Surprise

[Pyro]

"Pyro, this is The Dead Man. You'll have to forgive us both- I hadn't the time to warn him of your arrival, and he's a little unprepared."

"The Dead Man." Pyro repeated the name and tipped his head slightly to one side. If Mystique knew him, he was mostly happy to trust that everything was right. "That's a...bit of a morbid name, I have to say." He squared his shoulders and tried to make himself look less like a boy and more like a leader, a difficult thing to do with a now soaking wet t-shirt and wild hair.

"My name is Pyro," he said. "Current leader of the Brotherhood."

Python exchanged a sideways glance with the Juggernaut who was still picking bits of tree out of him again. John had always introduced himself as the leader, not the current leader. Something was afoot here - not to mention that the Python had recognised Raven Darkholme almost instantly.

"I welcome you to Genosha," John was saying. "Would I be right in thinking that you're here to join up with the cause? If so, then you are gladly welcome here."

His talents as a writer had always given him a silver tongue - if he'd only apply it a little more often.

"No need to worry," Mystique murmured to him, "I'll have the maid see to it for you."

He looked at her and smiled a genuinely warm and almost affectionate smile. "We're a bit short staffed," he said, sotto voce. "Guess I'll just have to do it myself. Mystique - would you show our guest inside and ensure that any immediate needs are met. I want a meeting of us all - Gill included - in half an hour in the meeting room. In the meantime, if you'll all excuse me, I think I need to go and - ah - sort myself out."

He delivered a highly out of character deep bow to the Dead Man, took Mystique's hand in his own, kissed it again, grinned at Jane and headed back indoors, his head spinning.

He THOUGHT he'd handled that rather well.

Externally, at least.

[mystique]

Mystique watched him. She'd have to thank him later for his gifted performance. Her eyes slipped askance at Python... Juggernaut... and whoever that young thing was looking agape at her.

Then the show was on once more. She walked up to Dead Man and nodded to his 'friends'.

"Tell me they're not coming inside?"

[deadman]

Dead Man did not speak while the others talked, instead choosing to regard them all with unblinking red eyes. Unblinking not a poetic term, his eyes literally never moved, and it was obvious. His gaze seemed to be wooden.

As the mutant known as Pyro turned to leave, Dead Man then did chose to speak, holding up a finger politely to Mystique as if to say ‘one moment’.

“Pyro.” He said, catching the younger man’s attention. His voice was raspy, a would-be whisper if it weren’t for the distance it carried. “I am the Dead Man, and the name is appropriate, as you will see.”

He turned his head to the biggest of his companions, and the person began to unravel its hood. After a few seconds, the black garment was gone, and what was displayed was a bloated, rotten face. It seemed to be at least a month old. Flies buzzed freely around the face, crawling in and out of the eye sockets.

“My power should be obvious.” He said, a touch a smile on his grey lips. “I command the dead, and give them power.”

“As for the… Brotherhood…” He said the word with somewhat of a sneer, looking over to Mystique. “I was working with the Brotherhood when Magneto first introduced the idea… I’ve been incarcerated for the past several years, so I fear my fame may have slipped some.”

The corpse began to ravel it’s headgear back into place, and Dead Man continued.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. All of you.”

[Pyro]

As John turned to watch the - he hated to use the 'z' word, but what else could he call it - zombie - unravel its headgear, he felt his stomach churn slightly.

Fantastic, his little inner voice suggested. Like your dreams weren't fucked up enough already, now you add zombies to the mix.

Don't use the 'z' word.

Deal with it, man. They're zombies, he's the zombie master...give it a few hours and some maniac with a chainsaw will show up.

John closed his eyes for the briefest of moments. "With respect, uh, Dead Man," he said, stepping back outside. "I appreciate your talent very much - but rotting corpses in this kind of heat doesn't exactly make for ... shall we say aromatic company? Can I ask for them to be kept outside of the compound?"

That'd be bad enough.

John glanced briefly at Mystique. "I apologise for not knowing you," he said, demonstrating that same lightning-fast ability to think on his feet that was one of his strengths. "I have been out of the country and only recently returned. Things have been...hectic since the battle at Alcatraz. It's good to see you."

[mystique]

Mystique leaned in towards Dead Man and murmured to him.

"That's the new code. All the same areas are still restricted, though Magneto's no longer with us. Some security measures have been added by Pyro, so do be careful." She looked back towards Pyro, then at Dead Man again, treating him as any old friend.

"Of course, we'll need you at the meeting. And I'm afraid he emptied out your room several years back, but we can take care of that." She gestured to Pyro. "I need to brief him on a few things. Take care of your boys and we'll see you inside?" She stepped back towards Pyro and looked at the others.

"Play nice." She smiled slickly, and continued up towards the building.

[Pyro]

[[Exit Pyro and Mystique to thread Truths]

[deadman]

Dead Man nodded at Pyro, a small smile still playing on his thin lips. Dead Man was difficult to read, particularly with the unblinking, soul-less eyes. “Of course, they need no shelter. My soldiers will wait wherever you wish.”

With that, without him speaking a word to them, the corpses turned, and strode quickly off towards the edge of the rubble. Notably, they didn’t all move at the same clip. The biggest one moved somewhat fluidly, while the others shambled a bit, though making large strides. The latter not only shambled, but moved jerkily, as if unused to their own bodies.

He listened to Mystique, nodding in the appropriate places, and taking a long look at the surroundings as she spoke.

When she was finished, he said “Later, when we’ve got time for a long chat, you’ll have to tell me about the cure.”

Then, before she could react to that, he immediately turned to the others. “And who are you other fine fellows? I believe you are all unfamiliar to me.”

[Juggers]

Cain brushed the last splinter of wood from his shoulder and stared at the backs of the retreating corpses. When they were finally out of sight he turned his gaze to the Dead Man. "Ok," he said, brows raised, "that is fuckin' disgustin'!"

Python shrugged, "I don't know Cain, we eat dead things on a fairly regular basis, or in your case a VERY regular basis, so what if they are up and walking around? Can you imagine how useful an army of them would be?" He took a step toward Dead Man and extended a hand, "I'm Python, uh, pleased to meet you."

He glanced over at his two companions, "that there is the Juggernaut and the young emerald miss is Jane Martin."

The Juggernaut shook his head, "'ang on! There's a difference between eatin' dead things an the dead things gettin' up an walkin' about!"

He paused.

"An where the fuck did Mystique come from?!"

[deadman]

Dead Man shook the hand of Python, and nodded in turn to the others. “If I may, Juggernaut, I believe Mystique has been here for a day or so. As the song says, she’s like the wind. I’ve never known her to stay down for too long, nor stay away from where she wants to be… when she wants something, she generally has a way of getting it.”

He looked back at his retreating troops, then cracked a genuine, if not completely cold and creepy smile at Juggernaut.

“As for the use of the dead… no, it is definitely not ordinary. For that matter, it’s definitely not even what most would consider ‘right’. But it is mightily useful. The dead don’t feel pain, they don’t need to sleep, eat, or drink. In fact, the longer they’ve been dead the harder it is to re-kill them… Of course, they do complain a lot. A little ‘please kill me’ here, and ‘oh god no’ there – but otherwise, the best employees under the sun.”

He said the last with an honestly sunny smile. Then regarded the trio carefully.

“You’ll pardon me for being so direct, but I like to assess my compatriots when I encounter them – and I’ve been out of the loop for a while. What is it you three do?”

[Juggers]

"Days?!" The Juggernaut exclaimed in alarm, "she'd been keepin' to 'erself then!" The fact that Cain had been distracted in the practise yard and then with football for almost the entirety of the previous afternoon and evening had nothing to do with it. SOMEBODY should have told him. He made a mental note to kick Gills arse next time he saw it. The mental note was almost instantly lost under the mental filing cabinet of distractions that filled almost all of the Juggernauts psyche.

"Anyways, I reckon I'd be complainin' if I was wanderin' about when I was s'posed to be dead. I thought it was called eternal rest for a reason?"

"So!" Python interrupted, "what we do, by that would you mean the more conventional sense of do, as in around here? Because if so, then I'm the mechanic, pilot, entrepreneur and all around nice guy, Jane here is our resident botanist, herbologist and field medic and Juggs is ... well Juggs."

He gestured to the mangled tree and the semi-mountainous form of the Juggernaut as if the scene itself explained all.

"Of course, if your meaning the OTHER sense of do," Python grinned, dislocating his jaw and exposing hollow fangs that sparkled with tiny beads of venom.

"Then we each have our gifts."

[deadman]

Dead Man grinned at Juggernaut’s take on his minions. It was very astute indeed… maybe the big guy only looked dumb.

Then he listened carefully as the fellow named Python explained about their positions, and he nodded. His smile widened at the image of Pthon's venomous teeth. “Excellent, and I did mean both. Skills are as important as… gifts. They indeed are.” He looked back to Juggernaut, his eyes seemed to be still in their sockets – like glass eyes – and he moved his whole head when he wanted to look at something.

“I suppose your name gives away your nature…. Though the splintered tree also does it justice. Are you completely unstoppable, friend? Further – are you…” He looked for the word. “Supernaturally strong in a standing form? Impervious? Or only when you are trucking?” His interest seemed a bit over-much, for some reason.

[Juggers]

The Juggernaut grinned and plucked up the entirety of the fallen tree in hands that splintered the wood where they gripped. He hoisted the trunk with casual ease before breaking it over his head with a crash of tortured wood. Sap-sticky splinters rained around.

"Ain't nothin' can stop the Juggernaut, movin' or not," except possibly an adamantium prison, but he didn't like to talk about that. Or Jean Grey, but he didn't like to talk about that either. Or some little bitch who could run through walls, but he DEFINITELY didn't like to talk about that.

"Please," Python groaned, "don't encourage him, maintaining the base is difficult enough as it is."

Cain shook the fresh splinters from his head and shoulders and glared at Python, "ain't my fault if the bloody base keeps breakin', Gill should take better care of the place."

The fact that Gill had no way to physically beat hand-prints out of steel never crossed the Juggernauts mind; Magneto had never had a problem.

[deadman]

“Simply… gorgeous.” Dead Man managed. “Did you know that upon death, the brain leaves a small echo of itself fused into the skull. You expel an awful lot of pure psychic energy upon death, and some of stays behind. It’s a… copy… of the mind. This is what I control when I bring the dead back to the land of the living. I suppose the real ‘soul’ is gone, but that’s of little concern. What does concern me is the awareness of the mind. The more aware the mind, the better the soldier, this is true – it makes them less robotic. But, the mind fuels the power I give the body. The more the mind thinks it’s powerful, the more the body really is… of course, the mind’s real strengths a person may never see in life. A woman can lift a car off of her child, for example, because the mind lets go of inhibitors, and just does it. That’s what all my creations are like. Limited only by the peak of mankind’s strength and speed…”

He seemed a bit lost for a moment, as if speaking to himself, but staring blankly out across Genosha.

“… But mutants – they are a different breed of dead. Especially those with your particular gifts, my good Juggernaut. Your mind, for example, would think it’s as strong as it was in life. And so the body would be. Stronger, even, because it’d be without limit… it’d be completely beautiful.”

[Juggers]

The Juggernaut faltered for a moment, just for a moment before his jovial grin returned to its more natural strength, "'cept I ain't dead," he said happily, "'cos nothin' can stop the Juggernaut!"

It wasn't so much a mantra, Python reflected, that kept Cain firm in his belief, but a simple statement of fact. Beyond the atom splitting powers of the psychotic Jean Grey Python had never seen anything successfully so much as wound the Juggernaut, much less actually stop him. Of all the Brotherhood, he supposed that Cain was probably the one most likely to die of old age.

The thought was accompanied by a somewhat comic image of a toothless, hobbling Juggernaut arthriticly stumbling down the street after some children that had kicked his fence muttering, "nothing can stop the Juggernaut you young whipper-snappers!"

He found it hard to marry the mental image to reality as Cain stood there covered in fractured tree.

It was still amusing though.

The Dead Mans slightly crazed assessment did unsettle him somewhat however, even if it did bounce harmlessly of off the Juggernauts impervious mentality.

"Ahem," Python cleared his throat, "well then, the day is still young and there is much to discuss and indoors holds the promise of seating and breakfast. Shall we?"

He gestured to the open door where Pyro and Mystique had recently departed.

[deadman]

The pale man seemed snapped out of his reverie, and cleared his throat, putting the thin smile back on his lips.

“Ah. Yes, well of course. Breakfast does sound like the idea of the hour. I’d also like to hear more about the young miss Jane here, as her power no doubt will be as interesting as her lovely flesh.” He said this with genuine interest, and what seemed to be a compliment, and then headed towards the door with Python.

“What’s the plan, gentlemen? I hear they’re re-opening the cure in Baltimore. Please tell me this is our next target…”

Of course, it wasn’t necessarily the cure that interested the Dead Man. It was the death. How many mutants would be there? How many would die? What if someone did actually manage to put Juggernaut down, maybe with a telepathic blast – something that completely killed his mind? Xavier was rumored to be able to do that. Hell, Dead Man felt Xavier’s power from his prison cell a year or so ago, after the incident at Alkali Lake. It’d be terrible if Dead Man weren’t there to help Juggernaut move on.

His mind mused over the possibilities of fallen X-Men, Brotherhood, and other passersby mutants who’d be attending the cure. Maybe even the mutant known as Colossus. Or Wolverine? What would that be like?

His smile broadened a bit further.


(ooc we can cut forward any amount of time you guys want, since intro's have been made. )

[Juggers]

(OOC I think we should wait until the uber-JP Pyro and Mystique are writing goes up, then we can continue with everybody ;D)

[deadman]

ooc: Probably a good idea, though Jane, if you want to post some stuff we can run with it until they get their super big RP up.

[Jane]

((Good LORD I am sorry everyone. So sorry my commas have run away from me. Nicole claimed I had to get the full Kentucky experience and we spent all day picking blackberries which means I now have cuts all over me and then we went to a movie and oh dear I'm just going to get on with this then.))

Oh.

Oh, ew.

There needed to be some law against people with raising-the-dead type powers. For one thing, it was insanely creepy. For another, it was insanely unhygienic - dead stuff did not mesh well with not-dead stuff. Living stuff, rather. Undead stuff and dead stuff might go fine, since they couldn't either really infect or anything, but Jane was starting to get off on a mental tangent.

She covered her mouth and nose with a sleeve briefly, trying to make her gag reflex go away, which she managed after a few horrifically grossed-out seconds. They were just matter. Just rotting, decaying, maggot-infested... matter. Like a dead tree, or dirt.

But MOVING AROUND and ZOMBIES and EW.

It was fine. It was all fine. Juuust fine.

Thank the Lord, though; the zombie (ew ew ew) which had unmasked itself was now remasking itself. When it was just a creepy ninja again, Jane felt immeasurably safer, though she kept a careful grip on the trees that bordered the complex, just in case. Security thing.

Pyro and Mystique finished up with the new recruit (just their luck) and went inside to sort out accomodations, but the Dead Man himself stayed, speaking to Python and the Juggernaut about their abilities and positions. Jane subtly edged halfway behind Cain, trying to stay out of sight. She didn't have a job to discuss; she should just stay unnoticed and maybe Mr. Creepy Zombie Master (Dead, the word you're looking for is Dead) Man would leave her alone.

"Ahem. Well then, the day is still young and there is much to discuss and indoors holds the promise of seating and breakfast. Shall we?"

Oh, thank God.

Jane almost turned on her heel, but no. There was no escape from the creepy.

“Ah. Yes, well of course. Breakfast does sound like the idea of the hour. I’d also like to hear more about the young miss Jane here, as her power no doubt will be as interesting as her lovely flesh.”

Her lovely flesh crawled.

"I, um," she said, faltering in her quest not to make gagging noises. "I... grow things. Plants. Thus the, you know, green... ness..."

Ack ack ack get away.

"Thank you," she said belatedly. She didn't want to piss off the Zombie Master, after all.

“What’s the plan, gentlemen? I hear they’re re-opening the cure in Baltimore. Please tell me this is our next target…”

Thank the Lord again. Jane headed up to Python and the lovely lovely door inside the complex (and AWAY from Mr. Creepy, if anyone Up There liked her), ducking inside.

((And what super-RP is this? I'm lost. In Kentucky.))

[Pyro]

((That'd be this one

[Juggers]

The Juggernaut turned and stomped his way back to the entrance, "yeah, Baltimore it is, gonna go knock the place down I reckon," he inclined his head toward the open door, "think that's what Pyro an Mystique wanna have a meetin' about, come up with some sorta plan." As far as Cain was concerned the jury was still out with regards to Mystique. He had met the woman, once, for thirty seconds during which time she had saved Magneto from being shot with the cure and then been abandoned.

Thirty seconds didn't qualify as a working relationship for the Juggernaut, particularly since she was now, by all accounts, human. Still, that was what meetings were for. He fully anticipated being bored as a rock within the next five minutes.

"We should probbly get in there or Pyro'll start to get, y'know, hot under the collar," that said he ducked his head and stomped back inside, Python trailing along behind.

Once more within the comfortable shade of the corridors Cain made a brief stop. "GILL!? " He roared, his voice bouncing distorted echoes throughout the nearby rooms and halls, "get ya useless, fishy arse down 'ere, we got a meetin'!!"

Then he stomped off again in the direction of the meeting room.