Logs:Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace;

Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace;
cn: blood & death
Dramatis Personae Akihiro, Leo, Isra, B, Mystique, Regan, Heather, Cletus, DJ, Scramble, Cerebro, Hive, Ion	2024-02-09 "-- where's Erik?"
Location a gathering storm
28 september. training center, ascension island. Despite the nature of the training room it’s usually impeccably clean, the lion’s share being handled by a custom built B-bot, but recently however their high end roomba has only been circling Officer Shits-His-Pants. A string of muttered swears in Japanese and a steady stream of cigarette smoke flow out of the training room leading back to Akihiro, who’s currently on his hands and knees scrubbing the floor with a brush. He’s got a white bandanna tied across his forehead and is wearing an old patched pair of coveralls with a glass ashtray sat down by his ankles. “I swear when shit calms down I’m going on vacation.”  Leo has been coming down here presumably to train, dressed as he is in workout clothes rather than his usual carefully chosen wardrobe. He stops in the doorway, head tipping quizzically to the side as he looks at Akihiro on his hands and knees -- then his eyes going just slightly wider in amused understanding when he looks farther back to the bot whirring in its dizzy circles. "I'm sure B will fix it," he volunteers optimistically, but then, a little more regretful: "-- tech support has gone downhill here, though." --- 2 october. town square. freaktown. Isra swoops down from over the river, the shadow of her wings preceding her as she touches lightly down at the edge of the plaza. Even though she had been aiming for a very distinctive small shark with a very distinctive bike, it's still a moment and a small tilt of her head before she evidently decides that Thing 2 is, in fact, the one she was looking for. It still takes her a moment to gather her voice. "Are you alright?" She tilts her head at B. "Brothers have been talking. They say you have not been back." Her tail thrashes wildly. "He has disappeared into his cabin. He has not noticed yet. Will you come back." "I haven't been back." B volunteers readily enough, glancing up from the screen of her phone with a small flutter of bills. At first she starts to look back down at it, but then she tucks the phone in her vest pocket. "I'm not coming back. Following Regan was one thing, but --" The flutter of her gills is faster, putting a breathy hitch in her voice that makes the slight upward tilt of her chin seem a little less defiant than she might intend. "If that washed-up lunatic has a problem, I guess he can come take it up with me himself." --- 4 october. mystique's cabin, ascension island. "Tell Erik?" Mystique gives a bright, startled bark of laughter. "I guess we are supposed to keep him in the loop. And why not?" Her blue skin ripples and lightens, her lithe body broadening into Magneto's form, resplendent in his cape and helm. "Having developed a soft spot for the father of that traitorous little bitch, I might try to reconcile with both of them. Or just let it slide, and instead make an example of anyone who dares suggest the Master of Magnetism's gone soft." She sits up, arching Erik's eyebrows and fixing Regan with an intense unblinking stare. "Or I might fly off the handle and decide to take on her gang, her family, their many fanatical stalwarts, maybe even her alma mater's scout troop and my boot-licking ex for good measure." Her faintly licentious grin looks disturbing on Erik's face. "Nu, it's been a few years since I tried to start a war with my own people." She returns to her natural form, the grin fading to a smirk. "Either way, it'll get him out of his cabin." "Mmm." Regan's cheek has been resting on her curled knuckles through this demonstration, giving a small moue as she watches the older woman's shift of form. "You paint an unfortunately vivid picture." Around them the cabin is shifting, now the familiar chaos of Freaktown laid waste in a mess of rubble, the battered remains of a sleek hoverbike and a minimalistic wheelchair crumpled with the familiar helmet in the nearby wreckage. "We could try talking to the whelp first." The destruction fades around them. Regan gives a humorless twitch of smile. "Let's call that a plan X." --- 17 october. long island sound. It's been a perfectly glorious day for sailing -- lovely weather and the wind in their favor. It's made Leo's growing melancholy all the more noticeable, quieter and more abstracted as it grows time to head back. He has not explicitly drawn attention to the fact that his sleek new ship is better stocked than is normal for a day trip, but any stops belowdecks for food or the head and it's noticeable enough that his cozy little cabin has been carefully packed for a long haul. They're not belowdecks now, though, but slowly approaching a quiet Bronx marina -- not any of his usual pick up/drop off points but at speed it's close enough to Freaktown. "I am sorry," he's saying, quieter and more regretful than should be necessary for this detour. "I would take you back but I --" Here he falters. "-- have some errands. I will need to. Run." He pulls his eyes away from the ocean and back to his companion, trying and failing to summon up a smile. "Thank you. For the company. I hope --" There's an uncertainty now in the crease of his brows. "Ingat," he finally concludes, after a brief moment remembering perhaps this is not in fact English: "Be -- safe." During the beginning of the trip, Heather had been as enthused about her trip as ever, pointing out some of her observations on the water, up until she felt compelled to note that dulse seaweed is a snack food in some places (though she had never had the chance to try it). This led to a craving for a snack, whereupon she vanished momentarily to procure something. This gave her a few moments to make some mental connections, and return with her own growing quietness. She fast forwards through some of the aborted replies in her recording (There are a lot of things in-- It has been nice to have-- We can-- I can protect-- I can come-- I will see-- Stay safe-- I will miss-- See you-- You do not need to-- Do not go--) until she finally settles in with the final draft, eyebrows knit on her otherwise normal neutral expression. "You too." --- 31 october. cletus's boathouse, ascension island. Mystique looks around the ramshackle boat house, her expression caught somewhere between disdain and morbid fascination. "Where," she wants to know, though she seems to be addressing the question to a heap of beer cans rather than the sole resident, "do you think you are?" Now she looks at him, and after a moment's consideration her form ripples and changes. When she rolls her shoulders now, Dusk's wings flex and stretch to the meager extent they can in the narrow confines of the space before folding back in with a faint shiver across her back. "This isn't the Second-cousinhood of Mutants, man," she says with Dusk's voice, even the low warning purr beneath it achingly familiar. "If any of us aren't taking this serious we're all in danger." She stretches one long wingspar towards Cletus but doesn't quite make contact. "And the Raes aren't exactly forgiving of those who put us in danger. You really gotta shit or get flushed down the damn pot." The heap of flesh that is Cletus remains inert beneath a pile of filth-encrusted blankets, crinkled beer cans, a chewed up paperback copy of Dracula, and puzzle-pieces from half a dozen unfinished sets. Inert, that is, until he hears Mystique speak with Dusk's voice. His head snaps to her. The hollow of his left eye fills with moon-yellow as a wave of crimson swells up, over, and through him. The blanket is peeled back by a red hand with sharpened fingers; aluminum clatters to the floor. A blood-red nightmare suddenly looms over Dusk-not-Dusk. Carnage hisses -- exposing a mouth full of serrated steak-knives. And then -- immediately collapses into a glowering pink-skinned Cletus, clad in boxers and kneeling on the cot. He grinds his fist into his left socket, his voice slurred from disuse: "Fuckin'... fine. Just tell me where you want me." --- 4 november. outskirts of freaktown. This was hardly even a scuffle, but that's all for the best -- the pair of Friends that had rolled up to the edge of Freaktown looking for trouble decided in short order once faced with this shift's safety team that they did not, in fact, want trouble. DJ seems perfectly satisfied with the fleeing bigots, not particularly interested in setting aside his thermos of cocoa to unleash violence, and he's sipping his drink slowly as he watches the would-be attackers turn tail. "Been really good to have you help deal with all this mess," he ventures, quiet and casual, once the Friends have vanished into the distance. And, just as quiet but slightly less casual: "... been hearing you all have some mess over in your house, too. I don't know where your boss is and I don't want to, but if there's murmurs around here --" He trails off, snapping the lid of his thermos back closed. "I just worry it'll get ugly if the rumors get to the wrong ears." Akihiro watches the cowards flee before visibly slouching once they’re far enough away, a tired sigh escaping his lips. “Just one day. One peaceful day. Is that too much to ask?” he grumbles before reaching up with both hands to rebreak his nose to ensure it heals straight this time. When DJ approaches his head tilts slightly to listen to what the other man has to say before nodding in recognition. “Appreciate it, I’ll keep an ear out.” --- 17 november. regan's cabin. ascension island. "Erik," Regan's voice is quiet but it's commanding all the same, when she cuts in over Scramble, "is not here anymore." She isn't actually giving Scramble time to react to this news, simply dropping it with a deceptive mildness and continuing on to: "Raven is here. I am here. And we still have a mission to think about. We still have people to keep safe. So, fine, then, if you want to talk about responsibility, about loyalty -- you can talk to me about them." To those who didn't know her better the smile on her face could easily be mistaken for warm. Scramble does know better, so it's probably not that dissonant that the words that accompany it are: "And then, if you don't get your bitch leashed, I'll repay her every bit of loyalty she's shown us." Scramble is sitting very straight and very still as she studiously keeps her first (two) (three) (maybe five) reaction(s) from the surface of her thoughts. But her eyes do widen slightly. Then narrow. "Her problem is with him, not with the Brotherhood. I think her decision was stupid as shit but if we'd had her back, it wouldn't have come to this. And if she'd wanted to fuck us, we'd have been fucked weeks ago. Maybe that ain't responsible and loyal in --" Somewhere in the static of her obscured thoughts are the murky shapes of expletives. She sets her jaw. Deep breath, deep breath out. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. I'll talk to her." --- 12 december. ascension island. Isra is still for just a moment. It's probably not an extremely long pause, even by the standards of those who experience time the same way she does. Then she lifts her hands again, hesitant. 'He will not come back?' Her brow ridges scrunch, which tugs on her already too-wide, too-bright eyes. 'It is dangerous for him out there.' The words come faster, now--perhaps a reasonable if still leisurely pace by Heather's standards. 'Danger for him out there is also danger for us here, if he gets captured.' Her ears press back and she tucks her wings down closer around her shoulders. 'Do you think he will come back.' 'I do not,' signs Heather, her recorder still clipped to her belt loop. 'Maybe he thinks we cannot protect him. Maybe he is right.' Her gaze snaps momentarily from Isra, to the lodge, and then back again. 'Could not protect Dusk. Ion. But if he is captured.' The ghost of a frown twitches at her lips, but flattens out again. 'Danger for him, yes. Danger for us, yes. Danger for mutants, danger for everyone, yes.' She pauses so that she can lift her goggles and rub at her eyes for a few moments. She emits a squeak, recognizable by only a few as a long sigh. 'He is the high score winner for biggest danger.' Grim, she adds. 'A million dangers large.' --- 28 december. ascension island. "You know him best of anyone here, I'm sure," Mystique purrs, running vivid blue fingertips down Akihiro's arm as she winds her way around him, also catlike. "And may have a better notion where to start sniffing. You'll not be shamed if you cannot pick up a trail, but if you do find him..." She tsks softly and finally peels herself away from him to drape the back of a plush armchair instead. "...well. The thing of it is he may not want to come back, or be in any shape to do so even if he does want to. He needs space to heal, or else he'd have never left to begin with." Her smile curves wide and mischievous. "That's all the more reason to send you -- he is your friend first, isn't he? So I trust you to put his well-being first. Don't approach him at once, when you locate him -- contact me, first. We've got plenty of trouble here at home, we wouldn't want to invite more, now would we?" “While I do live for these little interactions,” Akihiro reaches up to softly touch the back of Mystique’s hand as she pulls away, “you don’t have to butter me up.” He lets out a tired sigh and slumped in his own chair, head falling back to stare at the ceiling, “He’s slipping, I know. I get that we’re hunted, but his paranoia is getting dangerous. We can’t alienate the community that’s helping us hide. Rest assured I will find him, and if he’s ready to come back, we will. If not, I’ll make sure he doesn’t get himself killed. He’s powerful, but even the powerful get tired.” If the dark circles under his eyes are any indicator, he’s probably talking about himself. --- 17 january. freaktown. "That motherfucker been gone." Scramble's revelation is hushed, but not lacking in vehemence. "If he come back, he gon have to deal with the Raes. Ion think they real eager to have him back, and you know how they roll. You gon have to deal with them either way if you stay gone, but that ain't even the..." She works her fingers through her 'fro, half-heartedly teasing it back out from being compressed by her helmet. "Shit steady falling apart on the island. It was you and Dusk holding down the electronic security before and --" She breathes out slowly. "Fuck Erik, but it's us you're fucking over to spite him. You gon fuck the Mongrels too, if we piss you off?" "If any of you messed up that bad you'd own it. I wouldn't be here wondering when it would happen again." B is quiet when she finally speaks. "What happens when he comes back and decides he's going to play at revolution some more? Who do we sacrifice next?" Her gills are fluttering slow and her huge black eyes are fixed not on Scramble but off in the distance. Town Square isn't actually visible from the angle of this window but she's fixated solidly in its direction all the same. "You were all fucked long before I left. When they get that, come talk to me again." --- 9 february. guest room, xavier's school. The kitchen is on fire, the dishes are piling up, and the orders keep coming in. A robotic chef (you know it's a chef because it's wearing a toque blanche) is running from one fire to the next, liberally applying a fire extinguisher. Player Two, who doesn't have a controller or even a body, has seemed utterly unbothered by the chaos happening onscreen thus far, even though his robotic Overcooked avatar is doing a pretty slap-dash job. << So, I've been tracking this whole fleet of Sentinels, >> Cerebro is telling Hive, conversationally, << their network traffic is really cunningly masked, I'd love to meet and/or bitch-slap and/or fuck whoever is behind -- >> His verbal thoughts just stop, as does his avatar, though Hive can distantly feel the spike in his non-psionic processing. Then, a split instant later, << Oh shit they're headed for New York we need to scramble the X-Men right the fuck now -- oh whew, nevermind, they're not coming here. >> Chef Robot goes back to firefighting, heedless of the increasingly frantic music and the orders they're failing to serve up. Hive is solidly on the couch, embodied and em-controllered. Neither of these things seem to be helping his current cooking efforts much, and, << -- how are you so fucking bad at this >> is grumbled over the airwaves even as his calico-cat avatar lights yet another burger on fire. He's promptly ignoring the other burner, too, mind briefly flooding with a genocidal world of borrowed horrors that is overlaying the noisy riot of Xavier's with images of carnage. These daymares promptly dissolve at Cerebro's final reassurance, and with a wordless sense of relief Hive is clunkily steering his cat -- maybe he was aiming for a chopping board but it falls off the edge of their kitchen into lava. It's only a moment later that his worry resurges, far less vivid than before but still wary: << Wait, where the fuck are they going? >> --- 9 february. main lodge, ascension island. "You've some nerve, X-Man!" The knife left Mystique's hand almost before the intruder stopped blurring. It's a very fine santoku and had been making short work of the carrots on the chopping board (which she also flipped in DJ's direction for good measure) but in no way balanced for throwing. "I thought --" She probably wasn't actually counting on it doing damage so much as buy time for her to draw the semi-automatic shotgun from under the counter. "-- I said --" The pot behind her is boiling over, the angry rattling of its lid drowned out as she fires three times in rapid succession, not directly at her target but above him and to his left and right. "--never come back!" As DJ drops back into motion there's a sharply hitched jerk in his stuttering path, and notably, when he comes to rest beside the stove only two of those bullets have landed in the wall. Mystique's shotgun has also landed in the wall -- still in her hand, limb now solidly enmeshed with the doorframe. "I am no flipping X-Man." His words come out steady, if gritted through clenched teeth. He's kind of casually switching the stove off, the lid quieting a moment later. A moment later, a very bloody bullet rattles to the countertop. "There's an entire army of Sentinels headed this way." When he blips again, Mystique -- less one hand -- is no longer trapped in the wall. "You give a shit about your people's lives, you'd best get gone." --- 9 february. docks, ascension island. The rumble of distant thunder sounds all the more ominous muffled by the falling snow, but the rapidly deteriorating weather and attendant rough seas is probably not the Brotherhood's top concern at the moment. Despite advance warning, the island has only so many boats, and the first wave of Sentinels is wreaking havoc on the already chaotic evacuation. A squadron of them makes short work of a commandeered ferry only a few hundred feet from the pier, tipping her frantic passengers into the icy chop. The Brothers who managed to surface are trapped between their sinking vessel and the Sentinels. Their screams are drowned out by gunfire as they hurl powers back at their executioners in vain. As the survivors dwindle, four of the Sentinels peel off to intercept a smaller knot of evacuees hastening towards a theoretically seaworthy catamaran in drydock. "Shit shit shit --" It's not the first or most creative string of profanities Scramble has uttered recently and it hopefully won't be the last. She fires the last two rounds in a rifle meant for hunting and not defense. All the Sentinels drop to the rocky beach, though evidently not because she's done any damage whatsoever -- they are far more maneuverable now skittering toward the panicking Brothers on long spidery legs. Scramble is not panicking, but she is out of ammo and draws her handgun even as she signs sharply at J.C. to take the others and run. "Come at me motherfuckers!" she screams, emptying her clip with about as much precision as can be expected under the circumstances, but the 9mm rounds do little more damage than her cursing. Heather reaches her hand out in the direction of the overturned boat. There is nothing that she can do for them, the gesture instinctive and totally in vain. The grinding of her teeth is fully masked by the incoming rumbling, and she refocuses to where she may still be able to be of help. "Gtyrbk!" she manages to squeak out, before a loud BOOM sounds. It is not from the thunder, but from the Louisville Slugger that is exploding into splinters over the shell of one of the Sentinels oncoming towards Scramble and the group she is defending. Though it flies back from the impact of Heather's Homerun Special (TM), it is not nearly as damaged as it feels like it ought to be. Her recorded voice plays in a neutral tone, "I need to get a stronger bat." --- 9 february. woods, ascension island. The patchy snow here is stained brown and red in equal measure, trampled by the many scrambling boots and mixed liberally with blood. It's very clear where this retreat abruptly soured, the prints heading for the shore until they scatter in a splatter of gore. There's a pair of Brothers fallen here, this young woman face-down in the muck and her elder brother, freshly reunited out of Prometheus this summer, toppled beside her. The rest of this cluster has been fleeing for the docks but is now -- turning back, driven further into the cluster of cabins by a wave of Sentinels coming up from the beach. Regan has little enough innate gift to help with this situation but she's nevertheless between her Brothers and the oncoming bots, teeth gritted and a grenade launcher at her torn and bloodied shoulder. The boom of the grenade comes in harmony with a closer clap of thunder, rumbling heavy through the trees. Though the projectile hits solidly home, bot scattering into pieces -- it's a short lived victory, the pieces gathering themselves up into another arachnid form that rejoins the pack to close in on the escapees. The deadly march is interrupted by the arrival of a house boat -- slamming down into the beach with yet another thunderous crash. Crimson threads release the ship's rusted out hull, retracting toward a blood-red figure. Amidst the arrival of his namesake, Carnage has grown -- eight feet of blade and muscle. But -- as he lands on all fours just to the left of Regan -- there is no gleeful or ecstatic rage to accompany it. Instead, Carnage looks exhausted; like a man once starved, but now left to drown in an ocean of food. After a barely perceptible moment of anguish, he drives a bladed appendage into the dead siblings. There is something gentle about the way the blood-monster steps past the bodies -- as if they were fragile, precious things. But once they're behind him, he drives half a dozen new limbs into the ground. Anchoring himself into place. "Lead them out," Carnage hisses to Regan. "The dead will buy you time." --- 9 february. docks, ascension island. The driving snow has cut visibility for organic eyes, but the Sentinels have continued their slaughter unfazed. The distant cries of injured and dying Brothers have grown less and less frequent as Isra ushers a meager handful of survivors--half of them supporting or carrying the other half--toward what might be the last boat still afloat. At least, it had been afloat on her last aerial pass. She's grounded now, one wing torn and tucked close to her body at an unnatural angle, bleeding profusely enough to obscure other, likely more serious wounds along her side and flank. They limp out from the uncertain cover of scrub pines just in time to see the dumpy little pontoon boat go down, those aboard either dead or too hurt to save themselves from the slushy water rushing in around them. The Sentinels have already broken away to search for other targets along the shoreline, but now another one has landed directly in the path of the survivors. Isra snarls at the Sentinel, flaring her good--well, less injured wing out, as if its thin, bullet riddled membrane would shield those behind her from gunfire. The Sentinels that have been patrolling the shoreline are starting to break away, with the last boat gone and no real escape for those unfortunate enough to still be trapped on the bloodied island. The spidery robot that is facing down Isra and her charges is skittering forward -- and then slowing. When it comes closer it is only to crouch down, the orb-like center mass opening up to reveal one frightened but curious black-masked ferret. Alanna is scrambling up out of the robot and towards the familiar shelter of Isra's wing, just as several of the beachcombing robots scurry up over the rocks and into view. They're surrounding the group, taking aim. The next crack of thunder claps loud an imminent, and in the bright flash that immediately accompanies it, the world goes black -- --- 9 february. somewhere else. -- for a second. It might feel like an eternity, jolting, painful, bright, but then it passes, and the bleeding and bedraggled stragglers have been left in an entirely different kind of wreckage. The yellow bricks beneath their feet have been liberally chewed up by overgrowing weeds. A rusting and lolling Tin Man hangs drunkenly over a tumbledown fence nearby, looking very much like he's having a conversation with the clown head fallen at his feet. Nearby some Oompa Loompas have lost half their expressions to time and weather, their cheerful dance eerily frozen. The snow is gone, but the storm has followed them -- another clap and another and their numbers are growing (though not near as much as they should) with each. The latest of the jagged flashes, finally, resolves steadily into -- a wide eyed and eagerly wagging Buttercup, the gunfire perhaps less startling to him than some of the other pets. Behind the dog, considerably less steady -- weaving on his feet, intermittently blinking back out of existence, sparks still skittering erratic across his skin and sputtering off the end of the metal hook at the end of his right arm -- Ion is surveying what remains of the Brothers with a grim set of mouth and a growing dread before he manages: "-- where's Erik?"