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Professor Charles Xavier sat on the open veranda and thoughtfully looked at the storm raging outside the window. The weather, as best as possible, reflected the mood and thoughts of one of the most powerful mutants on earth. Possessing a powerful intellect, telepathy, the ability to communicate with himself from the future or the past by the power of thought, he was rightfully considered one of the smartest and most dangerous creatures on the planet and was used to strictly controlling himself. Always. Everywhere. Discipline of the body came easy to him. After a spinal injury, it was easy to give up and succumb to depression and hysteria, but, realizing what such consequences would lead to, Charles had to pull himself together. But what else could he do if any of his emotional outbursts caused headaches and migraines in an entire city, and often a state? If an unconscious desire to please a girl involuntarily led to an invasion of her mind and fleeting acquaintances proceeded without the slightest roughness, embodying all his involuntary desires?

Mental discipline was much harder for Charles. It was easy to decide, "I won't look at pretty girls," "I wouldn't even think of wishing a wreck on the ugly guy who drove past at full speed and splashed me with water from a puddle," but forcing yourself not to actually think that way was much harder.

In his youth, it was easier and simpler for him. The gift was weaker and had less influence on others, and he himself thought less about the consequences. Until, during another, non-committal flirtation, due to a jump in abilities, Charles looked into the mind of his passion and was genuinely shocked by what he saw. He had never encountered such furious hatred, disgust, rage and malice hidden in the very depths of her soul. Succumbing to his curiosity, the telepath began to find out what or who was the cause of such strong negative feelings. The girl hated HERSELF. For flirting with HIM, for smiling at HIM, for not being at all against developing a relationship with HIM. But why? If she was so interested in him, then why did she hate herself for it? Clutching the secret like a tick, the young telepath began to practically dissect the mind of his interlocutor. Having invaded it, he methodically and gradually began to sift through all her memories. In reality, they continued to have a nice conversation about nothing.

After an endlessly long search, Charles felt a taste of falsehood in the feelings she had for him. Suspecting forgery and deception, he began to more thoroughly understand who his enemy was, who was manipulating the mind of a defenseless girl in order to influence her. Tormented by these questions, he found his answer, which caused him deep psychological trauma. Trauma from which Xavier still has not recovered or did not want to get rid of it. The girl did not really want to meet him. She was preparing for the wedding with all her might and was in joyful anticipation. And the fact that she herself decided to cheat on her fiancé, after a chance meeting, literally ate her up from the inside.

It was then that Charles realized from his own experience how dangerous and powerful his gift was. That one unconscious thought of his could kill a person, make him go against his own principles. At that moment, the telepath was at a crossroads. He could decide to let his gift go free, subjugating and zombifying entire neighborhoods and cities in the future, or take the gift under strict control in order to remain a man, and not a maniac and moral freak who has gone crazy from permissiveness. Whether it was only his decision or he himself from the future pushed himself to choose this path, no one will know. The shocked guy promised himself to learn to control his every thought so that this would not happen again. Possession of any ability gives a feeling of impunity and false power, which leads to the breakdown of all moral standards that were instilled earlier. It was this turning point that served as a reason for him to improve as a mutant and develop his abilities, as well as organize a school for gifted children, where he will share knowledge with them and try to protect them from grave mistakes.

However, strict control over his own desires and actions did not prevent Xavier from pushing his partners and colleagues to make decisions that were beneficial to him. Or to influence the opinion of the judge, prosecutor, police officers for his own benefit and the benefit of the nascent school. Now Charles became much more dangerous than he was in his youth - even though he was restrained by a certain moral code, but the boundaries of this code were known only to him. And his mind, honed to incredible strength and sharpness, and the gift of telepathy allowed the telepath to act much more carefully, unnoticeably, gracefully. Allowed him to carefully disguise his intervention.

Now Charles avoided using his talent in everyday life and for every little thing, but when he put his abilities into action, he did it subtly, expertly, carefully tracking the changes he made. Over the past time, his abilities had only increased: if he wanted and made the necessary effort, Charles could immerse the enemy's consciousness in a completely invented and controlled world, where he, a telepath, reigned supreme. He could make the invented world turn against the object of influence or arrange a real paradise for it. Create a completely reliable copy of the Earth and begin to arrange a series of failures and troubles, driving the victim into depression, which would then remain with him. And when the enemy was completely immersed in the induced thoughts and fantasies, his body in reality remained absolutely defenseless. The professor could instill a half-illusion in mutants, force the enemy, who was in a dream, to act and behave in reality the way Xavier himself wanted.

The reason for the telepath's current bad mood was the visit of the people in civilian clothes. The polite, intelligent… individuals were simply talking pagers. They did not make any decisions. They knew nothing about the problem and situation under discussion, and could only learn sentences that they then voiced in conversation. With this move, the unknown puppeteers paid tribute to Charles and his craving for personal conversations, while remaining in the shadows.

Xavier let out a frustrated sigh and once again played over the past dialogue and its results in his mind. If there had been at least one leader who was a little more informed than these telling messages, the planet's most powerful mutant would have quickly unraveled the entire chain of intermediaries and subordinates, reached the true manipulators and convinced them of the absurdity of their idea.

Psychological trainings on protection against mind reading, methods of analyzing one's consciousness for outside interference and developments of the special services were useless against Charles. What's the point of protection if the telepath immediately finds out both all the measures taken and all the checks to expose his actions? Including how and what will be checked. Natural phenomena that are immune to telepathy were found only among mutants. More precisely, it was one of the varieties of mutation that protected the mind. But a sharp change in views or a turn in company policy always aroused suspicion, and here Xavier's vast experience helped, which allowed him to level out these nuances or stretch them out over time, as well as to time cardinal changes in views to certain stressful events that were in no way connected with the mutant himself. But this method of transmitting an ultimatum knocked the ground out from under his feet.

The puppeteers left him no choice - he was forced to accept their offer, which did not change his personal plans to create a school for gifted children. His goal and responsibilities, according to the mysterious players, were to be the creation of a full-fledged combat squad of mutants, capable and designed to solve a wide range of problems: from confronting supervillains to building fortifications and winning the war. After thinking for a long time and exploring the Earth's infosphere without the help of Cerebro, Charles was unable to figure out the faction from which this initiative came. Whatever the goals of his enemies, he will raise a worthy replacement for himself, who will be able to overcome all obstacles and barriers. Well, and figure out the true culprits of this situation. Fragments of the future, dropped to Charles by his copies from different time streams, forced him to prepare for the worst. Soon, the Earth will face terrible shocks.