Tamsin knew it wasn't the most responsible thing on the planet for her to be getting a student drunk -- and she had a feeling John was going to need it as opposed to just a single drink -- but she'd never done things the easy way or the right way, so like she was really going to start now?

She had left notes and/or voicemails for Kitty, Terry, Julian, and a couple other people, though, so she at least couldn't be accused of not telling people where she'd gone. She didn't have a backup, but she'd have John if anything went wrong. And never mind what people had said about him, she knew there was more to him than just disgruntled badassery. If anything happened, he'd back her up. Of course, then he'd heckle her mercilessly all the way back to the Institute for needing his help in the first place, but hey. That was John for you.

She got there first and took up a spot against the bar, leaning against it as she looked around at the crowd and waited.

The gardens on the institute's grounds were quickly becoming Terry's favorite place. It was so quiet and peaceful, the flowers smelled so sweetly. If you stood still enough you could almost imagine that nothing terrible could happen. Terry sat on the ground in the back of the gardens, singing softly to herself as she read.

Maeve was asleep, she could hear her daughter's even breathing over the monitor that sat beside her. She wasn't worried. She knew that if Maeve had started to cry, she'd hear it. Hell, people two states over would hear it.

Right then she was just enjoying the quiet. Trying to not think of the terrible things all the kidnapped people had gone through. She wanted to sit with them, to help them through but that was presumptious. She barely knew most of them.

Sighing, she continued to read. Eventually she would get used to it. At least she hoped so.

Who: The X-Men, abductees, NPC!Guards, NPC!Labcoats, Sentinels
What: rescue mission
When: Friday night
Rating: Gonna make this a strong R
Status: Open
Warnings: Rating is for violence, you know that'll happen in spades. It's going up now but don't feel like you need to tag in right away, while the action will only take place in the space of hours this'll be open all week to make sure everyone can get in and get their shit done.

Any questions? Shoot 'em our way.

((this post is extra-long because I tacked Brenna's torture scene on)

~~~~~

There had been no missions since the school had been rebuilt. It was almost unspoken that the X-Men needed to focus solely on their own after a time when so many of them had been lost inexplicably, and Logan had been loathe to break the status quo. Not really his usual state of being but his actions no longer affected just him.

( Read more... )



( Oh, was he begging? )

To say Tamsin was furious was an understatement. Hell, saying she was unbelievably homicidal was an understatement. Her best friend, her sister, had been taken and there was nothing that Tamsin could do about it. She was effectively helpless. She didn't like being helpless.

Which was why she was in the gym, beating the shit out of a punching bag to try and calm herself down enough to think rationally. Well, a second punching bag. She'd already broken the chain holding one to the ceiling. Whoops.

Completely focused, Tamsin unleashed another series of punches on the bag, only dimly aware that she needed to stop and tape her hands up again.

Terry sang softly to herself in gaelic as she pushed the stroller along the path up to the school. "Don't worry, baby," she said softly to her daughter as they walked. "We'll be okay here. They'll keep us safe." That was probably directed to both of them. Logically, she knew that they were most likely holding up Charle's ideals but she wasn't exactly an easy girl to have around.

She took a deep breath and pushed a rebellious curl out of her face. "Your granddady used to work here. Banshee they called him. Sean Cassidy. He was so proud of that." Her father had gone through a lot and done a lot of things that he wasn't proud of but being an X-Men? That was always a bright spot.

Knocking on the heavy wooden door, she stepped back her hand slipping into the pocket of her coat. "Here goes nothing."

Kitty was sitting on a small stool and doing some tuning up of her bike. Tamsin's bike was on the other side of hers and there were cloths and tools spread out within easy reach for both girls. Kitty had just happened to get down here first this morning. The competition was in the next few days and she wanted to make sure that the bikes were in prime condition for it.

She had just changed the oil in her bike, so she probably had a few dirty smudges on her cheeks somewhere. She wasn't really focused on that, though. She just wanted to make sure that there was nothing that could go wrong with her bike and get her in trouble during the battle.

And it was a battle. There were still a lot of men that didn't think girls had what it took to be bike racers, and Kitty took great pleasure in proving them wrong time and time again.

She did have some concern, though, because of the mutants being kidnapped and Brenna getting jumped. She didn't like any of that at all. However, she and Tam would be together, so they should be safe.

It didn't stop her from wondering if they should also get someone else to go with them, too.

For the second evening in a row, Kitty was out at the shooting range. It was where she had spent a great deal of time since dismissing her computer science class yesterday. No one had come near her since she had been out here and that was a surprise.

To be honest, she was no longer angry about yesterday's pranks -- especially since Rachel had said she'd try to find out who was responsible and Doug had volunteered to help put the keyboards back to their original condition. No, it wasn't the pranks that had her out here again. She wasn't exactly sure why she was so wound up. The news was probably a part of it. The seeing kids come here for a few days and then deciding to head to Genosha didn't help her mood much.

What could Genosha offer them that was so much better than staying here? It upset her to see so many people decide to head out to Genosha and Magneto. So far, none of the kids she kept a clse eye on had decided to leave. For that she was grateful.

She squeezed the trigger again and watched in satisfaction as her bullet hit the desired part of the target. This was helping her tension, but it wasn't making it go completely away. It was about time for another of her and Tamsin's "special" events. The advertisement for the bike derby was probably the perfect thing for them. It would let her kill off tension again, while enjoying that rush that comes from the excitement of the stunt.

She frowned a little bit, wondering if she should talk to Andrew ahead of time about it? What was the likelihood that he'd just come across the event on TV and recognize them?

Thinking of Andrew caused her to smile. She had to admit it was more than a crush that she had for Andrew and wondered if it would be possible one day for him to feel the same way? Their date had been really nice and she had enjoyed spending time with him. In fact, she'd like to spend more time with him.

Even though he was one of the main benefactors of the school, and he did like to keep tabs on its well being, every time he made of these visits, he always, somehow or another, wound up tinkering with some piece of technology. It was the arrogant ass in him that made him want to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. Needless to say, he drove everyone else nuts when this happened.

Tonight he was upgrading their security systems with a modified version of Jarvis. This version didn't have that lovably annoying British accent, nor did it have much of a personality. The X-Men had different needs from Tony Stark, and they didn't need a constant, snarky companion monitoring their security.

Then it would just have to be replaced again, after Logan stabbed it to death.

Shaking that image from his head with a laugh, Tony keyed a string of commands into the terminal he was working at and began rebooting the system. Now to see how this baby worked her first time around.

Home.

She never remembered how much she missed it until she left for a while. Ororo Munroe stood in the grand entryway of the Xavier Institute and just looked around for a few moments. It looked so much like it had before the explosion that she almost expected the Professor to come wheeling down the hall at any moment.

It didn't hurt to think about the professor and the others as much anymore. She'd dealt with her grief, and if there had been a few avalanches or surprise cloudbursts in the areas she'd been in recently, she'd at least made certain they happened in unpopulated areas.

And now she was home. Time to see who was here, who was new, and who was gone again.

It was good to be home.

[Open to any and all. Who wants to welcome Ororo home?]

Though she had a room all to herself, she didn't like it. Well, she didn't like being cooped up in it. Not when there were so many noises around her, people laughing, people pacing the length of their rooms, people reciting lines from plays or stories or whatever over and over again, trying to memorize them.

Quite frankly, it was enough to drive her a bit nuts.

So she had settled into one of the sofas in the rec. room, her guitar set on her lap. Quietly, she picked at the strings, playing something easy and nothing in particular at all. She had things on her mind. A lot of things, really, and that was just a bit too much. She didn't like to think, not when it left her this damn confused. And curious. Oh, she was curious.

What was that they said about cats and curiosity, and why they don't mix?

The news stations were replaying the interview with Magneto on Genosha and finally, Kitty had had more than enough of it.

Rolling her motorcycle out of the garage, she pulled on her helmet and started it up. She just had to get out for a little while -- away from the news and the memories of everything that had happened over the last year. Away from the whole discussion on the news about humans versus mutants.

When she was on her bike, taking the curves and hills at ever-increasing speed, there was no war, no fighting. There wasn't any such things as humans or mutants. There was just her and the road.

After about an hour, maybe a little more, Kitty pulled back into the garage. She turned off her bike and sat there in silence for a long moment, relishing in the adrenaline racing through her.