Author's note: This is an idea that interested me about what could have happened to John after X-3. It didn't seem to suit a 'long-story' idea so I wrote this as an introduction to the timeline and plan to do one-shots, theme sets and random other short stories to continue it.
I hope you enjoy it and if you do or have any ideas for other stories for the set please review. Constructive criticism is welcome but Pyro will destroy all flames.
I own nothing, please don't sue me.
I know a lot of people said I must have felt so guilty after Alcatrez and about everything I did while I was in the Brotherhood and had to have lived in shame and self-loathing. But they're wrong.
I liked what I did.
I liked the feeling of power, of holding life and death and no longer just being the victim. For the first time I had the upper-hand, I was the strong one. I didn't have to listen to anyone and my power was the only thing that mattered.
It was incredible. I was powerful, I was feared. I held everything and had all of the control.
And then I was defeated and I was left with nothing.
After the battle the X-Men turned me over to the authorities when they came through to clean up what was left. I was stuck in a high-security prison with some kind of power-neutralizing technology developed by those same scientists that made the Cure. Didn't they get it? It was people like them that made people like me.
It royally sucked, being locked away, feeling cold and powerless and angry. If there were other prisoners there I didn't know because I was kept in solitary confinement within the neutralizers range.
And then it took a turn from bad to hellish.
The promises the government made the X-Men about how I would be 'treated fairly' apparently didn't extend to whether they could use me for a lab rat or not. I'd been there something like three months when a group of guards came in and hit me in the arm with a needle. I woke up in a lab and that's the last time I remember -not- being in pain.
In the following months I wasn't drugged between cell and lab because it 'interfered with their work' or whatever the hell it was that scientist Stanze told them. So I got a clear, front row seat to everything they did to me before, during and after.
I don't remember what the hell it was they were after but it involved taking a lot of blood and skin and hooking me up to endless machines, every once of which was more agonizing then the last. Then they started with the surgeries, nothing that could kill me because apparently I was valuable alive but it was still enough to pull me apart from the inside out.
And even though I felt so damn awful, with the exception of the operations when I was mildly drugged, I was still awake and heard the conversations they held all around me, always referring to me as 'the test subject' or the specimen'.
And those bastards wondered why I became a terrorist against them? I'm not some damn science experiment in biology class. I'm a living person and I was pissed off.
After what I guess was nearing a year since I was arrested I'd developed enough immunity to the pain that when they went to haul me out of the lab again I had enough strength to attack Stanze. I got so close to snapping his neck I could feel the bones giving under my fingers. I scorched his neck and burned a lot of the skin before the guards ripped me off and slammed my head into the wall. It still felt good though, hurting him and giving him back just a little of what he'd done to me.
When I woke up again I was back in my cell, it was a day later and they were saying something about transferring me to 'a more secure location'. One thing I clearly remember about that was that Stanze didn't show any signs of the burns. I know what I did and yet his skin looked completely normal.
It was awhile until I figured that one out.
It was almost right then that Monroe, Summers (who apparently didn't get killed by his girlfriend) and Logan suddenly arrived. Since I was put in prison the X-men had been getting weekly reports on me so they could monitor my behavior, though I'd say it's a damn good bet they weren't getting the whole story.
Monroe told them she'd heard I was causing trouble and since I had fulfilled my mandatory year in government holding I was being transferred to house-arrest at Xavier's for the second year of my sentence. They thought it might work better if I was under their supervision instead of locked in here. And keeping me under control wasn't going to be an issue considering Logan was harder to get though then the whole high-security grid.
A year before I would have been angry about still being locked up but right then I wanted out more then I wanted to be sarcastic so I didn't argue. I think that was what tipped them off that something was wrong with me. They didn't put it together for awhile but they knew something had happened.
Two days later I was back at the school I'd turned my back on two years before. I was wearing an ankle cuff and getting starred at by the newbie kids and receiving cold shoulders from the older ones.
Welcome to my new life, woo-friggen-who.
I moved into permanent residence in my room and rarely left. It was too loud after the prison and was as bright as the lab so I avoided the rest of the school. It was easier to stay quite and avoid any possible questions. I knew I'd start coming out again but for the first weeks being in there was the only option I liked.
After a few months I'd gotten comfortable enough with everything to start spending time with the normal crowds again though I still got in trouble for fighting with some of the students, ones I'd never met before I left. Bobby and Rogue still avoided me completely but Kitty was willing to talk to me occasionally.
But even with my 'social rehab' I still showed signs from the labs such as I avoided the science rooms even when I was supposed to go there, I couldn't stand the color white and hated hearing beeping machines. The worst reaction was when one of the kids shined a light in my eyes as a prank when I fell asleep on the couch. I had to be physically stopped from killing him even though I wasn't really awake.
After that I had to start seeing the psychiatrist twice as much but I managed to evade the issue and keep it under wraps. When I didn't skip appointments or cause more trouble they started to trust me just a little bit and it got easier again. Life was getting better, or at least less crappy.
And then I saw the newspaper article.
It was the first day I got off of punishment for another fight and I was one week shy of finishing house arrest so I was in a good mood and had decided to go outside for a change as it was hot enough to fry eggs on the sidewalk and that's how I like it.
I stopped over in the kitchen to grab something and found a bunch of people in there wolfing through ice cream and soda and talking about random (boring) things. It was a mixed group made up of kids I could stand and some of my enemies but we were all in 'ignore' mode and I skirted them but was still listening with half an ear as I went through the cabinets.
"Did you see this article in the paper? They made an incredible new medical break though!" The girl who spoke was an overly-excitable teen so I didn't take her vouches of 'incredible' all that seriously. She was the type to think a new style of toaster was amazing.
"Yeah I heard about it! It's a new type of partly in-organic skin treatment that repairs burned flesh. It actually makes it regenerate to fresh and healthy like nothing ever happened." Okay that -was- of interest because it was starting to sound a little too familiar.
"And you know the coolest part? The skin that's fixed is resistant to burns! Fire doesn't hurt it anymore, not even a little bit!"
I guess I stopped so suddenly I got their attention but even if I hadn't Brian Merson, probably one of the people I hated the most at the time spoke up. "What's the matter Allerdyce? Jealous that you're not special anymore? That they're working your corner?"
I turned around and he was waving the paper at me tauntingly slow.
On the front in bold letters was written the headline 'Genesis Burn-Treatment Program Launched'. And right there in the center of the picture of the 'amazing' doctors responsible for the medical miracle was Stanze.
I got into a hell of a lot of trouble but I didn't regret the fireball I threw at the paper, even if I did burn a couple of the others and nearly set the kitchen on fire.
Yet doing that didn't negate my anger at all. I was still furious and didn't know anything to do about it either.
They hadn't 'discovered' it, they weren't 'medical miracle workers'.
They were thieves. They'd stolen it from me, ripped it out of my body along with everything else they took.
My blood, my time, part of my life and a lot of my sanity.
I didn't care how many people it could help or save or whose lives it could improve.
They stole me.
It took a few days for the older mutants to figure out the connection between the news and my reaction and by then I wasn't under arrest anymore and had already headed for the airport. By the time they put two and two together I was half-way to Australia.
It didn't take me long to figure out I didn't want to be there as that was the first place they'd look for me wanting answers so I left.
What I really wanted to do was find Stanze and finish the job I'd started the day before the X-men came for me but I wouldn't know where to even start looking for him. I had to let it go for the time being but if I ever do find him there won't be enough left to bury.
After leaving Sydney I had to find a new place to live, somewhere I could blend in where nobody could locate me again until I was ready to be found.
That's what brings me to right now. Working a couple jobs along the coast of India wasn't what I had in mind for my life but this isn't permanent. I plan to go back to Australia once I've passed enough time to get away from the X-men.
I don't need to tell them anything and I never plan to. If they've really got all the resources, money and influence they claim to then it shouldn't be that hard. Hell, even if they're doing it illegally they still find these things out. I don't need to re-live it again just so they can file it away with all the other cases of mutant abuse.
I've had my turn as a statistic; I'm not going there again.
At least here I don't attract a lot of attention. Tourists come and go through so much I don't stick out in the slightest.
I'm not a terrorist, mutant, monster or test subject. I'm just another person in an endless stream of them. I can fade out and nobody knows anything about me. If someone sees and cares to ask about the scars from the lab it doesn't have a double meaning and they aren't probing me for information. It's just curiosity and I can throw it off easily.
And right now that's all I'm asking for. I didn't have much to begin with, got more, lost it all and then lost even more. I think life owns me this much at least.