Checkmate: Games of War » [Cherik]

Chapter One

"Erik is gone Hank... He's not going to come back. At least not back to me, and he's definitely not going to come back without a fight," Charles grumbled through gritted teeth with tiredly hooded eyes, maroon bags hanging like sacks beneath his drooping eyelids, framing his sharp blue eyes.

Hank nudged his glasses up the end of his nose with his finger tip and peered down the wired bifocals like a school teacher, giving Charles a stern look.

"What makes you sure?" He delivered the words with far less confidence than his pinprick eyes. He shifted on his feet uncomfortably as Charles failed to retract his unwavering stare from him.

"Because everything he's planned has fallen and crumbled to dust and Erik is more resilient than anyone I've known. He will recede into the shadows and rebuild his regime. No doubt, once he's formulated the perfect fool-proof plan to overthrow the human race he will strike again..." He grumbled, slapping a palm on the disarrayed desk in agitation, the various articles of stationery paraphernalia jiggling as the shockwave passed through the wooden surface.

Hank jerked back and his shoulders seized up at the startling sudden burst of noise and he blinked rapidly.

"And this time he might just succeed..." He murmured quietly, his head dropping and his expression sinking sullenly. "Because I can't keep up with him anymore..." He mewed pathetically, shaking his head in disappointment and running a hand through his unruly long tousled hair, running it back over his head, tugging at the unorganised knotted strands.

"Well perhaps... If you used your ability-"

"I am not using my ability!" Charles roared in agitation like a provoked dog, bursting when his equilibrium eroded away under stress. He leant forwards with the magnitude of the hoarse throaty harrowing shout, both his palms planted firmly on the desk.

Hank leant back as if the shout had nearly blow him off his feet and his eyes bloomed wide behind the lenses of his glasses and he crossed an arm over his chest to clutch at the other anxiously.

"It was just a suggestion," Hank quietly admitted, his already nervously fluttering eyes dropped to the floor and swept about the place, avoiding Charles's fiery glare, not wanting to see the frustration and anger on his usually soft features.

Charles's angrily wide eyes and stiff visage loosened and sagged, his eyes falling far more shut as the sleepiness reclaimed him again and his brows drooped.

Charles buried his face in his clammy palm and rubbed vigorously at his sore dry eyes that felt so heavy that they must have been receding into his skull, pressing his digits against his eyelids and rolling them beneath his padded fingertips. He pinched wearisomely at the tension-filled bridge of his nose and then pressed at his throbbing temple with two fingers, where his pulse was thrumming in his head.

"What do you intend to do?" Hank inquired, hesitance lacing his uneasy voice.

"I don't know..." Charles uttered inaudibly, his words muted by the hand clamped over his lips.

"Sorry..." Hank's brows knitted together in bewilderment. "You don't-"

"I said I don't know!" Charles bellowed at him, his face flushing as he shouted with such livid vitriol, visibly quaking with anger. He hung his head in shame as he saw the unsettled look on the face of his friend with an already constant nervous disposition.

Hank looked incredibly uneasy.

"Go..." Charles whined throatily like a sorrowful hound, his mewling pathetic voice cut off by a violent choking sob that rattled through his frail bony body. He flipped a hand, trying to bat him away.