Thank for the review! This chapter focuses on a few characters I've neglected a bit and still ends up the longest on record. Hope people like!

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Cable stood in front of the screen for a few moments, watching Bobby and Rogue. He wondered if he had ever been as young as they were. He supposed he must have been, yet all he could remember was being with Sinister and the Marauders. Sinister had told him that the X-Men failed to understand the way the world worked, that they needed to be taught to act differently. But as he looked at the pair, the way they sat close to each other, the simple comfort they took from hand holding, he saw a kindness and affection that he'd never seen in the Marauders. Weren't those the qualities the world should have?

Cable pushed the thoughts away. Such speculation was dangerous. He opened the door to the cell. "Mister Sinister wishes to see you."

Bobby and Rogue got to their feet and looked at him with disdain. "Your parents would be ashamed of you,"Rogue told him.

Cable was shocked at the declaration. "You knew my parents? Who were they?"

It was Rogue's turn to be surprised. "You don't know?"

"They were called Scott Summers and Jean Gray,"Bobby explained. "They were X-Men, like us."

"X-Men." Cable considered this, wondering why his parents had followed such a flawed ideology. "You protect the weak."

"We protect those that need it,"Bobby agreed.

"But if the weak survive, the world becomes weak. And yet there are so many of them and so few of us. And they hate us, seek to destroy us."

"Some do,"Rogue admitted. "There are people who hate mutants, who want to kill them. There are some that are afraid of them, that want to pretend they don't exist or want them to stay away. But that doesn't mean we should destroy all other humans." She took Bobby's hand. "Our families couldn't handle the fact we were mutants. But we don't want them punished because of it."

"Then you are a mutant?"Cable asked. "The way you spoke before…"

Rogue sighed. "I don't know what I am. All I know is I'm an X-Man and I believe in the same things they do."

"Cable." Cable turned at the voice to find Sinister standing behind him. "Why are you taking so long? I did not instruct you to speak with the prisoners."

Cable bowed his head. "My apologies, Mister Sinister."

"No matter. I am here now. Leave us." He beckoned to the other two. "Follow me."

Bobby and Rogue hurried after Sinister down the corridor, while Cable headed in another direction. "Why doesn't he know who he is?"Rogue asked.

"You would have me tell him he was grown in a laboratory?"Sinister asked. "He's happy as he is. He has learned the truth."

"Your version of it, maybe,"Bobby snorted. "But how did you make him? Scott's body…"

Sinister smiled. "Is right here." He led them into a laboratory and pulled out a pallet. On it lay Scott Summers.

Bobby stared in shock. "We thought…we thought there was nothing left of him. Is he..?"

"Oh, he's quite dead. But no matter how much Phoenix had affected her, Jean couldn't bring herself to destroy every last trace of the man she loved. She buried him. And that gave me the opportunity to retrieve him and preserve his body. A rich source of genetic material. I always wondered about him and Jean, about the child they would have. How powerful a mutant that child would be. When death prevented them from having a child, I decided to fulfill that potential myself. Cable is that child. A second generation mutant. One of the most powerful ever to exist."

Rogue shook her head. "That's sick."

"No. That's progress. It's also not what I wanted to discuss. There is much I need you to understand if you are to convince the X-Men to follow my ways."

Kitty stood as close to Gambit as she could get without violating his personal space as he rummaged in a sideboard in Rita's sitting room. She suspected he wasn't actually looking for anything, it was just an excuse not to look at her. Warren and Jubilee were standing by the door but both of them seemed happy to leave the talking up to her. "Look, Remy, I need you to work with me here,"she insisted. Gambit gave no indication he was listening. "We need you onside. If you know something about Sinister, then tell us. And if you don't know anything, that's fine too. Just come along and throw some exploding playing cards at him. But we need you with us."

Gambit seemed to abandon the pretence and look at her. "You don't." He swept out of the room, passing Warren and Jubilee as he did so.

"Let us be the judge of that,"Kitty replied, hurrying after him, the other two falling into step behind her. "Remy, please, help us…"

"I love you!"Jubilee called.

Gambit stopped and turned round to look at her. Kitty and Warren did the same. Jubilee looked self-conscious at suddenly being the centre of attention but she took a few steps forward and stood in front of Gambit. She took a deep breath. "I love you,"she repeated quietly.

Gambit smiled and took her hand. He raised it to his lips and kissed it. "Come on,"he said, leading her back into the sitting room.

Warren looked at Kitty in shock. "Did you know about that?"

"No,"she admitted. She nodded in the direction the pair had gone. "We'd better check on them."

Gambit and Jubilee were sitting opposite each other. Gambit gently ran a finger through her hair. "Have I ruined everything?"she asked.

He smiled at her. "No, cherie. You've made an old man very happy."

"You're not old,"Jubilee insisted.

"When you hear my story, you might change your mind." He looked round to see Kitty and Warren hovering in the doorway. "Come in. You should hear this too."

The other two came in and sat near them. "What do you know about Sinister?"Kitty asked.

"What do you know?"Gambit responded.

"We know that he's old. A hundred years."

"Yes. Born into a different age. One that was just beginning to understand the way genetics shape human life. Mutants were rarer then. Nathaniel Essex was one of the few. Perhaps that's why it happened, why it affected him so much."

"What?"Warren asked, although he feared the answer.

"His son died. When he was a few months old. A birth defect. Essex thought that his work in genetics could stop it happening again. He experimented on himself and his wife, strengthening their genetic structure. He hoped to have another child, one genetically perfect. When his wife became pregnant again, he thought his prayers would be answered."

"Were they?"Kitty asked.

"Both his wife and child died in childbirth. With her dying breath, she denounced what she called his sinister experiments. It was perhaps his last link with humanity gone. He became those sinister experiments. He made himself stronger, more powerful. And less and less human. He ceased to be Nathaniel Essex, the loving husband and father, and embraced the role of Mister Sinister."

"That's horrible,"Jubilee murmured.

Gambit nodded. "Yes. It is. It's what loneliness, losing everything you care about, can do to a person. What it did to me. I left my life, my wife behind…I had nothing. Until I met Sinister."

There was a tense silence. "What happened?"Warren asked.

"He asked me to put together a team for him. The Marauders. He paid well so I didn't really care what he wanted them for. I sought out the most vicious and violent mutants I could find and brought them to Sinister, made him a team of monsters. There was an island that was a haven for mutants. Two hundred of them. Sinister considered them weak, believed that their continued existence would detract from mutants' rise to supremacy. So he and the Marauders went to the island and killed them. All of them. The whole community. Men, women and children." He hung his head in shame. "All because I was too blinded by the money he offered to me to think about what I was selling in return. Perhaps that's why I help Rita, help places like this. To try and make up for what I did."

Jubilee slid out of her chair and kneeled in front of him. She lifted his face and gently kissed him on the lips. Then she put her arms round him and held him.

Kitty leaned forward as well, until she was almost as close to him as Jubilee was. "Do you know anything about what Sinister's doing now?"she asked.

"There's a warehouse on the edge of town. Rumour is…there's something there. That it's been changed into a fortress. I think that's where Sinister is. But what he's doing there…"

Kitty stood up, Warren doing the same. "We'd better get down there,"she decided.

"Call the other X-Men first,"Warren suggested. "Let them know what's going on."

"Jubilee, you coming?"Kitty asked.

Reluctantly, Jubilee released Gambit. "You three bring your uniforms?"Gambit asked.

"Of course,"Kitty replied.

"Give me a few minutes to get changed." He smiled at her. "Got to look the part."

Sinister led Rogue and Bobby out of his main laboratory into a side room. There, they found a large glass object, oval in shape. The inside was partially obscured by smoke, with a thick liquid coating the lower part, bubbling as if undergoing some sort of reaction. "What is it?"Bobby asked.

"A virus,"Sinister answered. "One that will change the world."

"What will it do?"Rogue asked.

"Kill people."

"Who?"

"Anyone. Everyone. Unless I order it not to. I've spent many decades searching the world, tracing the development of mutant genes. Waiting for a time when I can build a new society. This virus will be ready soon and when it is, I will release it and the world will finally be cleansed of weakness. But it won't kill me. Or you."

Bobby and Rogue froze at the last comment. "Us?"Rogue repeated.

"Of course. That's why I had Cable take the blood samples from you. The virus is programmed with your genetic code, it won't affect you. I couldn't allow such valuable DNA to go to waste. I have programmed the virus only to spare the most powerful of mutants, the elite who will form a new, stronger society. Everyone else? By my estimate, they will be dead within two months. And then the strong will inherit the earth. You and me. Do you not see how much this will benefit the world?"

"You've convinced us,"Bobby confirmed. "You've convinced us you're exactly the sort of person the X-Men were formed to fight. The sort that decides one type of person is the only type that deserves to live and wants to kill all the rest."

For a moment, Sinister's face contorted into a snarl. Then he controlled himself. "Then I'm afraid the two of you will have to remain imprisoned until it is too late for you to do anything. When you X-Men see the new world, you'll want to be a part of it. And if you don't…I already have your genes. I can do whatever I like with them, create a new race of mutants just as strong as you. And those who fail to grasp the reality of things can just rot."