely under the ministrations of the autodoc, Xavier would have to return to Cerebro for another purpose.

He would have to form another team.

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