13 Mind battle

Why did this happen? That thought played in Charles' mind as he concentrated all his power. The defenses he had set up should have been enough to hold it back for months, at least. They hadn't held up for even two days.

The boy was resisting the dragon as hard as he could. Standing still in front of the front yard of the mansion, twitching constantly with a vacant look in his eyes.

The massive dragon that was tethered to him was snarling and growling up in the sky towards them but hadn't made any more noises after the first shout.

It was almost identical to the day when they had found him, they only lacked a smoldering ruin underneath the boy. Thus, the actions Harry took didn't elicit an overt reaction from either him or Logan, but it still did make them twitch slightly.

The students who had awoken and had come to look at what was happening, they hadn't seen something like this before.

The massive dragon hovering in front of them all was attention grabbing, but nothing like the display that Harry was making right now.

There were gasps and shouts with each and every tear and slice Harry made. Blood burst out and started to pool around his legs, soaking the ground. Charles closed his eyes with a sense of urgency as the boy started his last desperate measures to keep control.

His mind was surprisingly easy to find, it might have been thanks to Harry being aware of him that made it as such, but he didn't dwell on it long. Delving into Harry's mind revealed a battleground.

The walls he had set up were practically torn down and the dragon was trying to consume Harry's mind. Both Harry and the dragon grew increasingly smaller with each second that passed. Charles was familiar with what was happening.

It was the sign that someone's body was sustaining damage, a mark that someone was on their way to die.

"Stop, you idiot! You'll kill us both!" The dragon shouted with a desperate urgency in its voice.

"I'd rather die with you than let you live!" Harry shouted back, holding desperately to the last corners of his mind.

If Charles didn't act fast, there would be unimaginable consequences. He gathered all his power and started repairing the walls discreetly. The dragon didn't notice as the holes within the walls were slowly starting to mend over, until there was only a single big gap left within the walls.

It was too occupied with trying to devour the last vestiges of Harry's mind. Charles gathered his power and directed it towards the dragon, trying to pull it towards the gap in the wall.

"You!" The dragon finally noticed it and stopped trying to devour Harry and directed his attention to him. "Die!" It gave Harry enough time to slowly spread his control over his mind once again.

Even with both him and Harry trying to push the dragon back into its cage, it wasn't enough. Harry had already regained majority control of his mind with his help, but it wasn't enough.

"Hold on just a while longer, I'll get more help!" Charles shouted through gritted teeth.

He withdrew his mind from Harry's. Opening his eyes back in his own body once again, he saw that Harry was kneeling down on the ground, surrounded by a pool of his own blood. His right hand, or rather, claw was lodged into his belly.

"Logan, get Jean here immediately." Logan responded with a concerned glance but obeyed him nonetheless. He had to recover what little strength he could right now, it was more efficient to send Logan to find her rather than send a message.

Jean was a telepath just like him, she had the potential to grow to be even stronger than he was. He was certain that she was within the crowd behind him, watching the current events.

Harry started twitching again.

"Arggh!" A loud roar of pain bellowed out from him as he ripped his claw out of his stomach, resulting in a torrent of blood sprouting out before the wound healed over.

He continued wounding himself, slashing, tearing, even biting his own flesh in a desperate attempt to weaken the dragon or at least slow the process of the takeover to give them enough time to help him.

Charles supposed it was also a fail safe should the dragon be close to succeeding. He didn't doubt that Harry would rather kill himself than give up his body. He had shown he was capable of doing that.

"Charles, I've brought her." Logan said as he ran to him, Jean following behind him with a concerned and scared expression.

"Professor, what's happening to Harry?" She asked. "Why is he doing something like that?"

"We need to help him; I'll explain it to you afterwards." He extended his hand. "Take my hand."

Jean uncertainly extended her hand and touched his, not a moment after Charles brought them both into Harry's mind.

The dragon was once again trying to devour Harry and had almost succeeded, though both were already looking much smaller than the last time he had been here.

"Jean, I need you to help me pull that thing there and seal it!" Charles didn't look towards her. "Can you do it?"

"I don't know if I can!" They were yelling as the air was filled with a static that started to interfere with their thoughts.

"Jean, Harry's life is on the line!" He turned to look at her. "We need you!"

She didn't respond but nodded. They both gathered all the power they could muster and unleashed them at the same time at the unaware dragon.

Their powers attached themselves onto the entity like chains, starting to drag it towards the hole in the cage he had constructed.

"You!" The dragon turned to regard them both furiously. "Stop interfering!"

Their combined powers were enough to pull the dragon backwards towards the cage. But it wasn't enough, and the entity was starting to fight back. Cracks were starting to appear on Jean's chains and after a short while, his chains suffered the same fate.

Harry was slowly starting to regain his bearings and started to wrest back the control the dragon had tried to take, but it wasn't fast enough. It would break free of the chains at this rate.

The restraints within Jean's mind were draining too much of his powers. If they weren't present, he might have been able to restrain it alone.

He would have to loosen those to restrain the dragon. It didn't even take a second for him to decide to do so. This threat was far more imminent than the unknow within Jean's mind. He wouldn't put his students in the way of such an entity if he had the chance to prevent it.

The moment he loosened the restraints within Jean's mind, his chains suddenly repaired themselves and grew taut again. He was able to exert even more force than before and started to drag it back towards the cage with the help of Jean's chains and Harry's desperate pushes.

The dragon was slowly being dragged towards the cage, but it wasn't fast enough. It realized what was happening and stopped trying to attack them and focused back onto Harry.

"You're unworthy of my body! Give up!" It bellowed out and the static grew in volume, distracting them all enough that the entity managed to take a step forward.

"Never! You won't kill anyone with my body!" Harry shouted back as the static seemed to lower in volume.

It was enough help that they managed to drag it back towards the cage. But even though his chains had been repaired and strengthened, Jean's were still cracked in places, and they were expanding.

Suddenly, they burned with a red glow, mending themselves and growing taut once again. The dragon was literally yanked backwards, towards the cage.

"No, no, no!" It cried out. "You won't win, it's mine, not yours!"

Harry followed after it, gaining back control, step by step. "It's mine, you fucking lizard!"

He started sprinting towards it and kicked it so hard that it gained air, enough so that it had no ground which to hold onto.

Both Jean and Charles pulled on the chains as hard they could, doing so as fast as possible, before the dragon had the chance to catch itself with its wings.

The three of them managed to force it back into the cage he had constructed. Immediately after it was past the boundary, Charles started mending the gap within the wall, his chain growing loose in the process.

Harry was looking intently into the cage, as was Jean. Charles was directing all his attention on mending the wall. He was almost finished with it, there only remained a single hole.

There was a loud scraping sound as the face of the dragon appeared out of the remaining hole that he had yet to mend.

"You will never have peace as long as you are alive." It said, relatively calmly before the features twisted into an angry snarl. "I will kill you!"

Charles watched as Harry started to calmly walk towards the entity, raise his fist and open his mouth.

"You're wrong." He said calmly. "I'm not the one who is going to die, it's you."

The fist reared back and punched straight into the snout of the dragon, forcing it back out of the hole long enough for Charles to mend it close.

After it was done, he sighed in exhaustion. This had taken a lot out of him, so much more than the previous time. It was obvious that maintaining two sets of restraints at the same time wasn't feasible with his powers.

He would have to hope that the entity within Jean's mind wasn't quite as murderous and bloodthirsty as this one was. The remaining restraints within her mind wouldn't hold for much longer, at most a month or two, but he didn't quite trust his own estimations anymore.

And as he looked at the exhausted Harry who was looking at both of them, he stopped thinking about it.

"How are you feeling?" He asked him.

"Tired, so fucking tired." Harry replied. "You don't mind if I skip a few days, do you?"

Charles chuckled. "You have a great excuse to miss a few classes."

"Yay." His eyes were starting to close. "Sorry Jean, guess you'll have to help those two yourself for now."

Jean's expression was full of relief, and she even managed to smile a little despite the circumstances. "Guess so."

Shortly after, Harry fell asleep, and they both exited his mind.

/-/

Jean opened her eyes and immediately saw the bloody body of Harry that was lying out in a pool of his own blood. The scene was illuminated by the glittering night sky. It was gruesome. There was more blood than she had ever seen before.

"Logan, get him to the medical ward." Charles next to him said as he looked at Harry's sleeping form.

"Is he okay now?" Logan asked as he started to walk towards Harry.

"For now." Charles replied.

The wings that had been there before had disappeared, as had the massive illusory dragon.

"Why did he do that?" She asked with a slight bit of trepidation in her voice as she saw Logan pick him up from the ground, copious amounts of blood and gore dripping down and onto Logan.

"To make sure that it didn't gain control." Charles sighed. "He protected us from it."

Jean gulped. She had seen what he had done. Mutilating themselves like that was not something everyone could do. Even Logan with his ridiculous regenerative powers didn't do something like this.

"But why?" She asked. "Shouldn't there have been an easier method, a less painful one?"

"We don't know." Charles replied as he turned to follow behind Logan. "Only he has the answers to that question."

"Perhaps you should ask him yourself once he wakes up." He said to her