25 Chapter 24 - Goals

[13th of September, 2011]

[°Seattle°]

Andrew's P.O.V

Ignoring the intense gaze of Illyana and whatever i sensed from her using my [Empathy], I extended my [TK Domain] and observed the houses near us and the residents within them. Seeing all of them acting normal was enough as it seems they didn't really heard the pained howls of father just now. Not bad, seems like the soundproof force-field i placed around the house was effective.

Placing back my attention to the two infront of me who was still silent, I sat at on the ancient couch that my father used to sat at and signaled them to also sit at the chairs at the side.

Looking at them as they sat silently, I cleared my throat as i spoke "I know you two have questions, so, ask away and I'll try to answer them."

From the look of John who was looking at me with apprehension and the same with Illyana, I am pretty sure questions are definitely through their minds right now even without using [Telepathy]

John seems to take a deep breath to prepare himself as he asked "Who? Who is he?."

Illyana was still silent and seems to also have the same question.

"Well.. He's my father." I replied casually as took a look at my surroundings.

This guy's really a mess, I mean who can bear to live in a house this dirty? Arriving at that thought and feeling myself developing some kind of germaphobia, I waved my hand and the trash that littered the whole floor began moving and piling themselves in one corner as looked around trying to find a trash bag.

"Wait, really? If so.. Why would you do that to him.. That seems.. Cruel.. Isn't it?" John responded to my answer and asked with puzzled face.

"I have long since considered him as nothing but a stranger, the only reason i came back here was to fulfill my job that was interrupted before." I calmly replied but behind my seemingly unperturbed facade, my emotions was starting to burn again as i remembered how the bastard dared to sully my mother with that filthy mouth of his.

Just like what i said before, even though i have merged perfectly with the original Andrew, his psyche seems to be so strong that i now considered myself as more Andrew than Mikael, so my feelings for my mother in this life was as strong, coupled with the fact that i lost my parents when i was so young in my past life.

Removing those thoughts and calming my emotions, I continued looking for a trash bag as i heard Pyro's reply.

"Mnn, I will not say anything about the fact that you just tortured him as I'm pretty sure you have a reason for that.. My next question is what is the plan..?" Saying that last sentence, John took on a serious look as he removes his leaning back at the chair and seems to want to concentrate for my reply.

"That's also my question." Illyana finally made her voice heard.

"Well my plan would depend on what are also your plans for coming with me despite the obvious risk of being around me.." I gave up looking for a trash bag around and leaned forward as I say that while crossing my fingers as my elbows rests at my thighs.

John took on a solemn expression as he prepared what he's going to say. He finally spoke "My goal is for us, mutants, to truly have freedom and have a home where we can truly feel peace without those humans trying to take us down at every chances they get. I won't be able to achieve this goal if i stayed there at that mansion where the leader is such of a pacifist that even if his students get hurt by humans, he just constantly says that they're just afraid and don't know what to do.

I am tired of hiding. I am tired. It also came to me to join Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants but i don't really like his way as its just as redundant as Charles' way, though I share his ideas of us being the superior one over the humans as it's the absolute TRUTH.

What i want is TRUE freedom.. and my Instinct is telling me that the only way to achieve that is by following you.. So will you help me.. No.. Will you help us in this goal?"

At the end of his speech, John was slightly breathless as he looks at me with eyes full of conviction while clenching his hand tightly.

Illyana was silent throughout John's speech but she seems to have also been affected by it as she is also clenching her fist while looking at me.

I looked at the two silently and began weighing what John just said and how can this affect my future plans. At the same time, I couldn't help but notice how different this Pyro to his movie and comic counterpart. Sure, he's still the same jealous guy but his goals and his mindset is much more different.

After a while, I responded as I turned to Illyana. "Looking at your expression. Is this also what you truly want?"

Illyana snapped out her mind and my words seems to just registered at that moment as she replied "W-well, I would also like John's goal to be achieved but still, my main reason for coming with you is to have adventure and to be able to fight strong beings while being able to kill men that doesn't really deserves to live.."

I registered what she said and looked at the two of them for a while as i also weighed her goals. I stood up from the couch as i walked to the small dirty window of this house and looked outside.

"What you two want isn't really part of what i want to achieve.."

I sensed the two behind me getting restless from my answer so i continued with a "But" and that seems to calm them down..

"My true goal is to be able to walk on this very earth unhindered, unchallenged and absolute. And to achieve that, i will use any methods – whether they maybe morally wrong or outright evil in the eyes of people – to achieve it, and along the way, I know that i will eventually have the power to help you two achieve your own goal on your own... But the question is..." I paused at the last sentence as i turned around and looked at them directly "How far are you willing to go?"

John – who was a teenager and should've been impulsive to answer – fell silent as numerous thoughts seems to run inside his mind. While Illyana immediately answered with a cold look on her face and with a voice just as cold "I'll do anything.."

I looked at her deeply as she didn't back down and stared back with the same determination as that of John..

John – who was silent – seems to have finally decided as he lifted his head to also look at me with will "burning" in his eyes.

"My answer's the same as Illyana.. I will do ANYTHING."

I looked at them for a moment and even gone on my way to read their thoughts bypassing the mind-shield i put on them using the back door that only i can access.

Though, some would say i am being a hypocrite since I'm basically doing just what Xavier likes to do. I don't care, I mean, what can they do? I have the power after all, maybe this is also how Charles feels..

Seeing that they are as determined as they appear to be, a smile surfaced on my face as i spoke "Welcome to the team."

—--—

[°S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters: NY Branch]

As the three was busy conversing in Seattle. Nick Fury on the other hand was seething in anger as he roared at the agents in front of him "How in the flying fuck can a big ass crystal that was literally glowing just freaking disappear!? Huh? Tell me!"

All the agents face couldn't help but twitch in helplessness as they can't really answer him since they also don't know..

"Sigh.. Get out of my presence right now before my fist suddenly find its location in your faces.." Fury rubbed his temples in headache.

The agents was quick, displaying their skills and what they learned being an agents of shield as they scurried off the room, while some nearly tripped.

"Just take it easy on them sir. Some of them were just new after all.." Phil Couslon currently sporting a cast on his hand who was the only left aside from Fury spoke.

"That's the problem, Coulson. I shouldn't have let some newbies take over and look for an unidentified object that has high possibility of its origin being of extraterrestrial.. Sigh.." Fury continued rubbing his temple in frustration. "Coupled with the fact that our only lead to what it really was is now on the loose and that we, a global organization that specializes in tracking, can't even fucking find him..

Speaking of that kid, is the still no lead on where is the body of his cousin? That shit is also frustrating me! Why does it seem that some of our important evidence are always missing in this freakin' organization?! We're the S.H.I.E.L.D for God's sake, we specialize in containing and knowing almost everything! So why!" Suddenly remembering the missing body of the cousin of that psychopath once again made Fury's anger skyrocket.

Phil Couslon ignored his director's rumbling and tantrum as he spoke "We still has no lead for the kid named Matt Garetty but you can rest assured that we're doing our best 24/7 in finding his missing body... whether he's still alive just like his cousin or not, we will find them both.."

Hearing what Coulson said made Fury serious again as he spoke seriously "You also think that the kid is also alive just like that Andrew? Is it possible that the two has some sort of healing ability just like Logan of X-Men aside from their telekinetic ability?" arriving at that possibility made Fury's threat evaluation to Andrew Detmer's change.

If it's really possible that the teenage kid has the same ability as that metal-coated mutant, then Andrew's threat should be adjusted accordingly and they should develop weapons to deal with someone that has a healing factor..

Fortunately, Fury was a bit relieved that he's not going to spend anymore funds for that development since the owner of the Trask Industries himself is getting on his way to perfecting his Mutant Inhibitor Collar and X-Gene Suppressing weapons, those products should already be ready to be mass produced by the time a year passed or maybe even earlier than that.

Though, arriving at the thought of mutants and Andrew, Fury couldn't help but face-palm inwardly as he remembered the latter. He and Phil Coulson has suspected that the two cousins shouldn't be mutants or maybe partially. They had the suspicions that the Crystal that they recovered from an underground cave in Seattle was somehow connected to the three kids named Andrew Detmer, Matt Garetty and Steve Montgomery acquiring that telekinetic abilities.

The reason they managed to connect the dots was after comparing the energy signatures of both the mysterious glowing Crystal – that even has its own gravitational pull – and the corpse of the friend of the two cousin named Steve Montgomery.

They are already aware of the antics of the three friends as the moment they tried flying in the sky, S.H.I.E.L.D's own satellite detected that anomaly but just stayed silent as they thought that the three was mutants and assumed that the X-Men would eventually reach out to them.

But, days passed and the three friends wasn't reached out by the X-Men but they just stayed silent and just finally made a move when Andrew and Matt battled their differences in Seattle.

They managed to scan the kid named Matt's body and found unusual energy readings from his seemingly dead body and conducted tests to find where this energy came from since they didn't see any X-Gene in the DNA of the kid and assumed that the kid acquired his powers from external source.

Though, when they are halfway complete in their tests, the body of Matt Garetty vanished and no evidence was seen if the kid somehow came back to life and escaped or was taken away by someone purposely.

Not willing to let their tests come to a halt just like this, Fury agreed to the suggestion of one of his scientist to take the corpse of the kid named Steve Montgomery and just replaced the coffin with a random body, thinking to themselves that they would put back the body when they are finished with the tests.

After conducting the necessary tests for days that come, the result came out and they managed to develop some kind of device and found the source of the energy that they found in the body of Steve and Matt.

After finding the Crystal underground. They also conducted tests on it and even exposed some test subjects to the Crystal but they were disappointed as nothing happened, it was as if the Crystal was on offline mode and wouldn't give any useful lead to them.

Months later and they found out that one of their only lead to uncovering the secrets of Crystal was alive as they hurried off to apprehend him, forgetting the fact that the kid was the one responsible for overturning a street and overestimated their own power.

And as the inevitable outcome. Fury and Coulson came back empty-handed and the former was even more furious to find out that their main problem; The Crystal, was missing. Though the body of Steve was still there, but it's now useless so Fury made the choice to place it back to where it came from. Showing some sort of respect for the dead kid.

Fury took a deep breath "Adjust Andrew's threat evaluation accordingly and find me that Crystal, mobilize all that we have and find it and that Andrew and that Matt for me..."

Phil Coulson nodded with a serious look and with a "Yes, Director." He turned around and walked out of the room, carrying his director's order seriously like the best agent that he is.

Fury rubs his smooth bald head for a good feel to calm his shaking nerves due to his anger as he muttered his problems "Motherfucker.."

*****

Stones people, Stones...

Btw should I post tomorrow?, some of you seems upset that i didn't post a bonus chapter yesterday saying that we reached 1.5k stones but FELLAS! we only reached the required stones after 17 hours passed in Thursday! So don't blame me pls.

So im'ma tell you this, make us reach 2k+ stones at the exact time that Saturday day hits and you got a deal, Capisce? Okay.

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