· 。ﾟ☆: *.☽
▎ BEAUTIFUL CRIME ▎
»»————-　act one. a hero's journey
CHAPTER TWELVE━━ beautiful crime

ᵒ .༄ ࿐ ࿔* 🌊♟💦
♯ ❝LET ME BE OF SERVICE! ❞ 
⋆⋅ ━━━━ ‧ ༻✩༺ ‧ ━━━━ ⋅⋆ 

MAGGIE'S HEART BEATS ERATICALLY INSIDE HER RIBCAGE, ALMOST LIKE IT IS TRYING TO BURST FREE FROM HER BODY, nerves are infiltrating her senses as she watches Angel lift herself up in the sky as Riptide started to create another powerful surge of wind, but before it could grow the become a whirlwind, Alex had already blasted the dark haired man back with his own energy blast.

Instinctively, Maggie raised her arm just as Azazel popped up behind them, ready to strike Alex down but before he could, water encased his arm, before it froze around him making it impossible to move as she bawled her fist, knuckles turning a pale white colour from the sheer force. The red tinted man grunted, face contorting angrily as his tale swiped upwards and around her throat.

Immediately her hold on the water ceased as she started to tug on the tale around her neck that was closing off her airway. Both Alex and Hank latched onto her to try and free her but the mutant had other plans as he teleported them up in the air above the sea. The three X-men shouted loudly as they fell down from the sky, Azazel just above them as he had let go of them. But the Beast had other plans in mind than falling to their dead as he dug his claws in Azazel's skin. "If we go, you go!" He shouted over the wind.

Maggie was already trying to stop herself from wildly moving about in the air as the navel fleet ship came closer to them to focus on the water and hopefully softening their landing, but it appeared that the red tinted mutant was far more fearful of plummeting down than he was of taking the three mutants with him to safety as the roughly landed on the ships floor.

The brunette gritted her teeth as the fight commenced again and she raised her arms high up in the air, concentrating all her powers on the water that surrounded the ship as Hank and Alex fought Azazel with everything they had. "Boys!" Maggie called out as a large wave began to form, its shadow appearing on the metal floor as it blocked out the sun, "You better hold on to something."

With those words spoken, Maggie froze her own feet to the floor and in one swift downward motion she let the salty ocean water crash down on them with great force. For a moment all she could see was the water that surrounded her before she spread her arms out forcefully, separating the wave into to that pushed Azazel from the side of the ship and into the freezing cold ocean waters alongside a lot of other American soldiers on the ship.

The brunette blinked as slowly all the water disappeared again, yellow suit wet and hair stuck against her forehead.  "A little warning next time maybe?" Alex called out from where he and Hank were a tangled mess of limbs, the blue giant of a man holding Alex with one arm while his other was holding onto the railing for dear life.

Maggie only grinned, "I did say to hold on to something." She shrugged innocently as Hank spat out some water, blue fur dripping. "Besides, it worked."

A large explosion echoed over the water, breaking their stare down, and Maggie watched nervously from the ship as Erik ripped a piece of metal from the submarine, throwing it against Riptide with such force she could only assume the man to be unconscious, or worse—dead.

She gulped, already knowing what would be happening in the next ten minutes, and she felt the urge to return to the beach and watch it play out, to truly make her see that Erik was not a man capable of forgiveness, of knowing better than to live on the need of vengeance.

Casting a glance over her shoulder, she swung her legs over the railing and fell down, but instead of being swallowed by the waves, the moment her feet touched the water it froze over. She wasted no time in running towards the Cuban beach. Her breath was ragged, and she could faintly hear Hank and Alex call out her name behind her but she was completely focused on returning to the beach, to Charles and Moira, most importantly to Erik.

Running towards their broken airplane, Maggie joined Charles and Moira while Raven nodded at her, the red haired mutant still very displeased to be the lookout as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"How's he doing?" Maggie breathed out, hair dripping a great deal as she crouched down between the professor and the CIA agent.

Charles ignored the chestnut haired beauty and instead remained glaring at the large submarine, fingers held against his temple. "You've reached the void." Charles spoke to—Maggie assumed—Erik, but she could not know what the man replied with as Charles did not commentate about it.

But she could however assume it was nothing good as the man stood up abruptly, rushing to go outside the crashed plane, "What? He got to be there! He had to be! There is nowhere else he can be. Keep looking!"

Maggie nervously bit her thumb as she exchanged worried looks with Moira, the two woman following after Charles in a hurried manner.

"Erik? Erik!"

Worry filled her entire being as Charles called out for the man, her heartrate picking up again as she pushed herself forward to stand next to the professor. He could easily decipher her intentions with one look in her eyes, he didn't even need to read her mind to know what she wanted to do. "He's gone, he's gone into the void! I can't communicate with him there."

"I am going in." She stated, no permission asked as she tried to manoeuvre around Charles as the man called out after in protest, not even hearing that Charles had gotten back in contact with the man in question.

Maggie rushed towards the submarine, the sand making it difficult to run normally as she tripped ever other second but she did not care about that, all she could think about was Erik. She knew that if it came down to it, the man would have little regard to his own safety if it meant he could take Shawn down with him. And while she had come to terms with the man acting out on his desire to eliminate Shaw for good, she could not accept that Erik would die in his own crime.

As beautifully poetic it may had seem to the man himself, she was not ready to say goodbye to him like that.

Crawling through the opening Erik had gone into, Maggie creeped silently through the abandoned halls, taking turns left and right in the hopes of finding the man she cared about.

Finally after what felt like a century, Maggie heard voices down the hall, they almost seemed like whispers as the floated hauntingly around the corridor. The unmistakable voice of Shaw bounced from the walls as he spoke to Erik.

Cautiously she crept closer and closer, hiding in the shadows as she saw Shaw come into view, well at least his back but her eyes did not remain focused on him long and instead she looked at Erik who laid on the ground, holding himself up with his elbow.

He looked almost defeat, and she found it strangely upsetting to see the man so vulnerable with pieces of broken glass scattered around him. It looked very unlike how she had always seen him. He had always appeared composed and strong, the only time she had even seen a shimmer of vulnerability was when he came to her room just minutes before they were set out to go here. But even that had looked different than this scene in front of her and she could need even begin to fathom what was going through his head right now.

"But everything I did, I did it for you." Shaw spoke ominously as he stepped closer to Erik, both men completely unaware of her presence, but Maggie couldn't bring herself to move, and she knew that if Erik saw her here, he would have wanted her to turn away. Shaw was his to take out, his alone and he didn't want her in the crossfire.

And she might not have known it then, but if she would have voiced her worries, If she would have said no to him killing Shaw, he might have listened to her too.

"To unlock your power." Shaw continued as Erik pushed himself back up to his feet, "To make you embrace it." He touched Erik's jaw, and a surge of power waved of him, sending Erik crashing into another mirror wall that broke into a thousand pieces.

Maggie grimaced, hands twitching by her side as she slowly raised her left hand, calling out to the water that was way too far away from her. But this time, Erik did see her hiding, she could tell by the fraction that his eyes widened. But it seemed Shaw remained unaware of her presence, and with a subtle shake of his head, the chestnut haired woman knew not to move, to interrupt—to stop him.

"You've come a long way from bending gates. I'm so proud of you."

In his fury, Erik waved his arms wildly, sending metal beams and other pieces whirling towards the man encasing him tightly, but simultaneously exposing Maggie to Shaw as well.

Shaw's eyes flicker up, catching Maggie's gaze before he looked back at Erik a dark and sinister smirk crawling on his face, "and you're just starting to scratch the surface--" He thrusted his hand forward, a surge of energy blasting towards Maggie who was knocked back against the wall, a scream of pain escaping her throat when the back of her head came into contact with the wall before she slumped down. "—Think how much further we could go together" He grinned at Erik as the man shouted out for her in worry.

All of Charles words had left him as Erik held his arms out in front of him, pushing the metal closer towards Shaw in complete rage and all Maggie could do was helplessly watch from where she was slouched against the wall, heart beating in her ears as her head throbbed painfully as Shaw pushed against the same metal pushing Erik back against a large steel pipe trapping him against it.

The man turned around, walking closer towards Maggie who tries her best to stand up again but she feels completely exhausted. Shaw crouches down and tilts his head as he observes her thoughtfully before he forcefully grabs her chin to make her look at him. "I see you've found yourself a strong girl huh."

Maggie growled, eyes narrowed as she ripped her head free from his grip, "Such a shame." He tutted as he glanced at the trapped man behind him and Erik felt his heart sink when he caught the evil glint in his eyes. It was the same look he had given him the day they took his mother away from the world.

"Let. Her. Go." Erik spat out forcefully but all Shaw did was laugh gleefully at the sight before he swiftly turned around and shoved his hand against her forehead sending a powerful wave of energy against her that slammed her against the mirrored wall, this time breaking it too.

Maggie slummed once more, head hanging low and barely conscious.

"I never meant to hurt you. I never did." She could hear Shaw say but it sounded muffled like her head was underwater. "I want to help you. This is our time. Our age. We are the future of the human race. You and me, son. This world could be ours."

"Everything you did made me stronger; made me the weapon I am today. It's the truth. I've known it all along." Erik spoke and Maggie found a little bit of strength left in her too lift her hand up to observe the scene, completely thrown off by Erik's words.

"You are my creator." Maggie blinked as a piece of metal swooped in and ripped the helmet off of Shaw's head, "Now Charles!"

Maggie watched as Erik moved the metal away from him and approach Shaw's frozen body, still reaching out towards his helmet and he moved around him so that he could face his tormentor.

Maggie could only watch helplessly has he grabbed the helmet for himself, "I'm sorry Charles." He muttered pushing the professor out of his head. "It's not that I don't trust you."

The brunette remains silent as she pushed herself back up, reaching behind her to touch the back of her head to feel the warm blood that is running down and she suppresses a hiss.

"Maggie." Charles' voice fills her head and for a second it feels like she is back at that little diner, being a normal woman hiding who she is again, "What is he doing? You have to stop him."

What he was always planning to do Charles. Her own thoughts reply back, we all knew this was going to happen. I just hope that after he's done this, he'll find a better purpose in life.

"He can't come back from this Maggie." Charles voice presses nervously.

Some demons need to be killed to be silenced

"If you're in there, I like you to know that I agree with every word you said. We are the future." Erik began and Maggie frowns, worried by his words. She had known his views for a long time, and she knew he had seen mutants as the superior race, and in a way she does too, she still does. But she knows that it doesn't make her better than the ordinary side of mankind and now she starts to wonder if Erik thinks the way she does.

"But..." He turns away, eyes flickering towards her as she hold her arms crossed over her chest giving no indication on how she feels about the moment. "Unfortunately, you killed my mother."

That comes as a surprise to Maggie and suddenly everything makes more sense to her. How he can't let go of the past, of he can only think about revenge. She knew he had inside a concentration camp, that was clear after she saw the messy numbers tattooed on his wrist, but even if she could start to comprehend the horrors that went on inside, she could never say to fully understand what it must have been like for him. It only seemed more cruel that he had lost his mother there too.

Her eyes flicker back up when she noticed the familiar Nazi-German coin float in the air, the same one he had shown her during the evening hours back Charles mansion. The one where he had clearly told her his intentions. "This is what we are going to do. I'm going to count to three, and I'm going to move the coin.

"One."

Maggie breathed in deeply,

"Two."

She turned her head away.

"Three."

She closed her eyes.

It was silent, until a soft clinking noise filled her ears and she opened her eyes again to see Shaw, a hole inside his head and Erik standing tensely with his back turned towards her. A minute passes as nobody moves until Erik turns his head to the left, she can't see his face but she knows he is waiting for her to say something, to react.

But she can't find it in herself to say anything at all, it is like her voice is stolen from her. All she can do is look at his figure silently. Erik takes this as an answer too and turns back to face the corpse of Shaw and with a simple wave of his hand the dead man starts to float in the air as did Erik himself.

Maggie groaned as she pushed herself forward when Erik disappeared from view and slowly she started to follow after the man but when she reached the same gaping hole she had entered though she felt her heart sink into her stomach.

"Today our fighting stops!"

The chestnut haired woman slowly walks outside and she watches as Raven rushes to her side helping the older woman back towards the rest of them as she supports her weight.

Maggie feels nauseous when Erik drops Shaw's body carelessly on the ground. The man floating above them is not the same man she had gotten to know back at the mansion. This man was a complete stranger to her.

"Take of your blinders, brothers and sisters. The real enemy is out there." Erik's voice resounded loudly over the beach as he pointed towards the ocean where the Russian and American navel fleets were. "I feel their guns moving in the water, their metal targeting us. Americans, Soviets, humans. United in their fear of the unknown."

Maggie heart begins to beat faster as she glances at the ocean warily, hoping that whatever Erik is saying is just a lie to make them follow him.

"The Neanderthal is running scared, my fellow mutants." He bellows as everyone slowly follows after Erik as he approaches the water before he looks back at Charles, "Go ahead Charles."

Without anymore indication, the telepath lift his finger to his temple and focuses on the ships ahead of them. "Tell me I am wrong." Erik finishes.

But as Maggie watches Charles slowly drop his hand down again, she knows, once again, that humankind remains fearful of them. Even though they saved them from World Warr III. Even though they have been nothing but civil.

Even though they are human too.

Maggie watches fearfully as Moira runs back to their plane, hopefully stopping the attack, but her attempt is fruitless when one by one, all the ships fire their weapons, large explosion traveling across the sea and towards them at high speed.

She truly feels like that is it, the end for her and her friends. To die like some sort of villain, but then Erik raises his hand steadily and swift, halting all of the nukes that are heading their way, it is almost like time is frozen at that moment.

With bathed breath, Maggie looks at Erik who holds them in the air, but then, suddenly they begin to move again, turning around and the chestnut haired woman knows what's next.

"Erik, you said it yourself, we're the better man. This is the time to prove it. " Charles tries to convince Erik urgently, "There are thousand of men on those ships. Good, honest, innocent men. They're just following orders."

For a moment Maggie thinks that Charles has talked Erik out of it, but then she sees something shift inside his eyes, a million and one emotions passing through before they harden, "I've been at the mercy of men just following orders—" He pauses, turning his head to look at Charles, "Never again."

Then he flicks his wrist forward, and the missiles are moving again, this time towards the ships.

"Erik! Release them!"

But the man does not listen and Charles, with a strangled battle cry runs towards Erik and he tackles the man to the ground, making the missiles drop down again.

Hank, Alex, Sean and Raven all approach them quickly, but Erik thrusts his hand outwards towards them, pushing them back, "Stay back!"

Maggie's eyes widen as the missiles in the sky start to explode, adrenaline pumping through her veins as she makes her own approach towards the two fighting man. "Erik!" She calls out desperately. "Stop this. Please!" She begs when he gains control again and stand up straight to direct the missiles towards the ships.

Her eyes narrow, and she thrusts her own hands forward a loud battle cry of her own erupting from her throat, and she has never felt so much power surge through her. An enormous wall of water rises from the ocean, just in front of the dozen ships in the water, creating a barrier between them and Erik's attack. She bawls her fist tightly, the liquid becoming frozen once more creating a thick ice wall.

Erik thrust his left hand towards her, jerking her arm—the one with the metal bracelet, the one he had tugged one so many times in good fun, to the side. She almost loses balance as he glues her arm to her side, but she is not ready to give up yet as she stand her ground holding everything up with her other hand. The first few missiles hit the wall and she can feel herself start to shake as they blow up. 

Suddenly shots rang out and from the corner of her eye she can see Moira shooting at Erik, the man dropping his focus on the missiles and Maggie, giving the woman the opportunity to completely swallow the missiles with one large wave, bringing them down to the surface of the water as they explode without harming the thousand of men Erik was aiming for.

She collapses on her knees in pure exhaustion, but she knows the fight is not done yet as Erik deflects bullet after bullet, but then to everyones horror, one of the stray bullets he had flicked away embeds itself in Charles' back, the young man collapsing on the sand, a strangled cry leaving his lips.

All fighting ceases at that as they rush towards Charles, the man being hold up by Erik as he carefully manoeuvres the bullet out of his spine, but as Moira goes to approach him, Erik lashes out, the metal neckless around her tightening around her like a noose.

"Erik!" Maggie's eyes widen as she calls out, "Erik stop! You're killing her!" She runs towards them in fear stepping inside his line of sight. She can see the conflict in his eyes as he looks at her, but then Charles mutters something she can't hear and he lowers his arm in defeat, signalling the end.

The end of everything.

And there she stands, on a beach in Cuba, the waves of the oceans gently pushing up on the sand. It should have been tranquil, peaceful, a happy ending. But it is not.

Instead it is like she is ten years old again, a little kid with the big dreams and the bigger doe eyes discovering the powers she holds in her tiny body as Erik asks who's with him. Who is going to face off against humankind. But this time, the lake has become an ocean, and she already knows about the powers she holds.

But there are still two sides, two stories, two roles.

Erik looks expectantly at her, waiting for her to cross over towards his side because he knows how she views humankind, the way they have treated her, and how she refuses to ever be belittled again by them or be the victim of their anger.

On the other side, Charles lays on the ground, a pained expression on his face, one she is all too familiar with at this point in her life. She knows the suffering and the ache that comes from losing things that are dear to you. The pain people can inflict, intentionally and unintentionally.

Maggie Hendrix stands in the middle, a buffer between sides, a small spot of no man's land as everyone else has picked their side waiting for her to take a step towards either of them, but all she can see is the girl and the woman she used to be. The little wide eyes girl dreaming of becoming a hero, the girl that got her dreams crushed by her powers and the fear of the unknown. And on the other side is the woman she had been for the last decade or so—one who had started to believe the words of others, telling her how horrible mutants were, how evil. The villains of the story.

But she is neither of those people anymore, her heart has accepted that she could never be that hero, but she also knew that she was not the villain people made her out to be, and that she would not be painted as one.

And even if she loved him, Erik had fallen, darkness and vengeance has consumed him even if she had hoped that ending Shaw, would end this toxic cycle.

And as she stands on the beach, like she had stood by the lake so many years ago, she parted the water behind her with a quick move of the wrist as she turned on her heel.

Humankind was not all good like Charles wanted to believe.

Humankind was not all bad like Erik wanted to believe.

She was not a hero—

She casted one look over her shoulder, eyes meeting Charles, the man probably already having read her thoughts and she can she the understanding swirling in his eyes as he gives her one firm nod. A thank you, a goodbye... maybe a see you later.

Then she moves slightly, catching Erik's gaze and she can see the confusion in his eyes as he watches her move further away from everyone and all she can do is give him a single nod—a goodbye, an apology, a promise of maybe. . . maybe in another lifetime.

Maggie Hendrix has always lived to please others—to adjust to fit the needs of the people around her and to fit into their description of normal. But she was not that person anymore. It was time she chose what she stood for as she let the water swallow her, closing off behind her as she started to walk away.

—But she was no villain either

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⊱ ────── {⋅. AUTHORS NOTE .⋅} ────── ⊰

holy damn! This. Chapter. Is. So. Long. I got carried away a bit I guess and it resulted in 4314 words 🙈. But this concludes first class. My bby maggie had so much hope for erik after he killed shaw, but we all knew erik wasn't going to be all rainbows and sunshine afterwards. Course he thought maggie would still join him on his crusade, but maggie finally found herself after years of living in fear of her powers and the possible abusive of it by others. She knows what she wants and it is certainly not becoming the one thing she is always made out to be. But she does still share Erik's view for the most part and thus can't support Charles in the way he needs to be supported. Course he understands that. And so, Maggie is going her own way. Any theories about what she'll do? Or where she'll be when days of future passed starts? Leave your guesses here! ✏️🕵️‍♀️📝 ! See you all soon in act two!