Marvel, Rebirth:

IC:

Ric lifted the map and focused on his phone for a second, looking slightly uneasy. "Can you ask something else? If I answer, it'll sound pathetic."

"Now you have to answer."

"..."

"...Disneyland."

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

"We should go sometime." She said with a smile. "We can ride the teacups together! Oh! I'll dress as Alice and you the mad hatter!" She clapped her hands together happily, her attitude turned around completely.

IC: Lynae

"... And going dressed as Alice and the Hatter." She said, pressing her finger into his chest

IC:

"And going dressed as Alice and the Hatter," he repeated with a teasing eye roll. "Fine. What about you? Chances are you've seen it all, done it all. What's on the top of your bucket list?"

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

"Bucket list? I don't really have one... Maybe get my pilot's license." That or find a cure for loneliness. She thought to herself.

IC:

Alaric looked over and smiled at her knowingly. "Brooklyn and Bekah can fly somewhat. Between the two of them they could probably get you on the fast track to a license."

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

"Heh... That's alright, I'll just take lessons like everyone else." She said with a smile. "Thank you though... What about you, Ric?"

IC:

Alaric breathed in deep through his nose and tapped his fingers on his phone's screen, then drummed them on the dashboard. "Know the sad thing?" he asked, his grin rueful now. "Remember our dinner the other night, when Romulus told me how much I'd accomplished, for my age? Leader of the Hellfire Club, before 30. That's a heII of an achievement - except I did it before 25. I've built a safe place where my family can be a family again, and I've put enough together that we'll never want for anything. I own a beautiful car, I wear beautiful clothes, and I'm friends with beautiful people. I turn 25 next year...and my entire life already feels like a list, with all the boxes checked."

IC: Lynae

"Here Comes the Sun.... What is the oddest thing you've ever done?" She asked with a smile, her hand still holding his tightly.

IC:

Alaric's brow scrunched up in thought and then relaxed, with an easy smile, different from his usual, pleased-cat smile. He started to laugh.

"Okay, okay, so back at Westchester, just a few minutes drive from the school, the older kids used to go to this lake when all the younger kids were using up the swimming pool. It was late May, junior year, and we had an early summer, like, unholy levels of heat. And you know, I was a terrible student, Ashlynn used to just do the work and I'd scribble it down before one of the teachers walked in. So there's no way I'm about to wait to die of heatstroke in chemistry class - I never even bother to get to class, instead I steal some beer, rig up this grill into the trunk of my father's old Corvette - rest in peace - and drive it down to the lake. Then I got on my laptop and started using AIM - you know, high school - and invited all my friends down to the lake.

"We slowly start to seep down there, and then Taralynn - that's Ash's sister - and I decide that it'd be a heII of an idea to swim while we grill and we park the car, backwards, with the back end hanging over the lake and the grill going. Like, you know where this is going, it was a totally awful idea." Lynae was laughing at him by this point. "Stop laughing! Let me tell the story, God. Okay, so we're drinking, and there's burgers and hot dogs and sirloins getting made, and we're all swimming and screwing around. But then someone splashes John. I don't think I ever talked to you about John, but the kid had crazy anger problems back then, and he goes ballistic, chopping up the water and splashing anything in sight - of course, that just starts this awful Hunger Games version of Marco Polo, and soon people are using powers, flailing about - and someone accidentally causes a mudslide on the ground under the Vette's back tires. I barely even saw it in time, and instantly Tara and I are trying to push the car back onto solid land, barely holding it up...and the grill starts to tip, blazing hot. We had all been drinking, except Tara because she was still, like, in seventh grade, so she yells at me that the grill is tipping and I'm barely smart enough to listen to her. I duck under the water and it rolls over right behind me, sending hot dogs and burgers floating everywhere and sinking to the bottom of the lake with this hisss. Like, steam rising everywhere, we turned a little section of the pond into a sauna.

"And then, you know, the car's getting held up by Tara alone, and I'm not about to let an 80,000 dollar car sink to the bottom of the ocean, but we didn't have anyone with super strength, so what we end up deciding is that they push the car up over the lip of the pond, and John and I get the special privilege of dragging it back to the road like frickin' pack animals. And you know, this was back when he was some uppity freshman, really thirsty, really trying to get with Ashlynn, and I'm me, so of course he's feeling jealous and insecure. So not only did we two teens have to climb out of the water and pull the car, I had to do it while trying not to get my eyes or tongue clawed out." He was laughing too by now, barely able to get the story out through wheezing breaths, and he pulled to an easy stop behind a taxi and waited for traffic to quit congesting.

"That was high school in a nutshell."

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

Lynae was laughing at his tale, though if it was at his stupidity or the insanity of the story, Ric didn't know but neither did Lynae.

After a few moments of harmonious laughter between the two, Lynae took a deep breath, trying to settle herself but failing as a laughing grin stayed plastered on her face. "God Ric, it sounds amazing.. You were really lucky."

IC:

"Yeah...yeah, I was," he agreed, laughing intermittently. "All of Westchester was this centralized pocket of, like, pure shenanigans, but after that the lake was a hotspot. We had cookouts every couple weeks, we would hang out there on off-days - after prom I took my date and a couple dozen people down there, and I didn't wake up until the end of Senior Skip Day. While everyone else was training to defend mutant equality, I would turn up and away the trust fund. A night or two after graduation, I was on a flight. Southern California. Wanted to make my own way in the world, without the X-Men."

Alaric looked around his Ferrari, this car he'd owned for two years, and thought of all the people who had shared that passenger seat with Lynae, and how many of them were still alive and well. Looked at his own hands.

"I could've done worse for myself, I s'pose," he said absently, leaning back. "I made it happen, in the end."

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

"... No matter what happens though, you'll always have happy memories to look back on. Prom, your shenanigans, everything." She gave the hand she still held a comforting squeeze.

What she wouldn't do to have a life like Ric's. He grew up with friends, people that loved him. In all her 800 years, Lynae never had something like that. One or two people may have loved her... But not to the point that they wanted to stay with her forever. The mortals that she had been fond of always left her, choosing someone with a beating heart over her silent, yet still pained, one.

The vampires were no better. All the adult vampires had long since found mates and, like graceful swans, stayed for life. No one approached her because of her sire and it was miserable except for her sister. But she, like all the others, left.

"We should be at the place soon."

IC:

"Hey."

A familiar voice commented from the doorway to Ric's old classroom, just before one of the past's old ghosts appeared in the flesh. Alexander Smith, bluntly put, looked like helI. His coat shifted listlessly about his ankles, having accumulated a few new patches of dust and dirt, his hair was even more of a mess than usual, and he'd accumulated a wide variety of scrapes and scratches on his hands. On top of that, it was pretty clear that he was beyond tired; Not at all unlikely, given that he'd only arrived back at the Institute a few short hours before, having managed to get back to the school from Manhattan.

"Dallas, I've seen a lot of things today, but you plastered wasn't something I expected to be on the list."

IC:

"No, no, no." The former Weapon muttered, stepping down the last step of the stairs and onto the runway. The runway was an alright place; Too flat for enemies to hide. Regardless, it was, statistically, one of the easiest places to conceal weapons. Or mines.

"There is no tan."

OOC:

Tera, James, and U. Bekah posts to follow when I have a little more time.

IC:

"Yeah." The Black King snuck a final look at the map on his phone and then returned to his home screen. The drive passed in relative silence after that, since it only took another minute or so for Alaric to sneak out of the congested main road and onto a more private avenue that led to a parking area near the brunch spot. His hyperkinetic eyes instantly peeped a spot on a terrace that they could claim when he stepped out of the car. Lynae followed, eyes slightly downcast again, and when she closed the door he looked up and noticed it for himself.

"Hey," he called out, hopping up onto the roof of the car and then sliding down the passenger's side to land in front of her. "Look at me." Her eyes met his, and he twisted the corners of her lips up into a smile again with his thumb, brushed her hair into place with a knuckle, smiled himself. "There. I'd say you look like a million bucks, but that's a bit cheap for you and me."

He squeezed her shoulder and smiled a little wider before turning around, closing the car door with a flick of his wrist, and hopping up onto the concrete barrier separating a garden from the road, balanced gracefully on its murky grey surface as he walked across.

IC:

"Gang's all here!" Dal slurred, grinning and taking a small, overly measured step forward that was so minute he may as well have been shuffling to the side like a hermit crab.

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

The vampire blushed as he touched her face, giving a small chuckle. "Thank you, Ric.. Today has been a great day." She said as she took his hand once again, leading him to the spot to where he wanted to go.

"The food is great here... Their raspberry tarts are to die for." She said with a sheepish smile.

IC:

"Raspberry tarts?" he asked, turning his head to look at her accusingly. "You chose this place and told me your favorite foods so I could buy you raspberry tarts. That's cunning. That's real cunning."

Alaric laughed and squeezed her hand, pulling her gently and wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "Whatever. I'll buy like, the first two plates. Maybe the third if you promise to be nice and not spice up our mamosas with the waiter's blood. If he's cute, don't stare at him for too long, either. I may get jealous, Gawd forbid."

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

"Make you jealous? Why I'd never!" She said with an over exaggeration of her British accent. Lynae smiled as she relaxed in his arms. "You know I'm pretty good in public, right? I don't always bite necks and suck blood." She whispered into his ear.

"But you have to let me buy all the other plates after one and two."

IC:

"Three might still be a point of contention, but I'll let it slip if I can buy drinks."

"Fine fine... You can buy me a drink." She said with a playful wink.

Alaric squealed, and when the waiter came he pointed up at the vantage point he'd spotted on the terrace and requested it ("Lynae loves the sun, don't you, bae? Brings out her skin!") for themselves. After the waiter had gone off to get drinks he turned to her and grinned.

"You know, you're right. I'm having fun. This is great."

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

She smiled as the waiter came up and Alaric eagerly pointed out a spot. ("Oh yes, darling! It makes me simply glow!)

As the waiter seated them, Lynae smiled. "I'm so glad you made me come. It's the most fun I've had in a long time."

IC: Persephone saw the spiderweb of cracks appear in one of the humvee's windshields. She might have gone for the tyres, but they could be bulletproofed too and at least this way their visibility was screwed over.

"If they've engaged then its working!" she shouted to Vivus, "Keep it up!"

Wanting to save on some of her firepower, she activated the grapnel in her right arm and fired it at one of the mounted gunners, the claw shining bright and sharp. She planted her feet as the cable spooled out, knowing that the humvee's path would soon pull it taut, and hopefully yank the gunner right off his perch

IC:

"Yeah, me too. I haven't hung out with a friend since...Las Vegas." The thought of Tara made his heart sick; vanished into a puff of smoke, consumed by the Phoenix like her sister before her. He'd been talking with Zack Summers regularly, testing his memory, testing his reaction to the Phoenix, and since he hadn't gone supernova yet it was only safe to assume that Ashlynn's little sister was still alive somewhere, but where she could have gone off to was beyond even him.

"I missed that. So thanks for coming. I won't forget it."

-Tyler

IC: Ashley

Ashley stepped closer toward Dallas. "Hmmmmm....are we suppose to get drunk too?"

IC: Lynae

"Neither will I." She said softly, looking over the veranda out to the gardens, her heart fluttering at the sight of one of the flowers.

"Forget me nots...."

IC:

He followed her gaze to the flowers and stared at them for a second, azure and proud in the late morning sun. Slowly, the Black King looked back at Lynae and flipped the hand that held his upside down, wiggling out of it. "Want to see something cool as ?"

He grinned mischievously and pushed himself out of his chair, casually swaggering up onto one of the tables and walking across its length until he could put his food out and walk up onto the ledge, balanced even more precariously than he was on the concrete barrier. Ric turned with the upper half of his body, saluted her with a blown kiss, and then fall backwards with a whoop!

Then he was in the path of the sun itself, soaring backwards, cackling, majestic alabaster wings stretched out across his back.

Alaric somersaulted in midair and landed nimbly on his feet, making a 10 with both hands as if he'd just pole vaulted his way to an Olympic gold before crouching down and gently pulling the forget me nots from the ground. He stood, kicked his boots clean outside of the garden, and then went into the same corkscrew leap that he used to kick off a particularly showy flight. He landed again on the railing, smirk gleaming white and flowers a bright blue. His wings folded back underneath his clothes, and he took a step off the railing and landed on the veranda like a kid who deliberately skips a step or two on the staircase. The wind's fingers had ruffled his thick black hair and pushed it back.

"I couldn't find any stables," he laughed apologetically. "Maybe next time, yeah? IOU."

Ric pressed the stems of the forget me nots into her open palm, still on the table.

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

If her heart would have been beating, it would have leapt out of her chest. She held the flowers tightly in her hand. It was an implosive movement when she leaned forward, her soft lips caressing his cheek before she pulled away.

"Ric... You're amazing. I don't think there are any words that express what this means to me."

IC:

"Oh, don't worry about it, alright? I could tell you wanted them, and I was in a...unique position." The waiter came back with drinks, and cast a curious eye at the flowers that had inexplicably appeared in the vampire's hand, but walked off with their order of raspberry tarts and no questions asked all the same.

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

She held his hand with her spare hand, smiling. "Forget-me-nots, raspberry tarts, and a fantastic man to share my company.... This must be a dream." She said softly, her smile one of a time before her immortality.

IC:

"I'm sorry for hurting you... and betraying you... and ruining everything..." she said as she took a step closer.

"Thank you..." Nicole said as she glanced down at her clothes and then blushed before looking up. Ashley entered the room next. Nicole looked at her awkwardly and tried to smile.

"Hey Ashley."

Nicole stood their silently as Ashley and none other then Alex joined her and Alex in Ric's classroom. She held her breath for a moment and fell still trying to be invisible.

Finally she looked at Dallas and shrugged after Ashley spoke. "I guess I'll have some."

IC:

A dark figure leaped from one rooftop to another. Terance continued his journey across the rooftops of Harlem as he searched for any trouble or violence to put down. His trenchcoat fluttered around him as he flung himself across open air again before landin on the next roof; crouching low to absorb most of the impact. His dreads were pulled behind him in a sort of pony tail to keep them out of his face and he'd placed a small black mask over his face that covered his eyes, brow and most of his nose. Beneath his coat his black suit of vibranium-mesh could be seen.

He heard something in the alleyway ahead of him. The vigilatee crept across the rooftop slowly until he was able to peel just over the side. His eyes narrowed slowly as he took in the scene. Two men stood with guns in hand facing another man who had his hands up.

"Where's my boss' money." one of the armed men said.

"I'm sorry, I don't have it. I promise I'll have it soon."

"Its too late for that, your three months over due. The boss is tired of your excuses. Sorry about this, its nothing personal, just buisness."

Terrance acted then. His hand flew into the inside of his coat. Two black shruiken whistled through the air. They caught the gun of each armed man and tore them from their grasp. Terrance vaulted over the side of the building now. He landed on the ground infront of the innocent man and slowly stood up.

"Leave now and neither of you get hurt."

The two men still looked shocked to have been disarmed. One of the guns was pinned to the wall next to them with the shruiken holding it place in the trigger-hole.

"You're dead for this freak." the lead man said as he drew a butterlfy-knife and the other one pulled out another glock.

"That's where you're wrong." Terrance's eyes narrowed.

IC:

Christine shook her head. "No... Ah don't believe that. Ah don't believe that he would kill us. He's still John... no matter what Daken did to him."

"That doesn't mean Ah'm not ****** off that he left... everything Matt did was to save him from Daken, to bring him back home. First thing he does is build that stupid glass grave and then leave without sayin' goodbye."

"No... if anyone needs a bullet in their head its Daken... he caused all of this, he's the one who tortured John."

OOC: Hope you don't mind me crashing your little hero hour?

IC: John and Jack

The pair walked down the streets of Harlem as they had just finished speaking to Ivan, the grandfather of Jack. Upon taking their little walk, they heard a commotion in an alley way. They saw two men with weapons drawn at a man with some ninja outfit. "How do you want to do this Boss?" "Just watch and learn Jack. This is how you handle a situation. Back me up if I get pinned."

The old man walked up behind the man with the knife at hand, and drew his Mk.23 at him. "I suggest you put that knife down. If you so much as look behind you, this trigger will send a 9mm round right through your skull. So put down that knife and tell your boss to give up."

IC:

"Alright, alright... I'm putting the knife down..." the lead man said as he slowly bent down as if he was about to put it down.

Terrance stared at the other man who was still holding the glock pointed at him.

"Be smart and put that down."

Terrance saw the man glance at him and then the gun and then he began to fire. The sound of the shots tore through the alleyway and Terrance launched himself forward. The first thing he noticed was that the man wasn't even aiming for him, he was aiming for the innocent man behind him; trapped in the dead end of the alleyway.

Cold fury tore through Terrance. This man would take an innocent life still. If Terrance wasn't here the innocent man would be dead. He threw himself to the left purposely placing himself in front of the man's line of fire.

Three bullets slammed into Terrance's chest and bounced off the vibranium-weave. Each bullet knocked Terrance back a bit and hurt like heII. Terrance unleashed a swift kick knocking the gun out of the man's grasp and into the air. He then grabbed his wrist quickly and twisted it violently breaking it with a loud crack.

The man screamed as one of Terrance's wrist-blades slid out. He lunged forward shoving the blade into the man's chest.

"How stupid." Terrance said as he wrenched out his blade.

While this was happening the man that John had his gun pointed towards suddenly stopped acting like he was going to put his knife down and while John was probably busy watching what was taking place he whirled around and attempted to stab the knife into John's thigh.

IC: Jack

Luckily Jack was paying attention to the knife man, and as he saw him about to stab John, he shot a bolt of lightning carrying 50 volts towards the assailant.

John was kepping his eye on the other man with Terrance as it happened all of a sudden. His finger was on the trigger ready to be sqeezed and send that 9 mil into his head.

OOC: Not trying to be annoying or anything, but the staff should probably check the discussion topic.

IC:

Sierra raised her head slowly, finally awake. Almost right away, she noticed that her wounds had been bandaged.

Must have been Christine. You don't deserve a friend like her.

...

Shut up. Some people have legitimate, non self-inflicted problems. She shook her head. I need to find something to do.

IC Reyson

"Hmmm..." Reyson analyzed the situation from the computer monitors in the central chamber. "Those two mechs will prove to be trouble. From the looks of it, those Humvees are going to get torn up, and the tank by itself doesn't have enough precision by itself..." Reyson mulled it over a bit, then spoke: "Send one more tank and two more Humvees out for now. The two Humvees are exclusively on reconnaissance duty. That brings us down to four tanks and seven Humvees..." Turning away from the attendant, he spoke into the intercom: "All infantry units: hold positions. We are currently engaging the enemy outside; prepare for a base breach."

NPC Humvees

The Humvee with the cracked windshield drove forward in an erratic zig-zag pattern, the gunner spraying the area in front of the vehicle. When the grappling hook hit, the passenger seat soldier noticed a pinging sound but didn't realize what it was until the rope pulled taut, whereupon the Humvee proceeded to engage in a tug of war with Persephone. Cursing, the passenger side man leaped out of the vehicle, gesturing for the gunner to fire back at the way they came, before heading in the direction where he thought the sniper was hiding.

The second Humvee tipped to the side from Vivus's energy blasts, causing it to veer slightly off course on two wheels. Due to the vehicle's natural weight, it soon righted itself and driver turned back to Vivus; however, those seconds spent off balance could prove fatal. Like the first Humvee crew, the vehicle's gunner opened fire.

The third Humvee, unhindered so far, opened fire as well. The driver made sure to turn the headlights up to the maximum setting for increased visibility.

Two more Humvees rolled out, but seemed to ignore Persephone and Vivus, instead raring past them at top speed, looking for other enemies.

NPC Tank

With a mighty roar, the tank rolled itself out of the base garage, with a second hot on its heels. Garage doors closing behind them, the tanks picked up speed, using the light from the Humvees to locate their targets. The automated machine guns (2 of them per tank) began to fire, with one tank's gunner getting up to the manual gun and its driver getting ready to fire the L7. The second tank attempted to circle around the hostiles, trying for an emergency pincer movement.

IC: The tug of war between humvee and Persephone didn't last very long. The gunner wasn't strapped in securely enough to stop the pull of the grapnel yanking him out the mounted position and onto the concrete with a thud.

The tank...now the tank was going to be more problematic.

She raised an arm to her face to cover her eyes, letting bullets bounce off the armoured casing of her steely forelimb. Knowing even her heavy armour couldn't take that forever she leapt into the air, getting out of the line of fire. Right, so HYDRA was sending out the heavy guns. Good. What she really wanted them to do was send out men. People. Fewer guards on the inside. So...show whoever was in charge that simple firepower wasn't going to cut it. They needed to send out people on the ground who could move about, adapt, find cover.

Persephone flew over the closest tank's head, a path none of its guns could follow. Now behind it, the missile batteries on her shoulders opened up, and a series of the miniature projectiles streamed through the air, heading for the tank's wheels and tracks. For all that they looked like party pyrotechnics, they packed a significant punch. Not enough to pierce the tank's main body of armour, but hopefully enough to mess up its ability to move. She was already trying to come up with a Plan B if it didn't work...

"Marauder, you've got broader field of vision, where did the tanks come out from?" They clearly didn't come out the main doors, or they'd have walked right into her and Vivus' beam assault. They had some other exit, and she wanted to shut it down

IC:

"Well, I sure as hope not," Alaric opined, casually taking a sip of his mimosa. "This hairdo is the pinnacle of my follicular fantasies. My dream 'do can't be literally a dream 'do."

IC:

Aleksandr sighed and held the bottle back out for Christine, flopping back onto the bed and stretching out his arms. "I hope you're right, belle," he said, in a cautious tone that implied that he thought that she wasn't.

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

"You sure know how to make a moment prefect." Lynae said dryly as she too sipped from her alcoholic brunch breakfast. "You know what I find odd? That it's inappropriate to drink alcohol at certain times. I remember when every drink was alcoholic. If it wasn't, you'd die."

IC:

"I remember, too," Alaric quipped. "Senior year. And college. About a third of my master's program. Back in the day."

-Tyler

IC: Lynae

"Oh? Your water was filled with horrible things that could kill you? I remember my uncle jasper drank some water once... It was some gross thing from who knows where... God rest his soul." She added on the end, a practice she had when speaking of relatives.