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It was a man named Magneto that first approached St John when he returned from that fateful trip. Tall and foreboding, he wore a metal helmet even in the heat of South Africa and seemed immune to the looks the woman at his side gave John. Maybe she wasn't his girlfriend, more actual assistant in her slinky dress and ass length blond curls, but she leered like she'd already seen John down to his boxers and liked what she'd seen. Sadly it wasn't so much in a sexual way as it was in that way that said she was thinking about him as a main course at a cannibal's buffet. It wasn't exactly cheerful.
At first it was a lot of bullshit and John really didn't give a shit about what the man was saying. All this talk about mutant rights and supremacy and the evolution of man and while John thought it would make a damn good story - not that anyone would publish it but it would read beautifully - he wasn't exactly sure he was buying into it. Wasn't like he could actually generate fire. He wasn't standing around bursting into flames or anything. Hell, if he didn't want people to know what he was doing, they could blame the sudden flare up on the wind, combustion, or a million other things that the defense mechanism of the human mind created to try and ignore what was right in front of them.
It wasn't the idea of supremacy that got John's attention. No, it was the encouragement to play with what apparently nature had given him; a license to destruction that he'd never known before but found something in him craved in a way that was nearly frightening. Or would be if that hadn't been an emotion he'd cut himself off from years earlier. Riding along into some of the most war torn countries in the world, John had long ago learned to swallow both fear and empathy. Now he was becoming one of the ones to start the wars, not report them, and he found those same tactics worked as well keeping him alive in the Brotherhood as it had in places like Bosnia and Kuwait.
He never did know what it was about him that had brought a visitor that night. John would have damn well bet his last dollar, and a few he picked off others, that he'd never approached Mystique like this. If he had, he likely wouldn't have followed John that night. He wouldn't have been alive to do it. If ever there was a true believer, it was Mystique. She was devoted and should have been committed but she likely never had some bald guy in a wheelchair approach her in a dark alley. Hell, maybe she had and maybe she thought the same thing John did in that moment.
"Yeah, uhmm, I'm not for rent, Wheels. No offense to your handicap or anything but not a whore."
Chuckling softly, Xavier inclined his head once. "And I'm not looking to buy, or rent as you so quaintly put it. I have a proposition for you, Mr Allerdyce."
Digging a battered pack of smokes from his pocket, John couldn't help but laugh. Compared to Xavier's chuckle it was a hard, vicious sound. "See, you say one thing and then go and make it sound like exactly what I said. Don't care what you call it, Pops. I may be a slut, but I don't do it for pay." Cupping his hand around lighter and cigarette, breathing in the smoke with a sigh before glancing down at Xavier through the haze of bluish smoke. "So?"
"Mr Allerdyce, I assure you that even were I not in this chair, you're not exactly my type. What I'm referring to is a chance to redeem yourself for what happened in Kenya, and for the things you've done with the Brotherhood," he said, watching John intently.
He fairly choked on nothing more than smoke.
"Yeah, that's the end of this. I don't know what you're talking about but..."
I understand well enough, Mr Allerdyce. The crimes you've committed could well put you away, but there is another side to the coin. One in which you could help those trying to stop the likes of Magneto from all the killing and destruction he has you commit in the name of equality.
"Supremacy," John said flatly, trying to ignore the rising panic he felt at the man having been in his head like that. "He doesn't give a shit about being equal with the baselines. They're not equal to us."
"Do you really believe that, Mr Allerdyce?"
He nodded. "Not sure I get the whole desire for supremacy but no, we're not the same as them. We're evolved. We're the next step in humankind." Sure he was quoting Mags but he had become to believe it.
"And the killing?"
Shrugging, he tossed the butt away. "It's fun," he muttered, looking anywhere but at Xavier. "Worse things than killing those that would kill mutant babies where they sleep."
"And if there was another way? A way to have your fun and save babies on both sides?"
John turned his head slowly, looking at Xavier for a long time. "Go on. I'm listening."