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Prometheus; Jean
Topic Started: Apr 29 2014, 12:17 AM (350 Views)
Vulcan
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Channeling of Geothermal Energy/Widdle Bwutha
Date: April 2nd, 2014
Location: Starjammer II, Holding Room.




In the times of old, there were the Olympians, they ruled the heavens, Earth, and all that inhabited them. On Earth, lived the lowly humans, scared and frightened, living in darkness praying for their all powerful gods to provide and not unleash their holy wrath upon them. That was until one day, fire came to the humans. A gift from one of their gods, or titan, depending upon the tale. This being’s name was Prometheus, and he gave humans the light to go through the darkness, disobeying his King’s orders, and paid the price for it. Every day he would relive the torture, only to be reborn knowing he would suffer till death all over again.

In modern times these gods only existed in the minds of their followers, until the Phoenix came. It chose new gods to unleash their will upon the world. One of these gods was a young man, taken from a dead mother, turned against his father and brothers, forced to become a monster to survive. He hated the world as he saw it. The darkness and evil within it, knowing he was becoming the center of it as well. So when he was chosen to become a god of a new order, he would bring fire to the world just as Prometheus did. But his fire would completely cleanse this darkness, him along with it at the very end.

Or that was how he planned to write the story.

Unfortunately, stories never end up how they are planned out. Heroes he dreamt of being like as a child came to stop him. A father he barely knew saved him from death. He had a family for the first time in his life. However the young tyrant was a stubborn man with a strange sense of justice, and in his last moment of godhood, trapped himself in his own personal hell to deliver the torture that he believed all monsters like himself deserved in the end.

Moments were eons in the mental prison. The years of training to put up mental blocks and barriers against psychic attacks torn asunder, leaving ruined astral structures. Every sin came back to Gabriel, forced to become the victim to every pain he caused or allowed to be caused by the hands of another. A cruel This Is Your Life segment running on replay for the former tyrant. Only for it all to stop only after he begged and pleaded for escape. Each time he tried, and each moment fiery talons would drag him back, tearing his mind apart piece by piece as a flaming vulture pecked and rendered him to bits. Mental screams calling out to deaf ears.

This continued since the first day of his coma, several times a day would he repeat this vicious cycle. Still, he hung on, tried to maintain his sanity, and any sense of self he could manage. He heard voices every now and then, faint ones that he swore he recognized, his father mostly. Those moments he ran from his torment, trying desperately to reach out to the man, wanting to escape his torture and unable to free himself. Gabriel for the first time would call for his father to help him. But no one could hear him before he was pulled back to his punishment.

His physical body would grow thinner, lose muscle tone, as well as losing his healthy looking tan as his skin tone became paler and paler with each passing day in the Atlantean vessel. However his body was pristine by comparison to his mental status after all of these months, barely held together by dwindling willpower. And completely unaware of the guest he would have today.
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Jean
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“Isn’t it about time you stopped this,” said a chilly voice from everywhere and nowhere.

Scott’s father had asked, can you help my son?’ She had slipped into his mind and strolled around taking stock. She manifested in his mind before the bound and tortured mental aspect of Vulcan, her hands resting on her hips and glaring sternly down at Scott’s brother.

“It’s time to stop hiding. Time to stop cutting. Time to crawl back to the real world and face the reality of what you’ve done. And no, this,” she gestured to the over-inflated Dante’s Inferno mosaic of masturbatory masochism, “doesn’t count. This isn’t atonement,” she said dismissively, “it’s revisiting your past, like walking through a trophy room, and getting a secret thrill from your accomplishments.”

Her eyes went to the fiery “thing” that supposedly held poor Vulcan in place for his cycle of torture and glared, at him. “It’s always someone else, isn’t it? D’Ken… your father… Deathbird… Doom… Phoenix… A long list of people who had a hand in shaping you, who made you the monster you are, but of course,” her eyes flared the binds holding Vulcan faded away into smoke, “not yourself. Never that.”

She regarded Vulcan with cool detachment, “You want to know how I know its all window dressing and bullshit?” Then didn’t wait for a reply before going on, “Because you aren’t really hurt. I didn’t have to piece together your mind like a jigsaw puzzle. A suicide is means it; they slash, they go deep, they’re trying for that vein and it’s usually luck or poor planning when they don’t die. But cutters,” she looked again at the funhouse horror show ‘This is your Life, Vulcan’ around them, “cutters just want the distraction, they want the pain. But not too much pain, right to the edge actually doing themselves any real harm.” And she didn’t have any doubts that this was exactly what he’d been doing, though he maybe have convinced himself it was a lot grander than that.

“Time to leave,” she said as the mindscape faded and she was forcing his mind back to reality. “If you want to suicide, do it a quick way, don’t force your father to watch you doing it slow. Otherwise, stop hiding and deal, in the real world, with the real consequences of your decisions and actions.”
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Vulcan
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Channeling of Geothermal Energy/Widdle Bwutha
A voice came. What felt like years of silence outside of his own screams.

Jean.

Scott's telepathic wife, the true host of the Phoenix. That great and wonderful power he once held, the entity's power that he used subconsciously to lock him away in this state. Stuck in a perpetual limbo unable to release himself lacking the psychic power to break through, nor the will to escape the suffering. And it was indeed suffering despite what she claimed it was. Not because of the pain, but the confinement. The psychic bondage keeping him stuck, unable to get his desires of an end like he wanted. The end to the story he had started years ago when he set into motion certain events that only became much more with his actions within the Illuminati, and later the Phoenix hosts.

It was supposed to end one of two ways, either good or evil would stand on top of the world and the other gone. All the monsters or all the heroes eliminated. Only one could truly stand in his mind, and as he fell against the united heroes, he knew his end had to come. It is what everything lead up to, every single act was one step closer to that.

That was what the whole show was truly about. To remind him that he should be dead, but deny him that right. Either by an internal struggle to survive, or something else. Part of him deep down did not want it to end, despite everything else he consciously thought and desired.

He finally controlled his screams of agony long enough to look at her, glaring through the pain. "I chose my life..." He responded hoarsely, as if his mouth was dry from the psychic heat and constant strain of screaming. "My decisions are mine and no one elses... No, this isn't atonement. I don't know what this hell is other than delaying what I want." He responded as composed as he could before it snapped back to one of many moments where he killed indiscriminately for D'Ken, once again being the victim to his own actions.

Then he was back, ragged as before. "Why?" he asked. "Why didn't they end it? They were supposed to end it!" He snapped at her. Reaching for for her,either to strangle her or just get a hold of something outside of this realm of his mind.

She claimed he was suicidal, and maybe deep down she was right. He desired his end probably more than anyone else in the world. However there was too much pride in him to turn away from the ending he envisioned for years. Before he could answer though, the world he knew for the past months faded away. His chains pulling him back, but he continued to try and reach for her, pulling against the psychic bondage. He looked at the fire behind him turning into nothing as a set of talons reached out for him.

Then a bright white.

His eyes opened, blinded for a moment as his vision readjusted after months of being cut off from the real world. He felt weak as he took a breath, forcing himself up partially. His body had grown lethargic, muscles became weak after no use for months.

Gabriel turned his head to look at Jean in the room. Glaring at her with both eyes. He forced his hand to raise up, aiming at her, as if to attack. Then he saw the null cuff on him, even so he tried to make a threat of attack even powerless and cold. Then he dropped his hand, letting it fall off the cot, hanging off to the side.

"There's...no point to it... if a hero doesn't slay the monster... " He muttered his first words with a dry throat and mouth. "You know... I deserve death... why don't you end it?" He asked, glaring at her with the eyes he inherited from a mother he never knew. "You won't though... because of them." He responded weakly, thinking out loud about his two brothers, his father. "I imagine you want to though."

He tried to move, but bed sores from laying in the same position for months caused him to falter for a moment before forcing himself to sit up. He hated feeling this physically weak, and powerless.

::It would make two of us.::

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Jean
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Coldly, she watched him struggle to sit up after he’d stretched out his hand, calling on powers to kill her, if they hadn’t been taken away from him null cuff dangling on his thin, twig-like wrist. She waited until he was settled, then deliberate walked up to him, paused at his bedside and punched his face. Glaring down at her bed-ridden brother-in-law as she idly flexed her fingers, she said, “Don’t think for a second that being in that bed cuts you any slack with me or think you can threaten me and I’ll just let it slide because it’s obliviously just for show. Unlike your father, I have zero sympathy or affection for you and yeah, to go with what you’re thinking, I am a bitch - don’t you forget it.”

“Why they didn’t kill you should be obvious,” she said, cocking head as she peered coldly down at Vulcan. “Because your father stopped them. He hopes you’ll become more than the soulless monster you are right now. That maybe… just maybe you might actually turn into something other than the spoiled brat with more power than brains, who only thinks about himself. Personally, I doubt it,” Jean said, crossing her arms and pacing around his hospital bed. “I think you’re too selfish and cowardly to change. Strike that,” she paused, rethinking what she’d said, “to want to change. You probably think that having a shitty childhood being raised by D’Ken gives you a Get out of Jail Free card. It doesn’t,” she told him bluntly. “The moment D’Ken was dead and you were free to do anything you wanted, you chose to keep following D’Ken’s fine example casual, brutal butchery - and that’s when you lost it and showed that you really are just a petty little coward; a bully who found it easier to keep on that path than to become a decent person.”

She glared down at him, not wanting to think about them but his rambling words nevertheless swirling in her thoughts. Heroes and monsters and the heroes had to finish off the monsters. “And unless you are so far out of touch with reality that you can’t look past such a simplistic device as heroes and monsters, to decide how the world works, then I strongly suggest you drop it. You aren’t a monster, I was wrong to call you that earlier. What you are is a vicious little boy in a man’s body, a boy who never grew out of the stage of pulling the legs off grasshoppers and burning ants with a magnifying glass.”

Looking down on the wasted body of the former leader, she went on with her brutal verbal hatchet job; ordinarily kind and supportive to those in need, she felt no compulsion to spare this unrepentant mass murderer an ounce of her venom. “I wouldn’t kill you, like you suggested earlier. That would be letting you off too easy. I would turn you over to the global authority and let you fall to the tender mercies of the people you spent the last year terrorizing and killing. But your father asked me not to. He wants to try to save you from yourself, so for his sake, I suggest that you finally grow the fuck up.”
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Vulcan
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Channeling of Geothermal Energy/Widdle Bwutha
There was a moment of shock when she punched him. He couldn't believe she actually hit him. Part of him still thinking like the ruler he had been, as if he couldn't believe anyone would dare touch him without him initiating the act. However as that passed a half smile started to form on his lips as he touched tenderly the spot she had struck. She spoke about having no sympathy for him, and he believed her, mostly. If it weren't for his father and brothers? She probably would have killed him right then and there, or left him in his mind, or just simply shut it all off. "Oh I like you more than I thought I would." He remarked. Perhaps there was hope for those X-Factions not all being bleeding hearts like he knew Alex was.

Finally she explained why he was not killed after or during the battle. Corsair. Always Corsair. "That man..." He started an outward thought but couldn't think of how he wanted to end it. Corsair was a fool. Corsair messed with his life every chance he got. Corsair...still cared. It was a disturbing and foreign thought to him. How could he? How could any of them? Jean saw the truth as Gabriel saw in himself. He was damn certain others of their teams saw the same. Why not Corsair? Or Alex? And he assumed Scott as well.

"Well we agree on something at least." Gabriel responded to him not believing in people being able to change. "Even if I did believe in people being able to change... if I could change to whatever fantasy Corsair and my brothers could have of me... I wouldn't deserve it. I don't blame anyone for what I am, what I've done. I had a choice and I made it. By any law of the world, my decisions deserve justice and that justice would be death. Even by my own sense of justice." He continued, believing he and her were on the same page for the most part.

"The world is not decent, Phoenix. Decent people...they're eaten whole by it." Gabriel said looking at her dead in the eyes. "Its just a matter of time. I wanted to survive." He said Phoenix with an inflection of hatred, but also envy. The power he had so briefly, gone. He loathed it and missed it all at the same time. "Long enough to see my plans go through at least."

He disagreed with her on the case of monsters not existing, or at least him not being one. Though he did express some disgust at being called a boy in a man's body. It was insulting when anyone called him a child, by his age or otherwise. It was always a sore point for him and his pride.

"Please stop with this 'death is too easy', bullshit." He spat. "Especially when turning me over to the rightful justice keepers would just execute me. No country in the world would keep me alive, not even my own country. Since when does the words of one man outweigh thousands of dead ones, or their families? Tell me why you acting above the laws that be is any different at its core than what I did? What Doom did?" He asked her, his gaze had not moved from her an inch.

"Why does your minority get to decide against the rest of the world? Are you tyrants as well?"
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Cyclops
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"Oh, he talks, doesn't he?" Scott said, from where he stood at the door way, his armed folded over his chest as he leaned on the frame, "He definitely is a Summers in that respect at least, even if everything else is reprehensible."

He walked into the room, to stand beside his wife. Dressed casually in a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, khaki cargo shorts and deck shoes, with his skin chaffed at the cheeks with sun, salt and wind, with his hair untidy and falling over his forehead into his red sunglasses, he didn't look like a super hero. He looked more like a man on vacation... except for the seriousness in his face, and the tension at his jawline.

"Hello, Gabriel, I'm your brother, Scott," he introduced, "we haven't officially met, I don't believe. Alex has told me all about you though, as I'm sure you can imagine. You're alive right now because our brother and our father don't want to give up on you even after what you did to them. You're broken, and you're lost, and you're a Summers. That name might mean nothing to you, but it means something to the rest of us."

Scott took his wife's hand, and looked at it, running a thumb over reddened knuckles that might decide to bruise. Punching a head made out of rocks tended to do that. "Feel better?" he asked her, not even a drop of sarcasm in his voice. He knew Jean and he knew that she did not resort to physical violence without reason. He didn't need to know that reason. He didn't even bother to ask. His trust was in her one hundred percent.

Dropping her hand, he turned his attention back to Gabriel, "Let me get a few things straight here, little brother, and let me explain to you why you're meeting with Jean and I and not Corsair. Our father believes he failed us, failed you, and because of that he's going to cut you a greater amount of slack than my wife and I. So, with that in mind, realize that this is not a debate about the legal ramifications of being a failed world conqueror. We're in international waters, at the moment, so we'll deal with that as we get to it. But, we're also not going to waste our time trying to convince you that you're a good person."

Scott looked at him coolly and said, "The fact is, Gabriel, you're not. You're a spoiled, self pitying, self important brat. D'Ken used you to lash out at our father, and when Corsair killed him, whatever significance you had to anyone was lost, so you've been building yourself into this big bad boogeyman, and honestly, Gabriel, you're incredibly insignificant compared to some of the world threatening events we've faced. You've committed great crimes against the world, yes, but so have I. So has Alex. You'll have to face judgment for it, and you will face judgment, but you're not going to die today, no matter how badly you want it. No.

"You're going to live, and you're going to decide how you want to live. This Stockholm syndrome suffering little boy crying in a prison of his own making, or a man who's stronger and wiser for having suffered." Scott looked at his younger brother, trying to find some resemblance there, "You have no leverage here, you have no pleas for death, or argument to debate. You live because you have an entire life in front of you to deal with what you've done. I'm on this ship right now for that same reason. I have atonement to make, and this is the path to it. You'll never get that far if you stay in this room, and you won't leave this room if you don't stop trying to manipulate us with pity or goad us with anger."
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Jean
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His smile didn’t surprise her, as her punch had surprised him; it made sense that he was much more comfortable with pain and contempt than kindness. She listened impassively to his super villain rant – he killed hundreds of thousands because… well, why not, the world was a harsh place and if you weren’t the one driving the bus, you ended up being among those crushed under its wheel; that was the world according to Vulcan. It was what he claimed and perhaps even believed on some level, not that that mattered.

A voice broke in and answered for her. The psychologist in her peeked through as she studied one brother then the other. The star and pinnacle of the Summers brothers, though Scott would protest that he was no sterling example to follow, especially after this past year, to which Jean would disagree, and the youngest and worst that the Summers clan had to offer, which Jean would agree with.

She crooked a smile at his oh so casual, vacation attire. Even in loose-fitting cargo khakis, Scott Summers could stride into a room and instantly take control of it; he just had “it”. Tenderly, he took her hand and stroked the skin over her knuckles. “Better now,” she assured him, “but that’s the easy fix in all this.”

Turning back to his brother, Scott was… well, Scott – calm and in control, laying down the law in no uncertain terms. With Scott here, Jean took a backseat; Vulcan wasn’t her blood family, not her responsibility and she had no affection for his self-centered, spoiled personality.

"You have no leverage here, you have no pleas for death, or argument to debate,” Scott said and Jean nodded her agreement as Scott continued.

“Regardless of the professed disdain you have for common decency, which you think of as being soft and weak, we, and I think even Corsair, aren’t going to beg you to change. You know good and evil, and as you say, you made a choice; you just continually chose to be a dick at every opportunity.” Jean shrugged, as though his actions were of no real importance to her. “Maybe someday you’ll grow up and it’ll suddenly click into place.”
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Vulcan
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Not long after he had finished his own argument against Jean and the decisions of Alex and Corsair, another person he had not yet met before joined the two of them in the room. Though, Gabriel had not met him yet, he knew all to well who this man was, even before his introduction. This was not what he expected to see however, Scott dressed like some tourist in the summer. It was rather disappointing and ruined the image he had of Scott based on various descriptions and data that had been gathered. This was the man that helped kill D'Ken, and he looked sorely unassuming and unimpressive.

Gabriel did what he could to hide his initial disappointment.

"I know who you are, Scott." Gabriel responded. "And no, we have not, though I wanted to change that while you were in the services of The Hand. I wasn't exactly welcomed by Frost or the Dark Beast." Gabriel explained. He really did genuinely want to meet his eldest brother, even before capturing Alex and planning to turn him into something similar to what Scott had become. There was some deep twisted desire of desiring his brothers at his side as he carried out his goals.

He was doing what he could to try and rebuild the shielding he had been trained to do around his mind. He knew Jean was far beyond any telepath he trained for, and if she wanted she could likely keep down his walls, but building it up was all apart of the hardwired training of all those years.

Scott laid out the situation flatly before Gabriel. They were giving him no options. And leaving him with only one choice. To stay in this room and rot? Or to go against his own beliefs and "live", as they put it. Just so he could learn to feel something about what he had done, or something of that nature. He didn't quite understand it. It was such a foreign concept to him. He didn't see how it was a punishment on him to live. No it was not what he wanted. Which angered him yes, as did the lack of control over the situation.

And though Scott said there was no manipulating the situation or anyone on board. Gabriel had gears turning in his head. They were sluggish, as he was still reintroducing himself with the waking world, and his mind was still tired from the vivid illusions and being pulled from them by force.

He looked at Scott, Gabriel's blue eyes, the same shade as their brother's and mother's, though maybe Scott couldn't tell that through the ruby shades. His strong features, which resembled Scott and their father, much more pronounced after the weight loss over the last few months. There were mixed emotions for the young man thinking that he could very well be looking at a mirror set a decade in the future, and Corsair being several more decades after Scott. He didn't think he would live that long, 5 years ago he didn't think he would see 20. He wasn't far off from 21 now.

Death had always been his future, one way or another.

"I don't lose." He said flatly. "Not before that day, and never again." He started to get out of the bed. His movements slow, muscles not used to movement, but he forced his legs to swing over the bed. He was incredibly prideful. His claim of not losing maybe could be debated, but the way he saw it, he always made sure to get his way in some manner when he truly wanted something. He was standing now, nearly as tall as Scott. His legs were wobbly, and he somehow managed to keep his composure well enough to take a step forward.

"Whatever challenge you have, whatever punishment any of you think you're giving me. I'll come out on top. I don't stop until I do." He expected nothing but the best from himself, beyond it in fact. "Take that as you will... but would you both kindly move so I can get myself my first meal in what I assume is months?"
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Cyclops
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Scott, standing next to his wife, did not miss the disappointment that Gabriel tried to hide. One corner of his lips quirked upwards and he almost laughed. Gabriel jabbed at him regarding his 'service' with the Dark Beast, and Scott said, "Even if you had met that shell that was the Eye of the Hand, you would not have met me... or maybe you would have. I haven't entirely decided if the Fathers unleashed what was already in me, or filled me with their own purpose and made me believe it was my own. Either way, if you're disappointed in me now, I shudder to think of how much of a let down I would have been then."

That was, of course, a lie.

He really didn't care what this brat thought of him.

Completely ignoring Jean's comments, which was unsurprising given the fact that it was clear that while Scott was hard nosed his wife was the fiery emotion, Gabriel stood up, wobbly and weak after nearly a year long coma, and Scott moved to stand before him, placing a hand on the thin chest. "You're not going anywhere, so sit down before you fall down... or I push you down. One of those things is going to happen, and I would rather you make the smart choice. Now, let me explain a few things to you. You've been in a coma for eight months. You aren't going to be able to walk out of here, even if you were being allowed to. The fact that you're standing at all is surprising, quite frankly, which suggests that your coma had more to do with your mental state than your physical, but even so, you won't be able to eat, nothing solid anyhow."

Scott spoke from experience. He had been in a coma for a full year, and recovery had been hard, harder than anything else he had ever had to do and his life had been a hard one.

"You'll be brought something to eat," Scott said to his brother, "and the Doctor-Robot thing, whatever Sikorsky actually is, will look you over to make sure you're ok. But don't think you're leaving this cell, not yet. After everything that you've done, and everything you've been, you have exactly three friends on this boat." He glanced over at Jean and then said, "Correction. You have two. That's not enough to let you stroll around like you own the place." He tapped his finger on the null cuff on Gabriel's wrist. "And, this will stay on until you've earned your powers back. You might not understand why this is the way things are going to be, you might just think we're weak and sentimental. I don't care. You're my family. My brother. My blood. It means nothing to you, but it means more to me than you will probably ever be able to understand, ever."

He took a moment to look his brother over. He was so young. He was so angry. But dammit, he could see his own face in the boy... he could see his father in it. "You may have never lost before now, Gabriel, but you've also never won. You've never known the pride in a job well done for the right reasons. You've never earned what you've been given. You've never gone to bed hungry and appreciated the small breakfast you've been given in the morning. You have never been anything but a tool, a creation built by D'Ken to punish our father for daring to defy him. Somewhere under that all that bullshit he heaped on you is the person you were meant to be. I'm interested to meet that person."

Stepping back, just one step, Scott said, "Like it or not, you're a Summers, not just anybody. Our powers are dangerous, and our spirit is even more so. We can be the death of our people or just maybe we can be their hope. I don't know which one I'm going to end up, but I refuse to give up on what it is I can be. I can be more, I will be more. You want to convince me you're not just this tantrumming brat, then do so. You want to convince yourself you have worth, then prove it. We'll be here when you need us to be."

"But for now," Scott said, taking Jean's hand and turning to the door, "Jean, honey, will you join me on deck for a drink?"

Without turning back to Vulcan, the bespectacled mutant said, "I hope you do come out on top, Gabriel. You'll find out that the view is a hell of a lot different when you've climbed up there yourself."
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Vulcan
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Gabriel had only been standing for seconds, and the moment Scott touched his chest, all of the bravado and arrogance just seemed to wash out of him. His legs and knees began to shake uncontrollably, unable to maintain his weight for so long. But it was when Scott told him that he had been in a coma for eight months. Eight months?! It hit Gabriel like a ton of bricks, and it was a cue to his mind to his body to sit down or fall before his brother and sister-in-law rather embarrassingly. Without even thinking, he leaned back to sit on the bed, nearly missing it and almost falling to the floor. His ego kept him mostly upright, but he suddenly felt as if he just endured a rather strenuous work out from standing alone. His body felt heavier.

"Eight months?" He breathed in disbelief. He brought a hand to his face, feeling the gauntness of it from a lack of fat, a thin beard, looking more like stubble was across it. He never could grow proper facial hair. The hand drifted to his hair. His clean cut hair that was often slicked back was now several inches longer and if he had his former tan, he may have looked like some surfer punk from some beach.

He almost considered asking for a mirror, but didn't bother, knowing he would not recognize the face staring back at him if he had. Things only got worse when Scott reminded him that he no longer had his mutant powers thanks to the null cuff on his wrist. The reminder left him feeling colder than before. A constant warmth that his powers always provided him was gone, like a second heartbeat he had lived with his entire life, silenced.

For a moment he was about to beg to have his powers back. He had them since birth, before birth. It grew with him, like a long time companion. The heat he funneled from the Earth, it was like his shadow and his favorite drug wrapped into one hot package. His body was weak, his mind in shambles, but the worse thing was dawning on him. He was cold, and empty.

"You don't earn your mutation Scott." He said somberly. "It's a part of you...mine was with me since birth..." Gabriel continued, his voice quiet, but he glared up at Scott. Angry, but not wrathful. "Damn you." He cursed under his breath. Unless he could have found a way to remove the device, he knew they had found something to dangle in front of him to make him compliant. He wasn't sure what he hated more. The emptiness he felt without his power, or the fact at the moment the only way for him to get it back was to deal with all of this.

And then they decided they were going to leave. Good. Gabriel preferred being alone, he didn't care being around people for too long. However, he had never been alone like he was now. And on some deep level it scared him. Like early man without the fire to light the darkness or defend themselves.

"Scott." The young man called out as his brother and his wife were leaving. "I was not involved in what happened to you." He said louder than he had expected. "If I knew about it I would have been against it. I wanted to face you battle in person. Given the choice, that's what I would have done." He wasn't entirely sure why he was telling Scott this. Yes, the manner in which Scott was brought into the Hand did disgust him, yes he wanted to deal with Scott in battle, one method of tactics to another. True, he wanted to turn Alex into whatever Scott was, but that was only after he got to face his soft hearted brother, only after he realzied he could have had the chance to fight alongside both of his brothers if things went according to plan (which they did not), and that appealed to him somewhere deep down beneath the thorns and metal that surrounded whatever was left of his heart.

"I wanted you to know that." He ended, letting the couple leave him to the holding room. He fell back onto his bed, no longer needing to show whatever strength he had left. Breaths ragged from the strain. Alone, empty and cold. Maybe Jean was right, maybe that nightmare he had been in was a sense of masochistic comfort for him, because now in the emptiness he felt, that seemed to be a better place to be.
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