Below is a summary of the IC, current up to the 11th post. If you're going to jump into this game, or if you're just keeping an eye on it, and you only read this summary and not the actual posts...then you've really missed out. =) Jean (Post #1):Jean Grey seeks out Logan, whom she finds smoking a cigar under a tree a short walk from the Mansion. After a playful exchange between the two, Logan attempts to apologize. Before we can find just what he's apologizing for, Jean cuts him off and informs him; "You don't get to blame yourself, Logan." Logan persists, but Jean expands her point: that Logan can't blame himself for her death just because he wasn't there, because he couldn't have stopped it anyway. Logan questions the wisdom of the team having left him to watch over the Mansion during the Genoshan conflict. Jean explains he was her choice to stay, because unlike all of the other X-Men, Logan is a killer.
In her own words, "You're a killer. I need to know that a man like you is here, protecting this building and these children." For the same reason, Jean asks Logan to stay at the Mansion once more, instead of going off to Cuba to answer the call of Tony Stark to fight back. Logan agrees, though it's unclear just how happy he is with the situation.
Carol (Post #2):Captain Carol Danvers of the United States Navy is found enjoying the freedom and wonder of flight. Especially now that she can rock out to her favorite Blondie tune during flight: Heart of Glass. A pleasure denied her when flight was restricted to the cockpit of a Rhino, the US Navy's F/A-18 Super Hornet, due to Naval regulations on FOD (foreign object damage) hazards; her iPod a hazard under those rules. A pleasure she can now fully enjoy as a metahuman who needs no fighter jet to fly. Airborne with iPod earbuds firmly in place, we find out the immense legal pressure Captain Marvel is dealing with:
If she failed to report for duty within the next six hours would result in Carol's termination from both agencies and a court-martial from the Navy on desertion charges.Upon arriving at her apartment, Carol confronts her conflicting desires: to give up her metahuman abilities and go back to a 'normal' life. We learn that unlike the other Avengers, Captain Marvel kept her head down and said nothing while the others in the team took a stand against 'registration' and legal executions under the Drone Program expanding to 'mutant' and possibly 'metahuman' threats.
Carol comes to a resolution:
But she couldn't trade, and that moment of weakness didn't change anything about the world. Decided, Carol flies off to answer Tony Stark's call. No matter the deep personal cost for Captain Marvel.
Jean (Post #3):We learn the first thing Jean Grey did after her resurrection was let Hank McCoy cook a meal for her, and give her a check-up. The second thing she did? What any woman would do after returning from the dead, she claims: a day of beauty salon and shopping. After an hour of 'getting ready', Jean is ensuring the Betsey Johnson dress she's wearing is picture perfect before a standing mirror in the bedroom and bath given to her since her return to the Mansion: the deceased Charles Xavier's former master bed and bath.
Jubilee appears, answering a telepathic summons from Jean. Jubilee having arrived after Jean's death, it is her first real look at the resurrected X-Men. Impressed by the red headed X-Man's beauty, Jean offers to take Jubilee on a 'girl's day' of make overs and shopping once she returns. (Assuming she returns.) Jean goes on to reveal her purpose for summoning Jubliee: having learned how close Jubilee has gotten with Logan, Jean asks Jubilee to, "...keep an eye on Logan like only you can. Keep his spirits up."
Jubilee agrees, and Jean departs to meet with an old friend that has since been legal counsel to the Department of Defense, Congress, and the White House.
Neena (Post #4):Domino is practicing in the shooting range under Xavier's, thinking on her ill-fit at the Institute:
She wasn’t a student, nor was she a teacher. Instead, she liked to think of herself as a visitor; a very restless one. After firing her last shot of the day, she finds none other than Storm awaiting to speak to her. Neena confirms Storm's suspicion that Domino is headed to Cuba to answer Tony Stark's call, mostly out of that sense of restlessness. Though Storm urges Neena to be careful, the former Merc scoffs, revealing ill feelings towards the actual member of the X-Men known to be going to Cuba: "...No, you both have your prized red-head back from the dead. She’ll take care of everything I hear. She’ll fix all of your problems and then probably shit out skittles just because she can.”
Before Storm can confront her, Domino dismisses Storm and walks off to leave for Cuba.
It is unknown to the readers if, in fact, Jean Grey can shit skittles.
Tony (Post #5):Iron-Man is blasting across the skies from Florida to Cuba when the scene opens, blasting AC/DC and recounting the elaborate measures he took in an attempt to keep the governments of the world from tracking his every move:
...but he knew his suit would have been tracked the moment it left its hideout in Georgia. Of course he'd launched multiple suits from locations across his various properties. He'd even shot one off out of the vault SHIELD had failed to crack in the ex-Avengers tower, likely much to their chagrin. Each would head for a different location...An elaborate variation on the old con, 'watch the ball.'
As he approaches Cuba, Tony seems to take pridge in the knowledge that Cubans like him, even if the Cuban government does not. On cue, Cuban automated air defense networks launch missiles. After foiling the missile attack, Iron-Man takes a 'victory lap' over the skies of Cuba before circling back and landing at the lush beach house that had once been Tony's, but since given to SHIELD as a safe house.
JARVIS attempts to talk Tony into continuing to wear his Iron-Man suit during the meeting on the grounds that the helmet has anti-psy tech that could prove useful in a meeting with Jean Grey of the X-Men. Tony scoffs, and ignores the advice before quickly, triumphantly, looking over the back pools of the beach house and the beach beyond. Left alone, Stark does what Stark best: spot beautiful Cuban women along the shore, and going off to charm them.
Jean (Post #6)Jean Grey arrives at the South Beach Yacht Club's Kennedy Lounge to meet with Bennett Collins, the man she went on her last 'human' date with. Although never stated, it seems obvious the two were once very close, even possibly in teenage puppy love with the other. Though Collins initially plays coy, Jean eventually gets him to start talking on the subject she came to discuss: the legal situation every mutant and metahuman in the world now finds themselves in, starting with the question of whether Jean, herself, is on the US 'kill list.' Collins admits that he was in the room when the President of the United States ordered Jean off the list, confirming Fury's information that Jean had once been on the 'kill list'. Relieved that she is no longer on it, Jean continues to press Collins for information.
The pattern of the conversation is that of Collins explaining something, and Jean recounting it as a question to ensure she's understood him correctly. As even a brilliant mind with an eidetic memory is capable of confusing the non-sensible logic of the lawyer profession.
Collins explains the nigh-impenetrable legal framework the current US Administration has errected, explaining to be legally executed by the US government all one has to do is be considered an 'imminent threat.' Collins goes on to explain 'imminent threat' doesn't mean what it means to a normal person, that all someone has to do to be considered such a threat by the government is to be affiliated with a group that the US believes is 'plotting' against the US or it's interest. Jean and Bennett discuss the examples of Anwar al-Awlaki and Adam Gadahn as US citizens turned enemies of the state, highlighting that 'citizenship isn't a shield' if the US considers you a possible enemy despite the rights due any US citizen.
Collins brings up Senator Kelly, a powerful member of Congress pushing an Anti-Mutant, now Anti-Metahuman, agenda that Jean equates to McCarthyism. Kelly is the face of 'bureaucratic pressure' pushing the US Drone, and now US Sentinel, polcies because, no one in the government wants to be blamed for the next 9/11. (Although this is a fate that seems to have doomed former SHIELD Director Fury.)
Since avoiding that sort of fate has become vitally important to those in power, Collins explains the Drone Program, and now Sentinel Program, thusly: "...it's as if they've jump on the back of a tiger, and they don't know how to get off."
The meeting abruptly ends when Collins admits that Stark's resistance in cooperating with the US Government over his own technology has landed Stark on the 'kill list.' Concerned for his safety, Jean takes off in flight for Cuba to warn Stark.
Tony (Post #7):Stark is attacked at the beach house by the mutant Mystique, followed soon after by an attack from several 'Mini'-Sentinels. Though Stark is able to both ward off the attack by Mystique and the Mini-Sentinel attack, the beach house that had been established as the meet location in his call to Avengers and X-Men is now past the point of use, chunks of the structure crashing into the Cuban beach and even waves beyond. Left with few options, Stark instructs JARVIS to purchase the San Marcos Beach Resort and Hotel only a few miles down the shore from the now destroyed beach house.
Neena (Post #8):Domino arrives at the meet location in Cuba just in time to witness the aftermath of the Sentinel attack. Half jokingly, she asks Tony if the destruction means the meeting is over already. After no direct response from Stark, Neena thinks to herself just how good it is to be away from Xavier's, how the few missions the X-Men did give her she viewed as beneath her talents, comparing them to 'paper boy'-like tasks. Though she had felt in a state of limbo at Xavier's, she reveals in thought a larger issue had been how Fury promised to give her renewed purpose--but was then taken out.
Domino finally catches up to Iron-Man, informing him of her arrival. The scene continues in Post #9.
Collaboration #1; Neena, Tony, and Jean. (Post #9)Iron-Man informs Domino that while he was attacked, he was able to fend it off without too much trouble, and informs her he is on his way to the resort he now owns just down to the shore, to, in his own words, "...meet the woman who can't die. Care to join me?" When Neena realizes Tony means Jean Grey, her animosity for the recently returned X-Man resurfaces. Despite that, Domino follows.
Though too late to warn Tony Stark, Jean senses he is unharmed and continues to the nearby beach resort and hotel as she had originally planned. Jean reveals in her thoughts she had always planned to check in at San Marcos, instead of stay at the beach house. Her reasons for this aren't revealed. Jean then checks into the resort using a fake ID with accompanying credit card, a fake ID named 'Miranda Maximoff.'
After a quick stop at the San Marcos gift shop, Jean arrives at her private bungalow at the resort wearing shorts and teeshirt from the gift shop instead of the dress she had been wearing prior. Jean is surprised to find Iron-Man and Domino already awaiting in the bungalow she thought was locked and empty. Jean reveals that she had already, using telepathy, covered up the attack on the beach house to quite the extent, resulting in Cuban officials believing the damage was due to a freak 'lightning storm' off the Gulf of Mexico.
Though Jean suggests they pick a new place to meet, fearing another Sentinel attack, Tony and Neena disagree with Jean's cautious approach, an approach that seemed rooted in the fear of innocents getting hurt if there is another attack on their meeting. Despite her feelings, Jean concedes to being outvoted by Tony and Neena, and heads for a shower in the lone bedroom of the bungalow after a drink. Though not before asking their new Hotelier, Tony, to order food.
Carol (Post #10):While flying off the coast of Florida, Captain Marvel is approached and directed to land by a squad of fighter jets. Carol declines the directive, instead speeding away from the squad of war planes and losing them with a steep climb into the outer reaches of Earth's atmosphere. For a moment Carol finds herself floating in the weak gravity of space, before the gravity of Earth overcomes her and pulls her back within it's atmosphere. Moving through the air at speeds enough to cause several sonic booms even as she approaches proves too much for the Cuban automated air defense network, and Captain Marvel is able to land on the beach unmolested, unlike Iron-Man.
Though the speed and friction of the atmosphere causes the slightest of singes to her hair and Captain Marvel outfit, Carol determines she'd be better off changing into a more mundane outfit:
Carol looked down at her suit and kind of regretted not bringing a change of clothes, but any clothes she brought with her would have long been destroyed. Well, she could borrow some money from Stark.Collaboration #2; Neena and Jean. (Post #11):While taking her shower, Jean can't shake having picked up on Neena's animosity towards her given Domino's body language; something Jean is just as much an expert on reading as she is reading telepathic signs. Old advice from the deceased Charles Xavier comes to her mind:
She could hear Xavier tell her to leave it alone, to let it lie. To let this kind of thing develop on it's own. Pushing, the man had always been fond of telling her, can only result in disaster. Despite this good advice, Jean does not believe she can simply leave it alone, what with the group's current circumstances, and seeing as how Stark has already been assaulted twice today alone.
Because of this, Jean determines to confront Neena. While Stark is busy on the phone ordering food, Jean begins by bluntly questioning Domino about the former Merc's animosity towards the red haired X-Man. Neena accuses Jean of telepathic 'spying' as the reason for Jean's awareness of Domino's animosity, an accusation Jean flatly denies. Domino reveals a moment when, after love making, a sleeping Logan whispered Jean's name as Neena lay next to him. At this point Jean telekinetically nudges Tony out the front door of the bungalow, before keeping the bungalow on telekinetic forced lockdown to give the two women privacy.
Neena goes on to blame Jean for Logan's tormented mental state, for coming back to life, for the very mess the mutants and metahumans find themselves in now. Jean is unable to keep from laughing at the outrageous words, and the 'clearing of the air' quickly becomes heated to the point of Neena admitted she had wished Jean had stayed dead before shattering a Tequila bottle against a wall before storming out, informing Tony, "I'm out." as she leaves.
Jean telekinetically closes the door to the bungalow to give herself privacy once more, before shocking herself with the ability to telekinetically reform the shattered bottle and replace it's liquid contents on a molecular level. A power she had only used once before, immediately after her resurrection, when she was attacked by "what remained of Magneto." A history that connects to her new cover ID as a 'Maximoff.'
Though it's not the only shock that Jean has in the moment: additionally, perhaps tragically, Jean admits to herself to being shocked she wishes she had stayed dead, too.
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