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Erika magnetically attached herself to the wheel strut so she couldn't fall, and reached out with her power. There was the Bucharest, and B-59 not far away, a much bigger submarine than Shaw's. The two American destroyers were close by, on a steady course for the Bucharest but Erika quickly observed them so that she could then exclude them from her search. She dragged the rudders of the cargo ship to one side and jammed them, turning the freighter out into the open ocean: it ran the risk of alerting everyone that something else was happening, but at least she could stop the freighter running the quarantine line. If Charlotte couldn't find Shaw's people, their submarine must be further from their position than B-59. Erika mapped the shape out in her head and started to search below the surface.
She was almost immediately interrupted by another plane in the area, dropping depth charges into the water almost directly above B-59.
*Charlotte? What's happening?* Erika yelled telepathically to Charlotte up in the body of the plane.
*That's a US Navy plane - it's been ordered to maintain the quarantine line against submarines! They're just small charges, but they could still cause damage. Oh, no, the submarine's got orders to fire and it's got nuclear weapons. This is nothing to do with Shaw: they're doing it themselves!*
*Well, stop them!*
*It's okay, it's okay, the First Officer of the sub doesn't want them to fire.. I'm encouraging the Captain to listen to him. They're going to surface. Get rid of that plane!*
Erika concentrated on the Navy plane and carefully peeled away part of the metal skin on the side of the cockpit, making sure not to damage a wing or an engine so that the plane could make it safely back. She didn't want it to crash and start nuclear war anyway. It quickly turned towards the US fleet, as she had hoped.
*Well done!* Harriet's voice was in Erika's head. *They think they had some kind of rivet failure.*
B-59 surfaced, and then Erika caught a glimpse of a shadow nearby, a smaller vessel slinking closer now that the depth charges had ceased falling. It was the right size, the right composition - Erika could never forget how it felt slipping from her grasp near Miami - and she took a deep breath and grabbed it.
For a second, she couldn't hold it at all, and in the next moment their plane dipped towards the water. Everyone inside screamed and Erika instantly released her hold on Shaw's submarine, keeping only an awareness of its location.
*You're protecting us!* All Charlotte's love came through that link. *You're not relying on anger, Erika. You're relying on your own strength.*
Erika grinned and held out both her hands, feeling the submarine trying to get away. It was headed towards the deep ocean, but Erika easily turned it around into the shallower waters, away from the other ships and towards a string of barrier islands. The submarine strained under her power but she turned the rudders to match their new direction, overriding commands from within the vessel with ease. The metal was singing to her, clean and clear as it had never been before, and she felt like she could lift a thousand submarines with as much ease as she let a coin flip through her fingers. The waters got shallower and she simply lifted the submarine free of the water and floated it through the air, propeller first so that it didn't tear into pieces, allowing Shaw to escape. She could hear voices behind her, but paid no attention until she heard a sharp cry from Charlotte.
Erika immediately dropped the sub, sending it crashing up the beach, smashing palm trees as it went. She climbed rapidly up the wheel strut and peered up through the open bomb bay, sliding the coiled steel cords down from their position by the door, ready for action.
The first pair of legs she saw belonged to Angelo; Erika blinked and looked up to see that there were several people in the plane who hadn't been there a minute ago, and that all of them were frozen.
"Charlotte?"
"She's got them," Raven called down to Erika. "Give her a moment."
Erika pushed herself up onto the metal floor and saw they had four invaders: Angelo, Darwin, the Spanish woman who generated whirlwinds, and Azazel. Only Azazel seemed armed, but Erika knew that meant nothing where mutant powers were concerned. Charlotte stood bare inches from Azazel, shaking slightly with effort. Erika threw her steel cables around Azazel, making sure to bind the woman as tightly as possible, then Jana, Angelo and Darwin. She had no idea if the cords could even hold Darwin, but she could only try.
"Thank you," Charlotte breathed, and relaxed somewhat. Angelo and Jana slid to the floor. Azazel remained frozen, but Darwin shook her head and seemed to recover herself, the steel cords disintegrating into metal shavings.
"Dammit," Charlotte gasped, and Alex shot Darwin from across the plane, at her control device's lowest setting. Darwin staggered slightly, flickering stony scales across her torso, then put her hands above her head.
"We surrender."
"What?" Erika couldn't comprehend what Darwin was saying, but Charlotte put out a careful hand and held her back.
"We surrender," Darwin repeated. "We've come here to get away from Shaw."
Charlotte touched Darwin's temple before Erika could shove her back, away from Shaw's people. "Darwin is hard to read, but as far as I can tell, this is true. I can't properly read Azazel either, but Angelo and Jana are indeed here to escape Shaw."
"It's true," Darwin said, her usual calm voice in place, as if they were strolling down a street instead of teleporting between submarines and planes in an international crisis zone. "You guys sure took your time showing up. I've had them convinced for over a week now."
"Why didn't Azazel teleport you away, then?" Erika wasn't ready to believe this.
"She wanted to make sure you were willing to stand up against Shaw and actually protect us. We didn't make much of a showing last time."
"Because you and Angelo ran off to join her!" Alex yelled, but she had sat down in her seat again and had her hand off the control switch on her chest.
"Angelo did, and I couldn't let him go alone. Jana's parents met fighting the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War and died during the occupation of Hungary - she's got no love for Nazis. And Azazel got her name killing Nazis and running supplies during the Siege of Leningrad. Once she found out what Erika told me, she was wasn't enthusiastic about continuing to work for Shaw. They're not the only people Shaw has, but they're the only ones I could get to."
"And Angelo?" Charlotte asked.
Darwin glanced down at the teenager slumped on the floor. "He's angry and he likes the power. He's not so angry he wants everyone to die. And we didn't know Shaw's plan until the last few days, unlike Emory Frost."
"We've got Emory," Charlotte told her, before Erika could stop her sharing intel with a potential enemy. "He's fine - he told us what Shaw was doing."
"Who else does Shaw have with him?" Raven interjected, and Erika could kick herself for not picking up on that.
"Two more mutants, but we haven't seen much of them. There's a girl who runs fast and her brother, but I don't know what he does."
Azazel spoke and everyone jumped. "I would thank you to release me, Doctor Xavier."
"You are very resistant, aren't you?" Charlotte asked her.
"It takes practise, yes. I apologise for opposing you and supporting Shaw." She couldn't move her limbs, but she could talk in a hoarse whisper and the tip of her tail twitched slightly.
"And the man you killed at my home?" Charlotte's eyes were cold.
"No apology. He was a bad person. I did not know that when I killed him, but the world is better without him."
"No!" Charlotte shouted suddenly, and Erika saw a brief glimpse of someone leaping up from the water carrying something metal - leaping as high as the low-flying plane - and then there was an explosion and they was spinning in mid-air.
"We're going to crash!" MacTaggert yelled.
Erika quickly ripped the steel cables away, releasing those she'd tied up, then launched herself at Charlotte, tackling her to the floor and covering her with her own body. It was easy to magnetise herself to the deck, pinning Charlotte in place, except that Charlotte was trying to wriggle free.
"Stay still!" Erika shouted as loud as she could, trying to be heard over the roar of the dying plane and the screams of the people stuck in it.
*Help the others!* Charlotte shrieked back, telepathically. Erika glanced up to see Darwin had firmly stuck herself to the wall, but Angelo and Jana were screaming as they were thrown against the ceiling. Azazel wasn't screaming, but she was also in trouble. She had wrapped her tail around Raven's seat; Raven was failing to hold her in place, no matter how large and strong Raven made his arms.
*Make Raven let go,* Erika told Charlotte, and, the moment Raven did, Erika directed a steel cable to wrap around Jana's legs and drag her to Azazel, then threw Angelo right out the bomb bay by the zippers on his clothes and boots. The plane rolled again and Erika had to use all her strength to keep Charlotte and herself from crashing into the roof that was now the floor. When she looked up again, Azazel and Jana were gone, leaving only a wisp of black smoke. Then they hit the beach and she had no time to think about anything but forcing the shredded metal of the plane away from the cabin and cockpit rather than letting it kill everyone inside.
Just as quickly, there was silence. Erika jumped to her feet out of instinct, and hauled Charlotte up with her. Amazingly, Charlotte seemed to be unhurt, but Erika could see blue sky behind her: half of one side of the plane, and most of the wing were now missing.
"That girl - she had a grenade!" Charlotte gasped. "I made her drop it but it was too late."
"We're good now." Erika quickly glanced around at everyone else. There didn't seem to be any injuries on the scale she'd expected - decapitations or crush injuries - but Shannon was crying and had a bloody head wound. "Charlotte, protect everyone here. I have to go after Shaw."
"Wait - " Charlotte called, but Erika was already moving.
Erika leapt from the plane, staggered slightly when she hit the sand - her left knee and ankle were not quite right - but ran on towards the surprisingly intact submarine up at the tide-line. Azazel and Jana had materialised on the beach and were picking themselves up out of the sand, and Angelo fluttered down to join them.
"I'm going after Shaw, don't get in my way!" Erika yelled. "Help the people on the plane!"
Angelo and Jana turned for the plane, but Azazel joined Erika running towards the submarine. "I will stand with you."
"Show me the way into the sub!" Erika had no intention of trusting Azazel, no matter what Charlotte said, but it was foolish to cast aside someone so potentially useful so early.
"The worst of the damage is to the side that's now on top," Azazel yelled back. "I'll teleport you in!"
"No!" Erika threw herself at the huge marooned vessel and climbed nimbly up to the gap, shoving herself upwards with magnetic force when there was no handhold. Azazel simply teleported to the top and the two women dropped down into the submarine together. As they did, it groaned and rolled back onto its base a little. Erika caught the movement quickly and eased the vessel down into a stable position.
"Will it collapse on us?" Azazel asked. "Shaw is in the most secure room, in the reactor."
Erika felt the shape of the submarine. "No, the structure has held very well. Far better than the plane."
"It is designed to stand up to great pressure. This is good. We do not want a nuclear leak." She approached one of the control panels. "I will shut down the reactor, now. It takes some time to shut down completely, but Shaw won't be able to restart it from in there."
Erika watched her closely, but she could feel how the switch was constructed, and though she couldn't say if it was a reactor Azazel was shutting down, she was certainly powering down something.
"You are suspicious, of course." Azazel shrugged and walked forward, through a shattered room with expensive-looking artwork on the wall.
*Erika? Can you hear me? There's a blank space right near you, I don't know what it is. Erika?*
*Yes, I'm here. We're in the submarine, but I can't see Shaw yet.*
*Everyone's all right here - Shannon's injury looked worse than it was.* Charlotte's mental voice sounded sharp, but Erika ignored the tone.
*Good. Stay there, and stay in contact. I'll find Shaw.*
Azazel pressed on a panel and the wall shifted slightly. "Here, I think it's stuck. The reactor room is in here."
Erika held out her hand, but before she could force the secret door open, it wobbled and slid open on its own. Standing behind it was the figure of Erika's nightmares, and, horribly, she looked just as she had seventeen years ago. The only differences were that now she wore the helmet Emory had described, and that she was dressed in black rather than the khaki of the Nazi uniform. Her smile was exactly the same: pleasant, toothy, terrifying. Erika stopped breathing for a moment, then forced herself to take a breath, slowly and evenly, as if that would mask the trembling in her legs and hands.
"Frau Doktor," Erika said, and walked forward. Azazel walked with her, into the mirrored chamber behind the door. It was oddly warm in there and the doors slid shut behind them.
*Erika, I can't - * As the doors clicked shut, Charlotte was silenced, and Erika realised how very much Charlotte had been in her head over the past weeks. Still. Better that Charlotte wasn't here right now.
Shaw was smiling as she always did, holding her hands out to welcome Erika and Azazel. "You've come to join me, my little Erika! How wonderful. I always knew you would come back to your creator. Thank you, Azazel."
Azazel's tail twitched nervously, and Erika knew how she felt. She took another step forward, the coin she kept over her heart heavy against her skin. She wished her hands would stop shaking, but then, it didn't really matter. She didn't need her hands to kill. "That is not correct, Frau Doktor."
Her smile never wavered, even as she tsked at Erika, that familiar, horrible sound. "It will be." She reached out and touched Erika's forehead and Erika was thrown backwards as if she'd been punched, slamming into the wall with rib-cracking force.
"You were a Nazi all along," Azazel sneered at her. "I should have known, from all your talk about breeding."
"Oh, my dear young woman, how wrong you are." She reached out to touch Azazel, who dodged, then froze in surprise. Shaw flicked her with one neatly manicured fingernail, sending her spinning into the wall near Erika. "And no, you cannot teleport away as you so like to do. We are very well shielded in here."
Lying on her stomach on the ground, Erika took a deep breath, felt it pull against her ribs, and took another. Pain was good. Pain was focus. She ruthlessly pushed away thoughts of Charlotte, of her allies and her friends. This was no place for them. This was a place for Erika and Shaw, for death. She closed her eyes on the memory of her mother hitting the floor - dead between two blinks - and opened them again to her mission. She felt a smile slide onto her face, and she struggled to her feet, leaning against the wall for support. "Frau Doktor. I have not come to join you: I have come to warn you."
"Have I erred in judgement, little Erika? No, I can't call you that now. You have grown into a fine, strong woman. Erika, then." She made no further move towards Erika, though Erika could feel her own breathing synchronising with Shaw's, an old trick she had taught herself in the long days on operating tables or on concrete floors. Shaw had been in full control then, with only the worse horrors of the camp outside, but now Shaw's domain extended no further than this room. If Erika could get her away from the reactor, they would all have a chance.
"Your plan is going to fail. I've come to warn you."
"How very altruistic of you, Erika. It's been a long time since you were concerned for my well-being."
Erika blinked again, slowly, buying herself a moment to see the way out, to change the world so she could survive again. "I didn't know that you were like me. A mutant."
"That's the word they're using these days, yes." Shaw was interested, though. Even under the helmet, Erika could see the tilt of her chin, the spark in her eyes.
"Now I know. Now I understand why you trained me. You saw how strong I am now."
"Yes, I certainly did."
"And that's not all I've done. I've studied. I know why your plan won't work." Erika found it so much easier to remember details when she could be calm like this, utterly calm, safe from fear and distractions like Charlotte and her soft hands.
"Why is that?"
Azazel suddenly lunged at Erika, but Shaw intervened, lazily swiping Azazel away, sending her sliding across the floor and into the far wall where she lay still.
Erika answered as if there had been no interruption. "The level of radiation will be too high. Most mutants' powers don't protect them against that much radiation that fast. Almost everyone in the hot zones will die, even the mutants. Only people like you and Darwin will survive. So many useful powers, lost."
Shaw nodded. "I see. You don't think the children will survive?"
"I think more of them will survive than adults, but there are too many mutant powers that won't provide any protection against that level of radiation. We'll lose the telepaths and the flyers, at the very least." Erika could see Shaw totting up numbers in her head. 214782, she thought, wildly, then pushed it down again. She never saw what number her mother had been given, or if her father was given one at all. It didn't matter. They were gone. Erika was here.
"You have an alternative, don't you? Good girl, Erika, always trying to plan ahead. I wasn't surprised that you'd survived. It was a real wrench to leave you like that, but I was under a great many constraints at the time."
Erika nodded. "An alternative. Yes. You know what it is. Your paper." She was running out of words, and tried to align her breathing with Shaw's again, but her chest hurt. Pain. A focus. Pain.
Shaw's smile was brilliant. "You have done your homework! You're talking about smaller doses in a particular population, aren't you?"
"Young people." Erika took a breath again. "Young people are the most likely to show mutations. It's useless to irradiate a whole continent when you can irradiate particular areas. Azazel can take us anywhere. You have nuclear materials."
"You fucking traitor!" Azazel shrieked, teleporting across the chamber and hurling herself on Erika. Erika went to the floor in the assault, but Azazel was worse hurt than Erika, and a single hard punch to the belly had her screaming. Erika ripped the metal from the walls and wrapped Azazel in it, making sure to catch her wrists and ankles and neck. Once the hard cocoon was formed around her, Erika threw the whole metal bundle through the doors as hard as she could, smashing an enormous hole in the shielded room.
*ERIKA!* Charlotte's telepathic scream was so great that Erika staggered and fell to one knee.
*Be quiet,* she returned. *Please be quiet. Stay where you are. Be quiet.*
*You're hurt.*
*Shut up!* Erika pulled herself as far away from Charlotte as she could, though the connection was still there.
"Ah, yes, I hadn't thought she might teleport within the chamber. Come along, Erika," Shaw called, walking out of the gap where Azazel had been thrown. "I would love to meet your friends."
Erika forced herself up, wiping an annoying trickle of blood out of her eye, and followed, hoping desperately that everyone had stayed out of the way, behind the plane. Azazel was casualty enough. In the submarine, Shaw slammed her hand on another hidden panel, and a door slid aside to reveal a narrow cupboard. Erika shuddered, then shuddered again as she realised that, as always, Shaw was keeping someone in there. It was a dark-haired boy, a skinny teenager, who flinched away from Shaw in terror.
"There, now, Waszka."
"You don't call me that," the boy said, under his breath, then, louder, "Where is my sister?"
"Your sister is doing her job," Shaw showed her teeth in a flat, fake smile, and moved one hand towards the boy, who slid to the floor trying to avoid it. "And you are not." Shaw shook her head. "Erika, this is Wacław Maximoff, but we call him Waszka." Her Polish pronunciation was as poor as ever and the boy didn't look thrilled to be addressed with such an affectionate nickname.
"Erika Lehnsherr," Erika replied, with a nod to the boy.
"Waszka and Petia only recently surfaced, but I've had my eye out for them for a while. Such a pity I didn't get them earlier - training them will be much more difficult now. Petia took down your plane; Waszka doesn't do much of anything, which makes it very odd to me that people were trying to kill him. I saved their lives just as I saved yours, Erika." Shaw closed a hand around Waszka's arm, very carefully, and walked him towards the side of the submarine.
Shaw reached up and grabbed the bottom of the rip in the submarine, then pulled down, creating a new opening in a shower of metal and sparks. She walked out, then, as if she had nothing at all to fear, and Erika was starting to think that she didn't.
Outside, the beach was in chaos. Ships were approaching in the distance, though Erika couldn't see whose, and Petia was zooming up and down in the shallows despite the best efforts of Alex and Sean. Sean was trying to hit her with a sonic blast and Alex with a low-level energy beam, but neither of them were fast enough to actually catch her. Erika didn't know why Charlotte didn't stop the girl, but perhaps Petia's mind moved as quickly as her body and was hard to read. The moment Erika was clear of the submarine, a whirlwind started on the beach, kicking up sand everywhere.
"Oh, Jana, really?" Shaw muttered, but was prevented from saying anything else when Harriet and Darwin leapt from the top of the submarine onto Shaw's head and shoulders. They were instantly thrown aside with a shriek from Harriet, and without succeeding in removing the helmet. A violent blast of sound struck at them - Erika didn't catch the worst of it, but she still stagged and wanted to vomit - and Shaw fell to her knees. As she fell, she let go of Waszka who ran off into the storm. Visibility was terrible, but Charlotte must have located the telepathic gap where Shaw was, because one of Angelo's spit bombs fell from the sky and scored a direct hit on the back of Shaw's jacket. She shed the jacket quickly, without getting up, and before Erika could do anything about it, pounded both hands hard on the ground.
The sand quaked and rippled, and Erika heard screams from outside the sandstorm. The storm abruptly stopped, sand tumbling to the ground, and Shaw went stalking towards the plane. Erika quickly checked the light connection in her mind and realised that Charlotte was in that plane.
Erika caught up to Shaw in a few long strides. "Frau Doktor! Why are you hurting them? They're valuable mutants!"
Shaw turned her head just enough that Erika could see her smirk. "Oh, Erika. I'm not going to kill them. I'll simple teach them that they should obey. Unlike you, I think they need a few more lessons in pain and obedience."
*Charlotte, run! Run!* Erika thought as hard as she could, seeing Shannon and Alex lying at the edge of the water and Harriet under a tree.
MacTaggert leapt from the plane and emptied his gun at Shaw, to no effect.
"And what do you do, young man?" Shaw reached towards him, but MacTaggert had enough distance - and enough training - to duck under her hand and sprint like hell. Shaw spun around to try to grab him, distracted from the submarine, and that's when Erika acted.
She focused all of the pain and terror inside herself, directed all of that towards Shaw's helmet, and lifted. To her horror, it barely moved.
Shaw turned to her and smiled, grim now. "Erika, Erika, you are a great deal more subtle than when you were a child, but no less stupid. My power, when appropriately charged, interferes with yours. It always did. And what have you learned, in all this time? You've learned to find allies, certainly, but you have never learned true obedience. Now, I know you have friends hiding in this wreck of a plane. I can feel the energy of their pathetic little bodies. Let's try an exercise, shall we? I'm going to count to three, and you're going to bring your friends to me. If you don't, I will destroy the plane and everything in it."
Erika raised her hand to pull them out - Charlotte and Raven were the two still in there - but she couldn't do it. She could not give them to Shaw.
"One," Shaw said. Darwin sprinted towards them, but Shaw slapped her away with an easy swing of her arm, sending her tumbling down the beach.
Erika tried again, the terror building within her.
"Two."
*Be calm, Erika. I love you. Remember that there's more to you than what she made. Don't let her set the rules."
Erika took a deep, painful breath and let Charlotte's voice flood over her. The flicker of candles was in her mind, and the memory of a woman dead on the floor. She flexed her hands, feeling all the metal of the plane calling to her, clear and strong. As Shaw opened her mouth again, Erika pulled hard and the entire shell of the plane shredded into ribbons which wrapped smoothly and gently around Shaw, like rolling a bandage.
The black of the plane opened out into beautiful silvery steel. There was no force in Erika's actions, but a simple, easy movement unspooling the metal and encasing Shaw, holding her firmly without hurting her. Erika wrapped the ribbons of steel around and around her, layer upon layer, pinning her limbs to her body without pressing them, without giving her more power. Within a minute, there was only a thick column of wrapped steel, Shaw stuck inside it.
Charlotte and Raven stood in front of Erika, in the remnants of the plane, their mouths open in shock. Erika sat down, suddenly exhausted and in pain. Charlotte ran to her side.
"Oh, Erika, my dear, you're hurt! Is Shaw dead?"
"No, Charlotte, it's not over. I have to get the helmet…"
"Do it. I'm ready to hold Shaw the moment I can." Charlotte's face was pinched with worry, but she stood aside, one warm hand on Erika's shoulder.
Angelo and Darwin were at the water's edge checking on Shannon and Alex, who were stirring; MacTaggert was helping a limping Harriet back and Jana emerged from the submarine with a very cranky-looking Azazel. Petia and Waszka were nowhere to be seen.
"Get up and finish the job!" Azazel shouted, bloody spittle flying from her mouth, and Erika staggered to her feet with help from Raven.
"Come on, we can do this," Raven muttered, pulling Erika closer to the steel column. It was moving slightly, twisting and bulging on one side as Shaw slowly worked her way out.
Erika reached out to find the helmet and pull it free but before she could, a huge explosion came from Shaw's body, sending metal flying everywhere. Erika could sense every piece of it and grabbed them all firmly, but the force of the explosion sent her and Raven cartwheeling into the air, helpless.
Before they could fall again, Erika collided with a body and realised that she was no long spinning through the air but descending slowly, firmly held by Angelo. Angelo was shouting something, but Erika's ears were ringing from the blast and she couldn't work out what he was saying. Shannon's scream was not far away, and that wasn't helping: she'd caught Raven and was lowering her to the sand near the water's edge.
*Erika! Raven!* Charlotte linked everyone again.
*We're fine,* Raven called back. *Where's Shaw?*
*She blasted herself clear over the wreck of the sub!* Harriet said. *She's still got the helmet on!*
Erika and Angelo landed gently on the sand and Erika ran for the sub. If Shaw was still alive, there was no way she would stop now. Before she got to the submarine, Harriet had leapt around the end of the it and staggered back, covering her eyes.
"It's Shaw!" she yelled, loud enough to get past the shrill noise in Erika's ears. "She's going nuclear!"
The bright light hit Erika's eyes, too, and she stumbled, but kept moving. Behind a sand dune, she could see Petia and Waszka, hiding from the brightness.
"You can't stop me!" Shaw crowed, her skin glowing, the helmet a dark spot against the brightness. "I am immortal and this war will leave only those worthy to survive, only those like me! You, Erika, will die here with everyone else! I thought you were ready to become the mother of a new race, but you are nothing, just like your own mother!"
Erika narrowed her eyes to see Shaw's form at the centre of the light. She threw herself at Shaw, surrounded by all the metal she could haul off the beach, but Shaw hurled her backwards with ease and laughed.
"Even your son is nothing! All the power he should have and he simply cowers behind his sister! The world will be a better place with all of you dead."
Erika let Shaw's words wash over her, as meaningless as they had ever been, and fell to her knees in the sand. She was too tired to find the anger she felt for her mother, and Shaw had driven away all that she had felt for Charlotte, all the memory and grace that let her powers work so easily. It was futile. Shaw really was better than her, and Erika wasn't going to survive this time.
---
Charlotte could see Erika on her knees, silhouetted in the ferocious glow of Shaw's building energies, and she couldn't bear it. She called everyone together, and reached out to the teenagers hiding in the dunes, too.
*Petia! Shaw is about to explode!* She felt the words shift in Petia's mind, Charlotte quickly assimilating a completely unfamiliar language. *Can you get your twin out of here in time?* "Twin" was a stronger word than "brother" to her: Charlotte didn't understand the nuances of her mind yet.
*No! I can't run fast with him. Shaw saved us - she doesn't need to hurt us.*
*She doesn't care who she hurts right now. We're going to attack her. Please join us, for your brother's sake.*
*Okay!* Petia's agreement was as quick as her feet, and she rushed at Shaw at the same time as Azazel attacked from one side and Darwin from the other, Harriet pelting Shaw with junk metal from behind the plane, and Angelo and Shannon swooping overhead, spitting and screaming respectively, focused directly on Shaw; Jana's whirlwinds were ferocious but did not move Shaw. As they distracted her, Raven yelled to Alex, who fired not at Shaw, but at the sand beneath her feet, making her stagger as the treacherous sand shifted.
When Shaw stumbled, Waszka stepped out from behind the sand dune, his hand outstretched in a weird parody of Erika's gestures. Charlotte couldn't see anything happening - no burst of energy, nothing moving - but then she felt a great burst of hatred come from Shaw and realised what Waszka had somehow done: as Shaw lost her footing, her head had tipped forward a fraction too far and the helmet had fallen to the ground, right in front of Erika.
Charlotte grabbed Shaw in an instant, and clung to that horrible mind with all her might. "Raven," she croaked, "Raven, tell Erika to kill her. I can't, I can't hold her for long. If I let go, she'll explode at full power and kill us all. What she did before was only a fraction…"
Raven dashed over to Erika's side and pulled her back to her feet. "I understand now," he told Erika. "I understand."
Erika looked stunned, but she picked up the helmet and held it close. The coin floated out of the neckline of her uniform and she gently pressed it into Shaw's hand, looking into her eyes as she spoke. "This is yours. I wanted so much to kill you with this, for my mother, but Charlotte is in your mind and I can't hurt Charlotte. I'm sorry that your death will be gentle, but I will rejoice that you are dead."
She reached out her hand and slowly pressed it over Shaw's mouth, pushing the edge of her hand up against Shaw's nostrils to stop her breathing.
*No! That little Jew bitch!* Shaw screamed in Charlotte's head, but that was the most coherent of her thoughts. She was so incredibly strong, stronger than anyone else Charlotte had ever met, and the sheer rage of her mind reminded Charlotte terribly of Erika. Shaw's rage, though, was not on behalf of anyone else, not the helpless loss of a child and a quest for revenge: it was a wild shriek of thwarted power and unjustifiable righteousness. Charlotte staggered under it, and felt the edges of Shaw's mind begin to darken with encroaching unconsciousness.
"Hold on," Raven was bearing Charlotte up, now, as Charlotte gasped for oxygen for burning lungs that were not hers. "Hold on."
Shaw and Charlotte both fell, but Erika didn't move her hand away; a moment later and Charlotte felt Shaw's mind spiral down into a hideous swirl of pure fury, then unconsciousness. She didn't dare let go, but she no longer invaded Shaw's mind so completely, and she could breathe again. Shaw's dazzling light faded.
Azazel knelt down at Shaw's side, and put two fingers on her neck. Erika and Azazel stayed crouched over the body for what seemed like a very long time, until Azazel removed her hand and, a moment later, Erika followed. Charlotte tried to touch Erika's mind, give her comfort, but Erika was entirely blank.
Azazel drew one of her swords and neatly severed Shaw's head. There was surprisingly little blood.
As everyone stared, Erika suddenly leapt to her feet and shouted an incoherent warning, spinning around and pointing out towards the sea. Everyone turned to see what she was doing and saw, to their horror, missiles speeding towards them. Erika threw the first off course but it still hit before anyone could move, then it was a mad panic of taking cover as missiles exploded in the sand and Erika reached out her hands to try to stop them all.
Jana helped, throwing whirlwinds out into the sea that took out some of the low-flying missiles, but there were so many, and every time Erika turned two aside, one reached the beach. Charlotte could hear MacTaggert yelling on a radio, somewhere, but she couldn't work out what he could possibly be saying, and then it was too late to think anything as she was thrown into the air and hurled at the ground.
Charlotte opened her eyes again to see a blue sky, and Raven's face, the blue sleeve of Erika's suit.
"It's all blue," she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come out. She tried to get up, but for some reason it didn't work. She must have been hurt, but she couldn't feel any pain. Instead, what came out was, "The missiles!"
"Erika's stopped them all," Raven told her, and Charlotte could see the image in his mind: that ruthlessly blue sky, and hundreds of missiles hanging perfectly still in the air. What she couldn't see was Erika, although she was sure that was Erika right beside her.
"Erika?"
"I'm here. You've been injured in the missile explosions. Lie still."
"No, you're not here!"
Erika's face loomed into her field of vision and Erika was wearing Shaw's helmet. That made no sense at all. Charlotte scrunched her face up trying to revise the picture, but no, it was still the same, and she couldn't feel Erika there at all.
"Why?"
"All the training we did, all that nonsense about good memories and being more than pain - that didn't defeat Shaw. Mutant powers defeated Shaw. Your powers and Waszka's and Alex's. Did you know that he's my son? He looks like his father." Her voice was quiet and flat.
Charlotte tried to smile, but sighed instead. "And Petia, then. Twins."
"They're your kids?" Raven gasped.
"They have survived this long, and I will not be the cause of their death."
Charlotte seemed oddly short of breath. There was a trickle of blood slowly making its way down the side of Erika's face. Charlotte watched it in fascination. "What do you mean?"
"Those ships fired on us again. They want to destroy us utterly." Erika moved away from Charlotte. "I am going to destroy them first."
"No! No, there's hundreds of men on those ships! They opened fire because they don't know who we are." Charlotte clutched at Raven's arm. "Raven, help me. I can't see Erika."
Raven gently tilted Charlotte's head to the side and she could see Erika again. She hated that helmet: it was like Erika was an image on the television. "No, Erika. Don't hurt them. They're no threat to us, not really."
"They hurt you!" Erika screamed, her throat raw, then, in a far more even tone. "They tried to kill all of us!"
Charlotte could hear Harriet's voice from somewhere. "We need to get Charlotte to a hospital."
Erika turned, but Charlotte still couldn't see Harriet. "You're right. Azazel!"
Azazel walked into Charlotte's field of view. Charlotte kept feeling weirdly overheated, then cold, in turns, and right now she felt like she was flushing as red as Azazel's skin.
"Can I get her to America from here? Yes, no problem."
"No!" Charlotte called, and Raven moved slightly, sending a shock of pain through Charlotte's body, all the way through her torso. "Ah, no. Don't take me anywhere, Azazel. I won't let you take me. We all leave together or we don't leave at all."
Erika looked down at her. "All right, Charlotte. This won't take long." She spread her hands again, the sunlight gleaming on her helmet, and Raven gasped as the missiles began to move again.
Charlotte tried to reach out to Erika, tried to find the brightness of her mind the way she had before, but there was nothing. *Raven, please. Stop her. Shaw deserved to die - those men don't.*
*I know,* Raven replied, and gently laid Charlotte's head and shoulders down in the sand, where she could still see Erika.
Raven ran at Erika, as fast as he could, and it was a mark of Erika's surprising trust in them that he got close enough to tackle her around the waist and bear her to the ground. The missiles sputtered and a few exploded mid-air, but Erika wrapped a leg around Raven's and rolled them over so that she was on top. Raven swiped at the ribs Erika was protecting, making both her and the missiles waver, but then Erika punched Raven in the face again and again until she got free. The missiles held terribly steady in the sky.
"Erika! Stop!" Charlotte yelled, to no avail.
*I'm okay,* Raven thought at Charlotte, his mouth too full of blood to speak.
"Erika! Please stop, for my sake!"
Erika turned at that, though the missiles stayed on course, and Charlotte can at least see part of her face. She didn't even look angry - that blank, neutral stare had returned again, just as it had when she'd told Charlotte about her mother and Frau Doktor. Charlotte had seen Erika's memories, and this was hardly the first time that Erika had pushed other people out of the category of "person" so that she could do what she needed to do to survive. Erika had burned away essential human connections - she had only just started to make new ones - and now her ferocious need to live would come at the expense of hundreds of lives, lives she no longer considered as human or even real. Charlotte didn't need to read Erika's mind to see that.
Charlotte scrambled frantically through her memories and the minds around her, desperate for something that would make Erika think, make her stop. Petia had dragged Waszka to cover behind the stranded submarine - sensible girl - but Erika's new connection to them was tenuous at best, terrified at worst. MacTaggert was a non-mutant like the men on the ships, but he was here on the beach with them, yelling for his superiors to stop. Charlotte couldn't risk that Erika had classified him as either a non-person or as someone to be protected: the first path would get MacTaggert killed, the second would just firm Erika's resolve. Charlotte was not so foolish as to believe Erika had any room left in her to accommodate anything other than "us" and "them". The fact that there even was an "us" was amazing enough.
The missiles hit the top of their terrible arc and began to turn down towards the ships. Harriet was at Raven's side as he spat blood into the sand; Petia and Waszka hid; everyone else stared at the missiles as if Erika were the telepath, hypnotising them all into silence.
Shaw had been a mutant, Charlotte thought, and Erika cared about that contradiction, that mutants could be evil, that a fellow mutant had killed her mother. She had been so angry when she'd found that out from Emory, in the helicopter in Russia, angry to the point of losing control. And yet, her dedication to Shaw's death had never wavered. "For my mother," she'd said, as Charlotte held Shaw paralysed.
There was just one person in Erika's mind who overrode the categories that Erika had made for herself, one woman's death into which Erika had poured all her rage and hurt. She had pushed it away from herself so she could survive everything else done to her and everyone around her.
"Your mother was human!" Charlotte yelled, trying to reach out for Erika, "Just like them, Erika, just like them!"
"She's dead." Erika's voice gave away nothing, just like her mind. "Dead and avenged."
"No, she's not gone." Charlotte took one last desperate chance, casting herself back into the memory that she'd glimpsed just once, before she ever knew Erika's loyal heart and ferocious love. Three people in a cellar, scratching out their old names and labelling themselves anew in an attempt to survive; only one of them succeeded. She dug into the memory of people crammed together in an apartment, happy in the golden light of candles: two parents, an uncle, two children, with other families around them, calling them by their much-beloved names. "Your name is Mara Eisenhardt. It was your grandmother's name. Your mother told you to forget it, but you can't. Your family is alive in you."
The missiles wobbled, and the sliver of Erika's face that was visible showed emotion for the first time since she refused to use the coin to kill Shaw. This face was the one that Charlotte knew, more angry than anything else, but it was all Charlotte had.
"I was wrong, Shaw was wrong, and you were right. Not about the violence, but to remember your mother. Evolution isn't smooth and it's not instant. We're not a new species - not in our generation, anyway. Your grandmother's and mother's genes are part of you. Your humanity depends on theirs. Petia and Waszka are your mother's grandchildren, and depend on yours. Let them go. Mara."
"It's not safe." Erika's voice is softer, now, but just as intense.
"Nothing's safe. You kill these men today, more come tomorrow. You don't know how many mutants are on those ships-"
"Then they will save themselves."
"That's what Shaw thought. And you know what's even more likely? That their children are mutants, waiting for their father to come home. Listen. I never...I never had to make the kind of decision you made. My power always let me hide, to put things off. I can't do that now. I can only ask you to stay with me. I love you, Mara. I can't hide that."
Erika knelt down and grabbed Charlotte's hands. "Promise me. Promise you won't hide. I don't know what to do. Fighting is all...my mother didn't have a choice."
"I promise. Let them go."
Erika looked up at the sky, her hands still holding Charlotte's, and the missiles flew out to all sides, completely missing the ships. Erika pulled off the helmet, and Charlotte nearly cried with relief to have that fierce, vivid mind back where she could feel it.
"I knew you would try to stop me." Erika touched Charlotte's face. "I didn't know it would be this way."
All Charlotte wanted now was to throw her arms around Erika, knock that stupid helmet to the ground and kiss her senseless, but she couldn't move. She couldn't get up.
Erika crouched beside Charlotte and slid an arm under her shoulders, but Charlotte screamed, and everyone else did, too, collapsing under her projected pain. Charlotte recovered before anyone else, oddly enough, the pain gone as fast as it had arrived, but everyone else was still gasping or crying out. Even Erika had her teeth clenched and hard lines around her eyes.
"Azazel!" Erika called. "I can't lift Charlotte - everyone needs to come over here to teleport. And hurry! Those ships are preparing to fire again."
Azazel came close and shook her head. "If I teleport her like that, she's just going to hit the floor when we arrive and knock us all out again. Someone needs to be holding her."
"No," Charlotte said, but she wasn't sure to what, exactly, she was objecting. Erika stroked her hair and turned her attention up the beach.
"Alex! Shannon! Get those children from behind the submarine!"
Petia leapt out as the girls approached. "Where are you going? Why should we go with you?"
Charlotte could feel Erika's glare, and Petia returning it.
Erika shouted, "I'm sure you can outrun another salvo of missiles, but your brother can't. We're going somewhere safe in America. Once we're there we can talk about what you want to do."
"But, I don't know you!"
"She's our mother," Waszka said quietly, putting a calming hand on his sister's shoulder. "That doesn't mean we can trust her, but I don't think she wants us dead."
"I'm still not -"
"Shut up and take Azazel's hand," Erika snapped, and, amazingly, they obeyed, hurrying down the beach to join them. Harriet and Raven joined hands with Azazel first, then Petia and Waszka with Shannon and Alex, then Angelo, Darwin and Jana. MacTaggert took Harriet's hand last of all.
Charlotte was just starting to wonder how Erika planned to move her when the helmet slid over her head. "No!" she shouted, but it was a feeble whimper. "No, no, no…" She was utterly alone for the first time in her life, clawing at Erika's arm to reassure herself that someone was still real. When Erika picked her up, the agony that slammed her into unconsciousness was a relief.
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