CHAPTER 38

KRAKOOM!

The mansion and the entire vicinity was swallowed in blinding white as the boisterous thunder sound travelled through the ears of the citizens of New York City.

After the deafening sound, came stunning silence.

The surroundings becoming as tranquil as the surface of a lake at night, making every one of nature's night critters forsake their basic instincts as they shared the same silence as the night.

The people who witnessed this scene all held their breath, not succumbing to the folly of drawing one.

Not yet.

They waited, waited for the man to make a move again. Even a twitching limb at this point wouldn't surprise them anymore.

They waited for what seemed like hours for anything to signify that their struggle still continued.

The silence was broken when one of them crashed to the floor before the others released a breath they didn't know they were holding.

"It's finally over right?" Bobby asked to no one in particular.

Storm flew down, though her eyes still lingered on the crater she caused when she struck him down.

Not even she knew what came over her, the amount of anger she felt was not something she ever thought she could possess – nor was the power.

Logan was already healed, making his was to Colossus to check if he was okay.

Bobby kept hyperventilating as he replayed what the gaze of that man felt like as he stood in front of him.

Never would he have thought someone could shrug off his ability to that extent. It was unnerving.

He saw what looked like his death as the eyes of the man glowed red, blasting off his crystalline head in a flash of searing heat.

He was afraid.

If Ms. Grey and Scott hadn't worked together to stop the man's advance, would he have been killed?

If Ms. Monroe hadn't appeared at the last minute, he would have died wouldn't he?

The Iceman sat on the floor, feeling a cold shill caressing his entire body as he shivered from the freezing thought.

He just sat on the floor, looking at the crater as he started sucking in bouts of air as the panic rose.

"You did good kid." He felt a pat on his shoulders and flinched as he turned but calmed down when he saw Logan behind him. That gesture proved useful a his breathing slowed down to an even pace.

"Y-yeah." Was all he could say as his voice shook.

Not only him, even Scott had the same expression although for different reasons, but fear was one of them.

Scott didn't know what the fuck was happening.

Sure he knew the guy was strong, very strong from what he saw back at the base but NOT this strong.

He almost wiped them out.

Scott saw how Draul became impervious to his attack and he didn't know how to feel about it.

It was something he considered to be borderline of impossibility.

He wasn't being arrogant with that but it was just that it wasn't that someone couldn't block his attack, but he believed at least they would with either their own ability of used something else. He had never met someone who tanked his laser beams with their own body and came out unscathed.

That part shocked him sure, but the topping that created that fear was seeing his own ability being used by the man and it was stronger than what he could currently achieve.

If Piotr didn't stop Draul during their laser beam confrontation, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that he would have lost. And that was a grating thought.

He looked at the still groggy John, that punch definitely did a number on him.

John to his applause, wasn't thinking of anything complicated.

The punch did more than just knock him out, it also knocked the complicated feelings out of him. It was… therapeutic.

He didn't know what made Draul flipped the switch, but that thought didn't matter. If he were left to rampage as he was then who knew what kind of damage he'd cause.

That was not even zoning on the fact that he seemed hell bent on finding the Professor and sticking it to him.

But he'll have to admit – he didn't expect Draul to be that strong. That punch was… enlightening.

Unknown to them, the one who was shook to the core was the only one who didn't face him directly – Jean.

When the others went after him, she remained behind to help the students and also check on the Professor who according to Kitty was found in Cerebro's room.

She wasn't stupid. She knew something must've happened between the Professor and Draul but she put that aside until the Professor woke up.

She tried to wake him up but no matter what she did, the Professor remained fainted, shivering and muttering something she couldn't hear so she decided to do this the manual way.

She tried to enter the Professor's mindscape to find out from him what happened but all she picked up was chaos. Pain. Suffering. And Chaos.

She tried all she could to get in but it seemed like the Professor's mind was forcibly shut down. Blocking all information or intrusion from entering or leaving.

Seeing she couldn't do any about the Professor for the time being, she hurried back to the confrontation between her teammates and Draul.

It was when she was getting nearer that she felt it – Malevolence.

It was heart-wrenching.

The focused anger that emanated from him was all-encompassing.

It didn't wash over the others like every other intense emotion she'd felt; it was as if it was directed in a straight line.

She tried to stop her mind but she kept on picking up the cold feeling of destruction from him at it was at that point she saw it.

Chaos.

Violence.

Havoc.

Despair.

Mayhem.

Behind the façade of these emotions laid… something. A slumbering taboo, an entity of nothing.

It felt as if everything, every emotion she'd ever felt was an illusion, not as strong, not as intense… not as real as what she felt from him.

His anger was the personification of a living nightmare.

She froze.

Hoping he won't direct it towards her.

She stayed rooted to that spot for who knew how long until Bobby voice filtered into her ears. When she saw Draul making his way towards Bobby and Scott she did all she could to channel her powers towards him trying to stop him in any way she could.

From what she saw from both Bobby's and Scott's faces, they were afraid but it was such an unusual feeling because she couldn't feel their fear. She couldn't feel any emotion from anyone in the vicinity… because all were dwarfed in his anger.

She didn't know what spurred her on but she suddenly felt emboldened as she did all she could to push him back for however long it took just so he didn't get to Bobby and Scott because now she felt a tiny part of his anger was directed towards them.

She pushed and pushed even as powers she didn't know she had flooded her body as she felt the illusionary sense of something cracking. It was too small that it slipped her mind the moment it came.

She was starting to get really nervous when he stood in front of Scott and Bobby as his eyes started flaring she screamed.

It was as if what she saw from his emotions were coming true.

She wanted him to stop.

And as if the heavens were listening to her pleas, the night sky lit up as she saw her friend, someone who they called the personification of the fury of heaven – Storm, wielding more power than she had ever seen her before. She didn't hear what Storm said before the lightning struck and as if she had her strings cut, she fell to the floor as the tension and nervousness she felt bled out from her body.

She was tired and she needed a good sleep, thankfully the night was still young.

"It's finally over right?" She heard Bobby ask but she was just too tired to answer him or anyone else, just like the rest.

They all took their time to collect their thoughts before they walked to the crater.

In the middle of the crater lied the young man who almost destroyed the Mansion. Needless to say, they were very complicated on what to do.

"Sooo…. What are we gonna do with him? And I hate to be that guy to say it, but he's dangerous." John said while the others just took in the image of the man as he was already almost fully healed from that lightning strike and all the they could think was, 'Monster', with the context varying from one another.

"Lets just take him back, this night has been a clusterfuck and it still isn't midnight yet." Piotr in a rare occasion cursed but due to the present situation, flew right by everyone's head.

"Are you crazy! What if he wakes up and decides to go all 'murder all' on our asses again." Scott said not at all liking the idea of fighting the guy again.

"So we just leave him here… out in the night… without a shirt on… with the chilly breeze… what if he catches a cold?" The tin man said but all he received was a collective deadpan as an answer.

"Really? That's what you're worried about? Him," Scott said pointing at the now fully healed man to stress out his point, "catching a cold?"

To the tin man's credit, he just shrugged as they all continued the staring contest.

"Uhm, why are we all staring at the dude?" Bobby asked sounding unsure.

"*Sigh* Let's just take him with us and get this over with. We still need answers from Charles." Logan said as he walked into the crater and picked the man up and hoisted him over the shoulders.

He walked past the others and made way to the Mansion.

"Hey furball! Come check him out." He called out to Hank as he reached the Mansion. The blue ball of beast coming out from the medbay with a coat and a stethoscope on.

"What the hell happened out there?" He asked as he saw the state with dirt and soot covering every part of their body.

"Turns out, he's got anger issues. That's what happened." Logan said as he went to the nearby fridge and pulled out a bottle of beer.

The others came into the bay and they saw the Professor asleep on one the medical beds with an helmet like that of Cerebro's attached to his head.

"What happened to the Professor?" Scott was the first to ask as he saw the body of his mentor laid down on a bed.

"He's fine for the most part but his Theta and Beta waves are all over the place." Hank said as he laid down the body of Draul on another bed.

"What do you mean?"

"His neurons are all over the roof, firing haphazardly across the stream, colliding with one another… Put in simpler terms, it's like a bomb went off in his brain." He saw as they all flinched at that and immediately, corrected himself.

"Putting it mildly, he's having a super induced headache. He likely be out for the next few hours, most likely experience bouts of headache for the next few days. We still don't know what other lasting effects it would have on Charles." He clarified and they all took in a breath of relief.

"It's his fault isn't it?" Scott said pointing as the sleeping Draul.

"Scott we don't know that ye-" Jean tried to reason with him but he wasn't having it.

"Don't we? We all saw how he tried to kill the Professor didn't we? So what don't we know?" Scott all but shouted at that point.

"Exactly nothing." Logan said.

"What t-"

"We don't know why he tried to kill Chuck but last time we checked, he ain't psychic." Logan said calmly as he sipped from his beer.

What he said drew the attention of the room's occupants.

According to the Kitty, she said she found the Professor inside Cerebro passed out and before everything started they all heard Charles' psychic scream before Draul acted up in anger.

They didn't reach a conclusion of what actually happened but the train of thoughts they all had were not in a nice direction.

"We don't know if that was what really happened." Scott argued.

"True, we don't. So until one of them wakes up we keep our thoughts to ourselves and have a good nights sleep before the bullshit that is tomorrow comes." Logan said as he finished his beer before walking out of the room.

"I for one say that's a suggestion as good as any." John seconded before he too picked himself up and dragged his aching body to his room.

"Hank what do you think is happening to him right now." Ororo asked Hank who walked up to the monitor and reviewed the information on it.

"From what I can see, nothing. He's in top shape." But it turns out that remark was not one they were expecting.

How the hell could someone who was pretty much attacked with every strike they could dole out all the while being entirely murder-focused be all right? Even if he could heal, that last lightening strike from Ororo was beyond terrifying to not do something to him.

"What do you mean top shape?" She asked.

"His energy levels are off the charts, but that seems pretty normal for him given his ability. His vitals doesn't show otherwise, basically all I can say is he's having a nap."

…

…

"That's it. I'm going to bed." Bobby was fed up with this shit.