The Cale Storyline Redux Story 2 Chap 5

Attention: Generation X and their villains, as well as any other mutant mentioned in this story, is property of Marvel Comics. The character Richard Cale is named after family relations. Any other reference to anything copyrighted is a chance happening.

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Truth Be Told Redux

Chapter 5: Angelo's Story (Audio)(Original)

I had just pulled Yvette to safety. Jono and I had been in the back, and had been watching both Richard and her. In that brief moment, as I got her, Richard disappeared in the darkness of the woods. At first I thought maybe I had missed him being struck. With all those tendrils Tom had, it was very possible.

I realized that Richard was still active when the tendrils start falling, like they had been cut. Richard must have been slashing them. The actions weren't going unnoticed by Tom. He just didn't understand what was happening. He was looking about, trying to find Richard, and obviously confused about what was happening when he said, "What in Samhein?"

He wasn't the only one, since as Tom tried to find Richard, I heard Sean say in a slightly groggy voice. "What's going on?" I glanced at him, and saw him looking around, trying to figure out what was going on. "And where is Skitz?"

Yvette had spoke up before any of us could, and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that heard some fear in her voice. “He’s fighting him, sir. When I got hit, I heard him scream in our mind link. He didn’t like seeing me get hurt.” I noticed then that she was rubbing her side, right where she had been hit.

I returned my eyes to where the fight had to be, and saw a few more of the tendrils get cut. "Judging by how those tendrils are going down, I don't think Skitz is going to let your cousin succeed." I would have said more, but I had to shield my eyes from a sudden bright light.

It turned out that Black Tom had made himself generate light, like the plants in dark areas. What it did, other than illuminate the area, was it made a living shadow appear in front of him. It was Richard, and he was recovering from the sudden light. My sight had recovered enough so I could see that his eyes were covered.

It was then that Black Tom started to reach for Richard, saying "Now I have ye. One problem gone in just a moment, and then I'll take care of the rest of yur brats, cousin.” I then noticed that the hand reaching for Richard was starting to glow. While I didn’t know Black Tom’s abilities, I had a feeling that what was going to happen was linked to it.

I heard Sean shout to Richard, “Watch out, lad.” It was a moot point, however, since Richard had already reacted. I’m guessing that when Richard had Yvette’s powers, he had a fast recovery time. He was also now easier to see, since along with his brown eyes, his one hand was outlined in red. There had also been another scream in the air.

I noticed at that point that Black Tom was now holding his arm, and it was him screaming. There were red lines along the arm being held, which told me that Richard took a swipe at Black Tom.

What unfolded after that I could not do full justice to in describing. I had seen things similar to that during some altercations in the hood, but none were as gruesome. In fact, when things happened, only one voice said anything. It was Yvette’s, and all she could say was, “My God.”

I will try to do it justice, though. While it was gruesome, it had a strange beauty to it. Jono had been the next one to remark as Richard started to react to Black Tom preparing to strike. Richard first swung his left hand, and followed swiftly with his right hand. It was when Richard followed those strikes with a backwards somersault, showing that his shoes were ruined by his now clawed feet, and those feet struck Black Tom as well. I think we all heard Jono in our minds saying, “Bloody hell!” It coincided with Black Tom falling to his knees.

Richard landed on his feet, and lunged forward with a head butt. With his hair spiked up like Yvette’s when she is using her powers, it was obvious to all what the outcome was going to be. I think I was the only one not to avert my eyes. I’m sure everyone then heard the two thuds, but I saw it. The top part of Black Tom’s body flew back off his torso, and hit the ground. The torso, however, just dropped to the ground. That wasn’t the end of the carnage, though. Richard lunged forward and went at both halves of Black Tom with his claws. It was almost like watching a food processor at work. In almost a minute, there was almost nothing left of Black Tom.

It was at that moment that Richard finally stopped, and started turning back to normal. The guy was literally covered in Black Tom’s blood. I’m guessing that it was that moment in which Yvette’s ability started leaving him. I still don’t fully understand his power, but since she had been knocked back but Black Tom, it had to be in the process of leaving him. Mind you, his clothing was a wreck, since we didn’t really get into our special uniforms.

We all approached him slowly, which was understandable with all he had just done. Richard was looking around, almost like he had no idea how he had gotten in the state he was in. Hell, I saw the look on Richard’s face at that moment. I’d seen it on a few people back where I was from. It was the look someone so loyal to someone, or something, had after they did what they needed to do to defend them. It was almost as if the person went into a trance.

I was about to say something when Richard’s face changed. It went from no remorse to a fit of sadness. Richard started crying, and fell to his knees, saying “What have I done?” It just so happened that at the spot he had fallen to his knees was the only thing left of Black Tom, a part of his face.

Sean was the first to say something, placing a comforting hand on Richard‘s shoulder. I noticed it didn‘t really stop Richard‘s sobs. I actually didn‘t expect it to, since from the way he spoke, this was the first time he actually killed someone. Still, Sean tried to say the right words. “You might have done the world a favor, lad, and saved all our lives.”

The way Richard kept sobbing, I don‘t think the words comforted him. He was even stuttering. “B-b-b-but I-I-I k-k-killed h-h-him.” The rest was a bit hard to make out, but I kind of figured what it was. Richard knew he didn‘t need to kill Black Tom, but did it none-the-less. No doubt, it was the feelings Richard had for Yvette that drove him.

I moved forward, and I had a feeling why he did what he had. I just thought it might be better not to outright say it. So, I decided to try and make it sound reasonable. "Dude, he was threatening all our lives, and yours at that moment. You fought in self-defense."

When Richard shook his head in disagreement, I wasn't surprised. He knew why he acted like he did, and the only one who blamed him was himself. "I didn't fight in self-defense. I fought in rage. I lost control of my temper, and that man paid for it." The guy was about to break into another fit of sobs.

I think it was the best thing at that moment for Yvette to go over a put an arm around him, while keeping her eyes focused on his face. “You were worried about me, and were protecting me. When you thought he had injured me, you reacted in the same way I might have if he had hurt you.” She then helped him stand up, as Sean placed his jacket over Richard. I saw Richard still trembled a little as we started to head back to the school.

As we all headed back in, Jono, who had remained relatively quiet during the whole thing, finally broke the psychic silence with a bit of reason. “Richard, you may want to get cleaned off once we get back. It can’t be too healthy to remain covered in someone else’s blood, especially with your power.” I don’t think any one of us had thought about that. I noticed that Richard only dully nodded in acknowledgement.

As we neared the main building, Sean started to hang back, and he quietly asked me, “Lad, I hate to assume things, but I have to ask since you seemed the least bothered by what we witnessed. Did ye ever see anything like this back in L.A.?” At that point, I really couldn’t answer. I’ve seen people do things like that, yes. I never saw someone give into a rage that had been building up though. It was something both humbling, and horrifying. I have to admit that at the time, the only answer I could give was a shrug of my shoulders.

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Jubilee was still comforting Penny when Angelo finished telling everyone about the end of Black Tom’s attack. She heard about it once after she and the other girls returned after Christmas, and it was bad enough then. To hear about it again, from someone else’s point of view, made it more disturbing. She now wondered, while rubbing Penny’s back, what would have happened if Richard had had her power at the time of the attack. All of sudden, the image of the whole school disappearing in an atomic blast filled her mind, and she shuddered.

She got the image out of her head, thankfully, when Jean spoke up, saying, “If the act was in self-defense, it shouldn’t plague him so. While it is better to try and reason with a foe, Black Tom hasn’t been one to reason with.” Had she been at the school at the time, Jubilee would have gladly told Richard that. She had a bit of knack for helping her teammates when they recovered from the things they had gone through.

At that point, she heard Emma’s response to the statement, and it brought up another disturbing event. “Jean, Richard is a very emotional person, and the last thing he wants to do is harm someone, let alone kill them. He had been upset when Emplate forced him to attack Jubilee.” She shuddered when she recalled that. Both she and Richard had been in the med center for a while after that. She had also been the first to see Richard awaken from the coma he’d been in after using Emplate’s devices and weakness against him. She still remember the look of regret on his face when he remembered what he had done, and the pain it had caused him.

Jubilee watched as Sean sat back, nodding in an understanding way as he said, “It can be very painful to do something you don’t want to do, more so if it is against your will.”

She was thankful when Emma nodded in agreement, and continued. “Yes, but he recovered from it. Also, during the days after the attack, and after we returned from Monet’s home in Monaco, he was still recovering mentally from it. For most people, killing is not something that is easy to cope with. It is a scar to one’s soul to kill another person.”

Jubilee heard Sean sigh as he stated something she had figured was coming. “The lad went back to the same spot every day, and put a flower there. It was like he was trying to make peace with my cousin. To be honest, I doubt Tom would have appreciated the gesture, nor the thought behind it.” After hearing Sean say that, Jubilee now understood the reason for Richard’s trek, even though at the time of the next set of events, she didn’t fully know what had happened.

There was a silence before Jean came to the obvious conclusion about what came next. “I’m guessing something more happened before Richard recovered from this encounter. Am I correct?” The way Jean looked around, Jubilee felt that one of the most powerful telepaths on the planet was looking for someone to volunteer the next part of the story.

Jubilee stopped comforting Yvette, and looked right at Jean. The action drew everyone’s attention, and she took a deep breath before speaking. “From what we all discovered, Richard’s family had a seriously big skeleton in their closet. One they were hiding from him, and I found out about it the same time he confronted it.” Already, her mind was racing back to that day.

She almost faltered in what she was about to say when she heard Sean confirm what she said. “Aye, the scary thing about it was that we all knew about it. His father told us about it on the day he brought Richard’s stuff here.” She hadn’t realized that, but then again, she was half with it after the attack. She felt a little better about it when Sean followed up with, “Mind you, he didn’t tell us everything, but I think it was because he didn‘t fully know everything.”

She was a little surprised when Scott asked, “Was this the relative that he thought was dead?” She wondered just how much of the information they had found out prior to the incident.

Jubilee decided to just move forward with the story. She took a deep breath, and calmly answered the question. “Yes, and I remember the look on Richard’s face that day.” It wasn’t a nice thing to remember, and now she was going to go into the story of how his breakdown fully started.