The X-Men (The O5) | First Field Mission

The Blackbird cut through the afternoon sky with barely a tremor. Inside, the cabin was quieter than the mansion ever seemed to be.

Bobby wasn't filling dead air. Warren kept his wings folded tightly behind him. Hank worked through structural schematics instead of disappearing behind books and data.

Everyone was focused. And for the first time, so were you in the same navy-and-gold field uniform. Though Scott had made one thing clear before you boarded: wearing it did not make you an X-Man. It was protection. Nothing more.

Jean sat across from you, her attention drifting beyond the aircraft itself as though she could already feel the city waiting below.

Scott stood. "Listen up."

Every wandering glance stopped.

"Construction collapse in Manhattan. Multiple workers remain trapped, and emergency crews have pulled back from the central structure."

Hank brought a personnel file onto his display.

"Elias Mercer. Twenty-eight. Construction worker. Cerebro identified him as the Mutant at the center of the disturbances." Another diagram appeared beside his photograph. "His mutation appears vibrational. He can generate mechanical resonance through solid material: concrete, steel, pavement. Enough output could destabilize an entire unfinished structure."

"New manifestation?" Bobby asked.

"Publicly, yes."

Jean's expression tightened. "He's terrified."

Scott glanced toward her. "You can feel him?"

"Just enough."

Hank changed screens. "Witness reports conflict. Some claim Mercer caused the initial collapse. Others insist he prevented it from killing several workers."

Warren leaned forward. "And now he's losing control."

"Every major structural failure since has followed another vibrational surge," Hank said.

Scott's gaze shifted toward you. "This is your first time outside the Danger Room with us. No reset. No simulation limits. Nobody gets put back together if we make a mistake."

He let that sit.

"Stay aware. Stay with the team. If I tell you to pull back, you pull back."

Bobby glanced toward you. "He's warmer when we're not on missions."

"No, I'm not."

Warren almost smiled, though Scott ignored them. "You chose to come. That means I expect you to contribute." A beat. "It does not mean I expect you to prove anything."

Hank closed the file. "Three minutes."

Scott nodded. "Warren handles upper-level evacuation. Bobby, exterior stabilization. Hank, trapped personnel and structural assessment. Jean stays with me until we make contact."

His attention returned to you. "You stay close."

---

The Blackbird came over the construction site like a shadow. Below, the city block looked torn apart.

Scaffolding hung twisted from unfinished floors. One crane leaned over the street at an impossible angle. Concrete dust rolled between emergency vehicles while firefighters, police, and workers crowded behind hastily raised barriers.

And at the center stood Elias Mercer. His work clothes were torn. His hard hat gone. And dust streaked across his face. The concrete beneath his boots trembled.

The Blackbird settled beyond the police line. Warren was airborne before the ramp fully lowered. Bobby followed with Hank while Scott and Jean moved toward the wreckage, with you close behind.

Weapons immediately turned. "Stop right there!"

Scott didn't. "We're here to help."

"Identify yourselves!"

Another tremor rolled beneath the street. Ahead at the center, Elias flinched.

"Don't come any closer!"

Jean slowed first. "We're not here to hurt you."

"That's what they said!"

Exposed steel around him began vibrating. One worker behind the barricade shouted: "He's the one who did this!"

Another answered: "He saved you!"

"Saved us? Look at the building!"

Elias's breathing quickened, and the pavement seemed to shake harder with it.

"Look at me," Scott said, raising one hand. "We're not with them."

Elias's eyes darted across the uniforms. "Then who the hell are you?"

"We're here to get everyone out alive. Including you."

"I don't need your help!"

"Maybe not," Jean said, stepping forward carefully. "But you're not the only person who's had to hide something."

Elias's eyes shifted past her—to frost spreading across Bobby's hands, to Warren descending on enormous white wings, to rubble suspended behind Jean beneath an unseen force.

His expression changed. "You're..."

Jean held his gaze. "Like you."

For one brief second, the shaking weakened. Then someone behind the barricade shouted— "He's a mutant! Kill him!"

The moment shattered. Elias snapped his head toward the crowd. "You hear that?" Concrete split beneath his feet. "I hid it. Every day! And now that I show myself for good, they expect me to die!"

"Please don't—" Jean warned.

"I saved them and was betrayed by the people I trusted most!"

Suddenly the site erupted. A violent pulse tore through the unfinished structure. Steel screamed. Concrete exploded outward. Police scattered beneath falling debris.

"Move!" Scott shouted.

Jean caught a collapsing wall in midair. Bobby threw ice across the pavement as a barrier. Hank launched himself toward two trapped workers. Warren dove through falling scaffolding.

Another seismic wave ripped outward. The crane above them lurched. "Everybody clear!" Scott looked up and fired a crimson blast, striking the collapsing arm at its joint, violently knocking it away from the evacuation route.

Elias turned through the chaos—straight toward you. "You want me to stop hiding?!" The ground split again. "THEN LOOK AT ME!"

The construction site seemed to come apart all at once. The crane arm Scott had knocked aside crashed into an empty section of pavement, tearing scaffolding down with it. Concrete split beneath Elias's feet in widening fractures while exposed steel screamed through the unfinished floors above.

"Jean, with me!" Scott shouted.

She was already moving.

Another vibrational pulse tore outward.

Scott fired low, his optic blast striking fractured concrete ahead of Elias rather than the man himself. The impact shattered the ground between them and redirected the wave away from the police line.

"Stop shooting at me!"

"I'm not."

Elias threw both hands outward, forcing the street to buckle.

Jean caught Scott telekinetically before the upheaval could throw him backward, lowering him several feet away as another section of the structure collapsed.

"Warren!" Scott called.

"Already there!"

Warren streaked beneath the falling framework, catching one trapped worker beneath the arms and carrying him clear while Bobby threw both palms toward the building.

Ice raced across two failing supports. "That's not gonna hold forever!"

"It doesn't have to!" Hank shouted. He drove one shoulder beneath a fallen beam and heaved it upward long enough for three workers to crawl free.

"Move! Quickly!"

Another tremor hit.

Bobby stared at the cracking ice. "Okay, that's rude."

Scott advanced again.

"Elias!"

"Don't say my name!"

"Then stop making me shout it!"

Jean shot him a look, though Scott didn't acknowledge it.

"You saved those workers," He continued. "You know what happens if this comes down now."

Elias laughed once, broken and breathless. "They already decided what happened."

"Then don't prove them right."

That struck something. For half a second, the shaking weakened.

Then a police radio screamed behind the barricade. "Possible hostile Mutant—" Elias heard it, and his face twisted instantly.

"HOSTILE?!"

The ground exploded beneath him. "Down!" Jean yelled as the wave struck across the site.

Bobby's barrier shattered. Warren was forced upward by the debris. Hank dug both hands into the pavement to keep from being thrown.

And you were driven farther toward the center. Closer to Elias.

Scott saw it immediately. "{{user}}, hold!"

But the fractured ground between you shifted again, separating Scott and Jean behind a wall of broken concrete.

Elias turned. For the first time, the fury in his expression seemed to falter when he realized who stood nearest.

"You." The tremors continued beneath both of you, but unevenly now. "You came with them." Behind him, half the unfinished building groaned. "They put you in that uniform and now you think you're different?"

Another crack split the floor.

"You think they won't look at you the same way?"

Jean's voice reached faintly from beyond the wreckage. "Elias, listen to {{obj}}."

"Stay out of my head!"

"I'm not in it!"

Scott was already trying to find another path through. "Jean, keep him talking."

"I'm trying."

Elias's attention never left you. "I worked beside these men for years." His voice shook harder than the ground. "I ate with them. Covered shifts. Pulled people out when things went wrong."

A violent pulse rolled outward. "And the second they saw what I was—" Steel twisted somewhere above. "—none of it mattered!"

The building began failing again.

"Scott! We are seriously running out of building!" Bobby's voice carried from below.

"Hank?"

"Less than a minute at this rate!"

Elias heard that too, fastening his breath into ragged pants. "No. No, no—"

The pavement trembled harder. But something else moved beneath it. That strange secondary energy stirred around you.

Not explosively like before. Quietly. Calmly. Light gathered faintly along the air between you and Elias. His eyes dropped toward it.

"What is that?" The vibration beneath his boots skipped. Then steadied. Elias froze, his next breath suddenly coming easier.

The screaming steel around the site began to quiet. "What are you doing?" The energy reached him without force, without restraint. The trembling beneath the street softened into a low, regular hum.

Jean's expression changed. "Scott..."

"I see it."

Hank looked toward his monitor. "No—you're not seeing what I'm seeing."

Elias stared at his own hands which finally stopped shaking. For the first time since you all arrived, so had the ground. "I can still feel it." His voice had gone almost quiet. "My power."

Jean slowly stepped through the broken opening toward him. "That's good."

Elias looked at you again. "But it's not... fighting me." The last unstable vibration faded from the steel around him.

Behind the barricade, nobody spoke. Scott lowered his visor slightly—not enough to uncover his eyes, but enough to make the gesture unmistakable. "Then don't fight it."

Elias stood amid the wreckage, breathing. And the construction site finally stopped shaking.

By evening, the mansion had gone quiet again. The uniforms were gone. The dust, concrete powder, and dried sweat from Manhattan had been washed away. Upstairs, the estate looked almost untouched by what had happened hours earlier.

Below it, Elias Mercer remained under observation. Hank had moved him into the medical wing rather than the chamber you had first awakened inside. His vitals were stable. His mutation was no longer producing uncontrolled tremors. For now, he was exhausted more than dangerous.

Elsewhere underground, the rest of you had gathered around the briefing table with Charles. Scott stood at its head.

"Nobody died."

Bobby leaned back slightly. "Strong opening."

"It matters."

The humor disappeared from Bobby's face as Scott continued. "Twenty-three workers and emergency personnel were evacuated from unstable areas. Warren handled every upper-level extraction without losing anyone. Bobby kept the western supports standing long enough for Hank to clear the lower floors."

Warren glanced toward Bobby. "Not bad."

Bobby shrugged. "I have moments."

"Hank remained inside a compromised structure longer than instructed."

Hank folded his hands. "In my defense—"

"No."

"Very well."

Jean smiled faintly. Scott looked toward her next. "You pushed too close to Mercer after he became unstable."

"I was trying to keep him talking."

"You were." A pause. "And it helped."

Jean's eyebrows lifted slightly at the concession.

Then Scott looked toward you. "And for a first deployment, you adapted quickly." His voice stayed even. "You listened. You prioritized civilians. You didn't treat Mercer like a target just because he became dangerous." Scott's expression tightened. "Keep doing that."

Charles watched quietly from the opposite end of the table.

Scott exhaled. "... but I should've accounted for the police response sooner. Once they started treating Mercer as hostile, everything accelerated."

Bobby looked toward him. "You don't usually put yourself in these."

"I'm the field leader."

"That's why I noticed."

Scott ignored him. "Next time, we establish civilian command contact before approaching the center of the incident."

Charles nodded once. "A lesson worth keeping."

Scott finally sat. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't.

Hank turned the portable display lying beside him. "There is another matter."

Several graphs appeared across the screen. "Mercer's vibrational activity was extraordinarily unstable throughout the incident. Frequency, intensity, propagation—almost every measurable component fluctuated with his emotional state."

Jean looked toward him. "Until the end."

"Precisely." Hank brought up another reading. "At the moment {{user}} approached him, the secondary signature we recorded during the Danger Room tests appeared again."

Scott leaned forward. "The same one from the shield?"

"And Jean."

The room quieted as Hank enlarged two sections of data. "With Jean, we observed a measurable increase in telekinetic output coinciding with {{user}}'s secondary manifestation."

Jean flexed her fingers almost unconsciously. "It made everything easier."

"With Mercer, however, the effect was different." Another graph replaced the first—wild peaks suddenly settling into an even pattern. "His power did not weaken."

Scott studied it. "Then what changed?"

"Everything else." Hank tapped the screen. "His output became regular. Controlled. The destructive oscillations stopped almost immediately despite no evidence of suppression."

Jean's expression shifted. "He told us he could still feel it."

Hank nodded. "He could."

Jean looked toward you. "When it happened to me, it didn't feel like something was taking over my telekinesis either. It was still mine."

"And Mercer said essentially the same thing," Hank replied. "His mutation stopped fighting him."

Bobby frowned. "So it made Jean stronger..."

"...and made Mercer stable." Warren finished the thought.

"Two completely different powers," Scott said.

"Two completely different effects," Hank added.

Charles had remained silent until then. "What if the abilities are not the common factor?"

Everyone looked toward him. Hank's expression slowly changed.

"Jean Grey and Elias Mercer possess mutations with almost nothing in common." Charles continued as his gaze moved briefly between Jean and the displays. "Yet this second energy responded to both."

Scott understood first. "Because they're Mutants."

Hank stared again at the readings. "Perhaps." There was unusual restraint in the word. "At present, I can prove correlation. Nothing more."

"And nothing more is what we should claim," Charles said.

The graphs remained glowing between all of you.

Jean looked toward you again. "So whatever happened in that fire..." Her voice softened. "... it might not only be about what you can do."

Three weeks ago, nobody here had even known where to find you. Now there were two separate sets of readings on Hank's screen, both pointing toward the same unanswered possibility.

Whatever had awakened inside you seemed to recognize something in other Mutants.