Ruby — Roleplayer Guild

HalfPint's Otto
Cyrania's J'onn
Tandy's Clea
Ruby's X-Men

Otto’s weekly family dinner might’ve well have been fighting on the losing side of every battle during the Hundred Years’ War for how fun it was. Every week he dreaded walking up those rickety wooden steps to the house he grew up in. Every week he tried to invent a new excuse to avoid the inevitable bollocking he’d receive from his father.

But every week, he’d push all this down inside. For his mother - this was her only relief, the one thing she looked forward to.

They sat, awkwardly huddled in the living room cradling their plates in their hands in silence. The TV had been switched on almost immediately as they’d sat down. In all honesty, Otto preferred this to the constant put-downs and nagging from his father, a bit of distraction was a welcome change. Even if it was to the benefit of his fathers favoured biased news channel.

“So, how’s college, honey?”

”It’s going good, ma. Hard to find time to do everything though.”

“Ah I’m sure you’ll work it out. You always do!” Otto’s mothers reassurance was always welcome. She had a way of saying things that made him feel entirely at home. “How’s Peter and the rest?”

Otto swallowed a mouthful of his mothers home cooking. “They’re good. Well, as good as can be all things considered. Harry’s been trying to bug Peter to let him take him abroad for the summer.”

“Oh, lah-de-dah. Rich boy probably just wants an excuse to go on holiday using daddy’s credit card.” His father guffawed, not bothering to look at either of them.

“I dunno about that.”  Otto said through gritted teeth. “Harry’s not like that. He’s even trying to get me an interview with his dad for an internship.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful, honey!” His mum said, elated and clapping her hands together.

“Yeah, real great. Here I was thinking I’d have a son playing baseball and instead I get a nerd with even worse friends.”

Otto bit his tongue and glanced at his mother who shot him a worried look back. A year or so ago and this would have turned into a shouting match. For her benefit he kept his temper in check.

There was an extended silence following this. No one said anything for a long while. The news flickered to a breaking story regarding a riot in Mutant Town. The family had lived near the border of the neighborhood and Otto’s father had made it known how much of a distaste he had for them.

”Damn, that’s crazy.”

“You’re damn right there. Crazy it hasn’t happened more. Those goddamn freaks are a ticking timebomb just waiting to go off.”

Otto thought for a moment. Before now he hadn’t properly given the topic of Mutants much thought. They’d always been on his periphery, something he’d engaged with on social media, but never directly interacted with. Well, as far as he knew. Plenty of mutants flew under the radar - were able to ‘pass’. But the unlucky ones couldn’t. For the longest time he’d had similar views to his father, those that were passed down to him by being in a household that loudly shouted such hatred from the time he was a baby. 

He looked down at his palms for a moment, reflecting on how much his life had changed in such a short span of time. He wasn’t sure what definition fit him now. He definitely wasn’t a human by the traditional sense of the word. But he was sure he wasn’t a mutant either, at least not by the parameters of having the X-Gene. He was something in the middle - something he wasn’t sure either side would accept. By all accounts, he was what the Anti-Mutant League would call a freak just as much they would do any other powered individual.

He looked back up to his father, still unsure. “Looks to me like it’s the humans who started all this. Why couldn’t they just leave Mutant Town alone?”

His father scoffed again. “And you’re meant to be the smart one? Where does it stop? We give them a town and what’s next - the city? The country? We let this get out of control and before you know it we become the minority and then where are we.”

“So, what do you propose? They weren’t hurting anyone.”

“Is that right? What about Magneto, huh? Maybe you’re too young to learn from history, but I know the damage they can do. You ask me, I say we shoot every last one of them.”

Otto’s mouth hung open. His father was hateful, but this was another level. He put his plate down and stood up. ”I can’t be around this. Mom, I love you, I’ll see you next week. Maybe we can eat out instead of around this pig.”

He said his goodbyes to a symphony of swearing from his father and left into the cool night air. Even at this distance the noise of shouting and violence was being carried by the wind over to him.

The KRAB had gotten the better of him. He’d panicked, not assessed the situation properly. He wouldn’t let that happen now. This was something that mattered. Even if the mutants didn’t accept him he had to help somehow.

Otto ducked into the shadows along the side of the house. The shouting from inside still echoed faintly through the walls, but it was already starting to feel distant. The bag slid from his shoulder and hit the ground with a small thud. For a moment he just stood there, staring at it, jaw tight, hands still trembling faintly from the argument. Then he crouched and unzipped it in one sharp motion.

The harness sat inside - if you didn’t know what it was you’d have no idea what you were looking at. It was compact, folded in on itself - all dull grey plating and tightly packed segments. He lifted it out carefully and turned it once in his hands before guiding it onto his back, centering it along his spine. 

Suddenly, it burst into life. The panels shifted to the noise of a series of clicks as it unfolded across his shoulders and back as the internal frame adjusted to his body. Next was the part he never quite got used to, and never expected to - the tendrils. 

They pierced his back and entered into his flesh like an invasive parasite. However, Otto felt no pain, and barely felt the process at all. The tendrils were smaller than a pin, hardly large enough to be seen by the naked eye. Instead, he was left with a queasy feeling - a feeling brought on by the non-human aspects of his genetic makeup syncing with the mechanical sentience of the tentacles.

As soon as the feeling began to fade he slipped on his suit, pulling his mask on last and letting it activate and sync with his vision before catapulting into the air and sailing through the night. The long tentacles trailing behind him, only breaking their lax, fluid form to catapult him further towards the mutants.

“Is he really going to do it?”

The question hung between the two women, the longer it dangled, the longer their gaze stayed locked. Finally, the older woman laughed, throaty and full, the kind of laugh that shook the shoulders and lit up the face, the woman’s red hair shining in the stage lights that spawned across the back space of J.T.’s Bar and Grill. Although, if she was being honest…she had seen no sign of a grill anywhere in the establishment.

“Honestly? Probably,” Jean Grey finally admitted, half-laugh, breaking the gaze as the telepath scanned the crowd with just her eyes, Illyana assumed.

Illyana’s mirth found itself glass-ceiling’d against the secret smile playing on Illyana’s darkly painted lips; Illyana found Jean easier to laugh than she had expected, easier than she, herself, ever found laughter came. “You seem happy.”

“Yeah?” Jean’s emerald eyes shadowed as her head angled just-so towards Illyana, leaving the Queen of Limbo feeling…flush. Leaving Illyana’s own blue eyes to seek shelter away from the intense emerald look, the fact that she sat across the small circular table from the strongest telepath in the history of the planet, and what of the multi-verse Illyana had experienced so far, the last thing on her mind.

Gently, Illyana shrugged, her eyes returning to Jean’s, “When you brought me back, I didn’t know what I expected to find. Nothing stays the same, nothing seems to last forever except the evil—”

“—love is eternal, too, Illyana.”

Illyana Rasputin stared, paused by the words interjected. Jean was always the hopeful one. It wasn’t hope that Illyana had been hit with; few could deflect hope like the Queen of Limbo, she did so as casually as a turn of the soulsword with her wrist. It wasn’t even the words that echoed hardest within Illyana, it was the tone: Jean Grey knew the words to be true, the conviction of…a celestial being.
Illyana didn’t know what she felt, but she felt something. “I just mean…you aren’t as…sad as I expected.”

Jean’s response was limited to a soft smile at the woman as the crowd around them howled, the standing room only back room of J.T.’s centered on one wall by the bar and the bar tables scattered before it, leading right up to the karaoke stage that centered the wall opposite the bar. On either sides was passage to the exterior courtyard of J.T.’s, but was now standing room only as the classic bass riff was the first thing to hit the stage, even before the star of the moment: repetitive, syncopated rhythm punctuated with clapping from the crowd.

Illyana would do no such stupid thing, ignoring the fact she realized Jean had already joined in, the crowd began to scream when the tall blonde man appeared, dark jeans, shirtless but for the puffer jacket and the oversized gold chain around his neck, blonde hair sleeked back, thick sunglasses hiding Bobby Drake’s eyes as he reached the microphone just in time for the beginning vocals:

“Yo, VIP, let’s kick it.”

The crowd yelled what the song usually whispered in the moment: ‘ICE-ICE-BABY!’.

Even Illyana found herself laughing at the amount of jackass Iceman seemed perfectly content to make himself to the crowd that clearly loved him. The only outed and public gay member of the X-Men, of any X-team, as Illyana thought on it as she watched Bobby Drake give a performance for the crowd to go along with the awful, horrible, song: there was Rachel and Betsy, and Illyana had, herself, called the New Mutants Dani’s Harem.

The partially open silk blouse of Jean Grey’s looked expensive, a soothing light green, the khaki of the perfectly fitted slacks she wore, the dark brown leather belt with the gold buckle…Okay. I get it, Logan. A thought that just simmered on her brain as she realized Jean’s eyes were no longer green, they were alive with the pink light of mutant energy.

“What is it?”

Kate got off the train; black leggings, old military olive jacket stamped with the name ‘J. HOWLETT’ on the inside, an oversized old purple and black and white flannel over a white tank top, a collection of necklaces, each with a connection. A quick look at her phone as she made her way past the subway sax guy, the corner crazy yelling about an apocalypse nearing, as if that was news, as if that wasn’t faced by the planet every Tuesday.

‘Anti-mutant fucks flooding MT’

‘NYPD COMING INTO MT`

‘Kitty things are getting crazy’

‘What is going on Kate??’

‘Are you at Xavier House?’

‘Where are you???? Are u ok??’

‘WHERE ARE THEY!?’

Kate sighed, her head panging in the faint beginning salvo of a migraine coming on as the flood of texts just kept coming. The only working train station was blocks from Mutant Town, as the city and Jean dealt with the details of bringing the old train stop for the neighborhood back to life, and who would pay for that. Mainly who would pay for that. When it came to the city, politics seemed to be half of it—who was covering the bill was just as important. Sometimes more.

Her chest tightened as she neared. Kate heard the scene even before she saw anything. The sidewalks and side streets were emptier, businesses closed or closing, she noted, watching an Indian couple hurry to bring down the steel shudder over their tobacco store front. Before she even got there she found a group of clashing protestors at a corner nearby, taunting each other, but otherwise keeping it peaceful. Kate gave them nothing but a quick glance as her hands folded into her jacket pockets and moved on, the density of people getting thicker the closer to Mutant Town she got. Groups on either side of streets, men in masks, body armor, sunglasses, ballcaps. Pro-mutant on the other side; no visible mutations, Kate found herself thinking, grateful. Nothing seemed to trigger hatred like a visible mutation. Kate Pryde took a short cut through an apartment block, staying to the underground, coming up on the edge of Mutant Town, near the Outreach Center, the sound waves between the underground, the phase, and coming up in Mutant Town like being hit with a tidal wave, forcing her to stop for a moment, to just take it in:

In the distance, at Phoenix Plaza, the swollen mass of human and mutant. Mutant Town’s main corridor, usually a place of open-air markets and street vendors, had been stripped down to barricades and bodies. Flyers and crushed paper signs stuck to the asphalt underfoot, smeared into pulp by boots and nervous shifting. From here it almost looked like a single organism, as if it moved in slow motions, like ants swarming. There was a small gap between the two masses of bodies; a single thin line of New York City Police Department blue. Shoulder-to-shoulder formation, riot gear; helmets, visors, batons, shields. The closer she looked, the more concerned she felt. There were gaps in that line, her experienced and trained eye saw it easily. If she saw it, so did the Anti-Mutant League. Three mutants murdered in the middle of the night, special ops style, in Michigan. Two coordinated attacks on mutant safe houses in Atlanta, armed men reported sweeping the streets for mutants fleeing burning buildings.

All Anti-Mutant League. She’d seen their training videos. She’d been with Logan as he hunted them through the West Virginian woods to one of the secret training camps. She thought of the local sheriff, and how they had known, supported, the training camp. She thought of that as she looked at the NYPD line between anti-mutant and pro-civil rights protestors. As she walked closer she found the tall, pink haired Lorelai Travis having a discussion with an NYPD cop, male, Hispanic, handsome and stressed, getting heat from the crowd surrounding the two.

“—serious, Ortega? They’re not supposed to be here!”

The cop took a beat to keep collected, “Ms. Travis, I understand, NYPD is dealing with the issue of protesting outside authorized—”
“—YOU’RE PROTECTING THEM! ARREST THEM!”

The hand on Lorelai’s shoulder made the woman jump for a heartbeat before she turned and saw Kate. “Where are they?!”
Kate wanted to frown, but kept her shit together, smiling small instead, trying to offer any comfort even as the sound of shrill whistles, booming bullhorns, sirens, shouted slogans, and worse, came again and again and again and again like never-ending waves of chaos as Kate centered herself, looking at Officer Ortega…and realizing he was intently waiting on the answer, too.
Where are the X-Men?

The duties of Sorcerer Supreme had surprising amounts of downtime. That was usually used for magical research, but even the wisest minds would reach a point where it was difficult to focus any longer. Clea hit that point several hours ago, and so that was when she put down the books and started to think about how she would redecorate the Sanctum Sanctorum from tip to stern. Stephen Strange’s spirit, hidden away safe inside the Eye of Agamotto, could sense the ambition in the air and metaphorically winced at was his abode may look like when she was done. He sent her a telepathic message mentioning that shopping for vintage goods might be an easier way to break up the routine, and suggested she go to Williamsburg and look for whichever stores had the most people pausing to take a selfie. Clea grabbed the debit card tied to the account bank labeled “AVENGERS ASSOCIATE – DISCRETIONARY” and issued by a financial subsidiary of Stark Industries and hopped on the next train to Brooklyn where she rest of the afternoon.

On her way back, she was tempted to simply teleport back to the Sanctum, but wanted to experience a little more of the average life. She used a portal to deposit all of her purchases except one bag that matched her outfit, but then took the subway back. She crammed into a packed care with the full array of panhandlers, doomscrollers, confused tourists, workers exhausted after a long shift, bored teenagers and loved getting to see them all, even though they were packed in like sardines. Her joy at peoplewatching came to an abrupt end when they hit a station where some stern NYPD officers were corralling a mob of people and a scratchy loudspeaker mentioned that further trains were being rerouted. Rather than try to navigate the subway further, Clea decided to walk onto the street and make it the rest of the way on foot, she was already in the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village was close enough to make it without trouble.

On the street she saw a wall of people before her. There were shouts, chants, megaphones, signs and banners, and Clea was looking for the right word for something like this. A protests that was it, Earth had a lot of those. Back in the dark dimension those were rare, sometimes people got really mad, and then her mom or her uncle incinerated all the participants. Then there would usually be a long time before anyone had another one. It always seemed like Clea that there was probably a different, better way things should go once a protest started, but Clea would have to think a little more about that. Incineration was a definitely no-go, though.

Clea turned intangible to walk through the crowd. Some stared, some didn’t notice, and a lot of people got really angry but what else was she supposed to do?  No one was letting her through, and this way no one would stain the clothes she had just bought on her outing. Were they mad that they couldn’t do it? She admitted it’s not the easiest spell because it requires mentally mapping the higher dimensional geometry of the astral plane onto the three dimensions of normal reality while still maintaining spirit coherence, those were advanced topics but any good instructor would cover them. A lot of them started calling her words like “Mutie” or some other things she didn’t recognize. Did they think she was a mutant? She wasn’t sure why that was relevant, but anyone that could read her aura could clearly see she was Faltinian and didn’t even have traditional DNA, much less an X-gene. As she walked, people began to grab at her, to shove her down, or to throw punches. All of these passed through her harmlessly, but many of these strikes ended up hitting other people. A wave of brawls broke out in her wake, a man in a tanktop started wrestling a guy in camo pants to the ground, a middle aged woman ate a punch to her jaw and then two burly retired tradesmen pounced on the skinny twentysomething wearing the edgy t-shirt that had thrown it and started trying to choke him out. This was getting out of hand Clea said

“Be nice, hey uhh, I don’t know why you’re punching people, but please stop that. As Sorcerer Supreme, I’d really appreciate you not doing that, it might be unclear because I’m usually worried about people summoning demons or otherworldly conquerors, but I don’t like street violence either, that’s not cool.”

Clea decided her best option was to move faster and get out of this mess, she didn’t even know what it was about so it would be difficult to solve it. The police would have some idea, and so she’d just watch the crowd and try not to intervene. She saw a man that had a liquor bottle and a rag, oh now it was on fire. Was he going to drink it? Clea didn’t think humans could drink fire, but she’d never seen one try, and they did surprise her quite often. He threw it and once it landed, fire began to spread. Clea guessed that that was what humans did when they wanted to set something on fire, it seemed like a hassle. She was glad that she was made of living magical fire, it meant she wouldn’t need to go through that ordeal if something needed burning.

It took a second for it to dawn on her that The Chipotle is on fire. This made Clea sad, because she likes burrito bowls. With The Chipotle gone, she thought she might never be able to get one again, it’s not like there was another copy of The Chipotle somewhere else she could go to, and the secrets of the burrito bowl might be lost in this fire, like so much great ancient wisdom has vanished over the years. After this was done, she might just go to The Five Guys, The Panda Express, The Pizza Hut, or The Kentucky Fried Chicken and enjoy their unique cuisine. She was distracted by the thought that she didn’t realize when she reached the front of the crowd, and stepped past the wave of anti-mutant protestors into the no-man’s land.

Local mutants wanted their protectors. Anti-Mutant Leaguers wanted their ultimate targets. NYPD was just nervous about the X-Men showing up; the moment they did, the situation was outside any hope of their control.

“They’re on their way,” Kate lied, rubbing Lorelai’s shoulder, “get people to safety. Where is Beak?”

Before she even finished speaking with Lorelai, Kate overheard Officer Ortega turn away from them and talk into the radio on his shoulder: 

“X-Men inbound.”

Screaming broke out deeper in Phoenix Plaza; shouting followed. There were so many people, Kate lost sight of the scene almost as soon as it began to unfold, getting Lorelai moving, watching Ortega disappear. It was like being in a maelstrom: signs waved, shaking, being used as shields. Faces were angry, sweating, mid-yell spitting as the ugly face of humanity began to collectively yell. People on tip-toes, people crying, people laughing, people looking entirely too calm for Kate Pryde’s comfort.

“SHIT!”

Kate heard it as bodies shoved against her as she neared the center, trash and signs underfoot, barriers rattled louder, the shrill scream of whistles louder and louder, screams began to sound, someone shouted and pointed up, but Kate saw nothing, only red and blue against store and building fronts.

“MUTANT RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS!”

“NO MORE LIES!”

A whistle shrieked from somewhere in the mutant crowd—sharp, cutting, impossible to ignore. A response came seconds later from the other side. Then another. Not coordinated. Not organized. Just escalation, Kate realized, frowning. This was going the wrong way. “Where is Beak? BEAK!”

Shields shifted. Batons raised, not swinging, not yet, but ready. A command barked through a loudspeaker, distorted beyond clarity.

“BACK. LINE. STEP. BACK.!”

No one did. A bottle arced through the air. No one saw who threw it. For a split second, it seemed to hang there, caught between two futures. Then it shattered against someone on the mutant side, Kate just saw glimpses and flashes. The sound cracked like a gunshot. 
Everything lurched forward. Bodies pressed. Signs bent. Someone screamed; not in anger, but fear. A protest sign snapped in half and became something sharper, more dangerous.

“HEY! HEY! STOP!”

Deep down, Kate knew it was too late for that.

On the mutant side, someone shouted, “They’re pushing!” On the other side: “They threw something!”

The thin line bent, obvious to the eye, and everyone saw it. A police officer, young, eyes wide behind his visor, lost his footing for half a second as the pressure hit. The officer next to him slammed a shield into place to steady the gap, jaw clenched so tight it looked painful.

“Hold the line!” Kate heard someone yell, unsure if it was a protestor or a cop. The screaming started as tear gas began to go off, the line fracturing before her very eyes as she started to phase, just trying to understand the chaos unfolding before her eyes, a single psychic scream in her mind:
JEAN!

J’onn’s grip tightened on the shield, mind ringing with the echo of that cry as he fought to hold what ground he could and whack off only the anti-mutants. Why oh why did Cadet Richards have to be sent on this job? If Bronston had just…! No, don’t think about that. Think about how to stop the bloodbath! He could sense his fellow officers still trying to hold position, but now the anti-mutants were breaking through, fury, fear, and rage merging together into a nigh-irresitable wildfire. People were going to die if they didn’t do something, but the tear gas was only adding to the confusion, and it was clear Ortega wasn’t sure what to do. Someone on the mutant side had called for help, but who knew how long that would take. Where was Thor when you needed him? 

He swallowed. Thor wasn’t here, but ‘Green Guy’ was. He couldn’t change in the midst of the battle, and it was far too late to try to just calm everybody down. But perhaps… He stretched out his mind, seeking the most fearful, the easiest to persuade. To them, he simply suggested  ”It’s not safe here. Run, run home! Escape while you still can!”. Then he looked for the angrier minds, the unthinkingly angry ones. Then he stood up straighter, went in, and aimed their anger from the crowd on the other side to himself specifically. It certainly wasn’t an ideal solution, but if at least half of them actually went for it, that would at least help buy time. Time for the other officers to regroup, time for these ‘X-Men’ to arrive, less time for someone to die.

A portal of limbo was a different kind of thing, she had always found; they was motion and movement, a real scent of brimstone and fire, a true echo of tortured souls—that the X-Men had turned such a mode of transportation into their default method of getting through long distances quickly always gave her a wry little smile. It came surrounded in light blue energy, the portal itself a wavy pool of reality in shades of reds and oranges and browns and yellows, colors of hell. 

People began to point up with fingers and phones, shouting, screaming.

THE X-MEN!!

Iceman came down first, immediately sending waist high walls down to cut the action into three sections; the pro-mutant side, the middle scrum, the anti-mutant side. Immediately the world became colder, and not just casually, but the kind of cold that slowed people and made the world quieter was suddenly sinking into the bones of all present, gentle snow coming down in a soothing, sound absorbing display.
Rogue dropped Gambit on one flank of the police line, landing on the opposite flank, cracking her knuckles, eyes narrowing towards anyone who dared to come close to her: “Back off now sugars, stand back now.” Gambit gave the police a deviant little wink as his staff began to back up the most emotional, “Not today, y’hear? Back on.”

Soft, powdery snow was already ankle deep in the main scrum, making movement slow, difficult, and if you fell?...you just fell on soft snow, the police already taking control back, picking people off the ground, Iceman landing off an ice slide near Kate, where the young X-Man knelt on the ground, a bloodied and unconscious Beak in her arms. “I’ve got you, Kate, it’s over.”

Iceman turned, translucent eyes and handsome face finding and focusing on the police as the voice went off in his head: 

There’s a telepath or empath near you, Bobby, be careful.

NYPD employing telepaths?

I doubt they know, and it isn’t a mutant, according to Cerebro, making them hard for me to find while their mind remains passive.
In the sudden bitter cold and the gentle snow, whistles froze, megaphones had trouble operating, and shouts seemed quieter than before, people instinctively quieter in such harsh cold and gentle snow. 

“Officers, what can I do to help? I can control secure exit corridors to begin clearing Phoenix Square, shield those in need of first aid. Whatever is necessary.” His smile, even translucent in ice, was a charming, almost casual thing, with a tone to match. 

J’onn quickly looked up to him, sighing in relief. “It’s a good thing you are here then…Mister, Iceman, sir.” He could kick himself later for not having actually memorizing the X-Men’s names. He was pretty sure that Iceman was correct though…

“All of that will be very necessary. Shielding those needing first aid is the first priority. Then perhaps we can see about using your exit corridors to round up as many of these, miscreants, as possible for arrest…”  Though how many would stay arrested with how much the prison wardens wanted to be ‘soft’ on crime was very much in doubt. Still, surely they could see how bad politically it would seem to let out anti-mutant rioters, right? Then he turned to those officers near him.  “Are any of you in need of medical aid?” 

“No.” Cadet Richards quickly saluted, hunched over himself. “I’m alright.”

“Aye, we’re alright here, Detective Jones.” Officer O'Leary patted the cadet’s shoulder. “The boy wasn’t harmed other than a small case of nerves, and none of the rest of us have more than just bruises. We’re still good to help with taking this mob to task.”

“Though if all the men had come out like they were meant to,” Officer Turnbull glowered. “This wouldn’t have been the debacle this was.”
O’Leary just sighed. “We can’t help those who didn’t come, Turnbull. Whatever their reasons.” He then looked up to Iceman. “Just tell us where you need us, laddie, and we’ll get to it. Seems you have a better idea than most of us.”

Content that business was as normal as it could be, J’onn then turned back to Iceman.  “I can help until any of your people or the paramedics can take over. I have first aid training.”  Then he looked past Iceman to see Kate holding the unconscious Beck. Frowning, he moved by her as far as he could then crouched down.  “He looks, grave…Would you permit me to help?” 

Illyana Rasputin landed at the first, hissing a spell through tense lips as the fire simply licked to where the Queen of Limbo stood, obedience to her will as it gently extinguished, her blue eyes flicking up, following magical energy, her eyes sticking to Clea, recognition alive in her eyes even as she turned and smashed her fist into the face of a large man got too close screaming at her face, his Friends of Humanity tactical vest doing very little to help him as he laid on the pavement, his body shaking. “Help, this man assaulted me,” Illyana said through her accent, and an impossible amount of dry sarcasm, saying it for the cameras, as Dazzler had trained her to, before simply stepping over the man’s body and moving closer to Clea, the soulsword suddenly appearing, making the crowd around them back away, fast. 

“And who are you?”

Clea blinked for a moment at the sword, excited by the magical energy. So people did have magic swords even in New York, that was a constant across dimensions.

“Hi, I’m Clea, er, Clea Strange. I’m sorry we haven’t met, but maybe Stephen knows you, one sec.”

She tapped the Eye of Agamotto, opening it and then Stephen Strange’s telepathic signal poured out, faint enough for those nearby to hear it.

“Ah, Illyana, I see you’ve met my wife, I had been meaning to introduce you but my schedule was busy and we never got around to stopping by limbo since you became it’s ruler. Forgive me for the current lack of a body, we’re working on that, but what exactly is it that’s going on there?”

Clea’s eyes lit up, and she said “We can talk about that later” as she tapped the Eye and Stephen went quiet again. She could hear him at least.

“Oh my gosh, no one told me you’re the owner of Limbo, that’s so cool! It was such a dump when Mr. B had it, I bet you’re going all out to spruce it up. I haven’t been in a while, Mom had some kind of falling out with him last time she came to see him, said his apprentice kept kicking her in the shins, but knowing her she did something to deserve it. Also, uhh, what’s all this about? People seem like they’re upset about something. Are they gonna get over it soon?” Clea noticed that people were still punching, kicking, swinging blunt instruments and shouting loud enough that it was hard to hear. It all seemed quite rude, but maybe that the X-men were here, they’d calm down, after all everyone likes the X-men, right? Was that how these things worked?

Illyana’s expression hardened with the test of irritation, though going from hard-edged to ever-so-slightly harder edged was a hard tell for any eye to catch, her chuckle ran from her lips sardonic with a smile to match, “Privyet, Stephen.”

She would have rolled her eyes if it would have amounted to anything, but the deep-seated Soviet apathy just rolled over it like a tank over a man in the way. Illyana repeated the name once in her mind, as if rolling it over in her hands, studying it, measuring it, taking the feel of the thing, her ice blue eyes present on the woman, if a thousand miles away, “Limbo is hoot, you should come for Taco Tuesdays.”

None of that was true, but it didn’t so much as offer Illyana a heartbeat of hesitation. At the question of what was happening, Magik’s eyes darted toward the floating cosmic basic red-haired girl. “Anti-Mutant agitators ‘protesting’ illegally in unauthorized location. A sad thing; Iceman was shirtless on a stage and I think, for a brief moment, I saw Jean having fun……and my drink was unfinished."
Blue eyes smoldered in anguish at the fact. 

Protests could…authorized? Or unauthorized? That was good to know. Clea said “So, okay, they’re breaking the law and it’s one of those laws that is like, bad enough that you can’t just party your way through it when people are doing and pretend you didn’t see, but like not, a vaporize people or burn out their synapses kind of thing. I think I know what I’m supposed to do.”

Clea balled a hand into a fist and it started glowing with mystical power, and then with her other one she she tapped the Eye of Agamotto and asked Stephen to guide her with the awesome clairvoyant powers of the Eye and also his opinions of towns within the tristate area.
A man lunged at her and she touched him with her glowing fist and then her vanished in a flash, leaving behind only a whisp of vapor. The crowd was stunned. After a pause, one of them shouted “What’d the mutie do with him? Where’d he go?”

“Camden” She replied

By now the mob was rushing forward again, and the next one got another tap and another teleport to a corner of the place Stephen had once called the worst realm in all the multiverse: New Jersey. More still came, and her contact teleport spell stayed fresh as she cleared a space. Stephen messaged her telepathically

“Is this really the best use of the Eye of Agamotto?”

“I mean, what else were you up to?”

“Fair point.” He said, not wanting to discuss the particulars of life inside the Eye. He said “This next guy looks like he got suckered along by his friends, East Orange. The guy beside him, though, I caught a whiff of where his mind went after you and Illya showed up, so Trenton it is.”

While clearing space in the mob, Clea called out to Illyanna “I bet you X-men party well, would love to join you sometime! Also, like, I was on my way home, and is there like, a quota or a time when I can just say it’s all okay? I don’t know how this works when it’s not some kind of ‘world will die if you leave prematurely’ kinda threat. It’s not one of those, right?”

Otto perched above the chaos on the edge of a graffiti stained building. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the carnage. From up here everyone looked the same. He wondered what this looked like from even higher. Up passed the clouds, passed the atmosphere, in the International Space Station. They must have looked like the armies of ants fighting each other to protect their mounds.

Up there, neither nation, creed, race, sex, or anything else superficial mattered. Russians and Americans worked side by side indifferent to the politics of their homes. They worked for the betterment of humanity - maybe that was the problem. Otto wondered when the first mutant would step foot aboard the space station. He wondered if they already had.

This was getting out of hand. The lines between mutant and human were beginning to blur - other than the obvious examples. A lot of the ‘Purifiers’ as they liked to call themselves had dressed in their makeshift uniforms, but as blood and dirt began to fly things just got more confusing by the moment.

Otto stood up straight, and then all at once leapt from the top of the building and dove down to the street. As he soared through the air the lenses on his mask began cycling through, zooming in closer and closer to the street in an effort to control his landing.

Instead, he spotted a gruff looking man picking up a heavy looking brick and rearing back his throwing arm - obviously aiming at one of the more obvious looking mutants desperately trying to push her way back through the crowd against the wave.

He rolled forward as he hit the ground, and landed facing towards the young mutant. His tentacles formed a metal shield behind him and the brick shattered into pieces against it. For a moment time moved in slow motion. The mutant turned over her shoulder and looked into the eyes of her saviour. He stared back. A rush of emotion rose through his nervous system. A mix of pride, courage, and duty.

Finally he turned, his shield unfurling as two of the tentacles shot down and into the concrete, raising him into the air with the remaining tentacles curling up and forward, staring at the attackers. He towered above the crowd, and for the briefest moment the violence in his immediate area stopped. 

”Now which one of you did that? Haven’t you heard that old adage about people in glass houses?”

“He’s one of them! Damn, Mutie bastard!”

Well, at least, Otto now knew which side the general populace thought he fell on.

Everything stopped across Phoenix Square; along the edge, near the secondhand clothes store owned by Jumbo Carnation with the graffiti on the side of it. The young mutant girl was the first to see her; a little gasp the very beat the young eyes saw Jean Grey in the sky, barely six-foot overhead, eyes smoldering with Phoenix fire, body bordered in a rich pink energy, still wearing the outfit from earlier. Hair stood up on arms, something stirred deep within those on the corner as the presence of the cosmic queen gazed down; like watching an eclipse, a shooting star, or any celestial spectacle. 

Would you like to see eternity?

Her voice came to Otto gently, a sensation as warm and soothing as a mother’s love, the faint sensation of a friendly little tease at the back of his mind as she regarded his curious wondering of whether a mutant had been on the space station. Jean had been to space, beyond it, to eternity…and back again. 

No one on the corner did anything but look up at her, staring wide-eyed, and all she did was speak to each mind, each message tailored to the heart and soul she spoke to, though Otto’s was…special. 

Rogue, Remy, we need to find Mr. M. He’s hiding from me.

In the distance, at what had been the thick of the action, Rogue and Gambit quickly began scanning the crowd and moving quickly through it, the eyes and instincts of a thief, combined with the awareness of a girl raised in trauma, who could fly. Jean liked their chances of finding him, if he wanted to be found, at all. 

The voice reverberated through his body like several people shouting from every end of a cave. He felt calm and confused at the same time. The eyes in the palms of his tentacles almost instinctively rose towards the floating woman, clicking their metallic claws together in curiosity. They moved sheepishly, like a shy cat unsure around a new person. Otto could feel her words in his head, but also in 7 other places. For the time he couldn’t understand what this all meant.

He shook his head in an effort to rid himself of this delightful confusion. Scanning the crowd again he saw the ice walls sectioning off each faction as well as it could. Still though, despite the presence of the mighty X-Men hate was blinding these fools. Some were even trying to slash and carve at the walls with whatever tools they had.

”Eternity can wait!” He called up to her, somehow oblivious at this moment to the fact he could read his thoughts. He thought it would be best to defer to them - the more experienced heroes in situations like this. ”Just let me know what you need me to do and I’ll do it!”

Part of him wondered if this made him an honorary X-man - or at the very least a deputized one.

The sheer width, and depth of information Jean found her mind filtering in that moment was limited only by cognitive limitations of the human brain…but her mind had found ways to push through those limits, ‘outsourcing’ additional cognitive capacity with each telepathic connection in a passive exchange that no one but her would ever even know was happening in the background.

And all of that stopped, even if for a moment, the very beat Jean processed the sensation of presence that was Wanda Maximoff, bathed in shambolic crimson flavored pure energy, the obvious telepathic impression of chaos magic. Wanda was nearby, but Jean did something unusual—she looked with her head and eyes, not her mind. She wasn’t hiding, Jean just couldn’t find her. The difference was everything.

“It’s so cold in that area that in a minute their skin will begin to sting and burn just by standing there. They will be running for the exits Iceman funnels them through. Fingers are stiff, don’t work well, breathing becomes painful, the mind and body begin to focus on survival, not hate. It’s over, it’s just having the experience to be patient enough for it to unfold on its own, instead of trying to force it to hurry.”

Jean Grey offered a quick wink as the crowd around stared up at her, the cosmic fire glowing at the edges of her form granting her a celestial magnificence in presence that simply elevated the scene from the hatred at street level to the cosmic deity floating in the air above them, while Iceman began to protect injured, creating exit paths with tall ice walls and the potential to become slides should anyone become unruly. With one side ushered towards the police department building, and the other towards the Outreach Center, distance and disbursement was a matter of time.

Kate had already gone through the cleaning stages, pressing on the pressure bandage from the small kit she’d brought with her inside Logan’s jacket to the top and side of Beak’s head, his pupils still dilated, his response still sluggish, Kate couldn’t help but worry too much, “Thanks, officer, we’re kind of trained in first response as X-Men.”

Tall and feathered and clearly mutated, Beak was just one of the brighter, more obvious targets. Kate sighed, softly, “Help me get him up? I’ll get him to the clinic.”

”Gladly.” Then J’onn reached under and helped her to carefully stand Beak up. Discretely, he sent a short psychic pulse to examine Beak’s injuries then began to help coax the worst of it to heal faster. Not fully aware that even the very casual operation could be detected by the woman right there.

The only spike in activity came from Magik’s direction. Jean didn’t immediately suspect Illyana, but it also wasn’t exactly a surprise. The teleportations were a variable Jean hadn’t accounted for, and didn’t like—it would get blamed on them. ‘X-Men disrupt lives with wanton power usage’, it wouldn’t just be mutants, it would be ‘X-Men.’ She had played this game long enough to know.

Magik, we’ll have to retrieve all of those people. I’ll ask Manifold to…ask the universe nicely. Even between their minds, Illyana and Jean shared a moment of giggling at the sheer madness of the words. An irony not lost on Jean in the moment. Jean dropped off the young mutant girl she’d lifted from a tense corner earlier down to Bobby and Kate. “Her mother is on the way,” Jean informed them, having located the woman not even a hundred feet away.

Around Clea, the movement just stopped, sudden, instant, as Jean flew close in an instant, using the same cosmic presence as before to bring everything happening in the small area to a quick and sudden stop. In the pause, Magik positioned herself and the soulsword between Clea and the crowd, a single brow perking at the humans who might have even considered it, “You are going to assault me first now, yes?”
Rogue’s eyes were hard strips of dark brown flint as she landed with a certain amount of concussive echo just feet away. The crowd backed away, Magik and Jean sharing a look before both women turned to Clea. It was Magik who got the first word in, “She is Stephen Strange. Or he is her. Or he has no body and uses her body to, er…or is her husband and uses her with………I did not pay attention earlier,” finally, she admitted, with a shrug.

“We foun’ M, up roun’ ‘ere.” Rouge motioned towards a nearby roof, Jean’s green eyes following, “He ain’t really pay it no mind, suge.”

Otto’s eyes followed the beautiful, floating, burning woman as she rose further into the sky and over to the other X-Men. Alright, maybe deputized X-man was going a bit far. Maybe just an associate? An X-sociate?

He facepalmed for a moment. ”Eternity can wait?” He repeated quietly to himself. ”I meet a proper superhero for the first time and that’s the best I can come up with?

A tentacle shot out into a nearby wall and he began to slither along it, following the mysterious woman closer to her friends. They were a motley crew, that was for sure. The X-Men were the epitome of having greatness thrust upon a person. This wasn’t a team formed by choice, but by necessity - for survival rather than for heroics. This was the face of mutantkind, every decision reflected positively or negatively on their whole race.

He anchored himself into the wall, his natural camouflage blending into the wall enough to hide in the shadows, but not enough to be fully invisible. He suspected well enough that full invisibility would be useless around a telepath - and he didn’t want to make the mistake of making them suspicious of his intentions. 

Kate Pryde stared at the police officer as her blood ran cold in an instant. Her response was measured, carefully toned, and a telepathic reach out to Jean: I found the mystery psychic. It’s an NYPD officer, helping Beak.

I see them. The following silence from Jean left Kate tense, every single ounce of training telling her body to stay calm, to show no tell, however subtle, of her fight-or-flight status. Jean would tell Kate whether the psychic was safe enough for the moment, or not, and if not…Kate watched the sky, looking for Rogue, eyes dancing around the crowd to find Remy.

They’re not human, but I don’t get ‘threat’ from them, Kate. Let them help, I’ll talk to them.

J’onn would’ve felt the presence instantly; not intrusive, not even trespassing the threshold of the Martian’s mind, but Jean Grey was all but knocking on the door to his mind—but it wasn’t all she was doing. Even without crossing the threshold of his mind, there were ways for Jean to get a read on the level of telepath she was dealing with. Yet it wasn’t telepathy that gave Jean her greatest insight into the psychic in NYPD blue; the Phoenix did. The Phoenix knew the Martians. It knew every aspect, every version, every dimension they were found in.

I’ll come see you later, J’onn.

Jean oversaw the clearing of the square that bore the name of the Phoenix because of her. She spoke briefly with Jubilee about Wanda; something was definitely off with the Witch. It felt heavy to Jean. There weren’t many people, especially mutants, that looked at her the same way they used to look at her. Wanda was one of the few. Fewer knew what power at that level felt like, but Wanda did.

So when Wanda was unhappy? It ate at the back of Jean’s mind, knowing the confrontation was coming. She sighed, floating off to the side, shading closer and closer to a building until she was practically next to the guy clinging to the wall, trying to…hide? “I’ve felt you around before. I assume you live nearby. Come by Xavier House some time and say hi. New York is a rough city for a new metahuman. At least you know we don’t bite.” She grinned, as softly as her lips would temper the more wicked version she began to give at first, before a window near them and a story up opened, two young adults and the undeniable scent of weed peering with big eyes at her.

“Dude! I TOLD you it was her…uh, hi .”

Jean smiled politely, turning her head to address both young men with a megawatt smile that was pure warmth, love, and Public Relations gold. Jean had always been good at that part, there was a reason Charles often sent her to the U.N. building in his place, and it wasn’t because she liked the badges they gave her.

Although she did. She had a collection of government badges given to her over the years. Her favorite? A SHIELD visitor badge that called her, ‘Nick Fury Girlfriend #7.’ Just good to be on the roster, she joked to Fury at the time, who didn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed in his womanizing.

“Hey, guys, be safe tonight, okay? It’s dank in there and crazy out here, so just have a relaxed night.” Was all she left the two young men with before turning back to Otto, “Later, Octo-gator.”

Bobby had cleared the square, clearing protective ice domes for EMTs to get in and start working, extracting with ambulances. Rogue and Gambit were already at the top of the old train station stairs, looking over the square and Mutant Town, talking to Jubilee about something. Illyana appeared at Jean’s side, ice blue eyes taking the measure of the woman.

“Could have been worse.”

To that, Jean couldn’t argue, only smile. “I still have the Scarlet Witch waiting for me.”

“Blyad,” Magik’s face said, as it twisted in dread.

Jean laughed loudly, “Exactly.”

Magik shrugged, suddenly, losing dread and gaining apathy again, “What’s the worse she can do?”

“When it comes to Wanda…I’m actually scared to think about that.”
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