2013.08.15 - A Change of Tacts

Fairfield County, Connecticut. Nightfall.

Fairfield County rests edge to edge with the state of New York. It didn't take long for Kwabena to ride his motorcycle out of the city and into the countryside, given the Harley Davidson Iron 883's sheer horsepower and Kwabena's skilled driving. The broad freeways of the tri-state area soon became narrower swaths of asphalt through suburbia, and after a few turns, his path became State Routes, County Roads, and finally, a long, dirt road out toward an abandoned farm deep in the Connecticut countryside.

Behind him, the last rays of a setting sun cut dimming rays of red light through the tall trees. The sound of the ocean rolls on the distance, cut out by the crackling of a fire before him. Facing the fire, Kwabena holds a cigarette in one hand, and a bottle of whiskey in the other. While his eyes remain locked upon the circling beam of a distant lighthouse, his mind remains locked upon the crossroads in which he finds himself.

Just as it didn't take Kwabena long to reach Fairfield, it didn't really take the two Grey women long to reach there, either. Jean guides the Lexus across a stretch of gravel and along the laneway leading into the old farm. She pulls off to one side, tires settling into dry grass, and glances to her passenger.

"We're here," she tells Rachel, now. "I don't know how receptive he's going to be to me, at first. So... well... just be ready. Just in case."

With that, she pops open the door to the car, releases her belt, and steps out into the cool, evening air.

It might not have been a lengthy trip, and it might have started with unexpected revelations for Rachel, but none of that apparently stopped her from dozing in the passenger seat for the last few miles.

As the ride changes, though, the Lexus' suspension not quite good enough to mask the uneven surface under the tires, Rachel's quickly awake. She doesn't get chance to ask if they're there yet before Jean confirms it, and Rachel quickly nods. Her eyes go distant for a couple of moments, as she reaches out with her telepathic senses. She's well-practiced at this, a non-telepath shouldn't even be aware she's hunting for them. Blinking, her eyes focusing on Jean again, she states quickly, "I've got him." She nods a second time as the warning is delivered. "I will be." She says, then looks darkly amused. "He mentioned you earlier. He might blame me for dragging you out here. So you might have to watch my back, too."

Rachel's not hesitant to get things underway, though, sliding out of her side of the car, eyes already turning toward the point on her mental map where she's plotted Shift's presence.

Hearing the sound of an approaching vehicle, Kwabena quickly moved the satchel at his feet a bit closer, checking it to make sure his sidearm is within grabbing distance, in case his new guests are to be law enforcement.

The whole estate is rather large, but Kwabena is not far from the farmhouse and central barn. It only takes a short journey for the two women to see the flickering color coming from his campfire, it's fiery fingers licking into the sky about sixty yards from the edge of the main equipment barn.

There Kwabena waits, mismatched eyes brooding upon the distant beam of light before taking one swig from his bottle and a final drag from the cigarette. Flicking the butt into the fire, he replaces the bottle with his pistol, and quickly begins screwing a silencer upon it. Then he stands, tucking the firearm beneath the waistband of his belt and hiding it away with the edge of his leather jacket. By the time he comes into view, he can be seen standing at the fire's edge, peering off toward the roadway in watch for his visitors.

His mind is on pins and needles, for when one doesn't know who to trust, a man decidedly trusts no one.

Jean knows exactly where Kwabena is on the property. She doesn't need to see him. She simply senses him. She moves as unerringly as her 'daughter' towards that little campfire, being sure to keep her hands loose and away from her sides as she moves into visual range. Sure. His gun could do a lot of harm -- if her TK shield doesn't get up in time -- but she wants him to see that she's otherwise unarmed. These are meant to be peace-talks. After a fashion.

As the pair near the campfire, she raises a hand in quiet greeting. "Hi," she says, giving him a smile that's not so much warm as it is serious. "How's it going? Sorry about dropping in unannounced."

A slight, unconscious change comes over Rachel as she walks beside Jean. Although she looks around as she walks, her gaze always returns unerringly to look toward Shift, even before he comes into view. She walks more quietly, automatically stepping around anything that might betray her presence with a sound, and there's a little tenseness about her movements. Her powers, too, are alight, not on a hair trigger but not quiescent either. She's not even aware she's doing it.

She is deliberately keeping a feather light touch on Shift's thoughts, though, as she imagines Jean must be. A small smile touches her lips as she senses those thoughts turn toward his gun. She's gotten really good at grabbing guns lately, but she didn't expect to be trying that trick on Shift.

Rachel's steps slow as they approach the fire, letting Jean give the first greeting. "Hi." She echoes, then adds, "Didn't really expect me to stay out of it, did you?" It's said lightly, a quiet reminder that she did offer her help, to explain why she's here despite his rebuff.

A certain amount of tension fades from Kwabena when he realizes that he's not dealing with the police, or an assassin, or worse. However, that's not to say that he isn't on edge. With no memory of his real motives, he's left feeling confused, conflicted, alone.

And angry.

"Sorry I forgot de marshmallows," quips the African in response to Jean's greeting. The gun is far from forgotten, but he's certainly not thinking that it will become necessary to use it. There may be little trust reserved for these two, but there is a decided lack of outward distrust.

When Rachel addresses him, however, the bristled edges of his soul soften just so. She had offered to help, even when two of his most trusted friends seemed ready to dig his own grave for dessert. That much was worth something. "I suppose not," he says to her. "Dough I think you're making a mistake. I don't undahstand where you come from--I'm not even sure I believe in dat kind of stuff--but if you're looking to avoid a world of hurt, you might want to stay out of my way."

Yes, for in Kwabena's mind and perception, he's inevitably going to be at the center of something destructive, whether he chooses to extend his trust to Erik Lehnsherr or not.

That confrontation is inevitable.

And, Jean stands there, studying Kwabena's dark face and eyes for a long moment. She has a decision to make, and she needs a sense of his mind to make it. At the moment, she's leaning towards undoing all she's done to him. A confrontation may be inevitable, but that doesn't mean he needs to go into it 'blind', so to speak.

There are other ways they could get intel. Perhaps it's better to place him clearly, diametrically at odds with Magneto, rather than to leave him to fumble around through half-truths and lies in his head. If he's going to get ripped apart by the Master of Magnetism, it really ought to be for the right reasons.

"Yeah," she agrees with a gentle sigh. "That'd be the smart thing for us to do. But, not the right thing." A beat. "So. How're things with Magneto?" She might as well get him thinking about it. Easier to judge where he's at, that way.

Rachel can feel Kwabena's anger, but since it's not translating into a move for his gun - or any more exotic means of attack - she stuffs her hands into the back pockets of her shorts and seems to relax a few notches. After all, if things do get out of hand? It's not Rachel's hands that you need to worry about.

As Kwabena seems to ease down a bit himself, Rachel keeps her own words light. "Wouldn't be the first time, and..." She shrugs, a faint smile ghosting across her lips. "...it is a pretty implausible story." She's clearly not taken offense, but her expression does turn a bit more serious, and it looks like she might have something to add, but Jean's already speaking. Rachel subsides, and waits for Kwabena's answer.

Anger is not always a bad thing. It was anger that drove men to fight in wars to free the Jews from Hitler, or to free the slaves from the American South.

Kwabena's anger comes mostly from the words given to him from Domino and Nightcrawler. Words of betrayal. The suggestion that he was giving a winning hand to Magneto if WWIII came to pass. This was the element that destabilized an already precarious operation.

A somewhat wry smirk forms on the African's face, and he moves back over toward the stump upon which he'd been seated before. "You're asking me?" he quips. "She knows," he says, tilting his head toward Rachel. "But, if you must have a story, den pull up a log or two." He gestures toward the campfire and all of the empty space about it.

Kurt and Domino's words continue to echo through his soul.

"I was given a mission. I conducted it pahfectly. It almost felt like being back on de team." He gives a nod toward Jean to recognize, in a way, how his altered memories reflect her decision to remove him from that team. "But I am not sure he needed de infahmation at all. I am sure de infahmation I brought back has already been disseminated, but not to me." A new type of Sentinel, with the ability to assemble itself from multiple pieces, perhaps even the ability to create more Sentinels or control them remotely. Master Mold. The information in Kwabena's memory is fragmented, as if pieces of the puzzle were being withheld from him.

"I am a pawn," he says, bitterly. "And I don't like being held at arms length. So, while Lehnsherr is treating me with de utmost of politeness and grace? Let's just say I have some few issues with him." His eyes turn up from the fire, dancing between Rachel and Jean. "I intend to confront him on dis. I want to know what his play is, so dat I can decide if I really want to be a part of it. De only thing I care about is ending up alive. Whedah de humans survive or not?" He waves a dismissive. gesture. "Not my problem."

Jean's handiwork seems to have stuck well.

Yes, Jean's handiwork seems to be flawless. It doesn't give her any pleasure. "You intend to confront him," the telepath echoes him. She glances briefly at Rachel and then back to Kwabena. While there's a hint of a smile on her lips, still, it's rueful, even grim. "And how do you intend to do that?" she asks him, now. Because, if he's looking for a physical fight, then she's stopping this whole operation right here and now. Otherwise? She needs to see what he believes his best solution to being held at arm's length may be. After all, it's unrealistic to assume that he'd be welcomed into the inner circle so quickly. He has history to overcome, after all. And the Brotherhood are a cagey lot.

She sends a silent thought to Rachel -- a telepath's glyph that in an instant conveys her desire to go to Genosha and see first hand what's happening there. This work Shift is doing isn't good enough to guarantee the outcome they want. And, she's increasingly coming to believe they need to fight fire with fire.

Rachel had actually mean't HER story was implausible, since Shift implied he didn't believe a word of it, but if it gets him talking? So much the better. When she's bidden, Rachel steps closer to the fire and sits - if Kwabena's going to treat them as guests rather than interlopers, she's going to take advantage of it.

With that light touch still on his thoughts, Rachel sees flashes of Kwabena's memories as he recounts his story. She gets a wash of his bitterness, too, but doesn't let any reaction show on her face. He is a pawn - and as much the X-Men's as Magneto's, even if that was his plan all along. Jean's mild question draws a quiet snort of disbelief from Rachel. "If you're serious about staying alive, you might want to rethink confronting him." Rachel says seriously. She glances across at Jean, just for a moment, then back to Shift. "I hear he's not big on dissent." Again, her fractured memories are a distraction, flickers in the back of her mind of that older Magneto in the wheelchair, a man who doesn't match up to the one she's heard described here.

Shift's callous comment about humanity is a useful distraction, and although Rachel's eyes narrow a bit, she doesn't say anything. He's heard her view already, even if he's not listening to it. And Jean's in her mind now, too, and Rachel's response is instant. Understanding, shared, of Jean's desire to go - and a conviction that it should be Rachel that's sent in her place. Jean's stronger - if they need pulling out, she's better equipped to do it. And of course, Rachel's more expendable.

For a few silent moments, Kwabena studies the face of Jean Grey. Not being a telepath, all he has to go on are looks, body language, and vocal tones, the kind of things one learns about when growing up in the streets. He's slightly disarmed by the ruefulness of her look, and is close to taking it as an insult, if it weren't for the grim undertones noticed there.

So, she still cares about him as a person.

Reaching into his jacket, he produces a cigarette and a zippo. Two clicks later, and he's got another smoke between two fingers, a cloud of second hand smoke seeping from his nose and rising with heat from the fire. Now, however, his attention has turned squarely upon Rachel.

"I don't intend to express dissent," he answers. A deep breath his drawn through his nose while the cigarette burns away near his knee. "I intend to ask him what, exactly, he plans to do with me." Another drag of the cigarette is taken. "I don't like being held in de dark, and I have a feeling he already knows dis. He'll be expecting it.

Jean considers this for a moment. Her lips purse faintly and, as she exhales silently, her shoulders release a small amount of tension -- though by no means all. Indeed, she does care about Shift as a person. Quite a lot, frankly, given their current circumstances.

"And if he decides to continue to keep you in the dark, what will you do?" she asks now. She tries to present it as a mild challenge, one friend to another -- a former teammate to a prodigal. "This is Magneto we're talking about Shift, the man who blows up mountains when he gets upset. Are you sure you want to do this? Do you really feel the Brotherhood is the best place for you? The best use of your abilities?" Because, if he feels otherwise, even with all her tampering, it's quite definitely time to undo it all and start over.

He could lead a resistance in Alliance territory, instead, after all... which would make him something less of a pawn and more of a player.

Rachel meets Shift's gaze without flinching. Her words might have been glib but the sentiment behind them was serious. When Shift dismisses them so easily, Rachel leans back, bracing her hands behind her, and shakes her head. It's an annoyed gesture, and there's some of that annoyance in her eyes as well. She far less confident than he that Magneto won't see it as expressing dissent, whatever Kwabena's intentions.

She's about to say as much when Jean speaks, and once again Rachel bites her tongue. Shifting her position, she sits up again and draws up a knee, looping her arms around it. Rachel's eyes stray to Jean again as she speaks, but this time Rachel doesn't add any weight or spin to her words. They're reaching the point where Jean's going to have to make a decision.

It's certainly a heavy question to be asked.

However, when this first began, it was borne of bravery. It has been little over a year and a few months since Kwabena first came to join the X-Men. However, the distance he's come from the drug addicted, street-dwelling repeat offender is nothing short of astounding. Aside from an encounter with Snowflame and a bump of cocaine on a long mercenary operation with Domino? The man has withheld from even the strongest of temptations. Even after his torment in Latveria, he refused to put a needle into his arm. He survived, he grew, and became something altogether new.

The decision to spy on Magneto may have been his bravest moment.

Regardless, his fate now thoroughly rests in others hands, for with memories so surgically and powerfully altered, one could argue that he is in no position to argue for his own decisions any longer.

There is a long and tense silence as Kwabena considers Jean's words. Magneto had made him a citizen of Genosha. He no longer had to hide his identity. He could vote. He could apply for a passport. He could buy a home, without having to acquire everything on the black market. So many things could be said, but as the argument roils about and about inside of his limited mind, he finally looks back to Jean, jaw settled.

"Where else would I go?"

He casts a look Rachel's way, considering the way she sits for a moment, before looking back toward Jean.

Yes. There are advantages to being Genoshan, to be sure. And Jean doesn't deny that. But his claim to Genosha is as false, in many ways, as his claim anywhere else. "Home," Jean says to him, and she gives him a wry, rueful smile. "I'm sorry, Kwabena."

She doesn't need to glance to Rachel, this time. Doubtlessly, the girl can sense that her 'mother' has made her decision. She lets her power ease out of her, carefully sliding into Kwabena's mind and immobilizing him, neutralizing his mutant abilities for the time being. She'll have to rely on Rachel to keep her from being surprised, however, if anyone decides to attack, because her focus is going to be entirely on undoing everything she did to him. It's a task made all the more difficult, no doubt, by the fact he'll probably resist her, at first.

It took her several hours to do her work the first time. It will take nearly as much time to undo it...

That said, she was smart enough to place a well-hidden, well-buried telepathic trigger in his head that is probably what tipped Rachel off to her tampering in the first place. It is meant to neutralize his desire to fight back, to make him more amenable to the work she must do -- an instinctive understanding that, against all odds, she really is trying to help him.

Rachel's chosen a casual way to sit, but she's not really comfortable, nor at all relaxed.

After that last glance at Jean, she keeps her attention on Kwabena. Watching, waiting to see how he'll answer the question. And when he finally does? Well, she's no stranger to avoiding difficult questions, herself. She shakes her head and offers him a slightly sad smile when he looks at her. But the final word has to be Jean's.

'Home'. When that single word is spoken, Rachel knows the decision has been made, and her posture sags a bit, sitting a lot less rigidly than she was a moment before. A hand comes up unconsciously to rub her shoulder, a stubborn knot of tension remaining. As Jean's power comes to life beside her, Rachel moves to stand up, eyes still on Kwabena as she takes a step back. She trusts Jean's skills implicitly, but she doesn't know all of Kwabena's tricks...

As it becomes clear that Jean seems to not be in any immediate physical danger, Rachel takes a quick step toward her, one hand reaching out to gently touch her shoulder. "He might not thank you, so I will. It's the right thing." Rachel says it quickly and quietly before stepping away, unwilling to risk breaking Jean's concentration any further, and knowing her part now is to watch their backs. Expanding her own senses, she watches over them all.

She's sorry?

Kwabena's gut instinct is to reach for the weapon tucked away inside his waistband. However, the stiffening of his muscles is promptly stalled when the telepathic trigger is pulled, and hr turns to look at Jean with a conflicted expeession.

"No," he starts in protest, and his teeth grind. "Stay... stay out of my head!" he snarls. "I won't-"

Stopping mid-sentence, the African gasps when the first of his memories are replaced, the damage undone. He looks over at Jean with confusion, an unspoken question in his eye.

'Why?'

A long night lies ahead of them, but soon enough, Kwabena has settled down and is thoroughly caught in a trancelike state, similar in many ways to how he reacted when his memories were changed in the first place.

There are moments when he frowns. There are moments when his eyes clamp shut, as if shutting out the realities that come to him, piece by piece. There are moments when his hands ball into fists, but not once does his mutation come into play. He simply sits, powerless to complain and unable to resist.

The hours roll onward, until the sun begins rising over the eastern horizon.

As Kwabena gradually relaxes under her care, and comes to understand just what it is she's undoing, Jean's own expression clears some. She remains in deep concentration, to be sure, but the scowl gives way to something a little smoother.

As the new day's sun crests the horizon, she sits back on the log that has worn its impression into her tailbone over the course of the night and winces softly. Nevertheless, she's undone everything she did and restored him to how he was before she meddled with him the first time. She's left him with his memories from between then and now, of course, but also with a much better understanding of what happened -- and, more importantly, why.

She gives him a wry smile, reaching up to massage the tension out of the back of her neck. "Welcome back," she says softly, giving him a tight smile.

In retrospect, it's a good thing Rachel took that short nap in the car. It's a long night for the young redhead.

But there was no question of her falling asleep on the job.

Once she was sure that Jean had Kwabena firmly held in place both physically and psychically, and that the process of returning him to the man he was was well underway, Rachel slipped away into the gathering darkness. Prowling the abandoned farm, she kept a mental ear out for Jean and Kwabena, feeling Jean's concentration humming at the back of her mind, alert for any feelings of alarm from her. With that in place, Rachel reluctantly reached out to the other part of herself, the predator that Jean sensed in her mind before. Allowing that part of her, that part that was programmed into her, to come to the fore just a little. Just enough to sharpen her focus and give herself a hunter's fine-edged awareness of her surroundings. Her telepathy stretches out, alert for any intruding minds, and time ceases to matter.

It's many hours later when Rachel comes back to herself, aware that the feel of Jean's mind has changed, that her concentration has lessened. Rachel becomes aware that she's tired, hungry, and feels mentally hollowed out along with it. Picking her way slowly back toward the others, Rachel comes up behind Jean. "Ready to come home?" She asks.

There is a long and tender silence that lingers upon the crisp morning air when Jean is finished, during which Kwabena turns his eyes toward the east and simply sits there. This time, however, he's not brooding. He's recollecting the memories, sorting through them, and trying to come to some sort of understanding.

Unfortunately, accepting all of this isn't exactly going to be so zen-like and easy. He had done dark things already, and even though he knows he could have done much worse, the memories are still riddled with pain. He understands that they did what had to be done, and that his failure could be more greatly attributed to circumstance than decision. However, shame takes hold, however illogically.

Eyes flash toward Rachel when she asks if he is ready.

He's not.

A silent rage builds upon the streaming of a tear down each cheek. Then, in a rapid motion, he leaps to his feet with the pistol drawn.

Turning to the east, his hand clenches around the weapon's stock with ferocity. The sound of crackling and hissing fills the air as flesh and bone harden and compress... squeezing and squeezing, until the pistol breaks.

It's not enough.

Spreading his fingers, Kwabena collects the pieces again, and clenches harder. A scream of anguish is let forth as his hand bursts into white flame, casting a brilliant light against their faces as the living plasma crawls up his wrist.

And then, it's over. What's left of the pistol falls to the ground heavily, a tiny mass of compressed and molten metal. Kwabena's hand takes flesh form at once, and he's left with a heaving chest and a lumbering frame, having expressed his anguish upon the object he no longer needed.

He turns his head to answer Rachel, and a bold look flashes through his eyes. "I am now."

Jean pulls away as Kwabena's emotions get the better of him. She can muster a telekinetic shield against the chance he may explode, but she's just spent hours in a battle with his psyche and her own power. She's tired, now. So, if he does get out of control, it'll largely be up to Rachel to quell him.

Her expression tightens once more as the plasma crawls over his skin, destroying the gun. "It wasn't your fault," she says finally, as the last of his fire fades away. Her expression is sympathetic, weary, and unsurprised. His demonstration serves only to reinforce her belief that pulling him out now was very much for the best. He's something of an emotional wreck, after all. Given his new abilities, that's not something she particularly wants to let loose under Magneto's command.

Indeed, she's not sure exactly what the road forward is with Kwabena, now. Not until she's sure he honestly has himself back under control.

"This isn't the end of the fight, Shift," she says to him. "It's just a change of tacts."

As Shift explodes into movement and pulls his pistol, Rachel's hand snaps forward, fingers clawed, and she barely pulls back from a stronger reaction. In her tiredness, she hasn't closed the door on her Hound-persona as firmly as she'd thought, and she has to clamp down on her sudden urge to lash out.

She'd like to think she'd have been going for the gun. She's not sure that she really was.

Closing her fist so tightly that her fingernails dig into her palm, Rachel grits her teeth and then drops her hand to her side, keeping her eyes on Shift as he goes through his own private agony. She sympathizes, more than either of her companions really know, but she's not going to make the mistake of thinking that he's not dangerous just because he's hurting. She's fairly burning with banked power as she stands beside Jean, feeling her weariness and ready to act in her stead if need be.

The display is an education, and when Shift screams and his hand is bathed in plasma fire, Rachel takes a half-step forward. It's only the feel of Jean's relative calm that makes her hesitate, and finally it's over. At least for now. Rachel knows things are never that clean. Rachel only adds one thing to Jean's words. "And we need you fighting for us."

The words bathe a numbness that follows such a lashing. Kwabena looks down to the mangled remains of the weapon, and is quietly reminded how cautious he must be with his power.

Had he not stopped, it could have been much, much worse.

"No. It's not de end of da fight," he answers softly. "One way or de oddah, dis will escalate. Like it always has."

Hitler. Stalin. Caesar. David. The list goes on.

Exhaustion and hunger find him at last. He returns to the stump and sits down with a heaviness he'd become familiar with, closes his eyes, and pinches his nose.

"He wants me as a weapon," he says at last, and turns to look at Rachel. "He will be angry." There he seeks to hold her gaze, as if making a silent promise. She had shown him an unexpected loyalty in a very undeserving moment. That will not go unnoticed or unforgotten.

Now, he looks toward Jean. Resignation finally takes him in full, and his frame slumps. "Let's go home."