January 22nd, 2009“...and over eight different colors to choose from, Lucy Beauty products really know how to reflect how you want to express yourself as a woman,” Rogue speaks through a television screen, in the dead of the night. East Flatbush, New York was quaint, but the years of gentrification had created a historical manuscript of buildings. In the distance, far in the distance you would see the modern money area slowly creepy, and here in the heart of the East Flatbush, there was graffiti on the walls, a police car every few hundred blocks, each cashier was hidden behind a bulletproof glass to protect them from armed robbery.
“....now introducing Lucy Beauty products, Shades of Purple, eight different colors to choose from,” Rogue continues, “I’m Rogue. X-men. And I wear Lucy’s Beauty.”
He wondered sometimes if Rogue remembered places like this little places.Or if they really had been forgotten under a little highway pass. He had his hood up, wearing green, the police raised their brows at him, but didn’t pay much attention to the little powered vigilante in the neighborhood. They rarely thanked him for his help.
More or less laughed when he stopped an armed robbery. Opening the cooler he grabbed a cold water from the refrigerator and walked over to the counter placing it in front of the cashier to pay for it. You didn’t even really bat an eye these days when you saw Jean Grey giving interviews, or Tony Stark with another woman on his arm like eye candy.
All the debauchery seemed like the lifestyle everyone wanted to strive for. Robert looks at him.
“You should stop it,” he tells him.
“...stop?” he mutters.
“Dressing like this, doing it is, as the Slug thing,” Robert tells him.
“Silver Snail,” he corrects him.
“Silver Snail, Dingus Booger, you should stop,”
“...why?”
“You think you’re going to become like them on the TV, I bet just like, what’s your little friend, Night, whatever. That’s a reality neither of you are going to make,”
He was certain maybe not him, but Shadow Stalker was a different story.
“Shadow Stalker,” he corrected him.
“Yeah, whatever, I am looking out for you kid, I am old enough to know, you’re going to go nowhere with this,” Robert pauses, “Besides you didn’t hear this from me, but the APG been storming the East Flats looking for your kind.”
“I’ll...be careful,” he mumbles.
Robert just rolls his eyes and hands him his water. Having heroes was meant to thwart crime. Instead it seemed since the X-men and Avengers had gotten busy fighting aliens, and other universal problems all kinds of sorts came to these poorer neighborhoods to pull their own weight. He twisted the cap of his water and drank some. He heard someone behind him and he turned around, to see Shadow Stalker smile at him. He wore a costume that reminded him of the heroes of the past, just a black mask around his eyes and a single uniform costume, with a capelette.
“You out on patrol?” Shadow Stalker ask.
He nods.
“Yes,” he replies.
“Cool me too,” Shadow Stalker simply smiles, “I got a tip about the APG in the East Flats.”
“By Robert?”
“Nah, but he confirmed the tip in a way, let’s check it out,”
“I agree,”
Sometimes putting yourself in danger’s way was the only way to keep others safe. If the APG were here in the East Flats it was too close to their sanctuary for his liking. Shadow Stalker was already taking to the fire escapes and the roofs. He wasn’t as nimble or fast as Shadow Stalker, but he was able to squeeze out of trouble.
Simply following the trail Shadow had left him, he ended up in a graffiti filled dump behind some buildings. Puddles from rain that hadn’t quite yet evaporated sat in big potholes. He wished they had some muscle, but Quake wasn’t in town because he had some work to do aboard. It just have to be him and Shadow.
He wasn’t sure what to expect, he didn’t have much intel on APG. Then again they ran their operations through cut out cups of telephone and paper travel.
Shadow Stalker jumped down from the fire escape.
“This is the place they met last night,” Shadow says, “Maybe we should check for clues, you know.”
“Sounds like a good idea, might leave a slug here to watch them,” he responds.
“Ewww, you’re not going to do that thing near me-”
“Mhm,” he responds.
It was Shadow who made it gross, all it took was for him to produce some slime in his stomach and spit them out. It was Shadow making heavy gagging noises and dry heaving as slime began to come out of his mouth, until a slug felt encouraged enough to come out. They weren’t slugs you’d see anywhere else, they were brightly colored, like the mantis shrimp of slugs. He found solace in their company.
“Ah god you really need to get a new power man,” Shadow tells him.
“This is the one I have been given,” except now he feels a little queasy because he agitated the rest of them inside. Just settle down.
“Well the power fairy didn’t grant you a very cool power,”
“It’s helped you in the past, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,”
He aided the slug somewhere moist, and the both of them turned when the heard the sound of a car. Shit, they weren’t prepared for this. Could they handle them on their own? He was actually starting to not feel good about this situation.
“We need to get out of here,” he told Shadow.
“What you have to be kidding me!” Shadow covered his mouth, he recognized his mistake. He looked at him with a little bit of fear. Had the people in the car heard them? They need a better advantage. Get to the fire escape quickly.
He eyed the fire escape, Shadow nodded and started to run over. Covering them in a foggy black haze. He should have more than enough mucus in his stomach and they were active enough that he could control them with relative ease. Inhaling a little bit, then exhaling, he did it again this time holding air in his abdomen before releasing a colorful rainbow of bees that swarmed out of the black foggy cloud.
Shadow grabs onto the fire escape ladder. He follows after him. Reaching for the ladder. A gun goes off, sparks from it scraping across the metal. He backs up. He looks at some humans. While a group of them behind them, three, are trying to shake off his bees.
The two not bothered by the bees or really got most of the stream were standing next to each other. A gruff, taller man, with a beard was holding a gun.
He backed up. He was boxed in. Behind him was the wall of a building. Running out meant he would get shot. He wasn’t sure how much of his hive he wanted to sacrificed to this fight. He didn’t want to harm any of them. They didn’t have powers.
“I don’t want to harm you,” he calls out.
The other large man just throws his head back and laughs. Fine he was going for it. He began to run towards the dumpsters in hopes to escape.The gun went off, the man missed him. He just needed to get out of there. Maybe he should have listened to Robert’s warning. Or maybe he didn’t fully think through what they were doing here.
No he had an idea. It was simply to check on the APG movements. He had to make sure there sanctuary was safe. No one else would do it. Those that were meant to protect them, had left them. For bigger, better things. For selling makeup, ideals, that little kids looked up to. Running out of the alleyway he enters the East Flat streets again. He pulls down his hood for a second, a bit of slime is pouring from his forehead.
Why did he have to be so gross? Even Shadow Stalker found his powers gross. He wished he could walk up to the people he needed, to tell them the horrors of the APG.
“Hey!” someone called out, leaning on the wall of a building was a bald man smoking, wearing a t-shirt, it read;
Mutants must die. Purge the imperfections.This wasn’t good, he turned to his left, but the grab his hand as he did so. Letting his glove slip off his hand because of his slime he meant to run forward, but there was another guy blocking his path. There were several cars parked in parking spots. Were they all APG members? The man behind him grabbed him by his mouth, harshly, and forcefully.
“Ah yuck, what the fuck is this?” the man says as he touches a bit of his slime. His heart is racing. This wasn’t good. He tries to slip out of the man’s grip with his slime, but it doesn’t quite work the guy is much stronger than he is to pull away.
“Maybe he as glue powers, doesn't’ matter we can make him an example,” says the man. It doesn’t take too long before he’s trying to push the man off of him and something goes over his head. A bag or sack making it hard to see.
Now, what was he supposed to do?
He’s thrown into the back of a car rather roughly. He’s not impervious to damage. He can feel everyone has activated. They are alive and awake in the hive in his gut. He also feels his own biology, such as the sound of his heart beat in his drum, along the hum and buzz of every bug in his body. He also feels queasy, as anxiety rushes over him. Someone shoves his feet onto the floorboards. And they begin to drive. He feels unsteady. It’s the only case of motion sickness he felt.
No one had taught or trained him how to deal with this situation. They were only there to keep the streets safe. They stopped robberies. They walked people alone home to keep them safe. They didn’t deal with threats like this.
It was clear the APG might have been secretly more organized than they thought. The government and other heroes would tell you they were a small population of radicals. It didn’t feel so small right now with three cars, him in one of them now.
He could send a swarm in the car, but that might cause an accident. He could coat himself in slime and make his escape that way. Though that seemed highly unlikely considering his wrist and ankles were bound rather tightly, so much it was cutting into his skin.
Which often bruised easily in the first place.
He was starting to panic. He needed to get out. Do something to get out of this mess? Though his own adrenaline as making the insects more agitated. They did him little harm, other then end up where they shouldn’t. He tried to send them empathetic message. Calm down. We’ll be okay.
Except he wasn’t so sure about that. He wasn’t so sure this would be an easy solution. Several hours of turning and jerking. He heard the sounds of a car door, then the sounds of a garage door. He was thrown onto the cement.
There was excited murmuring echoing in the empty space.
“Brothers, tonight we have caught the mother of all mutants, turns out he attack Tony and Smith with some bees,” one of the men spoke, he imagined it might be the bald man from earlier. The man leans down and the only reason he knows that is because he hears his pants rub together, and him breathe close to him, “You fucking disgust me attacking innocent human beings with your powers. It’s all the same with you motherfuckers. First you take over our television. Then you save the world. Now you walk our streets to keep us afraid.”
“I am trying to keep everyone safe,” he mumbles through the sack.
“Huh, I didn’t fucking hear that,” the man sneers, “You think you’re better than all of us. You trollop around in your little costume. And think you a fucking hero. I’ll tell you who the real fucking hero of America was, real soldiers, hard working men and woman. Who are out of a god damn job. Because heroes can fight our fucking war. Because everyone wants a god damn super soldier. We’re being replaced. Because of fuckers like you. And tonight we’re going to make a lesson out of you. Scream good for us. Okay.”
“Down with Powers!”
“Down with Mutants!”
Some of the other men begin to chant. Sorry guys, he didn’t know what to do in this situation. He was waiting for a hero of the heroes to swoop down, call him a kid for getting in more trouble than what it was worth. But no one was there to save him. No one was there to help or aid him. They didn’t have people like that.
He either had to save himself. Or die for making a foolish mistake.
“Come on help me take his costume off!” snaps one of the guys. His bindings are untied. Now was his chance. He scrambles up quickly using his slime to slide to the other side of the room. He takes off the sack.
He was sorry for this. He didn’t want to harm these men, but he had no choice. He inhaled. Then exhaled. He inhaled one more time holding air into his abdomen before releasing a rainbow colored swarm of bees.
A cloud of bees agitated by his agitation came swarming out aggressively towards the group. He began to run towards the back where he spotted a staircase. He went to run from there, but one of them when he tried to escape hit him across the head with a bat.
He landed on the ground with a thud. The swarming of bees could be heard as men were screaming in pain. His head was throbbing as blood ran down his forehead. Shit. He tried. The world became blurry and fell into darkness.
January 25th, 2009Those getting up and getting ready for work in Brooklyn turned to scoff to the building protected by a fence and something about a security system they didn’t know about. There was a lot of tension brewing, a lot of rumors beginning to escape people’s lips. Some mirrored the views of the Anti-Powers Group, the APG.
They feared the mutants in that apartment building were someway to overthrow or plot against them. There was a lot of, down with powers movement going on and someone had tagged one of the buildings gated pillars, again, with a sign that read;
Get Out.
Aliens that attacked New York, destroying half their infrastructure. Superheroes who were praised these days as celebrities. Clearly they were looking to overthrow them. Take over their city. That was the APGs rhetoric and it grew and grew because the claims were ignored and allowed to fester into the oncoming storm.
Here was the beginning of ten individuals, who could be many more individuals over time, sleeping in apartment where tensions of their presence grew and grew and grew. They could feel it, the dirty looks given to Garfield whenever he did leave.
The pity they gave Serenity because she looked like an ordinary the girl. The look of shame they gave Duke. And some of the members couldn’t leave the apartment without fear of ridicule, or simple mockery. While true Umbra rarely left his pocket dimension, he couldn’t simply waltz out and expect anyone to accept him.
They casted sad looks at Riko, she was too young. They feared Jed, and that crazy monkey thing they had with them. Dominic was just a loser, an unwanted, homeless, and a freak, that’s just sheer disgusting and their disgusted looks always proved it.
No clearly they saw them as the enemy. Someone had to be blamed. Someone had to take responsibility for the lives and deaths of so many Normal people if they hadn’t began to show up. When the first mutant freak was born they should have culled them before they could breed.
There had been a relative time of peace. But that has slowly sailed downhill into rhetoric of bigotry and hatred. When mutants had been seen to have been given some level of respect, people stood up, fought back. Give me back my Nation.
It hadn’t always been this way. The neighborhood had once been stable. But everyone believed the building they resided in when it was announced to be condemned should have been given to low income Normal people. Instead the city district asked the neighborhood if they would allow mutants to enter that apartment.
While they know what they are. They rarely know what they do. And to some that scares them. To others it angers them. Others turn a blind eye. And others are paranoid, suspicious of their activities.
9:00 amShe had always been an early riser, the morning time often made her feel refreshed and ready for anything to come. While Timothy had always been the one to stay up all night, his glasses lie on the nightstand and him sleeping peacefully right next to her. His black hair scattered across his pillow, she kissed him on the cheek.
“Sweetheart, wake up,” she tells him nudging him awake.
Timothy groans. Clearly agitated from being awoken. He stares at her half asleep, but this was often the only time he agreed to anything. She smiles at him and he smiles back at her.
“What?” he asked sleepily.
“Let’s go to a haunted house,” she tells him, clearly more refreshed than he is.
“Not my thing,” he tells her.
“What you’re scared of something?” she laughs.
“No, nothing phases me,” he tells her.
She bites her lip and decides to test this theory. She suddenly claps her two hands in front of his face. He just stares at her half asleep and groggy. He didn’t even blink or flinch.
“Woah,” she says.
“I know, right,” he smiles.
“Ah baby, are you going to leave me all alone?”
“You’ll be fine, they’ll probably kick you out because you’ll punch an actor in the face for scaring you too hard,” Timothy laughs.
“That will not happen,” she tells him.
He just smiles and laughs. She frowns and pouts her lips.
“What’s so special about this Haunted House anyway? And who opens a Haunted House in January?” Timothy asked.
“This isn’t just some random Haunted House, the Haunted House they had in Luxembourg burnt down and are touring America using the cash proceeds to build a new Haunted House,”
“Huh, have fun,”
“Who I am going to go with?”
“You’ll figure it out,”
She hated when Timothy was right. It was more than likely she’d punch an actor in the face for being too scared. But she could not do that. She needed good relationships with these Haunted House actors. They had such nice costume design, she needed to know their secret. She needed to know the fabric of that cute robe. She needed to know to make a Halloween version of Blue Swallow’s outfit this year. It would look very cute on her.
Going into her closet, she began to pick out a wig for today, and an outfit. Ugh she was going to have the lug the superhero bag around. It wasn’t as cute. Putting on her red pants and vest, she placed a moderate amount of makeup and smiled. Timothy had already went back to sleep. She left her bedroom to make sure Riko was awake.
“Riko, you want candy and sweets and goodies?” Serenity called out.
Riko quickly came out of her room. Her hair a mess of bedhead, wearing sweet pajamas she bought her.
“Yes,” Riko said drooling a little bit.
“Okay,” Serenity said, “Then get ready cause we’re going to a place where you get goodies.” She turns her attention to her phone, “Aimi.”
A picture of the AI sleeping is on her screen and Serenity flicks it. Aimia wakes up sleepily, a question mark bubble pops up on the screen.
“Yes Serenity,” Aimi calls out saluting her.
“Make an announcement, all Rogue X members need to be awake and in the lounge in fifteen minutes, I have an important message to make,”
“Yes Ma’am,”
In no time the automated intercom went off and Aim’s voice could be heard blaring.
Will all Rogue X members please come down to the lounge. You have fifteen minutes to get ready. I repeat. All Rogue X members please come down to the lounge. You have fifteen minutes to get ready.
With the announcement out of the way she would start some coffee and leave the pot full with at least two glasses left in the pot for Timothy. She stared at the apartment, how long had it been now? Four years actually, at least for her. Some of the members were newer and their numbers would slowly grow, but Rogue X had a motto. No one would be left behind. It meant everyone had a part to play. Apartments that seemed once lonely were now beginning to fill. They still had many rooms to fill, but she wondered what this new sanctuary would like once they got the brought people here. They could have quite the family.
Family, huh? She wondered where Jayden might be now that she thought about it, if they found him, perhaps she could bring him here. There set the pot to go with six cups of water, she leaned on the counter space she had. The floor plans were all open plans, the dining room dipped into the living room. She loved that living room, it had a little here and Timothy in it.
She chose the crazy checkerboard rug he wasn’t fond of and he had his ugly old beige couch he refused to give up. She put up the crazy wall art of pictures big and small to make a pattern, he hated it too. But then he just had his depressing black and white alleyway photo on the other end of the living room.
Yes, Serenity was excited to see what kind of Rogue X they would create. She wished the neighborhood would be more opening. But what did she expect them to think of them here? Except that it would be entirely unfair if she just asked everyone to start being normal.
Coffee was gurgling air and she took it off the heat, pouring it into her travelers mug, she was about to call out for Riko to hurry on up. But the girl was already out of the room in one of the cute dresses she bought her.
She brushed Riko’s bangs out of her eyes and handed her a breakfast sandwich she had warmed in the microwave.
“Eat that for now,” she said.
Leaving the bedroom, she felt a twinge of sadness that Timothy would not be coming. But she felt everyone needed a break. Not that anything significant had happened, but the tense air outside. The anti mutants sentiments, the stares they got. She thought they needed another bonding exercise. Staring at the stairs then the elevator.
“We’ll take the elevator,” she said. Entering she pressed the Star for the main floor and in no time, one horizontal downward push of gears and wires, they were on the main floor. Riko happily nomming her egg sandwich with a swish of her tail. Now to wait for the others she thought while walking into the lounge.
