Ironclad
Corsairs
Mason Rictus
Posts: 197
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Post by Ironclad on Oct 21, 2010 15:59:45 GMT -5
"You're kidding," Mason said looking up from his spot next to Tracy. He had gone over to her and stroked the hair from her face to comfort her, like he had done in the past when she couldn't take a certain amount of emotion and needed to sit down. "With all due respect sir, I hope you ain't expecting me to sit by and not go look for them." He stood up, now having better control of his emotions and a steadier head as he realized what that gang kid from the garage was talking about. "I realize you're gonna need people to stay back, but I'm going to look for them on my own."
Mason stood firm and looked right back at the Headmaster and Headmistress, standing tall with a look of determination on his face. "Sex trafficking is all underground, and I been in the underground circuit since before you guys even picked me up. I have a better chance of getting on their trail anyways, but it ain't gonna happen if I'm sitting here babysitting or running around in uniform mission style. Na, this is personal. That's my friend they took right there, and those two kids are innocents. We lost enough people, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna lose anymore," he said in a dark tone, daring his team leader to tell him otherwise.
A plan was already being made in his head, how to come about it. The closest underground circuit branch was in New York City, and that gave him connections all over the East Coast. They needed to drive down there and he had to see if he could get any information through the racing circle, since the black market was a big part of it anyways. The kid probably got connections with gangs, if that ink he's covered in says anything. I rather be babysitting those two out there. I need to pack some steel heat- shit I gotta talk to Logan. He's gotta know that I ain't taking a back seat to this shit.
Mason leaned down and kissed Tracy's forehead, his way of giving some comfort to her and a need for him to just touch her for reassurance that she was safe. He couldn't imagine what Logan was going through, knowing that someone who was so important to him be put in such a position. Mason didn't want to even think what it would be like if it was Tracy that was taken, he didn't have any idea how he would cope with it. "You wanted me to be a Captain, and a captain doesn't leave anyone behind. I'm going after her."
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HeartString
Corsairs
Tracy Goddard
Trust me, I know what hurts you, I know what you're feeling
Posts: 222
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Post by HeartString on Oct 23, 2010 2:27:10 GMT -5
It was all still too much of a swirl of emotions and spinning images for her to piecemeal it together but she was doing her best. After passing out she had woken up with Beast by her and Kurt offering her a drink. In fact it wasn't really until she was sipping the water that she realized she was sitting up and that she was awake again or that she had even passed out at all.
She did as she was instructed and listened and breathed and when Mason stepped to her side she felt even more grounded and safe. His touch was gentle even as his emotions were flaring, yet she knew him and his ebb and flow of the heart, so it was a welcome relief to feel him there. Just as she had felt a safety from both Hank and Kurt being there, but with Mason it was a different story all together.
She had taken him deeper into her emotional sphere. Whereas so many others she had kept at arms length, he was her Boo, and as for Mason she held him and all he was tightly to her heart in a warm loving embrace. The very closeness was soothing to her, but when his lips pressed against her forehead she felt renewed and strengthened.
Lifting her eyes she saw Cyclops in desperate need and could feel all the rage and concern in him.. and the fear. She saw his injury and wasted no more time in healing him as she reached her hand up to take his she concentrated. Her power to heal was miraculous and the gift, as she knew her mutation truly was, she shared with her Team Leader then. The blood-flow stemmed she let go of his hand and went back to focus on girding up her emotional defenses, there was still far too much loose raw emotion assaulting her to let her guard down. She couldn't speak yet, or dared not at least, she was doing all she could to hold back from breaking down into tears as someone thankfully stopped the video.
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Post by Cyclops on Oct 23, 2010 3:20:48 GMT -5
Feeling himself again, with the pain now gone and only the lingering memory of the agony he had been in a moment before , Scott straightened up and nodded a thanks to Hank for being a shoulder for him to lean on. "Thank you HeartString." He said softly to her as he could see her going through her battery of emotional exercises and didn't want to distract her from it.
His gaze went right to Mason then and he saw him for the young leader he had always hoped he would become. He had been a good student of the arts of tactics and ethical use of force and strategy, but it was a long time coming and Scott was a stickler for perfection. The attention to details he required of his team was maddening in the minutia at times and yet now is when it all payed off, for standing before him was the future of the X-Men.. and of this academy of mutants.
"Of course you are. I would expect no less." Scott allowed the slightest expression of pride to show as he nodded only slightly to Ironclad. "You wouldn't be the man we raised, and the leader I trained you to be if you didn't go after her. I need you to stay in contact though, heroics are one thing but lets not let the shortcomings of youth overpower the experience you've gained through the years. Why do you think I was so hard on you Mason?" It was rare that the Headmaster used anyone's first name. It had been years since he had done so with the Corsair, in fact he was a Paragon at the time, so that and his tone of voice as he asked the rhetorical question let the gunslinger know how well he thought of him.
"Whoever you take with you, you're responsible for. Let's not turn this into something worse. Understood?"
He stepped back and looked at the room of people again as he noted Emma taking a seat on the edge of the sofa next to the delivery boy. "Alright.. sorry about the rough edge to my tone a moment ago." He knew it would be understandable since he was all but the walking dead until Tracy healed him. "Now that we know what the next five minutes will hold let's put our heads together. What did you all pick up from that video, any input? Anything at all, the slightest detail might make all the difference."
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Post by BEAST on Oct 24, 2010 3:13:41 GMT -5
A familiar look of concentration settled on Hank's face as he mulled over all the information he heard mentioned in the video, trying to keep his mind off the images of his newest colleague and the children being violated. It was certainly a case in which something was easier said than done, but it didn't stop him from trying. The words from the mysterious man with the accent repeated themselves over and over again in his mind, trying to figure out any clues in what was said. "This is obviously a wealthy institution, as they have the connections to Arabian Harems. Harems are owned by very wealthy men, and they are very particular about the females they choose," Hank said staring off in the distance as he thought back to all his research and all the knowledge he gained working with several international organizations.
"That means there will most likely be either a live action, or one through the internet. If we could manage to get in contact with members of the world's elite upper class, I am sure that we could find out exactly how. I imagine that this organization is quite careful to scan their customers, especially if they had a run in with The Punisher at one point and yet they are still in business." His mind raced as he tried to draw even the smallest clue out of all that. "There is a silent partner involved, and whoever that partner is has a history with Logan. It would help if we knew what that history was exactly, because should we find the partner, we may just find them."
Hank started to pace, as he often did when he was presented with a problem or a puzzle. "The only problem is that there is little time we have. Unless we find a way to contact someone that would classify in the class of people that would know about it, we have little to go on unless Logan remembers or knows something. We could call Warren perhaps? He'd help in a heartbeat. I would say Tony as well but that may only serve to cause us more trouble...." He continued pacing as his mind tried to come up with a lead to go on.
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Post by Shadowkat on Oct 24, 2010 14:26:51 GMT -5
After she felt Pete's touch, Kitty was grateful that she had a moment to get herself together. She had been through hell an back, in some cases literally since she joined the X-Men, but she couldn't imagine what those kids and Aideen were going through. Emotional as she was, she had to put those emotions aside and try and help as best as she could, thinking back to everything the man said, though try as she might she couldn't block out the horrible images from the video. "Oh wow, I can't believe Logan," she said softly, leaning back against Pete's chest. It was true that for the most part, Kitty looked the other way when Logan did something that others didn't approve of or caused problems. She always looked on the angle as to what his intentions might have been and knew Logan enough to not always assume the worst as many of the others did.
In this case, Kitty had to seriously think about what Logan was thinking to get involved like that with someone so young. Granted, Pete was a good couple of years older than her, but nothing like that. Pete Wisdom had almost twelve years on Kitty, being the oldest guy she ever dated caused a bit of a stir within her X-Men Family. If there was one thing that Kitty learned through her own life, is that you can't help who you fall in love with. What surprised her the most was that Kitty hadn't even had the slightest suspicion that anything was going on with Logan. She knew him incredibly well, and it was harder for him to keep something from her than it was from others. When she thought about it though, he did seem more pleasant and happier the past couple of months, although she remembered several times running into him coming from the gym looking more frustrated than ever. That wasn't it though lately he seemed more... content, like everything was right for him. She hadn't seen that attitude for him in the longest time.
It confirmed to Kitty that there was a good chance that what the man in the video said was most likely true. "Wow he really went there. I know him though, he's going to get right after them, claws out and kill anyone that comes in his path. He's not going to sit around and wait for contacts, and he's not going to stop till he finds them," she said with a sigh. All those times where she herself had been abducted and in an impossible situation, even that time she was possessed, Logan risked death to get her to safety. He had a bigger heart than he let on, and Kitty knew that anyone who stood in his way now would never stand for anything again.
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Post by Wolverine on Oct 27, 2010 2:16:40 GMT -5
"But... I ain't gonna do it alone this time." His voice grumbled from the doorway where he was leaning up against the frame. "There's too much at stake, too many variables and I ain't no fool. For me to risk it all for pride would just be stupid and selfish, not to mention it could wind up costin more than any of us is willin ta pay." He glanced over his shoulder at the young Atlantean who had stuck her neck out to make that point with him. To be home, to have others to count on, to have a family and know they would never let you down.. such alien ideas.. he imagined they sprang to mind in times of extreme stress for many people, some might call it Faith but Logan didn't bother with the definition, or with the soft and cuddly parts of it all.
"I ain't here ta ask for forgiveness, or ta justify anything to you people. Judge me all you want.." soft and cuddly were not part of his vocabulary "but so help me, when I need you all you'd better be there, cause I always been there for you." His look passed from Kitty to Rogue to Peter and on to each and every one of the X-Men there. His red rimmed eyes, showing the emotional exhaustion in him, cut back and forth across the room in a zig-zag from each face to the next. He had some plans and some rough ideas for some other plans, but he wasn't gifted the way Scott was. He was clever though, of that there wasn't a question, but when it came to mission planning Cyclops was aces. Logan didn't care though. He drew the line at asking for help from the Headmaster, it wasn't pride that made him draw it, it was deeper than that. Right at that moment in time Logan had none of that stuff they called 'faith' in Cyclops. There was no doubt Wolverine hated him, but worse still, he didn't trust the man.
"I got no time for anybody who ain't ready ta do what's needed either. So all you compassionate bleeding heart types can hang back." He looked Scott dead in the visor and through gritted teeth he hissed "That means you ain't invited." Pulling his snarled up face away from staring across at the leader of the X-Men he spoke to the rest of the room. "Inside the kill-box I'm about ta turn that place into there wont be nothin pretty." He finally stepped fully into the room and walked past Scott. The look on his face was anything but friendly as he got a good look at how his handy work had been wiped clean by HeartString. "No, let me rephrase that.. inside the kill-box WE're about ta turn that place into."
"I got some leads ta follow up on and I don't need nobody slowin me down," He glanced at Diesel and shook his head slightly at the pale green look to his face. "But I'm takin the jet so I'ma need a pilot. And yea, I know all about classes here, this ain't the first time I done this, so Kurt, you're on the stick." He looked over to Kitty and frowned slightly, he would have loved to have her along but she had her own responsibilities to take care of. As did Rogue and he glanced to her next nodding that nod that told her he knew she'd be there if she could. In the back of his mind he half guessed she'd be thinking that if she could slip away she was gonna join them, the look in her eye was about as subtle as a sledgehammer so... he didn't really need the other half of his guess.
"I'm takin my bike to do the runnin around so I need..." he looked around the room, a sound of sandpaper on limestone came from him reaching a hand up to rub his unshaven chin as he considered the options. Like the captain of a pick up basketball game choosing players and each of them with a different set of strengths and weaknesses. "..the foul mouthed albino with the forcefield for the bail out from the Blackbird." He pointed to Haven as he stepped closer to her. "Aideen's real real special to me but that.. right there" he squatted down to look at her at her level as she sat there on the floor leaning against the sofa "that look in her eyes tells me a lot. This is her best friend so she's goin. If there's anybody ya can trust to do whatever it takes to save somebody it's their best friend." When he saw the lack of protest from the Headmaster he figured he should test his limits and find out just when the boyscout would put his foot down. "Plus she'll listen to me, and just look at that look in those eyes.. she wants blood." He saw her face when he'd mentioned the kill-box and he knew she was not one of the squeamish. Good to know.
"I'm takin, lemmie see.. America's next Top Model too" he said standing up and walking over toward the window seat where she sat. "Gonna need you for the extraction dollface." He said thinking aloud as the odds and ends of the plan he was forming were coming into his mind. Getting close to Ana He spoke to her soft but gruff, "don't worry bout breakin a nail calendar girl, you just stay in the plane and wait on the signal to pull us out. You'll have company, no worries." He held up a finger and spun back to point at their resident empathic healer.
"Tracy," he spoke loudly enough to snap her eyes up to him and collect her full attention as he stepped back across the room in her direction "I'm gonna need you there for triage and healing the rough stuff." He knew after all they had been through that past weekend that the girl was ready for anything and she could help hold Kitty's young telekinetic model together if she started to crack under the pressure of the waiting game. "Cause you know all about how it goes. When ya go off ta war.. ya gonna bleed."
"Alright.." he rubbed his hands together making raspy rough sound dry as hay while he thought for a moment. "The four of you" he pointed to Peter, Ian, Bobby and Chester "oughta work just about right for 'hired muscle' and" he turned back to where he'd left her standing and winked "I'm bringin Waterlily with me too." He was laying down the law, tellin it like it was gonna be, and getting no argument whatsoever from Cyclops. Hmm, what's the deal? I figured he woulda said somethin by now.. somethin ain't normal if this guy is goin along with what I say. He shook his thoughts off and brandished a warning to the one time tomboy "I got a plan for that image inducer of yers kid so don't bust it. Emma.."
He spun to look at the woman who had for so long been an enemy but now, and it seemed to him for the longest time, she was one of them.. as it should be. "They're gonna need about 5 large to get what they need and I ain't got time to get my cash so sign em out some greenbacks and I'll cover it when we get back." It was not a request, it was an order, and he didn't have time to play around with 'asking'. In his opinion it was needed, it was going to work and he didn't care what it cost in dollars, or anything else, to get his Angel Eyes back. Whatever the cost, even if it meant bruising the ego of the former White Queen. He would gladly pay it and all the interest that accumulated.
"Stretch," he pointed at Taffy from across the room and looked over to meet her eyes "You're on-board too. I'ma need somebody ta run communications and let's face it squirt you never shut up. Yer just about perfect for the job. Plus you get to sit up front with Kurt, it's a hell of a view." he tried to soften the shock he saw hit her when he called her out and strapped her with a ton of responsibility. He knew she was only a kid, but he had put his trust in many a young person over the years and he considered himself a pretty good judge of character. He thought she had what it took, and he knew Nightcrawler and HeartString would be there with her if she got a little overwhelmed.
As for being overwhelmed, the personification of all the overwhelming fear he held in his own heart was still drying silent tears as he walked up to her and cupped his hands around her shoulders. "Shan, don't worry.. not even a little bit." He looked deeply into her eyes and tilted his head down slightly and intensely to let her know he was sincere. "Kids can tell when somethin's wrong, so them rugrats'll figure out somethin's botherin you soon enough, just try and hold em off from it as long as you can." He pulled her into a tight embrace as he whispered into her ear. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to that little man. It would kill me too, and the stone mountain over there would just crumble to dust and pieces. It ain't gonna happen so no more tears, alright? Trust me." He kissed her forehead as he pulled back and away leaving her to her thoughts.
"Mason, I see you chompin at the bit to get the hell outta here." he said after a step or two toward the Corsair. "I trust ya guy," he nodded at Ironclad, someone who he had always been fond of, but after the way he handled himself up in Boston.. Logan called him a true friend. "Stay in contact and we'll get her back Bub, and the children as well. I don't know what angle yer playin, but I see you ain't got time to stick around so get goin." He didn't have to tell him twice, and before he'd told him to go a second time.. he was gone.
"Hank, if the rest of these kids start snoopin around.." He nodded as he looked at him "..like they always do.. I hope you got some kinda distraction." He wondered what kids would even fall for now a days, or if the old 'checking for lice' bit would work like it did when he was a youngster. "I'd hate to have your job furball." He knew how nosy young mutants could be and yet if there was one guy who was clever enough to outwit the likes of the students in attendance it was one Doctor Henry McCoy, though Logan still to this day refused to call him 'Henry'.
"Let's hit it- ya got twenty minutes, not a second more, to suit up and get yer heads straight. I'll fill you all in on the plans once we're airborne." Twenty minutes was all the time he could spare and since the Blackbird took almost that long for it's preflight, if they skipped a checkpoint or two, he couldn't count it as wasted. He snapped his fingers and pointed down to the rabbit man there by the doorway still waiting on his assignment. "I got somethin in mind for you too. Follow me." He took two steps toward the door and then, almost as an afterthought, he stopped in his tracks with the rest of his little Rag-Tag Army flowing past him out the door, and faced the woman in white who he had come to respect.
"Emma, we're gonna do what we can the old fashioned way.. when you find em give me the heads up and you'll save us a hell of a lot of time." He was only being as hopeful as he could, and saying what he had out loud was only a show to boost the morale of his 'troops'. In his mind he sang a different tune, and the telepath heard every note. ~Fact o'the matter is.. since ya didn't interrupted me ta say where the kids and my Angel Eyes are already, ya probably don't know.. and when you don't know something yer lookin ta find out about, well.. there's a good reason for that. Tough break for us it's always a really bad 'good reason'.
He glanced one final look at Scott, a long second suspended in time, then he turned back around and followed the last of his team out of the room.
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