Beyond Evolution

The crack in the barrier had reverberated across worlds. It sent aftershocks through the hell dimensions, rattling chains and shaking loose stones. Most of them ignored it, certain their isolation would protect them from harm even if the human world fell. Some placed bets on who would be left standing when it was all over. Some prepared to fight for their own survival if the Elder Gods came for them next. But some had been watching and waiting, and now they moved.

N'kar the Betrayer appeared on the school grounds from a portal of fire, his horned head wreathed in flames. He stood a head and shoulders taller than the tallest man, his body broad and covered in skin that looked more like cracked stone, his hands massive and clawed. Not just a demon, but a hell lord, a wielder of powerful dark magic. Behind him were his priestesses, twelve of them, once human but now twisted by decades of dark magic and service to a hell dimension. They had no real loyalty to the Elder Gods, but N'kar craved destruction, and there would never be worse destruction than the Elder Gods set loose on the world. They needed to be a part of it.

The grounds of the school were already torn apart, turned-up earth slick with blood. Smoke and dust rose from parts of the building that had been reduced to rubble in an instant. The ground was littered with bodies -- most of them Cthon's human followers, which was of no concern to the Elder God himself, they had always been expendable. A means to an end to keep Earth's fighters busy, nothing more. Their numbers had dwindled to a pitiful few, and Yog-Sothoth's monsters were spawning slower and dying faster. But that didn't mean the tide was turning in the school's favor. The Elder Gods had never truly needed any help from lesser creatures.

At least no more of them had come through the opening in the barrier. There were more still waiting, gnashing teeth and snarling in the darkness on the other side, but their massive bodies crushed against the barrier and couldn't fit through. The crack wasn't big enough for them yet.

(Open to fighters!)

Pavel’s powers growing had been troubling Vassily. Not that he let his (now extremely) tall friend know that. He had enough on his mind already, and it had taken a lot for him to accept the new reality around them. Vassily tried to make things as normal as possible, even if he fretted internally, wondering when Pavel would be too tall for a bed (he was already hanging over the edges), too big to get through a doorway, possibly his powers even forcing him outside. Vassily would love him regardless, even if he was the size of a mountain. But knowing that he would love him was the easiest part of it all. Figuring out the practical application of it was where the trouble would come in.

He hadn’t told Pavel what lay ahead of them, in part because he didn’t actually know. He was capable of knowing, and he should know, but he hadn’t been looking into his friend’s future, ever since the changes had started. He had done, at first, but as time stretched out further he found himself blocking it off instead of venturing further. He didn’t want to know how long it would be until things were righted again. He wanted to have hope that he’d have Pavel back, fitting rightly in his arms, sooner rather than later. He’d thought after seeing their deaths that there wasn’t any vision he would be afraid of. But he and Pavel being alive while being unable to be together was worse.

He couldn’t stay that way forever, though. He needed to know. Pavel needed to know. And the school needed to know what was coming for them, and when (if?) it would end. So he’d gone into Pavel’s room and situated himself on the bed, his back against the wall, cross-legged. He took in a breath and let it out slowly, sinking into his own mind and picking up on the first vision flitting by. It was like hopping into a current; the trick was riding along it without getting pulled under. Unfortunately for him, the world had other plans for him. He’d only been in his trance for a few minutes, when something started pulling at him, something deep and dark and important. He turned to look at it, and it swallowed him whole.

His eyes were still open, he was still resting back against the wall, but other than that he was blank and lifeless. Unfortunately for his lover, he wasn’t snapping back out of it.

(Pavel/Medlabs!)

Midday, multiple portals are going to open up and a great deal more of the tentacle monsters come out than came out originally. Along with them are ten of THESE things, who seem to be the ones in charge. They are capable of paralyzing anyone that meets their eyes, summoning elements, and forcing the opposite side to fight each other instead of the bad guys. Most dangerously though, they also have the capacity to use their central eye to project a field that cancels the effects of all mutant abilities within a cone of 150 feet in length around them.

There will be a post going up soon for non-team members to talk on, but the entries there don’t count towards activity. On that note, keep in mind that only posts happening before midnight will count for activity this month (that's why this is going up so early!).

Enjoy!

“I do.”

Luke had felt like he’d become unattached from the real world all day. Yesterday too. All month, if he was honest. It wasn’t that he felt disconnected from what was going on, it was a more surreal feeling than that, a wonderful feeling, like he no longer had to hold both hands on the steering wheel to keep his life on track because some great unseen hand had gently taken him in its grip to usher him on towards his destiny. This was the moment his whole life had been leading to. The exact place in space and time he was supposed to be. He’d felt like he was drifting on clouds.

And now he was standing in a perfectly pressed suit on his precious front lawn at the school, holding the hands of the love of his life as they declared their commitment to each other in front of all the people they cared about most. Everyone was here, both their families seated along the front row, their mothers who’d been worryingly thick as thieves since being introduced, Luke’s brothers and their partners, both their dads, a sprinkle of aunts and cousins. Backing them up were the hordes of Xavier’s School inhabitants. Linus and Luke had invited everyone and most of them had shown up. It made his breath short to glance out at their audience and know that they weren’t gathered here for a memorial this time. This was a happy occasion. The best.

There were flowers everywhere, some grown by Luke himself, others encouraged into bloom by helpful plant manipulators. Feathers of pink blossom floated on the air. It was a beautiful day too, thanks to further intervention from atmokinetics, rendering the sky bright and warm and summery in defiance of the month. Kurt stood before them, having graciously agreed to officiate for them. Paige was at his side, with strict instructions to catch him if he fainted. It was perfect. Everything was perfect.

But it all paled in comparison with the man before him. There had been so many times in Luke’s life when he’d never believed he could be happy. Never believed he deserved such a thing. He spent half his life waiting to die, then the next half wishing he had. And then he’d met Linus Sinker and in an instant, everything had changed. Linus made sense of it all, put all his broken parts back in their proper places, and now they could stand up in front of everyone they knew and say this is all we need, this is our everything.

Their vows had passed between them like a dream made real, and Luke felt a bubble of laughter spill from his throat into the air, too happy to hold it in. He needed to say those two words again.

“Forever, always, I do.” Luke squeezed Linus’s hands, giddy. They were about to be pronounced as husband and husband, and everything they’d been through, together and before, shrank away under the light of this one idyllic moment.

[ Rapid fire! Wait for Linus to tag first though, obv. :D There’s food and music both outside and inside for the rest of the day, and the summery weather will last into the night. <3 ]

After the month they'd had, Xavier's deserved a day or two when nothing went wrong. No rats in the walls, no blobs oozing through the hallways. No shirime popping out to sexually harass anyone. Nothing pumpkin-flavored that wasn't supposed to be that way. Just a couple of nice, normal days where everyone could have a good time and enjoy the Halloween season before it was over.

And finally, this weekend the universe was going to provide.

The Student Council's efforts paid off in a perfect Halloween Dance, just the right mix of spooky and cute, costumes strongly encouraged. A few team members were on duty throughout the night, keeping an eye out for trouble, but for once there wasn't any. Maybe an unsuccessful attempt to spike the punch. The Creepers' Ball the next night had plenty of trouble, Yana's imps saw to that -- but it was all the fun kind, anyone trying to cause the not-fun kind would be tossed right back out of Limbo. And the Samhain circle, both the coven's private ritual and the celebration open to all, was all celebration with no uninvited guests. For this weekend at least, everything was actually going the way it was supposed to.

(Open to everyone!)

Over a densely populated area of Westchester County, far from the facility the X-Men had infiltrated but dangerously close to the school, a contingency plan was being put into play. The attack on the facility hadn’t been entirely unexpected; the program’s founders had considered everything, every worst case scenario they could come up with, and they had known that if an attack came it would come from Charles Xavier and his X-Men. The school had enjoyed a relative degree of safety so far, it was simply too public to ever be targeted, but there were plans in place to deal with it and the teams it housed if they ever directly threatened the program. And now they had. A single team could be dealt with at the site along with their mutant subjects, but there had never been just one team at Xavier’s -- the arrival of another highly-trained team could turn the tide in their favor, and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. Nobody else could be allowed to leave the school grounds.

A direct attack on the school was still out of the question, but there were other ways.

Downtown, the clouds of aerosolized Kick were almost invisible as they drifted through the city. People breathed them in without even knowing. It only took a moment for the mutants in the crowd to begin feeling its effects, like amphetamines coursing through their veins, their abilities heightened beyond what they’d ever been capable of before. The slightest telepathic push was enough to tip them over into violence. From the safety of a government helicopter circling overhead, a psion gave them that push and more. Xavier’s. It was all they could think about, getting to the school and wreaking havoc, every other impulse overpowered by that one need. Once it was in their heads, there was no forgetting it. One by one they turned, on foot, in the air, teleporting, whatever would get them to the school fastest.

Alarms sounded as the mob of people reached the school’s front gate and tore through it, shrugging off whatever damage the security systems were able to do along the way. They didn’t feel the pain, or care about it. All they cared about was reaching the people inside and tearing them to pieces.

Henry Gyrich smiled tightly as the report came in. That ought to keep them busy.

((School attack thread! Mutants of all kinds are attacking the school, but it's going to get around pretty quick (aka: feel free to already know in your tags!) that they're not under their own control so try not to kill them! Mutants will also be making it hard to get into the Danger Room (blocks of all kinds, cybers making its programming weird, etc), so teams try and protect the kids since they have no protection right now!))

It came over cloudy without warning and against all the forecasts, a great shadow cast over the city of New York that had heads turning up in confusion, sunglasses pulled from the bridges of noses and phones being lowered from ears. Was it going to rain? Storm? Did they need to change their plans for the day? If the heavens opened and a sudden downpour hit the state then it could ruin the holiday.

But it wasn’t really a cloud and it wasn’t just New York City, it was happening all across the world and as any device with a camera was instantly pointed skyward when people realised what it was they were seeing news stations in every country, on every continent, started getting the alerts in floods and waves. They were ships. Huge dark ships bearing down on major cities to settle in the sky, black and ominous and miles wide. Screams filled the air as those people not rooted to the spot started to panic and bolt in every direction, running for cover, taking shelter in any building that wasn’t closed for the holiday.

Even before every show and movie was interrupted by an emergency news broadcast an announcement went through the halls of Xavier’s School for the Gifted, sweeping across the network as well: they were going into lockdown, the school’s defence system was going on high alert, no one was to leave the grounds for their own protection, they should all be ready to head for the Danger Room at any moment. Seconds later they would understand why, if they didn’t look out the closest window and see the ship over the city they only had to turn on a TV or a radio or glance at their social media feeds.

Earth wasn’t just under attack. Earth was being invaded.

[ OPEN FOR REACTIONS ]
PLEASE SEE OOC TO FOLLOW BEFORE TAGGING IN

The oppressive feeling of the new spirits around the school had been getting heavier and heavier of late. Heavy enough and angry enough that they'd started manifesting physically, leaving that ectoplasm stuff for DG and Kit to suss out. She'd told a few of them to go away, but it hadn't been a forceful command and they'd wanted to stick around. They had business here, with someone in particular; she could only imagine that there were suspects in the double-digits that might have a spectre wanting them to fall off a cliff, considering people's backgrounds and former occupations here. So if they were giving someone a few bad dreams and otherwise leaving things alone, what business was it of hers? They seemed to be giving the death-speakers a careful berth after the ectoplasm incident anyway.

She was bored after dinner, not wanting to do homework or muck around on her phone or any of the normal distractions that she usually found acceptable. And the conversation with Mikey had gotten under her skin a little, despite her starting it, for reasons that she didn't fully understand or want to try to. So when a ghost came (metaphorically) knocking at her window, she opted to see what it wanted. It just seemed like the best choice, at the time.

She didn't even question when the ghost in question wanted her to come outside, to the woods, so that it could tell her its secret there. She just tugged on a hoodie and made her way out there, trudging over the grass and idly thinking that summer could not come too soon in this place. The woods at night didn't bother her, and it wasn't as though ghosts had a habit of picking not-spooky areas to make themselves known anyway.

When she came back from the forest's edge a little while later, she looked different. Her powers had kicked in, leaving her flesh that mottled shade of green-grey, her eyes glowing red, her hair matted and dark. The space around the school started to feel heavier and darker than normal as spirits from miles around were pulled to her. Small tremors went through the ground as the earth shifted and moved, dead hands clawing through to the surface.

It didn't take long before the first person was bitten, their eyes turning the same shade of red as the others, their body and movements reflecting the dead as well. It wouldn't take much longer to get to all the rest.

(Open! Please see OOC post before tagging!)