X-Future Snippets: Shawn Attacks

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WARNING:
Following One-Shot isn't considered canon to the X-Future story.
It does contain major spoilers. Read at your own risk.
Rated T for violence and language

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Willow sat at her desk, trying desperately to focus on her homework. It had been a week since prom and things were finally starting to settle back in to some semblance of normalcy. At least, as normal as things get at the Xavier Institute.

Crystal was finally cleared to leave the infirmary, and Tyler made sure to never leave her side; her gallant protector. Liam tried to convince Tyler that not only would Crystal be safe no matter where she is on campus, but that he’d be a better protector if he got back to his training. Tyler knew Liam was right, but he still couldn’t bear to leave his girlfriend unattended.

Kinney easily got settled back in to life as a professor, although he did nearly kill a student his second day back, and then a whole group of them the following day during their survival class. Detentions were once again a feared thing now that the “I’m not a teacher out here” practitioner was home.

Lia’s concern for Ripley seemed to be just the thing to solidify their budding relationship, as well as forget her lingering hurt feelings over being dumped by Chayse in favor of Willow. Ripley and Lia spent a few days in The City checking out his new flat and a few shows. The rest of the week Ripley worked on physical therapy in order to be approved to continue his service as one of the Campus Rangers. Lia also spent the rest of the week training harder. She felt so unequipped to properly battle the Brotherhood and wanted to make sure she never had to worry about that again.

Chayse was just as determined to make sure the rest of the students would be better prepared for the eventual next attack from the Brotherhood. He was in constant training with the other students and Sebastian.

Willow stretched out in her computer chair as she thought of her future son. A man from the future was odd enough. A hot man from the future? Even more awesome, but suddenly creepy at the bizarre thought that said “hot” man is her future adult son. Just seeing how her child would grow up to look like was odd and awkward enough, but to have him return to her time about ten years her senior made life even more weird. Add in the fact that he was literally living proof that she and Chayse were destined to stay together, and Willow’s mind was spinning.

Sure, she was really attracted to Chayse. Yes, she had grown extremely fond of him; maybe even fell in love with him. Still, she never really thought about the prospect of marrying him, let alone having his kid. They were still kids themselves. In high school. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do after graduation, let alone a “forever” relationship with anyone. She was too much of a flirt for that. At least, she thought so. Seems Sebastian proved otherwise.

“This is just too weird for me.”

Giving up on her homework, Willow pushed away from her desk and spun the chair before jumping off. In a fluid motion from her seated position, she easily tumbled on to her bed and tucked her head under her pillow. The soft fluff not reaching her scalp as the mini-cerebro intercepted.

“I hate this stupid thing.” With a groan she flipped over and adjusted the skullcap designed to enhance her telepathy and telekinesis. “It’s so dumb that I have to wear it all the time. I should only have to have this thing on when I’m training.” Untucking her head, she stuck her tongue out to punctuate her statement to the air.

Closing her eyes to try to push out all of the chaotic thoughts going through her head – brought on by the past week’s events – Willow caught a weird sensation. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but her body instinctively tensed as this uneasy feeling of hostility filled the air. Concentrating on her training, she tried sending out a telepathic radar in an attempt to find the source. She found it a moment too late.

With a loud crash her dorm room window shattered all over her floor as a tall, buff man burst through it. Willow bolted upright in her bed as the man slowly shook the glass off of him and rose to his feet. He wore a black bodysuit with yellow spirals running down the arms and legs. The black mask he wore in their first encounter wasn’t present; it was unnecessary this time. Besides, he wanted to make sure that Willow saw the long, deep cut he had running from his forehead, across his left eye, and down his left cheek.

“Shawn.” Willow barely had enough remaining breath to say his name.

“Why, hello again, dear sister.” He gave a grin before his arms flared up with electric spirals that looked like drill bits. In an instant the electricity shot out from his hands. With a yelp, Willow put up her arms defensively and instinctively created a telekinetic force field to protect herself.

Still unskilled with this part of her powers, the force of the attack still managed to push her and she tumbled off the bed. Her Parkour training kicked in and she caught herself with one hand, bouncing off her palm and landing on her feet on Lia’s bed.

“Shawn, how did you get past all of the defenses?”

“Silly child, you think anything could really stop electricity?”

“I dunno, my force field seemed to do a good job a second ago.”

With a glare and a roar, Shawn shot out another pair of bolts. Willow was better prepared this time and put up another field as she leaped in to a backwards somersault. She tucked under her roommate’s bed and called out again.

“Shawn, stop this! We can help you. Let us help you. We were close once, weren’t we? We loved each other, didn’t we?” Cautiously, she rose from her bunker. “I know I still love and miss my big brother.”

“Loved me, huh? You sure in hell had an odd way of showing it, you bitch! Made my life a living hell with your illusions, and didn’t think I’d resent you? How diluted could you possibly be?”

Another round of drill-shaped bolts erupted from his arms, but this time he aimed them at the floor. The lightning ripped through Willow’s and Lia’s beds, shredding and igniting the carpet in its path. Once more Willow was able to deflect with her telekenesis. With a quick turn she ran partially up the wall behind her before pushing off it, tumbling through the air, and landing closer to her older brother.

“Face it; you still can’t touch me, Shawn. Please, just give up and let us help you.”

“I’d rather die than accept your help.” With a growl he started to rapidly fire off his bolts. Although none of them were able to bypass Willow’s defenses they did tear up her room even more. Scorched cuts were now etched all over her floor and the wall behind her. The furniture caught fire and the room began to fill with smoke.

“Don’t make me hurt you!” Willow inched closer and closer to Shawn, sliding over towards her desk at the same time.

“You could never hurt me more than you already have you bitch!” His anger was starting to get the better of him. He no longer attempted to aim at her. He was more satisfied to create static as an aura of buzzing electricity encased him, as if he were the nucleus of a plasma globe. A deep-belly growl exploded in to a primal roar as he released his aura. As if a massive storm got trapped inside the room, lightning bolts shot in every direction, intensifying the growing inferno.

With a few coughs, Willow focused harder on her protective telekinetic encasing, but the needed concentration – even with the mini-cerebro – started to greatly wear her down. She collapsed against her metal desk. It was still hot to the touch even with her force field, but it at least remained intact. Resting upon it was her laptop with a large scorched hole through the majority of the screen. Next to that was her thick history textbook. Although the hard cover itself was destroyed, it somehow managed to keep most of the pages safe.

With a swift motion Willow grabbed the heavy hardbound book and hurled it at Shawn. The man laughed as he easily destroyed the textbook with another blast of lightning. However, the distraction was just enough for Willow to switch gears and tap in to her telepathy; leaving just enough concentration to keep up her force field.

Shawn wailed out as Willow began to bombard him with telepathic barrages. His head flooded with intense pressure, ear-piercing high pitched sounds, and a constant bombardment of Willow and their parents’ voices chanting about how much of a failure he was. The relentless overstimulation instantly gave him an almost paralyzing migraine as he collapsed to his knees.

“Give up, Shawn. I bested you again.” Willow’s words then echoed in his head.

Enraged further, he used the last of his strength to lunge at his younger sibling. Before she could refocus to reinforce her shield, Shawn was able to break through it and tackle her to the ground. Flames blazed around them and the smoke became more intense.

Willow coughed and pushed against her brother, but he was too strong for her to move normally. She attempted to use her telekinesis to push him off, but the lack of air made her too weak. Her mental onslaught must have been enough to also hinder his powers since he didn’t even attempt to zap her while he had her pinned down.

They might as well have been just two normal humans, fighting each other for their lives. With that in mind, Willow reached out her hands and clawed at whatever she could grab. The only thing her fingers could find was the now useless power cord for her laptop.

With a firm yank she unplugged the cord. As Shawn moved his hands to her throat Willow’s resolve firmed. She flicked her wrist and the cord whipped forward. She was already too weak for it to do much damage as she whipped it over and over again at her assailant.  It did frustrate him though, and he released her neck long enough to rip her weapon from her hands.

She managed another deep gasp before both of his strong mitts were re-laced around her throat. Incapable of thinking of anything more effective, she started clawing at his face. Even with his blood dripping down on to Willow, Shawn didn’t shift at all aside from gripping harder.

Willow squeaked out one last “help” before finally passing out. With a grin Shawn kept his firm grip, making sure she was gone. A moment later there was loud pounding on the door.
“Willow? Willow, are you in there? Willow, answer me!” The door glowed a neon green before it exploded, showering Shawn with splinters. Chayse needed only a second to spot the siblings on the ignited floor. “Get off her, you bastard!” He dove at Shawn and managed to knock him off the unconscious Willow.

No longer in pain from his sister’s mental attacks, Shawn easily zapped Chayse. Using his power to control kinetic energy, Chayse managed to push himself off of Shawn with no more harm than a taser. He lay on the floor, flames licking at his skin as he shook.
“I should have known I should have finished you off first.” Shawn took a step towards the convulsing teen and gripped Chayse’s shirt. “It’s too bad I didn’t think to have Willow witness me finally succeeding in killing you.”

“You are a slow learner, aren’t you?” Chayse coughed out before phasing his body, easily slipping out of Shawn’s grip and collapsing to the floor before solidifying again.
Shawn growled as he created a massive orb of lightning between his hands. Chayse weakly crawled over to Willow, just barely reaching her before Shawn shot the energy ball at the two of them.

Instantly, Chayse phased both himself and his girlfriend as the floor was again destroyed by the lightning. The two fell through the floor and he solidified both of them as they hit the floor below. It was a brief escape as Shawn blasted the same spot one last time, opening up a hole in the floor. With a simple jump he nearly landed on top of the couple.
The ceiling was already ablaze from Willow’s room being engulfed by flame. Chayse crawled backwards across the floor with Willow cradled in his arms, praying that she wasn’t really gone.

“Hold on just a moment longer. I’m about to finish this, I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, punk.” Another bombardment of electricity exploded around them, but once more Chayse was able to phase them to keep them out of harm’s way.

“God damn it! Stop doing that and just die you prick!”

“Same to you, asshat!” Chayse opened up his hand to reveal the power cord from Willow’s destroyed laptop. He quickly charged it and tossed it at Shawn. With a laugh the man was able to easily intercept the exploding cord with his own powers. Just as Chayse had hoped Shawn would do. While distracted, Chayse again phased and lunged forward, reforming just in time to tackle Shawn.

Before Shawn could throw the teen off of him, Chayse pinned him down and placed a hand on the man’s chest. “How about I give you a matching scar to mine?” Energy raced from Chayse’s fingers to Shawn’s chest as it powered up with kinetic energy.

“You wouldn’t dare kill me, X-Man!”

“Maybe, but I will stop you.” As Chayse flipped off of his opponent he channeled the energy to Shawn’s uniform instead of his chest. The clothes violently exploded, knocking out the rival. In a quick sprint Chayse returned to Willow’s side, snatched her up, returned to Shawn, and phased them both to another floor down. Now safely away from the fire – at least for the time being - he began CPR.

It was the longest three minutes of Chayse’s life; unsure if he should try to sprint her to the infirmary instead. Finally, he felt Willow gasp. Nervously laughing, Chayse raised Willow in to his arms in a tight embrace.

“Thank god you’re alive. Now, let’s get the hell out of here.” Even though he was told he wasn’t allowed to use his Ascension powers any longer, this emergency certainly called for an exception. Channeling the steady increase of kinetic energy to his limbs, Chayse struggled to carry both Driver siblings as he raced them to the safety of the infirmary.