Fear and Loathing

Cable entered the Communications Bunker on the run. He had set up the system to flag all calls to the X-Men. It was this very set-up which allowed him to monitor the call which had led to X-Force rescuing Henry Peter Gyrich and losing Feral and Sunspot.
This call was a simple SOS from an individual by the name of Lee Forrester in southern Florida. Cable set the equipment to not forward the call to the X-Men and turned towards the weapons bin, grabbing up a single plasma rifle.
"Professor: Set Body-Slide Coordinates: Point of Origin: Distress Signal: Body-Slide By One."

Cable appears in a swamp, bordering a deserted, natural harbor in a nearby lagoon. He spots a boat on fire and sinking fast. A telepathic scan indicates that there is no one on board, but there is someone directly in front of him. A blonde woman breaks the surface of the murky water, gasping for air. Cable wades in a few steps and pulls her to shore.
"Wh...who..are you?" She asks, trying desperately to pull away from him.
"Relax, you're safe now." Cable tells her, relaxing his grip a bit.
"Safe? Are you kidding me?! We've gotta get outta here before he recovers! We threw everything at him, but he still kept coming! Still kept killing!" She screams.
"He? He who?" Cable asks.
"I'm sorry, but I didn't stop and ask for his calling card. Now, please, we've got to get out of here!" She says, again trying to pull away.
"Lady, my communications system intercepted a distress signal sent directly to the X-Men, which is no mean feat. It's not like they're listed in the yellow pages under 'Super Heroes.' Now, you and I aren't going anywhere until you answer a few of my questions. Starting with who the heck Lee Forrester and what is your, or their, connection to the X-Men?" Cable asks just as he senses another presence approaching fast.
"Get Back!" Cable shouts, as he pushes her away and dives in the opposite direction, narrowly avoiding an energy discharge from a whip, of all things.
"She has very little to do with that particular strain of gene-trash, Cable. Indeed, it's quite the opposite! See Forrester is the beloved of the man who very nearly destroyed me for the simple reason that I believed in him. She is the former paramour of the false god I once worshipped, Magneto!" Senyaka tells him.
Oh, God! Lee thinks, so that's what this was all about. It had never occurred to me, even for an instant, that all this pain, all this death could result from my brief association with Magnus. I never knew him as anything but a kind and loving man.
The stranger seemed to wince at Magneto's name. But he knows this villain and baits him with questions.
"Senyaka! What gives? I received a full report on your death a short time ago by the X-Force members who witnessed it." Cable tells him.
"I was very near death. The false god shattered every bone in my body and most of my organs as well. I was taken to a S.H.I.E.L.D. Medical unit where I was pronounced dead, but one of their highly trained physicians made the stupid mistake of touching me. I immediately took advantage of the situation and siphoned the good doctor's psionic energy. It wasn't enough to sustain me for long, but when the two S.H.I.E.L.D. security agents burst into the room to attend to their fallen doctor I was able to ambush them and add their energy to my nearly depleted stores." Senyaka explains.
"I can figure out the rest of it myself, Killer! During your days as a disciple of Magneto, you must have studied his life in detail. Those studies probably revealed the existence of his former lover. So you decided to vent your anger on an innocent woman whose only crime is bad taste in men." Cable tells him.
Senyaka strikes out with his whip and Cable allows it to wrap around his left arm and jerks Senyaka off his feet as if he were a small child. Senyaka lands directly in front of Cable, flat on his back and helpless.
"Senyaka, you should have stayed dead and saved me the trouble." Cable tells him, as he levels his plasma rifle at Senyaka's head.
I can't believe what I'm seeing! Lee thinks, is this man part of some new breed of X-Men? Would he really shoot in cold blood, ignoring all the principles of Charles Xavier? A part of me is glad I'll never find out, as suddenly Cable's arm is enveloped in energy.
"YAAARRGGH
His scream sounds as though is has been torn from his very soul. As though a piece of him has been ripped away.
"You deluded Fool! Did you truly believe that your much vaunted techno-organic body parts would be immune to the psionic backlash of my coils?" Senyaka gloats, as Cable falls to the ground. Senyaka then strikes out again. This time taking out Cable's plasma rifle. "There! Now your plasma gun is as ineffectual as you are. This is very strange, Cable. Your arm is obviously metal, and yet, somehow, I sensed your essence through it. How is that possible?"
"Ask your former teammates, Senyaka, the Acolytes. I just went this route with them." Cable replies.
"I think not. I'll have far more to discuss with them at our family reunion. All I have to do is absorb your psionic essence and I'll have all the answers I need, or at least all the answers you are aware of." Senyaka tells him.
I've got to do something. Lee thinks, as she picks up Cable's discarded plasma rifle and clubs Senyaka over the head with it.
"Nice backhand, Ms. Forrester." Cable tells her.
"Call me Lee. We can pat each other on the backs later. Right now we've got to get out of here." Lee tells him, as she helps him to his feet.
"No. I must make sure Senyaka is..." Cable begins.
"You can slug it out man to man on your own time, Cable-Man. Until then let's get back to your boat." Lee tells him.
"No boat." Cable replies.
"Your plane then?" Lee asks.
"No plane." Cable tells her.
"Then how the heck did you get here?" Lee asks.
"It's called Body-Sliding. A type of teleportation. But Senyaka's psionic backlash knocked out my rapport with Professor. In other words, Lee, we're on our own. Stop here." Cable tells her.
Lee helps him sit, with his back against a tree. Cable then proceeds to gather the sticks around him and break them into jagged little shards and lay them back at his side.
"You mean, I'm stuck with a wounded, transportationless, helpless half-ton man in the middle of the Florida Everglades with a madman stalking us? Swell." Lee says.
"Wounded, maybe. Knocked out teleportation, maybe. Helpless? Never!" Cable replies, still breaking sticks and laying them at his side.
"Where are the rest of the X-Men? What in blazes did you think you were doing, charging to my rescue with no back-up, no escape plan?" Lee asks.
"I dunno...maybe I just didn't want you dying out here all by your lonesome." Cable replies, still breaking the sticks.
"I'm sorry...I didn't mean to fly off the handle like that. I know you're here, fighting for my life and it's a very familiar circumstance...in more ways than one. Tell me about him...about Magneto. Back there, you said you had a full report on him. Is it true? That he's back? That he tried to kill that man?" Lee asks.
"The Magneto that I have encountered, the one that the history books will depict, is apparently not the same man that you knew. This man was scared. Maybe panicked that the world he feared and hated was gaining on him...maybe...just maybe...he was just responding to the faith his Acolytes placed in him, empowered by having someone who believed in him." Cable tells her.
*SNAP* Cable breaks another, larger stick and lays it alongside the others.
"But...I believed in him. I spent months with him. I know that everything he did, he did out of love for his people. It was the rest of the world that didn't understand." Lee tells him.
"That may have been true at one point, but it was different this last time. He surrounded himself with people like Senyaka. Unstable, homicidal mutants who are willing, eager to kill in his name." Cable tells her.
*SNAP*
"NO! Stop It! You're Lying! Magnus wasn't like that! He was kind! He was gentle! He was.." *SOB* "...my friend...oh, God...how could everything have gone so wrong?" *SOB* Lee hugs him close and cries on his shoulder.

I suddenly realize, Lee thinks, that we will probably die here together in the middle of nowhere. And that this man possesses the same noble qualities I'd once shared with someone I loved. Was it Magnus? No, this man is too down to earth. My father? No, my father never had this man's self-confidence. Whoever it was, I know one thing for sure, it hasn't taken long for us to forge a bond of mutual respect and trust. I reach up and gently touch his face. I pull his lips toward mine and he doesn't pull back. Just as our lips meet, something wraps around me and jerks me away.
"Awww, isn't it appropriate that one touching moment should be interrupted by another." Senyaka says. "LEE!" Cable shouts, as he tries to crawl towards them.
"Don't worry your techno-organic head about what I'm gonna do to her, Cable, you won't be around to watch!" Senyaka tells him, as he kicks Cable in the face knocking him back into the tree.
"And once I've killed the lovely Lee Forrester, I won't stop until everyone Magneto ever called his own lies dead at my feet! As Acolytes, we studied you, Cable. We studied all his enemies, their strengths and weaknesses. And you know what I learned? That without your weapons, your big guns, you are nothing! You deserve this gene-trash, Cable! A mutant-lover and a mutant in name only!" Senyaka gloats.
"Is that a fact, Senyaka?" Cable asks, as his left eye glows fiercely. "Then you must have been a lousy student!"

THUKK

Our Journey Continues With
The Son of the Goblin Queen

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