A Meeting of Minds (And a paper-weight)

Jethro, as normal, was loitering in the market district. It was his day off from the library so he did what he usually did when he had free time on his hands, practiced with his powers and attempt to extend them. He leaned against a wall with a cold look, looking as if his head was in the clouds, when in reality he was perusing the minds of those around him, digging into them, understanding them. This method of increasing his power had worked for a while, but lately it hadn't been very fruitful. It seemed that this practice nowadays just wasn't enough to extend the power of his mind. But, since he was at a loss of what else to do to progress, all he could do was this. As usual, it was just a boring mass of people. There was a metahuman here and there, trying to hide their powers, trying to hide their identities, but he didn't care, if they were hiding their powers and trying to be normal, then for all intents and purposes they WERE normal, and thus boring. But then, as he was prying and looking, he found something that surprised him greatly. There was one individual the he could not get into the mind of. This made him curious so eh ceased his efforts to read others' minds and focused all of his concentration on that one, trying to break the seemingly concrete wall they had around their mind. Unknown unbeknownst to him this person was a much more powerful telepath, by a wide margin. This guy was Alpha.

New York City. It had been a long, long time since Cale had been here. Actually the last time he had been here it was under an entirely different name. Not his Seraphim name, or the name he had adopted for himself. Hell, despite having been gone for so long he still had his original accent. Despite the grand nights and days of LA... Cale was a New Yorker, through and through. He wanted to come home. To get closure. So he first decided it best to go to the church where his father gave his life. Preaching about how metahumans would be the end of humanity, and how "The Lord" despised and reviled them as the children of stan. That's not a typo either, that's just how damn stupid his dad sounded to him. The man threw out his kid and left them to die for being a meta. His own daughter, his own sons...all of them except Cale had been born metahuman. The man disowned his daughter, threw her into the streets. He would have done the same to Cale's brothers too...if they hadn't left. It wasn't a question to Cale why people hid their powers. It was a question as to why people hated themselves for having powers. Why people were ashamed or embarrassed of their gifts.

Currently Cale sat on a bench with his little Matrix. Cale was dressed in a black jean jacket, matching jeans and a red shirt, his black combat boots against the sandy colored concrete. In contrast Corbin was dressed in a red hoodie with white lettering, a large boat of nachos placed before them. Nico was off somewhere, using the bathroom or something like that. It made Cale uneasy to know all of his "charges" had free reign due to their sheer outnumbering him.

"What's wrong?" a little voice chirped from beside him. Cale looked to the young man with up-swept black hair and turquoise eyes. Cale could lie to him and say he was fine; but Corbin knew him a little too well for that to work. So instead he settled to simply be honest with the little guy.

"Hm? 'Ey. Nacho business bud. Now focus on the Nacho part." Cale said as he pushed the little boat of overly cheesy nachos towards the little machinasapien. With a little chuckle and a roll of the turquoise eyes Cale simply dismissed the child's concerns. The child's worries actually paled to his own, sadly. While the child worried about peoples feelings and nice mushy crap like that, Cale had to worry about two machinasapiens running about, as well as twin robo-snakes slithered around and occasionally terrorized women or entertained babies with their rattling tails. Cale never thought he'd live to see the day he created such advanced technology...the first human to truly leap the uncanny valley. He made the best robots on the planet...even better than any metahuman. You'd think he'd be happy about that. He wasn't...

Don't mistake him. He loved them all. He'd die for any of his synthetic family. Unfortunately the fact he wasn't a metahuman always seemed to loom over his head. Tearing him down at his highest points. What an odd mentality to have this day and age. Metahuman teens prayed to God their parents didn't find out they were metahuman, like it was the new "gay" or something like that. Cale on the other hand hoped that every morning he opened his eyes he'd have a power, or some form of meta-gene. Something to help him help people.

"So this is where you're from?" The kid asked. For the ump-teenth time today. It seemed to be his coping mechanism to awkward situations. He'd try to reset the conversation back to the last thing he spoke of that didn't cause an awkward silence or discomfort.

"Yea. See this here is the market distr-?" Cale chuckled as the little thing tried to hold its own in conversation. Of course he was heavily distracted when he felt something fall on him. A heavy uneasy feeling. It honestly felt like he was being violated. A repulsed feeling settled in as his stomach began to clench a bit, causing him to look around, his eyes constantly shifting. What in the name of God was that? That was the only question on his mind as he stood up and looked around, not really caring if he drew attention to himself.