Marvel, Rebirth:

IC: (Vince Jackson Jr.)

"So, my dear, ruskie of a guest, what do you think?" Vince said, sitting down in his chair.

IC: John

The adamantium blades weren't given to every Hand assassin but they had gotten a good deal of adamantium from John's skeleton. They hadn't sent their agents into the field unprepared to fight John and Julia. When Julia's adamantium claws met with the assassin's blades they met with more adamantium.

The first assassin threw his leg up as he attempted to kick Julia in the chest and knock her back while he pulled his blade away and swiped it at her leg. The other assassin jumped away to the right before coming towards her side with a hard jab.

The two assassins John was facing jumped backwards as they pulled their own adamantium blades away. John was angry now. He knew they'd used the remains of his skeleton to craft these blades. Now they were using them against him. He charged forward now unleashing a flurry of strikes with his own katana at the two ninja. They both went on the defensive as they began deflecting the strikes. John slid his bone claws in before tearing his other katana from its sheath. He then began to strike at the ninja with both katana.

IC: Nicole

"I'm bored again."

IC: Ashley

"Wanna go see my kitten?"

IC: Nicole

"Sure, why not. I like cats." Nicole said before she grabbed a donut off Matt's tray and ate it. "There now I've eaten breakfast."

IC:

Kane stood alone on the rooftop. His dark eyes watched the sky above. He watched as planes soared through the air high above. As helicopters weaved through the tall buildings of the city skyline. Kane reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes.

He then pulled one out before pressing it to his lips. Kane then snapped his fingers. A small flame appeared then and he easily lit the end of his stogie with it. Kane inhaled the smoke and then exhaled; watching as it drifted up towards the sky before vanishing. It was a filthy habit and it was probably killing him but Kane didn't care. Smoking calmed his nerves and helped him to relax.

Since he'd been freed from Weapon-X he'd been with the Brotherhood. He still wasn't entirely used to being able to do whatever he wanted. He wasn't just an assassin anymore he was a person. And he was a mutant. There were a lot of people out there that hated him because of that. That's why Kane had stayed with the Brotherhood. So he could help make a difference.

Kane rolled up the sleeves of his hoodie and examined the tattooed sleeves on each arm. There hadn't been much to do in the city when he wasn't following orders. Kane had gotten one tattoo to try to hide his Weapon-X brand and had become addicted. Now a year later and his body was pretty covered with them. He'd tattooed flames on either wrist. Cliché as it was due to his mutant abilities, but he was still fond of them. His finger traced a name he'd engraved on his wrist. Caden. The name of his older brother. A brother who had been with the Brotherhood while Kane had been locked away within Weapon-X.

A brother who had sacrificed himself during the Genosha bombings to save a whole lot of innocent civilians. A brother that Kane wanted to live up too. Kane got up and flicked his cigarette away. He then turned and slid down the fire escape before landing on a metal rafter. Kane slid in the open window of the apartment. He looked around the apartment. It wasn't grand. In fact it was pretty shabby. There were signs everywhere that multiple people were living inside the apartment with him.

The apartment was one of the Brotherhood's many safe-houses within the city. "Anyone home?"

OOC: Open for interaction with any Brotherhood members! They could be living inside the apartment with Kane or perhaps just stopping by.

IC:

Daken was standing one second; he had picked up the Carbonadium bullet with scorn and was scraping it against the surface that formed the front wall of his cage, trying to create enough of a scratch that he could widen it with his claws and break free. The next time he blinked, he was standing on one foot, his whole body swinging hard right; then he was in the air, with no foothold to leech off of; then he hit the ground.

He tasted air, humid and thick. The stench of burning rubber and twisted metal permeated the wind with gross negligence for anyone who gulped it in, but no one else was around to breathe, and Daken had tasted far worse. In any event breathing almost anything was better than not breathing at all - taking satisfaction and biding strength with each breath Akihiro stood up, scratches and scrapes sealing themselves up diligently before his eyes. The horizon before him was bare and dark, marked only by wreckage, by smoke and fire. There were no people to be found, he noted again, and a skittering feeling, like the feet of mice against a wood floor, scrambled up his back into the base of his neck. There had been five guards.

Dropping the Carbonadium bullet into his pocket Daken advanced with all haste to the bifurcated truck that had held him not five minute prior. In a storage locker he found a thin black hoodie that he slid over his chest and lifted a spare SCAR as well; locking and loading the weapon he scanned the horizon once again. Nobody was in sight, but there had been five guards, he knew there had been five guards.

He recognized the scrambling feeling; he was being watched.

A high pitched whirring sound met his ears next and he turned, SCAR already raised; a Ducati was on a collision course for him, going so fast that it seemed to rip through the very fabric of the Texas air. The Horseman atop it was dressed in a catsuit, all tight black leather and curves. Just in case, Daken leveled his stolen assault rifle and prepped the trigger. He was prepared to fire.

-Tyler

IC: Nick smiled, scratching the back of his head. "You actually do remember me. Wow.""Seems dying really didn't make me forgotten."

IC: Lynae "I've died a lot actually... Well rather faked it, so I figured that's what happened.." She smiled at him and laughed."You know, I've faked my deaths a few times over the years, like most vampires. But I helped some other people do it too... I tell you though, Elvis' was a female dog to do. He comes up to me one day saying 'Lynae, darlin', I need your help!' Now the king was having real hard times those days, harder than people knew. So I told him alright and the bribing begun. You see that's the hardest part. You have to bribe everyone involved and if you have one slip up.... Well lets say that's why some people still think he is alive."

IC: (Ripple)

Ripple smiled from beneath her motorcycle helmet, seeing the results of her handiwork all around her. The death, the absurd amount of destroyed property, the smoke and the fire and all of it was because of her and the almost supernatural power she seemed to control. By the time Daken had gotten his bearings, she had cleared away the majority of the security detail meant for Dark Wolverine. She didn’t know who she was retrieving, what she did know was that she had a mission. If she wanted to be paid and continue having fun she had to bring whoever was locked up back. Now she had found the precious cargo, a man of what looked to be about twenty one years old and he had a SCAR tried on her, she throttled the bike down and slowed down as she stopped a few feet away from him. Lifting the red motorcycle helmet above her head, hair as red as blood, cut in a short bob, her face was painted white, with a black dot over one of her light blue eyes. A satisfied smirk cut across her face as she saw the man more closely, he wore a thin black hoodie and by all accounts was ready to shoot. She could see one steel grey eye, not covered by a scope, though with a gun covering his face it was to hard to tell exactly how he looked.

“Those bullets won’t hit. Besides is that anyway to greet you the woman who freed you and is offering to be your ride out of here?” She laughed, her eyes looking over the man as she waited for his response, she remained steadied on the bike. "Got a suite at Caesar's Place, can be yours too, provided you don't fill my bike full of lead."

IC:

If this was a new tactic of Johnny Law's, then S.H.I.E.L.D. must have been full of some sadist ######s to stoop this low. This girl had bought him a suite.

He still felt five guards, practically smelled the alienness of them; the girl on the bike smelled of safety, of exhilaration and a little innocent bloodlust. There was nothing sketchy feeling about her, which made her all the more sketchy. ###### Nick Fury. ###### those troops of his. They'd turned him paranoid. It took Akihiro a minute to remember that, in his own experience, sometimes a hot, pliable sounding chick on a nice bike was just a hot, pliable sounding chick on a nice bike. With a suite. And no Carbonadium.

Daken shook the hood off wordlessly, wishing he had another breeze to ruffle his mohawk; now that there was no need to hitchhike or shoot his way out of Ground Zero he didn't have to worry as much about the inch-and-a-quarter of head protection the fabric gave him, and held his SCAR by his right thigh as he clambered onto the bike and wrapped his free arm around her sides - if there was anything he could still do properly after a surprisingly harrowing period of captivity, it was random, ambiguously sexual physical contact. She wore a catsuit, too. That just about said it all.

The bike sped away. As it disappeared into the horizon, five men who were not men took rigid, synchronized steps from the shadows and turned to watch the trail of dust in its wake.

-Tyler

IC:

"Several things?" Trinity asked, following him, trying to find a way to get a better look at the 'communicator', "Like what?"

IC: Ashley

Ashley, grinned, before taking Nicole by the hand and leading her toward the dorms. "You'll love Cinnabon! He's a very good kitten."

IC:

"Alex, I don't want to talk to you. I just want to stuff my face and get fat and forget about the lengths that crazy is going to go to just to get into my freaking head," Dallas could be heard saying loudly - not quite yelling - to Alex as they walked down the hallway. "It's ridiculous. It's psycho. She is psycho, okay, I could feel it, I could feel her, she wanted to kill somebody..."

"Sounds like your ex is crazier than me," Nicole giggled. "That's surprising."

"Way crazier," Dallas growled, even as Alex sighed and leaned back. "Where are you two headed?"

-Tyler

IC:

"To go see Cinnabon, Ashley's cat."

IC: Ashley

"Dallassssss you're back!" Ashley leaped at him, giving him a nice glomp.

IC:

"Oh...Cinnabon. Cool!" Dallas said, turning towards the cat as though he'd forgotten how to be anything besides totally upset at Brianne. "Uhh...mind if I come?"

Then he got glomped.

-Tyler

IC: Ashley

"Of course you can come! Cinnabon misses you!" Ashley chirped as she remained latched to Dallas.

IC:

"Cinnabon is an actual cat and not made out of origami or plants or something right?"

IC: Brianne headed to the counselor's office, knocking softly.I wonder if my room's still free.IC: Black settled into a leather chair in the condo he had been living in for the last several weeks. He's grown to like this chair a lot- it signified the relaxation he could allow himself at the end of the day. Perhaps he'd buy it when he moved out.He knew it'd be soon. It'd have to be. Six months and not a word from Alaric. Either the man was forgetful or...He was playing Black. He probably knew nothing.No, Black reminded himself. That couldn't be right. Even if it was, he had no other options. At least here he had something to do, and a nice paycheck. Anywhere else...There wasn't an anywhere else.

John Harken- Middle of nowhere Nebraska

IC: John looked over at Trinity and spoke.

"Why don't we play a game? You ask me a question and then I ask you a question. If you would like, we can start with what you just asked me."

He waited for a reply before continuing, after all, he hardly knew anything about the pair.

IC: Gabriel

The arrival of the bus woke Gabriel from his daydreams. Shaking his head lightly, he stood up from the bench, waiting for the others as the stop to enter before following. It was not exactly crowded inside, but quite a number of seats had already been taken. There was, however, an empty spot next to a bored-looking teenager, so the genderbending mutant decided to take it.

As the bus began to move, he turned to face his seat-mate.

"Nice weather, eh?"

IC: (Ripple)

The drive was mostly uneventful for Ripple and her passenger, at the first stoplight they introduced themselves. Mr. Handsome’s name was Daken, and she, well she was Asa. Not much was said beyond that. They really didn’t talk much beyond that, and Asa was fine with that, it allowed her to focus on driving. Which Daken had simply told her to keep to the road. By now the sun was starting to rise, the wreckage of the SHIELD convoy was now far behind them. It was calming, driving down those highways without a sole on them, occasionally they passed a truck or the lone car, but beyond that, their drive remained uneventful. That was until Asa’s stomach grumbled in annoyance. She hadn’t eaten since she grabbed a few of the protein bars and vitamin waters she had rationed earlier that morning as she waited for the convoy to reach the position where she took her shots. Now however her body disagreed that enough food had been eaten and thus it was time to make another step. Best to check with Daken though, she supposed that in a way it was his orders she would be following from her on out. Slowing down so she could speak with Daken she asked him.

“Well we’ve been driving for a bit, wanna grab a bite to eat?” Ripple asked, as they were pulling through yet another small town. As much she disliked the idea of drive-thru, food was food, and she wasn’t sure how long till they reached their next destination.

IC:

"Hmm? Oh, yeah," Daken said, pretending to have not been paying attention in the least as he tinkered around with the Carbonadium bullet he'd dropped in his pocket. Using the chain from the dog tags he'd found in the hoodie on the convoy, he'd created a little makeshift pendant out of the projectile that they had launched into his thigh, and now the bullet hung from Daken's neck, around his chest. "You like Hardee's? There's gotta be a Hardee's around...or maybe they're called Carl's Jr. here, I've never been too sure on where they draw the line...point is, I would kill for a biscuit right now."

Daken Akihiro would kill for a lot of things at any given moment, of course, but no need to let the biker chick know that. She'd just cashed in a get-out-of-unconstitutional-imprisonment free card on his behalf for whatever reason, after all.

IC:

"Cinnabon's an actual cat, and he's adorable," Dallas promised solemnly, spirits already lifting at the buoyant energies in the mutants around him. "He'll love you - you two are kind of alike."

-Tyler

IC:

"I wonder if Cinnabon would get along with my kitten Dallas." the way Nicole said this made it evident that her cat was named Dallas, not that she was referring to the Dallas right next to her.

IC:

"I...well...I mean, he...and...Cinnabon...Dallas, well...you know what, let's go see the cat, I'm pretty sure I have a couple boxes of donuts stored there anyway," Dallas said quickly.

"Okaies!" Ashley and Nicole said in unison, and Dallas led them off towards his dorm, where he'd last seen the kitten prowling around when he woke up in the morning. Cinnabon, sure enough, was in there when he walked in.

"There he is...good lord, is he living on my minifridge? How long has that been a thing?"

-Tyler

IC:

"Awh! He's so cute! Just like you Dallas!" Nicole said as she ran over to the cat and started to pet him.

IC:

"Thank you, and... tell me, do you think that trick would have worked on someone in Nebraska? I really do not want all of that practice to have gone to waste."

By the scheduled time for the meeting, Cynegild was still likely to get to the room fourteen minutes early - he had time to kill speaking with the doorman, and the man really had earned a bit of respect, being apparently unflappable.

IC: Bleddyn - Xavier Institute

Bleddyn stared down at the piece of toast on his plate.

He decided against eating it with jam.

IC: Julia

It was on now. Adrenaline was already creeping its way through Julia's veins, sending her reflexes into overdrive. She caught the ninja's foot in both hands and right as he attempted to swing his sword at her, twisted it around and pulled it towards her. Either the weight of the sword would send the only foot he still had on the ground off-balance or something in his leg would break.

However, while the most immediate threat had been taken care of, she had failed to account for the other assassin. She just barely caught the blade coming at her in her peripheral vision and practically threw the foot she had been holding so she could move out of the way. Despite her efforts, the blade traced a long, stinging line across her torso just below her sternum.

Oh, it was really on now.

She sent her elbow down at the flat side of the blade, aiming to knock it out of her attacker's hand.

IC: Ashley

"He's so cute that I could die of happiness!" Ashley chirped as she looked at the black kitten with white paws. Cinnabon purred as Nicole pet him, quite content to just lay there on Dallas' mini-fridge.

IC:

The first assassin's fell off balance and onto the ground. When Julia threw his foot away he jumped too his feet and slashed at her throat.

The second assassin's adamantium blade was knocked out of his hand. He didn't hesitate to retaliate. He ducked low and then began to unleash blows towards her stomach.

John jumped backwards as he deflected a blur of lighting fast katana strikes from his two opponents. A few slices got through slightly and John was left with a long slash across his right thigh and one across his right bicep.

John then jumped into the air and flipped over the heads of both attacking assassins. He struck down with his katana. One of the ninjas backside was torn open by John's blade. He landed on the ground and threw his sword out in time to block one of the ninjas who had whirled around. The other had stumbled forward as blood began to pour from the wound.

"It wouldn't be a reunion for us without a fight, huh Julia?" he said to his sister.

IC: JuliaJulia tightened her abs--abdominal muscles are naturally resistant to trauma--despite her wound's protest, buying her time to quickly bring her knee up towards the ninja's chin. "Nope, guess not."She brought up one pair of claws to deflect the other ninja's sword and aimed a quick jab with her other pair at his chest.

IC: Nick froze.

"You met the King."

IC: Dante (Bus, Sleeping.)

"Nice weather, eh?"

The Italian made no response and instead continued to merely sleep.

IC: Gabriel

Gabriel poked the Italian.

IC:

The first ninja stumbled backwards after Julia had kneed him in the chin. He pulled out more shruiken and threw them at Julia before grabbing his blade off the ground and swiping it at her feet.

The second ninja wasn't ready for Julia's jab. He looked down to see two adamantium blades stuck into his chest. He then stumbled backwards as he was pulled off the blades. Blood splashed from the wound as the Hand ninja crumbled to his knees then hit the ground face first and was still.

John deflected the ninjas strikes as best as he could. As the ninja came towards him again with a hard over head strike John ducked to the left. The sword narrowly missed him. John then struck with his own katana. He stabbed them both forward. One blade stabbed into the ninjas' chest while the other into his forehead.

John quickly wrenched his scarlet stained katanas out of the ninja in time to jump backwards from the remaining ninjas' strike. He was slower now after the wound John had opened on his backside. Still his blade left a shallow cut across John's abdomen as he jumped backwards.

<<Give up now or you'll end up like you're friend.>> John said.

<<Never.>>

<<Have it your way.>> John then went on the offensive, striking with keen accuracy with both blades as he forced the ninja to step back. John then brought his knee up. It smashed into the ninja's gut; doubling him over. One swipe with both blades and the ninjas' head fell from his shoulders.

IC: JuliaFour shurikens sliced through the air towards Julia. If she didn't do something, they'd be slicing through her flesh. She covered her face with her claws and her upper torso with her forearms. Two shurikens met Adamantium and bounced away. The other two embedded themselves in Julia's arms, eliciting from her a short yelp.She hopped over the sword and tried to push backwards into a handspring, but the way her arms reacted when her hands hit the ground caused her to ditch the "spring" part and land on all fours next to John. She almost made a quip about needing a hand, but from where she was standing (or kneeling, rather), she could see the body of her late attacker. A pang of realization hit her like a syringe filled with Weapon-X-manufactured regeneration serum."Holy god," she whispered, an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. "I just killed someone."

IC

The counsellor opened her mouth to speak when a knock at the door interrupted her.

"Just a moment, Kristen," she said, standing to her feet. She walked over to the door and opened it halfway.

"Hello," she said quickly to the stranger at the door. "Can I help you?"

IC: The situation seemed a bit delicate from what Agent Harken was saying. Seemed he'd managed to subdue the targets through words and reason rather than gunfire. Always nice when people saw sense and no-one needed to get violent.

That did mean that having a killer robot drop down in full attack mode probably wouldn't help.

So Persephone altered her course, coming down in a secluded area away from where Harken was treating his two...captives wasn't the right word. Wards? Passengers? Well there were certainly two of them at any rate.

Once she had landed her outer armour unfurled and opened to let her out in her smaller outer-skin ensemble. Not as intimidating as going in armed for bear. Her exo-suit closed up again and stood to attention as she walked off in the direction of Harken

IC: Kane's answer was a burp coming from the kitchen, shortly followed by the imposing form of Zachary Adams emerging from it, a mini six-pack held in one hand in the same manner a fisherman hauls a net. With his free hand he snapped out one of the tiny cans...which didn't stay tiny for long. Sparkling dots of energy glittered round his hand and the can, the latter of which grew quite substantially. Ah the benefits of controlling Pym particles.

"Want one?" the size-changer asked Kane

IC: "Hello," Brianne said quietly "I've just come back after a long time and I'd like to see if room 317 is still free?