The Long Way Home

Welcome to Genosha, an island nation near the Seychelles, off the east coast of Africa. Once a green and pleasant land. It is now a land torn apart by a long, bloody civil war between the humans who make up the bulk of the island's population, and it's former slave population, the genetically engineered Mutates.
While the world outside has it's hopes pinned to the United Nations Peace-Keepers here, those who actually live in the charnal house that genosha has become have to pray for something of a miracle.
There are those who don't believe in miracles and have tried instead to take action. They belong to a bipartisan rebel group made up of both humans and mutates. People having found common ground who seek to bring sanity back to this ravaged land. It is a dangerous life.
There are others. The human elite hope to return to a time when Mutates did the work and they, the humans, enjoyed the rewards. They fund the opposing force which is intent on rooting out the rebels. For months now, the scales have tipped back and forth. Until tonight...

"Is it safe, Phillip?" Jenny Ransome asks quietly.
"Hmmmm?" Phillip Moreau replies.
"I said...is it safe?" Jenny asks again.
"Um. No, Jen." Phillip tells her. "Got a drone. Class D. Heat-Seeker."
"Well, give it something else to seek." Jen suggests.
"Done." Phillip replies, tossing his cigarette out into the street.
The drone immediately locks onto the heat source of the cigarette,

YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE GENOSHAN CURFEW. STOP 
WHERE YOU ARE AND WAIT FOR THE MAGISTRATE AUTHORITY. YOU 
ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE GENOSHAN CURFEW. STOP WHERE YOU 
ARE AND WAIT FOR THE MAGISTRATE AUTHORITY.

They say the apple never falls far from the tree. But this couldn't be further from the truth for Phillip Moreau. His father, Dr. David Moreau, was this nation's Genegineer, credited with the invention of the Mutate Process. A technological breakthrough that transformed the country's Mutant population into docile workers. It split Genosha by race: Human and Mutant; casting an ugly shadow over the countryside. A shadow Phillip wears to this day.
When Phillip's lifelong love, Jenny Ransome, tested gene-positive for being a Mutant, their world shattered. Phillip's own father gave the order to have Jenny undergo the excruciating bonding process. Rebelling, Phillip sided with Jenny and together they became Expatriates. Now they are back. With a little help, they are Genosha's last, best hope.

"Don't you find it odd?" Jen asks.
"What?" Phillip replies.
"For months now, he's helped us. The weapons, the classified documents, all of it." Jen explains. "And he's never asked for a thing in return. Why would anyone do that?"
"Let's just say, I'm an 'interested party'..." A voice as cold as any grave answers from the shadows. "...Looking out for my own interests." A pair of red eyes glow as the tall, caped man steps forward, revealing himself to be Mr. Sinister.

"Essex!" Jen exclaims, startled.
"What's the word?" Phillip asks, taking a long draw from his cigarette. "What have you brought us this time?"
"A warning." Sinister replies, with an evil grin. "You are very close to uncovering Genosha's darkest secrets. And I am dangerously near to being discovered for my part in it. This will be our final meeting. Ask yourselves, who invented the Mutate Bonding Process?"
"Phillip's father!" Jen answers. "Everyone knows that."
"None are so blind who will not see." Sinister replies.
"Who then?" Jen asks.
"I have to go." Sinister tells them.
"Wait! We still need help!" Jen pleads.
"Help is coming..." Sinister replies, sensing the arrival he has engineered, and taking his leave before that 'arrival' senses his presence.

Out in the street, amid a bright green glow, Cable and Domino appear.
"Domino...where are we?" Cable asks, looking around.
"I...I'm not sure." Dom replies, taking a deep gulp and adding, "But I think I left my stomach in the year 2010."

If ever there were a pair who are out of time and out of place, it is these two.
Cable, the leader of the Mutant team X-Force, just returned from a war-torn time, some two thousand years from now. Where he journeyed to save a part of his past, his younger self, from certain death.
At his side, as if she's always been there, and always will, his companion on the journey, Domino, who saw firsthand the harsh reality in which Cable grew up, as well as the agony of leaving behind Aliya Jen-Skot Dayspring, the woman he loved who would in time become his wife. With unspoken words, there is one thing they both agree on: It will be very difficult for anything to be the same, ever again...

"We have to find out where we landed." Cable tells her.
"Miserable weather. Unbearable heat. Burnt out buildings." Dom notes. "And me without my beach towel."
"We'd better find some cover from this storm." Cable replies. "I don't know why we're so far off the mark...we should have landed back at home."
"I guess Blaquesmith is losing his touch." Dom tells him, then reaches out and takes Cable's hand in hers, "Nathan...talk to me."
In reply, Cable takes out his communicator and tries to raise X-Force. "Maybe it's this storm. I can't raise anyone at Xavier's."
Dom sighs, and thinks to herself, "I've known you a long time. It can't have been easy to leave your time again. But after all that just happened...how am I ever going to be able to tell you about Grizzly...and Tyler."

YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE GENOSHAN CURFEW. STOP 
WHERE YOU ARE AND WAIT FOR THE MAGISTRATE 
AUTHORITY.

Minutes later, in the underground tunnel system beneath Hammer Bay.
"Where are you taking us?" Cable asks the young couple.
"Where it's safe." Phillip replies.
"Don't worry." Jen adds. "We know the way. Believe it or not, we've been waiting for you to show up. We were told, just minutes before you arrived, that help was on the way."
"What does that mean?" Dom asks. "We landed here by pure accident!"
"Did we?" Cable asks. "Come on, Dom, I know you had the same gut feeling I did. Is it likely landing here was an accident? Besides, isn't the 'why' of any situation, secondary to the situation itself?" Cable adds, holding up his Askani' medallion.
"Oh, fine." Dom replies. "We're three thousand miles from home, and you've gone Zen on me."
"Actually..." Cable smiles down at her, "It's Askani'"
"Whatever." Dom replies.
"As Jenny was saying," Phillip interrupts. "We have a 'friend.' A reliable source. He feels that now is a critical time for our cause." Phillip halts in front of a huge doorway, and places his palm against a plate.

ID CONFIRMED. DOOR ACTIVATED.

It is difficult not to be overwhelmed. Not only by the sheer size of Safehaven, but by the numbers of the rebel force. But, for a country whose technology was the envy of the World, there is something primitive about the camp.

"We don't have much." Phillip explains. "But our numbers are growing. And it isn't just Mutates who are with our cause. Humans are working alongside with us. We believe there is a power behind the power structure and if that can be toppled, it's the first step toward healing the nation my father and his friends tore apart. It isn't going to be easy. Our camp can't stay a secret forever, and when the Magistrates get a lock on us...we're going to need all the help we can get."
"I've taken part in lots of cival wars, Moreau." Cable tells him. "And they aren't won simply or without great cost."
"Cable, we understand the cost." Jen tells him. "We live here. Everyone here is willing to do what is necessary to stop this insanity!"
"Maybe we, um...could take a little time out here, okay?" Dom asks, as she steps in front of Nathan, thinking to herself, "Her passion for the cause reminds me a lot of Aliya...Jen-Skot. And if she reminds me of her, I can only imagine what it's doing to Nathan."
*Ahem* Dom clears her throat, before addressing Phillip. "Maybe you could show me your communications rig. Our friends need to know where we are."
"No can do." Phillip replies. "No outside contact. Can't take the risk that we'd be monitored."
"O...kay." Dom replies, while thinking, "Nathan, we're knee deep in alligators here. Every bone in my body is screaming for us to get out of here as fast as we can...before something terrible happens..."

While Nathan is having some private thoughts of his own on the matter at hand. "How many camps like this have I visited through the years? How many more have I, myself, helped build? Look at these people. No matter how the Government tried to rip them of their identities, they've somehow maintained a kind of...Dignity...And Yet..." Cable turns to Dom and asks, "Why haven't we, the World for that matter, done more to help them?"
"Because, Nathan, you and I both know there's no simple solution." Dom tells him, then reaches out and takes his hand. "Nathan...I know you probably better than anyone. And I know we're going to get into this--"
"Do we have a choice?" Cable asks. "We must have been sent here for a reason."
"We leave one battlefield, just to be thrust right into another one." Dom replies. "I just want to hear it from you...that you don't need some time alone."
"Maybe I do..." Cable tells her softly, squeezing her hand. "But where does that leave these people here?"

"Phillip?" Jen asks, as she places her hand on his shoulder as he watches Cable and Dom from a distance. "Is this the help that we were promised? We've depended on Essex for so long to have him disappear now when it seems so critical."
"Look at that face, Jen." Phillip tells her, pointing towards Cable. "You can just tell that Cable has a past that he can't hide from...and a future he fights for. I hope I have that strength...that character...there is so much more to be done."
"You've got that strength, Phillip." Jen tells him. "That and more."
"Sweet of you to say, Love." Phillip replies. "But every time I look at a Genoshan that has a number branded on him or her...I try to tell myself that it's not my fault what my father did. I try..." Phillip lights a cigarette. "Truth is, Jen, that without you, and your amazingly defiant spirit...I might just've ended up like my father..."
"I never had a choice." Jen tells him. "Once I found out I was chosen for the process, they took me away...from my family...from you. We can't ever go back to the easy life, Phillip. The afternoon teas, the cricket matches, the trips to Ridgeback. That's lost to us. And you, who had everything to lose, turned your back on your father, on your whole life! Just to be with me."
"It wasn't that hard." Phillip tells her. "I've loved you since the first day I laid eyes on you." And Phillip kisses her.

"It's been a long time since I could do that.." Cable says, upon seeing the kiss.
"It wasn't that long ago." Dom replies, smiling.
"That's not what I meant..." Cable tells her.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Dom asks.
"About Aliya?" Cable asks in return. "And having to leave her again? No. No. I can't. Not yet."
"I know you too well, Nathan." Dom tells him. "Can't keep it bottled up forever."
"INCOMING!" Cable yells, grabbing Dom and diving for cover.

BTOOM

Our Journey Continues with Rebel Yell

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