There was war in his mind. He could feel it. His control was slipping and there, beneath the chaos racing through each and every neuron was a dark, distinct animal nature that he did not welcome. Blood oozed beneath his hand, now clutching the wound that…that thing controlling Ororo had given him. For an instant he felt like someone else entirely, and as quickly as it took over he took action against it.
He would not be controlled.
Not yet.
A futile attempt to trap the rogue Storm inside his personal confinement was made to no avail, as the weather witch almost literally breezed past his efforts and took off to God knew where. How many others had she infected? How many others were there.
“Nng!”
Teeth ground and eyes shut tight as he fought with all available effort to quell the raging monstrosity threatening his conscience. He had to get control himself. He had to warn someone. X-Club. Yes, the X-Club. If anyone could fix this, or at the very least find out what the hell was going on, it was those three and their ‘Go Science’ optimism. Yes. Yes, if he could make it to the lab he could at least warn someone that something was happening. Hopefully they hadn’t already found out by experience. Somehow the thought of an even more psychotic Doctor Nemesis was a sobering one.
Erik pushed himself off of the wall with the same shoulder that found it. There was little time to lose. He didn’t know exactly what it was Storm infected him with or how long it took to take hold. All he could surmise from the situation was that something was eating at his primal instinct, and that he was not going to be the same ‘try-not-to-kill-things’ kind of mutant that he’d striven to be the past two years. Sabertooth with wicked intellect and nigh-unstoppable power over magnetism.
Very sobering.
He quickened his pace, remaining vigilant in combating the shadows that pressured his senses. Ororo seemed to be hungry of all things, but had only just broken the skin. She’d flown all the way from the mainland to find him, specifically. He would have to find out why he was a primary target once the more dramatic mystery was solved. He flew through his own mind as pages of a book, searching to nullify thoughts of anything or anyone he would target as a ‘victim’, if that were the case. Someone powerful if it was about conversion? Someone large, perhaps, if it was indeed a game of hunger?
He could think of no one he would purposely seek out to convert. Blob was supposedly dead and he would be damned if he sunk his teeth into that man. Juggernaut was another possibility, but as he was now the metal-skinned Colossus, there was little point in the attempt.
No.
No other reason than power or size that he could imagine.
Perhaps it was something less than strategy.
!
There were footsteps in the hall. Footsteps headed toward a half-dressed, bleeding Magneto with half a mind to rip something’s throat out with his teeth alone.
Footsteps were the opposite of what he needed at the moment.
But at least it was a living person. Maybe he’d get lucky. Maybe it would be someone who could help stabilize these monstrous natures devouring his mind.
As the unnamed body turned the corner, Erik saw three things.
Green.
Brown.
And White.
It was in that moment he realized, much to his aggressive intruder’s delight, that this viral game was not at all about power or strategy…
…Leaving the two with an immensely unfortunate circumstance.
Rogue had been up far too late grading papers. Really. She loved teaching but grading? Honestly? There had to be a better system.
Mulling over the possibilities of a better solution, she paid little attention to where she was going. Her feet well knew the path between the computer lab and her room and she only looked up if she sensed she was about to run into someone.
Which was why she was just a few feet away from Erik when she glanced up. Immediately a gasp escaped her and her carefully sorted papers fell to the ground, forgotten. “Erik?” she exclaimed, rushing to examine his wound, trying to stanch the blood with her fingers and pulling the flesh together. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
“Anna…” he said softly, catching her wrists in his hands.
She looked up and was frightened by a kind of intensity she’d never seen in his eyes before. “Erik,” she said, confused and slightly frightened. “What is going on?”
“Don’t be afraid,” he told her, his voice hardly more than a whisper. “I’m just protecting you. It won’t hurt… for long…”
It was her trust in him that betrayed her. Because for that vital second, she actually believed him. And then pain took over and she collapsed to the floor.
“Erik?” she cried out. “What are you doing? Why—”
And then coherent thought left and the pain left her on the verge of unconsciousness.
