2013.07.25 - To What End?

Having left Harry's pub sometime just before dinner, Jean Grey made her way into the city, back to her private research lab. By and large, it's a place she keeps distinctly separate from the Institute -- partly to keep from endangering the students, and partly because everyone needs a place of their own periodically. This lab is hers.

She sent a text message Kwabena with the address, after Remy left her table, to arrange this evening's meeting. Now, she sits at a workstation pouring over data while she awaits her visitor.

The lab itself is fairly state-of-the-art. There are machines, instruments, and apparatuses suitable to her work. There are workstations with computers for analysis. And there's even a comfortable, separate sitting room at one end she has used as lounge/rest area on many occasions. But, it's one of the computer workstations she occupies, now.

Typically, Kwabena's arrival is noted by the roar of a Harley. This time, that is not the case. His bike is parked elsewhere and he took the MTA to the address. Not wanting to draw any unwanted attention, he's dressed in a manner that would fit in well amongst the crowds of lower Metropolis--jeans, boots, a soccer jersey featuring the colors and insignia for Ghana's 'Black Stars' FIFA team, and a black leather jacket to ward off the pre-rainfall breeze that blows rapidly across the island.

Tucking a pair of shades into his pocket, Kwabena extinguishes his cigarette in a nearby trash bin and enters the building. A soft chime at the door announces his arrival.

Jean glances up at the clock as the chime rings. Most people would check the security feed at this point. Most people, however, aren't an omega-class telepath. Instead, she does a mental sweep of the area. Upon confirming it's her teammate, she telekinetically flips the lock to let him in and telepathically reaches out to greet him.

~ C'mon in, Kwabena. Elevator to the 5th floor. ~ For a building in Lower Metropolis, this one's a low-rise. And she's at the top.

Only a few moments later, the door is opened and Kwabena walks in. A cloud seems to linger over him, for there were a great many things on his mind. However, the lab itself quickly takes his mind off those things, and his expression brightens as he takes in the state-of-the-art equipment.

"Dis puts my secret lair to shame," he quips, then closes the distance just a bit before stopping and offering Jean a pleasant smile. "You rang?"

Jean is on her feet and moving across the lab, through the sitting room, to the entryway by the time Kwabena steps off the elevator. She chuckles at his assessment. "That's what grants are for, my friend. Shiny new toys."

She gestures for him to follow her and offers him a seat on the sofa in the sitting room. "Welcome to my home-away-from-home," she says, her smile turning wry. "How're you feeling, these days?"

She crosses to a low fridge by a sink-and-counter setup. "Drink? I've got healthy stuff in the fridge, or tea or coffee, if you prefer." A beat. "Not that they aren't healthy..."

"Grants." He speaks the word as if filing it away for some future endeavor. What, exactly, he would use grant money for? Well, that would require citizenship, a proper education, and... moving on.

Following along, Kwabena pulls the jacket from his shoulders and drapes it over the armrest before taking a seat upon the sofa next to it. "Bettah dan evah," he answers. "Hard to describe what Doom's little machines of menace really did to me." He pauses while collecting memories to try and put it to works. "Like always being on de verge of a high, but nevah really leaving sobriety." He shakes his head and says, "If it weren't for some of de help Doctah Richards had given me, I'm not sure I'd have been able to adjust to it. Being free of dem once and for all? A relief I haven't known for some few years."

Of course, every addict knows a cold truth. It only takes one wrong decision to rip away sobriety in the blink of an eye. He had to remain cautious as ever.

"Just watah," he answers with a tone of gratitude. "Have you seen my latest report on Inhibitah Prime?"

Kwabena had filed the latest on the Inhibitor not more than an hour or so prior. With the help of X-23 and Marvel Girl, Shift had discovered that the Inhibitor is, in fact, conducting his schemes of his own power, and has a name: Isaac. The report also detailed that two of Isaac's accomplices were questioned, then released into the city after being implanted with sub-cutaneous tracking devices.

Jean reaches into the fridge and pulls out two bottles of water. She brings one over to him and sits down nearby. "I did," she admits. She had time to peruse such things while she was waiting for his arrival. "Sounds like you're getting closer, which is good. And you've ruled out formal government involvement, which is also something of a relief." But not really. After all, just because it's not official doesn't mean it's not happening. "If there's anything I can do to help, I will..."

Though, truthfully, given everything he's already asked of her, maybe she shouldn't complicate matters further.

She wraps her fist around the top of her bottle and opens it with a crack. Taking the top off, she sets it aside and takes a swallow of the water. It's cold and crisp and she savours it a moment... realizing she's just delaying the inevitable.

"So, I went over your charts," she says now. "As far as I can see, and my last scan of you, I'm as confident as I can be that you're as detoxxed as we can make you." A beat. "You still serious about infiltrating Magneto's new 'empire'?" Yeah. The air-quotes are there. Because, seriously: It's not even the whole of one frickin' island.

"Closah, yes," Kwabena answers, before breaking to accept his water. "Thank you." He unscrews the cap but rests it on his knee for a moment in order to finish his thought. "The accomplices were pawns, really. Victims of dere own mutations. Bad side effects. Dis 'Isaac' fellow was using them by, well, really, by healing dem. I'll be asking Doug, perhaps some few oddahs, to keep an eye on dere tracking signals. Maybe more dan some few eyes."

In short, he probably wouldn't need further assistance... unless Isaac surfaced again.

Kwabena drinks from his water in turn, then sets it down again when the inevitable is brought up. He'd taken great pains to be cautious about his preparations... even going so far as to convince himself that all of the ground work he was doing to make his departure seamless was little more than being, for lack of a better term, a good 'boy scout'.

He hadn't even let himself give much thought to Magneto, until now.

Following a brief silence that likely feels longer than it really is, he nods his head. "There are so many ways I can be used as a part of dis team, for de X-Men." His words come quietly, as if every decibel was yet one more thread that would need to be undone. "When I look at dem objectively... dis one makes de most sense."

It's also the most risky. He doesn't say it, but it wouldn't take a telepath to hear it in his voice. He's willing, he's brave, but he's not stupid.

"I'm afraid of what might happen if we don't do everything we can to know what he is planning."

That's not all he fears... but those fears go unspoken.

Jean considers what he says. The issue of Isaac is set aside for the issue of Erik. She gives a wry smile as Kwabena speaks, nodding her understanding, even agreement with him.

Erik Lehnsherr was there when Charles Xavier invited her to his school for Gifted Youngsters. He's as much a part of her past as the Professor ever has been. She's fought against him and with him at various points over the years. But, she doesn't claim to understand him.

"I agree with you," she tells Kwabena, now. "But, that doesn't mean I have to like it. This plan of yours... it's dangerous. Very, very dangerous. I have no idea what sort of mutants he's got working for him on that island -- how powerful his telepaths are. Just because the Professor is the only telepath I've ever met that's more powerful than me doesn't mean that there aren't others out there."

Of course, to be fair, it's likely the Phoenix might have sensed any other powerful minds out there, but the memories she absorbed from the Entity are sometimes hazy and difficult to sort through.

"I'm not as good at this as the Professor is. And I'm going to need to check in with you regularly, which has all its own problems."

Nodding along, Kwabena listens, and he listens cautiously. He shows all the signs of a man familiar with the art of meditation. Indeed, it had been Domino, of all people, who had suggested he take up the art when he first began to hold a greater understanding of his mutations--how to use them, and how to keep them under control.

That being said, he listens in this manner because he is not immune to the risks. It's a different kind of approach, quite dissimilar from being called into battle, or responding to danger in the blink of violence. Walking into hell is very different from being drawn there by need.

The issue she brings up last, that of logistics, is one he approaches with half his attention, and it's audible in the disconnected way he speaks. "I've taken care of dat. Mercenary work, remembah. When I come into de city, all of dose jobs will pass through my secret lair. It's been bugged, and I don't know where, or how. Just... wait for de signal, then track me, and take what you have to."

At this point, Kwabena takes a deep and steadying breath. He means to form a word, but nothing comes. He instead looks down to his bottle of water, and a few creaks fill the room as the plastic bends under a tighter grip.

"I... don't... like it either." The words are quiet, but there is a touch of a growl in his tone. Fear is battling determination in his soul, but there is a much quieter battle, one that an Omega-Level telepath would certainly be able to recognize, if such effort was given. Deep within, he wants to know how powerful he can be. He wants to know everything Erik can teach him, and he's not entirely convinced that using that power would always be wrong. What he does recognize is just how dangerous that might be to his mortal soul, and though he can't feel it, he remembers the rosary and crucifix that Kurt had given him. He may not be able to touch it, for it rests within the pocket of his discarded jacket, but its very presence touches the small part of him that still believes in something greater than himself.

That is what defines the quiet battle deep within, the one that is truly most dangerous to Kwabena.

"I've seen what he can do," he admits. "Perhaps only a small part, and dat small part is both beautiful and terrifying at once. If he does something terrible to me, dat is something I can live with. I've lived in hell before. But if he does something terrible, to someone innocent, and I didn't do everything I could to try and prevent it?" He shakes his head, and finally makes eye contact with Jean again.

His eyes are wet, but grief is mingled with anger.

"I'm not sure how I would live with dat."

Try living with the deaths of billions on your head because some part of you went out and destroyed a planet with 'phenomenal cosmic power'. There's a trip.

All of which is to say there are very few people on Earth that understand the African's inner conflict better than the redhead that sits opposite him.

She nods, simply, though the lines of concern about her eyes deepen. "You and I are going to have to spend some time together if you come out the other side of this in one piece," she tells him. "Because I can guarantee you, as one of Magneto's soldiers, some of what you will do to innocents will haunt you for a very, very long time afterward." She glances down at her hands, her water set aside. "I've destroyed entire solar systems with my power, Kwabena. Or, at least, some small part of me has. Billions of lives. Gone." She snaps. "Like that. That's what I carry with me, even now. There are some things you can't take on yourself. And responsibility for every innocent life Magneto destroys is one of them. I need you to understand that before we do this. Because while this may curtail him in the long run, it will not do anything to stop him in the short term. And more people are going to be hurt before this is all over. Mark my words."

There is no way for Kwabena to understand what it is Jean has to live with. What he does understand is... well, something he voices, following a couple nods of his head and one or two squints of concern to the edges of his eyes.

"I have... destroyed lives in my own way," he admits. "I wasn't only an addict, I... created addicts. Killed rival dealahs. Manipulated people to keep dem on my leash." He shakes his head. "I tried to fix it by hunting down and ruining de lives of traffickers when I got out of de game, when I chose a different path. I was my own justice system, but I nevah found peace in delivering arbitrary justice." A rather ironic smirk takes him. "I suppose I'm quite used to doing bad things to innocent people."

Nothing more needs to be said about that. The philosophical realities of that conversation could, in fact, go on for eternity.

Soberly, he quiets and listens to Jean's advice. Among his fears, that was one of them... but if he is to become an agent of good spying upon the devil, he has realized that, inevitably, he will have to do the devil's work.

"Promise me something." The anger and fear are evenly replaced by a pleading expression. "If it goes too far, pull me out. I don't care what you have to do, how strongly you have to mix dis up." Indicatively he taps his temple with a free hand. "But stop me if you have to. And...!" He reaches with a free hand and grabs hold of Jean's, not caring if such a gesture invades her personal space. "Keep an eye out for Jubilation. When she finds out... it will not be easy for her. For any of de students."

Jean inhales deeply and nods. She smiles, giving his hand a squeeze. Apparently she doesn't find it a breech of personal space. "I will," she promises. "Though, I won't tell them what's really going on."

No. No one is going to find out about this, if she can at all help it.

She regards him, now. "You ready then? Or do you need more time to put your affairs in order?" Geez, it sounds like she's going to kill him. Then again... on some level, she is.

Kwabena begins to think. He thinks first about Jubilation, who he knew before he even knew about Charles and the Institute. She was a bright spot in his life when it was still very dark. He thinks next about Betsy, her loss of memory when she changed bodies, and is about to think about the kiss they shared in Latveria.

He abruptly stops thinking about any of his friends.

Taking a deep breath through his nose, Kwabena releases Jean's hand and takes a long drink of his water. As he sets the bottle down, his emotions begin to go numb as the realization of what he's about to do takes his feelings away from him. He reaches into the jacket and retrieves the crucifix and rosary, eyeing it for but a moment.

Kurt will be praying for him.

Silently he reaches over and offers the religious items to Jean. He can't possess anything that might remind him of one of his closest friends on the team. Then, he lets out a long breath through his nose, and soberly nods his head. "I'm ready."

Jean looks down at the rosary and crucifix for a moment as she takes them. Her brows crease and her already concerned expression pulls to one side as she recognizes it for what and whose it is. She'll keep those beads safe, that's for sure. Kurt has been a good friend to her, too. (And, boy, will he light into her if he finds out about this.)

"Very well," she says, inhaling a steadying breath now. She raises her green gaze to meet his dark one. "Then I need you to relax and clear your mind as best you can. And, we'll begin."

She takes the time he needs to focus to focus herself as well.

Kwabena nods his head slowly. His affairs are in order, and he's done everything he can to make his sudden departure go smoothly. He trusted Roy and Domino to have placed the tracking device at his warehouse in Brooklyn, and the frequency for it has already been sent to Jean's inbox.

He'd recovered from his withdrawal symptoms, and has done everything he can not to think too deeply about this operation.

In these silent moments, he leaves the decision behind him, and lets the emptiness of meditation fill his mind.

The point of no return approaches him like a bullet he can no longer dodge.

Jean opens her shields to absorb the man sitting in front of her. The task set before her, now, is delicate, intimate work. She will very likely know him better than he knows himself before all this is over. It's something she steels herself for -- not so much because of the darkness in his past, as because of the effect absorbing the thoughts, dreams, and personality of another sentient mind will have on anyone. It's not an easy thing to reconcile within one's self, to know someone else so well.

It will also not be a quick process. She has weeks of memories to sift through, now. Every thread, from the moment he first began to conceive of this plan, to the ones that lead him to this very second now, must be followed, memorized in some part of her own being, and rewoven in his. She begins to sift through thoughts, dreams, memories, intentions and more, weaving them into something darker than they truly are. She pulls memories from his past and alters them, as well. Not greatly, but enough to give him the motivation to want to join Magneto. The willingness to set aside those things that make him an X-Men to join with their greatest foe, instead.

And it's not like she's actually erasing his time with them. Instead, she's teasing out every doubt he's had about their mission, even if it was no more than a shade, and giving it substance and form. She's taking every sleight any human has ever offered him and twisting it to hurt more than it already did.

It sickens her to do so, but she keeps that locked far away from him. By the time she's done here, he'll have no doubt in his mind that joining the Imperator of Bastion is the right thing to do.

Kwabena Odame became an X-Man because he had nowhere else to go. They were the only people who could help him after suffering the torments of Latveria.

At the end of the day, he now believes that they let him down.

Knowing Kwabena so intimately, there would be many things to discuss and reveal. Too many, in fact, to put onto paper. At his core, however, he is a man who does not trust easily, and even when he does, it is with a long arm of defense.

His deepest and darkest secrets seem to center upon the needle and the pipe. The days on end he spent soaring on the highs of methamphetamine, or sinking into the depths of fleeting relief that was heroin. The violence of the streets, the brutal cracking of steel against skull. Murder. Betrayal. Living in fear and anger. But yet, these dark things are traced back to the very thing that defined him as a child.

Kwabena the freak. Being cast out of his village in Ghana as some kind of demon. Slaying wild animals in the plains for sustenance. Lying, cheating, and beating his way to America. Beating up police officers while their guns did nothing to him. Leaping from the rooftop of a building to avoid a drug lord's pistol, knowing that when he struck ground, his body would not let him perish.

In truth, the X-Men saved him from this dark path. They showed him a life of purpose, and gave him a place with which to practice all of the good things about him. The desire to help, to accept, to risk life and limb to protect the victimized. Friendship and acceptance, and a life lived without fear.

All of these things... twisted into a hatred of those in his home village, a hatred of the drug dealers, the cops, and all of the other humans who, at the end of the day, are all the same.

When all is said and done and the countless minutes, perhaps hours, have passed, Kwabena sits in this place, not entirely feeling like he belongs anymore. His eyes have changed, and he looks upon Jean not as a trusted friend, but as someone who just... does not understand.

Why, he does not know, but the feeling inside of him simply cannot be ignored.

Erik was the first mutant to show interest in him.

To Erik he must go.

Jean sits back, the clock well on its way to midnight when she does. She regards her handiwork and knows it to be 'good'... despite how wrong it makes her feel.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Kwabena," she tells him now, playing the role she implanted into his mind -- the hardline voice of the X-Men who has denied his last attempt to settle the issues between them and forced his hand. "You're a great asset. But you have to do what's right for you. We'll be sorry to see you go."

With a stern nod, Kwabena nods his head. "Okay," he answers. "Tell Scott dat his secrets will be safe with me. And tell Logan that I said, well, thank you." A half-hearted grin forms. "He was de one who brought me in, after all."

He looks at Jean for a moment longer, considering the oddness of how he feels. Then, his eyes blink rapidly, as if a year's worth of memories just sorted themselves out and made a bit more sense.

Abruptly, he reaches for his jacket and stands, leaving the bottle of water behind. "See you around," he remarks, before donning the jacket and making his way for the door.

"I will," Jean says, rising as he does. She watches him leave. Stares at the door for a long time after it has closed, her mind easily tracking him as he exits the building and makes his way off into the night. She knows him so well, now, he'll be easy for her to track even halfway around the world, though she won't -- for fear it will tip Magneto's allies off. Even so, there's a small comfort in that. She'll know when he needs help.

Finally, she sinks back down in her chair, leans forward with her elbows on her knees and scrubs her face wearily with her hands.

"Damn."