[2009 – October]
Terror surging in her heart, Ororo felt as if someone had ripped her very soul from her body, her connection to Earth and mother nature, to the world around her, having been severed from one moment to another.
It felt as if an essential part of who she was had been taken from her and she was powerless to even notice how it had been done, much less stop it.
The pain that she felt at being unable to feel the forces of nature around her, comforting her and giving her strength, Ororo failed to even find words for this kind of agony.
The fear in her heart was near immeasurable as she looked into the hard, shadowed green eyes of the young Frost, unable to comprehend how he had taken away the most precious thing that she possessed without even moving.
It was only at this moment that Ororo truly understood how foolish they had been to come here and confront the young man, whose powers were simply beyond their ability to comprehend.
They didn't understand Elijah Frost enough to know what he was capable of, or how far he was willing to go.
Feeling too weak to even stand on her own, she was lucky that Logan was by her side to help support her weight as she listened to the young man's words as he turned around and his dark figure left the office a few moments later, her connection to mother earth thankfully restored with the young man's departure.
Still, Ororo suppressed the sigh of relief that sat on her lips, a shudder running through her slender frame as she held back a few desperate tears.
Up until now, she had been through a lot in her life but never had she felt so vulnerable when facing someone, so exposed.
The forces of nature had always been her greatest reliance and shield, even if everything else in her life had seemed uncertain and rather hopeless. Having been stripped of her connection to them so easily had shaken her to her core, scaring her mentally and emotionally.
Truly, Ororo had no desire to ever face Elijah Frost like this again.
…
From the moment that he had stepped into Emma's office and had laid his eyes on the boy's tall figure, Logan had known that this meeting wasn't going to go their way.
Having worn a pair of black slacks and a jacket of the same colour, which had a raised collar and a few large buttons over the whole length, along with a grey woolen sweater beneath it, Elijah had seemed to exude an aura of quiet confidence, his calm gaze denying the world around him to circumvent his control in any way.
Logan understood that Hank had senses that rivaled or even surpassed his own but the blue-skinned scientist lacked decades of experience when it came to war and slaughter when compared to him.
As such, the beast-like mutant hadn't been able to see the danger that Logan had sensed to be omnipresent as soon as he had come face to face with the young man, as if some higher existence had been breathing down his neck.
Even a legendary fighter like himself couldn't help but be pensive when faced with such a situation, despite being somewhat of a hothead. He had felt a strange sense of dread around Elijah that he had not felt for decades and that hadn't been there in the past.
It had taken him a few moments to realize that his animalistic instincts were telling him of a threat to his life.
Even more worrying though, had been that the Professor and Ororo had seemed to fail when it came to recognizing exactly what kind of person Elijah was even at this point.
Having already sensed the incredible darkness and the potential for malevolence that slumbered within him when the young man had still been at Xavier's, Logan knew that he wasn't a kind-hearted teenager that shied away from enacting violence at all.
The recordings of Elijah decimating a mountain range and turning hundreds of people to nothingness should have been proof enough of that, though surprisingly it wasn't.
Through his daughter, the aged warrior also had a clearer understanding of the black-haired young man's character besides what his gut told him, and he had somehow known that the Professor's efforts to convince Elijah to stay his hand in the future wouldn't work, and might even have some unpleasant consequences.
Still, Logan had decided to accompany the others out of loyalty despite the risks, being confident in his own ability to survive in most situations, not to mention that he had also wanted to have a chance at meeting Laura and spending some time with her.
In the end, the results of the short meeting had proven his premonition about how it might turn out, to be right but he couldn't say that he was happy about that.
Instead, Logan was worried about what kind of future was awaiting the mutant race seeing as Elijah's words weren't spoken without truth.
Turning his gaze to Emma's beautiful figure and thoughtful crystal eyes while a heavy silence spread in the room, he couldn't help but remember the short time that the two of them had been together in the past.
It had been at a time when she had still been Charles' student, up until he had noticed that the gorgeous blonde was trying to use him to enact revenge on members of the Hellfire Club.
The fact that the icy White Queen was no longer the most dangerous member of the Frost family, by far, caused a surge of complex and fearful emotions to rise in his heart.
Emma was the first to break the silence as she levitated a small tablet into his hands and stated calmly: "On this, you will find detailed documentation about the reason for the attack. It should be enough to set your mind at ease that my brother is not a mindless killer."
The beautiful blonde's words had a sharp undertone in them as she looked at the four of them dismissively while continuing: "Not that you could hope to stop him if he was."
Snorting a bit angrily while passing the tablet to Hank, Logan realized that Emma's talent for aggravating others with her words was still as great as it has ever been.
…
Leaving Emma's office behind, I made my way down the main building, past many of the academy students that gave looks with different emotions contained inside them, the most obvious being the flirtatious and shy ones, as well as the jealous ones.
It may have been Sunday but there were still many extracurricular activities that took place at the weekend. A few weeks back, Jean herself had started to attend some dance classes every now and then.
Not to mention that as a boarding school, there were always a lot of students around, no matter the time.
Walking over the cobblestone path to the Hellion Mansion, my thoughts started to wander back to the reason for the Professor's visit.
To be entirely honest, I cared very little about mutantkind as a whole and I didn't really want to involve myself in some kind of race war. Though considering that those I cared about were mostly mutants, I wasn't sure how much of a choice I had in this respect if I didn't want to see them die.
Still, I didn't feel much belonging to the mutant race, or the human race for that matter, so their conflict wasn't something that I took personal.
Naturally, this stance was afforded to me by my power as things would certainly be different if I was a weaker mutant, or a normal human even. Being as powerful as I was, I had the freedom to remove myself from this conflict if I so desired.
That didn't mean that I would just listen to Xavier drone on about his naive hopes for peaceful coexistence when it was obvious that he seemed to care more about how humanity looked at mutantkind, instead of caring more for the atrocities that were enacted on the members of the race that he sought protection for.
His willingness to see mutants being hurt just so that humanity wouldn't fear them when they fought back, was almost sickening.
I had also already visited Fury to make sure that I would be left alone for what I did with the Facility, so I saw no reason to visit every other government body that was concerned about the threat that I posed to them.
If the World Security Council wasn't completely oblivious, they would surely pacify the different parties to avoid angering me. And if they didn't, it would be no skin off my back.
Crushing a human nation as a Realm Lord was akin to accidentally sneezing in their direction, after all.