December 18th, 2020 - 3:30 PM
Outside the Dunkin' Donuts - One of the cop cars had exploded, a huge fire roaring despite the snow falling down heavily. There were two more cop cars, but the fire spread wildly, both of those cars beginning to burn now. Sirens in the distance were continuing to sound, either back up or the fire department or both. Civilians were running screaming from the area. The cops had their guns trained on Jinx and they opened fire. There were six cops in total.
Someone in the background screamed, "NO!"
Six bullets went off. Three of them missed Jinx completely. Two of them just grazed him. One bullet hit him in the forehead, killing him instantly. The police then moved forward, heading into the Dunkin' Donuts.
Dunkin' Donuts - The cops had entered the store. The bathroom where Pyro, Anastasia, and Leighton were was located at the back of the store. None of them knew that Jinx had died. The only one who could potentially figure it out would have been Anastasia, from the sudden silence of his mind (her power, after all, was a sort of telepathy).
"Ugh, but careful is for losers!" Pyro chided Anastasia. He kept his gaze trained on the fiery serpent surrounding Leighton. She had sustained several broken ribs already and now, she was being strangled to death by fire. It wasn't a pretty or kind way to go. Her death wasn't painless like Jinx's - but at the very least, she had gotten the mental message off to Warlock before the connection ended... forever.
"Two dead girls, check!" Pyro cackled. He didn't really pay attention to his wound at all as he went and picked up Desiree's corpse, throwing her over his shoulder. "Do you think Reeva will want the Ice Queen too? I can put out the fire," he offered. The fiery serpent was gone, but the fire remained, burning Leighton's body.
He heard the sound of the cops coming towards the back and he siphoned off the flames from all around the bathroom, before sending them out as a gigantic flaming elephant to fight the cops. "Also, I need to get my bike. Can we put the corpse - or corpses - in the limo with you, sweetheart?" he asked Ana.
"What's taking Jinxy so long?"
Veil
Location: the Old Underground Hideout
Skills: Invisible Energy Manipulation (Cloaking)
Instinctively, Veil didn't want to risk bringing Warlock to their hideout. Their last one had been destroyed by hounds the Hellfire Club had sent. Even if Warlock meant well, disclosing its location to him just put everyone who lived there in jeopardy. Could she justify risking everyone's lives just for James to treat Warlock's injuries? Logically, she knew that his wounds had been their fault, a combination of Spark Plug's carelessness and Sapphire's extreme phobia. The Hellfire Club was rich and well connected, they ought to have some sort of medical treatment and care for him.
"No, I'm sorry, but no. Warlock cannot go to the hideout," Veil said firmly.
"He's a member of the Hellfire Club. I know he's screwed up and made mistakes and he seems sympathetic now but... We can't afford to risk it. It wouldn't just be our lives we'd be gambling, but everyone who depends on the Underground for help and shelter, even the other Underground Stations would be at risk." She listened to Feedback's whisper and she nodded. She wasn't going to ask Feedback to share a car with Warlock, much less bring Warlock back to her place of safety and shelter. Veil's first priority was the health and safety of the Underground, second was that of those who might need their help. Warlock's wellbeing was at the bottom of the ranking.
"You said a lot about the resources the Hellfire Club has - I'm sure healing is one of them. Summon some bandages if you need to, teleport yourself back to your penthouse building, you could even contact your teammates. I'm sorry you got hurt, but we can't stick around. We came here to help save an innocent. Maybe you didn't mean to stall us, but at this rate, the innocent is likely dead." Veil concentrated, turning everyone and their vehicles (except for Warlock and his scooter) invisible.
"Come on, we need to go," she ordered her team, getting back into the van. Once they got back to the hideout, she could contact Sage and try to figure out this mess - and have a heart to heart with her brother. She felt horrible that she hadn't been able to properly comfort Echo after the loss of his girlfriend so far.
Casper Theriot
Location: Mutant Underground Hideout - Second Floor: Cayden and James' Room
Skills: Mediumship
Casper suggested seriously. Glimpse had reached out for a telepathic connection to James, the only other person she had done that for had been her father and it had been while she was dying. It was concerning since that strongly implied that Veil's team was in big trouble.
"I have nothing against polyamory, but I'm not big on sharing. You're my daddy, so Glimpse is going to have to find someone else to fill that penis shaped hole in her life." His shoulders slumped slightly as Ben didn't appear, having been almost certain that his words would have brought the morose mutant out of hiding. No other ghosts were appearing either, so he supposed that he should consider himself lucky. There were worse ghosts floating around than Feedback's mother - ones far more hostile and gruesome.
"I have noooo idea where he is. I was pretty sure he would've popped up at the penis thing, he's kind a perv sometimes." Casper darted around the room.
"Damn it, Ben, you won't even defend yourself from being insulted?!" Silence.
Casper did his best not to get frustrated. His fingers were shaking a bit, like he needed a drug fix.
"Aaaanyways... I was on Team Fuck Up Magnet Boy and Girl! So me, Sapphire, James, and Jackie teamed up with these SHIELD agents and X-Men to fight Magneto and Polaris. Other people handled the guards and then one team went after the Scarlet Witch and... honestly I have no idea what they did. Oh, Sapphire killed Polaris and Havok was there, that was messed up...."
Sunshine
Location: Mutant Underground Hideout - First Floor: Training Room
Skills: N/A
Negasonic quipped. She gave Jack the middle finger before leaving the training room, her sack of supplies slung over her back as she headed on up after her mentor, Colossus. The supply mission had been moderately successful, though Magik had dropped a few human security guards into Limbo and had to be persuaded by Colossus to free them.
Sunshine snickered.
"Boom, roasted," she teased Jack. She was still feeling upset and raw about everything, but she had learned from living on the streets that at a certain point, feelings just had be to shoved aside. Life had to go on. People who couldn't hold it together ended up going mental, forced into asylums or killed by cops in "self defense." There was a reason songs went
fuck the police and not
fuck the firefighters after all.
However, an idea then popped into her head. There was one thing she wanted dearly.
"Hufflepuff... If you get me a bow and a quiver of arrows, then we'll be square. That's all I want of fatherly duties from you." She had only gotten to try out archery once, when she and her runaway family had ended up living in a cabin at a summer camp during the off season. She had loved trying out the archery range, largely because her mutation gave her perfect aim. She always hit bullseyes.
"I'm an adult anyways, so it's not like I need to be parented or whatever... Though Fred wouldn't mind food. He likes Flintstones vitamins." "If you hurt her, I will cut your throat as a sacrifice to the Green Man," Illyana threatened Jack. She gave Sunshine a hug before walking out of the room as well, going in the same direction Negasonic and Colossus had.
February 16th, 2021 - 4:10 PM
George Washington University: Streets - The lone marauder had followed Andy with his gaze for a moment, noting as she entered the Lisner Auditorium. He then returned his gaze to his original target. His heads up display had finished rendering a DNA analysis on her. She wasn't just an ordinary mutant - that grabbed his curiosity. He gripped his knife a little tighter, before unsheathing a second knife. They were both glowing a strange blue, the blades jagged like a lightning bolt.
He turned and kicked his feet up into the air, his body moving down in a complicated acrobatic affair. When his feet were as high as they went, he threw the knife at Zarina. The throw was powerful, the knife going right through Mr. Eyeball. The rogue held his hand up and the knife flew back, ripping Mr. Eyeball in half, as the knife returned to his grip.
He threw his blade again, this time missing widely as the blade impaled itself into the pole of a streetlamp.
George Washington University: Lisner Auditorium - Lisner Auditorium could seat hundreds of people at a time. The entrance lobby had a long table with white cloth upon which platters upon platters of food were placed. There were several containers of fresh coffee, as well as lemonade and water for those who would rather do without. A chest of ice had Coke products also. The bathrooms were off to the left and relatively tidy, the sort you would expect to see at a five star hotel. There were even little seashell shaped soaps provided and bizarrely, all of the towels had a pineapple embroidered on them.
The talk was already underway.
Dr. Maya Hansen was leading a Q&A discussion, although she wasn't alone. There were several professors from GWU up there on the panel, as well as some scientists from industry. One of them was ex-superhero and current Research and Development lead at Serval Industries,
Dr. John Watts.
"Hello, I'm Tillie Soldati, a third year student in biomedical engineering. Dr. Hansen, do you believe that your work on hacking the genetic code could be applied to the inhuman problem?" one student asked, standing up at the microphone set up at the end of one of the aisles.
"Great question - as I'm sure you all know, there have been reports across the globe of rapid onset of terrigenesis. Now can we apply Extremis to this? Yes. In principle, all we would need to do would be to isolate the inhuman gene and use Extremis to repair the damaged DNA. The same thing could be done for mutants - an elimination of the X-gene, as well as other mutations in genes that code for unwanted or harmful occurrences in humans, like Down Syndrome."
"If I might cut in here," Dr. Watts interjected. "It's fucking disgraceful to even consider inhumans and mutants as
wrong. The Extremis project is just eugenics, dressed up and given a new name with advertisements of better living."
Dr. Hansen rolled her eyes at Dr. Watts. "Not all inhumans and mutants
want their abilities. Some of them can't even touch people without killing someone - I think they deserve the choice to decide whether or not they want their powers. Extremis gives them that option."
"How long will it just be an option?! How long until it becomes legislation, policy, to erase the things that make them special? Any time some sort of mutant cure is discovered, it falls into the wrong hands, period. Now you can be a fucking adult and realize that or you can live in a fantasy world where everyone holds hands and sings about bunnies jumping in a meadow of pixie dust and love."
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