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Things at Serval Industries were fairly laid back at the moment. Though a bit tense to say the least, after all, it had only been a few weeks since Harrison was murdered, the fact that the new CEO didn't seem to care at all was a bit on the concerning side to say the least. Life just seemed to move on, and no one was doing a damn thin about it, that being in the words of a few other people around Serval Industries.

An few new people have joined the team, which has been made up of a few veterans of the team who truly knew Harrison Snow, while the newbies only really had met him when he had asked them to join the team. He died not too long after the new team had been recruited for it. There might be new people on the team, but most of them weren't new to the superhero business.

They actually ended up with 3 people who were typically associated with the X-Men. Psylocke joined the team, and she was typically an ally of the X-Men, occasionally joining them on the occasional mission whenever possible. Gambit and Rogue joined the team as well, mentioning something about a falling out with Xavier. However, they never really spoke openly about it, and it didn't seem like they would be talking about it any time soon.

The group is in the Serval Industries Headquarters at the moment, and they could end up with a mission at any moment.

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Andrew was by himself for the most part in the engineering lab area of the Serval building. Of course, he was currently working on his suit. Since it hadn't been too long since he finally had managed to get it to work, so there were likely some bugs that still needed to be worked out. It wouldn't be a good thing if some time on a mission something went haywire mechanically and went crazy, blowing up or nearly killing him.

He also had a container of cupcakes next to him. This was something he generally did, have some sort of thing of sugar foods by him when he worked, since otherwise he wouldn't exactly eat anything and it helped to keep him awake in case he decided to work through the night. "That's not right..." he muttered to himself, taking a bite of one of the cupcakes as he looked at a holographic projection of his suit.

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Harrison Snow's death had been taking a toll on Sapphire, after all, he'd sort of taken her in and helped her when she was sort of lost still. She thought of him as a father to her in a way, especially since her own family had abandoned her years ago. The fact that no one else seemed to really care about it pissed her off to no end. Why wouldn't they try to find out who had killed him? Why weren't they trying to catch a murderer? These were the questions constantly flying through her mind.

To say the least, her room wasn't exactly the place anyone else would want to be unless they were bundled up from head to toe. She was sitting in there by herself, and the room was completely frozen. The temperature was definitely well below freezing, and she preferred it that way. Not like she really trusted anyone, the closest she had ever come to trusting anyone had been Snow, but now there was no one. Sapphire wanted to be alone, no matter what, if a mission came in, she'd go off on it, but she'd never trust her team mates at all.

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Watts stood at the transparent board in the engineering lab, twiddling a dry erase marker between his fingers. Rather than scanning over the complex series of equations and rough sketches he had placed up, his attention seemed to be elsewhere. "I'm glad you're home safe, Princess," he said into his phone, pacing back and forth slightly as he talked with his youngest child, Leda. Her mother had custody of her and had moved back to England after the divorce, working on gamma radiation at some university there. He had gotten to have Leda over for Christmas and his daughter had given him a call, as requested, when she got back home to her mother safely just a few moments ago. His other child, Stephen, was still at the house for another week or so, since he was home on winter break from school where he studied forensics. "I have to go, I'm at work. Get some sleep since you couldn't catch any on the plane." He then chuckled slightly at his daughter's protests that it was just early afternoon in England - way too early for her to go to bed. "I love you too, Princess," he said, before ending the call.

Picking up his cup of coffee as he slid his phone into his pocket, Watts glanced around the lab and spotted Andrew working on his suit. He rolled his eyes slightly, still annoyed that he had to share his lab space with the bumbling baby millennial. "What's not right?" Watts asked him, taking a sip of his coffee. He had his glasses on today, preferring not to wear contacts in the lab as they were a safety hazard - but so was coffee. Watts then raised a slight eyebrow at the cupcakes. "Don't tell me it's your birthday..." he said in a bit of a deadpan tone. He hoped that wasn't the case. Birthdays for the younger generation seemed to mean demanding gifts from co-workers and singing loudly when people were trying to concentrate.

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Alannah sat in the corner on the floor, her long legs pushed against her chest. The common area/kitchen that had been provided to the members of the X-Factor, which she was so recently a part of, had an abundance of empty couches and cushioned chairs she could be sitting in, but she still preferred the hard floor. Everything in the future was so soft, so artificial; she was rarely comfortable sinking into a cushion.

The atmosphere around Serval's base had been tense for the past week, with the exception of four days ago when there had been a long period of forced good cheer for some sort of future holiday. Alannah had actually only met Harrison Snow a few times; for the most part his attention had been taken up by Serval's other projects, and she had spent most of the past few months at Serval too engaged in tasks like 'learning the language' to spend much time mingling with him. Still, he had seemed a good man, and she owed him a great deal. When the time came to get revenge for his murder, she would help. Until then, for her it was business as usual.

She pulled a book out of her bag and flipped to the first page, pausing a moment to dig up the 'English to Old Gaelic' translation guide that one of the scientists at Serval had created for her. She placed it on the floor to the side, where she would have it in the likely event that she needed it. The English language was a difficult beast to defeat, but she was feeling good about her progress; in the book she'd most recently completed, The Sun Also Rises, she'd only had to return to the guide four or five times, which she took as a sign of progress. She hadn't understood the story at all, though, and when she'd asked a Serval employee she'd gotten a long lecture about some war that didn't seem related whatsoever.

She pulled the book onto her legs and peered at the first page, sounding the words out under her breath. Reading hadn't come naturally to her, but once she'd been taught the art it had become one of her favorite things to do when there was nothing more exciting going on; she'd always loved stories, and getting better at the language everyone around her was always speaking in did not hurt, either.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged," she muttered slowly, pausing to doublecheck the meaning of 'acknowledged',"That a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

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The training dummy looked worse for wear. Bella continued her onslaught, hitting at the vital points she knew about. She glanced at the side, where her sword was perched against the wall. She needed to ensure that, should she ever be without her weapon, she would still have the upper hand. She hit the dummy quickly and mercilessly as it fumbled around and, with a kick straight to the neck, it fell down.

She picked it back up. She had gone through a number of these dummies already, but it never held to the real thing. Facing an enemy who looked at her like she was some precious little child. Both her appearance and gender made people assume she didn't know her way around the sword or gun she carried. Much to their dismay.

She had been working for Serval for roughly 2 years now. To say she enjoyed the work would be a lie. It was a job. It provided her with a roof and food and the ability to watch trashy TV in comfort. That was all. She held no real loyalty to anyone here. She appreciated some of them, but if she were to leave tomorrow she would not miss them. But here she stayed. She knew her skills were valuable.

The recent murder of the CEO troubled her. Not because she cared for the man (though if she were being honest, he wasn't as bad as the new one they got), but because they got in and did it without anyone's knowledge. And that bugged her. If they didn't have to be wary of ever being called for a mission, she'd look into the matter herself.

She dusted herself off before picking up her sword and slinging it over her shoulder. She would maybe get a coffee or something and read. She had time to kill.

Evelyn had spent sometime in her room, doing a little bit of reading she eventually decided that she wanted to get something to eat as well, she had been at Serval for the last three years or so. So far she had been enjoying it better than she was doing things solo, or even when she worked for SHIELD. Though the news of Harrison Snow's murder was really surprising and no one was really wanting to look into it at the moment was also pretty bad as well. Evelyn left her room as she started to head down the hallway and made her way towards the common area, seeing Alannah there sitting on the floor reading a book.

"What are you reading?" Evelyn asked her, as she made her way towards the fridge that was there and started to make herself something to eat, as she started to make a sandwich. Once she made her meal she walked over and sat down on the couch that was in the room looking over at her. She had struck up an odd little friendship with the girl finding her a bit interesting and also spending sometime in the training room together as well.

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He glanced over at Watts when he came over, not too sure what to really say to the man who had just gotten off the phone with his daughter. That sort of thing was a little weird, especially considering the fact that Watts called his daughter Princess. The guy never seemed like that type of person ever, as far as he knew. Andrew thought about what to really say to Watts, since he always felt like no matter what he said to the older man, he'd either be ridiculed or called an idiot or something. That was something he'd gotten a lot of at Pym Tech, except there was also the whole "Insane/Crazy" names that he was called about trying to create a shrinking suit without the famed Pym Particles.

"...I can't get the power system to work correctly, or at least for long periods of time... It short circuits after maybe half an hour, 45 minutes if I'm lucky and well, that sort of thing is not something I want to have to deal with when we are off doing something or whatever... As for the cupcakes, no, it isn't my birthday, I was craving sugar and wanted them, do you want one? Even though you get your speed through the use of that serum you still burn a lot of calories doing that probably," he said, offering the container of cupcakes to Watts.

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Sapphire wasn't too thrilled with the idea of going out and talking to everyone else, but she thought that she couldn't sit around in her personal freezer that was her room forever. She was going to get to the bottom of what happened, even if no one else did, and if it required her getting help from the others on the team, then she'd work with them. Sure, she preferred being a bit of a lone wolf, but there wasn't too many people she actually trusted, maybe these people could make her think that there were people worth trusting. Knowing the group though, she seriously doubted it.

She walked out of her room, and found herself in the main common area of sorts, and saw that Alannah and Evelyn were already in the room. They were going on about books or something, but that's all she could really tell. Sapphire picked a chair a little ways away from them, so that she'd be able to hear potentially what it was that they were talking about, since for all she knew, their conversation could be interesting. There was still a slight chill in the air around her, but she thought nothing of it really, as it was second nature to her. She always did stuff like that, but she was courteous enough to keep the bubble of cold air only around her and away from other people.

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Watts had been reaching for a cupcake before Andrew even offered one to him, taking it and eating the frosting only. He didn't care much for the cake portion of it, thinking them as simply glorified frosting delivery systems. He then chucked the cake towards the trash can, the projectile landing perfectly inside of its intending target and Watts smirked slightly. "It's obvious why it isn't working," he told Andrew. He glanced over the system and its design, noticing a few issues that jumped out to him immediately. A lot of people got so excited about all of the advanced and terrific applications of their tech that they forgot to cover the basics.

"You don't have sufficient insulation on the wiring. While you have thermoplastic NM-B wiring here, you're going to need something more substantial due to the size manipulations in the suit, as well as your specific alloy," Watts explained to him, a slight condescending tone to his voice. Of course, there was a slight smirk on his face - either from being right or just from having a brief little mental exercise. "There's also I think a 10% chance that when you use the suit, you are causing corrosion on your power source which will degrade performance significantly. But most likely, your problem is the insulation."

"Anything else I can help you with, kiddo?" he asked. He didn't use kiddo as a term of endearment.

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Bella, having picked up her coffee as well as a recent true crime novel she acquired, before making her way into the Engineering Lab. Why was she there as opposed to the lounge where typically books are read? She didn't want to be around too many people and hardly anyone came into the Engineering lab unless it was for work.

As she entered, she saw Andrew and John talking about some such nonsense she was not bothered by. Instead, she walked over and picked up one of the cupcakes, taking a bite. "Happy birthday," she said in a monotone voice before walking over to a chair, sitting down with her book and sipping her coffee. She began to read, not concerned with whatever was being discussed in the room. Hell, they could be talking about eternal life and Bella wouldn't give any more of a fuck.

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It was well into the morning and Wes simply couldn't let his charge sleep any longer. If she was going to have any sort of chance at a normal life among people she was going to have to adhere to a more normalized schedule. He moved down the hall to Bobbi's door. She had managed to find a sticker of a "DO NOT ENTER" road sign to slap on the outside. She had not been allowed to have a lock on her door for obvious reasons and so this was the best she could do.

Wes rapped gently on the door. No answer. He knocked again, much more loudly this time. Still no answer. He had given her plenty of time and so opened it. Inside was dark but the light through the curtained windows illuminated just enough that he could make out a blanket lump on the bed. "Good Morning Mis Barabara," he called as he entered the room. There was a loud groan from the lump. "Time to get up and join our teammates. Come along, up you get." He pulled the blankets from her. She held on tightly but eventually gave up. Instead, she pulled one of her pillows over her head.

Clicking his tongue he removed the pillows as well. Bobbi graced him with a scowl that could have melted paint. "Shower and dress, time to be up."

"The only things getting me out of this bed is either some coffee or some dick. And you only got one of them things, which I would safely guess ain't on offer." She spoke with venom in her voice though it lightened as she smiled. Glad the room as dark, Wes could feel his face flush. The man had been in the military for quite a large portion of his life, how this girl managed to get under his skin like that and embarrass him was a mystery.

"Correct, but coffee can be found in the kitchen. I will dump you out of this bed if you don't get up on your own."

"Just like being back at rehab," she said dully and got up of her own volition. Bobbi went to the bathroom and took her sweet time getting ready. She knew the man would wait for her to ensure she didn't just climb back into the bed. She emerged from the bathroom in only what God had given her and she noted with delight the way Wes pointedly kept his eyes on his feet. What a dork. He'd even gone so far as to make her bed. Once dressed in a pair of blue jeans, a Metallica t-shirt, and her usual boots she applied her dark make-up and was ready to greet the day.

She and Wes made their way down to the kitchen, though she assured him she was a big girl and could find the way on her own. He said something about making sure she ate real food and not just some coffee. The guy took his job far too seriously.

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"Pride and Prejudice," Alannah said, pronouncing the name of the book carefully. "It is one I just began. Are you familiar with it?" She was always impressed by the things Evelyn knew about. In her old life, to meet someone like Evelyn would have been incredible - a worldly and intelligent warrior woman, embodying all the things Alannah had grown up wanting to be. This future was strange, but there were good things about it.

When Demetria entered, Alannah placed the book aside on the floor and rose up to her full height, towering several inches over the two other women. That was one thing that hadn't changed: she was still very, very tall. "We're all waiting around for something to happen," she said. "One of ours is dead. How is it that we are not looking now for...?" She paused, struggling to find the word. "To kill the ones who made it." She grimaced at the sentence. That hadn't felt right. This language was a nightmare.

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Evelyn looked towards Alannah and nodded towards the woman, she had both seen the movie and read the book as well. "I've read the book a few times and watched the movie only once." Evelyn answered her friend, as she took another bite out of her sandwich when she turned her attention towards the entrance of the room. Seeing Demetria coming into the room, she hadn't really interacted to much with the woman all that much other then passing each other in the hallway. "How are you Demetria?" Evelyn asked her, as she watched Alannah standing up from where she was.

It was true that they could be doing something to try and find the killer who killed Harrison Snow, but there weren't any real leads as far as she could tell. "It is true we should be doing something about it, so that this doesn't happen to anyone else. But we don't really have any leads to go on, and I think we could also be called for our first mission. But otherwise I would help finding whatever information that we can get our hands on."

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Andrew had been doing fairly well over all about things, but something about the way Watts had spoken to him hit a bit of a nerve with him. For most of his life, he'd had people all his life tell him what to do, or that he wasn't smart enough to build something. That had been his life during his later years at the university, and then later on when he was at Pym Tech. It was something he was used to, especially considering the fact that Watts kind of acted that way all the time, but still.

"...Thanks, I'll see about fixing it later..." he said, and Watts would be able to easily tell that his words seemed to have hit Andrew fairly hard. He pushed a button and the suit shrunk down enough that it was able to fit inside of his pocket and he picked it up. "Once again, it isn't my birthday, but feel free to have the cupcakes, I don't exactly feel like having any more," Andrew said, before he walked away, slipping his suit into his pocket.

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"...Don't call me Demetria," she mumbled slightly, almost like she flinched when someone used her given name. She didn't care much for her name at all. "I'd be doing a whole lot better if we were actually doing something... I mean Snow was killed weeks ago, and no one is doing a damn thing about it, and we're basically stuck here doing absolutely nothing!"

"You are absolutely right, well, I think you more of meant, why aren't we making those who are responsible pay for what they did," Sapphire said, looking over at Alannah, "Doesn't seem like anyone else seems to care about what happened! Oh no, the newbie whose in control of everything here at Serval definitely doesn't, she got a big pay raise and promotion! So why would she care?"

With that, there was the crackling of an intercom system of sorts, and a voice spoke out loud. "Would the members of X-Factor please come to the main briefing room please, there is an assignment for you."

"Ironically when we were talking about doing nothing," she said as she got up from her chair and left the room.

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Watts' eyes flickered over to Belladonna as she came into the lab, took a cupcake, and sat down with her book. "Don't touch anything," he warned her. He didn't like people messing around with things in the lab, but as long as Belladonna was quiet and didn't touch his things - she could touch Andrew's work, he didn't care - then that was fine with him. His eyes returned to Andrew, able to discern that he had hit a nerve. It was probably tied to Andrew's lack of a real father figure. Watts didn't sign up to be the parent of the team, however, so he let Andrew go without much of a fuss. If Andrew wanted to go throw a temper tantrum, someone else could go deal with it. He had dealt with enough screaming babies for one lifetime.

However, it seemed that the interruptions weren't going to cease. The intercom crackled to life, telling the team that they needed to report to the main briefing room. Watts never understood why it was called that. They never went anywhere else for briefing - so why add on the redundancy of calling it the main location for that? "Come on, I need to lock up the lab before we head out," Watts told Belladonna. He didn't want to leave their ideas and work unguarded. The regular employees worked in a different lab - Watts begrudgingly shared this one with Andrew.

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Bella stopped listening once she bit into the cupcake and sat down. Whatever the two of them were talking about mattered little. She began to dig into her book when she heard the bells. She rolled her eyes. Figures. Finally able to get some downtime and now they were called away. She picked up the book and coffee and stood up as John waited for her. She skimmed past him. "Not like I care what you nerds do in here anyway." It was a softer tone than what she had for Andrew, but still.

She made her way into the briefing room and sat down, picking her book back up she began to read it as the others trickled in. Par for the course really. Mission brief, gear up, get sent out to spy or hurt or capture or destroy. It was usually one of the four, but maybe she would be surprised this time around. Then again, she hated surprises.

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Alannah was still formulating her reply to the other two women when the announcement came through. She flinched at the unexpected noise in spite of herself - it was ridiculous, but hearing the words of people who were nowhere near her was still something that unnerved her. Had there been any other news, she might have wrinkled her face in frustration at the weakness of her reaction, but instead a wide grin broke across her features.

"Finally!" Without waiting for Evelyn or Demetria, Alannah tossed the book aside and took off running, out of the Common Area and down the hallway, half-skipping with excitement. An assignment! An actual, giant-blessed battle to fight. A chance for Alannah to be good at something, to be something other than the slowest, least-informed person in the room. As she ran, she sang in her native tongue:

"Step we mighty,
Fletch your bow,
We march to war,
To hot and bloody war!"

She half-slid into the briefing room, still grinning like a little girl. "Who are we killing?!" she shouted without waiting to see who was inside.

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Evelyn looked towards Demetria and shrugged slightly, if she wanted to use her codename she could do that if she wanted she had no issue using her codename either. As much as Evelyn wanted to find out who had killed Snow she didn't have any kind of leads that she would have liked to go after, so it was pretty much just a waiting game now at this point. She then heard the intercom going off asking for members of the X-Factor team to head for the briefing room finally they were getting to go on a mission.

Evelyn watched as Alannah pretty much just skipped off to the briefing room and started to follow shortly after the girl and headed down the hallway until she was in the briefing room. She started to look around the room spotting Belladonna there reading a book as well, as she made her way towards an empty chair and sat down and stretched out slightly. She could easily understand Alannah's excitement for the mission to start. But it may not even be a target that they had to kill either it could be as something simple as stealing some paper work or something along those lines or collecting an informant or information.

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Bobbi could feel herself getting more and more annoyed that her permanent chaperone was following her to the kitchen. She could get her own goddamn breakfast! He needed to back the fuck off. She thought about yelling at him, hitting him, something or anything to make him leave. In the end, it would do no good though, she realized. What she really needed was a lovely, calming cup of coffee. The caffeine might make her feel less aggravated toward the man.

The pair entered the kitchen and Bobbi set about working the coffee maker. This was her priority. She could hear him prattling away in the background. Something about a healthy breakfast and making sure she got enough nutrients and blah blah blabbity blah. "Yeah, kay, thanks mom," she responded to him darkly.

"You have half an hour before we start training. Meet me in the training room. Each minute of lateness means you run that many miles." There was a sadistic grin on his stupid face.

"Make me," she huffed as she dumped coffee beans into the grinder. She didn't hear his response over the sound of the machine meticulously cutting up the life-giving kernels. Stopping it she poured the grounds into the filter. As she removed the pot to fill it with water she said, "Sorry, didn't quite catch that." And as he started speaking she turned on the faucet. Quite suddenly a hand reached over her head and turned off the flow of water. His shadow lay dark over her. Bobbi dared not move.

"I will not play these games with you, little miss. You now have twenty-five minutes. See you." His shadow left and she turned only to find empty space and his footsteps moving down the corridor. She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face before starting up the water again.

"Fuckwad," she grumbled, pouring the water into the coffee maker, replacing the pot, and pressing the start button. A voice came over the intercom, telling her she had to be in some briefing meeting bullshit. "Fuck yeah, no training." Her mood was starting to brighten. It was going to have to wait until she'd at least had a cup. Bobbi would arrive late to the meeting, a cup of coffee in hand, and looking rather bored with the whole process as she would plop down in a chair.

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As he walked down the hall he sighed. What a fucking shit show this was. Not X-Factor, no. It was Bobbi. The girl had a special talent for getting under his skin and making him lose his cool. A rare and unfortunate thing to be able to do. He paused before the common area, considering joining fellow teammates in idle chatter and togetherness. At least he wouldn't have to deal with a sharp tongue from most of them. However, he was kept from entering the room when the voice came over the intercom.

Well shit. That was going to cut into Bobbi training time. She would have to do it when they returned from whatever mission the powers that be thought fit to send them on. He backtracked a bit before entering the briefing room and taking a seat. THough she seemed not to notice him, he gave Belladonna a slight nod of hello/acknowledgment. He glanced at his watch and began the count down to Bobbi being late and then how late she would be. Evelyn entered and he mumbled a greeting of, "Morning."

He became a bit distracted from his time keeping project when in burst the tall Irish girl, brimming with energy. He had to smile at her enthusiasm for murder. She was an odd little duck. "Mayhaps we will be protecting someone instead. Or building homes in a third world country," he offered in his deep baritone. Obviously they would not be doing such things, however, he liked to be contrary now and again. "Not killing would be an interesting change of pace, don't you think?" His tone was light and teasing.

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Andrew had basically decided to ignore Watts as much as possible. The guy always was able to get under his skin no matter how hard he tried not to let him. He was almost positive that Watts could figure out what was wrong, he was a genius after all and didn't care too much about letting everyone else know it. As far as he knew, Watts loved rubbing it in everyone's faces about how he was the smartest person in the building or something, and he tended to run people over somewhat with his own ideas. Honestly to Andrew there didn't seem to be anything he could do to actually get respect from people in his chosen field of study, and he was learning that it was okay for the most part. Just on occasion it would get on his nerves.

He had grabbed a few tools from the lab before he had left it, and made his way to the briefing room where everyone else was, and he virtually ignored those who were already in the room as he took a seat in a chair. Andrew pulled his suit out, as well as a pair of glasses that he was able to use as magnifying glasses essentially and put them on, before he set to work trying to fix the suit real quick so that there hopefully weren't going to be anymore problems with it. It would be easier to work on it when the suit was full size, but this way it took up a lot less space.

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Sapphire rolled her eyes slightly, hearing the announcement about needing to go on a mission of sorts. She never did much to hide her distaste for the new CEO, or effectively, their new boss. Something always seemed off about the woman, and she had less of a reason to trust her since for some reason the woman didn't seem to care about finding her predecessors killer. Even though she could be considered a potential target for whoever had killed Snow. Nothing about the woman added up, not to mention she definitely wasn't as laid back about everything as Harrison had been, which annoyed her even more.

Rolling her eyes slightly at Allannah when she had mentioned killing people. Of course she'd want to kill someone, perhaps she needed a reminder that they were "superheroes" and not mercenaries. "I seriously doubt we're killing anyone considering that isn't a part of our job unless it can't be helped. So I'm guessing it's more of something really simple given the fact that we have several newer people on the team now," she said, her eyes darting around the room slightly. Gambit and Rogue were off to the side somewhat, leaning up against the wall, while Psylocke was sitting in a chair with her feet propped up on the table.

"Ms. Clarke definitely has the right idea, as does Mr. Martin," a woman's voice said, from the doorway, and in walked Rae Gardner the newly appointed CEO of Serval Industries.

"Figured," Sapphire mumbled with an eye roll at the woman.

"Your job is a rather simple one, and hopefully will have no surprises. This is mainly to see if all of you can work somewhat well together in a very simple setting. Serval Industries is holding a party of sorts in order to raise money for charity, and several powerful and rich individuals will be there, so it is your job to act as security and ensure that no fights erupt if necessary."

"...Is Hank Pym going to be there?" Andrew spoke up, glancing over at her.

"Yes."

"...And Tony Stark?"

"Of course, is that going to be a problem?"

"...No, just not too thrilled at the idea of being in a room with two people who hate my guts and probably partially wish I was dead..." he muttered, before going back to work.

"I see, well it might be in your best interest then to avoid them at all cost. Though there will be a lot of individuals attending, so I do not see the odds being favorable to you running into them. The party is set to begin in another 2 hours or so, I will see you then, though I suggest you all be ready beforehand. As some of our guests might arrive early," she said, before she walked right out of the room.

"Great, so we are supposed to act as security for a bunch of rich people in 2 hours... Why didn't she tell us this sort of thing this morning or something? Strange to me," Sapphire muttered, shaking her head at the idea.

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Watts ignored Belladonna's little barbed comment, locking up the lab and heading over to briefing after her. He quickly grabbed a coffee from the kitchen along the way, a bit addictive to the stuff but he didn't really keep coffee around in the lab. When he had first started working, one of his colleagues had accidentally gotten the compound in the coffee they had spent months working on. He didn't want to risk that happening. And if he somehow got coffee in his speed serum, well, that wouldn't do anything positive for him. He took a seat in the briefing room, noticing that the new recruits were quiet as he sipped his coffee. Apparently, murder was the topic of conversation at the moment and Watts sighed, shaking his head. Millennials.

However, the mood then lightened considerably as the CEO mentioned who they would be protecting at this party - some of the best minds the world had ever known. He glanced over at Andrew, a bit sympathetic for him - it was hard to be in the present of true genius, especially if your own mind was inferior. "This is going to be lovely," Watts mused. "I've been meaning to speak to Dr. Pym about a recent publication of his on quantum tunneling - it's very advanced and cutting edge, so I doubt anyone else in the room would understand it." Of course, talking to Tony Stark would also be a treat. His energy technology was going to change the world.

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Bella hadn't put the book down once the talking started. She heard every word, of course, it was more of the same. What had surprised her (and hadn't she mentioned how much she hated those?) was that it would be here at a party. They would have to be security and ensure they could work together.

What type of mission was that? What possible fights could business people get into? She wanted blood spilled, not appetizer plates knocked over because some career woman going through menopause had too much champagne. She stood up once it seemed finalized. "No." was all she said. She picked up her book. "I'm not some security guard. If you need me, I'll be punching a hole in the wall until I see the other side."

She stormed off into the training room and set her stuff aside, finding the bag again and punching it over and over and over and over until she felt whatever frustration was bubbling up subside. If she WAS going to do this, she was damn sure not wearing heels.