The Brotherhood Head Home

[deadman]

As the group made their way across the street, they could see the driver of the vehicle sitting stock still in the seat. It wasn’t the Dead Man, but he was very likely dead, his pallid, bloodless face a dead give away.

When they got up to the cab, however, Dead Man did lean across the man, popping his head out of the window.

He looked bad. Much deader than last time. His flesh was partially burnt coming up from under his collar, and the damage inched its way up his neck, barely making it to his face. He had even less color than before, and was almost a pallid green tint. Only his eyes remained the same: perfect, glossy, unblinking, and crimson. He gave them a sweeping nod, never knowing that Mystique had left the Brotherhood at all.

“Get in the back.” He said, his voice a hoarse whisper – still able to carry despite its tone. “The animates are tarped up under the trailer, none of us have been back there. Any queasy stomachs won’t have to wretch at the stink of perfection. I know the way.”

Thus it was that their ride to the private airstrip was somewhat comfortably done in the back of a refrigerated freight, surrounded by countless goodies. There was no sign that any dead or undead creatures – save for all the beef patties – had been back here there at all.

At the airstrip, Dead Man untied his animates, and had them haul in the many crates of food – all of which shouldn’t parish during the trip, which wouldn’t be more than ten hours. With the plane loaded up with the haul, and the passengers, Dead Man stuffed the animates into an air-tight crate – the one they’d used for Baltimore – and sealed the lid.

As for himself, he’d pulled a pack of Car Fresheners from the truck, and hung them around his neck on a necklace. It did something to stifle his stench, which was supernaturally not as bad as a normal corpse would have been anyway.

It wasn’t long before they were airborne.

[mystique]

Mystique sighed, softly commenting "He might have just met us there..." before getting in with an amused smile.

As they reached the tarmac in the truck, she stepped out and had a cigarette before they took off, falling into a sort of somber quiet that was far closer to the Mystique they remembered.

They boarded the plane and found their seats- she was glad she and Eric had shared the same sensibilities when it came to style and comfort-the passenger area at least had seats installed, facing one another across the reasonably sized cabin. On a flight this long, it would have been classless to shift people about amongst the cargo.

Mystique relaxed a bit as they were off the ground, and turned to Poseidon, smiling a bit.

"About The Brotherhood. I suppose I should start from the beginning."

[Nightingale]

As much as she wanted to snicker at Dead Man's air freshener necklace, Angie just gave it an amused glance and then turned her attention to Poseidon and Mystique.

Though she had a few books in the bundle of her shopping that was safely stowed away in the overhead compartment, she thought it would be rude to start reading so soon in the flight.

All settled for the moment, Angie wondered what poor Python did to amuse himself for most of the flight. Then again, she didn't know if cargo planes had autopilot or not, especially toward a destination that didn't actually have air traffic control.

It struck the young Australian that they were bound to show up on someone's radar sometime, and when that happened she didn't know what they'd do.

All these thoughts swirled around, and she knew that she was just trying to distract herself from the reality of Mystique being back in Pyro's life. Not knowing the actual circumstances of the metamorph's return, Angie was under the impression that everything was resolved and would go back to the way it was. Which left her as the little girl with a crush, sitting on the outside once again.

Give it up.

She always seemed to be a little on the outside with the Brotherhood.

Though she was looking at her nails rather than Mystique, not wanting to seem too interested, Angie found herself wondering about the Brotherhood. Had it always been the same? She really didn't know - no-one had bothered to explain much to her, and as an Australian she didn't even have the benefit of what the media had said in the US to base her knowledge on.

[Aurora]

The car ride was not as bad as Aurora had expected it to be--sure, the back of a McDonald's truck was not the most comfortable place to be, but at least it didn't smell of decomposing flesh.

Unfortunately, Aurora chose her seat before Dead Man, and found herself directly across from him. She wasn't about to be as rude as to get up and move, so she contented herself to turn and keep her eyes to the side--anywhere but straight at him. It was easy to do; Poseidon was next to her, and since Mystique was about to fill him in on the history of The Brotherhood, which Aurora didn't know much of herself, she had somewhere to avert her attention.

She watched Mystique speak, crossing her legs and laying her hands in her lap. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dead Man sitting there all still like...Like a dead body. She couldn't help the shudder that occured from the thought. Some things were just meant to be. Death was one of them. People who were dead should stay that way, at least if they were going to come back looking like a sickly zombie.

[mystique]

"The Brotherhood was led by a mutant named Magneto since its inception... right around seven years ago. Those of us who were there at the beginning had been working both together and separately for the mutant cause for- well. A very long time."

Mystique idly shifted a lock of ruby red hair behind her ear, shifting to her natural form as easily as someone might light a cigarette or cross their legs.

"He had recently parted ways with Charles Xavier. I supposed you've heard his name, Poseidon." She smiled a bit. "Magneto helped build that school."

[sy]

The Dead Man creeped Sy out just as much as any other, but he didn't let it show. The smell of the frozen meat patties was much more nausiating than meeting Hades himself. Irregardless, the trip on the truck was not a highlight of Sy's day.

He listened attentively as Mystique began speaking on the plane, however, concious of the fact of flight, his fingers wrapped around the handles of the chair as they had been on his first flight with the X-men. This time, however, he wasn't sweating, which was an absolute plus, because this plane wasn't built nearly as high-tech as the other. He'd probably burn a hole through the floor.

"And this Magneto," he asked as Mystique turned to him with her last statement. "What happened to him? He's seems a reasonable sort."

[mystique]

"It's a lot more complicated than I can explain here," she began, running her hand over her knee. It was obvious by her expression Magneto had been important to her. "But I'll summarize." Her eyes flickered to the others there, making it clear she was including them in the conversation.

"One of our first attempts to organize the mutant supremacy effort started in Washington, the capital. I had planted myself as a rather notorious anti-mutant Senator, and began to affect change from within, while the Senator was held at the island we are now flying to. We tested a piece of machinery Magneto had developed on the Senator in an attempt to alter his DNA. At one point, we were able to, at least temporarily, create mutants."

"We were set to make this change on a massive scale, we'd set up the instrument on Liberty Island..." she paused. "Where the Statue of Liberty is, in New York City." Nodding a little, she moved on. "This is where our conflict with the X-Men really began. They objected to us using one of their students to run the machine, and of course, Charles Xavier being an integrationist, changing a group of world leaders into mutants didn't sit well with him either." She sighed, as if annoyed by the memory of it. "Magneto was imprisoned for a while."

"The X-Men may consider us their enemies... but neither I, nor Eric- Magneto- ever considered them ours." She paused in thought, running fingers under her red hair before continuing.

"Sparing you the details... I was able to free Magneto, which enabled us to exploit information I had gathered on the Weapon X program... Wolverine, Logan, you know him- he had been part of this program. William Stryker had been working with the US government to develop mutant 'weapons'- mutants under mind control using this serum he'd developed. At one point they intended to destroy all of mutant kind." She said nothing of the moment Poseidon would have recognized personally. A story best left for another time... instead she just smirked. "Yes, charming. We worked -with- the X-Men on that project, and succeeded in taking down the facility at Alkali Lake, killing Stryker, and as a result ending the Weapon X project."

Mystique paused and looked at Aurora and Nightingale. A strange feeling came to her, one she carefully tucked away. It made the corner of her mouth lift in an almost pleasant expression.

"For a while, we rested. We were in Alaska for a bit, while I worked with Pyro, who had joined us from the X-Men during the Alkali Lake incident. Then we heard about Worthington Labs. And I'm sure you've heard that story." She nodded a little, knowing from the constant conversation in the classrooms that Worthington, Alcatraz, and a number of other events she was not present for were well documented amongst the X-Men, and their students.

"It was in our attempts to stop the "Cure" that it was forced on me," she said carefully, an obvious distancing of herself from the words she spoke occurring shortly after the word 'cure' was spoken. "And from the reports I was given, Magneto was injected by one of the X-Men. Shortly before a renegade X-Man destroyed.. well, most everything in a square mile."

A certain quiet settled between Mystique and those listening to her story. She looked down for a moment, and within a second her expression has shifted. Where she was obviously saddened and scarred, now she was indifferent, hardened. She smiled a bit.

"And so, those of us who remained retreated to Genosha. Pyro took command, and we carry on."

[deadman]

Dead Man, of course, was curious as to the nature of Poseidon's ability. He was a collector of Mutant Animates, even though currently his collection was gone. He'd had an impressive number before his unfortunate arrest, years earlier.

Naturally the only ones that were of any added value as animates were the ones with enhanced physical attributes, appendages, or other exploitable physical changes. The mind projects the raw power the body had into it's animates, but only in terms of strength and speed. An animate who was sheathed in flame in life, would not have that ability, unless the corpse still kept it somehow.

He tried not to stare at Sy, guessing as to his strengths... instead he watched the side of Aurora's head.

Here was one he could respect. On the surface, she seemed a bit aloof, but was generally of decent mood. What was amazing to him, though, was the ruthless killer inside of her. In Baltimore he'd giggled himself silly when she splattered a cop into the pavement using her flight. He could hardly equate that psychopath with the somewhat distanced woman before him.

He'd have to talk to her later, on the island. For now Mystique was telling the story of the Brotherhood. It's quest for mutant supremecy - and idea DM fell behind. Mainly because for as much as he didn't like the living, he hated humans much more specifically.

[Nightingale]

It was an interesting story. Long, though.

Angie found herself wondering if Mystique would be planning on taking command now that she wasn't cured anymore. Although if this Magneto guy that everyone kept going on about was in the same boat as her, he'd probably gotten his powers back too. So would that mean that he was going to come back and take back the reins?

Surely, if the cause was as important to him as Mystique's story made it seem, he'd want the support of the Brotherhood again. It made sense in her head, anyway.

Angie found herself picking at her nails, wondering to herself what life would be like in the Brotherhood in the future. Was she going to fit in with them? Did she even fit in now?

The problem was that Angie wasn't a fighter. Sure, Juggernaut had shown her some about defending herself if she needed to, but that was totally different to actually actively fighting. She was never going to be on the front line for the Brotherhood, she was more like the field nurse that hung back and only helped when her skills were called for.

She still felt completely useless, though.

The fight, her heart told her, didn't need to be physical. Didn't need to be a big event with death and destruction and mayhem. Of course, her heart said that they should be able to get along until the humans died out, and her head knew that there was no chance of that happening.

[Aurora]

As Mystique spoke of the battle of Alcatraz, Aurora listened intently. She wished she could have been there, could have been a part of what sounded like a magnificent fight. But no, she was probably confessing her sins to some hypocrite nun and being locked in the broom closet for her transgressions at that time.

She was watching Mystique so intently that she didn't notice Dead Man across from her staring at her head. When Mystique had finished, Aurora was left to ponder what she'd said. "So," Aurora said finally, when no one else spoke. She spoke without timidity. "What happened to Magneto?"

"You said he was cured. Did he...make it out of Alcatraz?" She understood that it was a touchy subject; Mystique had obviously been close to him. But after being left in the dark once today, she did not feel like letting the details be slipped past her again.

[sy]

There were obviously some things that Mystique would rather keep in the past, and Sy had no problem keeping them there. Some memories didn't need to be dragged out: his own included doctors offices and exorcisms where he sat in hard metal chairs, sweating and waiting for the damn things to be over and done with. The doctors usually let him go fairly quick (it was hard to do a physical exam when your patient was sweating a corosive substance all over his body), but the priests always tried to outlast him. HE still shied away from crosses, if only for the number of times they'd been pressed on him while someone poored 'holy water' over his head. As if the god of the sea needed to be baptized.

"So this 'cure' that everyone was up in arms about in Baltimore is not permanant." Well that at least made sense to him. He couldn't imagine something so silly as technology keeping a god from being able to wield his powers forever. Perhaps for a time, but not long. Still, he could see why a Goddess like Mystique would be pissed off by even a short amount of time without being a diety.

[mystique]

"Magneto is presumed dead," she said. And left it at that.

Look at Sy, she nodded a little. "I haven't known any others who have been cured who have returned to their mutation. My theory is that it has to do with being a metamorph. My DNA constantly changes; makes a DNA level change difficult to stick to."

"Suffice it to say, Pyro is with us now. With some work, I think we'll be at that former level soon."

[mystique]

[Continued on Genosha board]