[Sama in the MU] Part 7
Added 2025-03-30 04:00:54 +0000 UTC“Mr. Drake, Mr. Worthington.” I shook hands with each of them. The blond Adonis had a much greater presence than the low-key, brown-haired Iceman, but the difference in power between them was more than a little, despite the fact they had been teammates for years and best of friends, as well as battle-brothers tested and true. There would be no problems between them.
“Miss Rantha. Warren’s spoken a lot about you.” Drake looked back and forth between us, and couldn’t keep the smile down. “Something about a kiss?”
“Three minutes long, puts a telepathic link in place in your nasal cavity,” I replied without batting an eye. “And a very pleasant experience for the recipient, I’ve been told multiple times.”
His face kind of jumped around. “Uh... Storm? Colossus?” he got out.
“They said so, too.”
He kind of blinked at me and my utterly calm expression, as if these kind of embarrassing topics were totally mundane and unimportant. “Okay, Warren, she’s kind of fearless, just like you said...”
“She’s a heckuva lot more than fearless,” Warren replied. “We have been talking about a lot of stuff... and I think there’s a major opportunity here, to do some good things.” His voice dropped slightly. “She’s the one who’s been helping people get rid of their unwanted mutations, too.”
He straightened up in alarm. “You’re the Null?” I nodded dismissively. “You... can do that?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not a case of just touching you or looking at you, or something. I get a copy of the person’s genetic code, usually by a blood sample, ingest it, decode it, work out what is doing what, and give them a counter-virus that locks down the empowerment of their mutant gene, effectively reverting any physical changes back to base human standard. They are still mutants, their powers are just sealed away. As I told Warren, anything from intense emotional stress to gene therapy can readily unlock them, since their gene being active is the default status. It’s not a permanent thing unless they take real care to keep it that way.”
“Like being able to do this.” Warren flicked his hand, and a short sword made of psionic force extended out from his hand. Bobby Drake’s jaw dropped again on seeing that. “And this.” He rose into the air without flapping the wings concealed under his thousand-dollar suit. “And this.” He slid his glowing force sword across one hand and his hand gaped open, scarlet gushing out quickly. We all just waited as it pooled in his palm... and then slowly began to withdraw, his flesh drew back together, and suddenly his palm was whole and unmarked.
Drake reached out to grab Warren’s hand, looked it over closely. “A healing factor? Just like that Wolverine guy’s?” he muttered.
“No, they are not similar. One is fast healing, Master Logan’s is regeneration.” They both looked at me in surprise. “What? Master Logan’s career is quite long and there are impressive files on him in the right areas. Master Logan can literally be fried to a crisp, and as long as even a single cell is intact, it will spin him a new body out of nothing but air and raw psionic energy.” Bobby Drake pursed his lips. “Warren’s effect simply heals him up quick and speedily. It would have major problems replacing an organ, and if he’s dead, he’s dead.
“That being said, the major effect is that it is Angel’s Blood.” I steepled my fingers. “He can use it mend the wounds, diseases, and poisons of others, if he so chooses. Master Logan is incapable of doing such a thing.”
“Huh.” He looked at Warren in a mixture of admiration and envy. “That is pretty impressive, Warren.”
Warren drifted back down, and flicked away his mindblade, and sighed. “That’s not the best of it.” He waved at me, a complex look on his face. “She’s smart.”
Drake was instantly wary. “How smart?”
“Reed Richards smart, in a different way. Ways.”
“I earned an income of two hundred million dollars in the last twelve months from a combination of stock market trading, gambling, commodity swaps, and robbing drug dealers and Hydra blind,” I told him calmly.
He blinked at me. “You... steal from the bad guys?” he asked, his voice clearly conflicted.
“Yes. Beating them up does nothing. Making their operations unprofitable AND painful tends to redirect the criminal mind elsewhere. If you are wondering where most of the money went after I used it as a seed for investments... I am the largest single donor and supporter of the new Powered enclave southeast of the city, headed up by the Weaver.”
“You’re setting up a mutant town?” he blurted out.
I rolled my eyes. “There’s four aliens, a dozen Deviants, four former genetic experiment mutates, some recessive Inhumans, and three natural spellcasters among them. Sure, ‘mutant town’, you racist idiot.”
He gaped for a moment at being called a racist to his face. He took a couple breaths to calm down as I glared at him, and he couldn’t keep my stare. “Sure, Powered.” He took another breath, and thought about it. “So, anyone with super powers of any kind is welcome?”
“We prefer the people with not-so super powers, actually.” He blinked at me. “Seriously, if they win the genetic lotto like you two, why would they need to live there? Furthermore, you two are combat trained, you’re not civilians. If you want to be superheroes, you don’t go there. Superhero training, for people who want to undertake that sort of career, we’re going to do elsewhere... because stuff is going to attack the place, and so they’ll run into people that can fight, not civilians.”
“Right.” He looked somewhat abashed. “So, Warren says you want to start a team,” he valiantly changed the subject.
“Yes. But no team is a team without a dream behind it. We aren’t going to be the West Coast Avengers, because that immediately makes us Little League to the real Avengers.” I waved my hand in a poo-poo gesture, which they could only agree with. “I propose we call ourselves the Champions, with a shtick of accepting anyone who wants to make a difference and is willing to fight. Also, that we back some charities that have positive social impacts, and support them, or we own companies that seek to employ those being discriminated against in a positive manner.
“Warren has already promised to arrange for half a billion dollars in funding for the labs and production facilities that need to be put up. I have been arranging for the workforce. There are things in the pipelines that are going to rock the world. I’ll have Warren’s money paid back in three years with a substantial profit, and then it’s full speed ahead into the future.” I paused tellingly. “Which naturally means we’re going to be raided all the time for our tech. There’ll be excitement and there will be retribution, both Luddites and competitors.”
“What about guys like Stark? Reed Richards?” Drake asked, a little pensive.
“Both of them are useless. Stark doesn’t put anything out to the public that isn’t matched by somebody else out there, all he does is agglomerate them better. Think of all the tech in his suit, and consider the fact that none of that armor tech has reached civilian or military use... probably because it would instantly set off an arms race. His personal use tech is some of the best on the planet, sure, but his public use stuff is meh.
“Likewise Reed Richards. Richards gets most of his money from corporations buying production licenses for his patents and then not making anything that would compete with what they are putting out. He does some solution engineering and problem solving for money, of course, but basically he’s so out in front of the curve on humanity’s tech that there’s simply no way what he’s doing can dribble down.
“He’s got a private spaceship, and there’s not even a single hovercar in production out there. Anti-grav has been around for years, pilfered from alien tech, and NASA’s still using combustion drives because there’s nobody who can reliably produce it except Stark and Wakanda, or the Atlanteans or Lemurians, none of whom part with it easily.”
“Wow.” Drake blinked at me. “And we’re going to start changing all that?”
“Well, yeah. We’re going to start blowing the doors off everything, especially this stupid human backlash against people with powers. The first way to do that is the realistic way. People with powers aren’t a cosmic joke, they are a result of the human race trying to protect itself from everything that is out there, and which is coming to a head here on Terra. There’s too much stuff out there with a mad on for us, and Powered people and super-science is how we’re trying to defend ourselves against it. We need to redirect their focus from the fact that they don’t have powers, to the fact that their children might, and if they do, it’s because the whole damn human race needs them to.”
They both had rather unsightly looks on their faces. “What do you mean?” Warren had to ask.
I just looked at them. “You yourselves have been in contact with how many alien races with bad plans for humanity? Now add in the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, the mystics, and the fringe elements... and this has really, really ramped up in the last century. Coincidentally, the number of Powered people has risen the same way.
“The only difference between mutants and mutates from a practical perspective is zero. Be it science, radiation, birth, aliens, whatever... the difference is minimal.
“Those races are aware of Earth, of those who defend it. For some reason, they haven’t made a mass move on us, despite the fact that their military forces are greater than the population of our planet, and their individual soldiers are stronger than ours. But that is definitely changing, as their intervening and infiltrations have proved. The expeditions into space have only alerted more forces out there to our existence.
“Humanity either has to get on the ball or its going to be crushed by the weight of older, stronger, and more ruthless powers out there. And that isn’t going to happen if idiots keep killing the best and brightest among us.”
The two men eyed one another, realizing they really were stepping into a bigger game. “So... what are you going to do?”
I smiled. “Mass media, of course. I’m going to publish a book, and I’d like to publish a magazine, both dealing with the issues. I’m going to come at the mutant hate from the angle of humiliating and mocking the guys right out of existence, if I can, by exposing who and what they are. They want to be shadow warriors, killing and getting away with it while convincing themselves they are right... well, let’s open them up to the world.”
“But... that means exposing the school to outside interest,” Bobby spoke up.
“You mean that training compound for mutant warriors you two came from? Just how many civilian mutant students do you have?” I shot right back.
“Uh...” they said together.
“You were trained as a super-powered mutant-centric strike force, i.e. a military expression of mutant power whose only agenda is ‘we mutant, we fight for us.’” I mimed spitting off to the side. “You don’t see it, but that lack of connection to the greater world is as bad as or worse than Magneto. If even the heroes among mutants are a bunch of secretive twits with no responsibility to the greater world, what does that make openly racist people like Magneto?
“Mutants have to stop drawing up fences around themselves, and be part of the greater world. You’re all Powered, you all have loyalties to things and people beyond mutant-dom. Mutant-dom is a farce and a lie, and the faster you step away from anything to do with it, the better the world will be.
“I know you want to defend mutants, but you have to open your minds. You want to have a better life for the Powered in general, not just mutants.” I studied them serenely. “You look uncomfortable. Been sitting inside that fence too long, aye?”
“Maybe...” Drake managed to respond, clearly still a little dismayed at being called a racist.
“Humanity has more divisions than you know of. You have any experience with the Lemurians, the deviants? Met the Eternals? Hobnobbed with the Atlanteans? How many of the subterranean races do you know? The primitives in the Savage Land? The different bloodlines of the Powered? How about the descendants of gods? Aliens? Extra-dimensionals? Demons?
“They are all here, all in different places, all claiming to be different and unique, and really all parts of the same thing.
“They are all Powered.”
I turned my eyes fully on Bobby Drake, who quivered despite himself. “You have seen what I did for Warren. I would like to do the same for you.” I fetched a syringe out of my Masspack. “Your power fairly screams elemental Bloodline, which means you are grossly underusing it. If I may?”
“This’ll give you my powers?” he asked hesitantly.
“To a range of four inches.” He blinked at me, and electricity crackled over my arm, clearly showing the maximum range it could extend from my skin. “Granted, I can do a lot with four inches, but don’t worry that I’ll be like the Mimic that Warren mentioned, and showing you up.”
“Well, you can show me up,” Warren interjected, an odd look on his face.
“I can’t make a mindsword,” I replied calmly, and he looked strange again. “Once you master your own abilities and merge them with your sword, you’re going to be doing things I simply can’t do.”
“Oh? Like what?”
“Throwing hundreds of psychokinetically impelled feather knives with a sweep of your wings?” I offered, and he blinked at me.
“Seriously?”
“You idiots from Xavier’s are far too focused on cultivating your natural powers and ignoring the simple, fundamental things that all Powered have simply because they are Powered.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s obvious to any outsider that in terms of mutant abilities, you, Mr. Drake, have far more raw power then Warren does. You can, after all, freeze an entire city over, if you like. But in terms of fundamental abilities? Warren has the edge. Your power over ice is so monstrous and flexible that not focusing on developing it is stupid. Warren only has to learn how to fly, and then use that ability wisely. He has much, much more time to actually work on fundamentals than you do.”
“So... I could learn to make a mindsword like that?” he asked, clearly interested.
“Yes... but since you could make a better one out of ice, I’m not sure why you’d bother,” I replied calmly. “Now, there’s a whole lot of other stuff out there that would dovetail with your ice abilities, but since all your power is devoted to ice, you have no exposure to it. Warren is very quickly going to be far ahead of you in developing it. Time constraints, and all that.”
“Oh.” He looked at me. “And you can show me all of that?”
“You’re looking at this as some sort of payment? Sure. Pay me and I’ll show you. As a matter of fact, I’ll show you very quickly. Don’t pay me, and I’ll show you, and you can stumble around trying to make sense of words concerning psionics. That’ll be funny to see. Telepathy is much more informative.”
He huffed, looked at my hands. “Four inches, huh?”
“I’m not Powered. I don’t have a flexible soul. I can neither spend nor project energy of any sort. The only abilities I have are truly passive. Warren will be able to fly faster with his power than I can, since I cannot juice and overdraw my power. Likewise, if I get your powers, I’ll be able to ice up, but there’s no way I can freeze a city, since I can’t project my power or drain myself of the massive amount of energy needed to build up to that point.” I spun my index finger in the air. “I can probably cool your drink down, and make my hands really cold, however.”
He had to smile despite himself. “That’s even worse than the Mimic. Calvin at least got half of our powers.”
“I am aware.”
He offered his arm. “Okay, go ahead. I want to see what you get out of me, after talking to Warren and hearing you.”
The syringe plunged in deftly, and he was surprised at how painless it was, and the fact there wasn’t even a drop of blood when I pulled it out.
I squirted it in my mouth right in front of him, swallowed it, and leaned back in my chair. “Okay, I’ve a couple thoughtstreams working on it. Do you have other questions? It’ll take me a bit to work things out and include it.”
He silently repeated ‘a couple thoughtstreams.’ “Uh, yeah. Who is going to be on this team with us? Do you have prospects?”
I reached into my Masspack, pulled out a portfolio, and set it down, pulling out the files inside. “Go ahead.”
The first exclamation didn’t take long. “The Juggernaut?!” Drake protested in disbelief.
“Already hired and eager to start,” I replied. “I have him working on site security for the compound we’re putting up right now, and getting some heavy stuff in place.”
“The Vanisher?!” arose a moment later, almost strangled.
“Him I am outright coercing. To be blunt, if he doesn’t do this, I am going to kill him.” Both men paused to stare at me. “What? He’s a murderer, a thief, and a rapist, willing to sell off nuclear launch codes to the highest bidder. That would have led to World War III. He even said that if he didn’t do this, I should kill him. I’m not going to put him in a cage he can get out of, and I’m not going to nursemaid him. He does this, and he does it well, or I kill him.”
“Wait... does this mean you have the Juggernaut’s powers? The Vanisher’s?!” Drake’s eyes got wide.
“The Juggernaut’s powers are artificial and magical, and stem from his status as the Champion of Cyttorak. Yes, I have the Vanisher’s powers, but my ‘range’ is subjective. I can’t go to any location I can see or recall, I can only return to places I have physically been. In short, I can return to a position I was in, in the past. Furthermore, since I can’t actively spend energy, I need an external capacitor to store up the energy for transits, which takes about ten minutes if I’m not doing something like flying or showing sparks.
“Lastly, I can only take things within four inches of myself. Mr. Porter can take up to eight other people, and has so many uses per day and flexibility that I am simply not on the same scale.”
“Oh.” He seemed impressed by how casual and prepared for him I was. “The Black Widow? How are you going to get her here?”
“She’s wasted on the Avengers and will admirably serve as SHIELD Liaison.”
“Hercules? The... Greek god?” Warren asked.
“Demi-god. He’s in LA right now. He’s a party-goer and likes excitement. He’ll join up without a second thought.”
“The Ghost Rider...”
“Johnny Blaze works the race circuits in the West and Southwest. He’s a rebel and an odd duck, but having Powered to hang out with, even with vastly different ideas and agendas, will be good for him. Him and Cain should get along swimmingly... and he’s not a bad person, just raw,” I answered Drake.
“The She-Hulk?”
“She’s one of, if not the best, lawyers in California. The chance to write the book on super-hero law is going to have her chaffing at the bit,” I explained.
“Mrs. Marvel?” Angel was delighted as he opened that up to a full spread photo of her, and Drake looked over hungrily, too.
“I happen to know that she is unhappy in New York with the Avengers, and will be moving out here, which is more her hometown. Having her on the team, along with the Widow, is instant credibility for anyone.”
“Wow.” Warren was impressed at my intelligence network. “Uh, isn’t Spider-woman active here in San Francisco? And a couple other street-level types?”
“Spider-woman is dead. She was killed by Hydra over a year ago.” Both of them stared at me.
“But... I’ve seen stories and photos about her,” Warren protested.
“And I look very good in them.”
Their eyes got wide. “You’ve been playing Spider-woman?” Drake blurted out.
“Yes. And I will note that the number of Hydra and its affiliated organizations on the West Coasts has declined precipitously in that time period,” I replied flatly. “When you go do your research, be aware that I have killed a lot of them. Hydra is an organization of fanatics and murderers, Nazis beyond Nazis, and they killed her right in front of me. I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.”
They stared at me, and I stared right back. “Nazis. Human supremacists. They back every hate group imaginable, and start up new ones. When you go looking for mutant haters and hunters, you are going to find Hydra back behind them... carving up mutants, experimenting on them, trying to create their own perfect humans to kill you all.”
Their faces hardened, but they were still wincing. I pulled out another file with my hair and slowly placed it down in front of them. “Here, read about Project Greenleaf.”
My voice told them they weren’t going to like it. They set aside the other files and slowly opened the one I gave them.
I got to my feet as they stared at the photos, the captions, the summaries, and when they got violently sick, I put the basket between them so they could lose their lunches into it.
Warren wiped his chin with his Savoy jacket, uncaring, stared at me. “Hydra did this?” he asked, his face grimmer than it had probably ever been in his life.
“It is based on Project Bright Dawn, and Project People’s Will.” I put down two more files in front of them. “Run by the USSR and China, respectively.”
Warren reached out towards the files, but did not open them.
“Based on. You see, there aren’t many mutants in Russia or in China. So, instead of using mutant subjects, they used many, many more human ones, trying to induce mutation reliably. After all, the lives of people are cheap.”
Their faces were flat and hard.
“India has a similar project ongoing, as I understand it. Of course, most of the victims are from the lowest castes and tribes with little power to do anything about it.”
They closed their eyes despite themselves.
“It is bad people, doing bad things, for motives that are neutral at best and horrible at worst. Mutants, humans, aliens, neo-humans... all are one in front of them. They are bad people, and they deserve to die.
“Being better than them does not mean being unwilling to kill. It means being able to kill when killing is the right thing to do. Even God and the Heavens themselves do not say killing is wrong. The same tome which gave us Thou Shalt Not Kill also gave us An Eye for An Eye, and they are not mutually exclusive.”
“You sound like you thought this through,” Drake offered, but his voice was low and couldn’t be judgmental.
“My attitude is what goes around, comes around... and I’m coming around. The identity of the woman they killed is very useful for killing them back.” I sniffed. “And you only need look at my record here in California to be aware that I am perfectly capable of fighting without killing anything.”
Warren looked at me, then at Bobby, then at the files. Steeling his jaw, he reached for the next one.
