The Palace Guin would be able to figure out some things about the energy blast, despite not being able to pinpoint where in the city the energy had been centered around. She was able to determine what likely caused the blast however, and it likely wasn't a good thing all things considering. The energy ripple had been caused by Chaos Magic and Reality Warping, so it only could have really been a mutant who caused this, and there was one other problem Guin would realize. There was only one mutant in the entire world who could have had even close to the amount of power that was required in order to potentially rewrite reality, and that was Pietro's sister Wanda.
The next morning, Pietro raced into the lab, and ran right up to Guin, and he was looking at her. He also clearly did not look too happy at the moment.
"Really Guina? You had to ditch your guard and such? Plus spend all night here? What the hell is going on Guina? Tell me right now! Oh, and we have to get moving, there is going to be a execution in half an hour that we have to go to, and if you are tired it's your own fault." October walked into the art studio and gave both Carolina and Annie a kiss on the cheek.
"I have work today, loves, but it might be in line with your plans," she said with a slight smile.
"I've been asked to attend the execution as a mortician, confirm the deaths and all since physicians can't be a part of it due to the hippocratic oath. I can get you into the Palace, maybe you could poke around while I poke at corpses?" Meanwhile, Allison would be back at her penthouse apartment with Oshea. He was already dressed and ready for the day, and he looked over at her.
"Hey Ally, this whole thing sucks but we really should get going... The King tends to want an audience you know for executions, so we really need to get going back to the Palace for it... Despite the fact that I honestly hate going to these things, it can't be helped," he told her with a slight shrug, giving her a bit of a smile.
The Human Resistance HQ The night before, Novikova had gone around and restored the memories of just about everyone else in the Resistance group. The instant Klara had her memories returned, she walked over to Max, before using magic to heal him somewhat, repairing his broken nose.
"I am sorry..." she said softly to Max, but from her tone of voice, it was obvious that she had heard Max's words about her father, and it was clear that it hurt her a lot. She sheathed her sword once more, and simply walked away, except she didn't walk to another part of the building, she walked straight outside into the night.
"...Even though I've never met her, I've heard Thor talk about her, pretty sure the two of them are fairly close, so you probably shouldn't have said that... I know that she wasn't exactly being the nicest person around and didn't really know about the real world, but still... Just goes to show how things can be different," Lance said to Max with a shrug, before walking over to where Runa was passed out.
The group would have places to sleep, they definitely weren't the best accommodations, but they were the best that they had available. Klara still hadn't returned to the base at all, and no one would really be able to tell where she had went off to.
"Okay, so we know this reality isn't real - but we have to assume deaths here are still real. Erik is executing humans at random to try to draw us out - so we're going to be walking into a trap. Has anyone seen Klara?" "No, she took off last night after Novikova over there fixed everyone's memories about well, everything really... Just kind of took off," Alex responded, glancing around at the group a bit.
"Not to mention to continue with what you were saying about this reality not actually existing, we still have no idea who caused this or what even happened." "Well," Jade said, polishing off a bit of whiskey.
"Good thing you have London's Actual Finest here on the case." "So, do you have any ideas then? Or are you just wanting to get out and see about investigating and figuring it out?" "If you can get me into the Palace, I'll know who did it within minutes," she boasted. However, she really was that good. In the real world, her father was a Sherlock Holmes type and Jade had inherited his deductive skills. Her husband was the President-elect but she still took on cases that interested her, competing with Jack Theriot in D.C. as a private investigator. Most in the superhero community though know her as the woman who killed the devil in the Altsoba Massacre.
"Well we'll have to see about that Jade," Alex said with a slight laugh,
"We'll see what we can do about getting there. The Palace is where that execution is taking place, so we need to head over there anyway." "Alright. One team is going to stop the execution and do a full out assault on Erik's forces. A smaller group can go with Shirley Holmes here and investigate the Palace during the chaos," Hawkeye decided. Alex nodded his head in response to that, figuring it would probably be better doing that, since hopefully Magneto wouldn't expect them to just go into the Palace either.
Lance meanwhile was standing by Runa, still not really caring that he didn't know her in the real world, and he was still wondering if she was alright.
"Are you okay Runa?" he asked her, giving her a slight smile.
The Red Guard Luckily for those still back in Australia, Cass hadn't done the best programming job on the quinjet, so the group was able to fly back rather easily to the US and report what all had happened to the Director of SHIELD Sebastian Shaw, and now they were currently in a vehicle heading towards the Palace, as the King had requested SHIELD agents to attend the executions that morning, as it was almost a guarantee that the Human Resistance group would be in attendance. They had managed to get some back up anyway, that being Agent Waverly Watts, better known as Feedback.
"Well this will definitely be an interesting event won't it?" Sapphire said simply to James with a shrug as the vehicle pulled up to the Palace. She knew her way around the place, both inside the building and the surrounding grounds and area. They still had about half an hour or so until the execution was set to take place, so anyone who wasn't used to the area could make their way around and see where they should be placed.
"Oh, Kingston, something you should probably know I feel like you should know," Mystique said, glancing over at him.
"I did a bit of research on the flight back from Australia, and turns out that that girl, Runa Blake? Her cousin is apparently with the Human Resistance, and I believe is the one responsible for keeping you from entering that portal. Other agents found her wandering the streets, apparently she had decided to go visit her father's grave. She's one of the ones who are being executed today. You probably would be allowed to try and question her about the Resistance before the execution." With that, she got out of the car and headed into the Palace, with Sapphire right behind her. The dungeons were down in the basement area of the Palace. The group could head down there, split up and do whatever, or just survey the area that the execution was going to take place to get an idea of where they should be stationed, that was an option too.
The Thieves Guild With Chrysi dealt with, everything was situated for the group to go to Baton Rouge in order to try and steal the Diadem of Athena. It seemed like no matter what Casper may argue about things, they were going after the crown. Mary had only been released from the hospital about 10 minutes before they left for the Red Guard facility, staying somewhat quiet about everything. The group had their own transportation there, having a small jet of sorts that easily could fly under the radar and not draw suspicion. Currently they were getting fairly close to Baton Rouge, and from there it wouldn't be too far to the SHIELD facility.
"Okay mes amis, how many of you have had an encounter with SHIELD?" Gambit asked the group as the plane flew them towards their destination. Mary raised her hand at that, having encountered them out on a job before, not to mention they generally hung around the Palace in New York, where if she ever went up the east coast she'd go to visit her best friend. Rogue raised her hand at that as well, but Jack just simply shook his head, not really encountering SHIELD until probably somewhat soon.
"They likely won't hesitate to use deadly force if they catch us trying to steal the crown, so we need to be careful no matter what we do..." "Bien sĂťr. Be prepared to use deadly force in turn. Split into pairs and we'll comb the facility." "Who wants to be paired up with who then? I don't care either way," Rogue said with a shrug, looking over at the group who was there.
"...I'll stick with Casper if that's alright with you... There is an odd number of us, so one group would have to be a group of three," Jack commented, glancing over at Casper. He was concerned about his brother, especially considering what he was saying the night before, so now seemed like the time to be keeping an eye on him.
