Beyond Evolution

Vanessa Vangrove had always been a fan of chaos. It was one of the simplest and most beautiful concepts in the entire universe- simply put, shit happens. And quite often, yes, you could keep it from happening, but there was only so much control you could try and exert over the universe before something snapped in retaliation and it all came crashing down on you. Chaos was not only natural but also necessary. But sometimes chaos did need a little help, and not even necessarily in a substantial way. If one were to try and facilitate it, sometimes all you had to do was give the slightest nudge or set the littlest thing in motion. Then walk away and watch the effects ripple outward like someone disturbing a quiet pond or the outcomes compound into a massive insurmountable swell. And it wasn’t always instantaneous, but could come about over time, building up right under everyone’s unsuspecting noses until it exploded and so many things that were bright shiny and hopeful came undone.

( For someone like Vanessa who not only lived off chaos, but thrived in it, it was the waiting that was a real bitch. )

Monday morning, by all accounts, started off as normally as any other week. The sun rose, the birds sang, and people went about their business as they always had.

Inside Xavier's, Kevin Ford stood at the sink, hands gripping the edges. Something didn't feel right. His hands tightened, and for a few moments tremors passed through his clenched muscles. And then they relaxed and let go slowly. He looked at himself in the mirror, dark, blank eyes meeting dark, blank eyes. He turned and left the bathroom calmly, a trail of ash from his clothing following him. Carpet had been put into his room where once the floors had been covered with a lacquer that was resistant to his powers. Where he stepped, black, corroded indentions were left. He opened the closet calmly, pushing aside what was there and reaching into the back, where his old clothes were. Black synthetic was put on before he turned to leave the room, gloves held in one hand. The blonde on the bed was ignored.

When Adrien Bouchard woke up, his arm was around a girl that was laying next to him in bed. His bare forearm was against her stomach, his shirt having hiked up some in the night. He tightened it around her, and it only took a few moments before she started to move. Just a bit at first, shifting some as she started to fall more deeply into nightmares. He held on though, until they grew intense enough that she was actually starting to thrash. He moved from the bed then, standing and also heading to his closet. She woke with a start, and he didn't respond to anything that she said. When he was dressed, he moved back over to her. Without saying a word, he put his hand against her face, gripping tightly, forcing her senses to expand and take in more stimuli than she was capable of holding. He let her fall back to the bed as he moved to his dresser. Two pairs of sunglasses were picked up as he moved out of the hall.

Kevin was walking towards him, bare fingers trailing against a wall, ruining it in small trails as he went. Adrien fell into step beside him as the two went downstairs in the quiet mansion, out to the garage. Keys were taken, Kevin climbing into the passenger seat of one of Scott's cars and turning it on as Adrien put on one set of the sunglasses and passed the other over. Kevin settled them onto his face and peeled out, headed towards the city at high speed.

Times Square was as good a place to start as any. And it didn't take long before the screams started to fill the air.


[Open to X-Men/X-Factor and applicable Intruders. Look for the OOC post coming up next!]

Rogue's greatest asset in this situation was not her power alone. It was what other powers she could gain. She had a very specific person in mind for that, and so before she went to join the others, she made a detour. It was still quiet in the house, and she didn't see anyone as she headed down to the medlabs. Her timing was good -- Annelise was on a break while Jeremiah held down the fort with the two Grey/Summers children. He wouldn't be a problem. He smiled when he saw her, even. She smiled back, but it was hollow, almost doll-like. She reached a hand out to touch him, just taking long enough to make him drop to the ground.

She stepped over him and moved on.

She looked down at the two beds, giving a long look to each of the patients. Both of their powers would be amazing. But there was always the chance of overloading, or of pulling the both of them into her somehow. And they might be able to stop her somehow, if that happened. So she reached out for the original target. Nate Grey. She had a score to settle with him, and instead of just pulling enough to gain his powers for a bit, she left her hand on his face. She pulled more, and more, further than most people ever felt when they were touched by Rogue. It wasn't just skimming off the surface, she was draining all that he was into her. Ripping him out of herself, even as he fought internally against it.

There was nothing he could do, though. The drugs in his system kept his body still as she pushed him into a coma, reaching further. Wanting him dead.


[Open to Maddy Pryor]

Warren had been through countless surgeries in the past six months. Again and again he'd gone in, as different surgeons tried to clean out the mess in his back. Getting rid of all the remaining bone fragments and useless muscle tissue from his dead wings. They couldn't ever seem to get it all though, and Warren always felt like they were still there. Never so strongly as in this moment though, when he sat up suddenly in his bed. His eyes stared straight ahead, and beneath his shirt, the skin at his back started to shift. Moving, like something was alive beneath it and wanting out.

His wings came out in a flash of silver, their razor edges shredding both his back and the bed beneath him. The injuries caused healed suddenly though, the blood ceasing almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving him looking like he always had before the cure. Except, of course, that his wings were no longer soft, and his feathers were no longer white.

He moved from the bed, and as he did another new mutation came out. Color began to spread across his skin, turning the normal flesh-tone blue. He took no notice of it. There was a pause as he looked at his roommate, but then he simply turned and went to the window, diving out of it with a crash, not bothering to open it first; the sun glinted off of the adamantium spread out beneath it. Rogue was just leaving the building through the front, and lifted herself with her newly gained telekinesis as she did so. Together they flew into the city, Rogue sending blasts into buildings as new sections opened on Warren's wings, poisonous darts shooting out and into the crowds.

[Open to X-Men/X-Factor and applicable Intruders]

There were many people that would say Gemma Warner was one of the little points of light at the school. She was nice, she was sweet, and despite being a mutant like all the rest of them- she was normal. Though fairly new to the school she was trusted and loved by just about everyone. Her being voted into prom court was proof positive of that. So there was absolutely no reason to be surprised if she stopped you in the hallway and struck up a conversation while walking along with you. The suspicion didn’t start kicking in for Abby until they were up on the roof. The rest came flooding in at the speed of the quickly approaching ground when Gemma made her walk off it.


Noah Shephard may have been another addition to the list of disaffected overprivileged rich kids at Xavier’s, but he was not one to generally cause problems for other people. He had done a good job of for the most part blending in with most of his fellow students, and was one who could be sometimes missed in the hustle and bustle that occurs day to day at Xavier’s. However, no one would do so today. Especially after a radioactive emp pulse blasted a hole through the school on the top floor big enough to walk through. And he most certainly wasn’t missed by Gemma, who had been walking Molly up to the roof when she passed by, and then decided here would do well enough. For a moment all was still and quiet as Gemma walked Molly to the hole and made her jump out. The two remaining in the hallway exchanged an acknowledging glance and then continued down the hallway. Who’s next?

[Open to those at the school]

For the record, Rin Snow had never been a pacifistic person. Quiet and observant, perhaps, but never exactly weak and compliant. Even in death that proved to be true. At her core, she and her mutation were too aggressive to accept that there was no more and she’d come to the end of her journey on this Earth. The regenerative nature of amphibians had proven to be more useful to her than she or anyone else had ever imagined. And her undeath had been just the beginning of it.


Morgan Smith had a similar tendency to defy death, even if in a much more expected manner. Death and resurrection were in the basis of his mutation and no matter how long it might last, for him the end was never permanent. To those who knew him, that was expected. What was unexpected would be him not being on Muir island like he’d been for some time now, but approaching the gates of the school after stepping out of a car that was already speeding away along with his amphibious companion.


Water and heat were both things that could be dangerous on their own and downright deadly if you weren’t careful. The same could be said of people who could control them. Water was everywhere and Rin, being a hydrokinetic, could use the plentiful element to her advantage in endless ways. A rebooted life also meant new powers for Morgan, and this time around they came in the form of heat manipulation. The bars of the front gate quickly grew red, then white hot as their temperature climbed, soon resulting in them becoming malleable and viscous enough to fall away. Alarms went off both in and outside the mansion as the pair walked over what was left of the barrier, only one obvious destination in their minds.

[Open to those at the school]

It had been almost unseasonably warm in New York, of late. Hot enough for shorts and bathing suits and testing out the pools comfortably. Even in the mornings it was pleasant, an early summer for the state's residents. The residents of Xavier's, however, would notice a distinct chill in the air. Inside the school there was a sudden rush of cold air, like the AC had kicked into overdrive for a moment before settling back to normalcy. Outside, the chill seemed to want to hang.

And then it started snowing.

Or that was what it looked like to start, at least. But as those snowflakes fell closer, it became obvious that it wasn't true snow at all. Ice, rather. Icicles, specifically, hundreds of them slamming down into the ground with the force of a nail gun. A large object appeared in the sky, starting off a dot and turning into a person as it came closer. Of sorts. Iceman didn't look entirely human when he was in his full-ice form, after all. He was propelling himself through the sky on an ice slide, which broke away into pieces soon after its occupants had moved past it. Moving with Bobby and gripping to his shoulder through a glove was John. Xavier's own prodigal son, back again.

Dropping down lower, Bobby brushed by the ground and John jumped off, rolling and then standing. There was a slight clicking sound as the flamethrower at his hand turned on, and then his powers made it roar to life, lighting up part of the school's wall. Bobby, meanwhile, began shooting those razor-sharp ice pellets through every window he passed.

[Open to those at the school]

It was amazing how many people were packed into the hustle and bustle of the city on a day-to-day basis. With that many people in one place you were bound to get your share of weirdos and oddities. For those who had lived here for a long enough amount of time to get used to it, it took a lot to shock or surprise them. So it seemed like there was always someone upping the ante. And always someone who had no problem surmounting it.


Take for example, the pair in the sleek, black car that had just made its way from Xavier’s after dropping off two of its occupants, and picking up a new passenger. Parking inconspicuously at a parking meter, the driver and passenger exited, surveying the scene for a split second before proceeding further. When that second was up, no one was more surprised than the nearby pedestrians as a plasma blast tore through the outer wall of the office building next to them, and the perfectly parked car jolted forward with a force that shouldn’t be possible without a build up of momentum, slamming into and pushing the line of vehicles in front of it several feet.


Two of the mutants there had the potential to cause a massive amount of destruction, a little fact that no one who’d ever known what they could do would deny. As Alex Summers proceeded in one direction down the street and Kate Prosser in the other, the sounds of panic and disorder were already taking over the morning air. The third, Sadie Liddell, went a slightly more subtle route. Moving down the street, she touched people as she went, grabbing onto them and letting them go as their screams hit the air and their hearts seized, or their heads exploded. A little more subtle, but not much.

[Open to X-Men/X-Factor and applicable Intruders]