Shattered Perceptions
Chapter Fourteen
by Tim Francovich
Shatterstar bent quickly by Windsong's side as the crowd erupted into cheers. He quickly pressed three buttons on the control device on Windsong's head. Even as pain began to pierce his own skull, Star firmly gripped Windsong's controller and ripped it from her head. Immediately, his own brain felt as if it were being torn apart. As he collapsed in agony, his peripheral vision caught sight of a familiar shape flying into the arena.
******
"Any luck, Terry?" James Proudstar looked up at Siryn, who was strapped into Sinsear's elevated central command chair, struggling to understand the various readouts.
"It's not too bad, Jimmy," she replied, punching a series of buttons on the seat's arm. "The technology is verra similar to Cable's." She paused, looking curiously at one of the monitors. "I think I've located the Time Displacement Core."
"Cable!" Warpath shouted down the hallway. "Siryn's located your TDC!"
Cable accepted a hand from Rictor and pulled himself out from under an instrument panel. "Excellent. We're making progress."
Boomer popped a mini time bomb in the air. "So what does that mean?" she wondered. "We've been here for hours."
"We've only just begun," Cable stated, starting down the hall. He entered the central dome and looked up at Siryn. "See if you can get anything to power up over there," he called.
"And while ye're at it, why don't ye see about curing that Legacy Virus, too," Siryn muttered to herself. As a series of readings came up, she furrowed her brow. "Somethin' is not right here..."
At that moment, Warpath and Cable both shouted something. Terry looked down and saw both of them staring at a large glowing portal that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the air. Rictor and Boomer came running down the hall. "Are they back?" Boomer exclaimed.
As a tall figure stepped out of the portal, Siryn soared into the air, ready for action. But it was not Shatterstar or Cannonball that appeared. It was a figure that none of them had ever seen before. He was tall and thin, wearing loose-fitting outlandish clothing. Everything about him seemed stretched: his fingers were long and skinny, capped by even longer nails; his thin face was topped by long dark blond hair. He surveyed X-Force with a haughty gaze, folding his arms in front of him.
"And just who the heck are you?" Cable demanded.
The tall man sighed. "What kind of welcome is that? You cannot imagine the difficulty I have been through in finding a teleporter!" he said. "I am, as you may have guessed, from Mojoworld. My name is Major Domo."