Charles Xavier stands barefooted on the foreshore of the Utopia beach with his eyes closed and a nostalgic smile. Feeling the wet sand between his toes and the waves of the water slushing up on his shins.
He recalls a time when he couldn't feel anything below his waist. How he longed to just be able to walk a flight of stairs, take a stroll in the mansion's garden, or even be able to go to the bathroom without so much effort.
It was also during that time when he knew a young mutant that gave him hope for the future of their kind.
"Hello, Scott."
Sadly, that bright and hopeful young boy turned into a bitter, cynical, and now wrathful young man who is currently standing behind Charles Xavier.
"What are you doing here, Charles?"
He doesn't even need to turn around, or read his mind, to know that Scott is glaring hatefully at him. Charles remembers how that look used to be in admiration. How that gazed was once filled with kindness and hope. Now it's a bitter and cynical look.
Xavier opens his eyes and focuses his attention on the horizon, "This spot here reminds me of the cliffside back at the mansion. I recall how you and so many other students often stood at the edge of the cliff and stared off into the distance, gazing at the sunset. All the thoughts the students had while looking towards the sunset. Your thoughts often consisting of how tomorrow's challenges would test you. And how you know you would overcome them."
Scott scoffs in contempt, "That was a naive child who once believed in a fool's dream for his people."
Xavier gets a sad smile, "It amazes me how often we dismiss what we once appreciated in our lives. In a world where it can all disappear in the blink of an eye. We never know when a sunset could be our last."
"If you are just here to discuss sunsets then just leave."
He softly scoffs, "Of course you would dismiss it. After all," he turns to look at the cosmic flaming mutant, "you stopped appreciating everything that you had."
He sees the flames on his former student rise a bit from agitation, "What I had? What I had was a fairy tale of a life where I believed that I actually made a difference every day! It was nothing but a delusion! A fictitious construct, placed in my mind by a manipulative old man."
"So I suppose your friends, your people, and even the woman you claimed to love more than anything was nothing more but thoughts that I placed in your mind."
His anger spiked. Charles can both feel and see it, with those flames it's not hard to. He knew bringing Jean into the conversation would make Scott angry, but he needs him to be entirely focused on him and not his surroundings. Making him angry does just that.
Scott snarls at him, "How dare you bring her into this."
Unfortunately, it's not enough. Charles was so sure it would be.
"Nobody, not even you, understood my relationship with her. All of you judge me for an affair I had when Jean had her own with Logan. I still forgive her for it because I knew my faults just as she did her own."
'Damn, the Phoenix is even manipulating his memories,' The former Professor thinks himself.
Although most saw Scott's and Jean's relationship as one of the purest, it was more much complicated and messy than some were led to believe. They can both share the fault in the failure because the main reason why it failed was that Scott was emotionally repressed and Jean for some reason loved him for it.
Scott has never been good at confronting his own emotions. Add a cosmic bird of fire and it's just a disaster. In order to win, Charles needs to distract him. He's aware of how dangerous this is, but he's confident in his telepathic prowess to suppress enough of the Phoenix in Scott to give them a fighting chance.
He just needs to make him angry enough to lose focus.
"Why don't you say what's really on your mind," Xavier raises an eyebrow at his statement, "How it torments you how I succeeded in where you continuously failed. I put the world the way it's supposed to be, where mutants are supreme, and it kills you!"
Ego. Of course, it's ego.
Charles shakes his head in disappointment, "I am ashamed, Scott. Ashamed that you have forgotten everything I've taught you. Ashamed that you think I would or could ever be proud of what you've done."
Scott shakes his own head in disappointment, which agitates Xavier slightly, "Of course, unless it's done your way then it's the wrong way," Charles can feel his students' hard gaze on him, "Did it ever occur to you that after constant failure, maybe your way doesn't work?
That your naive dream of unity between mutants and humans will just be that! No matter what we do, they will always see us as monsters!
Freaks of nature!
Or a belief that is protected and supported by the US government, 'God's mistake'!"
There it is! The opening they needed.
Charles shakes his head, "I'm done arguing with you Scott. You need help. I'm shutting you down."
Scott's scoff dismissively at his notion, "You don't have the power," fire begins to swirl around him as he powers up to fight Xavier, "By yourself your nothing against the power of the Phoenix."
Charles nods to that, "Your right, alone I would be completely powerless," he gives Cyclops a hard look, "Thanks to you however, I'm not alone."
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