Mary looked over at Sara when she spoke, she had partially been lost in a train of thought there for a moment, so she hadn't been expecting anyone to say anything to her.
"I know mistakes happen, problem is I can't stop thinking about those what if scenarios... Thanks though Sara, that does mean a lot," she said giving her a smile. It did mean a lot, considering how much people were yelling at her earlier, someone basically saying that she wasn't a complete screw up meant something.
Pietro stared at Bethany.
"...What are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? I'm so confused... And how dare you insult Mr. Dibbles! His name is great and he is adorable!" "Pietro, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a cartoon and comic book series..." Mary said, glancing over at them with a slight laugh.
"Oh... I didn't know that..." "Course you didn't." Pietro just rolled his eyes, still holding onto the turtle before he turned to his family,
"...Pretty sure the two of you aren't going to get arrested, but you might want to leave before any sort of law enforcement shows up..." Magneto simply nodded, not responding to Pietro, though when Pietro met his gaze, he couldn't help but look away quickly, Magneto still scared him a lot.
"...Goodbye then brother..." Wanda said, before she walked over to her father, and they left.
"...Bye..." "...Pretty sure she was mentioning the time when her dad lost track of us for like, two seconds, we ran into someone who knew my dad and then chaos ensued." The Present day version of Thalia turned and smiled at Richard,
"Well you certainly are a charmer aren't you?" she said with a smile.
Flynn glanced over at Annie,
"...I might see about joining SHIELD at some point... This whole situation... It was a mess, and I want to make up for what had happened, and my part in it... So, I'll see if Fury is willing to have me, though it might help with some of the stuff I do know... So maybe I could use that as a bargaining chip..." "...Alright, everyone whose wanting a ride some place, climb aboard the Quinjet, let SHIELD deal with the rest of OMEN, I am all for that Starbucks run, not to mention pretty sure most of us could probably use some sleep at this rate..." she then said aloud to everyone, before she headed onboard the Quinjet, before she noticed something, and turned to Thalia who was not too far behind her.
"...Guessing they went home?" "Yes, they did, though I am not quite positive what they will and will not remember," she responded, nodding her head. Cass was close enough to have seen what happened, Folly and the future version of her sister had just faded from existence.
Folly would find herself at a mutant friendly bar. People there all seemed to know who she was, and the bartender had just given her a drink on the house. She'd still have perfect memories of what had happened in the past, and what had happened in the other timeline, but she also had memories of the current one, including what she had been doing that had gotten her to that bar, and right next to her was Thalia.
"So, that was a bit of a fun adventure now wasn't it?" Carolina was a bit more complicate, and would find herself in the main common area at the mansion. Unlike Folly, she had no memory of the current timeline, so she wouldn't quite recognize the
woman who was sitting in a chair by the window reading. Her outfit was a bit strange too, wearing a long skirt of sorts and a shirt. She also was wearing what looked to be like a trench coat of sorts almost, and she glanced up at Carolina.
"I wonder when Pietro is going to be leaving," she mused slightly, before there was a gust of wind as Pietro raced into the room (and it was as Guin would have called him Muscles!)
"Right now, I have got to get going, see you Carolina, Mary, be back later, have to take Guina to the hospital," he said, before he looked at Carolina, giving her a bit of a wink and a grin before he was gone again.
"...Based on the speedster's reaction, and considering the fact that he actually does have a few minor abilities over time of his own, guessing I know the last thing you remember," Mary said with a smile though for a split second there was something slightly off about her tone of voice, but whatever it was was gone in an instant.
"You probably had some fun, though I suspect you will have a lot of catching up to do." She said nothing else, getting up from her chair and setting the book she had been reading down, and headed out of the room, but before she left, she turned slightly towards her,
"See you later Carolina," she said with a slight smirk, and for an instant, Carolina would be able to see something strange.
The one eye that she had been able to see from Mary when she had turned partially towards her had turned red instead of her natural green.
Present Day, a few hours afterwards
No one paid much attention to the man who was sitting at the bar, the man who was watching the television screen diligently. He always wore a hood, so no one ever was really able to see his face unless they were standing right there facing him. There was a news report, about OMEN. It had basically been playing on loop for the past hour or so, but this man kept watching it anyway.
"Alexander Jakobsen, presidential candidate, disbanded the Organization for the Methodical Eradication of Necromantics, also known as OMEN earlier today after it was revealed what the organization was really doing behind closed doors. The X-Men managed to stop the organization and put a stop to their plans. As previously reported, OMEN had managed to catch a few of the X-Men team members, and nearly was able to put an end to the superhero team, but the group came out victorious. Dozens of OMEN agents were killed during the attack at their facility, however law enforcement officials have ruled that it was all in self defense, so there will be no charges against the X-Men..." the reporter said, before trailing off somewhat.
The bartender had watched the screen as well, "Ain't that something, guess there really are lunatics out there who'd do that sort of thing to people... Just insane..."
"Not really..." the man said, before he looked directly in the eyes of the bartender with a slight smile,
"...Mind getting me another drink? I don't need to pay for it..." "Of course," he responded, pouring another glass.
"I may have been forgotten somewhat by you Xavier, and that older group of yours, a faded memory. Forgotten yes, but I am far from gone. You will see that I am quite capable of dealing with my problems somewhat... Directly... Soon, very soon I can assure you... I will have my revenge upon you and watch as everything you've built is destroyed."
Marygold Isley with guest Veil!
Date: June 10, 2020
Mary wasn't too thrilled about this whole thing, but she supposed it couldn't be help. Now that the mansion was back up and things were settling back down, Xavier wanted her to go spend some time with the Mutant Underground. She knew where it was located, at least this section of it, and who ran it. The leader or whatever was someone she only vaguely remembered from her younger years at the mansion, well, more of the very first year she had been there, so it wasn't someone she knew overly well. Reaching the underground station in D.C, Mary entered the area, looking to see if she could find the person she was looking for.
It was a secluded area and looked largely like a refugee camp, set up inside of an abandoned building. For a moment, Mary wouldn't be able to see anyone - yet suddenly, they all popped into her line of sight and directly in front of her stood
Veil, the leader of this branch of the Mutant Underground. She kept her people hidden -
literally - when outsiders came to call.
"Bloom, right? I'm Veil - welcome to the Underground." "Uh, yeah... That's me... Though most people don't generally call me that... Anyway, Xavier has told me about this place... I haven't exactly seen much of it myself..." "Correction - you haven't seen any of it. And the Mutant Underground isn't a place - it's a network," Veil said. Her pale eyes seemed to look right into Mary's soul, an intimidating effect but a moment later, Veil motioned for Mary to follow her as she walked towards the back of the station. All around them, mutants and their loved ones were huddled on cots and sleeping bags, eating spare food that had been scavenged and mending spare clothes. Some of the younger ones were being given a history lesson by one of the grown ups and in one corner, a group of people talked in hush whispers, glancing at Mary every so often.
"Right... Sorry..." Mary said, not sure what to think of the way Veil was looking with her. This place was not the best, or at least not in the best condition. It was very different from where she generally was, even if they had just gotten the mansion rebuilt for like, the hundredth time. She had no idea what to say as she glanced around.
Eventually, Veil stepped through a large opening that looked like a gutted out vault and she sat down on a broken and tattered looking couch. On the wall, there was a rough sketch of the underground stations across the country. They had computers and equipment, as well as a stash of fake I.D.'s ready to be distributed for those leaving the underground.
"Take a seat," Veil said, nodding at an old armchair across from her.
"What do you think?" "Honestly... I don't know what to think... I knew things were bad, because of OMEN and stuff like that, but still... I didn't think it was like this..." she said, sitting down in the chair and looking at her.
Veil shook her head.
"It's not because of O.M.E.N.," she said simply.
"Guessing you are talking about the Purifiers right? Yeah, I know about them too... Pretty sure a lot of ex-OMEN agents have joined their ranks since they've been disbanded..." she replied, shaking her head in response.
"No, not the Purifiers." "Then mind telling me? Since I'm running out of things other than people just being racist bigots that cause the underground to even really need to exist..." Veil gave Mary a slight smile, standing up and walking over to the map for a moment.
"One of the first undergrounds was the Underground Railroad - dedicated to sneaking slaves away from their captors and to deliver them to freedom," Veil said softly.
"When slavery was outlawed, suffering didn't end. Jim Crow replaced that system. When the Civil Rights Act was passed, people didn't stop their hatred...They found different outlets for it. Prejudice is a learned behavior and one that will never really be defeated. Beyond race wars, there was the Holocaust of course - the attempted extermination of an entire people. Anti-semitism still exists despite all of our attempts to wipe it out...Then of course, there's the brutal treatment of the LGTBQIA+ community. Children are killed for their sexuality and identities...Things are this bad because of human nature - pinning it down to just one group, to one villain...It's pointless. If it was that easy, the Mutant Underground wouldn't be needed. The X-Men could just rush in, take down a foe, and that would be that." "That is true... Things like that suck immensely... I was lucky that growing up I didn't have to deal with that sort of thing, as I came to the mansion just two years after I got my powers. I know how people can be though, and it really sucks that it is the way it is, but people don't tend to like to learn from the mistakes, or the past of others. And honestly half the time I think that we are literally just caught in a loop going round and around since no one has thought of breaking that cycle yet... We're just another link in the chain of another ending cycle... This place literally is the underground railroad of old, and something tells me with the way things go in the world, in another hundred years or so, there likely will be another one for another targeted group or something similar," Mary responded, standing up and going over to stand by her.
"That's astute of you," Veil agreed. The cycle of prejudice never really was going to end. As human beings evolved, so did hatred and discrimination - the urge to label people and place them into groups, to discriminate against those deemed as the
other.
"But I know Xavier didn't ask you to come here to discuss cycles of hate - I'd like to know what you think the reason is first." Veil gave her a slight smile, pushing her bushy hair out of her face.
"Honestly... It is impossible to understand anything that man does, I mean really... He didn't tell me why, and I know that you know why... Well... I really don't know what to think when it comes to why he had me come here..." Veil offered Mary a piece of gum - she had a packet in her pocket and she popped a stick in her own mouth.
"Is that really true?" she asked, a bit disappointed. She had hoped that Mary would be able to recognize why she had been asked to go the Mutant Underground in Washington D.C. for a few days.
"...Probably has to do with being a leader or something...Right?" she guessed, taking the gum from Veil.
"Something like that," she agreed with a kind smile. She then sat down again, chewing on her gum - but being polite and keeping her mouth shut, of course. She rubbed her shoulder for a moment, feeling the old scar from underneath the fabric.
"Tell me about what happened at the Power Plant - your first mission." "You mean when the place blew up? That whole thing was not exactly the best situation... Good thing was Quicksilver joined our side, but still... Things definitely could have gone better. We split up into different groups, and I had the speedster we had, Oshea, race around the facility to see if he could see anything..." she started off, before she continued explaining what had happened there.
Although Veil knew all of the details, she listened to Mary's explanation. It was hard for her to
not already be familiar with the destruction of the Hanson Power Plant. It had caused an uptick in anti-mutant crime and meant that more mutants were being taken in by the Underground Station and then sent north, in the hopes that they'd make it out of the dangerous area.
"What would you have done differently?" "Come up with a decent plan before we even left the mansion. I didn't really know what we were doing... So I kind of just winged it there..." "Why didn't you have a plan?" Veil asked softly, looking at her.
"...I don't know... I kind of wondered that myself, why didn't I have a plan..." "Being a leader isn't just about being in charge," Veil said gently.
"You're a part of a team and it's a special role, but not above anyone else. In movies, leaders will make the sacrifice play all of the time, putting others before themselves...But while that's necessary sometimes, a good leader will play to the strengths of their team - listen to others and make sure that they are truly heard, that their opinions matter - and do what will bring about the greatest good." "Yeah... Well that's what I did the second time around at the Brotherhood hideout... Thought it made sense to split up the team into smaller ones... Asked for everyone's opinions and mainly got the opinions from the SHIELD commander. I made a split second choice at the last second to make it so that I wasn't in the same group as the SHIELD commander, as that didn't make much sense in the long run, and put Oshea in that group to make sure, since the commander was human, that her and one of the newer members who was also in that group could get out easily in a pinch..." "From what I heard, there was a lot of improvement in that mission," Veil said, her intense eyes looking at Mary once more. She then blew a bubble and promptly popped it.
"What would you have done differently at the Brotherhood lab?" "...Not switch the lineup at the last minute.." she said softly, her mind still going back to what had happened.
"Why? Your reasoning was sound," Veil said, rejecting Mary's change.
"Not every death can be prevented, Mary. A good leader needs to be able to learn from their mistakes and move on. Dwelling on this man's sacrifice will not allow you to lead your team - which brings us to the incident your team had with O.M.E.N..." "...Are you saying before or after everyone was arguing at Stark Tower? Like the attack on the mansion? Or us going to the facility itself?" She didn't answer her question.
"Were you a leader then? A good one?" she asked, before continuing.
"Did you listen to your team?" "No, I didn't... At least not at first... I wasn't thinking right... I was stressed out, panicking... And everyone almost got killed because of me... I didn't listen, because everyone was yelling at me, yelling at every choice I make... Yelling about what had happened with the Brotherhood Lab... And I just lost it... Those who got caught and ended up in the middle of the OMEN facility, well, I wouldn't be surprised if they blamed me for it, I kind of blame myself for them getting caught because I didn't listen... It wasn't until a little bit after we reached the facility and started attacking, that I realized how dumb I was, flat out admitted it and called myself out on it for everyone, and came up with a decent solution..." Veil paused for a moment, thinking.
"If you've ever seen Avatar, do you remember King Bumi's advice for Aang - that he needed a teacher that would wait and listen to the Earth? That's who you need to become as a leader - someone who listens and waits before striking." "Yeah... I remember that show... But there aren't really a lot of people in the world like that..." She shook her head.
"I'm not asking every person on the planet to be a rational leader, Mary. But if you are going to lead the X-Men team, you can't keep living in the past. It's time that you moved forward - and that when your team is going into a danger, wait and listen. Come up with a plan and convince yourself that it'll work. Otherwise...you should step down. Let someone else take on the job of leading if it isn't right for you." "Wow... You are actually the second person to tell me something like that... Maybe you are right..." "Maybe. But what do I know," Veil replied, giving Mary a kind smile.
"You tell me considering the fact that the other person who told me that of all people was Gambit, reason I was a bit dubious about that at first," Mary said with a slight laugh.
"Why would you be dubious of something Gambit said?" "I was talking to him after I broke down due to stress, just thought he was trying to make me feel better about the entire situation..." she said with a slight shrug.
"...Perhaps you should try putting more weight in the words of others." "...Maybe I should..."
Lance Banner with guest Runa!
Date: August 5, 2020
Lance was going to the library in NYC. Sure, the mansion had a large collection of books that he could read, but he wanted to get away from there for a while, and the library had always been a sort of safe haven for him. A place where he could go to be alone and just read whatever he wanted. He walked inside and started going among the shelves, glancing around at the shelves. Over in the Young Adult section, there was a
girl with dark hair and almond shaped eyes, reading a copy of
Percy Jackson and the Olympians as she sat in a corner. There was a pile of books next to her, all of them on varied subjects but largely mythology and astronomy.
He didn't even notice the girl sitting there, as he started pulling a few books off the shelves to start reading.
"Excuse me," a voice said. While he had been pulling books off of the shelves, the girl had gotten up and was trying to get by him. She wanted to get a quick drink of water at the fountain nearby. And unfortunately, Lance was in her way.
"Oh, uh sorry," he said, before he moved slightly so she could get by him.
The girl just nodded slightly, walking behind him and then heading over to the water fountain.
Lance glanced over at her for a second after she had walked by him. She looked kind of pretty, at least in his mind, but he wasn't too much of a talker to anyone, not to mention they were in a library, so he went back to scanning the book shelves. A moment later, the girl came back over and stopped.
"...That book you have, it's good - inspired by the author's boyfriend." "Uh, what?" he said, before he actually glanced down at the title of the book in his hands.
"Yeah, that's why there's imagery about the sun so much - he called his boyfriend his sunshine..." the girl said quietly, before she went back to her corner and opened up her book.
"...I didn't know that..." A librarian looked up and shushed Lance, giving him a glare. The girl in the corner couldn't help but giggle a bit mischievously, seeing the vexed man. She glanced at Lance for a moment, before she waved her hand slightly and it seemed to be surrounded by darkness, before a pile of books near the librarian fell to the ground in shambles. The librarian swore and the girl just giggled more.
Lance's eyes grew wide seeing that. It was definitely not what he had expected! So the girl had powers of her own, and she wasn't against using them like that. It was a little weird, but he went over to stand by her.
"...Wow, did not see that coming..." he said kind of quietly.
"...Thank you..." she said softly, still sitting down with her books.
"...What's your name?" "...Runa Blake..." "...Nice to meet you... I'm Lance Banner..." The girl - Runa Blake - gave him a soft smile before she went back to reading her book. Her hands were smooth and soft, but as she shifted her shirt sleeve rolled up and revealed a set of faint scars. Some of them were next to fresh wounds - no more than a few days old at best.
He looked at her arms, not too sure what to think of the fact that she had a bunch of them. Lance looked away quickly, going back to glancing around at the shelves. By the time he turned around again, the girl was gone. There was a pile of books where she had been and a small pouch that it seemed she had forgotten.
"...Uh?" he said softly, before he reached over and grabbed the pouch, opening it up. Inside, there was a rune of sorts with an L on it. He glanced around, trying to see where she had gone, but saw nothing, and so he put the rune back in the pouch and put it in his pocket, before he walked away.
Morose
SouffleGirl123
Nallore
h8k8m8
PatientBean
Neziul
Azure Bubbles
Story Weaver
Not a Sayan
