#thenamesrogue

@thenamesrogue

Erik stood in place the metal shifting and shaping in front of him.   Pieces flew and joined together.  Some melded into a seamless whole.  Other parts left free for maintenance down the road.   He was good, but time truly the master of all.  It and use would cause decay of even his work.   So creating possible access points a necessity.

He’d been working with an an architect, their skills blending together to help with the expansion.   Having built an technologically advanced city before Erik slipped easily into this role.   It made him miss those earnest days with a fierce longing.   Such hope he held then.

Alec made his way through the restaurant, sharp eyes cataloging every detail as he went. He’d heard a rumor that Osborn’s primary aide -- among other things, apparently -- frequented this particular venue. Something about the music, or some such frivolity. He paused a moment, considering. It wasn’t half bad, actually. Perhaps he would find himself here more often in the future, once he’d gotten himself more established. For the time being, he had connections to make, and Osborn’s right hand woman would be an excellent connection indeed. Finally he spotted her, sitting at a table in the rear of the place. He signaled the waiter he’d bribed earlier, indicating the table next to hers.

Mission 3 Team: @savagescholar, @thenamesrogue, @moveslikelightning, @wanda-thescarletwitch, @dahliahsiao, @ravenmystiqued Starting Location: Jean Grey School

Rogue had recommended that they hold a press conference. Matters were getting out of hand with the bombing, disappearances, protests, and all the other anti-mutant activity. This Senator Creed character made Dr. Henry McCoy especially uncomfortable. As the saying went, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. The founding and former member of the X-Men had been dealing with these issues for most of his life. Even before he was blue and furry, his mutation was evident and the subject of bullying.

Quite crowd had gathered to hear them speak. All the major and local news outlets were there: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Daily Bugle, New York Times. Hank was pleased that so many had shown up to hear what they had to say, but he was even more pleased with those who had chosen to stand beside them in support. Wanda and Pietro had kindly accepted to appear when Rogue reached out to them. Dahlia was there to show support of a non-mutant human as well as for… additional security. Even Raven had shown up, after much convincing from Beast and her daughter. They would show the world that mutants would not submit to tyranny and simply die out. Mutants were few these days, but they were strong together.  

The super scientist stood in the mirror and adjust with a nod to ed his tie. In preparation for the press conference, he had finally found the time to trim his hair and beard. With a nod to the group gathered with him, they started their procession onto the stage. He heard a number of audible gasps as he walked out and stood at the podium. Hank had expected this. After having not appeared in public for four years, it may come to the surprise of the media that he was still alive.

“Thank you all for attending this conference today. As the majority of you likely recognize, I am Dr. Henry McCoy, formerly of the X-Men,” the blue gentleman began. He motioned to the group of allies standing behind him. “My compatriots and I come before you all today, not as X-Men or as Avengers, but as mutants and those that stand in solidarity with them.” Hank shot Dahlia a glance, a faint smile creeping across his face. “It may surprise some to discover that mutant humans in fact remain a minority on this planet. We number fewer than two hundred in total. As is the case with many minorities, we have often faced persecution in the past. Today is no different. We are constantly threatened with bodily harm and the infringement of our human rights,” he concluded, giving slight pause.

Kitty was enjoying a quiet moment in her office. These moments didn’t happen all that often so she treated herself to an extra strong coffee and a donut she had managed to sneak out of the kitchen earlier. She sat on the window seat and watched some of the kids play basketball outside. The game had started with the rule of no powers allowed but that rule hadn’t lasted long. It never did. Kitty could remember when she was a student and playing similar games. She smiled as she watched the game unfold and the kids whooped and hollered at each other, clearly enjoying themselves despite the rule breaking.

It was almost like the threat of HOPE wasn’t hanging over them. It was like a normal day at a not-so-normal school and the students and their teachers only had to worry about mid-terms and grades. Being mutant meant you always had a target on your back, or at least that’s how Kitty felt and it made her mad. Surely society was done with this bullshit by now. Apparently not.

There was a knock at her door and she called out for the person to come in. She didn’t move from her window seat, not yet. She wanted to enjoy the students’ fun for a little longer before facing whatever was coming her way next.

She turned to face her visitor and she grinned at the sight of her. “Rogue,” she said warmly as she put her coffee down and wiped her fingers clean on her trouser leg of any remaining donut crumbs. She quickly wiped her face with her hand too. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” She asked. “Can I get you a coffee or is this just a quick visit?”

As usual, The Purifiers were planning the attacks after dark.

Ever since the the mutant serum situation a few months back, Kitty had kept an eye and ear open for all communications within the known anti-mutant organizations. In her heart, Kitty truly believed mutants could and should live as part of the rest of humankind - but that didn't mean she wasn't going to be cautious.

And so she dug deep into the dark abysses of the Internet, scouring forums and decrypting files. One word kept emerging in her searches: Morlocks.

She had encountered them before - a group of mutants who chose to live deep underground in New York, believing they could never coexist with other humans. Some of them were pretty disturbed and twisted, but most were just frightened. They functioned like a cross between a street gang and a nomadic tribe, but unless they were provoked, they always kept to themselves.

The anti-mutant group who called themselves the Purifiers had discovered the Morlocks, and their tunnels. And if Kitty understood their messages correctly, they were planning an attack.

Kitty knew the Morlocks resented the X-Men, but she couldn't stand idly by if she could stop a group of misguided fanatics from killing her fellow mutants. So instead of gathering teammates for a large mission, she chose one fellow X-Man that she knew she could trust to help her out.

Rogue had listened in horror as Kitty told her everything she had found out about the Purifiers' plans. They left the School silently after nightfall, only leaving a small note on Kitty desk saying they would mostly likely be gone for several hours. Kitty hoped that was true.

They caught the eight o'clock train from Westchester to Manhattan. 

"We'll get off at Grand Central Station," Kitty whispered to Rogue, making her way towards the back of the grimy train car, "We can access the tunnels from the subway platform underneath it."

The guitar gradually slid from his hand, his anger simmering like a boiling kettle. There had been rumours, snippets of small talk that spread amongst the performers, supplied by a spineless few seeking to sow seeds of discontent. Rumours, baseless facts. He had no way of knowing if such chattering held any merit, if his concerns regarding the murmured details were well placed. Regardless, what Logan heard along the grapevine did not sit well with him, and like a child taking issue with something they didn’t favour, he confronted those at the heart of the gossip.

“Somethin’ you been meanin’ to share with me, Rogue?” His voice was straining civility, deigning to keep a level head even as he felt his fingers tighten around the neck of the guitar. To say he didn’t have feelings for the band’s most valued co-worker would be a blatant lie, a confession he was poor at keeping a secret. Logan was always the sort of man who wore his heart on his sleeve. “Somethin’ involving Loki, yah?” Initially, after the band reformed, he didn’t mind relinquishing his position as frontman for the group to Loki. That lasted for about the same length of time as the first wave of rumours began to circulate.

[Message from Avengers HQ]

[To: Rogue & Beast]

Intrigued by the fact that the Cosmic Cube known as the Tesseract had been used for teleportation, Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. directed its various sensory instruments towards the location of the portal’s mouth after it had collapsed. Evidence was found of unidentified scalars (tentatively called “tesserons”) forming a precise ring that corresponds to the widest observed circumference of the portal.

Background

Macroscopic observations indicate that the Tesseract’s power was used as a stabilizing shell holding open the event horizons of an achronal space-like interval of unknown (possibly arbitrary) length, creating a Lorentzian traversable wormhole. These observations, combined with the quantum-scale evidence, suggest that the Tesseract was able to create Planck-length excitations of a heretofore unobserved quantum field in order to produce negative-mass exotic matter. This means that the energy from Cosmic Cubes is the 4-dimensional manifestation of hyperspacial physical processes normally undetectable in our worldbrane.

If this is true, it indicates that what we consider to be the ‘fundamental laws of physics’ are merely excitations caused by extradimensional forces and that they can be changed. However, before dedicating anything to further research, Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. has requested on-site sample analysis from a port town international Intelligence indicates was also once witness to a wormhole 70 years ago: Dieppe, France.   

Dieppe Raid

At 5 a.m. on August 19, 1942, over 6,000 Allied soldiers participated in the catastrophic Dieppe Raid, ending in almost 60% of the force being killed, wounded or captured. None of the objectives of this attempted surprise attack were met; instead, the attackers were themselves surprised by an utterly unanticipated counterstrike from German defense forces. Shell-shocked witnesses described several variations of the same story: German soldiers kept on coming as if from the fog itself.

The idea that the Tesseract had been used to open a portal at Dieppe’s chert beach came about shortly after initial analyses of the cube’s power, which matched up with qualitative electronic intelligence gathered by the international team tasked with the ‘Enigma Pinch’ operation, but there had never been any way to trace its use as such before now.

 Computational models of the “tesserons” show that they are unable to dissipate in our universe; thus this distinctive ring pattern should be detectable at the Dieppe portal’s Ground Zero. Finding Ground Zero would be an arduous trial-and-error process for someone without intimate knowledge of the battlefield layout.

Luckily, The Avengers have the Winter Soldier. Due to the loss of Steve Rogers, fellow Avenger Rogue has been requested to accompany Winter Soldier to Dieppe with him.

Mission:

Travel to Dieppe, France. Using what can be recalled of the movement of German forces, identify best possible locations for the portal to have been. Use provided portable technology to scan these areas for tesserons and report any anomalies. Use caution to remain undetectable as it is unknown if other organizations have yet reached the same conclusions as Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S.