Chapter 73: Consequences of the demise of a Phoenix (2)
Rudeus didn't know what he was feeling right now. He wasn't exactly angry. No the emotion he was feeling was much more complicated. If he had to give a name to it, he would say he was feeling irritated.
He was not angry at the professor for letting Jean die, he was irritated at the way he said it, like Jean did some great virtue by saving their lives while sacrificing hers. He was irritated by the fact that despite the stress visible on his face, Rudeus didn't find even a tinge of guilt or sadness in his voice.
Rudeus was really wishing he had some sort of telepathy right now so that he could know what was going on in the mind of the professor. But even if he did have that, Rudeus still probably wouldn't be able to read his mind since the professor had one of the most trained minds in the world.
"You are a fu*king hypocrite. You call yourself a pacifist yet you make your students into child soldiers to spread your ideology. You warn people not to abuse their gifts, their quirks yet you use your telepathy on everyone who comes across you, never asking for permission. You should be ashamed of yourself to seat on the chair of the principal of a school..." Rudeus said in a disgusted voice.
"Hey, you don't get to say stuff like that pretty boi. The girl died because she was careless. No one told her to sacrifice herself for us. It was her choice. And truthfully it's a good thing because, in exchange for one life, all of our lives were saved. And as for the professor, this was the first time this happened. I am sure he wouldn't just leave her there if he had any other choice." Pyro the punk-looking kid suddenly spoke up righteously.
He had awakened his power quite recently and was quite confident in his powerful abilities. That's why he appeared so overconfident due to his 'cool' ability. Also, he hadn't recognized Rudeus as the new god of metahumans, Atem, and had no idea how dangerously close he was to getting his skull crushed by a god.
Hell even Cyclops, the professor's pet was silent currently. Scott was breaking down due to Jean's death. He had an obsession with her and couldn't imagine why he would lose her. He was blaming everyone else on the team for this, even the professor himself.
Anyways, Rudeus didn't want to argue with the hot-tempered kid. He had much better things to do. Even though he had a slight desire to punch his teeth in, he still controlled himself. If he couldn't control his own temper, he was sure that every hormone fuelled teenager who met him would go into a coma after coming across him.
So Rudeus didn't pay any attention to the kid. However, what he did pay attention to was the slight flinching expression on the professor's face when the kid said the last two lines.
'Is he actually feeling guilty for leaving Jean there or... wait, wasn't there a plot in the comics where the professor had a group of X-men that was abandoned after they were stuck on that man-eating island. He erased the memories of his other students when he concluded that he would not be able to save them' Rudeus suddenly remembered as his eyes almost flashed up.
He smiled in his own mind. He had finally found a definite way to break people's trust in the professor and slowly convert them into his own 'lambs'.
"Are you sure that this was the first time the professor had done something like that? That the professor had never abandoned anyone else from his team before? That he had always done everything he could whenever his students needed him. What about the other batch of X-men that was created some time ago before you guys met me? I wonder what happened to them." Rudeus started lighting the proverbial fire.
Xavier currently had a petrified expression on his face. He never thought that his biggest mistake he had tried to keep a secret for the good of himself and everyone else would be out in front of his students one day. His eyes were as big as saucers while he was gripping his armrests so hard that his fingers turned white.
"What are you talking about? The professor never had any other students before this. Jean was his first student. Their batch was the first X-men ever and the only X-men after that till now. I would know because I knew the professor from the very beginning. Believe me, I would have remembered if I had made any costumes and equipment for others. Tell him, professor... Professor?" Hank McCoy, the beast said confidently as he looked back at Charles for backup.
But alas, the professor could not refute Rudeus' claims. He knew that if the person in front of him had said that, then he might even have some solid proof of it as well. Charles couldn't even control Rudeus' mind or delete that information from his mind. He had tried connecting to his mind before but to no avail.
He even knew that controlling the other X-men to forget this again wouldn't work as well now since many of them had either developed mental shields for mind protection or found some other way to protect their minds using their powers after Rudeus casually warned them back at Egypt.
So he had no means to escape from this. He had to come clean.
"I-I It was a long time ago. The original X-men were sent to investigate a mysterious island that had appeared in space. It was a simple mission but something went wrong. I lost communication with all of them. After trying to contact them for a long time, I still couldn't reach them.
So I created a new group of X-men and sent them to rescue the original ones. The new ones lacked training but still had strong mutations. They were successful in rescuing the original X-men but in turn, they got caught in the island as the island itself disappeared taking them with it. Even after countless tries I couldn't find them or get any intel about them or the island. So I concluded that they were dead.
The others were breaking down slowly in grief as they all blamed themselves. They weren't able to do their mission well enough. Their performance was being affected as well as their daily lives. So I did what I had to. I erased all traces of the lost X-men and never ever mentioned them to anyone ever again."
"But that still doesn't answer the question, why don't I or the rest of the X-men not remember anything?" Beast asked a little forcefully this time not wanting to imagine the answer that he knew would come.
"Because he not only erased the traces of those innocent metahumans who believed in him, in his ideology but also the memories of anyone who ever knew them." Rudeus mercilessly revealed. "One of those metahumans was your own brother Scott."
"... What? I have a brother? Are you really telling the truth?" Scott looked at both Rudeus and the professor in turns to determine if what he was hearing was true.
"I had a brother and he died because he tried to rescue me? He died because of me. No, he died because of you. You are responsible for his death just like you are responsible for Jean's death." Scott went over his breaking point. The all-knowing image of the professor finally crumbled in his mind as Cyclops turned to face the professor and lowered his visor, placing Xavier himself in his direct line of a destructive laser sight.
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