In the conference room of the main battleship belonging to the Nine Major Kingdoms at the border outpost of the Shi'ar Empire's Grand Teleportation Star Zone, Charles gently tapped his armrest with his fingertip, while all other eyes in the room were fixed on him.
The people present in the room were human superheroes and mutant leaders. Their purpose to assemble was to discuss how Earth should fight for its deserving position in this ongoing war.
Charles suddenly wore a shocked expression midway through the meeting, hurriedly leaving the sentence, "Something has happened to Shiller's Tower of Thought," behind before he lost himself in unconsciousness.
How could others not be shocked or worried?
In the following minutes, human superheroes like Stark, Strange and Steve, who were closely associated with Shiller, nearly went crazy due to panic. Even Magneto and Beast, mutants who had limited interactions with Shiller, frowned deeply. The importance of Shiller was known to everyone present.
However, everyone entrusted Professor X and believed in his capabilities. They were convinced that so long as he was in the psychic space, no problem was unsolvable. This shared belief stopped them from expressing their anxiety. Had the blunt men of Asgard been present, they might have already barged into Shiller's face.
With Charles gradually refocusing his gaze, Stark, sitting in the first seat on the right, couldn't restrain himself and asked, "What is wrong? Professor Charles, is Shiller alright?"
"It's just a misunderstanding." Charles answered soothingly. "Shiller has trapped an Insect Race soul in his Tower of Thought. Originally, I misconceived it as an invasion of his psychic world. But everything is under his control, and there is no danger."
A series of sighs of relief filled the room. Stark, unable to maintain decorum, almost slammed his body onto the table. Apologetically smiling, Charles said, "This is the first time I learned of Shiller's habit of keeping monsters as pets. He took that Insect Race soul back only to feed his 'pet'."
"This act surprised me, yet it's within my understanding. So I have no position to request him not to do so… but there might be some more shocking things you should know."
The humans in the room failed to focus real soon as they were still feeling the chills, imagining horrifying scenarios of Shiller's psychic world being contaminated.
Eventually, Stark, who had a notoriously bad temper, couldn't hold his complaints back. "In any case, letting Shiller deal with those bugs is too dangerous. And don't talk nonsense about 'It's always the bugs that are dangerous'. The bugs have thousands of times to make mistakes, but what if Shiller runs into a problem? The entire cosmos only has one chance."
Magneto looked at Stark discontentedly. He clearly understood that Stark was indirectly blaming Professor X for his dangerous treatment methods. Strange coughed twice, intending to smooth the tense atmosphere between them, but in reality, he was helping Stark.
The controversial central figure Charles then dropped a bombshell, "Do you know Shiller was abused in his childhood?"
The statement caused the room to go pin-drop silent. All the intelligent people present looked at Charles but kept mum, sensitized to the subtle hint of blame in Charles's voice.
This was not a question that required an answer since Charles clearly knew the answer already. And, the usually gentle man was annoyed to the point where he started venting his emotions in public.
"We had conjectured something." Stark's answer was very conservative.
He tried to steer clear from explaining the events in a way that discharged his responsibility. Hence, he stayed extremely cautious while explaining, despite the emotional turmoil he was facing internally.
"We had seen parts of his memory which showed that he had been involved in an accident during his early years. However, for some reasons, we didn't investigate it further. Did he mention this to you?"
"He shared detailed accounts of his experiences from childhood and growing up years with me," Charles said, reaching for a pen and paper from a table nearby, apparently to jot down some crucial information.
Stark and Strange exchanged glances but did not utter a word. Instead, it was Steve, sitting across them, who spoke first.
"We didn't ask him about it, not because we didn't care, but because we didn't know how to ask about painful experiences without retraumatizing him. For us, it was an impossible task."
"Your attitudes towards Shiller are contradictory." Charles composed himself quickly and pinpointed the key issue before continuing.
"On one hand, you overestimate Shiller's abilities infinitely, and your expectations of him far exceed the reasonable boundaries of your relationship with him. It is more like a relationship between God and his devotees."
"On the other hand, you underestimate his resilience, correlating his mental stability inversely with his level of genius. You treat everything related to his mind as too fragile and handle it with utmost care to maintain status quo."