In despair, there is hope~me and yaracyrrah

C

CutePhoenix

Pulsar
Joined
Jan 11, 2009
"Why me? What god did I piss off enough to deserve this?" Johnathan Carter asked himself, standing in the middle of his small home town, people racing here and there, in a bit of a panic at the power outage that had swept over the town. It wasn't just tvs and microwaves and such. It was more serious stuff like traffic lights. Plus, even cars themself were suddenly shut off, and couldn't be turned back on.

He wasn't sure how he did it, but Johnathan was sure he did it. As of late, he seemed to have some kind of.......ability. He wasn't sure on the specifics of it, but it at least allowed him to turn off and turn on various electronics with just a touch. So, this little black out had to be him. Thankfully, noone had the slightest clue he did this by accident. Or else they'd likely be chasing him down at the moment.

Instead, he just stuff his hands in the pocket of his white hoodie, and turned and just started walking.

He was a rather average guy for his age. Tall, and a nice body, but not overly ripped or anything. Messy black hair, green eyes, and a typical choice of clothing. Loose fitting white hoody, baggy jeans and tan hiking boots. Noone would expect the great power he had.
 
"Power's out," commented Cable. His image inducer showed a large but entirely human man. "All over town."

"I only sense one mutant," said his daughter. She led the way out of the alley the teleporter had dropped them in. They drew plenty of looks--strangers in a small town, an unusually large man and an attractive teen with fiery red hair--but the power outage kept attention focused elsewhere.

They walked fast and kept silent. Finally, after many blocks and several turns, Hope told her father, ~Wait here.~. She proceeded alone down the rest of the block to the intersection, and from there she saw the person she had crossed a thousand miles to find.

She was not impressed. Baggy jeans? Really? Grow up. But of course she had to pretend to like him. As he came near she put on her most attractive smile and said, "Excuse me, can you give me directions?"
 
"Nope." John casually said, not even looking at the girl as he passed right by her, completely blowing her off.

Cable, thanks to the few upsides of the techno organic virus in his body, could see and hear them from all the way down the street. He'd prefer to go for a more direct approach of grabbing the guy, and teleporting back to Utopia, the X-Mens base of operations and let them take him from there. This idea became even more appealing when he saw Hopes attempt at friendly contact fail miserably. But, he'd continue to watch.........for the time being at least. Still, if the nice approach didn't work out quickly enough for him, he'd go with the "grab him and get the hell out of there" approach.

((Hehe, I love Hopes thoughts at his clothes.^_^ Pretty well what I was going for. An intentional lack of originality to show that he's as plain as could be. Just a random joe suddenly thrust into a new world, pretty much.))
 
Oh great, an asshole. Hope re-summoned her smile, walked after the asshole, and said, "Actually I think you can. I'm looking for the guy who caused this power outage." It was just a guess, but a well-educated guess.
 
"Try the local power plant. Some moron probably spilled his coffee on the console." John replied, still not looking at her. Though, his little hesitation before responding would make it obvious to even a child that he was lying. Still, not like he was just gonna randomly trust some hot red head. He didn't hate mutants, persay. But, he'd rather avoid them if at all possible. And if she knew he caused this, chances were she was one of them. And not knowing what abilities she might possess, just making a break for it might not be that good an idea.

Seeing them still moving further down the street, Cable started after them, making sure to stay far enough back so as to not draw the males attention and risk him running or even perhaps attacking. Regardless, if either happened, he was confident Hope would be able to stop him. He had trained her well.
 
Hope sighed, audibly, and gave up on pretending to be cheerful. "Some moron," she said tautly, "should be aware that he has two choices: go with the nice people who will help him, or stay behind and wait for the mean people who will kill him. Who are due any minute now. Are you coming with us or not?"
 
"And who would be........." John replied as he stopped and turned to her. He was cut off when the question answered himself as a rather large fellow came walking up. Damn sure wasn't from this town, and with the way the two were dressed, he was obviously with her.

"I take it I don't exactly have much choice in this, do I? I say yes, and we all go off hand in hand. I say no, and the big bear here drags me along by force.........correct?" he asked, looking back and forth between Hope and Cable.

"Pretty much." said Cable, his voice deep and intimidating. The kind that just commanded respect. One look at him, and John knew he did NOT want to be on his bad side.

"And where exactly will we be going?" John asked, his way of agreeing to her.........terms.

((In the Comics, the X-Men are currently stationed on an island off the coast of San Francisco called Utopia.))
 
"It's called Utopia. Stupid name, I know, but it's a safe place for people like us, and these days that's just like paradise. It's an island in the Pacific."
 
"OH, that place. The mutant haven and base of operations for the X people." John replied, before looking around for........something.

"So........how we gonna get there? San Francisco is on the other side of the country. I don't know what kind of crazy power I might have, but I doubt flight or super speed is part of the big bears heres superpowers. So unless you can grow wings Red, it's gonna be one long ass walk." he added, looking Cable up and down, before taking a few steps away in response to a stern look he got from the big man. Obviously, he was completely unaware that Cable was from an alternate future, and thus, had some very advanced technology at his disposal.
 
"Ah, you've heard of us. And yet you're still too dense to imagine, oh, say, teleportation." Hope's voice dripped with scorn. "Now hold still, I have to touch you." She touched the sleeve of his hoodie as lightly as she could, while giving her other hand to her father. Cable's other hand reached into his pocket, and suddenly the three mutants were elsewhere.
 
Suddenly going from one place to the next in such a manner was jarring enough. The sudden fatigue he felt was no help, as he wobbled a bit, almost falling over. Before he could ask what now, Cable answered that for him.

"Hope, show him around. He is under your care until further notice. I will go report to Scott and meet up with you later." said Cable, in his typical commanding voice. Though, whilst talking to Hope, one could feel alot of emotion from it. That, and the fact he smiled soon after before turning and heading off to report to the leader of the X-men. John didn't need a microscope to see what was going on there. He figured the two were father and daughter, despite zero family resemblance..........or the two were lovers, which made John even more intimidated by Cable, cause if that were the case, he figured Cable would likely make him suffer greatly if he ever pissed of Hope.

"Yea, I'm good, thanks for asking........" he sarcastically said to Cable as he walked off, regaining his footing, but still a little week in the knees.
 
"Do not sass my father," said Hope. "He can hear you."

She let the hint sink in for a moment, then said, "Now: I'm Hope Summers. Who are you?" Maybe now he'd accept a little good cheer.
 
Though, despite how exceptionally hot she was, John wasn't exactly getting a miss cheerful vibe from her. If anything, he was getting the same vibe as he got from Cable, but in a smaller, more attractive package.

"My name is Johnathan Carter. Now, why did you specifically come after me? Is it common for the X-Men to send out just two people on a little secret mission to recruit mutants? Am I special or something?" he asked, not knowing just how special he was.
 
"You're special. Most noobs can only black out a building, not a whole town. How exactly did you do that? While you tell me I'll show you to your room." She led him toward the nearest building.
 
"Hell if I know. I don't even know what my damn power is. Normally, I just turn crap off with a touch. I was just waiting to cross the street, I felt a tingle in the back of my head, then everything just went off. Not like I meant to do that." John explained following her. When they reached the dorms, Scott Summers, aka Cyclops, X-Mens leader was there waiting for him.

"Your father already talked to me." he said, looking John up and down.

"Nice to meet you son. Sad to inform you, but the dorms are filled to capacity at the moment. We're in the middle of expansions. And since Cable put Hope in charge of you, until further notice, you'll be bunking with her." Cyclops explained, so calm and cool about it, even though he knew Hope would not be happy about this. Expectedly, Cable and Hope had their own special bunk area elsewhere on the premisis, near the training grounds. So, didn't take a genius to know Hope was gonna be a bit peeved to have someone that's not family or a friend staying with them. Even more so, since she seemed to be rather unfond of Johnathan. Even John knew that, which was why he was bracing himself incase Hope was the kind of girl to flip out and start wrecking stuff.
 
Hope looked aghast. "You have got to be kidding me. Can't he just put a sleeping bag in a boys' room?"

"He won't be staying with you permanently," Scott replied mildly. "You have a spare room. Or have you filled it with girlie clothes?" He knew full well that Hope kept her wardrobe quite small and abhorred anything that could be described as "girlie clothes".

Hope glared daggers at Scott, but she knew she couldn't win the argument--not to mention that Scott was perfectly right. "Fine," she said, huffily. "Come on, boy. Just make sure you keep it clean. If you start spreading cooties around, I'll dump you back in Mudville for the bogeymen to find."

For all that, she fetched him clean linens and towels from the supply closet once they reached the house.
 
Coodies? The bogeyman? Was this girl ten? Those were the thoughts going through Johns head as he watched the exchanged between Hope and the guy in the shades. The arguement was pointless though, she was right about that. Not only because it came from Scott, but also because Cable had agreed, and even suggested it to Scott, in the hope of getting Hope to be a bit more.......courteous to people. She was actually nice, but really only to people she considered friends, and those she respected. But, she did have the habit of coming off as a bit of bitch to people she just met. Cable wouldn't be around forever. He'd either die in battle, or the techno organic virus would get him. He wanted Hope to be strong for the day he was no longer around to watch over her. He was already at their little residence to "greet" them.

"While I have consented to allowing you to reside here, you will pull your own weight. You will clean up after yourself, you will be careful, and you will be respectful of mine and Hopes privacy and personal space. As long as you do that, we'll get along fine." said Cable, his imposing figure standing before them.

"R-Right......I'll keep that in mind......" John replied. He was a bit curious as to how Cable and his daughter treated their friends, as they didn't exactly come off as the most personable of people.
 
Hope went elsewhere while John made his bed and got acquainted with his room. When she returned she seemed somewhat more mellow. "Do you need to call home to tell your family where you are?" she asked, downright politely.
 
So politely, John was quite surprised, and didn't respond right away, thinking an insult would soon follow. When he saw that wasn't the case, he responded.........a bit hesitantly.

"No, I don't need to. I was living on my own. Don't really know my birth parents anyways. I was raised by foster families all my life." he explained, not knowing just how much he and Hope had common in that regard.

((Cable's not her biological father. Her birth parents aren't currently known. Cable took her in to protect her from Bishop, who thought she was gonna lead to the end of the world and was trying to kill her. At one point during their time jumping, he married a woman named Hope, and they raised her together for a few years, but she was killed. Hope is named after her adoptive mother. Her last name Summers, is taken from Cable, whose real name is Nathan Summers. And as was shown in that personality link, since he raised her from birth pretty much, she considers him her father, and is fiercly loyal to him.))
 
"Ah." Hope sounded genuinely sympathetic. Her next words explained why: "I'm a foster too--Cable rescued me when I was a baby. I'm sorry to hear that you weren't so lucky."
 
John was quite surprised to hear him and Hope had a similar situation. While she considered herself lucky to have been "adopted" by Cable, John was quite intimidated by the man, and had yet to see any of the qualities that Hope found fatherly about him. The two seemed more like a soldier and her commanding officer, which wasn't that far from the truth.

"It's no big deal really, but I appreciate the sympathy. I guess we're not that different, really." he replied, a friendly smile coming across his face. He was starting to relax around her, but he had no clue if the girl was warming up to him. He could tell she didn't like him.
 
Hope tried not to laugh at the irony of John's statement: a childhood spent in foster homes was surely no cakewalk, but it wasn't quite "not that different" from her own childhood, which she'd spent traveling through time on the run from assassins. All John saw, though, was a soft smile.

"If you're settled in enough," she said, "I'd like to take you down to the lab so we can start trying to figure out what exactly your power is. Are you up for that?"
 
"Sure, I guess. What kind of tests can they do to figure out what power I have? Is it as simple as taking a blood test or something?" John asked, waiting for her to lead the way. Obviously, he wasn't well informed how the whole mutant thing worked. He knew it was caused by some special gene, but that was the extent of his knowledge on the subject.
 
"We wish," said Hope, with a grin. "A blood test can usually tell whether you're a mutant at all, but identifying your power is just trial and error. If we didn't know about the power outage we'd be totally in the dark. Uh, pun not intended. Hopefully the shielding on the lab will keep you from blacking out the entire island. Hopefully."

That pun was obviously not intended either.

The lab was underground, built of very sturdy metal with occasional panels of glass. Hope directed John into a large, empty room, and bade him wait while she fetched some equipment. A few moments later, a large machine came through the doorway--floating through the air. Behind it came Hope, carrying a much smaller device in her arms. The big machine--a generator, by the look of it--floated over to one of the far corners of the room and then settled to the ground. Hope set the other device--some kind of meter, judging by the big swiveling needle on its front--down next to John.

"I'm going into the control room," Hope said, indicating the dark one-way window on one wall of the room. She left the testing chamber and shut the heavy door behind herself, leaving John alone.

A moment later her voice came over the intercom. "Can you hear me?" John replied in the affirmative.

"I'm starting the generator now." It whirred to life. It was much quieter than John had expected; Hope had no trouble talking over it. "Pick up the grip for the voltometer and hold it in your hand. Good. Now, try to shut down the generator. Fire at will."
 
"A-Alright......" John replied, a bit freaked out by the little production. Seemed like he was in the middle of some kind of trippy sci-fi movie. He looked at the generator a moment, then over at the meter, reaching for it. The second his skin came into contact with it, the generator suddenly shut off. He didn't even have a chance to fully grip it.

"Ok..........was that me?" he asked, looking up at the one way window. It indeed was him. The problem was, ever since his gene activated, his powers had been flipped on full power, and since he didn't realize it, he was unable to control his energy draining ability. So, the second he touched the meter, every last ounce of energy was drained out of the generator.

Though, the meter sure was giving them some nice info, cause the energy that was stored in his body from the generator, combined with what he unwillingly absorbed in town, was registering off the charts on the meter.

"What does that mean?" he asked, holding up the meter, so Hope could see the needle, failing to realize that she likely was looking at far more detailed info behind the window.
 
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