"Erik!"

"For God sake Charles, you can't just yell in my mind when ever you want!" The rapidly falling knives Erik was working with suddenly slowed before hitting the ground safely with a dull thud. "Erik? Erik help!"

"What?"

"Please come help me."

"What, where?" As irritated as he was, if Charles was in trouble, he was going to help.

"Um… my bedroom. Please hurry." Erik quickly dashed into the mansion and up to Charles's room, disregarding the scattered knives completely.

"Okay, okay, what's the matter? Is it serious?"

"Well, um, no, but…"

"But what?"

"Can we… uh… talk about it when you get here?" Charles could feel Erik's confused silence echoing in his mind.

"You didn't happen to tell any of the others… right?"

"What? No, they're all in the kitchen." Erik finished the last flight of steps and opened the door to Charles' room using his mind. He saw Charles sitting on his bed looking quite pale and terror-stricken. "Charles?"

"Quick Erik, over here before it gets you."

"What in heaven's name are you talking about?"

"Erik please." He sounded almost desperate, so Erik walked over next to him.

"So… um… how do you feel about bugs?"

"Bugs? Charles, if you don't tell me what you're talking about right now, I'm going to leave, okay?"

"There's a roach over there and I can't get out," he spluttered.

"A roach?"

"Would you kill it? Please?" His face had turned red and he was accidentally projecting shame and embarrassment.

"Sure. Where is it?"

"Um, over there," he said pointing at the floor next to the door Erik had come in.

As he looked over at the place where Charles was pointing, he saw the largest roach he had ever seen in his entire life. "Oh my Lord… Charles that is an enormous roach."

"Mmhm." Erik slowly backed up to the bed and sat next to Charles, pulling his knees up to his chest in imitation of his friend.

"So that's a no then? The big bad Erik Lehnsherr can't kill the roach?"

"Mmff. Well I could."

"We're doomed." They sat in silence for five minutes until Erik broke the silence.

"We can't sit here forever. We've got to figure out how to get past it."

"Right."

"You first."

"Erik!"

"Fine. Follow me." Erik slid off the bed and approached the door. As he began to use his mind to open the door, he heard Charles do the same. The roach seemed unperturbed by their movement until they got right next to the door. It then climbed the wall rapidly and caused both of them to clamber backwards. It then proceeded to hiss and fly straight at them. Erik cursed and Charles may or may not have screamed a little more high pitched than was considered acceptable as Erik tumbled backwards onto Charles and they both lay terrified on the floor. They continued yelling, "Is it on me? Get it off! Where is it?" as they heard pounding coming up the stairs. They stopped as Raven, Sean, Alex, and Hank stood staring in the open door. Hank, Sean, and Alex all handed Raven a five dollar bill and Charles flushed a dark shade of red.

"So what's up?"

"There's a roach Raven, an enormous roach, it's horrifying."

"Sure," she winked at them and Erik begun to turn red as well, "Well, you two have fun trying to kill the 'roach'."

"No, Raven I swear it's over… it's gone. Where'd it go?"

"I'm sure you'll find it," she replied and closed the door.

"No! Don't close the door! Please!"

Erik cleared his throat, apologized, and stood up.

"We've got to end this threat once and for all Charles."

"I'm right behind you." They both nodded with grim determination. Charles grabbed an old baseball bat from his closet and they stood back to back in the center of the room, scanning it for the roach. The roach was nowhere to be found until it was hissing and flying into Erik's face. Having nothing else and being more intimidated than he rightfully should have been by a bug, Erik reached out with his powers for the nearest large metal object to use as a weapon. Unfortunately, this happened to be a giant metal pipe in the wall. The pipe tore through the wall and slammed the roach into the opposite wall. Charles whirled around and gaped at the pipe ejecting from the wall and dripping onto the rug. They carefully approached the place where the pipe hit the wall, and glanced at each other in apprehension. Charles readied his bat and Erik slowly moved the pipe from the wall. Luckily, the roach was impaled and it fell to the floor dead. Charles shouted and exclaimed, "You did it Erik! You killed the roach king!" Erik looked up at Charles who was staring at him with admiration in his bright blue eyes and smiled sheepishly. "Sorry about… that."

"Oh no, don't worry about that, we'll get it fixed in no time."

"How do you plan on explaining that to anyone though?" Charles tapped his head and smiled as Sean walked by, opened the door a crack, whistled loudly, and walked away again. "Well this has been eventful. I say we open a bottle of scotch in celebration."

"I wholeheartedly agree."