Summary:
June 02, 2014: Blink meets up with Nocturne regarding some shady figures that had tried to hunt her down. (Mild language.)
Xavier's
Y'know. The big, well-known, very frequently destroyed Institute. Yeah, that one.
Characters
![width="100px"](http://comux.wdfiles.com/local--resized-images//width="100px"/medium.jpg)
NPCs
- Bamfs
Mood Music:
None
It's turning out to be a nice day, if not a bit on the muggy side. Most of the cafeteria currently cleared out, though in place of lots of different faces there's now a whole bunch of little blue ones. And one notably larger one.
"Spatulaaa!"
A wrapped peppermint gets launched across the mostly empty room only to get snagged out of the air by a tiny -Bamf!- as one of the little creatures nabs it and spikes it down onto a table. Or tries to. Instead it lands into one of Talia's hands, darting out to catch the fallen candy before she snags the falling Bamf with her tail. "Guys, chill out! It's a nice day, go play outside!
Another -Bamf!- puts the caught critter onto the top of her head, peeeering down at the Wagnerette with a big grin. "Tee-Jaaaaay."
"Yes, I'm glad that you know my name," she sighs while plucking the Bamf by the scruff of the neck and setting him down onto the table. "Could you guys give me ten minutes here, seriously?"
*
*BLINK!*
There's that purple burst of energy and a familiar, magenta-skinned mutant flips through the portal to land lightly on the terrace outside the cafeteria of the huge stone residence. Blink takes a moment to get her bearings, still adjusting to this new world, before she spies a blue figure beyond the glass doors.
Light steps take her to doors and she yanks one open, passing within. When it turns out the blue smudge through the glass is, indeed, Talia and not Kurt, the Exile grins, though there remains a line of tension in her body.
"Okay," she asks, staring at TJ's unusual cap. "Who's your friend?"
*
Right as Teej is setting the errant Mini-Me of Kurt's aside she turns in the direction of the voiced question, as does her one companion. Two blank yellow-eyed stares follow, though the bigger of the two quickly turns into a smile. "Okay, wasn't a dream."
Pint-sized's response is merely "Ooooo…"
"So..long story? I'm not sure I understand the whole thing, myself. They're pieces of Nightcrawler, of a fashion. We have an as of yet undetermined amount of them-"
-Bamf!-
"-occupying the grounds," she continues while one suddenly appears on her left shoulder, peering at the curious purple lady that's come to join them all. "They're kinda like teleporting ferrets, smart critters that get into everything and ..uh..enjoy their stiff drinks," she finishes with a goofy smile while deliberately side-stepping the W-Word.
"How's your first morning in the Peaceful Reality?"
*
Clarice peers at the blue critter her friend sits down, and then wrinkles her nose and waves her hand in front of her to dissipate the sulfur when he bamfs back onto TJ's shoulder. "Eventful," she replies to the question, though she's still watching the Bamf, her head canted curiously. It's enough, really, to almost distract her from her whole reason for blinking back here so quickly in the first place. "I popped back down into New York. Wanted to get a feel for the place." Her expression grows more serious and she switches her attention from Nightcrawler's mini-me to his alternate-reality daughter. "We have a problem."
She reaches into her jacket and pulls out a syringe, capped, but filled with a blue liquid. "A couple of goons were stalking me. I think they intended to use this on me."
*
As soon as 'we have a problem' hits Talia grins slightly, though this time it's largely lacking in humor. "Only you… Magnet for trouble, girl."
The syringe, though…
Immediately her voice drops in an "Oh, no…" Thank goodness it's capped, at least. A moment of staring at it has the Bamf reaching a stubby hand out to touch it, to which Teej quickly frowns and swats his hand away with her tail. "No touch." Then back to Clarice, "Are you okay? We should get that to McCoy, he could try to figure out what it is. With any luck that big ol' brain of his might also give us an idea of where it came from. Did you get anything else from the goons, anything that might identify them..?"
So much for perma-vacation. On the upside, half of the Exiles' base team now has some more trouble to pursue!
*
There's a subtle shift in Clarice's stance, a kind of pulling back, as TJ mentions McCoy. After all, unlike all the rest of them, her version of McCoy was… nightmarish is too tame a word. Still, in most any other reality they've been to? "Yeah," she says, pulling the syringe back away from the Bamf, herself. "It's cyanide-based," she says. "That's all I know. But, they were definitely stalking me." Because, yes. Magnet for trouble. That's her.
She inhales in that way she does when she's thinking furiously. "They were a pair of guys some some outfit called Hydra — at least, they were according to the guy I met who seemed to know them. He said Hydra's not know for 'going after mutants', but there was no question they were going after me."
*
It's noticed, too. Talia's spent enough time around Clarice to recognize some of the tells she has. It's enough for blue shoulders to hang slightly, easy enough for her to forget the past histories of former teammates. Trying a different tactic, she encourages "The science team here can figure it out. Some of the brightest minds on the planet."
Though, to be stalking a teleporter..? Sure, the idea of finding a way to convert teleportation into a manufactured device would drastically change civilization, and the first company to patent and produce such devices in large scale…
"Oookay, yeah, that's a bigger problem. Wait - guy you met? Did you come across one of those randomly appearing hero sorts I mentioned?" Hopefully. As opposed to another bad guy. They're common enough, themselves. "From what I've seen along the way Hydra is an established organization, we'd be smart to bring in some extra muscle before figuring out our first move."
*
"I think so," Blink says, answering the first set of questions first. "He was all rooftop skulky and covered in a weird circuitry pattern that I almost mistook for a Vi-Lock thing." But, it wasn't. Her expression is still tight, however. "I want to know what this stuff is. 'Cause it doesn't look like a great vacation mixer, I gotta say."
*
"Not if it's cyanide-based," Talia agrees in a lower tone. The ShoulderBamf himself looks grim, quickly nodding in agreement regardless if he fully understands the situation. "That's not any sort of vacation I'd want to take. I'd also like to know what they plan on doing with the stuff. We should ask around in M-Town, see if there's any rumors of people going missing. Could be this isn't an isolated situation. Heck, you only just -got- here a few hours ago, how would they have known to target -you?- Unless..they somehow know about you getting dropped off here…"
Too many variables.
A three-fingered hand reaches up to rub the side of her face. The Bamf mimics this by doing the same with his hand to the other side of her face. He's helping! "Thanks for shaking the dust off of the woodwork around here, Clare. You probably shouldn't be out on your own for a while if it can be helped."
*
"I was in downtown Manhattan," Blink tells her friend, now. Her head tilts back and forth in a consessionary manner. "Pretty far out from Mutant Town. My guess is they weren't after me specifically, but after a mutant they could test this shit on." She gives a mild shrug. "I'm purple in a sea of not. You know how it goes." The blue girl would, if anyone would. Her nose wrinkles, however. "You know I don't like being cooped up."
*
Clarice shakes her head. "No," she agrees. "We have to ask around." She's just not willing to stay cooped up at 'the resort'. She's never done the sitting on her ass thing well. "M-town's as good a place to start as any." She glances between her, the bamf, back again, and then the bamf. A hand flashes out and she tweaks its nose gently, but very quickly, since it's staring at her, before she lets her hand return to her hip. Indeed, she behaves as if she hadn't moved at all — save that her green eyes wrinkle just a little at the edges to suggest subtle amusement. "If these jerks are looking to test this crap, there's no way in hell I'll be the only one."
*
"I know how to play the game, Teej," Blink says dryly, offering a wry smile. No, she won't be reckless… much. She suppresses a chuckle at the bamf's surprise, however. "But, I haven't had a chance to tell anyone but you," she says now, tucking the syringe back away — unwilling to give it up until she really knows to whom she's giving it. She's been experimented on too much in her life to be free with such things, no matter how much she trusts her teammate. These X-Men, whom she hasn't really met, aren't her X-Men. "I… ported the bodies away and came right back." Which probably suggests things didn't go well for the Hydra guys. Indeed, her eyes are a little tight, a little angry around the edges as she says that, though her tone remains fairly even.
*
"I'm not trying to say that you don't. I'm trying to remind you that you've got support," Talia offers with a soft smile. "If you were a slouch the Tallus wouldn't have spent so much time on your arm. I'm just glad to see you again, Clare. Different situation, same process. We've all done this dance before."
When she finds out about what became of the Hydra goons she's not entirely certain of how to act. On one hand they won't be a problem again. On the other hand… 'Bodies.' That implies 'no longer living,' as in 'cannot be questioned.' It brings about an expression that's both sad and disapproving, though more of the outcome than at the actions of her former team leader. "We'll work with what we've got," she says in a lower tone, not wanting to accept the truth but doing so all the same. It's too late to do anything else about it now.
*
Blink catches TJ's look. "I didn't kill them, Teej," she says, a little reproachfully, perhaps. Indeed, she's had great difficulty killing since she returned from The Mission She Refuses To Speak Of so many months ago… well, months ago for her. "The technoguy did. Aspect. I have an email address for him, but that's it." She gives a wry smile. "It's not like he has any easy way to contact me." She doesn't have a cell phone or anything, yet. She sighs. "I just didn't want anyone tracking the bodies back here. So, I 'moved' them." I.e. she ported them into that nothingness she sometimes does. "He seemed to know an awful lot about them, though."
*
"Then we've got no other leads but to follow up with someone that freely kills others," Talia adds with a heavy breath. Still, better than the thought of Blink having killed them! "Definitely going to get some more of us in on this, just a bad situation all around. We might be able to dig up some more info on this mysterious stranger of yours, too." Frankly, she's glad that this guy can't easily contact Clarice in return! "No, you made the right call. There may still be some clues left to find with them. Before we do anything else though, we need to get you a communicator."
*
Clarice has done this dance before, too. And in direr circumstances than this. So, she nods, inhales a deep breath, and squares her shoulders. "Yeah. I guess it's time to meet the family," so to speak. A wry smile purposely clears into a broader one. "This should be fun."
She has a very odd definition of fun.
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