"That was a BLAST!" Alex crowed as the souped up motorcycle he'd been riding on with Grifter came to a halt.
"Glad you liked it kid." Grifter said with a smile before turning off the engine and getting off, "Maybe once you get your driver's license and spend a few hours in the simulator back at HALO I'll convince Marlowe to get ya one."
Truth was he had enjoyed the ride almost as much as Alex had and that was strange since he'd been riding on things like this and more for so many years it had become old hat for him. Yet, somehow, riding on his bike with Alex, this was different from all those other times and made it new again. It was the oddest contradiction of emotions he'd ever experience but jus the same he was starting to like it. It had been about a week since the docs at HALO confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt that the kid getting his stuff out of the cargo compartment of the bike was indeed his son.
Sort of.
While he didn't understand all of the science behind the genetic experiment that brought the kid into being, he did know that thirty percent of Alex had come from him with another thirty coming from Zealot. So, in away, the kid represented the one thing he'd always wanted between him and Zannah even if she still gave the kid the cold shoulder every time they met and never did anything besides her job around him. Oh, there was a part of him that knew a long-term relationship would be difficult with her to say the least, with the major problem being their respective life spans, but what he felt for her was enough to motivate him into giving it all he had and more. So in a way the only thing really keeping him from his ideal family photo was a wedding ring around Zannah's finger and her warming up to Alex, at least to the point where a friendship might form. So that's what he planned on working on while his kid was training to get a handle on his powers. He wouldn't take the direct approach with it, that would only make things worse, but instead he'd do his best to track down those involved in the experiment, especially Dr. Sing. The way he figured it letting Zealot tear into them and get some closure on the whole thing would go a long way towards her eventually accepting the kid. It would still take some work, even with Anton Sing dead, but at least Zannah would get a chance to vent on someone who deserved it rather than someone who didn't.
"So who exactly is this Slayton guy anyway, Grifter?" Alex asked as he slung his bag over his shoulder, "Some kind of S.P.B guru or something?"
"Or something kid. Definitely an 'or something'." Cole replied, doing his best to conceal his dislike of the man he still saw as a traitor to the team and a government lapdog.
Even years later after Team Seven broke apart and went to ground, he still couldn't bring himself to trust Eric after the man chose to stay with Craven when he could have made a run for it with the rest of them. Not that their relationship prior to that had been sunshine and roses but after what Craven had been up to had been exposed, he firmly believed that any man with an ounce of decency in them would have severed all ties with that snake. He knew the official reason that Slayton had given was that he was using him, Lynch and Cray's continued services as bargaining chips to stop pursuit of the rest of them but he knew that that would only keep Miles Craven off their backs for a short while. For Craven power was like a drug and, like any addict, the person had to want to kick the habit before detox could really work at all. Craven actually wanting to give up his desire for power… that would NEVER happen! The man was a lost cause in that department so all Slayton really did was delay the inevitable. Given that Backlash was now on the run from the authorities and no longer working for I.O, that meant that only Cray and Lynch were there to keep an eye on that walking corpse. With the guy who originally made the deal no longer there to yank on Craven's leash, it was only a matter of time before the director of I.O made a play for either the rest of Team Seven or their kids.
Slayton had better be able to keep at least Alex safe or I'm gonna hold him personally responsible for everything that happens to my boy afterwards! Grifter promised to himself as he and his son started down the path to the lodge where Eric and his girlfriend were set up.
That was another thing he was edgy with, Alex being in close proximity to a member of Skywatch, given that it had been Stormwatch that the C.A.Ts had rescued the kid from. Would she be decent enough to keep Alex's location from her bosses? Or would she call down Stormwatch on the kid the second he was gone? He wanted to think that the lady was decent enough that she'd remember that she owed the WildC.A.Ts her life and that that would be enough to keep her mouth shut. However his experiences with Team Seven and various other adventures worldwide had made him cynical towards the idea that anyone who worked for a government agency could be trusted. People in that line of work often had to compromise their own code of honor on a mission in order to do what they came to do. As a side effect, though, they either became so guilt ridden that they resigned or they learned to suppress that guilt using the old 'I was just following orders' routine. That or they tried to console themselves by saying that it would have been worse if anyone else had been forced to do it. Bullshit to both excuses! It didn't matter whether they were just following orders or thought that it'd be more merciful for them to do the job than someone else! They had still done a slimy job that would leave blood on their hands for the rest of their lives.
Question is: Is this Major LaSalle one of the ones that still has their soul or has she sold it in the name of 'duty' and 'protocol'? He thought as the cabin that Slayton and LaSalle had been set up in.
They got about as far as the backyard of the place before Backlash and his lady friend walked into view from the front of the place with welcoming smiles on their faces. Well, LaSalle had a welcoming smile on her face, Slayton, on the other hand, had looked like he was just doing his best to remain polite and professional. Not that he could blame the platinum blonde bum since he was pretty much doing the same but it also indicated that he should probably make the intros short and sweet to avoid things going south on them all.
"Slayton." He said in greeting, figuring that that alone would be a polite greeting as far as he was concerned.
"Cash." Mimicked Slayton, who extended his hand for a handshake.
Reluctantly and more to put his son at ease than actually wanting to do it he took the hand and gave it a good shake, sans a 'squeeze-until-the-other-guy-flinches' move.
"So this must be your son Alex." LaSalle said with a slightly more cheery than necessary voice, obviously intending to move things along before it could devolve into a fistfight, "I hear you've made quite a splash in the last couple of days."
"Only in the 'everyone-wants-me-dead-or-working-for-them' sort of way Major LaSalle." Alex said trying to make it sound like a joke rather than the reality it actually was, "Hopefully though a few months with snow dome here will make it so that I can at least hold my own if anybody comes after me."
Grifter barely managed to hold in a guffaw of laughter at his son's nickname for Slayton and made a note to call Backlash that from here on it since, judging from the former member of Skywatch's face, it had definitely rubbed him the wrong way.
"Count on it Alex. By the time I'm done with you Jackson's going to be worrying about his job security." Slayton said in an equally playful manner but with a mist of something more spread over his words.
"I don't think King will have that much to worry about Slayton." Cole said, not liking the idea of Backlash trying to recruit his kid for Stormwatch, "From how he handled himself against the Black Razors and Stormwatch, I don't think he'd take well to the chain of command."
"Oh I don't have a problem with following orders from time to time, but it's the rules and regulations I'd probably have a hard time following." Alex said seriously with a look in his eyes saying that he had picked up on the growing tension between Grifter and Backlash, "That and writing reports after every mission. Mine would probably read like: showed up, kicked the bad guys' asses, saved the day and came home. I'm guessing the higher ups would probably want a little more detail right?"
This actually got both him and Slayton chuckling a bit as they both conjured up images in their minds of how a superior officer would respond to such a short, to the point and seriously lacking in detail report like that. Of course once they realized that they were laughing along with someone they didn't particularly like they stopped almost immediately.
'Better move this along before I lose what 'politeness' I have left' Cole thought before saying, "Okay kid, here's how it's gonna be. For the next three months you're going to be taught by Slayton here how to control your powers. Now he's not going to be able to spend all his time with you since he officially came here to help the Major get back on her feet, but when he does put you through your paces I expect you to give your best. Okay?"
"Sure thing Grifter." Alex said clearly about as comfortable as he was when it came to actually saying the words 'son' and 'dad'.
"Well, then I'm outta here. Marlowe's got a job for me to do tracking down a lead or something so I'd better get to it." He said not mentioning the rumors of a Daemonite Lord plotting against the C.A.Ts in the presence of people who might complicate things, "Take care of my kid, Slayton. Train him good. I'll be back in a couple of weeks to see how things are going."
"Count on it, Cole." Slayton said making it clear in the tone of his voice that he would take the job of training and protecting Alex seriously.
With all that needed to be said spoken he turned and headed back up the path to his bike, making a mental list of places where he could put the hurt on some people to get the information Marlowe wanted on this Daemonite Lord. All the while, though, a part of him had to wonder if this would be the last time he saw his son like this and if the next time they met Alex would be wearing a Stormwatch uniform.
It was a concern that bothered him all the way back to the city.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
One Week Later, Upstate New York, Early AfternoonMilitary boot camp is looking to be heaven right about now! Xander thought as he tried his best to perform the exercise as Mr. Slayton had laid it out for him.
As he felt the sweat pour down his face, he wished he could spare the concentration and the strength to wipe it off but he knew that if he did that one of the rocks he was currently using his powers to levitate and orbit around his head would waver. While he himself might not mind a little shakiness from the stones circling his head, he knew that his drill sergeant Eric Slayton, a.k.a Backlash, would come down on him like a ton of bricks for it. Snow Dome would either give him a serious lecture followed by doubling the difficulty of the next exercise or just plain double everything for a few days as punishment. Needless to say he just let the sweat drip and focused on keeping the rocks' orbit steady and the speed at which they orbited constant.
He knew the moment he started to slip in this exercise when he heard Eric leave his seat on a nearby tree stump. It was only when the guy stayed right where he was that things were actually going good. His theory was proven right when suddenly one of the rocks required a great deal more effort to move than it had a few seconds ago. Nevertheless, he did his best to keep it moving despite the hand like extra weight that had been added to it. However the unwanted passenger of the rock didn't seem to like the speed at which its ride was going and asked a friend to hop on to add a little more weight. Pushing his concentration even harder, he did his best to move the rock to where it needed to go despite the added difficulty but he knew that if he went too far he'd fail the exercise even more than he had by letting one of the rocks waver on its orbital path.
The purpose of the exercise was to both hone his stamina in using his telekinesis and fine tune his control at the same time by adhering to strict rules of flight path as well as speed. While he had no doubt that he could force the rock to continue on its path, he didn't think he had enough fine control to keep it at the speed Slayton had set for it. In all likelihood if he tried to force it, to put some real power into his T.K, it'd shoot off into the woods like a rocket stopping only when it met something it couldn't punch through. That, however, would only earn him more exercise pain from his drill sergeant so despite the urge he had to just overpower Backlash's grip on the rock, he kept at it with things at their current level. Like trying to see just how close to the edge of a table you can nudge a penny before it falls off to the ground he kept trying to get the rock to go where it had to go and move at a speed it needed to move.
C'mon… C'mon… C'mon! He thought, willing the stone to go where he willed it despite the force acting against both it and him, Get moving dammit!
Unfortunately that one moment of angry frustration was enough to get the amount of power he was putting into the exercise to spike leading to not only the rock Slayton had his hand on to shatter but all the other ones as well. It took him a second to realize this and, with a groan of both disappointment and dread, he watched them drop to the ground as piles of gravel.
"You lasted longer than last time Harris but you still failed." Slayton said stepping around in front of Xander and blocking the sun's rays, "You let your frustration and anger influence your abilities and this is the result. You wield a great deal of power young man and because of that you have to attain complete control over it or else you could wind up hurting or even killing someone by accident."
"You think I don't know that? You think I wanted this much power?" He asked angrily while doing his best to keep a firm grip on his abilities, "I would have been happy with getting just enough power to hold my own against one of those Black Razor guys or at least be as good as one of the WildC.A.Ts. Instead I wind up being the telekinetic/telepathic/whatever equivalent of a nuke and now I need to try and get a handle on it or I could wind up killing people just by thinking nasty thoughts about them. Trust me Mr. Slayton when I say I know exactly what my situation is."
For a moment Slayton just stood there and looked down at him as though he was waiting for something more to be said. Minutes passed and not a word was said between them but maybe that was because their eyes were conveying what they wanted to be said instead. For him it was a dead serious understanding that he was a danger to others and wound continue to be until he learned to get a handle on his powers. He imagined Slayton was trying to convey that he wasn't entirely convinced that his student understood that and was debating whether or not to continue with the exercises.
"Let's break for a late lunch then we'll move onto the close quarters combat training." Slayton declared and, without another word, began to walk in the direction of the log cabin.
Looking at the man like he would if Giles had offered to play a game of DOOM online with him, he stood there gaping for a few moments until he realized that any delay on his part might cause Backlash to think he wasn't hungry. With as much speed as his stiff and sore legs would allow him he got to his feet and proceeded to try and catch up with his instructor for the past week. The reason why his legs were sore as well as stiff was because they had been put through a ten mile jog earlier in the day and were still in the process of recovering. That was pretty much how every day started out except that it had started with a two mile jog and gone up from there every day until it reached ten this morning. Since the day his training under Eric Slayton began, it had stuck to the same routine over and over again with the only variation being the degree of difficulty.
The day started off with the jogging then went to breakfast before continuing with practicing with his telepathy by trying to keep Slayton out of his head. He had great incentive for this since what the guy tried to plant more often than not were the most annoying songs in all of existence, the worst ones being the Barney theme song and the second being Its a Small World. Offensive telepathy was usually just a role reversal with him trying to plant things in Backlash's mind or tap into one of the man's senses. He had asked about doing things like he'd seen in the X-Men comics like psi-bolts or a bit telepathic ventriloquism but Slayton had shot those down in a heartbeat. According to Snow Dome those would wait until he had displayed sufficient control in all the other areas that he could be trusted not to fry the receiver's brain by accident. So telepathy classes were kept to harmless little moves and defense exercises alone.
Once telepathy classes were over with they went on to trying to consciously activate what he had come to label his 'environmental precognitive' power. So far this ability had only turned on during times of high stress or physical trauma while staying in the 'off' position the rest of the time. For the most part, according to Slayton, the exercises were just to see if it could be turned on and off at will or if it was just something automatic that would only trigger if specific circumstances were met. So far the results were… sporadic at best with the ability sometimes activating when he wanted it to but all the other times remaining offline. Still, the mere fact that he could activate it some of the time meant that it was something he could attain control over if they worked at it. Given how hard it had been to get it to turn on the first few times, he knew it would probably be the last thing he'd manage to get a grip on.
Then came what he had been working on for the past two hours straight, which was control of his telekinetic abilities through exercises he was sure Slayton was copying from The Empire Strikes Back with Yoda and Luke on Dagobah. After all, the whole 'orbiting rocks' routine was a dead give away as far as he was concerned with the only original test being the weight limit of what he could levitate without bursting a blood vessel in his brain. So far they'd yet to really find an upper limit to how much he could lift but then again there wasn't exactly a great selection of objects for him to levitate out in the middle of nowhere. Still it was safe to say that there wasn't a boulder or tree within miles that he couldn't put fifty feet in the air. After that was usually when they broke for lunch and chatted a bit with Major LaSalle before moving onto C.Q.C training, which had really been his idea more than Slayton's idea. Unlike most people who got super powers, he had the smarts to know that if there was a way to get powers than there had to be a way to take powers away from people. So it was his desire to still be able to defend himself even if some science geek evil guy managed to take away his powers somehow and that had led to the hand-to-hand combat training. While that session usually left him sporting new bruises to accompany the old bruises he'd gotten the previous day, Slayton was saying that he was improving quite a bit each class.
He'd have to take Backlash's word for that.
The evenings he mostly had free since that time needed to be devoted to Major LaSalle's recovery from her nasty time in a coma with a part of her mind trapped inside of a Daemonite. So the evening was pretty much his recovery time, a time to lay back and relax, when he could enjoy the five bazillion channels on the TV that was in the HALO built cabin. That and a fully stocked fridge (although Slayton had cleared out the majority of the junk food. That JERK!) made for some pretty good R&R time all things considered.
Walking up the path to the cabin he spotted a foxy looking redhead in a white and black jacket, black shirt and jeans outfit that looked definitely too good to be legal. The only thing that kept him from going into his 'Bond, James Bond' mode was the fact that she was obviously a good eight or ten years older than him. Still, she was nice eye candy and if she decided to stick around for the close quarters combat training it would provide him with extra incentive not to get his ass handed to him too badly.
"Hey Slayton! Who's the kid? Your new cute boy sidekick or something?" The lady asked playfully, taking a few steps forward.
Cute!? She thinks I'm CUTE!? He thought with mixed feelings since 'cute' was not a word most guys wanted used in reference to them, but it was kinda good coming from the knockout in front of him.
"This is Xander Harris. He's the son of a friend that I agreed to train for a while." Slayton replied not giving away just who his dad was or what the training entailed, "Xander, this is Amanda Reed. She helped me find the… cure for Diane's condition. In return I've agreed to help her overcome some… legal difficulties."
"Well it'll be nice to have another bit of eye candy to look at besides blonde." Said his mouth before his brain could draft something a little more politically correct.
Silence hung in the air for a while and he was pretty sure his face was doing a good impression of a tomato at the moment as he began to wonder what kind of exercise punishment Backlash would come up with for that little slip of the tongue. His fears of reprisal were dispelled somewhat when Reed started to chuckle a bit and even Slayton seemed to be a little amused.
"I'll do my best to give you something nice to look at kid." Amanda said with a tone that while playful might have had a tint of honesty to it.
"Y-yeah…'kay I-I'll just go get something to eat. Yeah!" he said making his way towards the door of the cabin, "You guys catch up a-and stuff."
With that he walked as quickly as he could without looking too bad into the cabin to get a bite to eat wishing the entire time that there was some sort of training to control his mouth when in the presence of beautiful women.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
One Minute Later, Backlash's P.O.V"Cute kid. He's going to be a real heartbreaker once he gets his mouth under control." Amanda said as she watched with an amused smile as the boy entered the cabin.
"That and a few other things but your right. Once he gets a little more self-confidence and a lot more experience he'll definitely be something to look at." Eric Slayton stated looking at his student for the past week straight.
Although he would never tell the whole truth to anyone, what he saw in the kid was someone with the potential to become one of the super heavyweights of the hero scene. With training, time and a little guidance Xander could easily become ranked right up there with Majestic and Supreme. Mostly, though, it was because he could feel the kid getting stronger every day that he believed the boy would become something awe-inspiring someday. When Cole had come to drop the kid off, he had already known they arrived five minutes before they got off their bike. The kid put out so much psi-energy that anyone with a decent amount of sensitivity would be able to detect him coming and that was with the neuro-jam headband on his skull. That alone had been proof to him that the teenager needed to get a hold of his powers sooner rather than later, otherwise the kid would definitely get people killed one way or another.
As the days passed though he had felt the power in the kid grow even stronger.
It was like his power was a muscle and the more it was used and honed, the more powerful it would become. He truly had no idea if the kid's powers had an upper limit but he hoped it did. Don't get him wrong though, Xander was a pretty okay kid even if his father was Cole Cash, he liked the kid but he knew all too well what effect power can have on even the most decent of people. Given the kind of power he'd seen the boy exhibit so far he knew it'd start affecting the kid's judgment sooner or later because without barriers people find it hard to stay moral. It was why people like those in Waguard, currently locked up in cryo-tubes on Skywatch, went mad and became one of the greatest threats the Earth had ever known. Ask anyone who was a part of the effort to capture them and they'll say that God himself must have intervened on their behalf and given them the edge they needed. However instead of doing the smart thing and killing them while they had the chance the committee in charge of Skywatch decided on cryo-stasis. It was their decision that the Warguard be kept as a weapon of last resort
The fools.
However after meeting the kid and spending the last week with him he had made a silent promise to himself that he'd do all he could to make sure that Xander didn't lose it like Despot and the Warguard had when their powers grew too large. That was why he was so hard on the kid during their various training exercises, to emphasize the existence of limits and the need for restraint. The truth of the matter was that the kid was proving to be one of the best students he'd ever taught and that opinion was formed in only a week. The kid possessed a sort of military discipline that it usually took green recruits months to achieve and when asked how he came to have it Xander told him about his hometown of Sunnydale. To say that he was shocked that things long considered works of fiction were in fact real and walking among the people of Earth was an understatement.
Over the course of the past week the kid had let him in on the Hellmouth and what went on there but he could tell that there were certain facts that the kid was holding back. These facts were withheld not out of some kind of malevolent deceit but rather from a feeling of protectiveness for something or someone. That was enough to get him to leave that area question free and focus more on the demonic and supernatural threats that apparently existed in the world. It was through that discussion that Xander revealed the Halloween spell that for one night turned him into an army grunt of indeterminate rank and skill. This had gotten his interest piqued enough that he had put the kid through a few quick drills common in most military academies and training facilities.
It turned out that the kid hadn't been lying when he said that there was no rhyme or reason as far as what he did or didn't know about military procedure, protocol or skills. Aim wise the kid was a crack shot with just about every standard firearm but was a little more hit or miss with some of the more exotic hardware. Hand to hand combat he wasn't brilliant with but, while he could handle your average street tough, against a professional or someone on one of the Stormwatch teams he'd be out cold before his brain registered the first hit. Tactics were his real Achilles heel though, since the kid was more of a 'by the seat of my pants' kind of person when it came to coming up with a plan. While not entirely a bad thing, being unpredictable being the best benefit of that style of fighting, it would get him killed against a superior force. That was why he tossed the kid a few books on strategy and tactics when he thought the boy might actually read them. If he retained even a tenth of what was in those books it'd improve the teenager's chances of survival immensely. All in all the kid had a definite head start that most S.P.B recruits didn't have and that would be what would keep Xander's progress at its current level. The boy was proceeding along at a fairly decent clip, certainly better than most green recruits, and while he was still months away from being put on a Stormwatch team, Cole's kid would definitely break the record for the youngest graduate of Backlash's Boot Camp.
"Marc? Hey Slayton! You in there?" came Amanda's voice breaking him out of his thoughts and bringing him back to the real world.
"Sorry Reed. I was just thinking about Xander's training schedule for tomorrow." He replied as he shelved any further thoughts about Harris until tomorrow.
"Planning on making him drop and give you a million?" She asked humorously with a grin, "Don't be too hard on the kid. After all a girl can never get too many compliments."
"Maybe but he should be careful about who he gives those compliments to." He said with a grin of his own, "After all he might wind up with more than he can handle."
"Oh I'm sure you can give him a few pointers on that." Amanda said with a look on her face that was bordering on flirtatious.
"Hey Eric? You two coming in for lunch or what?" Diane asked from the doorway and there was no mistaking the look on her face right then.
Damn! Looks like I have some damage control to do now. He thought as he knew exactly what his girlfriend was probably thinking right then.
"If you're the cook you bet we are!" He said briskly walking to the front door of the cabin, "You coming Reed?"
"Sure. Could use a good meal." Amanda said with a look that spoke of angry disappointment.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
That Night, Xander's RoomOw! Ow! Ow and need I say OW! Thought Xander as he tried to find a semi-comfortable position to fall asleep in despite his numerous new bruises, Definitely gotta remind Backlash that this training and not actual combat!
It had been a particularly nasty bit of C.Q.C training after lunch and he had a feeling it had to do with the unexpected redhead afternoon guest trying a little too hard to piss off Diane without doing anything too obvious. It had taken him about two minutes into lunch to figure out the scenario he was stuck in the middle of and while a part of him had wanted to at least try to play peacemaker, his survival instinct tied that part of him up and shoved it into a mental closet. The part of him that had kept him alive in Sunnydale for the past three years knew that it would be suicide to try and get in between the two ladies or even provide support for Slayton when he inevitably tried to get in between them. After all the women were knockouts, both had an arsenal of words to use against each other and both of them were probably lethal enough to wipe out a decent sized town. Would any sane male want to get in between two such ladies?
Not A CHANCE!
Unfortunately the aftermath of lunch had left Eric in a bit of a grouchy mood that he channeled into his close quarters combat training session. That had, of course, led to a few more new bruises than usual and a few choice words about the Xan-man's lack of focus, despite the fact that the son of Cole Cash had done his best the entire time. It took three hours but eventually Slayton brought the training to a close and told him to hit the showers. For the first time since high school gym those last three words were a godsend to him and ones that he happily obeyed since being told to do that only meant that training was done for the day. Unfortunately the shower had to be much shorter than he would have liked but since hogging all the hot water would have led to an unpleasant confrontation with Diane LaSalle, he decided to play it safe.
That had led to a night in front of the tube watching the latest episode of the Simpsons and then catching three James Bond flicks back to back until midnight. He'd heard a few chuckles and contemptuous snorts from both LaSalle and Slayton during some of the way cool Bond moments but for the most part they stay focused either on each other or on the Major's physical rehabilitation. Good for them because he was three snorts and chuckles away from confronting them on dissing his favorite super spy. Oh, he knew that since they were both super duper spies that the stuff that double oh seven did probably seemed implausible or amateurish to them, but that still didn't give them the right to ruin his evening of R&R as far as he was concerned.
Now, though, his main problem was that his stupid body was not willing to let him go off to la-la land for the night on account of too many pain receptors were being lit off. That is what had prompted him to do what he was doing right now, which was trying to find a position in which the least amount of pain receptors possible were being triggered. Unfortunately he had a feeling he would have to spontaneously develop the super power of ultimate contortionist in order to pull that off. In the end he just gave up and settled into the position he normally went to sleep in figuring that fatigue would eventually drag him off to sleep despite the pain. He just hoped that it did so sooner rather than later or he was going to pay for it when the time came for Slayton's morning jogging session.
At least it can't get any worse…. He thought as his mind finally dragged him off to sleepy time.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Have you ever seen one of those movie previews where it starts out on this beautiful panning moment of some tropical forest with beautiful birds and wonderfully sunny sky? It goes on for a few minutes before all of a sudden there is an ominous booming sound that's half rumbling thunder and half shit load of explosives going off. The pace of the movie camera picks up until its practically flying until it clears a mountain range, one that had been pretty distant up until a few minutes ago, to reveal the mother of all battles. Like two colonies of ants going to war with each other, two opposing forces composed of large numbers clash in the battle to end all battles. For a moment the camera just hovers over the battle scene, making you think that you'll never be shown any close ups, then in the blink of an eye you're in the thick of things getting knocked from one point of view to another. In that instant you begin to recognize some of the combatants as people you call friend, some you call family and others you can just barely put names too at the moment.
Grifter.
Zealot.
The WildC.A.Ts.
Slayton.
Savant.
Stormwatch.
As well as a bunch of other people he didn't recognize and they were all fighting these guys decked out with some serious sci-fi hardware being ordered by a guy he decided to nickname Mr. Bic on account of his flaming skull head. It was a battle straight out of a big budget action film with well-choreographed fights and a well put together mass fight scene with none of the fighters tripping over each other by accident and ruining the effect. He knew, though, that this was no scripted out fight scene and that people really were getting hurt or killed on this battlefield, but with no knowledge of how it came about he had no other way of describing it. The battle raged around him and while he was not a part of it in the sense that he was not fighting, he could feel that it was not going well for those he called family and friends. Despite their valor and courage, they were simply too outnumbered and the leader of the enemy too powerful for them to easily overcome. Even the person he named Mr. Majestic didn't seem to be able to do much more than keep ol' propane puss occupied for a few minutes at a time before being blasted away. Desiring to do something, anything, to turn this battle back in favor of those who fought for the light, he pushed with all he had for the camera, his eyes he figured, to go where he wanted them to go rather than where the action was most potent. Like a person that had, up until that moment, been preoccupied with something else the camera that represented his eyes obeyed his commands and he panned it across the battlefield looking for some means of turning the tide in favor of the WildC.A.Ts and their allies. However, every direction he looked in he only saw the conflict, the fighting and the struggling of one side against another with no player being enough to change the course of the battle.
It wasn't until the view panned upwards a bit, away from the main battlefield, that he spotted something big and nasty. Shaped like a big black bird, he couldn't make out exactly what it was but it had a feeling of an agent of death about it causing a chill to run through him as he looked at it. At once he knew that this is what the combatants were fighting over and knew that without it the battle might actually come to a stop since there'd no longer be a prize to fight for. Willing himself to approach the dark shape sitting on the cliff above the battlefield, his plan was to get in close then put all his heart and soul into tearing that thing apart. If tearing it apart was not an option, he'd settle for scaring the thing off and getting it to makes its nest someplace else. Either outcome worked for him since it would put an end to the fighting for at least a little while.
However, just as he was about to touch down on his target, a malevolent force popped up out of nowhere and flung him backwards into the air. Willing himself to stop, he hung there mid-air wondering what the hell had shoved him away from the ship and the response he got was a cape wearing, humanoid shaped silhouette standing atop the black bird's back. It was laughing at him, laughing like it was amused by his amateurish plan, and standing beside him was a man and a woman whose defining features were hidden by shadow. Then, like water being absorbed into a sponge, they became one with the black bird and he instinctively knew that this was a bad thing. His feeling was proven true when he watched the WildC.A.Ts break through the enemy lines and make a mad dash for the ship, no doubt to stop whatever the horned monster man's plan was. However, as he watched them draw closer and closer to the bird, a feeling of almost paralyzing dread began to well up within him. Somehow he knew that if they went into that ship there'd be no coming out for any of them.
EVER.
With the speed of someone desperately trying to prevent their worst nightmare from coming to pass, he does all he can to keep the C.A.Ts, especially Zealot and Grifter, from entering the bird like horn head had just moments ago. Yet even though he knows he is going all out he never seems to be going fast enough and, in pain-driven moves, he cries out to them not to enter the bird. The others ignore him but Cole hears him and looks up at him with a questioning look on his face. That is apparently enough to cost him his seat on the black bird of death since almost immediately after Grifter looks up at him the black thing shaped like a bird began to rise into the sky. At first its pace was slow and anyone with flight capabilities could have easily caught up with it but then once it went past the fifty feet mark it shot upwards like a bullet. Not willing to lose even one person he considered to be a part of his heart, he willed himself to follow the rapidly-rising raptor. All the way he believed that if he could just get close enough, he could tear his friends and Zealot out of the bird before it was too late. Too late for what he couldn't say but with every mile of altitude the black form managed to gain in its ascent, he knew it was getting closer to something he would not be able to save anyone from. Harder and harder he pushes himself, to the brink of breaking himself in two, yet it is useless because no matter how hard he tried, he cannot close the gap between himself and the form carrying his mother.
Then it happens.
In the blink of an eye an explosion of light is released so intense that it blinds him completely.
Too bad he can't say the same about his other senses because, less than second after being blinded, he is feeling himself becoming enveloped in pain both physical as well as emotional. He screams, screams of loss and of terrible pain, and it is only when someone's hand grasps his own that it all vanishes.
However he knows, subconsciously, that this is only a brief reprieve because the pain will return soon.
This he knows.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Back in the Waking World, 5:15 a.m"Xander! Wake up! Wake up!" Slayton yelled as he tried to use his own psionic abilities to knock the kid out of whatever nightmare he was going through, "You've got to bring yourself under control!!"
"Aaahhhhh!" Xander exclaimed as he sat upright in bed like he'd had a bucket of cold water dumped on him.
That brought the excitement to an end and this was a good thing too since any more excitement and not only would the cabin have come crashing down but the psychic dampers place around the HALO property perimeter would have been unable to keep the kid's psi-energy from being detected by outside eyes. It had all started about hour ago, starting as nothing more than sounds of a restless sleep, but it grew to be more than that with every minute that went by until a storm erupted. A storm of psi-energy as potent as the emotions powering it and causing everything lighter than a pickup truck to be lifted and thrown around like so much crumpled up newspaper. It had taken just about everything he had to make it to Xander's room and get to his side in the hopes that he could wake the boy up. If one ignored the chaotic whirlwind of energy and destruction surrounding the kid, you would just assume he was having a normal everyday nightmare. The problem is that the son of Cole Cash was far from normal and with the amount of psi-power at his disposal, the nightmare is able to manifest itself in the real world as well as inside Xander's mind.
Tapping into his own psi-powers as well as the mojo that he shared with the other members of Team 7, he had fought his way into Harris' mind in an effort to dispel the nightmare from within. It was like trying to move in a wind tunnel with the fans going full tilt but, bit by bit, he managed to make it to where the kid's mind was and make contact. However the moment he did make contact he experienced exactly what Xander was going through and it nearly shattered his concentration. Pain. Unbridled primal pain that was both physical and emotional in nature. Reflexively he withdrew from the kid and broke contact in order to re-establish his focused state. Once back in control he had then gone with another means of getting the kid out and one that was probably not too pleasant for the kid. Lashing out mentally with one of his psi-whips, he wrapped one around the kid's arm and yanked for all he was worth taking them back to the waking world.
That pretty much summed up the last twenty minutes, but now with the crisis over with he began to wonder if it'd really be possible for the kid to bring his powers under control. What the boy had displayed was power on a level he'd never seen before and that was when the kid was asleep. Chaotic and undirected, that power had almost taken the cabin apart and also sent up a big psi-sign for everyone to see, telling them where to find their lost Omega level seedling. If it had not been for the psi-dampers Marlowe had set up around the property's perimeter, anyone looking for the boy would have known exactly where to find him. So much power at the fingertips of someone barely old enough to drive and so naïve as far as how the world really worked, even with his knowledge of demons, vampires and magic the boy is still innocent of the uglier things that exist in this world: the Miles Craven's, the Daemonites, the Warguard and dozens of other threats that would send the public into a frenzied panic if they were to become aware of them. Which way would the boy turn when he finally saw the world as it truly was and what choice would he make as to what side he would be on?
I guess I'll just have to hope that my training and the stubbornness he probably inherited from Grifter will be enough to keep the final sanction from ever having to be employed. He thought as he began to calm the kid down and give him an edited review of what had happened.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
One Week Later, MorningWhat have I become? Xander asked himself as he looked out at the forest laid out before him.
It was a question he found himself asking more and more since that night seven days ago when he almost demolished everything around him, including Slayton and LaSalle. He had known from the moment he had woken up in the hospital in Oxnard that he had been changed somehow, that he was different from how he was before, but the full meaning of the change had never really sunk in. He had just told himself that now he was more like Buffy, still human but with some upgrades added on, but without the 'destiny' part attached. Even when the WildC.A.Ts had told him that he had quite a bit of power at his disposal he had never really comprehended what that meant. It was only during the training sessions with Slayton that he had begun to understand what everyone was talking about when they said he had power now. However, even then, he figured that he was just another person in the crowd, nothing special or extraordinary, just one more warrior in training.
After what happened that night, he knew he could no longer afford to think like that if he truly wanted to gain control over his new abilities. He had to accept the fact that he was no longer a member of a support team but more a player in his own right with all the responsibilities that entailed. One such responsibility was learning to control his abilities to such a degree that the possibility of anything happening with then that was not done according to his will was virtually impossible. He would have to train more strictly and with more focus than he ever had before until he could not only meet the expectations of Slayton but surpass them seven times out of ten. From there on out he intended to beat any goal set by him by setting new ones that were twice as difficult if at all possible. He'd do it because he didn't want his powers to control him, but to be the one to control them instead.
He'd do it because he didn't think he'd be able to live with himself if someone got seriously hurt or died because of these powers Fate seemed willing to drop in his lap all of a sudden.
"Hey there Slayton junior! What's with the doom and gloom look?" Came a familiar voice that he'd heard off and on since the first day they met.
Turning around, he saw Amanda Reed walking up to the boulder he'd plunked himself down on from the path leading up to the main highway. While he couldn't exactly call her a friend, the one thing he could be certain of was that with her around things were definitely going to be a lot more exciting than before. Unfortunately that excitement tended to come in the form of yelling matches with Diane LaSalle and not so subtle flirting with Slayton. Reed is definitely not a woman who was afraid to speak her mind and use her feminine wiles to get what she wanted. Needless to say he hoped that she and Faith never wound up meeting each other because, if they did, the color of his skin would be Willow-red for weeks.
"Just thinking about the future, Red Reed." He said deciding to shift things to the funny before she decided to play shrink, "Like what I'm going to call myself when I get a costume an' all. Any ideas?"
"Hmmmm… Backlash Junior?" She asked tentatively with a raised eyebrow.
"Nothing with 'junior' in it. It'll just lead to more trouble down the line when I go independent." He replied half seriously and half humorously.
"Drifter?" She suggested, obviously playing on the fact that his dad's hero name is Grifter.
"Nnnnnnnah! A grifter is someone who scams people for personal gain. A drifter is just some bum that goes from town to town with nothing but the clothes on his back." He said, not entirely opposed to the name but definitely looking for something better.
"Well what about Mindsight? After all you're telepathic right? And you have that telekinetic stuff, oh, and then there's your ability to see into the future." Reed said sounding like she was actually putting some thought into this rather than just playing around.
"Not bad, definite possibility, but let's keep going and see what we come up with." He said actually liking the way that codename sounded for the most part.
"What about Foresight?" She suggested with a look that her opinion of that name was high, "After all that's what one of your abilities can do and it could be used to describe your telepathy too."
Of all the names she had to come up with! He thought as the redhead unwittingly stumbled upon the name Dr. Sing had given the project that had given birth to him, I'll be damned before I use that name in reference to myself!
"Well I'm sure you'll think of something, but 'til then how about you ditch classes for today and come into town with me?" She asked indicating with a jerk of her head the motorcycle she'd come here on, "We'll grab a bite to eat and then spin by the local comic shop and see if the nerds have any good ideas."
"Hey! We prefer the term 'coolness challenged' if you don't mind!" He said with his jester voice, "Still, I'm not sure it'd be worth the hour lecture Slayton'll probably give the both of us when we get back."
"Don't worry! He's so dead set on giving his 'girlfriend' a workout I doubt he'll even miss us." Amanda said dismissively with a little venom in her description of Major LaSalle, "I even think they have some kind of romantic dinner thing planned this evening so we'll be doing them a favor."
If the champagne in the refrigerator is any hint she's probably right about the romantic evening. He thought, remembering what he spotted earlier when he was getting a breakfast together after getting out of bed.
"Well I suppose one day off wouldn't hurt and if it helps out Slayton then I'm all for it." He said getting to his feet, "But you're the one who's going to explain things to Slayton when we get back."
"I don't think that'll be a problem." Reed said in a puzzling tone that he couldn't quite place.
That said, the two of them walked back to the motorcycle parked at the top of the path near the highway and took off for the nearest city.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Late Evening, Next to the Cabin"Man! What a day!" Xander crowed as he slid off Reed's motorbike with plastic bag in hand.
Spending the day with Reed was definitely preferable to another of drill sergeant Slayton's full day workout sessions, even if he was going to pay for it later. He knew that the second that Eric laid eyes on him, he was in for one helluva lecture followed by at least three days of the most painful training he could conceive of. Still, it had been worth it because Amanda, or Taboo as she sometimes asked him to call her, was an absolute BLAST to be with when she had a mind to have fun. The field trip started out with seriously nerve racking motorcycle ride into town where he was certain Reed's mission had been to get him to piss his pants from the way she was driving. Fortunately, after having to endure a ride on MIRV with Jacob Marlowe at the wheel had given him a pretty high tolerance for death defying rides.
From there it had been a little brunch before taking in a flick at the local cinema before following through on her earlier promise of spinning by a comic book shot to see if any of the local geeks could come up with a half decent codename. Esper, Alexander and Foresight were some of the better names that came up but there was one he couldn't help but groan at which unfortunately got Reed intrigued enough to drag the origin story out of big time. Naturally it had been some mousy blonde that, only minutes before, he'd tossed a few dollars on the counter so she could buy a model kit she'd been desperate to buy. The girl had suggested the name White Knight, since he had done in her mind a chivalrous deed and that he certainly looked like he could pass himself off as one with the right costume. He'd explained to Reed, more or less, that he'd been given the nickname by an enemy back in Sunnydale because he had been willing to possibly die to protect someone he cared for and because of his somewhat rigid code of honor. Of course she'd had a few minutes of fun fitting in that nickname or some variation of it for the rest of the afternoon. Fortunately when he'd snapped at her particularly harshly, she'd gotten the hint and stopped trying to have a good life at his expense.
They'd grabbed a bite to eat and were about to head home when Reed had insisted that they take one last spin back to the comic book shop. According to her she'd seen something in the store that was being offered as top prize in a lottery of some kind and she wanted to see if she'd won. Remembering vaguely that there had been a rather popular drawing going on and deciding he owed her something for snapping at her like he had, he agreed to go along for the ride. When they'd arrived it turned out to be Taboo's lucky day because she had indeed won the grand prize, but when the owner of the place put it on the counter he couldn't help but look back and forth between Reed and the prize. It was a stylish variation on the helmet worn by intergalactic bounty hunter Boba Fett of Star Wars fame. It was more or less the same design-wise but it was clear that whoever made it had taken a few artistic liberties with it. For one thing it was more form fitting in the sense that it was obviously designed to wrap a little tighter around the head of the wearer. Another was the color scheme that was primarily black where the green in Boba Fett's helmet would be and the coal colored part where the actor wearing the Mandalorian helmet would see through was now a dusty sort of metallic red. As for the parts that were usually red on Fett's helmet they were made to be a dark grey color and that kept him from labeling it a Sith Mandalorian's helmet. There was no weird looking antenna on the side but, according to the owner, the Star Wars fan that had designed the helmet had claimed you could have a walkie talkie like radio installed in the side if one wanted one. All in all it was pretty impressive, especially since it was made of real durable-feeling metal rather than plastic and foam like he'd expected. Apparently the person who made this was a serious fan of the movie series and had wanted to make a completely realistic helmet that could actually take something of a beating in a fight. Xander couldn't argue with the shop owner there because, from his personal experience with fighting close up, he knew that something this tough would definitely be able to take a few solid hits before showing any damage.
He'd waited until they were back at the cycle before he'd asked Reed how exactly she'd won the helmet and she said that there had just been a slip of paper and a question to answer. When she didn't elaborate further he'd prodded her by saying that the question must have been tough for it to be used in a draw like that. She'd tried to brush it off as just a bit of good luck but when he had given her 'yeah and I have a bridge to sell you look', she'd caved but only if he promised not to tell anyone else. After making the promise, he'd learned that back when she had been in jail there had been a seriously small collection of reading material to choose from where she was being kept. Due to the person in charge of supply requisitions being a complete Star Wars fanatic, a large portion of the prison library had been material connected to the movie. So stuck between a collection of law books and Star Wars material, she'd gone with the latter, believing it'd only be slightly less boring. By the time Slayton had come along with the promise of helping her clear her name, she swore she had to have read every single one of the books at least ten times, so most of the facts were committed to memory whether she liked it or not. For a moment he had been tempted to needle her for a while about being brainwashed into being a fan of the Force, but decided that he wasn't that mean and it was getting late.
From there they'd gotten about halfway back to the cabin before Reed pulled into a gas station along the way to fill up the bike. He'd taken the opportunity to slip in and grab a two liter of pop and some chips, figuring that it might soften the lecture he'd get from Backlash later if he came bearing gifts. True, he figured that Slayton would probably have preferred beer but seeing as how he wasn't a fan of the stuff and he doubted the man at the cash register would let him buy it, he went with the next best thing. From there things had taken a turn for the weird when Reed all of a sudden suggested that he take the bike by himself and head back to the cabin. When he'd inquired as to why, she said that she didn't feel like walking in on the lovebirds and felt like walking the rest of the way. A perfectly logical answer but something had told him that there was more to it than that, but without something more to work with he couldn't think of a single reason to stick around. So with a roar of a powerful engine and no cops in sight, he had torn off back to the cabin as fast as he felt he could safely drive without killing himself.
That had pretty much brought him to where he was now, two hours and one speeding ticket later next to the cabin. Naturally, he wouldn't tell Slayton that he'd 'borrowed' some cash from his wallet before heading out with Reed or that he had been caught doing nearly twice the speed limit on his way back. After all, that'd just be a needless distraction to his trainer and it'd be better to put it to use in tomorrow's workout regimen. However, as he walked up to the front of the cabin, he noticed something kind of odd all things considered, considering he was expecting both LaSalle and Slayton to be asleep in bed together by this point in the evening. At least he'd prefer that they be asleep in bed at the moment rather than, say making loud love to one another thus keeping him up for a couple of hours. Catching his mind before he went too far, he shook his head to clear it of any images that would plague him, like Snyder in leather, and opened the door to go inside. What he found only got his paranoia senses buzzing louder as he noticed an unfinished meal on the table by the window, what looked like an unopened wedding ring box and from what he could tell a cabin deserted of all but him.
Not the most promising opening scenario that's for sure. He thought to himself as he put his bags down by the door and proceeded carefully towards the bedrooms, Still not 'red alert' worthy just yet.
Doing his best to remain all stealthy, he crept closer to the door of the bedroom he knew that LaSalle and Slayton usually slept in. Focusing on his hearing, he listened carefully for any sign that there was someone in the room or hopefully two people since two would be normal but one would be decidedly abnormal. Unfortunately either super hearing was not included in his design or there really was no one in the room to hear period. That led him to tentatively try to use his telepathy to sense if there were any minds in the room sleeping or otherwise. Fortunately for him this was pretty easy since it only required that he touch their minds without actually doing anything to those minds once contact was made. He wouldn't even be reading their surface thoughts but instead merely sensing neural activity consistent with a living being. It was one of the things Slayton had him randomly do from time to time before or after one of their training sessions. He would close his eyes and then like a ghost (which considering Backlash's mist power was a distinct possibility) Eric would vanish and it'd be up to him to locate him without the former I.O/Stormwatch member knowing it. While he hadn't quite managed the 'without the target knowing it' part, he had been able to find Slayton seven times out of ten and that, according to him, was pretty impressive. Nevertheless, though, his telepathy picked up nothing in the room consistent with human thought or any other kind of mind for that matter. A quick scan of his own room quickly determined that they weren't in there by mistake, which meant his earlier assumption that he was the only one in the cabin was accurate.
Okay! Situation definitely getting wiggy! He thought as he tried to come up with a plausible explanation for this odd turn of events.
His first idea was that LaSalle and Slayton had just gone out and lost track of time, but if that was the case he knew that Slayton would have left a note of some kind. Looking about in all the places where he figured the military man would leave such a note for him to find, he found nothing that hadn't been there already when he'd left for his introspective thinking session earlier in the day. His next theory was still that the two lovebirds had gone out and simply lost track of time, but considering that it was almost midnight and there was no sign of them put the kibosh on that idea. Even allowing for some hanky panky, he doubted they'd do the real serious stuff out in the woods when they had a comfy bed waiting for them right here. True, they may have taken him into consideration, but that would more than likely have them checking into a local hotel and that would still have warranted a note being left for him. Deciding that it was time to be a little nosy, he went over to the answering machine by the phone to see if any suspicious messages had been left.
"Slayton this is Amanda. I know this is probably a bad time… but Cyberjack said I could always call on you if I was in trouble. Well, I am and in a big way." Came Amanda's worried voice from the answering machine, "Look I know you're probably a bit mad that me and Xander went off on our own but the kid looked like he really needed something to take his mind off things. Anyway, we were on our way back when he noticed someone trailing us from town. I sent the kid on ahead hoping that they'd leave him be and it looks like they have, but I think I'm going to need some backup so please head out to the gas station about an hour out of town on the main highway okay? Please hurry Eric."
Amanda's in trouble! That was why she said I could take the bike back! He thought in shock as he replayed the vents in his mind, She probably made this call after I left and that was over two hours ago!
Could this have been the reason for Slayton being missing along with LaSalle? Possible, but not likely since he knew that Marlowe kept some pretty swift vehicles here that would make the motorbike he rode look like a snail by comparison. If Backlash had gotten this message, he would have taken off after Reed like a rocket, even if he was having dinner with Diane at the moment. While he had no doubt that the guy really liked the Major, he also knew that the man took paying back his debts seriously. There was no way he'd leave Taboo high and dry just to continue an 'interesting' night with his girlfriend. So, seeing as how the throw down had probably happened not long after he left and Red and White hadn't made it back before him, odds were that Backlash hadn't heard this message.
Seeing that there was one more recording, he tapped a button to listen to it, hoping that it would provide him with an idea of where Slayton and LaSalle were right at that moment.
"Marc? Look I know you probably don't want me contacting you like this, what with the warrant still out on you, but something's come up. Something BIG," came a voice he remembered belonging to Ms. Pale in Pink from Oxnard, "I need to meet with you right away. It's not safe discussing this over the phone. Meet me at Battalion's place in two hours. Please be on time."
With that the message ended and Xander found it leaving him two possible sources of trouble, both indicating some serious trouble was coming down the line. He didn't know where Slayton was at the moment, but he knew that when the former member of Skywatch got back to the cabin decisions were going to be made in a rush one way or another. The decision he had to make was: what was he going to do? He knew that the second Marc got fully briefed on the situation he'd likely try and plunk him down with a friend or acquaintance appropriately in the know but not likely to come under fire any time soon. That option, of course, was going to get vetoed immediately by him since there was no way he was going to get stuck on the sidelines while Reed was in danger and a potential apocalypse was taking form for the spandex wearing crowd. He'd try at first to persuade Backlash that it'd be easier to just take him along rather than make him stay out of harm's way and if that didn't work he'd do his level headed best to follow the snow haired guy while being annoying every step of the way. After all, Slayton struck him as the kind of guy that liked to stay invisible until the last possible moment and that meant that having him making enough racket to wake the dead would be a serious problem for him.
A problem, of course, that could be solved by giving in and letting him come along.
So with that in mind he went inside and began to suit up in his demon fighting gear, including the pair of VAD PP-30 pistols that he figured Cole had slipped into his bag when no one was looking. With a sword, shotgun, two Desert Eagles and two VAD PP-30 pistols he'd be ready for just about anything shy of an actual army of goons. If that happened, though, he'd have the smarts to either send up an S.O.S to anybody of a mind to save his ass or run like an army of Snyder's was after him.
From start to finish it took him about ten minutes to slip, strap or buckle everything on and it was then that an idea popped into his head when he spotted the helmet that Reed had won for him. He knew that his face was probably on the top ten list of every major law enforcement and S.P.B team in the world by now and that one of Slayton's arguments was probably going to center around that particular issue. After all, if he was going to get involved in some potentially world-ending trouble, it would only make things worse if their 'allies' in Stormwatch spotted him. Also letting whoever the bad guys were get a good look at his mug probably wasn't a great idea either since it'd just add one more enemy to list of ones he had already. So what all that meant was that he had to figure out a way to conceal his face from unworthy eyes and, if he was right, the helmet that looked like a modernized version of a Mandalorian helmet would do just that.
It just needs a slight touch up to make it perfect. He thought as an image of the finished product appeared in his mind.