Runa furrowed her eyebrows, a little bit confused by what Nadia had told her. She assumed at first that she had just misunderstood her, that maybe something had been lost in translation, but that clearly wasn't the case. Before she could ask for Nadia to clarify, Nadia had already jumped out from their spot, shouting at the gatekeeper. Deciding that Nadia must have meant to go to Klara, Runa sprinted over to Klara's hiding spot. She had luckily been able to get over there without the gatekeeper impaling her or anything. Once over at Klara, Runa reached out a hand. "Come on, let's go," Runa whispered.
She didn't really wait for Klara to answer, grabbing Klara and dragging her out from her hiding spot in a mad dash. She felt the ground shake from a boulder impacting just feet away from them, no doubt lobbed by the gatekeeper. She really hoped that he wouldn't pursue them too far. She could see a wooded area up ahead and beyond that, something like a castle. She didn't even have the mental capacity to wonder how living trees could grow in Helheim, given that it was pretty much a realm of the dead.
Veil nodded slightly, considering Spark Plug's suggestion. It could potentially work, but she wouldn't be able to maintain a force field around an explosion and keep them cloaked at the same time. She'd need to put all of her energy towards the shield. Plus, it required pretty much excellent precision from the others and assumed that the X-Cutioner didn't have anything else nasty planned. He struck her as the type to be over-prepared. He had to know that they had disarmed the other bombs.
"Oh, Moriarty? He's like this sexy professor who kills people for fun, and he's obsessed with this detective, Sherlock Holmes. He's veeeery queer coded and dresses so pretty," Casper rambled. "Except he takes Sherlock's not boyfriend but queer coded friend John to this pool and makes him wear this heavy coat, and Sherlock's all 'whaaat why are you here John' and then John opens up the coat, and BAM! He's wearing a bomb! And Sherlock's freaking out because he's also queer coded. Honestly come to think of it, pretty much every character in that show is queer coded, but not actually queer, because the BBC can't let us have nice things... And Waverley? It's always the time. That's how time works. It just keeps on going."
"Wait, what do you mean by them? I thought Daddy-O's circus ponies weren't coming," Casper blurted, confused by what Max had said.
Veil furrowed her eyebrows, before realizing the most logical person for Max to refer to - or people, however. The thought sent her stomach twisting up into knots. She always believed that the means and the ends had to both have honor in them - but here, when they were seconds away from the X-Cutioner's deadline, could they really have the luxury of being choosy? If they could save the mutants in the D.C. area, didn't they have to try every option available to them? "I don't think this could get much worse, Warlock," Veil admitted. "I believe in us. But belief might not be enough."
She turned to look at her brother, studying his face briefly as if it could be the last time she'd see him. "Je t'aime aussi," she replied softly in her native French.
Sunshine bit her lip, scrunching up her face as she tilted her head sideways. Most of her diseases that she caused were admittedly pretty unimaginative - just since she didn't know a lot. It helped her to know the name of the thing and the general effects. She'd never heard of a disease that could paralyze someone before, and she decided to give it a name in her head - Max Disease - as she twitched her fingers. No green smoke appeared around her hands.
Everyone seemed to be coming up empty and it worried Sunshine as much as it made her angry. They were a group of powerful mutants and here, some stupid flatscan with some weird tech was about to beat them all and they weren't even going to try? If this was the best that mutants had to offer, then maybe they deserved to be wiped off the face of the planet. They weren't just survivors - they were fighters, warriors! Like igniting a flame underneath a hot air balloon, Sunshine's anger allowed her to soar. Green wisps appeared in her hands, and her eyes turned emerald green. "I don't know how long it'll last, but... Fuck this flatscan." Sunshine then threw her green smoke orbs, her secondary mutation of perfect aim allowing them to connect.
There was silence, tension in the air, as the X-Cutioner fell still for a brief moment.
"You did it, kid," Havok said, his eyes wide as he started to collapse.
And then suddenly, the X-Cutioner began to move again. He turned and looked right at the group, since although Veil had made them invisible, Sunshine's actions had revealed their location. "I know you are there. There's little use in hiding now. Come into the light - or I will detonate the bomb."
The color drained from Veil's face. They only had one advantage. The X-Cutioner didn't know how many were present. She did a quick calculation, before gambling on their two best hopes. She removed the cloak of invisibility from everyone except Sapphire and Max. "X-Cutioner. You asked for us to come. We're here. What do you want?" Veil called out.
"I asked for the pathetic X-Men, Xavier's spawn - not some gutter children."
"If you want X-Men, I'm the real deal," Havok offered. "Take me - just let everyone else go."
The X-Cutioner laughed. "A real X-Men, boy," he threatened, his hand resting on the detonator. It would take very little effort for him to cause the bomb to go off. "How fitting though - Xavier shows his true colors, abandoning you and all the mutants in D.C. in favor of his chosen children, his pet monsters. You're all demonspawn, born of Lucifer's sin. Consider this a mercy killing, mutants. I'm your real savior."
Guin nodded slightly at Ed's words - it was nice of him to let her know, but she already knew that Pietro was okay - well, as okay as you could be after all the bullet holes. Guin shuddered, her breath catching at the thought. "Thanks, already knew that, but thanks," she said, before tapping the side of her head twice as an explanation. Her eye twitched as the raccoon started laughing at her. She was already incredibly scared, as prison was one of her worst fears of all time, and now the rude little talking raccoon was laughing at her? In that moment, she did something she'd never done before. She invaded the raccoon's mind and gave a simple command - hit yourself. The raccoon obeyed like a puppet on strings, slapping himself across the face.
She didn't even want to have the stupid raccoon's help anymore when it came to escaping - besides, whatever plans he had inside of his head, she could just steal them. She had already stolen some of his knowledge on how the technology on the Kyln worked, so it couldn't be that hard for her to steal some more information? She'd never really bothered to use her telepathy like this before, and a small portion of her regretted that. It was so much easier to just take the information she needed directly. Much more efficient.
No, there's a stupid raccoon and a talking tree with the speech variety of a Tickle Me Elmo doll, and this place supposedly is impossible to escape from, which means I'm going to die next to a pile of raccoon piss!
Runa Baldurdattir
Location: The Kyln Skills: N/A
"It is alright. It is I who should apologize - without Gandr, I cannot be of any use to you," Runa said softly. Gandr channeled her abilities, allowing her to use them to shape the world around her. Without her magical staff, she had essentially lost her ~training wheels~ and simply didn't know how to ride the bicycle without them. Despite being rather old by Midgardian standards, she was still a young child as far as Asgard was concerned. However, there was one thing that she did not need her staff for - by Midgardian standards, Asgardians had super-strength more or less.
As a rather rude inmate bumped into Bethany and chastised her, Runa frowned. The man was staring at the two of them rather than moving along. Bethany was clearly not happy with the encounter, and Runa glanced at her. "If we wish to settle this by blows, I make no objection," she told her friend. She doubted that any guards would care if a fight broke out in a place like this. Unlike the prisons run by her brother, it was simply too large to be monitored. She doubted that rehabilitation was even a priority.
Anelle hesitated, before nodding. If the alien woman could replicate her powers, then she could perfectly mimic Criti Noll - provided that she first made contact with her. Skrulls couldn't absorb everyone's memories and personality traits from afar, it required physical touch. They could shapeshift to mimic someone without the touch, but it was the touch that made their shapeshifting so powerful. "Odds are, Criti Noll would have been on the bridge," she said softly. "You would need to search the bodies for her... Although you wouldn't know who you were looking for so...."
Wasp internally winced. To go through with this plan then, they needed to lead a traumatized young woman through the field of corpses and unconscious skrulls, searching their faces for the one they were interested in, forcing her to confront the results of the Avengers actions. Would that be enough to push Princess Anelle over the edge, to have her join the Empress rather than help them out? "Are you going to be okay doing that, Princess?" the Wasp asked.
"...If it saves my people, I would do anything," Anelle said quietly.
May 18th, 2021
Clint Barton's Homestead - Missouri: 9:10 A.M.
Barton sighed, before plastering a smile on his face as he was tackled by three small kids - one girl with long brown hair, and two little boys. The kids looked like there were a few years spread in ages between them all, but the oldest, the girl, couldn't have been older than eight years old or so. "Hey rug rats, don't you all have school today?"
"Mommy said classes were canceled because your friends are here!" the little girl chimed in helpfully.
"And she said we're your problem since she needed Mommy time," the older of the two boys added.
Hawkeye smiled, shaking his head slightly. "Oh boy, lucky me. Well! How about we get some breakfast, and then, you can come with us to go pick out some animals, okay?" Hawkeye asked, as he got up from the table and got some things for his kids ready. The kids got into their seats at the table, looking around the table happily, although they clearly weren't phased by seeing Avengers around. The youngest boy locked eyes with Goose and gasped.
"Pussy cat!!!!" he squealed, before jumping onto the table, knocking his bowl of cereal into Captain America's lap, as he tried to grab Goose by the tail. He latched onto Goose and Goose screamed, leaping upwards and latching onto the ceiling rafters with his tentacles. The kids all started screaming - not out of fear, but excitement.
"Do it again!!!!!!"
Fury was trying not to laugh, but failing. "Look how the mighty flerken has fallen," he teased, before getting up. "I'm going to sit out the flerken retrieval mission. I'm too old to go to an animal shelter." He also didn't want to go with a bunch of hyper screaming little kids who doubtlessly would want to adopt EVERY animal in the place.
"Not to worry, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is on the case!" Spider-Man exclaimed. He aimed his right hand upwards, shooting out some webs and launching himself up to the ceiling. He crouched on the rafter next to Goose. "Hey there, Mr. Kitty Cat - or are you a Mrs. Kitty Cat? My name's Spider-Man, you wanna come down for some kitty cat treats?"
Goose looked at Spider-Man for a moment, before walking over and sniffing him slightly. After a few moments, the cat started rubbing up against him, since to Goose he was clearly one of the good hoomans.
Agent 13 raised an eyebrow. She didn't exactly want to be with the screaming children either, and they still had a lot of unknowns to deal with. "I'm going to see if I can find out anything online about the convention and get us a list of who's attending." She didn't want to wait to get that from the White House. She got up and headed up the stairs to the rooms they had been staying in.
"Wow, don't everyone volunteer at once," Cap said, shaking his head. "I'm going. Sam, Buck, T'Challa you in?"
"'Course I am, you know I'd never pass up on a chance to pet some dogs," Falcon said with a grin.
"I may have a hard time refraining from adopting all of the animals in the shelter... But yes, I would like to go," T'Challa agreed.
The Winter Soldier just nodded.
"Sparks, work on the quinjet?" Raynor suggested. The quinjet had air conditioning. He liked air conditioning. As far as he was aware, Hawkeye's home did not have air conditioning. It was also a little weird to him to see the kids running around - and part of him was a bit jealous, as his own kid hadn't been born yet. Would his kid look at him and the world with such curiosity and joy? Or would they be like him - cruel and angry all the time?
"Are we going to take a truck or something to the shelter then?" Amelia asked.
Barton nodded. "The truck's got room for someone to ride shotgun with me, kids will be in the carseats, the rest of you will have to ride in the truck bed. Once the kids finish breakfast, we can head out - and Spidey, you might want to throw the cat down at some point, I imagine we'll need Goose with us."
Mar-Vell nodded. "Flerkens have an instinctive ability to recognize their own kind."
Bonnie nodded, smiling slightly at Sparky. "Yeah, of course. I ought to study Niah's prosthetic some and take another look at Cass' wound anyways, make sure everything is healing smoothly. Niah, hun, when you're ready, we can go out to the quinjet and camp out in the medical bay."
(Everyone who is going flerken hunting, go get in the truck bed this round!)
Everyone was cleared over the timeskip. Hooray!
... Except for Nick Fury. He has only been cleared by Goose.
Overall, it hadn't gone as horribly as she might have imagined. She had been the first one to bolt, as she knew that she didn't have time to sit around and wait for the guards to clear her (and she doubted they would, with the weapon she carried). She had been able to flee the city before the guards pursued, realizing only a bit later that others had dashed with her. A few guards had followed them, but one of the blonde girls had used some throwing knives to handle that situation, and it wasn't long until they were in the woods. Megan felt calmer in the woods. It was at least partially due to the smells - Camelot hadn't smelled fantastic.
Most everyone seemed to be accounted for - Megan honestly didn't remember the names and descriptions of everyone in the group, it was rather large. And right now, her memory was entirely focused on what had happened to Jack, trying to preserve every detail in a desperate gamble to increase the odds that her brother would be returned to them alive. "We can't afford to slow down. We need to find Jack before he's dismembered," she urged Merlin.
Leda perked up, seeing her girlfriend. Kiera's vibrant red hair always made such a shocking contrast in winter - like fire and ice. She was extra pleased that Kiera was joining her at the Iris Table. They could have gone and sat at the Poseidon Table, but it was terribly lonely, and not nearly as vibrant. If people thought that Leda was a bit extra with her make up, she was relatively tame compared to some of her siblings. As a group, they always looked ready for a Pride parade. Leda's own plate was piled high with just about everything - eggs, bacon, toast, muffins, sausage, etc etc. "Yeah, I slept like a babe, what about you, luv?" Leda asked.
She then moved, a rainbow blur as Leda devoured the food on her plate. There had been enough food for seemingly a small army and a second later, the plate was practically spotless, aside from some crumbs and ketchup smears. Leda licked her fingers clean, somehow having not ruined her makeup with the feast. "Do you think it's too early to go grab seconds?" she then asked Kiera, entirely serious and not joking at all. As a speedster, she tended to burn a lot of calories, and thus ended up eating a lot. It was one of her least favorite things about quests - restaurants didn't have good prices for the appetite of a speedster, meaning that she only really was well fed when at Camp.
"Aww, she's not too big at all - at least not yet. Can't help but wonder if she's a baby or if she'll just always be this size," Nancy wondered. She had a secret preference that Joanie wouldn't get too much bigger, it was a bit selfish as she was easier to care for like this, and she felt that Joanie would fit in with the Hunt and essentially be able to be a hunting dragon if she wasn't too large. If she got huge, she'd have to find somewhere to set Joanie free, let her spread her wings and whatnot and do whatever dragons do. Nancy sighed ever so slightly just thinking about it - and how she herself wanted to be free. She followed Mads out of the tiny tent and into the large one, where every cohort slept.
Nancy felt conflicted about that set up. It wasn't fair that the cohorts all had to be squeezed into one tent, while the praetors had their own. But at the same time, she couldn't help but wonder if having all of the cohorts together allowed them to bond and take down some of the bits that divided them. And without having the praetors around all the time, the Legion could relax and have fun - no one could have a rad sleepover with their parents around after all. Nancy raised an eyebrow, knowing that Niah had dodged the answer to the question. "Maybe it's time we revisit the options for sleeping arrangements," she suggested softly, so only Mads and Niah could hear. She didn't want to get people's hopes up.
Runa bit her lip hard, as their situation went from bad to worse. Klara hadn't managed to make it to them without being noticed. And now, apparently, the gatekeeper was able to smell Runa. She hated the way that he called her the daughter of Balder - she had a name, after all - but what could she do about it? She didn't have any special powers. She didn't have a cat who could magically grow to the size of a tiger. She was just Runa. Runa gave Nadia a nod that she was okay, but her mind was scrambling, trying to figure out what to do. Maybe she had some sort of power from Balder, she could use it to help? But she couldn't even remember what Balder was the god of.
"What should we do?" she whispered to Nadia, hoping that Nadia had some sort of a plan. There had to be a way for them to get through this, right? Nadia and Klara had spent years training for situations like this, and that gave Runa hope that there was some foolproof plan they could enact. She just needed to let the experts take charge of the situation and it would all resolve itself. Everything would be fine.
It was a surprisingly tedious job to disarm terrigen bombs. The Mutant Underground worked together as a unit, disabling the many bombs hidden on the subway system. There had been a few close calls, but miraculously, everyone had survived. The most troubling part was just the sheer amount of time each bomb diffusion took - and once the bomb was disarmed, they had to figure out what to do with the thing, with their best idea being having Max open a portal for them to throw the bomb through and cross their fingers that tossing them into the sun wasn't problematic.
But finally, the end was in sight - they had ten minutes to go and just one bomb remaining - the one at the Lincoln Memorial. They hadn't encountered any resistance yet, and while no one had said it, pretty much everyone was expecting that the X-Cutioner would be at this final bomb. Everything would have to go perfectly. They'd need to defeat the X-Cutioner and disarm the bomb in ten minutes - or every mutant in the D.C. area would die an excruciating death.
The Mutant Underground stepped through one of Max's portals, arriving on the steps outside of the Lincoln Memorial. It was nearly midnight, and given that it was the middle of February, there weren't very many civilians around - just a few crazy college kids hanging around and chatting it up. In front of the gigantic statue of Lincoln, there was a single figure with their backs turned to them. Those who had gone to the Glitter Bomb would recognize the X-Cutioner.
Ben reappeared at Casper's side, having scouted up ahead quickly. "He's the bomb, Cassie."
"Wait, what?" Casper blurted out, ignoring his phone vibrating in his pocket - the caller ID said Maman. "How can he be the bomb? Is he made of terrigen or whatever? That's impossible, right?" he asked quickly, hoping that his ghost pal was somehow mistaken. Disarming a bomb while fighting a crazy guy with a fun(?) X-Men themed serial killer name was one thing, it was an entirely different thing if said serial killer was the bomb. But what choice did they have, really? Casper didn't need the power to see the future to know that they were on their own - his precious father wouldn't send his golden X-Men team here to deal with this, it was too risky, better to send the expendable mutants.
"You know those suicide bombers who wear the bomb? It's like that," Ben said. He then sighed. "I don't know how we're going to be able to handle this. It's too risky. He probably has a button or something that he just needs to push to activate the bomb early."
"Hey, Buzzfeed Unsolved, mind sharing with the class what your ghost pal had to say?" Havok asked, clearly irritated with Casper.
"X-Cutioner is wearing the bomb - like John Watson in the pool scene in Sherlock, except I don't think he'll be threatening to burn the heart out of us. Also, Moriarty is definitely in my fictional character fuck list. Like I'd let him put it in hard," Casper rambled. "Of course, I'd want it to be during a threesome with my babe," he then added, smiling innocently and goofily at James. Maybe the stress of the situation was getting to him - but also, this was Casper. He was always a bit of a mess.
"Shit," Veil cursed. She had them all cloaked at the moment, using the cover of invisibility to keep the X-Cutioner from seeing them. They only had one chance to get this right. She took a deep breath, trying to think through their options. Would Sapphire be able to freeze the X-Cutioner solid quickly enough? Could Max open a portal under the X-Cutioner's feet that would drop him onto the surface of Mars? Could Sunshine somehow grow stronger so rapidly that she could stop it all? Maybe Casper could channel Ben and the tentacles could take the X-Cutioner by surprise? Could Zarina take control of the bomb before the X-Cutioner could activate it?
Every plan required extreme speed and perfect efficiency - something they had never managed to pull off before. If only they had Glimpse - her speed and telepathy would have been incredibly handy here at the moment. The only advantage they had was that the X-Cutioner didn't know they were there yet. "We only have one chance to do this right. If he realizes we're trying to disarm the bomb, he'll pull the trigger. I think our best chance is having Zarina try to take control of the bomb away from him, but I'm open to suggestions."
Sunshine's anger was threatening to consume her, now that she was face to face (well face to back) with the X-Cutioner. She found it so easy to hate humans. They had never done anything good to her, everything humans had done just created more pain and suffering. And here, here was an evil human trying to kill innocent mutants just to attract the attention of the X-Men. She hated the X-Men too now, since they were willing to sit back and let mutants die. They were traitors, not even real mutants anymore in her mind.
"Maybe I make him so sick his fingers fall off," Sunshine muttered. She really wished that she knew more diseases, other than the basic ones. She was fairly certain there had to be some sort of illness that caused people to lose fingers, but her powers always worked better if she had a clear idea of what she was going for. The common cold? Easy. Some weird type of flu she'd never really heard of before? More complicated. "I say we just kill him. He can't see us. So, like, it'll be easy."
Location: The Kyln Skills: Telepathy, Electronics and Computers
Guin nodded slightly at Mary, taking a few quick and somewhat loud breaths as she tried to steady her nerves some more. She was feeling a little bit better and less hopeless, mostly since nothing terrible had happened to her so far. And if she didn't think about how Pietro had been shot and could instead focus on feeling denial, then the edge from that was off too. Everything was going to be fine - just fine. "I'm one with the Force and the Force is with me," Guin whispered, trying to pep herself up a bit as she followed after Mary - not that she had much of a choice, as Mary was dragging her by the arm. "I'm one with the Force and the Force is with me."
They then ran into a pair straight out of Narnia - a walking tree who kept on insisting its name was Groot, and a talking raccoon. Guin tilted her head slightly, studying what the raccoon was up to, probing the raccoon's thoughts telepathically to assist. She didn't usually invade other people's thoughts, but with her nerves and anxiety, she didn't care much about personal space at the moment. "Fucking A, an actual security panel," Guin said with a sigh of relief. She wasn't even shocked to find out that Mary could speak tree apparently. She was about to shove the raccoon aside to tackle the panel herself, when she got an idea. She looked into the raccoon's mind and saw that it was an expert at Nova Corps tech.
It was probably wrong on some level, it felt a little bit like cheating, but desperate times called for desperate measures. It wasn't really cheating, right? She could have taken the time to figure this stuff out, but she had a special gift, and it was wasteful if she didn't use it - and it wasn't like taking a copy of the raccoon's alien tech knowledge would hurt the raccoon or anything... She concentrated and started copying the information over into her own head, like transferring over a file, and she managed to get about half.
"Well, tell the raccoon that we're breaking out with him, and if he doesn't like it, my husband will rip his heart out," Guin told Mary. Her heart was still pounding furiously, and as she turned and saw Ed and Lance approach them, she couldn't help but feel happy but annoyed. She would have rather seen Pietro coming towards them.
Runa Baldurdattir
Location: The Kyln Skills: N/A
Runa was not unaccustomed to being glared at by relative strangers - it was a common experience for her on Asgard, especially if she left her father's hall. Even in her grandfather's palace, the servants would look at her with distrust and disdain, certain that she was simply another Loki waiting to happen. No one could have such dark and evil domains without being similarly corrupt at heart, after all. The large central area was both underwhelming and overwhelming - her brother's prisons were much more aesthetically appealing, this place was cold and messy and unforgiving. She didn't care for it in the slightest.
"Do you have any inclination as to where Lance may be?" Runa asked. She was glad to know that Annie was nearby, but she wasn't terribly close to her. Runa didn't mean to seem heartless, but she had her priorities. She had one of her closest friends, Bethany, accounted for - and now she needed to have Lance similarly sorted. "I imagine they simply do not realize they need to restrain us to account for our powers - for which we should be fortunate."
They were almost out of Camelot and Megan was eager to press on. She didn't want anything to slow them down, so as luck would have it, she was signaled out for questioning by the guards. When they asked her for her name, all she could think of was the Tiffany problem in literature - that the name Tiffany was really common during the medieval era, but it seemed out of place and thus couldn't be used in stories set in that time period written by modern authors. "My name is Tiffany. I was here to watch the execution, but as it appears to be canceled, I'm returning home to my farm."
Perhaps it was her unsettling nature, but the guard didn't appear to buy it. In fact, he grabbed her by the arm and started trying to drag her away. Megan was forced to make a choice - go peacefully or make a mad dash for the exit of the city. But with her brother missing and Camelot's worst detectives on the case, Megan decided that drastic times required drastic measures. She used her self defense skills to break free of the guard's grip and she ran, not stopping until she was beyond the city walls.
Achronum
kittyluna45
Scrawl Banditta
Not a Sayan
KazAlkemi
Neziul
Kirah
Blizz
BlueSky44
