# Professor Y. Tho?

Charles fought for most of his life. He fought for the recognition and understanding of mutants everywhere, he fought for the humans, even those who despised his kind, and he fought his own internal struggles. He often confided in Wolverine, but alas, though his intellect was unmatched, he couldn't vocalise his troubles well enough to establish even a base-line of sense for what he was dealing with.

"It's the image, Logan! It's sometimes what you see, and not what you do! These people cannot see! Can you understand?" Charles would plead. His bouts of mania slowly cast doubts on his stability as a harbinger of peace amongst all kinds. "I can feel their dispersions. My actions count for nought when their minds are not open. How do I make them see, and yet... not see?"

One day, Logan was stabbing rats outside the compound when in the distance he spotted a familiar figure. "No... that's not...". He would swear he saw Charles with a full head of hair entering one of the public restrooms in a field behind the main building. He thought nothing of it at first, but after talking with others he noticed even they had witnessed something similar.

"I can't explain it... I know he's a slaphead, but he's... not. Is he?"

Weeks went by with dozens of more sightings and encounters, and many people began accepting what they were seeing. Some without question, almost as if it had always been this way. Logan was still unsure, and it caused many sleepless nights and intense migraines. He became reclusive and began avoiding people and sleeping in wheelchair inaccessible places in a bid to preserve his reality.

"Professor, your mane is looking very healthy, almost as thick as mine!" Hank joked. "Haha, yes. It's quite the spectacle now that you mention it, Hank. Or perhaps..." In an instant, his hairstyle was entirely different. He was now sporting a filthy mullet. "Professor, your mane is looking very healthy..." Hank began to trail off, not noticing the trickle of blood running from his nose. Charles left the room, now suddenly with a braided rat-tail. Hank stood motionless with a dead smile on his face, the light all but leaving his eyes. He slowly raised one of his hands and whispered: "I'm... blind?"

The dust took some time to settle, and some months later, when Charles had settled on a permanent hairstyle, people began behaving as before. No questions were ever asked, and Logan still remained in hiding. However, with his newfound strategy of changing how people saw things, he saw fit to expand his influence and spent some time crafting a way of "upgrading" the perceptions of those around him.

On a quiet day, Storm entered Charles' office and noticed his wheelchair laid empty in a corner of the room. "He must have gotten wrecked again and fell out of his chair" she thought. She turned her gaze to the window and there stood a strange figure. "You shouldn't be in here" she shouted, as she carefully approached the silhouetted entity. "Ah, Storm. Perhaps you've forgotten, this is my office. Is it not you who should not be in here?" The figure slowly floated towards her, legs dragging on the ground attempting ataxia-ridden steps. "I'm still working out the kinks... but you won't notice." he smiled, warmly. His smile slowly turned to concern as Storm's eyes began rolling violently. "You're b-b-bald, you're a... slaphead, Charlie. Legs don't... what's... happening?" In his panic, Charles tried to reconcile her thoughts, but they were too far gone. How could he stitch together two different realities as laid out in one's own mind? Do you pick one? What do you do with the other? Before he could do anything, Cyclops ran into the office on hearing the commotion. "Scott! Storm needs help, fetch the others!" He stared intently at the Professors legs, resting on the ankles. "Scott, don't just stand there!" but he couldn't hear. The next sound that followed was a quick, sharp BLMFF as Scott turned his vision in on himself and vapourised his own head.

Charles grew ever more frustrated at this and glided around the halls at full pelt. "What is it that you see?" he roared. "What do you percieve if not the same man as before? Why does that have to change?" As he flew by classrooms, everyone who saw him fell into a stupor, their heads collapsing in. "What's so wrong about seeing how I feel?" At that moment, Logan fell out of one of the air vents and through the ceiling, with rocks taped to his eyes. "Give it up Charles! You can't fuck with people's minds and make them see what you want them to see! You were a good man, it doesn't have to end with you skewered!"

With his powers, Charles implanted his image into Logan's mind. "Logan, you don't need eyes to see." In a howling fit, Logan's blades began retracting and extending chaotically, like a disorganised Mexican Wave. His skin started falling off, and regrowing, in an endless cycle before slumping to the ground for a final time. With no-one left to witness him, Charles was revealed as his old form. He brought himself out to the fields where he sat for hours thinking about the events that just occurred.

"They saw me, though. They were beginning to understand, I was so close!" As his eyes grew heavy, a man descended from the clouds. "Ah... Magneto... my old friend. You see, don't you?"

"No, Charles. It's over." Magneto took him in his arms and took to the skies. "You're worse than me Charles. I know I can be bad, but... that was fucked up." With those final words, he hurled Charles to Apocolypse who was waiting in the stratosphere, who then finally drove Charles into the sun.