2014.04.06 - Soldiers' Story

Mutant Growth Hormone has periodically appeared in different boroughs and varying forms over the years; rarely, its effects have been limited to overloading the already existing powers of a user, but in its more common forms, it induces powers in those who wouldn't normally have them--powers that all too often rage out of the user's control. The names of those responsible for maintaining its flow through the streets are as varied as the substance itself; law enforcement, vigilante justice, and no small number of 'accidents' with captive donors who proved too difficult to contain have guaranteed it.

Xavin has been casing the dealers and other assorted gangsters working for one of those operations - the Suicide Bloods - for a solid week in the hopes of learning about not just the inner-workings of their organization, but the dealers themselves. His allies mostly consist of young, earnest heroes and wannabe heroes--friends who he wouldn't dream of dragging into an encounter with any number of hardened, potentially superhuman criminals, and his own powers, impressive as they may be, are unlikely to be enough for a head-on confrontation with such opposition.

So instead, he's limited himself to watching--until tonight, when one of the men he's been trailing decides to take a detour to his girlfriend's place instead of heading straight to his supplier's house for a meeting. The Skrull waited invisibly for as long as it took for his mark to have his visit,and leave, only to intercept him a few blocks away.

There were apologies aplenty when Xavin eventually arrived at the meeting, wearing that man's face; that, and the huge wad of cash his mark had been carrying - almost certainly earmarked for the supplier in the first place - was enough to get him in.

This particular supplier - Jamil Bouie - is a few steps removed from the top of his organization: high enough to be responsible for a number of dealers in the Slum, but not so high that he doesn't - can't - still meet them face to face on occasion; he is ultimately responsible for keeping a goodly chunk of the neighborhood flush with product. His house - or, perhaps more accurately, the gang's house - is very sparsely furnished, with little more than a couch in the living room, a table, a couple of chairs, and a counterful of lab equipment in the kichen, and a varying number of fold-out cots. Besides Bouie and Xavin, there are a handful of others - dealers, some muscle, and a cook who's trying to clean and check some of the quipment amidst the others - in attendance at the meeting; music is playing in the kitchen, where they're all sitting or standing around the table where, currently, piles of money are sharing space with large bags of bundled vials. There's an open bottle of liquor on a nearby counter, and the air is thick with marijuana smoke; whatever business they're here to discuss, they seem comfortable with mixing a healthy dose of pleasure into the proceedings.

The house is a two story affair, but most are unlikely to ever see the upper floor; it's where the house's only steady occupant lives, and while he might welcome the visitors, Bouie certainly wouldn't. His name is Jay Harvey, and he's been kept chained to a bed and locked in a reinforced room for months, ever since members of the organization heard about his strange, luminescent skin and eerie visions from his cousin, a long-time addict. For the last week or so, his visions have pointed to tonight being the night when a great change falls upon his prison; while he has yet to see any inkling of what's to come after that - or even what form that change will take - the hope that his long nightmare of cramped space and needles might somehow end is enough to put the barest of smiles on his lips as he tries to nestle his head against his cot to drown out the noise from downstairs.

One could fill a book with the sort of things that Cable doesn't condone. But at the moment, he has an excess of free time; and that is applied to either training... or doing what he can. He leaves the small fries to the regular heroes. Stopping a burglar, catching a mugger, such is merely the universe balancing itself out. Society will ultimately survive with or without that intervention -- Cable has seen it in a number of realities.

But he has also seen ones where it /worked./ Where metahumans, aliens, mutants, and mutates all lived in peace and harmony. He studied long and hard how that came to be, and it wasn't oppression. It was understanding human society was a communal mind... every nation, every border, every faction. And when there is cancer and opposing forces to those unity, it ends in another thing he has seen many times.

A dead Earth.

On his list of causes worthy to defeat is the Mutant Growth Hormone. An abominable practice that not only defiles innocents, but creates powered monsters to abuse it, a cyclical process that is central to his philosophy of what cannot exist. And when his mind is focused like a keen knife, he has managed to destroy even Apocalypse's infrastructure in the end, firmly embedded in the planet. The techniques to reach this point are quite different. Cable systematically climbed the chain of people's memories. Forcedly ripping out what he wants from uncooperative minds, and leaving them in that damaged state.

What took Xavin weeks of careful infiltration takes Cable a few hours, each mental jump bringing him closer and closer to the source, and further uncovering the atrocities behind it all.

Jamil Bouie is also a target for Cable. Through him, he can work down to those beneath him, and down again, until everyone who reports to him is annihilated. And afterwards... he can target the man Jamil works for, if they are foolish enough to know each other's real name. Eventually he reaches that block, someone intelligent enough to work through only digital mediums, but on this foothill of the Mutant Growth Hormone tree it has not yet become an issue.

Descending in the air, Cable lands without even a creak on the roof of the building. His left eye flares with telepathic energy, rippling down to flood the entire house. In a moment he's linked to the surface thoughts of everyone inside at once, like someone watching countless camera monitors in tandem. Truly though, there's only one person in here he's interested in finding first.

Jay Harvey. Shifting his probe to the caught mutant, Cable grits his teeth as his mind is scanned. Taking a mental note of every abuse, every monstrosity committed during his time here. A general location of everyone within the building is first done. No reason to rush the operation. Although he does initiate mental contact twice.

<< Mr. Harvey. Your salvation has arrived. >> And then it focuses on the other weird blip on his monitor. Xavin. Those aren't the thoughts of someone in this organization. And the longer his surface thoughts are scanned, the more obvious it becomes apparent something is amiss. Only after he is sure that Xavin's intentions are the same as his own would a voice echo in his head.

<< I assume you wish the mutant in here liberated as well... And these people brought to 'justice'. Am I right? >>

"Man, I told y'all," Xavin says as he waves an incoming blunt past him, "I'm stayin' sharp tonight; gotta be ready to get up and make that money tomorrow, know what I--"

The sudden mental contact steals the next words from the Skrull's lips and prompts him to quickly look around the kitchen; none of the other men and women gathered around it seem to have heard anything, nor are they especially focused on his faltering tongue, what with all the money, booze and drugs to hold their attention. Taking a step back from the table, he just about shuts his eyes to concentrate on forming a response.


 * "Who are you?"| he thinks back, first and foremost; if they were face to face, the question probably would have been accompanied by hard eyes and a bit of a growl, but instead, there's just a palpable tinge of distrust coating his thoughts. He does at least backtrack to, |"--yes,"| right after that snap response. |"They are poison, but I didn't--"|

He pauses briefly and his eyes open so that they can flick between the crew and the vials on the table. He'd heard the name on the streets enough times, and he'd certainly seen its effects; what he hadn't done, however, was make the connection between the drug and its source.


 * "What mutant?"| he finally thinks back as understanding - and anger - begin to fill his mindscape and his eyes narrow on the backs of the Bloods.

Meanwhile, Jay's eyes widen when Cable makes contact, but he doesn't do much else at first--not even breathe; he's too busy trying to decide whether or not he really has just been contacted by some unseen angel, or if he's just allowing himself to get too swept up in his vaguely hopeful visions.

Soon enough, though, he is willing to allow himself enough faith to whisper a weak, but heartfelt, "Thank you," to the voice that he prays he isn't just imagining, and the room takes on a soft blue hue as light begins to shine from just beneath his skin.

<< Cable. >> is all that's responded. Not a famous name, because he purposefully never tries to make the front page. If he's noticed by society, he did his job wrong. But Xavin going through the underbelly might know about the ruthless futuristic cyborg who takes no prisoners when it comes to removing the cancers of the world. << Psionic. Amongst things. Act natural. The one to your left is starting to think about you. >> Indeed, he's getting the stinkeye from one particularly tattooed man, crackpipe hissing in hand. << There's a mutant upstairs. Don't worry. I'll take care of him. Make sure nobody comes upstairs. If they all pop the drug, things will get messy. >> Cable shifts over to the wall beside the room where Jay is in. Given that the bound mutant is privy to the glowing blue man with an orange burning eye through the barred window, it might indeed seem a divine presence. Arms expand, and suddenly the entire wall is disassembled. Paneling yanked off, bars detached, individual panes of glass pulled free, even tufts of insulation. All of it orbit around him, before Cable floats inside and sets himself down gently. A moment later, with surprising speed, everything reassembles. Somewhat like phasing; if rather more taxing and fanciful, in the long run. The downside is a few people amongst Xavin's party are liable to hear this going on... and there shouldn't be so much as a THUMP in the bedroom Jay is in.

"Yo," Xavin says, straightening his features as he meets the glare of the pipe-bearer. Forcing a smile, he continues, "You aight?" His eyes flick down to the pipe, and then the smile grows as he adds, "Shit's got your mind all twisted up, huh? Told y'all--best ease up off it, 'less you wanna end up all fried and shit."

His eyes start to drift towards the table and the drugs littering it, but just as he's beginning to imagine invisible domes into existence around the narcotics, those odd scraping and tearing noises begin drifting down from above and blending into the background of the music. The Skrull's brow wrinkles when he first notices it--and, indeed, Bouie peers quizzically at the radio, while the cook and one of the people around the table both squint up at the ceiling; soon enough, Jamil joins them, and once he does, he takes the extra step of reaching back for the gun jutting from his waistband. For his part, Xavin turns his attention back to the guy stinkeying him, rather than drawing yet more to whatever's going on upstairs--although his posture is getting noticably tense.

"The fuck...?" Jamil looks between the cook and the dealer, who shrug and shake their heads, unsure of what they're hearing; all the while, he keeps his hand wrapped around the handle of his pistol without quite drawing it. "Is that--"

"Ain't shit," Xavin quickly interjects. Swallowing, he slides his eyes back to the table as he tips his head towards the booze and lit drugs. Invisible domes begin appearing over both the bundles of MGH and scattered vials on the table as the adds, "'s a rat, or a bird, or somethin'--an' it might not even be that. C'mon, don't be gettin' paranoid on me, man..."


 * "You have seconds, perhaps, before I'll be forced to show my hand--how long do you need?"| Xavin thinks. The name is unfamiliar, but that's fine with him right now, so long as they're on the same side. |"The drugs are contained--for now."|

Jay is primarily held by a chain that secures his arm to the opposite side of the bedpost from it; there's enough slack to allow him a limited range of motion, but not much more. Aside from the bed, there's a small table with a plate of crumbs sitting on it and an empty light fixture overhead; given his powers, nobody felt the need to bother with a bulb. The door is a simple wooden affair, but it's got several sturdy--at least, sturdy by human standards.

The captive mutant watches Cable's incredible display, awestruck--and a little fearful, thanks to the shiny limbs and eye. He sits up the little bit that he can, and after taking a few moments to just stare at the miracle before him, he finally murmurs, "I--I don't know who you are, but I knew--somehow, I knew you'd--you--" He stops himself briefly to swallow, and then his eyes drift towards the door as he warns, "They'll kill you if they find you up here..."

Cable looks down at Jay, a coldness within his form now. Backlit from the light of the reformed window, and the eerie illumination of Jay, he looks now more like an Angel of Death. A simple message is stated to Xavin. << I'm stepping out for a minute. Keep them from reaching the drugs or leaving the house, if you can. ...The latter I prefer, more than the former. >> His orange eye flashes, and the steel chain upon Jay's arm suddenly disintegrates into gray dust, leaving only a half-link at the base. Heavy footsteps now thump across the floor, making it absolutely clear someone else is within the room. "No." Cable says, firmly. "Every one of them is going to die." Reaching out, he touches Jay's leg. "Bodyslide by two." In a brief flash of temporal displacement, he and the Mutant are gone... manifesting in the Med Lab of Xavier's, telekinesis immediately moving to grasp Jay and heft him up to rest gently on one of the beds. Step one is making sure he's safe. Step two is going to be... violent.

"Yeah," Jamil warily agrees. "Maybe--"

* THUD!* *THUD!* *THUD!*

"Check upstairs," Jamil growls as he pulls his gun. The woman who was handling the lab equipment quickly sets its down to run out of the kitchen and up to Jay's room. After cocking his weapon, he stands and gives Xavin a mistrustful onceover. "Ain't no pigeons or rats that big, Kev--but I'm sure it's nothing, right?"

"'course it's--" Xavin starts to say before the guy with the pipe draws a gun from his waist and cuts in with, "You wanna tell us again what the fuck took you so long gettin' here? Why you're on this preachy shit all of a sudden?"

"I told y'all--" Xavin begins to protest as he holds his hands up and backs away; his eyes don't quite make it to any of their eyes, though, because he's still concentrating on the table.

"He's gone!" the cook exclaims as she sprints back downstairs. "He's fucking gone, what the fuck?!"

At that point, more guns are drawn around the table, and while the guy with the pipe is the first to take aim at Xavin, it doesn't take long before more begin following his lead, just on principle.

Xavin takes one look at the guns, the panicked mood, the accusing eyes--and opts to just squeeze his hands shut and collapse those domes, crushing the MGH on the table; subtlety has gotten him about as far as it can, he figures, and these people's crimes make sticking to the soft approach extra challenging besides. Several shots are fired, but a couple of people - the only ones in the room without guns drawn, besides Xavin and the cook - just start rummaging through their pockets instead.

There are a few samples of the drug that Xavin couldn't find; it's possible that there might not be much of a house left to keep the gang inside of by the time Cable gets back.

Meanwhile, Jay settles into his new bed once he's released from Cable's telekinetic grasp and exhales a deep, relieved sigh. He's dressed minimally, in an undershirt and boxers, and his arms and legs are covered with scars and marks suggestive of a fairly constant barrage of needles. He's lean, he doesn't look to be much older than 25, and there are dark circles around his eyes--albeit dark circles with a blue tinge to them, thanks to his bright skin.

Once he's had a moment to acclimate to being in a bed that isn't a prison, Jay squints at the machinery around him, then up at his cybernetic angel as he stammers, "Where--is this? How are--what are--" After pausing a moment, he licks his lips, then just goes with, "Whatever you are--whatever you do to them--thank you."

The automated machines are turned on, to begin basic diagnosis. Carefully an IV is inserted, painlessly with a masterful swish of telekinesis. Although weak, it's clear that Jay is not going to die as a result of this. "It's better if you don't know what I do to them." he allows, before stepping back. "Bodyslide by one."

Cable manifests back above the building, Graymalkin's precision not nearly that precise outside coordinates carefully locked. Another telepathic scan is done, assessing that the situation has indeed gone south. Xavin appears to have done what he could to delay people, sow confusion, and remove the majority of the drug from immediate use. Good.

In a moment, he descends to land in a crouch. << I would duck. >> he offers the Skrull, before extending his left hand. The front door suddenly explodes inwards, mostly intact. It is not intended to be any sort of missile. Cable's right is currently grasping a hefty plasma pistol; beginning to fire without hesitation at those present within, each whirling round able to manifest a burnt hole in steel. Only one person here he has the slightest interest in taking alive.

No demand to give up. No offer for surrender. No mercy. This is war to him; and he learned long ago not to take prisoners.

One of the dealers is eight feet tall, impossibly muscular, and sprawled unconscious on the kitchen floor; another is firing lasers from his eyes and fingertips, most of which rake across the imperceptible surface of the field around Xavin, while the rest are alternatingly firing and ducking to avoid stray lasers and ricochets. He's clutching the upper part of his left arm tightly, but it doesn't quite prevent blood - green blood - from slowly trickling out from beneath his hand.

The bullets are bouncing away from the Skrull harmlessly, but between the sustained assault from the powered thug and the intermittent percussion of gunfire, his brow is beaded with sweat and a little blood is trickling from his nose; having to deal with the brute to begin with certainly didn't do him any favors in maintaining it.

The pressure is why he ducks at Cable's warning, despite his defenses; it isn't worth finding out the hard way that whatever his mysterious accomplice has planned is, in fact, the straw that breaks his force field's integrity. Jamil and a few others have the presence of mind to hit the deck when the door is blown in, but the rest are treated to incinerated limbs orfresh, smoking holes, depending on how unlucky they are. The powered thug takes the plasma blast right in the chest, but the bolt just throws him back several feet for a rough landing, rather than blowing right through him. Lasers are still pouring from his body, but they just shoot into the ground and off in random directions for the few seconds he spends trying to recover and stagger back up to his feet.

As Cable incites a fresh round of chaos, Xavin finally lets Kev's light brown skin darken and goatee recede until he's in his own body again--or, at least, one of the human bodies that he's most comfortable with wearing in public. He stays down thanks to the freely flying lasers, and when he catches a glimpse of one of the men trying to return fire on Cable, he forms one end of his field into something like a ram and propels himself along the ground and into the offending gangster's body, driving the air from the thug's body and throwing his aim askew.

Jamil remains on his belly and searches his pockets as quickly as he can manage, while one of the few gangsters left more or less intact goes up to his knees and tries to use the table to provide some semblance of cover as he squeezes off a couple rounds at the cyborg.

<< None of them left, >> Xavin assures Cable; there's a little bit of grim humor behind the thought.

It becomes immediately apparent that Cable is not playing softball. He's exceptionally accurate, despite the powerful kick of the plasma pistol. Those who were still in a frantic mess trying to find and exchange some of the powered drug are suddenly grasped with telekinetic force, hurtling into the ceiling hard enough to shatter it, another crashing into a window so violently the bars are bent. But an eye is kept on Xavin; he's strong. Stronger than expected. Not just a mutant shapeshifter like Mystique...? But if he were a Martian, the telepathy would have been no surprise, nor such meagre wounds. That can be figured out later.

The last remnant fires shots that stop dead in a shimmer of telekinetic energy, before in a gesture the table he's behind explodes into a million fragments. A second later, the caught rounds are hurtled back towards him, breaking the sound barrier with loud *CRACKS*.

The one who is letting off the laser light show receives something else; his left eye glows orange, teeth gritting, as he attempts to literally rip his mind in half, a situation that is decidedly catatonic even to those with stout wills.

Heavy footsteps crunch through the rubble, ignoring what few are left. A few bullets strike him in the chest with dull thumps, one hitting him right in the bicep. Lead is seen visibly flattening just past his skin.

His eyes are on Jamil.

"Go on. Take it." he offers, holstering his plasma pistol in a casual manner... looking nothing more than expectant.

While Cable makes short work of the bulk of the Bloods, Xavin focuses on mounting the one he rammed into, staring balefully into his eyes, and clutching the air tightly a few feet above his head. Initially, there's flailing as the man struggles to free himself; after those first few seconds, though, panic begins to set in as the criminal realizes that he's out of air to breathe, and it deepens when he frantically reaches for his throat and his hand is repelled by the bubble invisibly surrounding it.

Meanwhile, one thug is ejected from the house so forcefully that he flattens the car he eventually lands on; others just end up broken on the concrete, while the man hurled into the window just stays there, thanks to parts of his body ending up wedged improbably into the twisted security bars. The one foolish enough to take cover from a plasma gun wielding cyborg behind a wooden table finds himself impaled many, many times over when his cover is destroyed; the repurposed bullets that rip through his body afterwards are just supersonic insult heaped on top of grievous injury.

All the while, the laser-wielder's shrill, agonized screams serve as a visceral background harmony for the chaos as his psyche is ground down to nothingness by the overwhelming might of Cable's mind. No matter how desperately he claws at his head, his eyes, and the rest of his face, there's no escape; when it's all over, he simply collapses like a stringless puppet.

Once he's sure that his bubble and his target's fate are both sealed, Xavin climbs up to his feet to look for more targets to assist Cable with, only to discover that there aren't any; the Skrull's expression fades from anger to confusion to barely held wonder at the cyborg's efficacy, but when his eyes finally settle on Jamil - who's clutching the MGH capsules he managed to find in a trembling hand - the rage returns. Since Cable seems to want to give the dealer a chance to level the playing field, though, the alien relents in just lashing out at him and takes a moment to dab at the blood tricking from his nose.

"What?!" Jamil spits back at the cybrog's invitation. "What--you think I'm afraid of--fuck you!" The epithet is punctuated by him tossing the pills back, and as soon as he swallows them, he wraps his arms around his stomach and doubles over in agony as the drug does its work.

The effects are visible within seconds, presuming that Cable gives him that long: electricity will begin to burst from his eyes, his mouth, through his skin--even sections of his hair are transformed, scorching what little remains of the ceiling above him as it leaps free.

And if Cable still waits? Then whatever writhing agony his transformation brought on will seemingly fade when he gathers himself to pounce on the cyborg at inhuman speed, intent on incinerating the mutant in his electrified embrace.

"I understand. The envy, jealousy, inferiority of seeing people like me. Having powers is a gift, but one that should not looked upon with fear. 'Never check your neighbour's bowl to see if you have as much as him. Only check to see if he has enough'. There's nothing wrong with wanting it." Slowly Cable cracks his neck to either side, stance spreading into one disturbingly efficient-looking in combat. "...But ripping it from the body of an innocent..." His orange eye flares, shifting to telekinetics. "I'll show you that like any blessing, even if you have it, you must use it right."

It's a powerful manifestation. Good. Not an Omega, but ancient eyes can tell at a glance Jamil's potential, were his power not thefted, triggering random dormant genes. Although the rush forward takes him off guard.

Fast. Too fast to do anything. His left eye can register it however, even if he's still obscenely fast by those standards. Immediately Cable is sheathed in telekinetic energy just as he's impacted, driven into the wall behind hard enough to shatter plaster, destroying a table and sending splinters everywhere. Arcs of energy curl and crackle over Cable, blackening the fabric of his gray trenchcoat in a grunt of displeasure. But slowly the telekinetic aura grows, adding layer upon layer. The insulation, combined with a physiology carefully developed over a lifetime to survive output from those on the level of Apocalypse, would make it rapidly apparent that it's not taking him down.

"First rule of using your powers... don't rely on them. They are a tool." Blows and strikes, the assaults of a feral beast, are leveraged at the future Mutant, but he suddenly moves forward. Jamil would be distraught to see it's every bit as fast as him now; open palm aiming to impact his chest, and send him hurtling backwards to smash into a wall. The assault's not quite enough to knock out a sturdy human.

"And your martial prowess needs work. Although now that I think of it, there's not really much of a point to teaching you any lessons right now." Cable is glowing lightly blue right now, feet hovering an inch from the floor as his scorched jacket whirls behind.

Jamil is way too fast for Xavin; he's too late to throw a field around Cable, so the best he can do is try to pry the electrokinetic away by insinuating a number of invisible planes between the two. He's unable to create more than a foot or two worth of distance, though, thanks to Jamil's electricity and Cable's telekinetic sheath testing his contructs from both sides and making them difficult to maintain. It's enough to make the dealer's frenzied attempts at punching or clawing at the mutant awkward as he struggles to reach around the frustrating obstruction than he can feel, but not see, which in turn makes him that much madder.

"Fuck you!" is the other response that the criminal can offer to the old soldier's observations, and it's more howled than spoken. "Fuck you! Fu--"

Jamil is taken completely off-guard by the cyborg's forward surge, and Xavin is only barely better off; he just barely manages to drop his latest field in time to avoid barring Cable(or, perhaps more likely, suffering the effects of the field shattering). Bouie is launched back through the kitchen wall and ends up seated in a dent in the wall of the house itself, a couple of feet away from the door. His stumbling, flailing attempts at retaking his feet might be almost comical, if set to jaunty horns--and if he wasn't a near-feral human parasite whose tantrum is sending electricity shooting indiscriminately through the house. Xavin's first instinct is to climb through the wall after Jamil to finish him, but as soon as he's through, the storm that the dealer is kicking up forces him to concentrate on maintaining a protective bubble around himself.

"Enough." Cable states, voice almost plain. Suddenly his sheathe disperses, and one of the bolts of energy strikes him dead in the chest. It passes through, blackening the wall with hisses and sizzles. But as the front of his black shirt peels away, it reveals black and gray armor of an advanced composite. Although there's a hiss surrounding Cable, staggering slightly forward, he can take a good deal more. His left eye surges, and he curls his fingers to grasp Jamil's entire body in a sudden grasp, completely sealed and with a defensive force nearly fifty tons resistant. If he succeeds, in a moment he'd be crashing all over the house, bouncing like some magic ball; breaking the ceiling ahead so badly beams are exposed, crashing a kitchen counter flat, knocking through one wall and then coming out another, with the end goal being for him to crash face-down in front of Cable. Due to the telekinetics, the impacts wouldn't hurt... outside near-lethal levels of whiplash making his brain bounce about in his head like a pinball, outside any secondary disorientation...

Xavin's eyes dart around to follow Jamil's destructive, screaming path, more out of interest than concern; he trusts his field to protect him from falling debris and Cable not to turn on him, so takes the luxury of simply watching as the enraged criminal is subdued and making mental notes for later experimentation.

When Bouie is finally dumped in front of the cyborg, Xavin hurries over to flank him as he hoarsely groans on the ground. A shaking, sparking hand lifts, but before even the least of bolts can leap from his fingertips, his arm is slammed back down and secured to the ground by an invisible shackle.

"You work so quickly..." the Skrull quietly remarks, lifting his gaze from the faux-mutant to the future one's eyes for just a moment before returning his attention to the target; as he looks back down, his shoulders square and his spine gets a little more rigid.

"Time's valuable. I wanted to see how strong the best of the serum he had was. ...It's stronger than I would have liked." Admitted with a dry tone. Apparently the taunting had a purpose beyond simple pleasure. Of course Jamil would have the purest, most potent of the chemical on himself personally.

His right hand then thrusts down, digging into Jamil's lightning-shrouded hair. It courses up his arm, but the discomfort appears to be mild. His orange eye flares, and then the man on the ground is shrieking, screaming, sending gouts of powerful electricity roaring in all directions. Multiple fires are set off, and the foundation of the building itself is damaged before he suddenly cuts off, convulsing more and more before slowly thumping face down.

Cable's body is rather heavily singed as a result. His trenchcoat has been blown off at the shoulder and sights, most of a pant leg, and his flesh is blackened lightly; with wild arcs of angry red where the current tore along veins. But he stands, as smoke billows slowly off the elder mutant.

"Damn. The next one up only spoke to him through a digital medium. I know the next time they will talk in roughly twenty-four hours, but without looking like him..." Blinking, suddenly Cable glances over to Xavin with renewed interest. "Hmm." Assuming he endured the unexpected final discharging of Jamil well, anyway...

"Wait--" is s far as Xavin gets in cautioning Cable before the cyborg takes hold of Jamil. At that point, all he can do is fall back to a crouch, bring his hands up to shield his eyes from the spectacle, and think hard, protective thoughts that manifest themselves as a shield around his body.

Each time a bolt of electricity rakes across or bounces off of the surface of the field, the Skrull has to work to shut out the pain that burns through his nervous system and threatens to interrupt his concentration; by the time it's all said and done, he looks exhausted, with slumped shoulders, a face covered in sweat, and a fresh trickle of green from his nostrils. His hands are hanging at his sides in loose fists, and he's just keeping his head bowed and squeezing his eyes shut to try and protect them from Jamil's final discharge.

The Skrull stays down on his knees to recover once he's sure that it's safe; Cable's report washes over him as he raggedly catches his breath, heard but unreacted to. He waits until his breathing is a bit more stable before opening his eyes and glancing from the barely breathing Jamil up to Cable. Who is looking at him.

"Wh--" he begins before squinting briefly, letting the pieces fall into place, and then letting out a breath and pushing back up to his feet. His body visibly twists and ripples on the way up, his skin grows a couple shades darker and his closely trimmed hair lengthens into dreadlocks; by the time he's upright, there's another, much healthier looking Jamil Bouie standing over the battered supplier.

After taking a moment to inspect his own hands, he gives Cable a onceover, eyeing the worst-struck parts of him a bit more intently than the rest; his brows are arched with undisguised surprise the whole time. "I don't really know this man, you understand," he warns. "But as long as his superior doesn't press me too hard, I should be able to get something from him."

When all's said and done, Cable looks to be better off, despite the aesthetic damage. He's moving no slower than when first seen, and shows no sign of discomfort. Jamil is tossed aside, now nothing more than a vegetable. Put through a juicer, distilled, and only the concentrated essence absorbed by the elder Nathan.

Xavin's transformation is impressive. Cable can pull off an illusion, but not one against a camera, not one that speaks through a microphone. His cyperpathy is not nearly so finely-tuned or reactive to implement such. "Huh. ...Professor?" << Green blood. Shapeshifting. However, other observations indicate supplemental capabilities. No singular known metagene possesses this spectrum. Belief is: Alien species. Skrull. Potentially, a Super Skrull or War Skrull. >> Huh. 40th century has lots of information on the alien species. None of this is voiced aloud, just yet.

"I do." Cable states, tapping the side of his head. "He lives in here now, until I don't need his mind any longer. If you play the body, and I coach you, we might be able to get another step higher in the chain." Of course, then there's the unasked question.

"...Who are you, exactly? I didn't expect to find someone else infiltrating here. What's your interest in these sort of things?"

Xavin's nose wrinkles as Cable taps his head; even for a parasite like Bouie, having one's mind ripped from one's body and held captive in the mind of another is a horrible fate. He doesn't let that stop him from replying, "My name is Xavin; I live here." A beat as he gestures towards one of the many holes studding the house, and then he clarifies, "In the neighborhood. Operations like this one are toxic to it; standing by and letting them slowly kill the people who live here would be nothing less than disgraceful." After licking his lips, he looks aside from Cable and quietly adds, "Had I known the--extent--of what they were doing here, I might not have waited as long to strike; I... am not sure whether my ignorance was a blessing or a curse."

After giving himself a moment to contemplate it - and wipe blood from his nose as surrepitously as he can - he shakes his head and meets Cable's gaze. "I'll help you, of course; anything to rid this place of these dogs."

"Hnh. I have something of the opposite problem. I know of many more problems than I can hope to directly fix." The fact Xavin was getting involved to help his own community with those powers is certainly a positive resonance to Cable, although part of him wished he had doggedly hunted down such a group of his own accord. "Don't worry. This will never be publicized. If the world knows what happened here, conflict will breed. Pro-mutants will raise spears against it. Anti-mutants will raise torches for it. With Genosha, the world needs no more tension. Step outside a moment, if you would."

Xavin would find a large number of people have gathered to watch, looking at the house with obvious shock and confusion. Many are on phones, already calling the authorities. Although everything seemed to happen fast, it was only a couple minutes from Cable blowing in the front door.

After getting within the center, fire and smoke beginning to spread, he raises both arms and closes his eyes. Focus. Effort. A challenge. These are rare. The many guns equipped by the thugs disintegrate, slowly wisping away like dust. Gathering up the laboratory instruments, these are sequentially destroyed, erasing all traces of the potent cocktail. The few doses that survived are gathered in his hand and tucked into a pocket of his trenchcoat.

And then the entire building shudders. His muscles tense, body flaring, as he begins to repair the damage of the battle. The man halfway through the glass is yanked out. Gaping holes crack and snap shut. Destroyed furniture slowly reassembles. A puzzle. It's all a giant puzzle. And within his head, it's like a dozen people are putting them together in fast forward.

And then, the flames erupt. Wind is grasped and hurtled, turning the interior into a furnace. In only a matter of a couple dozen seconds, the entire building is roaring with heat, reaching the second floor and the roof.

Slowly Cable strides out of the threshold, shimmering with a shield that then disperses. About two dozen people are watching now. Again his eye flares orange, before every phone and camera is snatched. A moment later they are destroyed, to shouts of alarm and confusion. The next time his mind pulses, everyone goes still. A few long seconds, and then people are acting horrified.

"The house!! It's on fire!!" "What happened?!" "Where'd my phone go... I..."

None seem to be taking any notice of Xavin or Cable, and he would motion to be followed, maneuvering into a nearby alley. "This will take a bit of supplemental work, but in the end, it will be a bunch of drug users starting a fire and rupturing the gas line. Boom. Bunch of idiots kill themselves. I'll have to stick around. Plant the suggestion in the mind of those who investigate what the outcome will be. Make sure they say what's needed. And then, nothing."

"That's what I do. I'm not here to be a hero. I'm here to remove the cancers in this world. The barriers to society. Similar what you did... but for the entire world. And a future, I hope to never see."

"It must be bracing to never want for something to fight for," Xavin quietly muses as Jamil's form melts back into his own, complete with a form-fitting purple and black uniform. "To know that there's always a battle worth winning on your horizon." He creeps towards the nearest hole to scan over the bystanders, then looks back at the cyborg and offers a slight nod to his request to vacate before vanishes from sight and climbing outside. Taking care not to bump into too many civilians, the Skrull slips into the crowd so that when the cloak falls, he's just another face in it--albeit one who's keeping a careful eye on the house for signs of his accomplice rather than gawking.

Well. He wasn't gawking, and then Cable somehow put the entire house back together before his eyes, only to destroy it again; his jaw is agape by the time those flames are licking at the sky, and even after the older man beckons him from the crowd, that unabashed wonder remains evident in his features. It's only when Cable starts running over the misdirection that he begins to sober, nodding along so that he can at least pretend that the display of power didn't fascinate him.

Cable expanding on his mission a somewhat helps, of course, and once he does, the alien gives one final, firm nod. "I haven't--I am new to--this," he haltingly murmurs, trying to find a way around the truth without resorting to outright lies; even if Cable wasn't a formidible telepath, it would be difficult to conscience lying to the man who was willing to trust a stranger to assist him in his mission. "These are the sicknesses that I know I can cure--I've grown familiar with them." He sounds almost apologetic, and although his eyes don't waver from Cable's, he does shift rather uncomfortably as he explains himself.

"I can do more," he then says; just like when they were standing over Jamil, his posture gets stiffer all around. "I have friends - heroes - who fight injustices in their own way, but--they're limited; they don't have the vision, the--resolve to work at the level you're talking about." He slowly exhales, swallows, and then tips his chin up as he finishes, "I want to do more. I want to learn."

Something's definitely different though. A large amount of metal has crept up Cable's neck, passing over his chin. It wasn't there until he left the house, and it's more than a little noticeable. Apparently it's not a major concern to Nathan, given he makes no mention or seems to be operating any differently. "New to what?" Cable continues, curious. Ngh. He expands out his telepathy, probing all the houses in viewing range. Oops. Three people from windows saw what really happened. Carefully, he reorganizes them, while also maintaining the blind spot in the minds of everyone present. A slow hiss, metal creeping forward more almost imperceptibly before his telekinesis grasps it once more.

"Endless battles. That sounds like glory. To some it is. But imagine fighting a war. You win every encounter, but each day you take a step backwards. You can't be everywhere. You can't do everything. No matter how much you try. And when you know for every atrocity you fix, four more continue... every minute you spend in rest, is a minute another suffers you are aware of..."

A slow exhale.

"The weight can get heavy." But then Cable raises his hand, and a flash of telepathy is this time aimed at Xavin. Intrusive, but not anywhere untoward. He is looking for something, not looking /at/ things. Although it is something that grants people privacy, it's also quicker and more efficient to manage. Is this person a plant? An enemy in disguise? Is his true motives to help? ...Would he be a good fit for X-Force?

t would be over in a heartbeat, although Xavin would be fully aware that some kind of meddling was attempted...

"This place--this work; it hasn't quite been two years, yet," Xavin supplies. It isn't until the metal actually hisses and shifts that he squints to examine it. The fact that it doesn't seem to bother Cable any keeps him from questioning it too deeply; for all he knows, it's just another facet of the mutant's powers albeit a fairly alarming-seeming one. His eyes don't quite leave it as he murmurs, "And it isn't about glory--not entirely; just nature. Fighting for what's important - even if it means sacrificing your time, your body, your peace of mind - it's why we exist." After a brief, melancholy pause, he amends that last part to something that he hopes is a little less revealing and/or presumptuous: "Why I exist."

Efforts to avoid revealing things are fairly doomed when one is dealing with a mind like Cable's, though; his eyes snap wide open after his explanation, when the cyborg turns his telepathy on him. Once Cable is through the disparate pieces of other people's personas swirling around his own psyche, the alien's psyche is like an open book to him: despite the way that he's trying to talk around certain things, his motives do seem reasonably pure; there's a genuine desire to fight injustice and protect the weak, albeit filtered through a military upbringing that casts them as marching orders more than heroic duty.

It would seem, however, that his 'newness' refers less strictly to his career as a vigilante and more to his time on Earth, period: it wouldn't take much digging for Cable to find memories of the Skrull fleeing from his royal wedding-turned-bloodbath and crash landing in a park not too far from the Slum.

When the sense of having his thoughts rifled through passes, his eyes remain enlarged and his already stiff stance shifts towards something a bit more guarded--at least, after he stumbles a step away from the future man, anyway. "What did--" he hastily stammers as he presses a hand to his temple. "You had no right to--who do you think you are?"

"I'm a soldier." Cable states, firmly. "And I was checking if you were a threat. Nothing more. If I wanted to, I could have erased your memory of me even doing it. But I didn't. Because it wasn't anything done with hostile intent. Tell me this. If you met someone, and the situation seemed too good to be true... and you could open up someone's mind like a book and read every page... what would you do?" It seems to be a genuine question. "All I did was skim. We aren't enemies. I know that now."

Cable finally grunts and leans against the building. He's stressing himself out, again. Doing this this way... it's shortening his life. Having people to trust. People to fight with. Not being required to drop another sand in the hourglass favoring the virus raging in his system...

"Like I said. My name is Cable. I came here from a future, where this planet was consumed by a tyrant, like a cancer. In the end, it was lost. Even with Apocalypse dead, his fanatics and the spreading virus went beyond the point of recovery. So I went back to try to stop it." That's true. That everything went heads and tails and now he's in an Alpha timeline where it's pretty clear that will never happen is another matter entirely.

"If you are willing to do what it takes to help this world you are in now... and you have no issues with it being unknown. Off the record. Never announced... I can help you. If you help me."

Xavin opens his mouth, but whatever (likely snappish) response he had primed doesn't come; instead, his mouth slowly closes until it's just a thin line of contained annoyance while he considers the time-tossed mutant's words.

Eventually, he just murmurs, "I'm a soldier too," in reply; his tone suggests understanding, if not contentment with Cable having taken measures to protect himself. The story that follows leaves him with pursed lips and a furrowed brow; time travel, living Apocalypses and global viruses are a few steps outside of his realm of experience, so even though he tries his best to take the man at his word, doing requires a certain amount of faith.

Evidently, though, he has enough of it to respond, "'Off the record' is perfect," before stepping forward to extend a hand towards the cyborg.

"Sounds good." Cable offers. "Welcome to the team. The goal is society's acceptance and integration. Alien. Metahuman. Mutate. Mutants. Everyone. There are enough people in the public, working hard to spread the gospel. Enough that more aren't needed. What /is/ needed is to remove things like this. Problems that have no diplomatic solution. Issues that, if they made it to the public's eye, would cause problems instead of solutions. Barriers to those who dream and step forward; never knowing we're a step ahead, making that path as smooth as possible."

The hand is taken, and the grip insanely tight. Despite being his organic hand, it feels like he's made of steel. "I call it X-Force." Because Xavier is the diplomat he means, when it comes to understanding and integration. A man powerful enough to change the minds of every living person, still moving to do it through words. One of the few who understands how things need to change, and how to make that change permanent. "Right now, it's you, me, and another guy if I promise him good enough liquor. Trying to climb higher up this chain's as good a first move as any. But you can have this for fun."

He'd move to press a finger to Xavin's forehead, and in a flash, he'd know the location of four minor dealers, who likely still have stashes. Faces and addresses. "I need to stay here and monitor damage control for a few more hours. ...It'd be a shame if this man's entire distribution network fell apart overnight, hrrm?"

The last item of note is a small, coaster-sized metal device, maybe a millimetre thick. "Press it once to ping me. Press and hold it for an emergency. Former, I'll get to you as quick as possible. Latter, I drop everything. ...and once we get things settled... I'll see what I can do for my end of the bargain -- on paying you back."

He then steps backwards, breaking sight with the street before shifting into telekinetics, hefting himself on an adjacent roof before landing heavily and inching forward to peer. He can't make himself invisible and regress his techno-organic virus at the same time... he has to recover anyway, and keeping this incident off the news is as good a use as any for that time...