Aberrant: Mutant High - Forged Steel [Complete]

[Jor]

Jor's mother Michelle O'Reilly was a lab assistant to a Genetic professor at Texas A&M when she met his father, one of Professor Gibson's test subjects. He used his 'skills' to seduce Michelle and have some fun. She was none too pleased to discover herself pregnant by a mutant but coming from a strongly Catholic family was pressured to keep the child since there was at least a 50% chance the child would be a normal human.

As he grew up Jor was indoctrinated to believe mutants were terrible and that the mutant gene was a congenital disease that needed to be eliminated from the human race much like heart disease. He was also heaped with guilt for causing his single mother such hardships raising him alone, not to mention the normal share of basic Catholic guilt for anything that remotely resembled fun.

He applied himself in school but he really shined in art and drama. With his size and build he probably would have been a good football player but he was forced to choose between sports and drama and picked geekdom much to his mothers disappointment. The kids on the football team didn't appreciate his choice either and decided from that day on that he was to be the target of their bullying. He got in lots of fights during his freshman year usually two or more on one since he wasn't a typical puny drama geek. He didn't care, acting and art were his one outlet and escape from the rest of his unpleasant existence.

To make matters worse as he grew his mother gave him a constant dose of gene therapies designed to suppress his possible mutant genes. After recovering from her pregnancy she had dedicated her life to genetic research with the driving purpose of eliminating mutants. Not knowing for sure if her son would develop mutant abilities she kept him at arms length.

One evening after a particularly unpleasant loss the freshman football team ran into Jor who was crossing the school grounds on his way home from rehearsing for the school play. He was feeling pretty bad having forgotten his pills at home that morning. Forgetting them always made him edgy and scattered. When they surrounded him he yelled at them to get out of his way and may have used some words that were less than wise under the circumstances. He was getting pretty damn good at fighting by that time but, but the odds were a dozen to one and the bullies were angry already. The fight only lasted a couple minutes before the sheer numbers had overwhelmed him. Four of the biggest linebackers held him down while the others started taking turns punching or kicking him. That was when he realized this could get really ugly. He tried pleading and apologizing but the mood was just too ugly and things had gone too far.

Between his lack of gene suppressants and the Rodney King treatment he was going to be hospitalized for sure. In the middle of a fight the adrenaline usually kept him from feeling the pain until it was all over but not this time. As the blows rained down and each fist slammed into his ribs or face or worst places something inside snapped. The pain faded and instead of the twitchy antsy feeling he had been feeling all day he felt good, really really good. In fact he felt better than he'd ever felt in his life, he started to laugh.

His attackers didn't stop at first but pretty soon the punches slowed and the jocks started muttering. "Dude, look at his face, where I just punched him it's all black and shit." One of the others stepped up and slammed a fist into his right eye.

"No shit! Check that out, his whole eye just turned black just like that! Never seen anyone bruise that quick. Maybe there's something wrong with him."

Some of the less angry and perhaps smarter football players were starting to get a little nervous. People should laugh while getting beaten, it just wasn't natural. Tommy the freshman quarterback spoke up, "I think he's had enough, I think he's gone mental or somethin."

Still punches occasionally smashed into Jor's body or face and the dark color spread. A minute later one of the big guys cried out and started rubbing his hand, "Son of a bitch I think I broke my hand on his face."

Jor could feel it, he didn't understand but he 'knew' something had changed, he couldn't see himself but he could feel as parts of his body started hardening and becoming more dense. It spread out from the impacts as they beat him. With each punch it was like a forge hammer beat steel hardening it compressing the metal with each blow. It didn't stop as the punches slowed but continued to spread over his entire body and as it did he felt better and better. His mind was clear and he was completely free of the drugs for the first time in memory.

As the darkness spread the other boys became nervous. "Dude, what the hell, he's black now?"

Jor felt strong. He flexed and shoved out with his right arm and sent the 225 pound linebacker staggering back into his friends. By the time he had thrown off the last of the guys holding him the football team was running shouting about him being a dirty mutant.

He wasn't sure what to think. His entire life he'd been taught to hate mutants and that even the best of them were all sick and needing medical attention. He didn't feel sick, for the first time in his life he felt really completely well like he'd been incomplete before now.

He wandered the streets for hours thinking and questioning the things he'd been taught. If the crap about mutants had been a lie, then what else had been? The church hadn't come out and said mutants didn't have souls but even they considered them second class citizens. His priest had given a sermon once on how mutants would spend thousands of years in purgatory before being allowed into heaven if they would ever been allowed in.

"Well fuck them! Fuck em in their child molesting asses! I don't need their stinking guilt, and I don't need any damn medicine either. If this is being sick then I never want to be well."

[Dave ST]

The doors to his mother's lab slid open with a pressurized hiss, and he stepped in.

"Jor? Jor!" His mother called out from the back of the lab. Nearly every light was off save for a few spots where it was needed. "It's 12:30! Dear Lord, where in Hell have you been? I've been worried sick."

'Worried sick' but she never bothered to leave the lab. "I want some answers and want them now. You hear me?"

[Jor]

"So do I mother." He walked slowly into the light, black metallic skin reflecting. "You weren't trying to make me well all these years, you were keeping me sick. You said with my 'condition' I couldn't play football, so I've spent the last year getting beat up by the team members and pretending I liked drama club more."

There was hurt in his eyes, "You've never shown me much motherly feeling, but this... Why?" Along with the hurt there was a strong undertone of anger in his voice, he wanted answers.

[Dave ST]

Her hand slipped over her mouth in shock as she inhaled. The black creature that her son had become was nothing like what she ever expected. She knew this day would come and Dr. O'Reilly was more than prepared for it. The thought of the abomination her son had become raised bile in her throat as fear and terror gripped her tightly.

"Why?" Michelle retorted, almost with a tone that hinted to her son that he no right to question her. "Why do you think, sweetie?" She took a few steps back. "What you've become, you could hurt yourself, or others, or me. I-I know I've not been there for you as much as I should, but I've been working so hard to cure you. We can get through this..."

Slowly her hand slid towards an injection gun not far from her finger tips. "Just, calm down sweetie... everything will be fine..."

[Jor]

"Cure me!?!" Jor barked a harsh laugh. I feel better than I've ever felt in my life. I feel whole now, not like some drugged out zombie of a person." When he saw what her hand was reaching far he growled, "Don't touch that. You are right I could hurt you without meaning to. I'm still getting use to my new condition, I wouldn't want to make that kind of mistake."

The anger inside him was bringing out things he never would have said before, but then before he'd been kept medically timid his entire life.

"You didn't answer my question, why did you do it to me? I've felt sick and weak my entire life. If I'd known I could feel this good I would have run away years ago."

[Dave ST]

"And go where!?! Jor, you're not in your right mind right now. The trigger of your X-gene will cause you to feel euphoria, it's common. Just let me help you." Her hand stopped suddenly. "Have you seen the way this world treats people like you?! I kept you drugged so you wouldn't accidentally hurt someone."

Her next words echoed coldly through the sterile room. "It was for your own good."

[Jor]

"My own good?" He took a few steps closer but was not specifically threatening her just moving closer to a more conversational distance. "I don't want any more of that kind of 'good'. I'm leaving home. I don't ever want to go back to being so weak and caged as I've been with you."

Despite his words he did take a moment to try and evaluate her words, did he feel euphoric? Was he on some kind of high? The truth was he did feel great, really really good, but his mind was clear and he didn't feel like a drug high and the crap she'd been giving him for years had always clouded his mind.

"No, I'm not having some kind of artificial high mother, this is the real deal. My head is clearer than it's ever been. All I came here for was to find out why you had done this to me. I get that you hate mutants, but I don't understand why? You raised me to fear them, but I'm one of them, and you knew it."

[Dave ST]

"Why?" She treied to step back away from him as he approached but she was out of room. She hit the counter and the rattling of glass beakers announced she had no place left to go. Her expression slipped to anger. "I ever tell you about you father Jor? Your father, the mutant, who used his powers to rape and impregnate me? I tried Jor, I tried to forget, I tried to forgive like the Good Book teaches, I raised you and tried to love you, but every time I looked at you I saw him."

A tear ran down her cheek as she spoke through gritted teeth. "And now you, you had to become one of them. I prayed every day that you wouldn't end up like them, and here you are. I should have aborted you when I had the chance."

[Jor]

Jor was poleaxed. His father was a mutant and had raped his mother? She should have aborted him? A sympathy had been kindling in his heart for her and understanding until she said that last. He could understand her pain, but that was too much.

"Damn, I knew you were cold but..." A cold fury began burning in his heart.

"So I'm a bastard then, I accept that, but I guess I can add Son of a Bitch to my titles as well."

Before there had been a tiny small seed of doubt to his idea of leaving home. There was none left now.

"So be it. Give me whatever money you have in your purse for bus fare. You'll never see me again, consider me aborted."

He was going to need to head home for cloths though and if she called the cops they would be able to find him there. Unless...

"I'll take the symbiote suit you've been working on while I'm at it. I read your notes on that you left on the table last month. That would be handy." At the time he'd been a little disturbed by the idea of a living suit of clothes, but intrigued at the same time. Cotton was living material before it was picked wasn't it? It wouldn't be so bad. "Where is it?"

[Dave ST]

"You're robbing me?" She couldn't help but chuckle at the pure audacity of her offspring. "I've done nothing but try to help you and you're robbing me as a 'thank you'. Fine, take the money. Go if you like."

She waved him out of the room as if he didn't exist. "The suit stays, child. It's not yours and it's not a toy to play around in. Now get out of here."

[Jor]

Jor took the money, a whole $63 bucks. It wouldn't get him far but he'd have a few meals before it ran out. He wasn't leaving without the suit.

"Tell me where the suit is or I'll rip this lab apart till I find it." He demonstrated by slamming his hand down on the table holding the syringe. The metal legs buckled spilling the contents of the table across the floor. "Now."

[Dave ST]

She closed her eyes and looked away from the display, mostly o protect her face from any stray debris. Everything she assumed of mutant kind was getting verified by her own flesh and blood. He'd become a monster, a thief, and violent and he'd just discovered his powers only a few hours ago.

The mental deterioration was swifter than she'd ever assumed possible. So this is what the X-Gene can do to someone?

"It's in the safe." She said fearfully. The Doctor swallowed hard and pointed to the massive metal door on the wall, the one that required biometrics and retinal identification.

[Jor]

Jor eyed the safe and walked over to it. He had no idea what level of strength had been imparted by his change so he didn't know whether it would work or not. He reared back and slammed a superdense fist into the safes lock smashing it completely. Hardened steel had snapped with the blow and the door was bent. He was relieved it hadn't been as thick or as tough as he'd thought. Ripping the door open he looked inside and was disappointed to see nothing but a big hermetically sealed jar with a greyish something inside.

He took the jar and put it under his arm and walked back over to the woman who had raised him to hate what he had become and lied to him and drugged him his entire life.

"I would try to explain to you why you are wrong, but your mind was made up before I was ever born and I'd just be waisting both of our time. You think I'm a monster for what I've become?"

He could see the answer plainly written on her averted face. "You're the one that is a monster. You were wronged years ago and you've let that one incident cloud everything you've done since. The sad thing is that you don't even see that it was wrong to drug me and keep me sick and weak all my life." She just kept looking away, fear and disgust on her face.

"I'm gone. Don't try and find me."

He made his way to the door and toward a new life.

[Dave ST]

Jor left, taking the prototype suit with him and his mother was powerless to do anything about it. She stood there for several minutes allowing herself to calm down in the darkness of her shattered lab.

"Try to find you?" She finally mused as she approached a computer terminal. "Why ever would I do that?" Her fingers tapped over the keys and the screen displayed Jor's current location via satellite imagery.

"You're just what I needed."

S.U.I.T. Field Testing...

Phase 3...

Engage? Y/N?

An evil grin twisted upon her lips. "Yes." Her finger gently touched the key. "Yes, I think that sounds like a wonderful idea."