Chapter 382: Avocado Kedavra
"Logan, you did nothing wrong. The me of the other world wouldn't blame you, and neither would anyone else." Professor X looked at Logan with a mix of heartache and relief.
He had already heard what Logan had been through, from his own world's Wolverine and from Ethan.
He wouldn't blame Logan for failing to save the mutants of another world. He wouldn't blame him for killing indiscriminately. Nor would he blame him for dragging mutants' image through the mud in the eyes of ordinary humans.
Logan had never had the best temper. Before, someone had always been there to rein him in, and that was the only reason he hadn't gone off the rails.
Xavier himself had changed a great deal since coming to Hell's Kitchen. He no longer cared one bit whether he had a bad reputation. He no longer wanted to force mutants to assimilate among ordinary people, and he no longer worried about what ordinary people thought of mutants.
Hell's Kitchen's reputation was about as rotten as it got. Ordinary people feared and hated it in equal measure, yet that hadn't stopped Ethan and the rest from living there in peace and quiet.
What Xavier wanted now was to get Hogwarts up and running as soon as possible, a place where every mutant and every gifted person could go to school. He could sense a new space being born inside Hell's Kitchen.
Hogwarts would sit at the center of that new space's nexus. Someday, mutants might even live in that new space and gradually withdraw from ordinary human life altogether.
He had a feeling that, in the future, Hogwarts would have an enormous impact on the world.
"If you ever feel lonely, you can come to our universe," Xavier said to comfort him. "There are people there you know, comrades you've fought beside. You won't be alone anymore."
To the Wolverine, who had been drowning in pain all this time, Xavier's words were like redemption.
After all these years, he was finally seeing a long-lost friend and hearing the words he'd always wanted to hear.
Still, he didn't accept the other-universe Xavier's invitation.
If he left, there would be no one left to remember the mutants who had died in his world.
While the two of them talked, Cassandra turned her gaze to Magneto.
She remembered perfectly well how this old man had mocked her in the world of memory, and she was not the forgiving type.
Xavier she could save for last. But she could collect a little interest from Magneto first.
"Looks like you want to fight me. Good, because I'm rather curious about you too." Magneto had read Cassandra's intent. In truth, he was very curious just how strong Xavier's sister was.
"I'm not interested in you. I'm more interested in your memories." Cassandra snorted coldly. Magneto's power didn't interest her in the least. She had killed a Magneto who was wearing his helmet, and she'd twisted his head off with her own hands. A Magneto without a helmet scared her even less.
As her words faded, her form seemed to dissolve into the air. She vanished on the spot, leaving only a faint afterimage.
When she reappeared, she was already silently behind Magneto. Her fingers pressed together like a blade and drove into the seams of his skull.
But when her mind tried to push into Magneto's, it met resistance unlike anything she had ever encountered.
She had expected a fierce clash of memories. Instead, what greeted her was a deep, pitch-black void.
The shock drained the color from her face in an instant, and disbelief flashed in her eyes.
"Impossible. How is there nothing in your head?"
Cassandra searched for images from Magneto's memories, but there truly was only blackness. She couldn't see a thing.
"Has anyone ever told you your hands are filthy?" Before the words had finished, he casually raised a hand, and the metal around them answered his call as if pulled by an invisible force.
Steel rebar on either side seemed to come alive. It shot forward with a sudden burst of speed, whistling through the air straight at Cassandra.
She reacted quickly, but against such a sudden attack she still couldn't avoid being slammed into the wall. The rebar then wound tightly around her.
Of course, Cassandra wasn't going to be subdued that easily. She swiftly summoned her psychokinesis, a mental power far beyond the ordinary, strong enough to shake the boundaries of reality.
With a low rumble, the rebar binding her seemed to meet an invisible giant hand. One bar after another snapped apart until they all lay scattered on the ground.
Cassandra emerged from the wreckage like a butterfly breaking free of its cocoon, elegant and resolute. In an instant she was in front of Magneto, only a few paces between them.
"Without your helmet, how are you doing this?" There was a note of disbelief in her voice. Her brows knitted tight and her eyes blazed as she searched Magneto's calm, unruffled face for an answer.
Magneto smiled faintly, a smile both smug and a little mysterious. "Take a guess," he said, the words light and teasing, full of confidence.
Of all the magic he'd gained, the spell he had practiced most was Occlumency. He had barely bothered with anything else.
Now he had confirmed that Occlumency could block Cassandra from prying into his memories. Naturally, it would also block Xavier's telepathy.
The new magic wasn't especially powerful, but it was certainly handy.
Besides Occlumency, there was one other spell Magneto had practiced, and this seemed a good time to try it out.
"Avocado Kedavra!" At the low incantation, a green beam of death shot from the tip of his wand, straight at Cassandra.
But the seemingly lethal attack was silently swallowed the instant it touched Cassandra's psychokinetic barrier, and it vanished into nothing.
Magneto wasn't too disappointed that it hadn't worked. The spell was still quite powerful, plenty for an ordinary mutant.
Meanwhile, on the second floor, Hell's Kitchen Deadpool interrupted Ethan, who was chatting with the mutants.
"Ethan, you're up! Got a kid here who wants to go home!"
"See, bro? I told you the guys from our universe were legit, and you wouldn't believe me." Hell's Kitchen Deadpool slung an arm around Mainline Deadpool and started bragging.
(Well, obviously. He's the protagonist of this book. Of course he's awesome! Honestly, I barely even want to show up anymore. It's been twenty-some chapters and the author still hasn't wrapped this story up. Drag it out much?)
"Coming, coming. Hi there, Wade." This was Ethan's first time meeting Mainline Deadpool, and he wanted to see what a Deadpool who could break the fourth wall would do.
What he really wanted to ask was whether this Deadpool was also a character from the movies.
(You're not from the movies. You're just a character in a fanfic. Sure, you're the protagonist, but you're never getting a movie adaptation.)
(But I can't tell you that. The author's paying me way too much. Only a character as talented as me gets to star in a movie!)
"Could you send me back? I want to go save my universe."
"No problem. I'll open a portal right now!"
...
Deeper still in the Void, farther from the noise of the world, lay the rift where time and space intertwined. There all things returned to nothing, and only a single mysterious beam of light pierced the darkness to illuminate one small corner of existence.
In this forgotten realm stood a throne carved by an unseen force. Seated on it was a being of towering stature and inscrutable countenance.
Ancient, mysterious branches wound gently around the being's form. They seemed to hold the memories and legends of countless worlds.
Every so often they swayed softly, and each touch scattered tiny sparks of starlight, like the gentlest meteor shower in the night sky, lending the silent space a touch of life and mystery.
For a very long time, the being had sat with eyes closed in contemplation, or perhaps simply had no need to open them.
But at this moment, eyes that seemed to see the essence of all things snapped open. Two beams of light, piercing yet gentle, cut through the surrounding darkness and reached straight to the depths of the soul.
"You've finally come, Ethan Cross, the one who walks the cycle of rebirth."
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