Logs:Team-Building Exercises

Team-Building Exercises
Dramatis Personae Destiny, Mystique
In Absentia	cn: aftermath of zombie killing/descriptions of bodies in a very gruesome state/zombie-related content (fosse don't look). "It's time to make our own mess." (immediately following their appearance cleaning up Jenner.)
Location <BOM> Jenner Ruins - ???
This sprawling compound was once on the bleeding edge of immunological research, and had over the years produced many lifesaving vaccines--and deadly bioweapons. It has lain for some years in disuse and obscurity, quarantined and swept under the bureaucratic rug while Prometheus moved on to better/worse things. Here and there the tall fences that ring the facility have been warped and torn, though it's hard to say at a glance by what. The grounds have overgrown, even the paved surfaces cracked open to make way for grasses, shrubs, and saplings. The buildings themselves are all perfectly intact, abandoned over horrors written in bright biohazard warning signs and errant pools of long-dried bodily fluids. Some efforts have been made to clean up the catastrophe. None have yet succeeded. Around the darkened cafeteria there are corpses strewn in various states of decomposition and dismemberment. Their advanced state of desiccation leaves this slightly less wet than it might otherwise be, what blood they improbably still have after all this time more of a dark sludge that has no splatter, but it's messy all the same. A hand here, a head there; on the marlinspike still in Mystique's hand is a messy flecking of brain matter. It really does something to set a mood -- it's in the middle of this glamorous and romantic atmosphere that Mystique is leaning down, fighting stance softening as she returns her wife's kiss ardently. When she pulls back she's crouching to wipe her weapon on the raggedy remains of the filthy uniform still worn by her wife's latest kill. "No one?" In her deep and oddly two-toned voice there's a buried amusement. "You're here, now. Nine years gone and still your timing is perfect." Said wife looks weirdly immaculate in the midst of all this filth, her long black coat worn open over a white mandarin shirt, blue vest, gray trousers and black boots. Destiny is holding her sword in a reversed grip, well out of the way but still at the ready. She gives a small sigh when Mystique pulls away. "I shouldn't have needed to come." This in a tone of mild reproach as she cleans off her blade somewhat more fussily and returns it to the cane that serves as its scabbard. "I'm not done being angry with you yet." For all that, she doesn't sound particularly angry. "But I am here now, since neither you nor what's left of the Brotherhood can be bothered to see to my wife's safety. I take it this," she says, gesturing expansively at the carnage, "is not just a team-building exercise." Mystique is less immaculate, a definite spattering of unpleasant mess on her boots and tight black pants that it's probably best not to consider for too long given where her clothing comes from. "You can be angry another decade, if you need," she is allowing generously as she gets back to her feet. "As long as you come back to me in the end." She's reaching up to where a headlamp is dangling around her neck, set to the red night vision mode; she's lifting it, the dim beam sweeping the room as she does another check. She's lingering with the light over the shapes limp around the floor just in case one is having second thoughts about staying down. "Life has been a series of messes we shouldn't have needed to clean up. And yet, someone has to." When nothing moves, she lets the light fall back against her collarbone. She steps over the most recent of the bodies, out into the hall with its odd chill and faint lingering draft coming from seemingly nowhere. It lends a still more somber air to her quiet follow up: "The island has fallen." "I always come back to you." This is not a defense or a reassurance, but it is slightly pedantic. Destiny says it the way someone might state a law of nature. "And I cannot stay angry around you for long." She seems unconcerned about the possibility of the dead around them re-rising, but -- also generously, perhaps -- allows Mystique to check the slow way before following her back out into the hallway. "I know." Quiet, too. "Now. My sight has been muddled. I scan regularly for danger, but I missed a nexus, somehow. I need to catch up more than I need to be angry." Her expression doesn't look as troubled as the words might suggest, but there's a dangerous brittleness to her next question. "Why did you break him out?" "The world changes faster and faster with each passing year. Eight billion people with a thousand thousand daily choices each. Was the future smaller, once? It seemed infinite the day we met, but --" Mystique doesn't finish the but. She's making her unhurried way down the hall past several open doors. She pauses in front of the next closed door, a sharp bark of a laugh escaping her as she pushes it open. "I did not." The bathroom beyond is quiet, but Mystique taps her spike several times against the doorframe, waiting to see if any noises answer. When none do she jams the door open (don't look too hard at what with) and slips back out. "After Liberty Island his name was a warcry, his image a beacon inspiring a new generation, angry and ready to fight. Regan rallied them well. Too well, I think. When these fierce new Brothers tracked down his secret prison, what could she have told them? Leave their hero in a cage? I might have been suited to play that villain, if I were there at the time. But she needs their trust." "It was infinite." There's a smile in Destiny's voice. "It is still infinite. But the future isn't a fractal you can plot. It's..." She hesitates. "In some ways, the future is smaller now because the world changes so fast. At least, the future that we make." The hallway terminates in a checkpoint, the door to the security room hanging open on one squeaky hinge. Destiny turns toward it with a thoughtful but still unconcerned moue. "Still. You are my nexus. I might have lost the plot even if Erik stayed out of the picture, but I would have found it again faster, at your side." She catches Mystique's arm -- perhaps to stop her walking right into the decrepit zombie now dragging itself out of the guard post by one arm, its lungs too damaged to even rattle properly. Or perhaps it was just so she could face her wife, sightless eyes wide and glassy, when she says, "I'm sorry I stayed away so long." "You're at my side, now." Mystique does stop, does turn, her head bowing to press her forehead lightly to Destiny's. "And we'll find it again together. We'll make it again, together." She's kissing her wife again, here, kind of heedless of the fact that the zombie has dragged itself over -- is very pulling itself along to chomp down hard against her leg. It's chewing very optimistically at the leathery-tough surface there, very determined in its hungry quest. Mystique doesn't even bother looking down; when its teeth do finally tear into flesh she's dropping her arm with a mild exasperation to spike it through the head. She's only then pulling back, giving the spike a decisive wrench before yanking it back out. "-- even if it's a bit of a mess." "Where I've always belonged." When their lips meet this time, Destiny melts into Mystique's arms, apparently forgetting the zombie and her own fastidiousness in the press of their bodies. When they part again she blossoms into a smile at how casually her wife dispatches the former guard. "We've been cleaning up after men far too long. It's time to make our own mess." She traces the curves of Mystique's face with soft questing fingertips, as if she hasn't memorized it in a hundred and seventy years of caresses and visions. "The world has been born anew between us ten thousand times over." There's a giddy excitement she hasn't shown since the halcyon days of Utopia. "This time, we will burn down the old one so it has room to thrive."