Template:Featured Articles/17-2015

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Moment of Awesome - Emma Frost: In the calm before the storm, Emma and Charles address the last defence of the mansion.

"Emma. Please, come in."

"Charles." Emma’s acknowledgement of the Professor was curt. "Watching the world end? A bang or a whimper, do you think? If, of course," she added as she settled into the chair opposite Charles, "you think we’ll be around long enough to see it end."

"We were here at the beginning. I never thought there would be an end, let alone one like this." Charles finally turned from the window, moving his chair so that he was facing Emma's seat. "You've heard about India, I suppose?"

"As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced," quoted Emma. "I could hardly fail to hear about India," she said. Emma had faced death and destruction and the threatened end of the world on a number of occasions now. Her reaction, as always, tended towards the acerbic. "That many people dying makes... a hole in the world."

"In all the worlds." Charles' expression was distant again. "All of this... it's punching holes in the fabric of reality and everything is beginning to bleed together. We both can feel it. So far, the mansion has been an oasis in all of this chaos. But that won't last."

"Of course it won't," replied Emma. "We aren't that lucky." She sighed suddenly. "All I ever wanted to do was save my brother and sisters from the monsters," she said. "I don't remember signing up to save the world. I'm fairly certain the lawyers would have mentioned it." She let the smallest fraction of her cold mask slip. "Do you think we can save it, Charles? It. Them. Whichever applies."

"I don't know, Emma." Charles sighed again, thinking of everything - everyone that had been lost already. Below them, outside on the grounds, a bundled up figure, one of the students, hurried past. "But we must try, regardless. For their sakes." His expression changed then, his next words losing that lost tone, once again the crisp, authoritative tones of Professor X. "We don't have much time - the fluxes in the fabric of reality are growing stronger and more focused over the school. It's up to you and I, Emma, to organise the defence, such as it will be."

"Dark gods and firebirds and holes in the world," said Emma dryly. "How does one defend against those?" She raised a mental hand as Charles went to reply. "Shall we just start with plans for defending the mansion and work our way out to stitching the universe back into place?" She closed her eyes for a moment, giving the pain less than a second to have its way with her, and then putting it back in its box. "Much as I'd like to resurrect the dead, I suspect that may be beyond even us."

"The dead are gone. Our duty now is to the living." Charles' voice was flat, but his mind was a raging storm. "As much as we have always tried to protect the children, this will be their fight also. There are too few of us left."

Emma had a number of views about Charles and the protection of children, but now didn't seem the time to raise them. "The children will understand what is necessary," she chose to say. "Their friends have died. Saying we can protect those that are left would hardly be believable in the circumstances." She sighed, turned to practicalities. "How many do we have left here? And how many can lead a team?"