#markedmutant

[“It was a bad week in a bad month; maybe even a bad year. Hell, if I was honest with myself I’d admit it was just a bad goddamn life. And today was a particularly bad day. I had just managed to escape a call closer than a 25¢ shave, but not without cost. For once I hadn’t been the only one to bring a gun to the fight, and the bastard with the metal arm had been hitting on all sixes.

Kevlar had caught the bullet meant for my heart, but the material wasn't designed to hold up against the kinetic force of a gunshot and I had the cracked rib to prove it. Only one other bullet had hit its mark— a layer of web over the hole in my inner thigh had slowed the stream of blood down to a trickle, but experience told me the bullet was lodged in my femur and it was going to stay there for nearly a day before my body spit it out.

Still, I had been in nastier scrapes than this…none of them came to mind at the current moment, but I was sure that was the case.”]

Noir was willing to admit that, perhaps, just this once, Dollface had been right and he would have been better off keeping his heaters in their holsters. He hadn’t expected the blond to have a piece of his own. He probably should have, normally would have, but he’d been a fair bit distracted for the last few days, the P.I. on the trail of a man who was proving hard to find.

Limping across the rooftop he had taken refuge on Noir groaned as he slumped against a large air conditioning unit. Reaching up he removed his fedora and dragged his mask off, thick black hair looking a mess as it was freed from the confines of the mask. Pale skin and dark eyes were revealed as well, his cheeks and jawline covered in semi-thick scruff, the man not having taken the time to shave since he had arrived in this universe.

A mix of pain and blood loss had Peter sliding down the metal box, wincing as the movement jarred his ribs. Once he made it to the floor the thirty-six-year-old dropped his hat and mask on his lap so that he could reach into his trench coat and pull out a half-empty carton of Lucky's. Tapping the carton against the heel of his palm he slid a cigarette out and between his lips, lighting it with a strike-anywhere match from another pocket.

Breathing the smoke in deep the man let his head fall back against the air-conditioning unit with a sigh. Today had not gone as well as he'd hoped. Not only had he lost a gunfight he had made precious little progress on his search for Erik, despite having asked around. It seemed like the man kept himself to himself for the most part. He was beginning to regret running off without getting the man's address first, or at least his phone number.

Stark white hair was a common occurrence in the city: old people, ravers, and those who just really liked platinum blonde hair. But this guy was something else. The pallor of his skin was much different and he carried himself with the walk of a hunter or stalker. Yet, she could see that paranoia filled his eyes, as if he had some secret to keep. No matter. The more paranoid the better. In his rush to get wherever he was going, Erik would feel the smallest, coldest hand slip into his, gripping his ring and pinky finger so tightly as if its owner was afraid to let go. If he turned around, he would find the tear-stained face of his own daughter, dark bangs plastered to her forehead.

Sufficient time away and this new predicament of being children definitely put things into perspectives. Grudges she thought she would have held onto forever seemed like (literal) child’s play at this point. For someone like Kwannon, that was saying a lot. She’d killed for lesser grudges or even none at all; the Hand pointed her in a direction and she followed their instructions to the letter. But stuck here, with no direction and without another consciousness in her mind weighing the balance of every decision, she was left completely aimless as to what she should do next. Her thoughts immediately went to Eric. They hadn’t parted on good terms, despite her attempts to try find common ground between them. Poor attempts, to be honest, but an attempt nonetheless. It was worth another try, without the anger of seeing him again clouding her mind. A search of the mansion revealed nothing; she was going to have to take to the streets. Luckily for her, her young body had been trained for this for several years, so it didn’t very long to find her target. “We need to talk.” Kwannon dropped out of the darkness and right in front of Eric, purposefully ignorant that this wasn’t how normal people started conversations.

@markedmutant

Kurt was enjoying his new found free time as a hunter instead of as prey.

The metal bots that patrolled the city were a constant annoyance to him. He always scanned as ‘unviable’ which was not something he took lightly. If he, someone of superb health, was being told he was unfit then he wondered who else was randomly being judged unfairly.

That simply would not do.

So instead of sitting back and being upset by himself, Kurt decided to take to the streets and help clear them of these bots. So far, his favorite way to take care of a bot was to teleport its metallic head right off of its shoulders and watch it collapse as he tossed said head at another bot. It was a rather enjoyable game and he currently had a small crowd of half a dozen or so that were better at firing on each other than they were at hitting the teleporter. 

“Who is unviable now, freund?” Kurt asked the severed robot head in his hands. He twisted and threw the head as hard as he could into the chest plate of the last robot before he drew his swords.

Her palms were damp, something wet and sticky on the surface of dark concrete as she picked herself up off the ground in a daze. Last thing she could remember they were standing in the remnants of the cemetery... and Magneto was gone. Now somehow she was here in this city which looked a hell of a lot like New York... only less destroyed than she’d last seen it.  She was also apparently on her own. “Paris-? Pietro? ... Storm?”

She lifted her palm and drew on what little noise she could scrape up in the mostly empty street, the sound of her own feet dragging mostly and she hummed a broken melody to supplement. An aura of color drifted up from her palm lighting the vicinity and confirming that she was alone. As much as she wanted her team back everything else could wait. Only one thing really mattered right now- finding Magneto.

Her hand shook a little as she reached into her pocket for the now lightly crushed pack. She tipped and pulled a cigarette to her lips, using the burning light to ignite the smoke. All at once some thing wrenched back her wrist and the sent the lit cigarette tumbling to the ground. “Hey- !!” The grip was almost crushing and cold like metal even through her suit.

[̴̡̛̦̞͍̬̖̆̇̏́̌͋̐ ̷̢͇͕̝̯͙͇̈͋̏͐͐͊̈͆͒͝“̸̨̝̜͕̗̖̪̱̓̀̓̓͊S̸̮̳̩̰̭͔̏͗͑͒̅̊̃͠c̷͈̹͎͉̺̽̌̀à̵͖̐́̽̂n̸̮̤̓n̵̢̲̜̮̟͚͛͛̏͌̌͌̈́͝i̵̹͈̓̒̏̂̍͂̐̈͘n̴͉̯̱̤͂̾̋̔̀̕g̶̩̊͊̾ ̶̬͉̑ͅs̴͎̲͔̭̃͛́ṳ̴̳̃̐̽̓b̸̛̩͈͕̦͍̯̲̠̌͋̑̊̈͐̔̾͝j̷̨̛̜̖̤̤̝̤͓͂̓̈̓̇̇͠͝e̷͚͆͒̈̔̓͐͊͝͠͠c̵̡̢̻͚̤̱̆͛̊̃͊͐̓̊́̈́ṫ̵̡̘-̴̛̜͈̞̥͗͗̇͗̑̇̑̾͠ ̴̧̲̦̜̫̘͚͓̼͛̔̕͠.̶̲͙͓͆̄̋̌́͆̾́̇͝ͅ.̵̨͈͙̓͌.̵̧͎̜̥͓̍̊̀̊̊̏͐̀̕ͅ ̴̮̮̝͈̮́̓-̸̧̧̼̟̖̤͉̳͈̙͆-̷͔̯̟̹̪̫̈̊͒̂ ̷̛͉͚͆̑̆̾̕]̵̧̼̻̦̒͑̈́̏ 

Sparks spewed from it’s damaged plates in it’s chest as the distorted voice tried to force out more broken words. Not any kind of Sentinel she recognized, but one she was happy to put down all the same. “ “Do you even know how hard it is to find smokes in an apocalypse?“ It tried to sputter out more words but all she could hear was beautiful static. She soaked up like rain in the desert fired a blast directly into the open cavity of electricity. “SCAN THIS-” For a second white light swallowed the street and the sky above it, bleeding off it’s edges in a soft technicolor.

Feedback from the blast tossed her back, skidding to stop across onto the pavement, yards from the smoking husk of the robot.

@markedmutant

[“There was a chill in the air. The kind that settled in between your clothes and your skin and chilled you to the bone. Being dead the cold wasn’t a problem anymore, for us at least. Cin wasn’t happy, her spiders shivering against our skin.”]

Thankfully for the symbiote Noir was nearly at his destination. He had run into Erik not too long after the red mist descended, but they hadn’t had too much of a chance to talk. Noir had been starving and less in control of his vampiric tendencies than he would have wanted to be around the other man. The last thing he needed was to attack him in an attempt to feed and ruin things between them. 

So, Noir had made tracks, but not before figuring out that the other man had been turned into a zombie. The P.I. knew less about zombies than he did about vampires, but another trip to the NYPL solved that problem. Apparently, brains were the key to a zombie’s heart.

Noir could work with that. 

It didn’t take him too long to find a suitable donor. The man had been following a woman who had been out on her own, which was idiotic given the state of the city, but it provided him with opportunity when a man tried to corner her in an alley. The creep wasn’t hard to subdue, Noir not even bothering to pull out his piece. 

The woman ran off screaming while the vampire pinned the joe against a wall, fangs sinking into his neck. Drinking deeply Noir didn’t stop until the body stopped twitching; then he was pulling away, tongue running over red-stained lips not wanting to waste. His hunger sated the detective got down to the business he had come out here to commit. 

Five minutes later Noir was holding onto a severed head, careful not to tip it over since he’d used a handsaw to cut through the skull near the top so it could be opened like a macabre cookie jar, having been careful not to damage the brains since they were the goal. 

It took another ten minutes for him to reach Erik’s apartment building, and not knowing which door was his he didn’t bother trying to enter through the front. Instead, he landed on the wall of the building and crawled down to Erik’s window, clinging to the brick next to the window. Leaning over to look inside he knocked lightly on the glass with two knuckles. 

“It’s us, tiger, your favourite neighbourhood troublemaker.”

@markedmutant

“If you wanted to dance, all you had to do was ask!” It was a quick quip, thrown out as Noir twisted out of the way, dodging a punch from one of the looters he had come across while looking for a joint that served egg creams. They weren’t very accomplished thieves, the one not trying to boff him struggling to haul a television set out the broken display window during a blackout. Ignoring lug #2 Noir twisted and came back at lug #1 with a hard uppercut, catching him in the solar plexus so that he doubled-over gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of him. 

From behind lug #1 came the sound of crashing, Noir’s attention diverting to the sight of the tv hitting the sidewalk. It didn’t stay there for long though, his ears catching the very familiar sound of a gun being cocked and red flashed in front of his eyes. Before he even thought about it the spider spun to the side, the bullet catching the tail end of his trench coat as it cut through the air where he had just been standing. “For me? How thoughtful of you! And here I didn’t even get you anything.” The gunshots kept coming, and Noir, moving surprisingly fast for a man of his height in a heavy trenchcoat, managed to dodge every bullet thanks to enhanced reflexes and a honed spider-sense. 

[“I knew what dollface would have me do in this scenario, she’d tell me to subdue the twits, that violence wasn’t the answer. And for a moment I considered doing it her way, just webbing these two lugs up and leaving them for the coppers to find-- she’d be proud of me for that. 

Too bad lug #2 chose that moment to pull his piece on me.”]

Noir was in the air mid-flip when the rapport of a second gun joined the first, and aware that he was only so fast he reached into his trench coat with both hands. Dollface was going to read him the riot act after this. That fact didn’t stop him from withdrawing his hands as he came out of the flip, an M1917 revolver in one hand and a Colt M1911 in the other. “Here you go, boys, a gift from me to you.” Blasting off two shots both looters hit the ground at the same time Noir landed in front of them. The twits had lead in their knees, but they were still alive. Noir considered that progress towards the whole ‘non-lethal force’ Billy and Miles were always going on about.

Approaching the duo the monochrome spider kicked away the guns the two had dropped when they were shot before holstering his own guns and retrieving a Lucky from inside his trench. Rolling his mask up enough to reveal his mouth Noir lit the cigarette and took a drag before staring down at the two dips still groaning in pain. “Now, either of you geniuses know where a fella can get a half-decent egg cream around here?”

Alison emptied a heavy sigh from her chest and rubbed her palms together with an anxious kind of contemplation. Central Park didn’t have a single light on, like everywhere else, but it was quiet and blissfully not blinking itself through time or pelting her with hail at the moment. She tried to let herself enjoy the stillness even though it was unlikely to last. 

Perched on a top a rock she spread her feet and started tapping out a light beat on it’s surface. After she’d found her rhythm her voice softly followed. She didn’t know if singing to herself in the dark made her surroundings more or less eerie but it did fill her with a warmth that was always difficult to describe to others. Something like home- the idea of a place she didn’t have anymore. For once she didn’t even need to soak up the noise though, the near constant activity in the mansion had already left her with a buzz when she stepped out.

Somehow she’d managed to spend the last few night crashing with the Avengers... and they hadn’t tossed her back out onto the curb yet-? Alison didn’t plan to stick around but it was damn hard to give up hot shower showers and decent food under the circumstances. For sure they’d catch on eventually that she wasn’t even a little qualified for this disaster. She had been out trying to help, but that didn’t make her a hero. At least in the meantime she had a warm bed and whole lot of eye candy.

Her voice carried through the darkness of the park and with it she released just a little dazzle to brighten up the place, tiny flickering lights like fireflies to keep her company.