[This is not the Erik anyone of this Barge has come to know. Something has shattered in him. He's graduated. The camera floats in front of him, held in the air by his mutation: the angle makes the cause of this change obvious. To one side, Charles' body lays, broken, bleeding; on the other lies Ben's, impaled by a dozen make shift spears. The area around them has been torn up by Erik's ripping panels and light fixtures and anything not metaphorically nailed down from their proper places.]

Charles is dead.

[There is weight in his voice, a heaviness laying on his head, but it doesn't break. He stays steady, out of necessity. Erik is not a defeatist: he is not giving up. He is making a choice.]

So is Ben.

[The camera floats ahead, and behind him, Charles' body rises in his wake, following. Ben is left in a pool of his own blood, abandoned. Erik heads for the stairs, brow furrowed - silent, but not done with the broadcast, not yet.

Along the way, bits of metal come to him, hovering on the peripheries.]

You're all so intent on killing each other. That's what it takes to graduate. [He's heading up, taking the stairs two at a time.] To have a second chance at life. All you have to do is destroy everything you hold dear.

[His throat tightens, compromising his calmness: everyone on board will feel the ship ripple just slightly.]

So be it, then. But I've had enough of this cock fighting.

[More metal is coming to him, faster, melding together around him.]

No more murder. No more pointless infighting. You're done.

[Ahead of him, the door to the deck slams open as he steps through; the angle changes, and he stops walking, but his forward momentum hasn't halted. He's floating. The bits of metal close behind and above him, forming a dome as he floats above the nightmare Arthas has made of the deck. It's open enough for him to be seen, but it's closing fast.

Another tremor runs through the Barge.]

When that door opens, there will be a new Admiral. And it's not going to be someone who doles out death like handshakes. We've all endured enough.

[He remembers Cuba, and he remembers the choices he made there. He knows the choices he's made here, and the one he's making now.] This will never happen again.

[The sphere closes, perfectly enclosed, and hangs above the deck. It will stay there, guarding or waiting, until the door opens.]

More kids went missing last night.

[He's very careful to start with that. Make it DRAMATIC. Make people listen. Or try really hard.]

Taken out of their beds, or never came home to them. And there are so many of you who'd say oh, it's just a few Gyptians. Nothing for us to worry about. [It's strange, coming from someone who is obviously not very Gyptian himself, even though he wears their clothes, talks and acts and is one, as far as he's concerned.] What happens when it's one of your own, huh? When they start slipping into Jordan, and St. Michael's, and your other colleges, will you worry then?

Doesn't matter if they're Gyptian or not, those're kids being taken away from their Mas. And no one that can do anything about that is bothering.

[A beat, and he gives a disgusted sigh.] Don't know why I bother. Not enough of you bother to listen.

[Private to Slevin]

There may be a lizard in your bed.

Unless you crushed it already.

But I'd check.

[Spam]

[It's a while after his grousing on the network - Erik has calmed down, and he's gone walking with Raisa. She flies ahead of him, though never too far, when she isn't sitting on his shoulder. Every now and then, she'll hop onto his head; kestrels are small birds, and despite that fact that it always musses his hair, he doesn't mind much.

The walk started as looking for clues of kids gone missing, but when no secrets revealed themselves after an hour, he took some time to sit and watch the kids, townies and college and Gyptians, playing together. He remembers that fondly; it's why he and Slevin still wind up horsing around, and why one of them never quite makes it through a boat ride dry. He can't remember who threw who into the river last; he'll have to figure it out later.

As it is, the kids are throwing around dirt clods, and Erik is reminded abruptly of how much he misses those games. Simpler times, and all that.]

I know that look, [Raisa tells him, and Erik affects his most innocent expression.]

What?

[She, as usual, doesn't buy it.] You're not a child anymore, Erik.

Never too old to have some fun.

[He's very good at wheedling her; being an adult just means he's head more than enough time to perfect the method. So it just so happens that anyone walking by might just have dirt clods rained on them from above, dropped from a kestrel's talons, while a grown-ass man snickers near by. He is an adult!]