June 20, Vancouver, BC - Fire Support

[Rick Ferguson]

It was late at night downtown when an armored vehicle emblazoned with the X-CORP logo pulled up to a scene of some commotion. Noah Ferguson was the first to exit the vehicle, followed by Marcus and Rick. A couple of other operatives hopped out of the other side.

"So...I take it this isn't your usual Monday-night workload, huh?"

"Nope, but we've been keeping an eye on this fellow. Didn't expect for him to blow a gasket quite this, uh, spectacularly, though."

[Marcus Kingston]

"So, no more keeping and eye and more capturing him huh? At least after all of this.." Marcus asked, standing beside Rick as he tried to get a grasp on just what was happening.

[Rick Ferguson]

"Afraid so. I don't like it much, but we don't have a ch-"

A section of wall blew out of about the 10th floor of a nearby building.

"-Ahh, I have a visual." Rick's uncle raised a megaphone to his mouth. "Well, Mr. Davidson. I thought we had a promise of good behavior from you, but look what you've done now. Disabled half of the city's power, caused plenty of property dam-"

"I'M STRONGER THAN THIS!!!," the youth shouted from up above. He descended about halfway down from the hole he had just torn open in the building. He was almost Rick's age, probably a little bit younger, definitely smaller in height and musculature. But his face was something to behold, screwed up with rage and covered in concrete dust, just like his clothes and matted, shaggy brown hair.

"And I don't need your permission to do what I want!!" The glass along an entire floor of the building behind him shattered outward, though none of the shrapnel touched him. A lot of the on-lookers finally decided it was a good idea to retreat.

"Oh for fuck's sake," he muttered away from the megaphone. "Surrender quietly now, and this won't have to get any more messy than it already has."

[Marcus Kingston]

"This guy's got quite the complex. Least he's not roughing up any civilians yet."

[Rick Ferguson]

Just then, the guns of quite a few police officers nearby shot up from their hands.

"How about this. You leave me well enough alone and I won't blow the heads off of every officer here."

"You were saying?," Rick sidelonged to Marcus.

"Stop! Don't. We'll be willing to negotiate." Noah pressed a button on the comm device on his ear. "Needler, you in position? Good, let's make this count. Ten seconds." He held up the megaphone again. "Please, just let go of the weapons now."

In response, the boy trained the guns even closer on the officers who had held them before. "Do you really think I'm that stupid?"

"Stupid enough to let your guard down, I hope."

A couple of seconds later, from off to the right, several bright green streaks of light rose from the ground and impacted the young mutant. His form hit the facade of the building at an upward angle, and it was enough to break his concentration and make him drop the guns.

"Hit fast and hard. Now." Suddenly, Noah rose up into the air, elevated by an orange glowing disk. Marcus would also find himself rising off of the ground on such a disk, and Rick took off after them. "Go ahead and juice us up, Amp!"

[Marcus Kingston]

Marcus nodded his head then held a hand out towards Noah. A red arc of lightning shot out suddenly, hitting the older mutant and engulfing him in a red glow. He spun around, firing another one in the direction of Rick. At first, he was a little nervous about being in a battle but it wasn't talking long for him to grow comfortable in the situation again. The old instincts quickly resurfacing.

[Rick Ferguson]

As they drew nearer to the spot where the young mutant had crashed into the wall, he quickly recovered and, while hovering in the air, waved a hand with a scream of animal fury. Noah knew that other mutant was telegraphic his moves, and created another orange glowing disk to act as a shield from the oncoming telekinetic strike. The disk was much larger than usual, thanks to the boost Marcus had given him, and it handily protected all of them from the blast.

"So, Rick, what was it that you were going to talk to me about?," Noah hurled the disk toward the mutant.

"Oh, right. I caught a strain of the Legacy Virus that was cured," Rick responded, before dodging the very same disk as the other mutant used his powers to hurl it away. "...And as it turns out, the only ones who got it were people with mutant parents." He shot a cylinder of wind from his outstretched hands at their enemy.

"...Well, that's interesting."

[Marcus Kingston]

Marcus reached for his weapons but realized throwing something at this guy might of not been the best idea seeing as they were gonna have it deflected again and again. "That is strange. You said neither of your parents were mutants. Could it possibly go back to grandparents maybe?"

[Rick Ferguson]

"It could. But I'm not sure that it skips generations all that often, especially for it to appear again later on."

"Yeah, well, I wish the X-Gene had skipped over this guy," Noah grunted, creating another disk and flying high speed toward the mutant to try a shield bash against him. His foe dodged, but barely, and then took off flying down a nearby street, between rows of high-rises.

"Dammit. Get ready to ride fast, Marcus." Both the disks carrying Noah and Marcus streaked off. Even though he might feel that his sense of balance was off as he stood on the disk, Marcus would also find that he was quite safe; no matter what his inner ear was telling him, both feet remained planted on the disk, even at the higher speed.

"So what are you going to do about it, huh?," Noah shouted over to his nephew, who was flying right with them.

"I bought a DNA test. For Dad."

[Marcus Kingston]

Marcus did brace himself for the incoming speed boost, actually surprised and a little confused as to how he was planted down some firmly on the glowing disk. "And exactly how are you gonna break down that one to him? I'm not sensing him being too thrilled about the idea."

[Rick Ferguson]

"If he agrees to it, then the test will tell the truth. If he won't, then he'll only strengthen my suspicions. He'll know that. He may not like it, but I think he'll take it either way."

"Heh. If your dad ends up being one of us, I'll--oh, fuck! Move!" Noah moved himself and the disk that Marcus stood on just in time to avoid being hit by a car that was hurtling towards them through the air.

[Marcus Kingston]

"Let's up that wor-" Marcus is cut off, instinctively trying to dodge the car even though the disk did all the work.

"This guy's getting really annoying," Marcus stated as he reached into his bag for one of his weapons. He still wasn't keen on the idea of hurling stuff at this guy. He didn't want to crush him under something either. "We got a plan yet Noah?"

[Rick Ferguson]

"This kid's no lightweight, just throw everything you've got at him! Without collateral damage, if possible." He pressed a finger to his earpiece. "Subject Davidson is four blocks away from his previous position. Converge toward me, over."

The mutant was standing below them, in the middle of a parking lot. He had two more cars lifted off of the ground, prepared to be flung. One went toward their group, missing them by several yards. The second, though, went much further up and off to the side--straight towards an approaching news helicopter.

[Marcus Kingston]

Marcus cursed under his breath and grabbed the first weapon he could out of his bag. It was a heavy, metal ball. He brought an arm back and hurled the ball towards the car, making it larger rapidly, hoping the knock the car off course of the helicopter.

[Rick Ferguson]

Both the ball and the car crashed to the ground, keeping the helicopter safe.

"Wow. Nice save there, Amp."

"Okay, let's get this son of a bitch up off of the ground and away from more ammunition." Rick flew full-speed towards the ground. Another car was flung at him, but instead of dodging, he left himself crash right into it. It did really slow down his momentum...but the winds whipping around him tore part of the exterior of the cheap car apart, before it plummeted below. This had the intended effect; the rampaging mutant suddenly looked a little scared.

Rick dropped nearer to the ground and blasted a spinning vortex of wind toward Davidson, who took off up and away...and easily in range of Marcus and Noah.

[Marcus Kingston]

Marcus reached back, grabbing his extendo staff and shifted into a batting stance. When the culprit was flung up high enough, he swung hard, using his power to increase the staff's size enough to hit the kid square in the midsection, surely hard enough to knock the wind out of him if he was hit.

[Rick Ferguson]

Marcus didn't quite hit his midsection...but hitting his legs wound up doing the trick anyway. The mutant tumbled through the air, the only thing saving him from a crash landing being the fact that Noah placed another energy disk beneath him to stop his descent.

"Ready to give up yet?, Noah asked as he moved in closer.

The mutant slowly pulled himself up on top of the disk...and then with a wordless scream of rage, he unleashed another desperate telekinetic attack towards Marcus and Noah.

Noah's eyes blazed orange as he created yet another disk to shield both of them from the attack. Once that was over, he made the shield disk dissipate. Along with the one that was holding up young Mr. Davidson. The mutant fell about 50 feet to the street below, and while he was able to use enough of his telekinetic power to keep the fall from being lethal, it was readily apparent that it still hurt him.

Rick flew over and landed near the spot where the mutant had tumbled to the ground, and Noah and Marcus slowly descended there as well.

"One last chance. Stop now, before we really make you regret doin' this."

Davidson stirred, and slowly got back on his feet. "You won't stop me. No one will!!" His power, fueled by his rage, burst forth from him as unfocused waves of force. Everyone close by would have to steel themselves and the kinetic energy, as he dug into the concrete below him and started twisting the base of a nearby streetlight.

"I am an apex predator! No one can stop me! NO ONE C-" Suddenly, the waves of force ceased, and all at once, Davidson tumbled to the ground in a heap. A rather large tranq dart was sticking out of his upper back.

"Wow. Nice shot," Rick said, looking up at a nearby building. The two other X-Corp members were on top of it, and one, a woman armed with a rifle, hopped on the back of the other, a feral, chameleon-type mutant, who quickly scaled down the wall of the structure with his hands and feet.

"Good work, Needler."

"Couldn't have gotten that shot without Facade's help. Thank God that kid wasn't projecting much of his power above him," she replied into all of their earpieces.

"Right. Well, let's just get him secured for now. Discus out."

[Marcus Kingston]

That whole event seemed to pass way too quickly. He really on got a grasp on what happened after the tranq dart knocked out Davidson.

Why is it always telepaths and TKs that are bat shit crazy.. He let out a sigh of relief. "While I'm glad that's over, poor guy got his little speech interrupted. It was getting interesting."

[Rick Ferguson]

"And here I would've thought that you had heard enough supervillain monologues to have your fill of them."

"Really, we have. So what's going to happen to him now?"

"That's a good question. We probably don't have the kind of facilities necessary to hold him, so we'll keep him really, really sedated 'til we can get him transferred somewhere else. After that...I dunno. I doubt he'll be trusted in public again, I can say that much."

Rick just looked down at the fallen mutant, feeling more pity than anything else.

[Marcus Kingston]

Marcus stared at the mutant himself. For a moment, he wondered why the mutant had turned out this way. Not all bad seeds necessarily have had bad lives it's usually a safe assumption. It made him far more happier about his own. He stepped a bit closer to Rick, reaching out at taking his hand.

"Maybe he'll rethink what he's been doing." Yeah. Fat chance. He'd have some hope about it.

[Rick Ferguson]

"People like that have reformed before, I guess," he murmured, mostly to himself. He squeezed Marcus's hand, then turned to Noah.

"So, would you mind driving us to see the rest of the family? I mean, I know Mom and Dad aren't much fun, but I'll bet Maggie, at least, would like to see you."

"Of course I'll take you. 'Cause besides that, I'm interested in seeing your dad's reaction to that test."

Rick grinned. "So am I."

"You guys are staying here for a little while though, right? It'd be shame to just pass right through Vancouver without seeing the sights."

"Sure. We'll stay until you get sick of us."

"Don't push it," Noah said, smirking. "You've got the spare bedroom as long as you need it. Now, if you guys want to go kill some time, I still have more work to do here." He jerked his head to the side, indicating the arrival of police cars, and the armored X-Corp van.

[Marcus Kingston]

"I'd love to see some of the sights. I don't think we've got too much of a chance to honestly."

He wondered just how the DNA test would go and the amount of drama that ensue from it. He wasn't exactly thrilled. He noticed the cops on their way then smiled over at Rick.

"So, what shall we do for now?"

[Rick Ferguson]

"Find someplace to eat really close by that wouldn't mind us sitting there for a couple of hours. Oh, and that's kinda cheap."

Noah chuckled. "There's a Red Robin about four blocks that way."

"I'll take it. Let's get out of here," he said to Marcus.

[Marcus Kingston]

Marcus nodded and started heading in that direction. "See you later Noah."