Chapter 17- Leaking out the Truth
Citadel Fourth floor- Mystic Studies Room- 4th day of the month of Niffle of the 6983 GR (Evening)
Nath’aniel-
In truth, the mage realized that he got little done today, as besides the chat with the sorceress he spent most of the day here reading the Servant's Thesis. So much so, Nath'aniel didn't realize how te it was till the doors to the room burst open.
Standing in the opening was a fuming Erik, causing the mage to frown in both surprise and confusion.
“What is this?” the mutant leader asked, holding up a shiny golden device.
"It appears to be a device from the Sovereign's ship." Nath'aniel guessed. He could feel that Shanna had spirited jumped, and was on her way to his side. Elizabeth too felt worry from, but she was holding back for now.
He watched as Erik wrapped the device up in a magnetic field, and floated it towards him, as he did the man paced just inside the room, muttering. “Not that, what’s on it!”
Once the device was closer, Erik maniputed the fields to allow the device to unfold and activate. A holographic dispy triggered, showing the entries that the mage had skimmed back in the Newmen's compound and said as much. "They look like the notes and observations of the High Evolutionary. What in them has you so…", 'Angry' he was about to ask.
When the list suddenly dropped down near the bottom, and then Erik enrged one, spitting out. “This, what is this?!”
Nath'aniel quickly read the entry, while emotional and long-winded, it noted that the High Evolutionary's Zeltrain gas indeed had no effect on the Tribesmen of the Land. As the mage already knew it would. Then he rolled up the bamboo scroll in front of him.
“What is this?” Erik repeated in a calmer tone.
"The notes and observations of the High Evolutionary," Nath’aniel answered clearly.
That clearly was not the answer that the other man was looking for, as he huffed and heaved before reading part of the entry. "'… it is with a heavy heart that I must conclude that my Zeltrain gas is being reversed by a previously unknown enzyme found in the human form. Furthermore, I have found trace amounts of this enzyme in even the Control samples, meaning it is likely that humans are evolutionary stagnate and cannot evolve.'
"What is this?! It was my and Charles's belief that mutants, we, are the next stage of human evolution, but this man's research seems to prove that humans do not, no cannot, evolve. So what are we?"
As the Brotherhood's leader ranted, Shanna materialized in between the two men. Furthermore, Nath'aniel could feel that Elizabeth had changed her mind and had also spirited jumped and was on her way to them.
Erik created two fields of magnetic energy to wrap up the damaged doors and armed himself, before pointing at the spear-wielding woman. "Stay out of this She-Devil, this doesn't concern you."
“His life continues my life, so I think this does concern me.” She countered.
“I am here for answers, there doesn’t need to be a fight.” The living magnet cimed.
Before they could start fighting, the mage answered the man’s question. “Bearers of the Mosul-Gene. And what you consider normal people are bearers of the Cedar-gene. Shanna has the Cedar if you are curious, and yes turning her into a Servant has awakened it.”
The two tribesmen blinked for a moment at the mage’s calmness.
“So you knew? When did you learn of this condition of ours?” Erik asked while keeping his eyes on the athletic blonde woman.
Nath’aniel sighed but answered. “When I was ten, it was the only time my father yelled at me. He thought I was too young to learn the Great Truth.”
The mage saying that even got Shanna to turn a bit and look over her shoulder at him.
"The Great Truth, that's not at all cryptic." She said before returning her attention back to the man holding two silver and steel doors in the air.
"Well, the three genes you tribesmen have are only part of it. When we tried to tell your ancestors, all those centuries ago, they reacted quite aggressively and violently to it. So we magi kept it to ourselves… We only tell those that we think can handle it." The mage expined.
While the master of magnetism seemed to calm at that, he didn’t release the doors or the reading device from his fields as he muttered. “’Made in a b’… You once said you were made in the b.”
"I actually said that the mages were made in a b. I was made by my parents performing coitus." Nath'aniel corrected.
The already angry man growled. “By who?”
Nath'aniel squinted when he recalled their world's first visitors. "The Sky-Tribe… they followed a meteor that fell onto our world. Seeing us weak and uneducated they conquered the stick-wielding members of humanity. They made us build, farm, and mine their precious sky metals. Then after a century and a half of their rule and experimenting on us, the six tribes of the Earth united and rebelled."
“And the X gene, they made it and gave it to us?” Erik asked. As he did Elizabeth materialized behind him in the hall outside.
“Yes.” The mage answered simply.
Erik sighed before he took his frustration and anger out on the doors, smming them into each other a couple of times. “Was it all a lie?”
Before the mage or anyone could answer him, the Citadel interrupted.
“I am receiving a message from Dum Dum Dugan. He urgently wishes to talk to Master Erik and seems to be in distress.”
Nath'aniel held his hand over the table that he sat behind and willed the right mystical energy to pool between his palm and the surface of the table, once the air was saturated enough he shifted the energy a bit till it and the Citadel synched with it and a hologram of the man appeared in the stream.
“Dugan.” The mage greeted the image, and then he frowned as he didn't recall giving this man one of the Citadel's emitters, so he asked. "How did you get your hand on one of my emitters?"
"Hey, Nath'aniel, but I was trying to reach Erik. Oh, and the emitter, it's Barton's. He is letting me use it while he preps a quin-jett for his next mission." The image of a green Dugan expined. The mage found it odd that the man used one hand to keep his hat on his head from whatever winds he was being exposed to.
“I am here.” The mutant stated from across the room. He then released his fields holding the now mangled doors. The doors didn’t make much noise thanks to the void stone floors, as they fell to the floor.
As Erik approached the image the Enhanced man started talking. "Good. Look, I don't know how long I can keep this thing on. They just gave me a long-term mission so this is the only chance I have to tell you. It's about Steve."
The mutant leader starts rambling once he hears that this call is about this ‘Steve’. “Ah, yes about time. It’s been months, I am surprised it took them so long to dig him out of the ice. When…”
"Erik! You're not letting me talk." Dugan shouted at the man silencing him. "Steve's alive. He survived the crash, he survived the ice. That's why they're keeping it so quiet. They don't want people to know. Heck, I wasn't even told. Probably because I would be doing what I am doing right now, warning you.'
"Peggy let it slip at lunch earlier. She already had a tail, before we met up, and I got one after she told me. It's not us, SHIELD I mean. Army I think. And as soon as I got back to base here, suddenly it was time for me to take a turn watching the Fridge. Even though I normally get a heads up that I got to go long before I have to actually leave, today nothing."
“Have you seen him?” Erik asked his eyes bouncing like he wasn’t sure where he should be looking.
The green man shook his head before saying. “Brother you are not listening, I found out today. I haven’t had the time to. Peggy’s got an in obviously, but the captain has this woman guarding him, his liaison, they call her. She likes to act like a gatekeeper.”
“Liaison?” the mage asked unsure of the meaning of the word.
Dugan turned to look at him before answering. "Steve got frozen in ice for over sixty years, so he is having some difficulties adjusting to the modern world. So they assigned some Janet woman to help him deal with the changes, on top of that the army has a security detail on him."
"They're trying to get the super soldier formu from his blood aren't they?" Erik asked his voice getting the growl that he had when he first burst into the room.
"You know it. But look I got to go. They see me with this emitter thing, and I'll be going to the Fridge as a new resident, instead of as one of the guards." Dugan said before shutting the connection off.
Not wanting to risk Erik’s or the women’s health with the active mystical energy on the table. He pulled out a bnk power cell that he had taken to carrying on him, and stuck it into the power stream. He held it there absorbing the sor and mystical energy that he used in pce of the proper equipment.
‘I really should refit some of the rooms to just have holo-imagers now that we have so many emitters thanks to Mr. Maddox.’ The mage thought while the energy was contained.
Erik rubbed his chin in thought, and the two women rexed a bit, but were still watching him. In case he went back into a rage over the things he just learned.
"Say a person has the X gene, or Mosul-gene as you call it. They are young and frail, but it hasn't been activated yet. What happens to them if they are given a formu like what was given to Dugan?" The mutant leader asked him after some time.
“In this situation, his Mosul-gene would awaken, and there is a moderate chance that it would grant the tribesman abilities in line with the formu’s design.” Nath’aniel guessed.
“Chance?” Elizabeth asked him telepathically with a tilted head.
The mage nodded at her before adding. “Yes, I would put it at forty to sixty percent chance that it mimics the effects of the chemical cocktail. You must understand that the Mosul-Gene is notoriously unstable. This is of course why it, unlike the other two gene types, can awaken on its own without any outside aid.”
"This is why you told us that our folk stories and myths hide the stories of earlier mutants, because before humanity could write anything down we were already altered," Erik stated as he finally understood something that the mage had told them earlier in their retionship. Then the mutant leader snapped his fingers and added. "But my question was more than just an example.'
"You see, the government struck a homerun when they used Dr. Erskin's formu on Steve Rogers. He wasn’t just improved, he was rebuilt. But the good doctor was murdered, soon after and they only had samples of his super soldier formu were lost in the attempted theft. So they have tried and failed to get his results countless times. You saw what they did to Dugan, he is stronger and more durable, but he isn't as fast or as smart as Rogers.'
"What if, like I and Charles got it wrong, so too have they? What if they did recreate the good doctor's work? And the reason that Rogers got such astounding results was that he was a mutant all along?"
Shanna spirit jumped but floated nearby, while Elizabeth got closer and told him. “You are stretching there, Erik. Mind you, if the fabled Captain America is actually one of us it would be earthshattering for the historians.”
The mutant leader pointed at the mage and asked. “Nath’aniel what do you think, is it possible?”
"It is possible." The mage agreed after a moment.
“See.” Erik smiled at the agreement.
"How to prove it though? The risks of us and the cost in fuel alone would cripple us. And they might still see through the upgrades that you gave the Grey-Wing, and shoot us down before we even reach the city." The telepath argued.
The mutant leader snapped before suggesting. “The portal room, the Citadel could open a portal in one of the pces that her emitters have been in New York. Heck, we could jump right into SHIELD headquarters if we wanted to.”
“And get ourselves attacked immediately.” Elizabeth pointed out to him.
Erik waved that compint away, and asked. "Of course, we come up with a pn first, and portal to somewhere safe, but in the end, Nath'aniel can you test my friend and my theory?"
“Wait, why does Nath need to go?” The telepath compined and asked.
Erik didn’t look away from the mage’s glowing eyes as he answered. “Because, in the end he is the expert.”
'He is asking me to take a risk and go out into the world. This isn't like when I left the Citadel to punish the Nazis or the High Evolutionary. This is taking a risk for only its own sake. Or rather for the sake of aiding him, so I have to ask is he worth the risk? Well, he now knows more about the Great Truth than Commander Barton does, so maybe he is.' He thought quickly, before saying. “Come up with your pn, if Betsy approves of it, then yes I will aid you.”
The mage then grabbed the bamboo scroll that he had been reading before Erik burst into the room and moved to leave, not looking at the ruined doors he added. "Oh and fix the damage you caused before we leave."
At the exit, he heard the mutant leader shout. "Oh, the frame bed is done by the way. It just needs the pair of components that you need to make to get it to work."
The mage sighed realizing what he would be working once again, once everyone else was asleep. It felt oddly natural to want to snuggle and sleep with one of his two mates, instead of being productive. This made him wonder if the tribesmen were rubbing off on him. Either way he just shrugged before entering the re-locator.
