Manhattan, Mutant Town, Elsewhere...

The smell of blood was intoxicating in the evening.

It was mixed with sweat, the heavy musk saturating every inch of the concrete building, from wall to pillar, from floor to ceiling, the crowds bellowing their own spit and adding to the stink of fighting men. It was deafening, blinding, the atmosphere overloading all his senses, a gathering of concentrated aggression and showmanship.

Of testosterone and violence.

Shatterstar lived for each and every moment.

He was at the centre of the arena, circling with his opponent, bare feet padding swiftly upon the uneven concrete, the man’s chest bare with muscles rippling beneath his flesh. He was never still, his posture both taunt and fluid in equal measure, his skin as flushed as his crimson hair, the day’s conflict filling him with hungry vigour.

He was kindling, the shouting and the baying of the crowds the petrol that was being added to it, Shatterstar just waiting for the right moment to explode.

With one good eye he glared at his opponent, the man standing with split lips and growling loudly. There was a savagery in his nature, something that wasn’t human and rippled beneath his armoured hide. Shatterstar could smell it; the beast that wore mans clothing.

With an unspoken word they both charged anew, his opponent attacking with blind aggression, with wounded pride, leading with a wild swing that was almost effortless to duck under. The man was bigger than him, perhaps twice as heavy, Shatterstar also conceding the reach advantage, and yet he moved far more swiftly. He was a viper, his muscles taunt and sleek beneath his flesh, uncoiling with a snap as he launched his fist upwards.

There was a chorus of cheers as the blow slammed up into his opponent’s chin, the uppercut launching the man’s head backwards, the jeering accompanying the stumbles backwards.

Shatterstar stepped forward, a creature of constant motion, naked flesh flush and bright beneath the light, the young man pivoting and leaping into a spin kick. It seemed impossible to behold, the man defying gravity as he spiralled through the air, lightning fast and yet awesomely slow, the moment seeming to last a lifetime.

Reality snapped back, his heartbeat continued beating, and both his spinning legs, outstretched into lethal strikes, slammed across with bone cracking force onto the cheek of his opponent’s skull.

The Hellicarrier was a tomb.

It was a conclusion he has come to fairly swiftly, Jamie sat within the cafeteria that was just as uninviting as the rest of the installation. He was not alone, surrounded on all sides within the chamber by dozens, if not hundreds of agents of the clandestine agency known as SHIELD, but he might as well of been. They all occupied the chairs and long tables with their simple meals, soulless and methodical in their nature, cogs in what was ultimately Director Fury’s personal machine.

Of all the memories that vied for attention within his crowded skull, it was those of here that he desired least.

It reminded him far too much of somewhere else, that same restraining hole of cold and metal.

That place that would have been his deathbed.

“Madrox!” Val Cooper stated tersely, snapping him out of his revere as she clenched her fingers together into a single fist. She was in her suit, clean and formal, all sharp lines and a skirt that reached to below the knees of her folded legs. It was black, Jamie hated black, it always meant he was in the shit.

She did not look out of place, the woman who was ultimately responsible for Mutant Affairs within the borders of America, blonde hair tied back harshly while her pale blue eyes were as hard as ice. She cared for the well being of humanities divergent species, but her patience had run thin.

He probably had a little to do with that.

With a tilting of her head, the movement so slight it was almost nonexistent, she nodded to the paper she had discarded upon the table in-between them.

“Well?”

Jamie released a quite sigh, leaning forwards and bracing himself with his elbows, fingers clasped together loosely as he pinched his nose between his thumbs. He instantly regretted doing so, his right eye still black and swollen, an unpleasant reminder of the recent ass kicking he had taken.

“Could you have found a smaller print?” he complained somewhat idly, retrieving his unwanted glasses from his inside pocket and perching them upon his nose. “You’re making me feel old.”

“You are old,” Val was clearly lacking in much mercy. “Suck it up and move on.”

Jamie already knew what he was looking at, and he knew exactly why his boss had come here, that didn’t mean he had to like it. Taking off his glasses, and hiding them just as quickly, he sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes fiercely, ignoring the protests of the bruised flesh as he slumped backwards.

Susan Saunders, his new and personal little pest, the ‘just past a teen’ reporter who had blindsided him in the hospital.

“Look, its rumour and conjecture,” Jamie waved his best attempt at a dismissive hand. “If she had proof, it wouldn’t be buried in a gossip column, it would be on the front page. It would be on every front page!”

“Madrox!”

“She doesn’t know anything...”

“She knows!” Val interrupted harshly, leaning forwards and staring him in the eye. “She knows and she’s asking questions, everyone is asking questions, questions I don’t want to be answered,” she continued tersely, several words being pushed out from between her teeth.

“How did she find out?”

“I don’t know,” Jamie released a short sigh and held out his hands in his defence, “the first time I saw her was in that hospital, I haven’t slept with her and I don’t know her number. She tried to get a confession and I feigned ignorance.”

“Not difficult.”

“Not really, no,” Jamie collapsed back into his chair, taking the verbal blow upon his chin. “Look, I don’t know how she found out, but someone’s talking, and let’s be honest here,” he suddenly leaned back forwards, insistence now behind his own eyes, his elbows back upon the table and a near accusatory hand held forwards, “despite how much you want it to be otherwise, there’s a long list of people who know I’m human.”

“All of which are under scrutiny,” Val Cooper retaliated somewhat tersely, hard blue eyes peering intently over the top of her clenched knuckles, “with no exception.”

“Including you?” Madrox probed, moderately aware that Val was probably about to end his life.

She glared back, the slight closing of her eyes sealing them into slits, an intensity behind them that rarely ended well for her employee. “Yes,” she answered shortly.

“Including me.”

Entertainment was in his blood.

Born and raised to fight against it, and yet immersed within its culture from the moment he could breadth it, from the moment he could hear it, from the moment he could feel it. The chanting was fuelling his every heartbeat, the shouting and the screaming, the hundreds of spectators demanding the shedding of more blood, driving his every motion towards hostility.

He landed far more lightly than he should have, ducking into a spinning bow as his hollow bones granted agility that was beyond human. Shatterstar was aware of his opponents every movement, watching with his one good eye as the man stumbled backwards, recoiling from the double kick to his cheek and spitting blood. He almost fell, crimson eyes rolling backwards, and yet the armoured hulk remained standing.

Some spectators were bellowing their disapproval, urging the mass of muscle to continue onwards, inspired by the money they would soon be losing.

Shatterstar launched forwards, propelled by fluidness and grace, fierce intent in his every strike as the soles of his bare feet skidded across the concrete. The flesh was hard beneath his heel, callused by years of conflict, resistant to the hardship of the crude surface and the shards of broken glass, bottles thrown onto the arena by those who did not display approval.

Shatterstar struck out, his palm striking into the gut his opponent’s midriff, abs like steel and yet buckling none the less beneath the impact. His foe gasped as crimson eyes bulged out, the blow echoing about the grey walls and repeated by the crowd around them. Shatterstar flipped backwards, losing contact with the ground entirely, defying gravity as he struck his leg upwards, cart wheeling into the kick that was strong enough to almost separate a head from its shoulders.

Still the man mountain would not tumble, something within his brain refusing to allow him despite the punishment he was taking. Commendable, perhaps, Shatterstar eyeing him as he landed swiftly into a crouch, his competition a glutton for such punishment, but hardly what he would call competition. A frown crept onto his features, a glorified punching bag and nothing more.

Entertainment was in his blood.

This was swiftly becoming anything but.

Shatterstar held his ground as the man mountain recovered, shaking his armoured head and snarling between his bloody lips. He could end it now, as the ignorant behemoth advanced, bellowing his rage and charging, banging against his chest and swinging a wild fist.

He could end it now, and yet he didn’t, his posture faltering, his guard dropping, and the crowd roaring with blood thirsty approval as the fist was slammed into his jaw, the sickening blow almost ripping the bone clean right off his skull.

“Who knows?” Val broke the silence that they had held briefly, relaxing her posture only slightly, barely noticeable within the stiffness of her raven suit. “Within your unit, who knows?”

“Rahne knows,” Jamie released a deep breath, allowing his own posture to become less aggressive, his shoulders never seemed to fit it anyway.

After a moment further he leaned back, absently rubbing his chin beneath one hand, a day’s worth of stubble harsh beneath his fingers, “Hell, you told her. Julio suspects, but he’s keeping it to himself and hasn’t asked, Shatterstar doesn’t give a crap. Sofia and Eddie haven’t been around long enough to know the difference, and even if they did...”

He paused, giving it some thought before shaking his head, Madrox having fully convinced himself of what he had known already.

“No, they wouldn’t say anything. None of them would, no, we’re not the leak.”

“I’ll have to get someone else to confirm that.”

“You’d be wasting your time,” Jamie held up his hands with a defensive swish.

“It’s my time.”

“Look,” Jamie leaned forward, a suggestion upon his mind, “what if we’re going about this all wrong? We can’t convince the people that there isn’t an elephant in the room, so why don’t we just tell them. It’s happened, it’s done, I’ve been ‘cured’, I’m just as human as you are, or slightly more so.”

“Tell them?” she questioned in a rhetorical manner, quietly seething at the slight.

“Sure.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Val Cooper stated with finality, unclenching her fingers from about their single fist, and forcing herself to fold them neatly upon her lap. She looked at him in silence, her chosen head of the XFI, one of her many employees over the years that insisted on driving her towards quite insanity.

She had come to understand why Xavier had so frequently left his own X-Men to fend for them damned selves.

“We will not be telling the people of a ‘cure’ we still know nothing about. We will not be dealing out both fear and hope in equal measure. We will not be releasing statements concerning matters we do not understand, creating civil unrest within every city across the civilised planet. We will not be turning you into a walking bomb when we have no idea what was done to you, how it was done to you, why it was done to you, or even what it will continue to do to you.”

She paused, allowing her statement to settle before concluding.

“I’m still waiting for you to keel over and die.”

“That’s comforting.” Jamie leaned back, propping his chin upon his fist.

“It is to me,” Val added idly, inhaling a slow and calming breadth, retrieving the copy of the Daily Bugle and sliding it back into her briefcase.

“For the time being, you will say nothing;” she resumed eye contact, forcing her tone to remain calm and steady, “a statement is being prepared and will be released within the hour. You will be made aware of, and briefed on, the details on your way back to Mutant Town. Until we know what we are dealing with, you are a Mutant, albeit, not an especially good one.”

She paused, feeling much better now that she had put the matter in place.

“Are we understood?”

Julio flinched as though he had been struck himself, the mutant known as Rictor watching as his best friend almost had his head ripped clean off. The young man was finding it difficult to watch; the bludgeoning that was taking place within the confines of concrete arena, and his disapproval of this idea increased a thousand fold.

He wasn’t comfortable being in such close quarters, pressed in on either side and front to back by overly enthusiastic spectators, wincing as the spittle was getting dangerously close to his own features. Julio was a little disturbed at how easily he fit in, his two days of stubble and his unruly hair making him a double for the near vagrants by which he was surrounded.

He liked a fight as much as the next man, but this wasn’t sport; it was just blood and violence.

It was reminding him far too much of home.

His first home.

“F*&%ING KILL HIM!” someone yelled, bellowing the bloodthirsty sentiment directly into his ear. Julio scowled and launched an elbow sideways in response. Something snapped beneath the impact, a rib that was accompanied by a gasp of pain, Julio experiencing difficulty summoning up much sympathy as the man curled up and crumpled to the ground.

He looked back to the arena, the concrete floor spattered with the blood and sweat from more than one conflict, some of it dry and very old, much of it all too recent. More than a little of it belonging to his best friend.

“Damn it!” he cursed anew; wincing as he witnessed yet another haymaker, doing all he could to not leap down and intervene. “Rahne is going to kill me for this,” he lamented, knowing full well that the young wolfin of his affections was going to rip him a new one for letting this go ahead.

The crowd was getting louder, shouting, screaming, stamping feet and bellowing out their own vocal aggression, the entire place just about ready to explode. It was just about then that Julio realised what was happening, what Shatterstar was doing, prolonging the confrontation and working his audience into a frenzy.

He was putting on a show.

“That son of a bitch,” he cursed quietly to himself.

“He’s doing this on purpose!”

“Absolutely,” Jamie held up his hands in his defence, declaring his figurative surrender. As easy as it was to antagonise his frequent employer, it was rarely in his best interests to do so. “This conversation would be much shorter if you just asked me for my resignation.”

“If I wanted your resignation,” Val snapped somewhat tersely, agitation present in the twitching of her brow, “I would just fire you! No,” she leaned back, returning her hands to a steeple and summoning up a cool composure that somehow spoke volumes of her frequent desire to snap his neck, “you’re staying where you are. Despite your utterly intolerable nature, you haven’t been doing a God awful job just yet. You’re been good for Mutant Town these last three months.”

She then paused, Jamie not entirely certain of what it was he saw, for he wasn’t entirely certain that it was possible, the slightest flickering of emotion that was alien to his dealings with Val Cooper. The briefest moment of compassion.

Of genuine concern.

“And Mutant Town has been good for you,” she concluded, the steel of her blue eyes slightly faded. “Let me deal with Susan Saunders, you just keep doing what you’re doing. Far too many of my colleagues want to see Mutant Town burning in its own filth, most of them would light the gasoline themselves. Stop it from happening Madrox, so I don’t have to crucify you by your testicles.”

“That would be unpleasant.”

“For all involved,” she confirmed with suspicious idleness, asserting her gaze back towards her briefcase, retrieving one of many folders that so rarely went well for Jamie Madrox. “There’s one more matter to attend to.”

“I know where this is going,” he attempted, forever unsuccessfully, to cut her off at the pass.

“I imagine you do,” she dropped the vanilla folder between them, letting it prop itself open to allow the photo and files to spill free.

“Allow me to clarify something for you Mr. Madrox,” she continued, her shoulders rigid, “the XFI is not an adoption agency.”

He was bleeding from the forehead.

The gash had become severe, the blood flow streaming down across his features and almost blinding his one remaining good eye. It was but one of many injuries, his frame protesting as he was slammed down into the concrete, his ribs straining beneath the impact as his near naked flesh was black and blue. His jaw was still attached, although he doubted he could speak much, the gravel and shards of broken glass digging deep into his cheek.

Shatterstar was getting his ass kicked, and he grinned regardless, the gesture hidden beneath the layers of dirt, shed blood and sweat, the arena alive with the sounds of the screaming masses. Now he felt satisfied, now the people were excited and enthralled; now they were putting on a show.

It was a hysteria that he fed upon with relish.

Now he felt alive.

The man mountain that was his foe of questionable ability snatched him by the neck while he was still down, grabbing Shatterstar with thick fingers while a second limb gripped him about his leg. The man from another world felt himself being hurled upwards, bodily dragged up into the air as the man mountain released a roar of rage, handling his frame as though he were a toy.

Shatterstar, for all the beating, lacked concern.

His breathing was not laboured.

His mind did not lack focus.

He had suffered worse in the name of entertainment, and it was time to bring this bout to his natural end.

As he was hurled bodily up into the air, he openly defied the will of gravity, almost in flight as he tucked his limbs in tight towards his torso and turned his light mass into an effortless spiral and pivot. It was as hypnotic as it was impossible, Shatterstar as a bloodied mass, spinning in a fluid motion as he should be tumbling into a painful crash, instead landing effortlessly upon his bare feet and stunning the crowd about him.

For half a heartbeat there was a hush, deafening in its existence, his would be victorious foe turning to see him land so nimbly. With bloodshot eyes the man blinked, before fury overtook him and he launched forwards, a massive fist hurled with enraged force, a war cry lost somewhere in the absence of a vocabulary and in the presence of temporary insanity.

Shatterstar deflected it with the flat of his open palm, stepping back and gliding one foot into a swift pivot, the impotent blow flying past him as he spun and struck out with bended elbow. The muscles beneath his naked and flushed flesh snapped, striking like lightning as she struck his limb into the exposed ribcage of his much taller foe. He breathed a single breadth, echoing the precise moment of his strike, a rib snapping beneath the impact.

He stepped back again, fluid as bare feet glided across the concrete, his toes slick amongst the blood, a second palm strike slamming into the man mountains spine. The echo of slapped and pulverised meat echoed about the entire building, gasps and painful winces accompanying the howl of pain, Shatterstar watching as his opponent fell to his shaking knees.

There was no pause, no moment of would be mercy, the man from another world striking like a falcon. He lost contact with the ground, crouched as he leapt into momentary flight, spurned onwards and all but held aloft by the deafening chanting and the clapping and the cheering.

Feeding upon the adulation, the way of life he had been born to fight against and yet raised to relish.

The contradiction of his very nature.

As his knee slammed into the instantly shattered nose of his opponent, he heard nothing else.

Michelle Baxter was looking up at him from the table.

It took Jamie a few moments to equate the photo with the teen girl he had recently come to know, the difference a year could make was startling. She was smiling, her image frozen within that singular moment in time, the young girl with raven hair and the darkest eyes content with her surroundings and sandwiched protectively between her parents. They were happy, a family, something about the fragment of lost history disturbingly familiar.

Life had not been kind.

Both of the adults in this scenario were gone, burned to death when their home had gone up in flame. Their daughter had survived; Michelle lost between the cracks and sucked into the hell of a modernised mutant slave ring. Drugged into a stupor from which she was only just emerging, the girl was haunted, scared and more than likely forever broken.

She didn’t smile.

Madrox wasn’t convinced she could.

“She can talk to dead people,” Jamie stated simply, he eyes returning to Val Cooper as he clenched his hands together. “That’s sort of useful to me.”

Ms. Cooper did not seem convinced, the steel of her blue eyes boring into his own.

“That’s all I’ve got,” he admitted with the smallest shrug, leaning backwards into his chair.

“That’s all you’ve got?” she queried coldly.

“For today,” he nodded, “I’m a little tired, I’ll come up with something more elaborate tomorrow.”

“Be sure that you do Madrox,” Val Cooper stated with finality as she returned the file to her briefcase, relenting on the issue far more swiftly than Jamie had reason to be expect. “I’ve granted you a great deal of leeway concerning the recruitment of your unit, but you are pushing the limitations of what I will allow. She will prove her worth Madrox, or she is gone,” she concluded the issue with a stare, “understood?”

“Always,” Jamie quirked his brow before feeling the need to clear his throat, “thank you.”

“I don’t want your thanks,” she responded shortly, standing sharply and promptly confirming that the meeting was over, “just do your job.”

It hadn’t taken Julio long to decide that the warehouse district of Mutant Town was no more pleasant on the outside than it was on the in. The night was still long as it shrouded his surroundings with chill filled shadows, the young man sat unceremoniously upon an unturned crate. He was alone as he watched the crowds depart, a mass of bodies that was both sullen and raucous in equal measure, hands planted deep inside his jackets pockets as his jurisdictions less savoury citizenry disappeared back into the city.

This wasn’t where law abiding folk should be, deep into the night, and it sure as hell wasn’t where law enforcing folk should be either, especially not when they were breaking it.

Julio’s jaw harboured a deep grimace, his head of unruly hair jostled by the frequent breeze. His growing sense of unease was gnawing, just as his sense of identity continued to be conflicted. The badge was still heavy within the confines of his inside pocket, an anvil he wasn’t convinced he could carry, a responsibility he wasn’t convinced he wanted to.

Shatterstar was not helping.

His frown only deepened as his oldest, as his closest friend emerged from the makeshift arena, long after the spectators had departed and still flushed from his most recent competition. His features were a bruised and bloodied mess which, remarkably, he carried with unconcerned ease, amusement even behind his one good eye as he raised one hand in greeting.

Julio stood, feeling every degree of the freezing chill as they met and, as the damn fool offered him the rarest smile of satisfaction, the mutant known as Rictor struck out. He punched Shatterstar clean across the jaw; his knuckles cracking as they pummelled bone and pole axed his best friend to the concrete floor.

With stunned silence Shatterstar observed him from the floor, Julio shaking his fist and flexing his suddenly sore fingers. They said nothing, the two old friends, as the moments passed to minutes and the chill of the bitter night only deepened. Finally his grimace faltered and Julio released a sigh, holding out an outstretched hand to help his partner rise.

The man from another world accepted it as though the matter had never happened, and yet he eyed Julio warily none the less, a thumb trailing absently along his own jaw line.

“A fine blow,” Shatterstar stated almost blandly.

“I’ve thrown better,” Julio replied just as plainly.

“Which was for?”

“Being an idiot,” Rictor concluded, pulling his jacket tight about his shoulders, “we’re not doing this again.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, damn it!” Julio snapped, his earlier agitation returning swiftly, running a hand roughly through his tussled hair. He paused for several moments, inhaling a deep breath and looking back towards the city, towards the invisible boundaries that marked off the boarders of Mutant Town. His town. His responsibility.

“We’re not doing this again,” he repeated, looking back to his best friend, a sense of resignation entering his demeanour, of both reluctance and acceptance. He found he didn’t like either one.

“But you can do as you please.”

To Be Continued...

Word has it Jamie Madrox just had his ass kicked, and he may need some help on getting his act together if he intends to survive his stint as sheriff of Mutant Town. But with Rahne Sinclair hunting down her own problems, it may be time to call in some outside help from the school he never attended. Guest-starring Shadowcat!