Marvel: Art of War

Who: Scott and other mutants at Xaviers
What: News about Brotherhood of Mutants
When: May 23, 1963
Where: Xavier Main Common Room
Rating/Warnings: Let's keep it to PG-13
Status: OPEN, incomplete.

Scott came into the room when the shout came out. Somebody yelled. "Hey! Important! ABC News report coming up about Magneto and the Brotherhood!" He'd been eating dinner, but his blood ran cold hearing that, and he dropped his fork on his plate and ran from the big dining hall to the main commons area almost tripping over two others trying to get there.

He moved into the room, and there was a stupid commercial running about some new fabric softener. "What's up?"

"Don't know yet. Just terrorist attack, Magneto and Brotherhood of Mutants. The report is coming up."

<lj-cut text="The announcement">

Scott nodded and watched others gathering. It was mostly a full house. Then the news announcer came on.

Scott listened to the report, saw the two or several pictures that went along with it, and the final report from the Vice President. Of course, given the timing, and the location, there would be no TV cameras on the site yet. He tried running the figures over in his head, about how much money that gold represented, and could not manage it. He was stunned at the audacity, and at the casualties. In his mind he translated it all into a military news briefing. He had seen a number of those while going through fighter-bomber training.

The announcement, and a few photos of he troop and police mobilizations was delivered, to near silence in this room.

"The US Mint Police Commander Thaddeus Tower, has just reported an attack on the US Bullion Repository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and the theft of an estimated 200 tons of US gold reserves.

"The attack was made by a group calling itself the Brotherhood of Mutants, and headed by a man calling himself Magneto, whose organization dropped off copies of film reels with the ABC News organization and the FBI, within minutes after the attack ended. ABC evening news reports the beginning of their copy of the tape, describing the organization as 'a band of brothers, mutants with abilities far beyond the ken of normal humans, who have chosen to show our abhorrence of human treatment of those of us who are different from them, and who will pursue armed and unarmed resistance, globally, to human predation on mutants across the world.' They will pre-empt all their normal programming at 8:00pm tonight for s special showing of the tape, and a discussion between political figures from both major parties.

"The attack at Fort Knox begin at 4:15pm EST today, with an invisible force crushing the artillery and tank based defenses at Fort Know, followed by other strange attacks on troop placements in the outer ring, and the barracks for those US Military forces at the Depository. Apparently, the military forces were crippled within fifteen minutes and the attacking forces then made themselves know, approximately a dozen strangely garbed figures who swept over the Depository, killing and routing the US Mint Police during a protracted conflict, and gaining access to the interior of the Mint at 5:01pm.

"The people occupying the mint were allowed to surrender if they chose to do so, and by all reports those who did not were killed by the opposing group. the main storage areas of the vaults were breached by Magneto, their professed leader, who claims he is the 'Master of Magnetism'. A support group made its way into the Depository with specially build trucks, each to take 12 tons of bullion from the vaults.

"An Air Force and Army helicopter search has been mounted to find those trucks, but has not yet reported them. Four Air Force planes to two Army helicopters are confirmed downed, and a force of 12 Kentucky State Troopers has been found dead, of no known cause.

"There will be further news reports as the Army and Mint Police respond to inquiries. The President of the United States will be appearing tomorrow night on national television at 7pm EST to inform the American people of the status of the manhunt, and what is known about this Brotherhood of Mutants. Other than this announcement, the White House had made no comment, though the Vice President has commented.

We have additional footage from Vice President Lyndon Johnson reporting from the White House."

The scene shifted, live. The VP stood at the White House Press podium,. his face angry and sad, but determined. His Texas drawl had sharpened now, with an edge of anger to it. "The President and I want to reassure all Americans and our allies that this attack on our principal gold repository will be investigated, the perpetrators caught, and punished. At this time, we getting our facts straight. So, far, we think the attackers on Fort Knox to be some kind of terrorist criminal cartel, who are using the pretext of some form of human rights violation to try 'n get the American people to stand beside them. At this time, we have no idea what being a 'mutant' even means, and we can already presume that this is some means to frighten our forces into pursuing blind alleys. In response to fear of the United States having become insolvent, we have full control of the Repository again, and less than 5% of our Gold Reserves have been taken. Our nation stands firm and strong, and we back all our allies and all their reserves in place in all the US Gold Repositories. Please bear with us, and we will be reporting back to you when all the facts are in. Thank you, my fellow Americans."

The scene shifted and the announcer talked about the images. The last one was of six colorfully clothed people, clearly dead, lined up on a concrete roadway, the only color image in the group. Scott peered at them as the image paused, and nodded. Three of them had come from here, from the Institute, taken with Erik when he had left. He knew from the sounds and the talk beginning that some of the others recognized them, too.

The announcer moved on to two foreign responses to the attack, and then the report ended. Scott was the first to speak. He knew some of them would take this wrong, but it needed saying. "Those three knew their choices. They were not innocents. They were terrorists, and Erik just declared war on the human race. We're all in it now, whether we like it or not. But...", and his voice grew hoarse, as one of the three had been a friend, "it gives us time, to get to Belize. He's lost men, solid ones. But he's also well funded."

He finally came up with a figure. "They made off with something like $20 billion in gold. It's going to be a global economic crisis. Today, everything changes." Then he tried to blink away the tears that came from seeing those people, people he had known, now dead enemies. He was lucky he wasn't able to affect his own tears or he'd blow his eye wear off his face. And Scott knew he'd left one military for something just as powerful, just as needed. He knew, in a way he never had before, where he belonged. Here with his friends, his allies, his teammates. For a cause that had to be fought for, now. Mutants. And humans.

(OOC: Reactions, comments, conversations, and lamentations? And how will Alex react, if he is present? This is an important moment, for a lot of us. I remember where I was for instance, when men landed on the moon, and what I was doing, exactly. I also recall what happened when I heard about 9-1-1, an event a commission I worked on wrote a report simulating the NYC aircraft assault -- in 1997. May be very emotional for some of you.)</lj-cut>

Who: Cecilia Reyes and ...
What: An opportunity for open interaction Just another Sunday.
When: Afternoon, Sunday, May 22
Where: A currently unnamed clinic for mutants in Brooklyn
Rating/Warnings:
Status: OPEN, incomplete.

When Cecilia was growing up, Sundays in the Reyes home had always been special. A mass that felt interminable (and the feeling never waned; in fact, Cecilia often thought that church services became longer as she got older) followed by a quick jaunt to the market, where her father, gracious as ever, allowed the children to pick up a sweet of their choice while her mother shopped. Relatives would arrive later, bearing food of their own and offering to help Enid with the pernil--though the help tended to devolve into careful criticism and endless neighborhood gossip--while the children played in neighborhood streets. Before they left the island, her uncle would always remind her later that evening, family gatherings like these had been commonplace. But for Cecilia, gatherings came on Sundays, and those days were marked as distinguished.

These days, though, Sundays were marked by the coming and going of clinic patients that covered a spectrum of injuries and an even more varied range of injuries. Normally, she at least felt fulfilled. Medicine was, after all, God's work, and it seemed appropriate to spend a Sunday in Brooklyn healing. But it was days like today--slow days, where the clinic was mostly empty--that made her yearn for a family gathering.

Cecilia heard the ringing of a bell in the front, and she stood from her desk chair. "One minute," she called before donning her white coat and stethoscope.

Who: Scott, Cecilia, Alison, Haylie, Wade, Bobby
What: It’s time to announce the group’s next mission.
When: Sunday, May 1
Where: The Danger Room
Rating/Warnings: presumably, there will be danger.
Status: Complete

“Okay then, Jean. You get there when you can. I’m,” and he actually gulped, nervous for the first time since he had gotten his red glasses, “going in. Wish me luck.”

She squeezed his hand, and he opened the door to the Danger Room, where he had asked everybody to assemble. Earlier, he had set up folding chairs in a circle, each with a notepad and pens, in case anybody wanted to take notes.

Some of them were there, already. Scott saw them all looking at him, curious. He was not in civvies, not anymore. He was in the first ‘suit’ he had contracted for, from friends of mutants at Van Dyne Enterprises, out of Poughkeepsie, New York. Deep blue, form fitting, specially jointed, that new cloth that was too expensive to want to talk about, a product of the first manufacturing line from the micromachines of the famed scientist Henry Pym.

( Welcome to the first meeting in whole of the X-Men )

Who: Cecilia and Scott
What: An innocent day of massages and getting to know one another
When: Saturday, May 7; afternoon
Where: Library, Xavier Institute
Rating/Warnings: We'll see if we get to that point.
Status: Complete

Cecilia closed her book, yawning and stretching her arms. A glance out the window confirmed her feeling that she should have been outside, but her fear of becoming too dark--or worse, sunburnt--before heading to British Honduras had led her to the library. At least she had managed to snag the window seat, though the warm rays of sunlight were interfering with her ability to get much reading done.

Instead of returning the book to its shelf (it was times like these that Cecilia wished she had telekinesis), Cecilia gingerly placed it on the ground. Hoping to fight the soporific urges, she stood, twisting her neck and listening to it crack. She knew it was a noise that often sent some of her housemates' (a term she used for lack of a better word; she wasn't yet sure what to call them, and it wasn't entirely in accurate) skin crawling, but Cecilia rather enjoyed it. It reminded her she was human, a fact which she sometimes doubted when passing, say, Logan in the halls. Besides, she was alone, and there was nobody around to irk.

Who: Cecilia and Bobby ((ha, I had to, I'm sorry))
What: A late-night chat
When: Sunday, May 1, at 2 a.m. or something absurd
Where: Xavier Institute

Cecilia Reyes was not a happy camper.

It had been an inexplicably long night helping out at Grasslands Hospital (the last time, she decided, she'd ever say "I owe you one" to anyone in the medical profession), made worse by the fact that the tasks she'd been ask to perform were fairly menial. Five or six years of residency only to be woken up to help an intern take blood? And it didn't help matters much that she was seemingly the only doctor of color in the suburbs--which she was fairly sure was the reason nobody bothered to ask for her assistance during the night's one surgery.

But that was not the reason Cecilia was currently unhappy. Somebody--she was guessing Hank, or maybe Scott--had finished her coffee. The Cafe Rico that her mother had brought back on a recent trip to the island.

And now, after a few short bursts of sleep, she was stuck with Chock Full o'Nuts instant. "Heavenly coffee, my ass," she muttered, putting a kettle on the stove. ( If you ever are worried about burning your tongue, I'm your man )

What: Vincent (as Roy "Vin" Tam) and Cecilia Reyes meet during the last morning of her surgical residency
When: December 20, 1962 (important backstory!)
Where: Our Mother of Mercy Hospital, N.Y.C.
Rating/Warnings: None
Status: Closed, complete. Apologies for length?

Vin waited patiently for Dr. Reyes to appear. She would by now have exhausted all her means to stay on the ward. She had finished her last surgery, and was scheduled for no more. She had performed her rounds, had had her two exit interviews. And her curiosity had been tweaked. Who was the mystery man, Vin Tam, who had supported her through her last two years of medical school, and given her those gifts at strategic moments of her surgical residency.

He grinned. Only the Shadow knows.

( The day of asking had come )