Archive Mutants & Masterminds: The Magisterium - Staging Ground

[Rebekka Van der Vyse]

Lounging at her ease by the wardrobe, Rebekka was silent while Travis, Lamia, and Mary talked, revealing a hint or more of their positions, a melancholy smile gracing her perfect lips. She knew people with an intimacy few others, if any, did, the vast majority human, but there had been a number of mutants as well, usually as a reward for good behaviour.

She could understand all their various feelings about their captors and torturers and overseers, but in the end, with few exceptions, people - human and mutant - were people. She didn't hate humans, not even those who abused her and used her - with one exception. How could she, when she knew the entirety of their lives? She knew their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers, children every bit as much as they did? For most of them, she had no desire to hurt them - hurting and killing most of them would solve nothing anyway.

Rebekka musingly watched Travis and Lamia go off a ways before turning to Mary with an understanding smile and gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze. "Perhaps they are right, and this is a war, but if so, there are other ways to contribute, besides being involved in the direct conflicts," Rebekka said kindly. Her smile turned wry as she arched a brow and held a hand to her chest. "I, myself, have neither the talent," Not quite true, "nor the desire for things like that. We will find other ways to contribute. If they press the point, why, then, we'll have to question our liberators acting in the same way as our oppressors, hmm?"

Despite her protestations of having no desire for fighting, it was obvious she still had desires for those who fought. Rebekka's eyes lingered on Travis and Lamia, and she twiddled her fingers at Travis when he glanced over a shoulder to jerk a thumb at them. She had a tremendous insight into human nature, and she found Travis and Mary quite easy to read.

But Lamia was another matter. That she was older than she appeared was obvious. But just how old? Older than her, she supposed. There was something about her that seemed... ancient, her inflections not matching memories of elders from even the oldest of those she had slept with. And then there were her assertions of the children taken from her.

Rebekka herself had never been pregnant - though she had memories of being so - despite being in perfect health. It had been a concern of those studying her, and her eggs had been harvested many times over fifty years. She never felt the lack, not having children, but Lamia mentioning her children did make her curious about what had happened with her eggs. None she had memories from knew, though some suspected they were being used to breed more perfect, sex-addicted sex slaves.

Nodding to herself, Rebekka sashayed towards Lamia and Travis standing on his piece of concrete, expression friendly and interested. She ran heavy-lidded eyes over Travis, shivering at the fury etched in his tight jaw, before facing Lamia, turquoise eyes intent and curious.

"Hello, I hope I am not intruding," Rebekka said, dulcet alto accented with South Africa. "You mentioned children... I was curious, do you intend to search for them? I haven't had children of my own, but my embryos have been harvested several times. If so, I was thinking we could help each other in our search." She smiled modestly, flashing a pair of darling dimples - she looked innocent, shy of twenty, yet still radiated a sensual appeal she may or may not have been fully aware of, or may simply have been giving that impression.. "I have some skill in finding things out and can manage to round up a number of contacts and connections."

She looked up at Travis, her hands on his floating platform as she leaned forward slightly. "If there is anyone or anything you are looking your five years of... incarceration, I'd be willing to help you too, in any small way that I can."

[Mirage]

She gritted her teeth and let Matt remove the implant as she listened her various mutant companions regarding their own views, what was more, she heard the emotions beneath them, it was almost overwhelming, they might as well have been shouting their feelings for all intents and purposes, even though in actuality most of them were fairly well controlled. Once Matt was done working with her, she approached the others who were speaking slowly, listening and trying to form an assessment of each of them as best she could... it seemed anger was the dominant emotion here at the moment, a good number of them seemed to be using that anger to hide other, deeper emotions, at least from themselves.

Probing emotional wounds, however, wasn't a good idea at the best of times, and she looked for something else, hearing Rebekka's offer, she moved over to stand with them, and in english, but with a strong french accent she also spoke up. "If you would like some help on that level, I would be willing to offer my own aid to such a task. Or to any task involving freeing other mutants from slavery."

[Gold]

Gold glanced at Travis briefly but the mutant’s words made little impact. He was too angry, all the time. Right now he sounded more and more like the braying of an ass or the snorting of a bull. These guys could be anyone, intend anything. There was a reason for the phrase ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’.

Sol’s answer was straightforward enough. Liberation. Whatever that means.

He stayed quiet. Questions, it seemed, were not big on the agenda around here. If he didn’t like what he saw he could slip away and go check up on Canadian property values later on.

Ahead of him Marina went down on the table to get the chip cut out of her. As nobody was jumping to explain anything to him, he guessed it must be a tracking chip. He watched her go and join in with the growing cluster around Travis. Popular fella. Dangerous people can be at times.

Matt threw him another encouraging smile. “No tricks, promise.”

It couldn’t be hard to guess that he was doubtful. He was cautious by nature, a necessary adaptation to a life shaped by betrayal. Nobody ever walked up and said ‘yo man, I’m gonna betray you!’ They always wrapped it in nicer words, or offered you this or that or helped you out. Once he fell into the hands of the government, things got no better. There were no ‘betrayals’ anymore but they still dangled carrots to get him to cooperate before yanking them away.

Gold screwed up his nose. “Alright. Do your thing. Stay away from my hands, I’ll hurt you. Accidental-like.”

He pulled off his shirt, revealing a smooth, muscular torso cratered and slashed with old scars. To an uninformed eye he looked like he’d had a bad encounter with a chainsaw-wielding bear. The informed eye could see barbed wire tears, glass cuts, burn marks and knife wounds, as well as a fair few bullet grazes and even a few holes. Back in the pits he always killed gunmen first, and they rarely landed anything but a grazing blow on him. Once the organizers realized that Gold with a gun could empty an entire arena in a few seconds they outlawed guns. It was more exciting, and more brutal, to see what he would do when he got his hands on a nail-board or a string of barbed wire. They used to take side bets on precisely how he would kill people with specific weapons.

Matt directed him to lie down and went to work.

Gold was used to much greater pain than this. He let out the occasional grunt when the pain spiked, but nothing major. Soon the chip was out. Matt clucked his tongue. “How exciting. They put a backup in you.”

“Nice to be valued.”

“Yeah. Give me a second. It just turned on when this one turned off. Scanner bleeped it.”

Gold raised his head and glanced. The readout wasn’t that different from a sonar panel. He was no techie but he supposed it worked on a similar principle. Some sort of energy wave being sent out and bounced back.

Matt checked the scanner, hit a few buttons, then fetched fresh cutting tools and covered the first incision. “Sorry about this. No conspiracy.”

“Heh,” Gold said. He supposed they had to see him as being a little paranoid. Maybe he was.

Weird that he found himself loosening up while undergoing surgery.

The second part of the job took a little longer. Turned out the second chip had been implanted near his spinal column. As such it also hurt a ton more.

Gold grunted at first, then gasped. Matt eventually decided to strap his limbs down and gave him a stick to bite on.

His vision blurred and his jaw clenched so hard that he thought the stick would shatter. Cold cutting fingers explored his insides, working in with care and precision. His flesh didn’t like it. There were nerve clusters around there which were very hard to avoid.

He was pretty sure he blacked out briefly.

Either way, when he came to his senses again his vision was a blurry mess, his mouth was full of the taste of wood, and a hefty bandage covered his side. Matt helped him sit up and gave him a glass of water. He sipped, swirled the water and spat it out to clear his palette, then drank deep.

“Thanks.”

Gold slid off the table, limping a little. Pain killers or no, this was a new fuck ton of pain and his body wasn’t ready for it. He went and leaned against a tree, looking out over the park. The other mutants were clustering but he had no real need for company. He had been years without any save humans who hated and feared him. The last time he had something he could call a friend was near a decade ago.

Liberation, he thought again. I smell some sort of plan at work here. That was inevitable, though. Travis could be fooled all he wanted, but Gold was of a more cynical bent. Sol didn’t just want to free them, he wanted to fight. And a man needs soldiers if he wants to fight a war.

That didn’t bother him, though. They wanted him to be a soldier for the government, killing mutants. He’d iced a few already. If worst came to worst, he was just exchanging a war he hated for one he was ambivalent about, and opponents he loathed to hurt for ones he was more than happy to kill.

Even a cynical man had to call that an improvement.

Gold folded his arms over his chest, holding his shirt in one hand, and looked out towards the horizon, wondering what was waiting just a little over there.

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis crossed his legs awkwardly and did his best to not look like he was staring. He was staring, but he could hardly help it and nobody present could really fault him; Rebekka was a modern day Helen of Troy, or Venus, or maybe Lilith. He smiled, it came across a little like a leer, "I ... uhhh ... I'm ... sure you could." He shifted uncomfortably, not sure what to do, or say. He recognized lust, and he was hardly immune to it, but this was, if what Sol was saying was true, very literally neither the time nor the place. "What do you do? Umm, I mean ... your, uhh ... ?" Travis wasn't sure what people called them, gifts, powers, abilities, all seemed appropriate. "Your powers, I mean." Powers. Travis respected power above all else, it was hardly shocking that his mind would grasp that above all else. He swallowed hard, he was pretty sure that finding out would be as dangerous as knowing. "Umm, you too," he said tearing his eyes from Rebekka to Lamia, who probably seldom felt like the wallflower she had suddenly become within Travis' perceptions.

[SalmonMax]

Meanwhile, the crown princess of the 'wallflower' title was not in a cluster at the moment. People came to her and said things to her, and she nodded dumbly because she was still shellshocked just from having strangers talk to her. And the things they said made no sense still. Oh, she spoke the language, understood the words, but she couldn't connect to the intensity of the emotions. The hate and anger. Those were things she'd never really had much. Frustration sometimes, sure. Moments of depression from being cooped up so much. Insecurity over performance in tests and exercises. But what had really defined her life was...longing. A fierce desire for more. She'd always known her life was tasteless and colorless and controlled. Even the tepid subjects of study and reading made available to her were clear on that. To satisfy that desire she'd already betrayed everything and everyone she ever thought was important to her.

But she still wanted more. This desert, hot and blazing and full of oddities human and otherwise, was not enough.

Mary thought it was pretty clear so far that on one big issue at LEAST, these people were right. The lie of omission that there were other people like her. Other people with her 'rare genetic condition.' The reason was also clear. They hadn't wanted her to choose sides; hadn't even wanted her to know there were sides to choose between.

She wasn't ready to choose yet. She needed to know more. A lot more.

The sight of Matt at work was gruesome, but she focused on what she knew. They'd let her study a bit of anatomy, of the human body...it let her concentrate on the passionless words she'd read rather than the pain and the blood.

"Can I help?" Mary asked. "I know some first aid. And...we should go soon."

[z024]

Lamia nodded to the offers of help, her lips tightening in further anger at Rebecca's mention of the harvesting. They'd done that to her as well, one at a time, to ensure that they ovaries and eggs would grow back. "Thank you, and I will want to look for them, but many will still be babes in arms and the others will have been raised by our enemies." She nodded over to Mary, "Innocent and naive at best, or raised to as soldiers against us at worse. First we must have a place to be and the strength to defend it."

"That means freeing other soldiers and those that could be soldiers, first," she said, crossing her arms. She didn't look or sound happy about her assessment, but she was resolute. She nodded over to where David was standing next to Tyrone. "Which, from what I saw in our escape, is his plan as well. Unless we have changed greatly over time, those gathered here are the more powerful mutants. This escape has been planned and executed with precision; we were chosen as individuals or because where we were kept was known to house those of great importance or power. When we have an army to rival the power of our captors and a safehaven for those too young or inexperienced to battle, then I will search for my children, and I would welcome any help offered."

She sighed, "Though, it may be a futile attempt unless we can find the records I am sure the American's kept. My children take after their fathers in appearance and once the medical technology was available I was no longer mated but merely injected. I was never allowed to see the children once they were born..." She swallowed hard and stopped for a moment, battling inner demons while she stared a patch of ground away from the group. Once she had mastered herself again, she gave Rebecca a curt nod, "Yes, thank you. I would appreciate your help."

[Rebekka Van der Vyse]

Rebekka shivered delicately, though not at hearing that Lamia was never allowed to see her children, but at the thought that conceiving them was done in such a clinical fashion. The mating was the best part, willingly or not. Rebekka laid a gentle hand on the woman's shoulder, in sympathy for the inner demons they both fought or endured, different though they may be.

"It is not the records we will need to find, but the men who know what the records say or where they are," Rebekka said, returning Lamia's nod and adding a playful smirk. She glanced up, arching a pale brow at Travis and placed a hand on her chest, preening under his lustful attention. "I can be very persuasive. Men will tell me anything, even the most minute and obscure pieces of their lives." Her grin widened mischievously as she included Lamia and Sonora. "Many women too."

She spoke with obvious sexual overtones, but there was an edge to her smile and a glint in her eye that suggested what she was alluding to was more than that. What that something could be was went unrevealed.

"As for what 'powers' I possess," Rebekka said, fingers forming air-quotes as she dropped the sex-kitten act - as much as she could without taking undue effort - then gesturing at Travis, Mary, and their rescuers, "Alas, I'm hardly in the same league as many of you, I fear." It was not quite a lie. "Beyond having a certain... facility and insight into men - and women - I have this."

The ravishingly beautiful woman struck a pose and gestured at her full curves, as slowly, but perceptibly, she changed, right before their eyes, into another woman. Over the course of a minute, Rebekka grew taller and sleeker, almost six feet, her breasts smaller, but sitting high and firm. Her pale blond hair darkened to a vivid auburn, lengthening to her waist, as her tanned complexion deepened to rich honey tone, and her eyes took on an unusual lavender shade. Her facial features altered, heart-shaped face taking on an angular, Asiatic cast of equal, peerless beauty. Oddly enough, the white dress seemed to fit her even better, with an almost satin sheen.

"I can become nearly any woman I can imagine or a man could desire," Rebekka said, her voice high and sweet, with a British-flavoured Indian accent. She smiled wryly, and a bit wistfully. "When I entered puberty, I stopped growing and aging naturally. At first, I matured and changed through subconscious desires, but then I learned to direct it and control it myself."

She sighed, running a hand down her side. "I don't have a natural appearance - when I shift, the changes are permanent until I change them again. I'll never know what I would have looked like growing up if I didn't have this capability." Then she giggled, posing again as she glanced at Travis through long, dark lashes. "So, yes, my appearance and beauty is a complete cheat, but it makes it no less real, for all of that."

She paused, then licked her lips. "I suppose I also have a gift for tongues, as well. What about the rest of you?"

She cast a speculative look at Lamia, considering her words on the coming war. She had memories of war, not her own - something even remotely conventional wouldn't work, not in this case. "As for conflict, if you and they," she nodded at Lamia and Travis, then at David, Matt, and Tyrone, "think direct, or even guerilla warfare will be enough, I fear you will be disappointed. Currently, we are outnumbered ten to hundred million to one. What we have to do is change the paradigm. Not all humans have to be our enemies, many will chose not to be, if we present ourselves in the right light. And that could be more than half the battle right there."

[Dawn OOC]

Conversation was interrupted as a black hole formed. Tyrone made a face as he went from full concentration to just maintaining the warp. Meanwhile, David’s body changed into plasma and he rose into the air. Jack prepared his gun again, setting the butt securely against his shoulder. Matt, having no patients, turned as the earth beneath him rumbled.

Grav – or at least Grav’s body – was first, followed closely by Dog, who had no idea who he was following. The poor tortured mutant only knew that he was supposed to follow Grav and she’d gone through the hole, so he went too.

Next was Fenris, still charred and smoldering as he leapt through the hole and landed in a wary crouch. Glowing eyes stared at the mutants around him, silently warning them all to give the half-feral mutant plenty of room.

Last was Ronnie, who bounded through much like Fenris had, her purple hair bobbing around her face as she spun to Tyrone. “Kill it! We’re all here.” Behind her, the warp collapsed. “Fenris, Grav, Dog – go get your chips out. Quick, we gotta move.” Purple eyes roamed the crowd before finding and settling on Travis – a mixture of relief and delight crossed her features.

[Travis Kincaid]

"They already are our enemies." Travis wasn't sure if he believed it, but he said it with conviction. Any further conversion was interrupted by the tearing sound of another black hole portal forming above the arid grasslands. Four figures soon spilled out of the impossible hole in the world. There was no greeting fire, these must have been the ones that Sol was waiting for. The first was a small woman with white hair, followed by a man covered in what looked like armor that glowed as if lit from within. A feral looking man leaped through next, his expression one that said he was ready for a fight even though he looked like he had just had one. The third form piled through the opening just before it shut.

Travis' world came to an abrupt halt.

She said something, it didn't matter what it was, her voice was music to Travis' ears. She looked around at those assembled and those indigo eyes found him even as he launched himself forward with the speed of a freight train. Ronnie barely had time to smile before he was on her, jumping from the platform as it ground into the dirt and stumbling into motion towards her. "You're alive!" he breathed as his body met hers. Any reply was cut short as he grabbed her head and kissed her. In the span of a handful of seconds and thirty odd feet Travis was transformed from a brooding and angry young man to an overly youthful and obviously passionate one. Lamia and Rebekka didn't need a roadmap to know that fate had just conspired to end Travis' search before it could even begin.

[Grav]

"Wow, glad that wasn't me." she looked around tearing her gaze away and chuckled. "Unexpected reunion I take it."

"So who's going to dig the transmitter out from my lower back?" When matt raised his hand she smiled. "Then let's get to it, I would prefer when she wakes up that she doesn't send for help right away."

[Gold]

Gold turned without hurry to observe the new arrivals. One seemed to have adopted his own unique style of travel: on their back, unmoving. He wouldn’t have recommended it and doubted they would later on.

He pulled his shirt on and repositioned to lean back against the tree. No enemies came pouring through the gate after them, it closed in time. He wondered if the government was already scrambling teams in their direction. How long did it take to follow a trace?

It wasn’t anything to worry about though. This little mission seemed to have gone off without a hitch.

He observed Travis go bounding over to one of the women with cold eyes and a little empathy. It was a vague sort of emotion, the kind of thing felt when he saw a fellow mutant writhing in agony… but normally he only saw that when he was the cause. He supposed that by standard definitions he would be considered maladjusted but they probably all were.

Either way, Gold had no idea what love was. He doubted its existence. Travis seemed happy in the mutant’s arms, though. That was worth something.

“Hey, Matt,” he called. “You got a comb?”

The mutant blinked at him for a second, as if this was the weirdest question he had heard all day. He directed Gold over to the wardrobe the mutant called Mary had created.

Gold walked over, falling into a natural smooth stalk. The muscles were relaxing now, he no longer limped. The wound in his side still hurt, but only enough to make him grimace now and again. He remembered when the mafia put him in the ring with a yakuza guy. Pre-fight they told him to single that man out for death. There was no reason given but it was easy enough to figure it out. Criminal pride. That little fella turned out to be the nastiest man in the arena that night, aside from Gold himself, and going after him first turned out to be one of the dumbest things he ever did.

When Gold flipped his way over to the man, he had sidestepped the opening attack and shivved Gold in the side. His side felt similar now, all ripped up and broken. After that he never listened when they gave him targeting orders. If he figured out someone was more dangerous he always saved them for last.

He looked through the clothes, ignoring the trousers and shirts that were obviously there to let them get all civilian. All he wanted was a comb.

The facility uniform he was wearing was stained with blood and scorched, but he saw no need to change it. Maybe he would get his own outfit later. For now… well, why not wear it? For all he knew he would be back in that facility by the end of the week. Wouldn’t be the first time an escape went wrong.

His search turned up nothing. Gold looked around at the assembled mutants and then held up a thick strand of his long, glittering hair. “Anyone got a comb?”

[SalmonMax]

Almost pathetically grateful for something to do besides gawk at the sight of Travis hugging the purple haired girl, and the other mutants coming in, Mary hurried over to Gold and held out her hand as a comb appeared in it.

"Here! I can make a couple of different...kinds," she said, visibly faltering at the flat, cold stare the man had...not hostile exactly, but definitely not friendly either.

[Gold]

The mutant named Mary came bouncing over to him. It surprised Gold to see someone so eager to please, especially towards him. He saw toadies aplenty in the mafia cages, but they were always kissing up to someone with a ring on their finger and too much weight around the middle.

His gaze moved to her hand and the comb in her grip. It was basic enough; straight, red, made of plastic with even teeth a few centimeters apart.

Gold blinked. Images assaulted his mind. Images of how he could kill her just moments from now. His hand struck her wrist, it shattered. He rose and followed through with a straight palm to the nose. She died in that instant.

He shook his head, back in the now. That moment was gone. That potential wouldn’t happen. There were others, bouncing around in the back of his head. When people got close his brain started processing how to kill them. Mary was just inside that distance.

“Thanks,” he said softly and extended his hand. “Drop it into my palm, would you? It’s better that I don’t touch. It can go… wrong.”

Mary swallowed. She seemed timid but smart enough, and more than smart enough to pick up on such a blatant implication. The comb bounced into Gold’s hand. He closed his fist around it. The teeth tickled the calloused skin on his palm. He unfolded his fingers and regarded the comb as one might a family heirloom impregnated with ancient memories.

“Haven’t had one of these in a while,” he said, turning it over in his fingers. “Of course I did kill two people with the last one.”

Gold looked up at her, made himself smile. The expression did not feel natural at all. In fact the muscles on the right side of his face almost rebelled, as if he were asking them to solve complex algebraic equations instead of practice a simple expression that most would say they were designed for. Normally the best he could do was a sardonic left side smirk.

This wasn’t a smirking occasion, though. He added a little nod of his head, so his meaning might be clearer, and he began to comb his hair. It felt good to work out the tangles. The strands glittered brilliantly under the bright day sun, shining enough that a little flare almost blinded him when he was working through a particular tangle.

“So what’s your story?” He asked. “How’d you end up in there?”

[SalmonMax]

Mary swallowed, her throat dry. This man was at least as dangerous as Travis, in his own way. Was this why the doctors hadn't wanted her to know about other people with strange abilities? Were they ALL like this? Would she be like that too one day? It did make a certain kind of sense. But the two women hadn't been so cold. The one, Lamia, seemed capable of violence, and was deeply angry, but she hadn't been like this.

"I've always been there," she answered meekly. "Ever since I can remember."

She knew she ought to leave it at that, but the question kept nagging at her. "Why did you kill them?" As Gold's superficial smile faded, Mary quickly qualified, "The two people, I mean. With the comb. What happened?"

[WhiteRain]

-oops-

[Gold]

“It was their own fault, really,” he said, wincing as his hair got snarled up on the comb’s teeth. He deftly untied a particular knot and went back to combing. His hair began to take on that special, glossy look that well-combed hair did, and it seemed all the more beautiful for it. “The guards knew better than to get within arm’s reach. I guess they were new, or didn’t take the warning seriously enough. The comb was metal, not plastic. First guy reached through the bars to give it to me. I was sitting on my bed, quiet as you please. Bit like I am now but with more cell and less park.”

He nodded around him as he spoke, as though maybe Mary could fail to notice that they were not in fact still imprisoned in a DEHA containment facility.

“Honestly I think it just comes down to contempt.”

“Contempt?” She seemed genuinely curious when she said that word.

“Yeah. People get that way when they have total power over someone. They start forgetting that they put that guy with the gold eyes in a cage for a reason, that way back when they were scared of him.” His voice was calm, his expression placid. This was neither a pleasant nor unpleasant memory. “So they came close. About as close to the cage as you are now. Tossed the comb in. Well, I’m faster than I look. I grabbed the comb out of the air and darted in, grabbed the first guy’s hand – he offered so it only seemed polite to take it – dragged him in close and slit his throat with the teeth. Struck the skin at just the right point. It’s difficult to slit someone’s throat with blunt metal let me tell you.”

She was going white. “And the other man?”

“Cut his wrist open, pulled him in and introduced him to my version of the Vulcan nerve pinch. Or is it nerve grip?” He asked the question in a casual tone. He genuinely couldn’t remember. Neither could Mary, or maybe she didn’t know. “Well, whatever, mine’s a bit more permanent. They tazed me good and proper for that.”

“Oh,” she said, in the kind of voice you always imagined a cartoon rabbit would have. “But… why did you do it?”

Gold raised his head and looked up at the sky. He shrugged. “It’s what I do. I can’t completely control it.” He gestured, “That’s why I told you to drop the comb into my palm. If I touched you… well. It could be embarrassing for all concerned. It’s all they wanted me for anyway. They used to sic me on my own kind without any hesitation. Seems kind of hypocritical not to taste the medicine you’re dishing out, if you catch my meaning. I didn’t have anything against them, if that’s what you’re asking. They were there and they were stupid and I killed them for it.” He did not smile, and his voice did not shift even a single octave from his normal quiet tone. “I must sound a right psychopath. Not much I can do about that, I’m afraid. Don’t worry, you’re safe around me. I keep my distance from people I don’t want to hurt, and I don’t like hurting mutants. Seems to me we got enough problems.”

She went quiet, and he brushed in silence for a few moments.

“Let me guess,” he said, breaking it, “you don’t have any such colourful stories? You keep ‘em in combs all through the winter? I bet they found you real handy. Sounds like you play nice, too. They had to stick a control collar on me before they sent me out. That power of yours got limits?”

[SalmonMax]

Mary nodded, her eyes on the comb. She couldn't meet his eyes; this man who killed so casually and impersonally. What confused her was how he had no apparent illusions about what he'd done...but still didn't seem to make the essential connection. That they hadn't just put him in a cage because he was dangerous, but that they'd been right to do so. Someone who killed by 'accident' anyone who got too close or touched him? How could it be okay for someone like that to just wander around?

"Sure it does. They gave me all kinds of tests, over and over again, all while I was growing up. Some days it's practically all I did. They'd show me different things and have me make copies. They'd have me make something from memory. They'd describe something and ask me to make it...and that's hard, by the way..." She paused, thinking. "I can make pretty much anything if I know how it's put together. And I can...read things. Just looking at them, I can feel how they're built. The only thing is that I can't make something alive. They brought in all kinds of stuff...molds and frogs and snails and...a little dish full of goo...and I could make copies, but they were always just...dead."

She shrugged, still a little stung from those past failures. "And size matters. Really big things are harder. I can do pretty big now, but not huge. When I was a kid I could only make things a little at a time."

"I can make things disappear too. It's harder when they're alive though...I'm not sure why. And sometimes I can't make everything disappear all at once, if it's big or complicated. Like that machine they brought out...I tried to vanish it, but I could only get a little bit before..." Mary nods her head at Lamia, "...she grabbed it and threw it."

[Jeremy]

Jeremy wandered over the conversation between Gold and Mary, his cup in hand. "Well, maybe I should show you some of my stuff so you can learn to reproduce it. Me, I'm a living chemical factory, basically." He gave her a smile and showed his hand, palm up. "Any chemical, drugs good and bad, poisons, dishwasher fluids... anything I put my mind to, I can create. And even some things that have never been created before. That and my body shrugs off diseases and chemicals of any kind- Kytone still works on me, but rarely. And I can 'feel how they're built' when looking at chemicals."

He lowered his hand palm down now, over the cup, a dark liquid coming down out from his hand and into the cup rapidly until it filled to the brim, with foam on top. "Means I can make a really good beer, too."

[SalmonMax]

Mary squinted slightly at the cup in Jeremy's hands, interested. "That's beer?" she asked. "Neat. I've read about it, but they never brought me any before..."

She moved her gaze from the beverage to Jeremy himself, and looked him up and down. "You're right," she said after a second. "You're full of stuff that's not in the others."

"What's 'kytone'?"

[Dawn OOC]

Ronnie laughed as Travis sped toward her, never for a moment doubting that he’d stop the platform in time. She caught him as he slammed himself into her, not staggering from his weight. She was still laughing as he kissed her. Without hesitation, she answered the kiss, gripping him tightly.

Matt watched them with his mouth slightly open, the scalpel hanging from his fingers. At Grav’s question, he quickly focused on her but it was clear that he was shocked by Travis and Ronnie’s embrace. In fact, he was sneaking glances at David, who was watching the scene with a small smile. With an ‘okaaaay, then’ face, Matt turned to Grav. “Lemme make sure that isn’t the only one.” He quickly scanned her and found that there was only the one. “Let’s get it out. Then… Hard Light and Anatole are last.”

Meanwhile, Ronnie broke the kiss and pressed her forehead to Travis’s. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, only to stop herself to kiss him again. This time it was brief, almost hesitant.

“Why?” Travis looked confused. Beneath his hands, her body rippled and shifted; this was nothing new to him and he was unsurprised when she changed her appearance. But her new form was a surprise: he was staring into Dr. Raven LaCroix’s green eyes.

“Because I didn’t get you out right away. Because I let them put you back on ice.” There were tears in her eyes as she continued her confession. “We had a plan… but I’m sorry. Leaving that room was so hard and I’ve hated myself ever sense.” She stammered to a stop, biting her lip.

[Rebekka Van der Vyse]

Rebekka eyed the latest arrivals with interest, while idly noting Travis' assertion about humans being their enemies sounded more like rote than a true belief, however much conviction was in his voice. There was a woman with white hair and a very hunky man wearing armor seemingly crafted of light, though there was an oddly naive light in his eyes. But it was the last two who really drew her attention.

The second man had eyes of an icy blue-green, cold and fierce and shimmering. Travis had been deliciously angry, but this man... Rebekka shivered, her habitually state of arousal peaked even higher. Marked by decades of experience, this man had chained violence to his will, teaching it to course and heel at his command. A beast wearing a man's skin, fierce and half-feral, barely constrained by a thin veneer of civilization. She wanted him. Bad.

She pulled her eyes off Fenris enough to catch a look of the purple-haired woman whom Travis was rushing towards, who had eyes more purple than her own. The body language she and Travis were displaying made their mutual feelings for each other rather obvious. Rebekka's fine brows arched sharply in surprise when the woman shifted forms - with far more ease than she did - turning into Dr. LaCroix. Interesting...

Rebekka shared a look with Lamia, a playfully self-satisfied smirk on her lips as she buffed her nails on her dress. "Well, that did not take long," she said in her crisp, accented tones. "We do good work. Bodes well for our own searches, do you think? But if you will excuse, there is someone I wish to meet."

Her lavender eyes riveted back on Fenris as she slinked towards him. The dangerous presence that warned others away drew her like iron filings to a magnet, her own sensual presence reaching out to caress him, soothing like aloe, yet flavoured with a piquant spice. Her smile was soft, welcoming, enticing, her pupils dilated so only thin rings of lavender were visible.

She stepped closer, and closer; as he grew more tense with each step, she grew aroused, the tips of her breasts achingly stiff. "Are you well, will you recover from your hurts?" she asked considerately, though she didn't bother to conceal a tone that suggested she was interested in something more. God, I hope you are, since I intend to ride you all night long once we get to wherever we are going. Thoughts of doing the same with Travis were neglected in favour of her new interest, if not completely forgotten. "One of us here," she waved vaguely in the direction of Jeremy, Mary, and Gold, "can help with your wounds."

[Grim]

Seeing a few faces that had been on his 'Wall' back at the facility reassured Fenris that this wasn't a trap... at least, it did when they didn't open fire. He felt the familiar pull and sting as his wounds started to heal themselves and straightened up as greetings were exchanged, hands patting out the small parts of his now-ragged clothing that were still smoldering. Fenris felt on-edge, the surge of adrenaline from the pain and thrill of combat still coursing through his blood, but with the ease of much practice he kept it leashed as he took stock of the others, assessing them with a seasoned eye. So used was he to wearing a game-face that Fenris didn't even blink when Ronnie became Raven LaCroix - of course there would have to be an inside asset, and who better than a mutant who could change their body right down to the very biochemical makeup. They smelled like two completely different people - a rare occurence in his dealings with shapeshifters, but he marked instead the emotional 'scent' she gave off when she saw Travis. Though scents could be faked and changed, like voices, ways of smelling were as unique to Fenris as voice patterns. Scent had its own voice, it's own way of ebbing, shifting and flowing, and the mutant who had been trained and conditioned to hunt and to track marked the way Ronnie/Raven smelled when she was happy / guilty / in love.

And then a new scent intruded on his awareness, and a tall auburn-haired woman sashayed up to him, her arousal a physical force that attacked him through scent and voice, sight and taste. Every step she took towards him was a blatant invitation to sex; to senses like his, every detail from the glisten of her eyes to the way her lips parted and her breath came a little more deeply was as loud as a shout. He could feel her through her scent, felt her deep need for him, felt her arousal getting higher and higher every moment...

He frowned slightly, his senses picking up more than just her arousal. This mutant woman had heightened pheromones as well as elevated levels of hormones which made sex a physical necessity for her. Though it had been awhile since his last time (10 years and 22 days), this wasn't the time or the place. He shook his head in response to her query and offer, the set of his shoulder radiating wariness, though not hostility.

"I will heal." he said in his faintly-accented English. And indeed, Rebekka noticed that the nasty burns visible through his scorched clothing were going from red to clear, unblemished skin in a matter of seconds. "Right now, however, I need to get rid of my transmitter." With a nod and a smile, he slid around the sex-goddess and approached Matt. Perfect lips making a moue of disappointment, Rebekka trailed after him.

"It is inside my large intestine, attached to the wall." Fenris told the man with the knife matter-of-factly. Matt's eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a grim line, and Fenris nodded. "I heal quickly, you understand. It is the only place they could implant it, and even then they need to replace it every two months. It will take both of us once you have located the chip - I will hold the wound open, and you will extract the chip, yes?" Matt took a deep breath, and nodded.

"Okay, pal. Let's do it." he said, thumbing on the sensor and sweeping it over the Russian as he removed his top. Sure enough, there the little bastard was, right inside the large intestine. Taking a sharpie, Matt drew a circle over the area and looked Fenris in the eye. "Ready?" Fenris nodded and held up his hands, faint fleshy sounds audible as they went from human hands to something better suited to The Howling movies. Matt swallowed and looked from them to the steady blue-green gaze. "Rather you than me, buddy." he muttered as Fenris began cutting.

He was delicate and swift, cutting his own flesh without more than a faint grunt of pain. Matt readied the forceps and tried not to stare at the red wound opening up as Fenris sliced himself open. The blood flowed, but through the red others watching could see the flesh trying to regrow. Now making a faint, low growl in his throat, Fenris kept his claws moving, tearing open the wound as it tried to close. "Now." he told the other mutant. Gritting his teeth, Matt reached in, guided by the sensor, and dug around for a second before something hard came free, covered in stuff he really didn't want to think about. With a curse, he dropped it on the ground and smashed it with a rock.

Fenris sank to his knees, breathing hard and with his clawed hands covered in his own blood as he leaned his weight on them. The wound was healing already, the feral mutant's eyes gleaming watchfully at the others as he nursed his self-inflicted injury.

[Travis Kincaid]

"You wha- You!" Travis pulled away, surprise on his face, for only a moment, his hands never leaving her. "You? You saved me." Travis laughed and embraced her once more, "I was worried you were dead, or in some rotten hellhole somewhere waiting for me and wondering why I hadn't come for you for five years, and here you rescued me!" His hands on either side of her new face, Travis stared into the psychiatrist's eyes and then kissed her again. Pulling back slightly he said quietly, "And later I'll have to get to know the new you." The look in his eyes was intimately familiar to her regardless of her form and name; Ronnie, Raven, Celeste, May, they all knew that look. Travis appeared to suddenly realize just where he was and who they were surrounded by, his face flushed red. He moved to be standing next to Raven, his arm around her, pulling her to him, I'll never let you go again.

[Jeremy]

"Kytone?" Jeremy thought of the drug, that though it really did nothing to him, was the bane of the mutant race, the largest and probably ultimate reason the governments of the world could oppress the mutant race. "A rather nasty sedative our captors tend to use. Powerful enough to kill a human, very effective at rending mutants unconscious over time. It's been their premier tool against us."

Looking around to non-verbally emphasize the us, to try and to get the point across to Mary that she was in the group- thus would be treated the same as Gold or the new feral-looking man, or Travis- he caught gaze of the man embracing she who turned into the form of Dr. LaCroix. Well, when put into perspective of the escape and words spoken during her evaluation, it made sense.

He turned his head back and added to Mary. "They'll use it on you if they get the chance."

[Grav]

She grunted as the transmitter was removed, before compressing it down to the size of a split pea with her abilities, ensuring it no longer functioned. "Good riddance."

She watched the gory scene of Fenris' removal nonchalantly. She waited for him to finish and move on before kneeling down to speak with him. "You're the one I have to thank for the cuts in my side, shoulder, and back." Her bright yellow eyes betreayed nothing, and she nodded. "A part of me wants to see you as the enemy, we were on opposite sides, soldiers kept on leashes, in cages."

"That doesn't need to apply anymore does it?" She offered him her hand and nodded. "We're both free now, and I'd rather you not decide to finish what you started. I've not been hurt like this in combat in some time." Her tone and bearing lent an earnestness to her words, and she nodded. Your name is Anatole is it? My name is Annalise."

He was in pain and a tiny part of her enjoyed it, since she was in pain mostly due to him. Still if not for him, she'd still be asleep and the lapdog would be the one out, and they;d already be back in a cage....

[SalmonMax]

Mary's attention was briefly distracted by the spectacle of mutants...of people!...being cut open, but Mary quickly refocused on Jeremy and what he was saying. It was far preferable to what was happening in the background.

Kytone sounded pretty dangerous from his tone, though his description was odd. It killed normal people but only knocked mutants out? Were they so different?

"Can you make some?" she asked. "If I can see it, I'll always be able to recognize it."

[Jordan]

Dog stumbled out of the portal, surprised to find himself surrounded by a group of threatening looking people. They looked like mutants. The bad kind of mutants, and Dog was immediately uncomfortable. He moved off to the side, out of the way of Fenris and the purple haired woman's entrance and watched with confusion as a man on a flying rock tackled the purple haired girl, only they didn't fall down. Then she changed into the doctor lady and then they started kissing!

When the the man with the knife cut open Grav, then started to work on Fenris, Dog got scared. Without thinking the energy tattoos on his face and body pulsed and flared and small cube of solid light energy formed around him. He sat on on the ground, hugging his knees and rocked back and forth. He was in trouble. He never should have come through that big black hole in the air. These were bad mutants that were cutting each other and even if they didn't hurt him he'd be punished when the Major found him. the Major always found him.

He whimpered when Fenris started tearing himself open and squeezed his eyes shut when the man with the knife reached in to Fenris' body. Coming here was a bad idea!

[Gold]

Gold let himself drift out of the conversation. Mary’s curiousity was satisfied by the looks of things, and he had his comb. Everyone came away happy.

He rose from his crouch and surveyed their growing menagerie. A motley band, they were, and by the looks of them about half were just north of functional. The air filled with grunts and groans of pain as people had their chips removed. Fresh blood spilled on ground already stained.

This was chop shop work, not professional surgery. It looked and smelled like it. Gold found himself reminded of the pit. Everything was chop shop there. The whole point of the Mafia’s game was that they led up to the grand payout when he popped his collar and went down. It would have been a victory for Capitalism over the mutie menace.

His interest sparked when a familiar face shapeshifted into view.

Gold walked over to ‘Raven Lacroix’, though he doubted that was her real name. He didn’t care if he was interrupting a private moment. They could get a room and fuck later if that was their inclination.

“I knew there was something funny about you,” he said to her. “A human showing interest in a mutie? Never going to happen. Nice work springing your beau,” he said, then turned and headed off again.

He didn’t care if they were having a private moment, but he figured they had better things to do than talk to him. He’d be there when they wanted someone put on ice. Or maybe he would slip away and go check out property up in the Canadian Rockies.

Seeing Travis and LaCroix in each other’s arms did make him feel… something. Not jealousy, though he figured a shapeshifter would be great in the sack. Rebekka over there was pretty much a walking dream fuck. What was it?

He didn’t know. Empathy, maybe. A sense of something he had missed? He’d never had a girl. The Mafia guys almost let him have a whore once, but his head put that notion out of theirs. What he did to her…

Gold sighed. That one was a bad memory. She wasn’t one of his captors, she wasn’t an enemy. She had cooed over him, loved his pretty hair and pretty eyes. Oh it was a bit like cooing over a panther in a zoo, but he did not resent her that. Gold had been used to the cage by then.

He pushed it out of his mind and found another patch of shade to rest in. He hoped they would get moving soon. They were giving him too much time to think and, really, it wasn’t like he had much good to think about.

Gold idly began combing his hair again, just to have something to do with his hands that didn’t involve breaking necks.

[z024]

Lamia took in the dramatic changes as the last group was brought to the camp, nodding in understanding as Travis' long-lost revealed herself to be the same woman that had interviewed her a couple of months ago. A well executed plan, indeed. She studied the new arrivals with wary interest, noting Rebekka's constant heat as she trailed after the male in the new group; when her gaze lighted on the huddled form on the ground, she moved to him and crouched down next to him.

She tapped her fingers on the cube of solid light to get his attention. "Hey," she said softly. "You're okay. You're safe. I know that," she flicked a hand over to the impromptu surgery table, "seems awful, but it's necessary and the man will heal. He said so himself. The tracking chips have to be removed so we can't be followed."

"It will hurt, but then you'll be free." The woman smiled, kind and sincere, and held out a hand for him to take if he let his shield down. "I'll stay with you while they do it, if you want. I'm called Lamia. What's your name?"

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis gave and indignant grunt at Gold as he turned and stalked away; the guy hadn't even waited for a reply or acknowledgement. He shook his head, Gold seemed pretty antisocial, but from what Travis saw at least some of that might have been due to whatever his powers were. Raven felt Travis shift next to her, "He has a point though. It was a good plan, but I get the feeling that I wasn't the sole target. What's going on here really? And what was with the interrogation? The questions; you were trying to get me to work with them, or testing me to see if I would have." He looked into those green eyes, "Did you really think I would?"

[Jeremy]

Jeremy looked surprised for a moment, then decided what the hell. He could easily produce a little for her edification. "Fine. Don't touch it though. Even I don't keep prolonged contact." He drained the cup of beer dry before daring to put his hand over and produce the Kytone. Even then his body rebelled a little as he let a small amount into the cup before stopping.

"There, see it?" When Mary nodded in satisfaction, he spilled out the Kytone into a patch of grass. "Good. I hate that stuff. The only reason I know how to make it, is because when the ACM of Italy tried it on me in Venice when they kidnapped me, and my powers sparked. So they lost a few, since I resisted and instinctively used the K-shit on them."

People he knew, were going to notice, and not like that secret. But so be it, because he'd been enslaved by humanity's so-called, self-appointed watchdogs, and he was hardly going to help those mutts.

If You Are Stupid Enough to Touch...

For simplification purposes, this is a standard dose of Kytone.

Jer's Affliction for touching it:

DC 15 Fortitude (Hindered, Exhausted, Asleep) -- due to Kytone reducing his Chemical Immunity to Half Effect.

Fortitude Save: Jeremy *rolls* 1d20: 19+12: 31

Anyone else who touches it:

DC 20 Fortitude (Hindered, Exhausted, Asleep)

[Dawn OOC]

Matt was glad this was almost done. He didn’t like this particular task, but Jack was better with a gun and couldn’t go on the mission to rescue them. It had left Matt to deal with the surgeries, as he was the only one with that sort of training, even limited as it was. Jack was usually their medic, but his amputations meant that sometimes someone else had to do the actual cutting.

Unfortunately, Matt suspected that this would be the hardest mutant to de-chip, though not for medical reasons. Dog was at best child-like, and the earth-mover suspected it’d be a fight to get him to agree to procedure at all. When he turned from destroying Anatole’s chip, he was relieved to see Lamia already moving over to talk to him. He liked the old mutant more and more; she seemed better-balanced than some of the other rescued mutants.

Quite a crew we have, he mused to himself as he cleaned the blood on his hands off with a baby wipe. He was betting that speaking to the child-like mutant would go smoother if he didn’t look like he’d stepped out of a charnel house. Matt casually walked over and crouched next to Lamia, doing his best to look harmless. “I’m Matt,” he added to Lamia’s greeting, hoping his presence wouldn’t fracture negotiations with the shaky mutant.

Raven smiled up at Travis. “Of course not,” she said softly, smiling at him. “But the decision to release people wasn’t totally mine; David had to okay it. I knew early on that he’d be doing the run at Sletten Lake, so I wouldn’t be able to spring you on the side. I had to convince him to want you.” She smiled at him. “And no, you weren’t the sole focus. We were trying to get as many mutants as we could out.” Raven’s beautiful green eyes sparkled for a moment before her body shifted again. Her black hair went brown, as did her eyes. This form was familiar to Travis as well: teenaged Rebecca. He was also unsurprised when he heard Rebecca’s voice in his head, *And there is a plan. Freeing you guys was only the first step. I think you’re going to like it. But I’ll let David explain it to all of you when we get Home.*

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis nodded, "I understand." He would have been surprised that she would take on Rebecca's form, had it not been for her use of telepathy. Somehow May's powers shifted with her form. He looked around an saw for the first time the cube of glowing light, "Looks like not everybody is on board with the jailbreak. Are we sure about him?" He shook his head, a wry smile on his face, "Are you sure about all of them? A sociopath? A girl who knows nothing but her captivity? The ... umm, sex worker?" Travis made sure to not look at Rebekka, as much as he might want to; he had just gotten May back, making her mad wasn't high on his list of things to do.

[Dawn OOC]

“Hard Light’s a rough case; he was done for charity rather than the Plan.” Rebecca looked sad, even tucked under Travis’s arm. “He doesn’t even have a real name. His parents turned him over to the Canadian government at birth. The human abusing him called him Dog.

“Gold has an unparalleled ability to kill people; Anatole is the master of assassination and lethal sneaking. Mary can make anything; tests suggest that she can create materials unknown to science, not that the humans let her do that. The… woman is named Rebekka, and she uses sex to siphon memories. Invaluable, if she’ll cooperate with us.

“But more than that, Travis, even if they won’t stay with us and help, we had to get them out.” Rebecca looked up at him, her large eyes full of conviction. “None of them were truly compliant, so we took as many as we could. Will you stay and help us, Travis?” He felt Rebecca’s small arm tighten around his waist. “I know that wasn’t the life you had before… is it something you’d consider?”

Jack had been breaking down his large rifle with the help of the black man and girl. Now they snapped the case shut and started to fold the table. “David.” It was one word from Jack, but the leader nodded.

“Yes, I’m aware. Matt. Two minutes. No longer.” David turned to the black man. “Tyrone, if you would please?”

“My pleasure,” Tyrone said in the rough accent of Cockney British. Turning, he focused on a spot in the air and started to concentrate.

Matt was nodding, understanding the hurry. Still, if necessary, he’d stay behind with Hard Light, for as long as he could.

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis sighed, she was using the teenaged Rebecca as leverage against him; he had a harder time saying no to the "little sister" in May's arsenal. Travis doubted she was doing it on purpose, she probably didn't even realize it, her forms were as natural as her turn form. "I go where you go, and you go where I go. So if you're with them I'm with them. Until we decide otherwise." He smiled, and the hard edge in his face, the look in his eyes, added to the coldness of his voice, "Besides, I have five years of payback to hand out." He nodded, as far as he was concerned, that was that.

[Jordan]

Dog opened his eyes and looked at first the woman then the man. He was still scared but they were talking nice to him. He was used to mutants who were bad; usually violent and trying to hurt him. Talking to mutants he knew were bad was something new to him. Lamia and Matt both seemed nice but they wanted to open him up and take something out. That would be bad wouldn't it? Didn't he need all his insides to stay inside? Still, focusing on them means he didn't have to focus on the cut up man that had come through the hole in the sky with him.

"Dog," he finally said in a quiet voice. "My name is Dog. I don't want to get cut. I've been good, please don't punish me." The young man was on the verge of tears.

[z024]

"It's not a punishment, child," Lamia said in soothing tones. There was no one way she was going to use a name she knew was derogatory on him; he could choose a new one once he had time to recover. "You've had a device put inside you that needs to be taken out. All we're going to do is take that out and then go somewhere safe, but we can't take you with us to that safe place until the device is removed."

She glanced up at the hole forming just a little ways away from them. "We have to go very soon. I know it is hard, but we're asking you to trust us. We won't force you, it has to be your decision, but so long as our enemies can track you with the device they put inside you, we can't take you with us to safety. Can you trust me, just for a little while? I'll stay with you; you can hold my hand while Matt takes out the chip, okay?"

[Rebekka Van der Vyse]

Rebekka watched Fenris cut into his own flesh, Matt digging around the wound for the transmitter, with unflinching regard, not in the least distressed at the sight of the blood. Eyes widening in interest at the sight of Fenris' claws - briefly imagining what they could do to her flesh - she idly noted though Matt had at least basic skill with field surgery, he was hardly comfortable with it.

As Matt went to help Lamia put the veritable child in a more than an attractive man's body at ease, Rebekka used another baby-wipe to clean one of the scalpels, her innate sensuality subsiding to a low smolder as she walked through the vault of her mind and opened a mental door belonging to a doctor, to pull up a kindly professionalism and practiced competence. Despite the drastic change in her apparent demeanor, Fenris could smell that her ardor was undiminished.

"You heal indeed, sir," Rebekka said in natively fluent Russian, arching a brow at Fenris, an amused gracing her lush lips, as she handed him one of the baby wipes to help clean up the worst of the blood on him. "I have high hopes for your stamina."

Rebekka stood up and strode briskly towards Jeremy and Mary, a pleasant rather than seductive smile on her lips. "I hope I can enlist your aid to help the last of us with a transmitter, the poor man," she said, reverting to English and glancing at the man who called himself Dog, before turning back to Mary. "You mentioned needing injections for your condition, right? Can you form a 12ml syringe, Mary?"

Mary held out a hand, frowning briefly in concentration, then smiled back as an empty, disposable syringe with a gleaming needle formed on her palm. "How's this?"

"Perfect, hon," Rebekka said, plucking it up. She frowned briefly at the Kytone puddling on the ground before asking Mary for another cup. "Now, Jeremy, exemplary chemist that you are, can you provide me with, say, fifty milliliters of a liquid anesthetic? Preferably lidocaine."

Jeremy narrowed his eyes in thought, trying to recall the chemical structure of lidocaine, then nodded, holding out his hand and filling the second cup halfway. He flashed the striking woman a self-assured smile. "There you go, one hundred percent, high-grade lidocaine."

"Thank-you Jeremy. I can see you will be useful to have around." For a moment, her pleasant smile turned wickedly roguish. "If you will stay on stand by, I think our last patient might have need of your other service in a moment."

Then Rebekka walked over to join Lamia and Matt with Dog armed with her supplies, her dress white enough for any nurse uniform or doctor's lab coat, her presence gentle and reassuring. She placed a hand on Matt's shoulder, a tilt to her head asking him silently to trust her, then smiled at Dog. It was a nice smile.

"Lamia is quite right. There is a bad thing inside you, and we just want to take it out. And it will only be a small cut - it'll hardly hurt at all, I promise," Rebekka said in dulcet tones. "Lamia will stay with you, and Matt too, as I make you right as rain, sweetie. I have more than forty years of experience doing this - I promise, everything will be fine."

It was certainly an odd claim from someone who barely looked twenty, if that, but her tone rang with simple honestly and self-assurance.

[SalmonMax]

Mary didn't know where to start. There were so many things going on, she hardly knew where to look or who to listen to. But...it was kind of fun, having people ask her to make things like that. A guilty thrill. And the kytone! That still shook her.

"Jeremy," she said quietly, confidentially. "That stuff you made, the kytone? It's what was in my collar." She looked away from where the fearful man in the energy field...it had to be, since it glowed and she couldn't sense any structure from it...was being plied, and at Jeremy. It was a scandal. Something that dangerous, ready to be injected into her at a moment's notice?

She felt...weird inside. Kind of sad, kind of hungry...but not with her stomach. Hollow. Had anything they'd said been true?

"They said it was medicine... It was all lies, wasn't it? All they ever really wanted was..."

Mary gestured, and the Kytone on the ground vanished, along with a scoop of soil, leaving a perfect little hemispherical divot. Her head flooded with new knowledge. Dirt. It looked so boring, but it was made of so many things! Silica and organic particles in a dizzying array that she couldn't even begin to classify what came from what. She'd only read about grass and trees and worms and dung...it was all in here...and the gorgeousness of it all only made the ache in her heart worse. This is what they'd denied her.

"I...need to go. I mean, with everyone. All of you," she said, blinking back tears. "I know I'm not ready to be on my own yet, but I need to see more."

She looked back over at the others, now forming a little knot around the man in the light cube, and with a quick smile for Jeremy, went over to see if she could help.

"Anything I can do?" she asked, giving Dog a gentle smile. "I was scared too at first. But it's okay."

To the others she said, "I might be able to get it out without cutting him open...but I'm not sure. I have to know exactly where it is. See it, or feel it. But even if I get a little bit of him with it, I can put it right back."

[Jordan]

As Lamia spoke to him, Dog's breathing stabilized. He wasn't alright, but he was calmer and the tears that threatened to fall failed to make an appearance. When the woman with the instruments appeared Dog tensed until he looked her in the eye. She was a vision of entrancement and when she spoke and moved, his tension melted away.

As his tension flowed away so too did the cube of solid light although the armor still encased the young man. With a hand from Lamia, Dog stood and glanced a little fearfully at the the bloody table a few feat away.

"You're gonna have to loose the armor kid," Matt said, not unkindly as he and Lamia led him to the table. "It's okay, you're safe."

Dog took a deep breath. If they were going to hurt him it would be now but if he didn't get whatever they were talking about out of him, they might leave him behind and he had no idea where he was. Either way he would be in so much trouble with the Major that there was no way he could avoid a punishment now. Dog exhaled and quickly the armor vanished revealing the stunning young man with golden tattoos on his face. he was dressed in a shapeless grey jumpsuit, not unlike a janitor's jumpsuit with the CMD patch on it's left breast.

Matt picked up the scanner and quickly found the tracker in the base of Dog's spine. "Okay Kid, your going to have to take down your jumpsuit a bit so we get at that nasty little bugger," He said.

"Don't worry," Lamia said as she squeezed his hand. "I'll be right here."

Dog unzipped his jumpsuit and pulled his arms out of the sleeves, revealing his attractive, and well proportioned chest. The tattoos from his face traveled down his neck to cover his chest, back and arms, and continued below the waistband of the jumpsuit; presumably to cover his lower body as well. The Tattoos were the same scrawling, flowing "tribal" style patterns and the energy that constituted them twinkled and pulsed in time with his heartbeat and were marred only by the bruising and burn marks that clearly showed the litany of pain and abuse the young man had suffered. The bruises were not fresh, maybe a few days to a week old and the electrical burns were reminiscent of the marks left by a taser. A very large and powerful taser. Most likely something akin to a cattle prod.

At Lamia's and Matt's coaxing dog leaned over the table gripped Lamia's hand in both of his. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to be brave as the enchantress with the scalpel went to work.