The gardens were a mess.

Well, not really, but if Millie convinced herself that they needed an exceeding amount of work, then she could throw herself into that and not have to think about anything else.

She'd gotten up early, almost before the sun, and gone out to the shed. She was pleased to see that the trees she'd ordered before- the trees she'd ordered had arrived. Ms. Munroe would be happy with that, too.

She spent all morning moving some of the saplings to the spots she'd already marked for their planting. Some were going against the fence, but a good portion were being scattered around the extensive grounds. The entire project would take her a long time, but she didn't care. At least she would be busy and exhausted.

She was avoiding. And she damn well knew it. She didn't want to think about what had happened. She didn't want to consider what had happened to the others while she'd been kept like a little pet inside her cell. She'd never seen one of the robots that the others had been put before, but David made sure she knew what she was missing. In as much detail as he felt he could afford. Which considering the mouth on him, was a lot of detail. And wasn't she just fucking lucky as hell that he'd decided to keep her as his pet so she wouldn't have to go through that.

Yeah. Real fucking lucky.

She started digging. The whole would need to be deep enough to secure the root ball and twice as wide to allow the roots to spread out properly. Maybe three or four feet down and three across. Not that she really needed to be that mathematically correct about it. But it helped.

The work was hard. Her muscles strained and ached, her back hurt, and sweat got into her cuts and stung like mad. Millie didn't care and in some ways didn't notice. She got focused as she usually did when working the gardens, and nothing else mattered.

Brenna didn't break down when the Blackbird landed. She didn't break down making sure everyone got to the medbay. She was still riding on endorphins from kissing Ethan and adrenaline from the escape. She'd held his hand the entire flight home, sitting near the back of the plane where the extra jump seats were, and by the time they were home she was dozing on his shoulder.


( cut for slight discussion of rape )

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? )

Who: NPC!Guards (Chuckles and Stoic), Brenna, nameless Labcoat and minions, Sarah (and introducing the Terminator wannabes)
What: Brenna getting tested
When: Afternoon
Rating: PG-13
Status: Closed
Warnings: Just the usual

She felt numb. tired. They weren't being fed but a little, enough to keep them alive, and she was definitely feeling the effects. Her head always pounded with the loss of her power and made her realize that the headaches she'd suffered from shortly before manifesting likely had some connection. She hadn't had a single headache since then, not until the past Friday when they'd been taken.

( Read more... )

((super-duper long, 1,769 words, hence the cut tag; also, uh, really bad things happen))

Brenna heard sobbing before she was fully conscious, a soft, pitiful sound coming from somewhere near her middle. Her head ached something awful, pounding hard with the beat of her heart that was suddenly going faster as she realized something wasn't right; memory was slower to return and when she finally opened her eyes she saw the reality of the situation.

( Read more... )

Brenna had always had a thing for history, she was a bit of a nerd in that respect, so a trip to the history museum actually sounded like it might be fun. Granted, she'd have to keep an eye on some of the kids, but that was okay. And she actually enjoyed it when they asked questions and she found she could answer them; maybe there was something to this teaching thing after all? She'd never really been interested in that or kids before but a lot of things had changed since she'd come to Xavier's Institute.

The place was almost echoingly empty on a Friday afternoon, there weren't any other school groups exploring but theirs. It was rather nice to basically have the place to themselves.

She ended up taking a group of kids that weren't in Ororo's classes off to view the Egyptian exhibit. “Why did they wrap the bodies up like that?” Sarah asked, all but pressing her nose up against the glass to stare in at the sarcophagus. “And what's with all the weird pictures?”

“They wrapped the bodies to preserve them, the Egyptians believed in an afterlife where they'd need their bodies just like they did in life.” Brenna stepped up alongside the girl. “The pictures are their written language, they're called hieroglyphics. Each picture represents a word or a concept, usually related to the gods in some way; the Egyptians were deeply religious and included that in their every day lives.”

“I heard they stuck hooks up the dead guys' noses to squish up the brain so they could get it out,” Luke said, making a scary face.

Sarah wrinkled up her nose at him. “You're gross, Luke.”

“He's right, though,” Brenna told her. “Either that or they cut a hole in the back of the skull but they much preferred to leave the body otherwise intact. They also removed the internal organs and put them in canopic jars,” she said, pointing to a row of ceramic jars with various tops depicting gods like jackal-headed Anubis.

She looked around to do another swift head-count and immediately noticed two of the children, one being Jubilee, missing. “You guys seen Jubes or Frankie?” The other kids looked at each other and then at her, shrugging. “Go se,” she cursed in Mandarin. “Alright, let's go see if we can't find them.”

It wasn't until she turned as Sarah's hand was forcefully jerked out of hers that she realized something was terribly wrong. Her TK blossomed in her hands, crackling blue energy that was always there below the surface, but she didn't get a chance to use it. A cold metal collar clicked into place around her neck and the TK died along with the whisper of voices that was always shimmering just out of reach.

She felt the sharp prick of a needle and the last thing she saw before she went under was Sarah's pink hair, the little girl draped over the shoulder of a man dressed in black.

~~~~~~~~~

Jubilee had sneaked away with Brenna's group rather than pay attention to the Westward Expansion exhibit. American history had always bored her to tears, especially because she didn't consider it her history; even though thousands of Chinese immigrants had worked on the rail system out west, none of them had been her ancestors and she was much more interested in cool dead bodies.

After exploring the room with the Egyptian exhibit she'd hung around by the door, arms crossed over her chest while she blew bubbles with her gum. A hand tapped on her shoulder and she turned to find no one there. When she looked out into the hallway her eyes went wide but before she had time to shout or make another move she was already slumping down under the influence of some kind of sedative.

((You can either tack your posts onto this or make your own, it doesn't really matter.))

One of the few places Brenna loved to be was in the garage, working on her Chevelle. The poor thing still looked like it had been through a minor war, at least on the outside; she was waiting on the paint job until the rest of it was in working order. For now it was primer gray and would remain so.

She had the radio on to a hard rock station as she was bent over the open hood, hands buried in the innards of the engine she had recently repaired, the V6 more than worth the effort. Her hand slipped on a bolt and she cursed. "Son of a bitch!" She pulled her hand back out and stuck the injured finger in her mouth, heedless of grease (her face was already liberally smudged anyway).

"Ah, goddamn it," she muttered, shaking her hand as if that was going to make it stop hurting.

The whole bedroom was shaking, every piece of furniture shifted several inches if not feet from their original place, and when she woke everything slammed back onto the floor. She screamed in belated fear and shock; it had been a while since she'd had nightmares bad enough that her TK came out without her intending it to. The last time had been back at the Massachusetts Academy, before Emma had helped her get a handle on her powers again.

( The attack in New York City coupled with her discussion with Ethan several nights ago had stirred things within her. )

Ethan hadn't intended to go out drinking, it had just sort of happened. He had gone out for a walk, disappearing into the nearby town for several hours after his classes were over. Really, he only needed a change of scenery, but as he passed by one of the bars, the thought of having a pint sounded really, truly appealing.

Getting into a fight with another man who was convinced that Ethan had been eyeing him, however, was not. He had been eyeing the man, to be honest, because he was attractive, in a certain rough and tumble sort of way. Only now Ethan found himself roughed and tumbled and very, very drunk. How he had managed to wind his way back home, he wasn't sure.

He was certain, unfortunately, that in his drunken haze, he had forgotten the security code for the front gates. Wincing, he leaned against the wrought iron gate and pushed the intercom button. Incessantly. "Somebody, please, please, let me in," he whined. Dammit, he was hurt and drunk, and if he was found passed out in this spot come morning, he was going to be very irate.

Brenna had always felt more comfortable with the bustle of a city around her. She'd spent several years on the streets of Chicago and developed the sixth sense required to survive, the one that told her when danger was imminent. It helped to know that she could defend herself if need be but by no means did she allow her guard to drop.

She'd stopped in at a small bistro for a quick dinner, and while she'd sat at the bar enjoying her food she'd overheard a conversation behind her. The two male participants were discussing in hushed tones the fact that there had been a slew of disappearances all over the city. She would have ignored the rest of what they said if one of them hadn't mentioned how those disappearing were mutants. The other man hushed him but she'd already heard enough to make her lose her appetite.

She listened a little longer to see if they'd mention any specific places the disappearances had happened; one spot was nearby, just a few streets over. Maybe it was stupid to go there alone, but she was curious and unafraid.

The area the man had described was fairly deserted save for a few huddled groups. Brenna used her limited telepathy to scan the minds around her, picking up on anxiety and apprehension, and several of the minds she touched were also mutant. She drifted close to one group, close enough to catch snippets of conversation, most of it about the disappearances; one girl was crying over the loss of her friends.

Brenna projected a sense of calm, and a sense that she was nonthreatening, so that she could ask questions. Based on her own history she knew groups like this were loathe to talk to outsiders, but she knew enough to present herself as a friend, or at least an ally. The girl who'd lost her friend was almost eager to tell her what had happened, how the boy had been taken almost right out from under her nose just a street over. Little by little she found that they saw it as kidnapping, because why would mutants who'd already run away from home just disappear? It didn't make any sense.

She thanked the girl for her time and went to the second location. Almost instantly she felt another presence, several in fact, and as she turned to find the source, a hand grabbed her arm and bent it behind her back at a painful angle. One wrong move and it would break.

Without much thought she lashed out, a blade of pure blue energy appearing in her free hand. She bucked her head back into her assailant's face and when they let her go, startled, she lashed out. The energy blade didn't cut but had the same effect as a tazer, stunning anything it touched. She turned again and got a telekinetic shield up a moment before several darts pierced her skin.

They were dressed all in black down to masks over their faces.

"This one's not gonna come easily," she heard one of them, a man, say. The one who'd grabbed her reached for her arm with the arm she hadn't rendered useless, and when she ducked away they lashed out again, this time with a fist, and it took her in the jaw. It rocked her head back and made stars explode in her vision. She redirected her TK again into her fists to take the assailant out.

Hands grabbed her from behind, strong enough that she had trouble breaking free. Her opponent punched her in the stomach, doubling her over, and another hit took her in the face again, splitting her lip against her teeth. She spat blood as she braced herself against the hands that held her and kicked out, taking the one who was beating her in the chest.

The one holding her took one hand away and she used the slight slack to jerk one hand free, enough to turn and use the blade again. It slammed into the man's chest, not where she'd been aiming but he towered over her in height and she'd take what she could get. Once free she knocked him and his partner back with a blast of TK and then she took off running. She ran until her lungs wanted to give out and then she kept running, all the way back to her car.

She drove back to the Institute in a daze to the point she didn't remember the journey, and she sought out Logan as soon as she got inside.