[[Continuation from here]]

Sam needed to move fast. His base of operation had been invaded, in his haste, Sam had started a wild magic fire. Hopefully the man who had started the attack on him was dead or severely damaged from Sam’s attack on his mutation.

The time was not quite right for Sam to approach the mansion, but it was fast approaching. He needed to collect the remains of his work. His spell book had been damaged but perhaps he could recover some of the work from what he was working on.

This led Sam to posing as a firefighter and entering the apartment to search the remains. The firefighter he had taken the uniform from was enjoying a nice nap in the back of his SUV. Tied up in case he woke up.

”No.” Sam hissed to himself as he stared at the room. Pressurized water had knocked everything around, but it was clear much of his work had been taken. No keys, knives, or bullets were to be found among the debris, aside from ones that were in containers off to the side. Ones that were unused by Sam.

”I will have to start from scratch… I hope that asshole died painfully, a victim of his own mutation.”

Much of the aftermath of the fire involved surveying the damage and investigating the root cause. Questioning the witnesses had only been somewhat fruitful. Apparently there was an altercation involving knives and explosives, but also various mutant abilities. The story had only left a bad taste in Rex's mouth. Once again, mutants were the cause of so much pain and destruction. Even if it wasn't their fault, their powers sometimes reacted in uncontrollable ways and anybody would reasonably lash out with everything they had if they were being threatened.

Their target had apparently been a magic-user though. Regardless of the statistics around mutants and crime and property damage, Rex was more focused on the magi. He'd seen what mad scientists could and would do when given access to magic. He didn't think he'd ever forget the horrors that Dr. Cama had unleashed.

That Michael Hunter had checked out, and although Rex wasn't entirely certain what SUPER was, he was told it was related to non-human crimes and cases. Which was fitting. Because of that, under supervision, the agents were allowed to remove certain items and objects from the crime scene, after Rex's crew had been able to determine the official cause of the fire. Thermal conflagration due to unknown mutant abilities. It wasn't accurate, but they didn't have a box for "magic".

Now that most of the post-fire work was over, Rex was returning to the apartment to give it another examination, this time after his colleagues were out of the way. He had never mentioned his use of magic around them, nor had he used it noticeably in their presence, and he had no desire to do that now. However, magic was needed in this case, if the X-Men and the feds couldn't find this guy.

Rex wasn't exactly an oracle, not like some of the other members of the Veil, but he'd learned that he did have some small talent in the field of knowing and discovering things. Perhaps that small talent could be used to point the investigation in the right direction?

Rex entered the apartment and saw Ramirez poking around. "Hey Ramirez," Rex said. "We're about to clear out. Go ahead and join the rest of the boys downstairs, I'll--you're not Ramirez."

While it may have been futile, Sam moved around some of the destroyed furniture and sifted. Hoping to find any remains of his work. Yet, none remained. Anything that wasn’t destroyed or yet unworked was removed.

Sam brushed the muddy ash from his hands and wiped his brow. He could still follow through with his plans. It was a minor setback, he would lose a little time and all the work on his new spells. A truly nasty piece of work. A spell to fracture a mutant’s x-gene. Something Sam worked on begrudgingly. A weapon to use against the mutants who couldn’t see the horror their powers wrought and would not gracefully accept a cure.

Sam heard a voice behind him, it sounded familiar. He turned and Saw his favorite firefighter.

”Good evening, Rex.” Sam said, knowing that if he didn’t handle the following conversation well, he might have to hurt the man. ”It’s been a while.”

In the firefighter uniform, Sam was less prepared to handle a situation. He had a few spells tucked away in a pocket, but he didn’t want to hurt Rex or draw more attention to himself.

It was Ramirez's uniform for sure. It had the right name and number on it. It clearly wasn't Ramirez, once Rex had gotten a better look. Wrong posture, wrong movement, wrong everything. In fact, it was..

"Sam? What in God's green Earth are you doing here?" Rex asked with a frown. "And wearing Ramirez's uniform."

Rex had just seen Ramirez earlier. They'd come in on the the same fire engine after all. Rex narrowed his eyes and the frown intensified.

Sam was NYPD, wasn't he? He was also standing in a relatively fresh crime scene near the mutant manor, in the guise of one of Rex's men and...looking for something. "Where. Is. Ramirez," Rex said. His voice wasn't overtly menacing, more promising. Promising all manner of things if he was not complied with.

Sam knew he needed to be careful. If it came down to it, Sam felt he could manage Rex, but he didn’t want to have to. He liked the man, best firefighter he knew. Not to mention Sam didn’t want to have to hurt anyone. His goal was to help as many people as he could.

”I’m working the scene. There are items that had been here that someone has removed. I need to find out who took them and where.” There normally wasn’t much interdepartmental dialog between NYPD and FDNY. Sam didn’t think his disappearance and the suspicions about him would have made it to Rex through work related channels.

Rex’s next question had more steel to it.

”Ramirexz is okay. He’s resting in his SUV. Unharmed.” Sam said truthfully, he had put Ramirez to sleep without hurting the man.

The frown deepened further. Rex smelled a rat. He didn't like rats. It was bad enough he'd already had to deal with Hunter and his friends earlier, but Rex was able to confirm who Hunter was. At least nominally so. Rex already knew who Sam was, however. Rex had met the NYPD detective multiple times over the last couple of years. He liked him enough, they got along well enough. He was competent.

Maybe...too competent.

Rex didn't move from his spot, blocking the doorway to the hallway. "What's with the uniform, Sam?" he asked bluntly. That wasn't proper procedure whatsoever. If he'd had an official reason to be there, he would've announced his presence at the street. As it was, it was still the fire department's scene, not the NYPD's. While the feds might have a claim to it, the police did not. They certainly wouldn't do it by masquerading as a fireman.

Rex continued to block the door. Sam stood looking at him, deciding how to answer his question. Ultimately he decided to share some truth. Either Rex would agree with Sam’s convictions how to improve the world or he would set Rex’s uniform against him.

”This is my apartment.” Sam said, his face and voice losing what little humor they had. ”And my work that was ruined here.”

There it was. A damnable confession, at least of being the target.

"Father, I need a word," Rex prayed in a quiet tone, reaching to that far off place with his mind. Instantly, the words "Ecclesiastes 10:11" came to him.

"Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment; and a babbler is no better," Rex quoted grimly. It did not seem that Sam was going to bother with any attempt to deceive him, although Rex couldn't rule that out. Alas, it seemed to confirm that Sam did, indeed, use magic. Well, that simplified things. Rex could deal with magic.

"So you're the ex-cop they're looking for," Rex said, still not moving a muscle or even looking anything but stiff and frowning. "What'd you do? Besides set this place on fire."

Sam eyed Rex as he seemed to be praying or quoting the bible. Either way was odd, but people often did odd things. Especially in confrontational situations. Following it though, he asked asked what Sam had done.

”Yes. That would be me.” Sam confirmed, ”I have found a way to save innocent people from their mutations. After years of refining, I can finally lock away a mutation, ending its cursed hold over the person who suffered it. The fire was… an accident. I was attacked while working and the tool I was crafting was faulty. It went wild.”

How would Rex respond? Did he understand the threat mutations were? The curse they were to those who had them. Sam readied himself, unsure of Rex's reaction.

The atmosphere seemed to be getting tenser by the moment, but there still didn't seem to be a threat of violence. It just feel to Rex like the calm before a storm, when something is building, but nobody knows how it would turn out. Theses next few minutes would be trialsome.

He stared unresponsively as the man explained. Rex almost found him wincing. He absolutely understood the explosive possibilities of a spell gone awry. Several of his spells had resulted in undesired fires before he was able to contain them in something approximating control. That checked with what Hunter said. It also checked out that Sam had taken the kid's power away.

Something stirred in the back of Rex's mind. A sudden flashback to his first encounter with Sam. "You did that with the Berserker boys too, didn't you? Back when we first met," Rex said in realization. "You said their mutations were on the fritz."

Rex then decided something. He thought he knew enough of what was going on, but before he could choose a path to go down, he needed to know the truth. Rex cupped a gloved hand in front of him and recited a verse, "Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners.”

A candle's flame bloomed just an inch or so above the glove's fabric, flickering slightly in the air currents of the room. It was a spell Rex had developed, not to determine the objective truth of what was said - no matter what he tried that was far beyond him - but to determine a person's sincerity. A still flame meant the person was sincere, that they believed what they said. A wildly dancing flame meant little or no sincerity. A regularly flickering flame meant not everything was sincere.

"I need to know something else, Sam," Rex said gravely, his eyes burning with intensity. "What did you do to the child? Did you hurt her? Or try to hurt her?"

”Oh. Yes. A more crude version of the spell, it restricts the x-gene.” Sam confirmed. Rex was not making any moves against Sam and it didn’t matter if a firefighter knew some of what he could do. Especially when it was known he could do greater acts. ”For some the power is just diminished, others it is like it is stopping and starting.”

Rex then cupped a hand in front of himself and spoke another prayer or something and a small light appeared. Like from a small candle flame. Sam narrowed his eyes slightly and kept ready. Had he said too much? Was Rex a mutant, a mystic?

When Rex next spoke there was an intensity that had not been present at all that entire conversation. It made sense, he was asking about the child Sam had helped.

”I helped the child.” The flame stood still, ”Cured her.” The flame behaved as a normal flame. ”I would never willingly hurt a child.” The flame again stood still. ”She had a mutation that was infecting those she touched like some kind of patient zero. Locking the power away allows the child to have normal contact with other people without corrupting them.” The flame continued to hold still.

Rex mostly kept his attention on the candle as Sam spoke. It remained unnaturally still for the most part, a sign of unwavering belief in the the validity of what he was saying. At one point it flickered, when saying he'd cured the child, and Rex's eyes had narrowed a bit more, but since the flame hadn't gone wild, Rex could relax a single iota.

The spell wasn't perfect, but it was better than a gut instinct. It did much to slant Rex's judgement in a particular direction. Hunter had also said the child was physically unharmed and was living with her parents in the mutant mansion. This did not seem the same sort of menace that Dr. Cama had been. Those were truly abominable experiments. This? This was not a sin.

"That is fascinating," Rex said with a slight nod. "The goal, that is. Is this a permanent effect?" If it was, that would explain more than anything why Sam was being hunted down and his research confiscated. A "cure" for mutation? THe fallout from that was mind-boggling.

The flame was still burning in Rex's hand though. "What are your plans now?"

The light in Rex’s hands seemed to hold his interest as Sam spoke. Odd, but that was how things worked with mutants and magic. Rex seemed satisfied enough to continue asking questions.

”Yes. The goal is to make a true cure for the x-gene. Allow those cursed by their mutation to walk free.” The flame stood still. Sam was truly altruistic, he was sacrificing his career, maybe his life in pursuit of saving mutants from their mutations.

Sam cocked his head slightly at Rex’s next question. ”I have to check on the child. The spell I used was new, I need to know how it is holding up after all this time. Is it weakening or is it harming the child, both are failures that need correcting.”

Now Sam felt it was his turn to ask a question, ”I don’t hear you calling for backup, that you cornered the ex-cop whom the X-Men, Blackforest Tactical, and the US government are looking for. Maybe… you agree with my goals?”

Rex nodded. He had what he needed to know. The flame had remained still throughout everything the man said. He believed what he said.

The flame vanished and Rex gave Sam his full attention. "I do not need backup," Rex said simply. "Nor do I think you are a threat, at least in the moment." He shook his head. "I agree with the intent, if not the method to achieve your goals. While this is a worthy pursuit to explore, particularly in a non-harmful fashion, I believe what you have done has accomplished far more harm than good."

"As you know, I am not a member of law enforcement," Rex continued in the same matter-of-fact voice. "And while I have worked with the X-Men, I am not among their number. I do not necessarily share their perspectives on all things, including the realm of magic and the arcane."

Rex held up a hand in a "stop" gesture. "That does not mean I agree with all ends of magic, or its applications. Research of any kind - and this is a new field of research for sure - must abide by ethical standards. I believe you crossed a line when performing an experiment on a child. Yet based on what you have stated, and from what I have been told, there was no genuine harm done to the child. From what I can tell, there has been no crime, nor do I see any sin in this."

Rex's frown deepened then, and faint firelight began gleaming in his eyes. "But know this. I do not approve of experimenting on children without their knowledge or the knowledge of their guardians. Beyond the abandonment of ethic standards, you have also put the entire community of magic users at risk. This story is not public knowledge, but it involves high profile mutants and places us in a very precarious situation which we cannot afford to be in. We are few in number - a single witch hunt could exterminate all of us. So I will be watching you, and if your actions threaten us as a whole, I will step in, and I will not be alone."

The flame went away and Rex looked back to Sam. Then Rex spoke and Sam smiled to himself. Rex was someone who had their head on right. He didn’t agree with exactly what Sam had done, but at least the ideal behind it. That was the important part.

However, that was somewhat squashed as Rex kept talking and undid some of the new higher standing Sam had put Rex on. Ethics were a man made system to hold back visionaries. If the results were good for society and no one was harmed, the process of testing was irrelevant. It was a shame Rex didn’t see that.

Playing ball could be beneficial though. Less people would react negatively to someone who mostly followed what the masses viewed as ethical. Much like how Sam waited until he had a truly powerful variant of his magic to test before he tested on someone young and growing. Perform the experiments on those people who would care less about until the product is ready, then use it on children. That was the best way to ensure a child was not harmed, something Sam certainly didn’t want to do.

”Community of magic users? The only community I know of ended when they foolishly attacked the mansion.” Sam tilted his head slightly, ”I guess it makes sense. It would have had to have formed after the attack. I’ve spent all that time cut off from people… Fine. No more experimenting on children. I will simply observe what I have already done.”