A Bunch Of Party Crushers
Salt air was never a problem for Charles Xavier. On the contrary, he was quite fond of the taste of it on his lips and the slight pinch on his skin every time the small drops would hit his face whenever he was traveling across the sea since he was a just kid. During the years of his youth it wasn’t rare that he had to hop on a ship, whether for vacations and quality time with his family, his father’s shipping business, or his never-ending studies as the brilliant boy he was. The sea was his longest friend, in some poetic, but lonely way.
At 26 years old, he had already came and gone from his wealthy life in Westchester to Harvard and then to do some more years in Oxford. That last travel he had to cut short: the scholars and his books were a passion of his, but when news about his mother’s poor health conditions arrived, he couldn’t not go back to America, first to take care of her, but more importantly to take on the responsibilities of the family business as the Heir of their fortune.
Everyday he would take a chariot from his mansion to downtown New York with a busy schedule: sometimes he’d go to the infirmaries in the city common, or the church, but most times he’d be held hostage in endless meetings with his family’s many business partners who would always ended up charmed by the young man, his vision, and his wisdom that seemed too great for someone his age. At his return, when most people would go to sleep, he was caught in a book or two almost every night until reminded of his bedtime -mostly by his sister, Raven, but his two students, Alex and Hank, wouldn’t miss the opportunity to pester with the importance of rest as he would with them as well.
Aware as he was of the people that relied on him to survive in many more ways than the usual, he’d keep appearances even with his family and talk nonstop of the marvels and novelties of his position, the parties he was invited to, and the courtesans and heirs of other families that would try to get a piece of that big Xavier money. But even if he’d sometimes indulge in the intoxicating attention, he wasn’t happy. He craved true connection and depth, he needed a mind that wouldn’t hesitate on challenging him even over the smallest of things. And he knew a thing or two about minds.
Charles was painfully aware of many things, but the most urgent at the moment was the safety of his very home. In his many visits downtown he’d caught a couple of religious rallies in parks and outside the church, warning everybody of a dooming danger that was creeping on America: some way of witchcraft that was said to give supernatural powers to men and defy God Himself. The people of New York were afraid and quick to go down the path of distrust and violence, and he was starting to get so worried about the possible consequences of collective paranoia that it’d give him headaches. And with good reasons to be wary as well, because Charles Xavier was a gifted young man in more ways than normal people could ever imagine: he could hear other people's thoughts.
It wasn't easy to be gifted. He had spent the a good amount of his childhood years locked inside his house with current visitations from doctors and priests alike, trying to fix his problem. Soon enough he understood that all the voices that tormented him didn't come from his mind but from everyone else’s. Lonely and scared, little Charles was haunted by his own family’s nightmares and fears. Their deepest secrets and impulses were no secret to him, and he learnt way too much, way too young, about how ruthless and nasty the world can be. For his own safety, he made sure no one could remember about his special situation, and took it upon himself to research on his condition as much as his role and responsibilities as Heir could allow him, and then some.
That night, it was responsibilities in the best way possible. Hank had been accepted in Oxford just like his mentor and Charles was to throw him a party to celebrate this accomplisment. Charles loved to host, and parties were his big guilty pleasure - a place where so many people, so many minds, allowed themselves to relax and enjoy life. He was a very openly social person, and his parties held that reputation up to that high standard. All of New York’s socialité was expected to atend and everyone knew it, as Xavier’s parties were the talk of the town for days.
With the young 16 year old Hank McCoy at the center of attention, live music, and the best food in the city, the party to celebrate the young prodigy had gone perfectly for hours. Charles had gotten into a very entertaining conversation about rumors that came from other ports not too far from their location, tales of a damned crew of demons whose ship would come out of nowhere and storm cities, burn churches to the ground, and even kidnap innocent people that was never heard of again. Charles was sceptic, of course, as he was sure he would’ve heard of such a thing before if it was true.
“Please, General Stryker, you can’t expect me to take this as fact”, Charles said, as he took another sip of wine from his glass. General Stryker was part of the Royal Navy and had been recently promoted after taking down three pirate ships in one strike. His lastname was very fitting, Charles thought. The presence of sailors in his social events was requested by his very guests as a security measure, and he reluctantly agreed as a courtesy. Charles was sure that he could handle any problem all by himself, if he was ever in that position. “A disappearing ship? A crew of demons? I think the Church wouldn’t let that be unknown, would they now?”
“With all due respect, sir, you couldn’t possibly know the things I’ve seen at sea”. The man’s voice was rough, almost rusty. “And it has been spoken in all ports, you would know if you financed my quest.”
“Her Majesty was already notified my money will not be used to feed a witch hunt”, Charles quicky remarked, as if he was tired of that topic. And he was, Stryker had tried to get him on board of his new enterprise to hunt “powerful demons” for months now, to the point he wondered how he was named general in the first place. He was ready to excuse himself, done with that conversation, when the sudden ring of the bells down the port interrupted him, followed by the many shot of cannons.
“Everybody stay inside! Guards, to the gates!”, Charles shouted, as his middle and index fingers went to touch his own temple. His words orders imediately followed, and all the guards except Stryker -who ran to his horse as soon as the first bell rang- went to cover all doors as his guests where overwhelmed by the need to seek cover in one of the many rooms of the mansion. And he was about to go find his students and Raven when he got a sudden and sharp pain on his head while checking for intruders around his home. Impossible, he thought, as the alarm had sounded just minutes ago and that was too fast for an attack to get to their exact location, but he was certain that pain was an intruder. He was only shocked by the speed of the assault, or that’s how he comforted himself as he struggled to find his center again and come up with a plan.
He started to wander around the first floor until he ended up at the staircase that led to the second floor, where he was sure would find his family if he was to make a mental swipe of the mansion. Charles was about to check and was halfway to put his fingers back into his temple when a number of distant “poofs” diverted him from the task. A frown tensed his face when he found himself unable to detect the origin of the sounds with his mind, although he was sure he had detected a trail of thought somewhere. It was as if a mind was so elusive he couldn’t grab it. Charles was so focused in the task at mind that he only noticed a couple seconds too late that, whatever it was, it was getting closer to him.
“What in the”. Charles couldn’t finish his sentence as a cloud of deep red smoke materialized in front of him, followed by a humanoid form - a man with red skin, wearing a black three-piece suit with a winish red shirt, and- whas that a pointy tail coming out of his trousers? Charles didn’t have much time to process what the man looked like, as he was quicky met with the point of that same tail dangerously close to his neck, forcing him to take one step back.
“Hell?”, offered the man, with a knowing smile showing his pointy canines. His face had some visible deep scars, but his eyes were the most eye-catching feature of his face. bright yellow, similar to her sister’s. If it weren’t for the situation of hostility and iminent danger they both were at the moment, Charles would be ecstatic to meet another blessed one. The man must’ve mistaken his silence for shock, because he left out a loud, rough laugh. Charles took that opportunity to take a quick look into his mind, enough to know he was looking for a man, a woman a two young adolescents. He felt his blood cold.
“No, you will not!”, Charles responded to an unspoken challenge, and in mere protective impulse he threw himself over the man as fast as he could. Using his abilities over the mind of the man, Charles forced him to use his own gift of teleportation to obey an intense and direct “go back”, not taking into account the possibility of being affected by it. As a result, Charles was transported with the man in a confusing and gizzy trip that forced him to close his eyes. By the time it had ended, he felt the need to throw up. He held his abdomen with one arm and covered his mouth with the other as an attempt to stop the nausea, but found the task difficult as he felt the ground under his feet move constantly. It wasn’t until Charles opened his eyes and looked up that he realised two things: the red man was laying unconscious at his feet, and he was very far from his mansion. In fact, he wasn’t on land at all.
He looked and turned around as he was surrounded by part the crew of the ship he had ended up in, two men and one woman not older than him. As he was about to lay his fingers on his head again, he was interrupted by one of the young men, whose left hand catched on fire while he seemed unbothered. Message received: no sudden movements, or else.
“I told you we would find one”, said the woman over her shoulder, speaking to someone that was outside his visual range at the moment. Charles looked at her in disbelief and opened his mouth, but was interrupted. “Don’t deny it, I know what you are. I saw you”, she declared with her white eyes fixed on his, as if it wasn’t the first time in his life Charles saw any of them. For a moment he considered that she could have the same gift he did, although it seemed unlikely. In his experience, every person he’d met had a different inner voice, so he imagined that if he ever encountered another one exactly like him, their touch inside his own mind would be something he could feel and identify.
Charles lifted his face and looked around, finding the figure of a tall man with a three-pointed hat on his head and a confident smile drawn over his lips right on the bow of the ship. His strong built was visible even with his long dark coat. He wore high boots and baggy breeches, a vest over his waist, two pistols and one long sword. Charles thought that was a very stereotypical pirate attire, but he couldn’t deny it suited him quite well.
“That I can see, Destiny. Pyro, let’s show our guest some manners, shall we? He’s obviously used to… higher standards”. The pause the man did with the almost jugdy look that accompanied his sharp words almost made him feel ashamed for his position. He fought the urge to look away and locked his eyes into the man in front o him, which seemed to amuse him. Both the men stepped back, and the one named Pyro, or that he assumed, turned off the flames of his fist with the same ease he had summoned them before. The woman, Destiny, simply nodded with a proud smile, and Charles wondered if they really had assaulted the city looking for him specifically.
Charles tried a somewhat shy mental swipe to find out more about his now captors without the aid of his hand, but he found a general state of resistance to his mental wanderings, as if there was a shield protecting the ship from invisible invasions like his, that made him barely hold his surprise. That was something that had never happened. “Pyro, go light the signal, have the rest come back. We are leaving”, ordered the man, and Pyro went away after a quick “aye, captain”. That made him get out of his own mind, with a soft headache building on the back of his head that made him sigh.
“Excuse me, you’re leaving? How am I getting back to the shore?”, Charles asked with a poorly disguised panic undertone, as he watched the rest of the crew start moving around the ship. The captain’s smile widened in a way that made Charles shiver, realising the danger he was in. “It was my event that you decided to crush and ruin with your disappearing red man. Very rude, if you ask me.”
“Oh, you’re not going back”, declared the man as something heavy hit him right on his nape, making him fall right next to the red man that brought him to the ship and rendering him imediately unconscious. As a giant man who was part of the crew went to pick Charles up from the floor, the Captain Erik Lehnsherr contemplated the many fires ashore that small figures were trying to put of. With a movement of his hand he slowly levitated down to the deck, where he palmed Charles shoulder before he was taken away. “Welcome to the Brotherhood.”