2013.10.25 - Never Ever Wake Up

The forsaking of Genosha occurs with the same orderly precision Magneto once attempted to enforce.

The collapse of the Spire heralded many things. It brought panic, first. The constabulary of Bastion and the Praetors of Hammer Bay can only do so much. Chaos was only a potential, then. It took a lasting crisis to put enough strain on the system for things to begin snapping. Bio-engineered plagues were just the thing.

The island is ringed by a coalition of world military forces. The apparent collapse of the Imperator's government and withdrawal of his protection would likely have been enough, but the plagues begged intervention. To the Genoshan population currently pulling itself in countless directions--rioting, looting, escape, attempts to restore order--the joint task force stationed in the waters means a lot of things. They are a threat, the anti-mutant extermination crews all the cynics promised. They are hope, some authority that can be counted on to put things back together. They are the bars of a cage.

They are just a cage right now, not a noose. Genosha still has structure left. Magneto is a very intelligent man and lavished attention on his contingency plans. He accounted for the possibility of plagues--less apocalyptic in scale--and many lives are being saved because of his forward thinking. Bastion's medical facilities have been expanded to an island-wide string of crisis units. Their containment / treatment centers are the only safe way off the island. Work with them, they work with the military outside, get cleared and get out. Otherwise, you're throwing yourself at the mercy of people whose primary goal is to stop the rest of the world from experiencing a new Black Death.

Hammer Bay, hive of scum and villainy it is, needs just as much help as Bastion. More, in a way. It was not prepared for this. The bay has become a natural rallying point for hopeful evacuees. Here, in the shadow of the twin towers that once deterred unwelcome entrance, teeming masses press against walls of Praetors and drafted volunteers. Because Genosha is a blessed place, they have barriers of telekinetic and other sorts furnished by mutants with those powers.

Medical tents, far behind the impromptu walls, are what they are trying to get at. The men and women there are overworked but steadily addressing the impossible stream of sick and dying. This is what they signed up for.

Superheroes! In flight! In costumes, even! Well, two costumes, one witch. At least one of them doesn't even have a mask or anything-- a serious man in purple and black and silver, gold L and a star on his belt, that one-- he lands on the inside of the barrier. "Hi we're immune, someone tell us what to do to help," he announces to the harried medical personnel and various volunteers, not even asking for someone in charge-- because in a situation like this, *everyone* needs extra hands.

Although Booster Gold knows that Rain has her own means of getting around, in this situation he is assisting her for the sake of speed and efficiency. He is holding her hand, with his force-field glowing in a form-fitting away around himself as well as the witch; due to the nature of his flight ring, rather than dragging poor Rain along by her arm, she is just flying alongside him. He even insured that Rain got to wear a loaner Transuit courtesy of the Legion of Super-Heroes. As they land beside Rokk, he adds, "We're also extremely durable, in case that helps."

Booster is probably way faster in terms of flying than her broomstick. But this is pretty neat, if somewhat unnerving. Rain used to have her broomstick there. Still, she goes with it, eyes kind of wide. She's nothing if quietly grateful for the suit. "Thank you." And hey, thank yous always awesome. She lands, peering around, just as Booster lands. She looks dubious at the mention of them being durable. Is she? Well, maybe. Hopefully. "I um..." Yeah, she can help. "Can heal a bit ..." But that is a lot of healing to do. She seems uncertain.

A man in a stained uniform lays hands on the woman laid out on a stretcher before him. She is lucky; she did not test positive for any of the numerous diseases they have hastily cataloged. It is a very specific kind of luck. Her leg is broken and she suffered a severe concussion. Riots are indiscriminate.

She will be okay. His mutation allows him to speak to a body, as he likes to think of it. He can encourage healing. With the training Genoshan hospitals provided, he has learned exactly how to put someone back together. He knits her bones and staunches her bleeding. Then, he presses a scalpel to his own throat.

The blade is only bewildering, at first. It is his hand holding it. As he attempts to place it back on the prep table, he finds that he cannot. The scalpel digs deeper. He feels pain and then blood. Now, breath quick and voice escaping him, he looks for help and sees first a Praetor holding a gun in his mouth. An aid worker with a glowing hand raised, struggling to breathe even as he teasingly steals only a little air from his own lungs. The barriers in the distance are maintained, but the treatment staff have all decided to threaten their own deaths.

The Legionnaires and accompanying witch are quickly met by a harried coordinator. There are plans in place for superheroic volunteers. There are always superheroic volunteers. She is curt, gesturing to her clipboard: "Get over to the administrative tent--it's the blue one. Be prepared to quickly state what your--" then she withdraws her pistol and presses it underneath her jaw. Her eyes go wide with incomprehension and fear. "--I, it's--help me!"

"It's tragic how easy it is to kill yourself," a young woman says. She is speaking to no one. There is no one to hear her where she is hiding, miles away in the sky. Her senses are keen enough that her presence is not required. "Most people, anyway. Not-invincible people."

She folds her arms, allowing the breeze to decide her course. She continues speaking because she knows Mister Sinister can hear her over the sensor suite he hid in her gauntlets. "What you did to that Wagner man is disgusting, by the way. You could have been artful with your interpretation of Pestilence. But it is easier for small minds to get things done with brute force, isn't it? I liked you better when you were Pale Man. It possessed gravitas. Now you are Mister Sinister, the man who killed the world with phlegm and bile. Does this sound appropriate to you? Master of Excrement. I will remember you that way."

Monet disappears in a blur. There had been some talk of enhancing her speed--some reference to the danse macabre--but she considered that foolish. She is just as fast as she was before, which is quick enough to allow her to appear with the impact of a sonic boom. The tents buckle underneath the disturbance. She orients herself toward the colorful ones. They superheroes are always the colorful ones.

"Hello," Monet calls out, some thirty feet away from the Legionnaires. "Are you familiar with hostage negotiation? You see, I am telepathic."

The coordinator standing in front of them jabs her gun into her jaw, for emphasis.

Rokk starts looking over the clipboard, his attention on what's being shown him, for the moment, rather than what people are not screaming about yet-- and then his attention jerks up to her face in alarm, and he lifts his hand in a swift, decisive gesture, holding it in the air next to him at the same time as she's starting to cry out. All you metal-- all you metal, in that gun, you're mine. You don't go anywhere unless I say you can.

"Booster? Try and raise Imra," the Braalian says to Booster, glancing at him before looking to the girl thirty feet away. Then he calls back, "I see. Do we get to know who we're negotiating with? Or why? I mean-- no offense, miss, but your timing's kind of terrible."

When Booster raises his hand, there is golden energy sizzling around it, although he forces the glow to die down. He speaks quietly to the ring on his finger, although it is not in English. Then, he raises his voice to say to the floating woman, "We're not here to fight with anyone. We're here to help the people who are injured and in need. This has nothing to do with governments or politics." Although it would be difficult for him to disarm himself, he opens his hands as if to show that he's not intending to sneak in a suckerpunch.

Rain is quiet, holding her hands up. She's not here to fight. "He's right," She agrees. Though, she's a little overwhelmed. Horror crosses her face, in place of the numbness that takes its home when there's too much sensory input. Her dark eyes widen. "I am no good at hotage negotiation but ..." She looks worried for the poor woman, for what she might see that she isn't already.

There is no visible change in distant crowd. The ones who can see can only discern that there is more metahuman air traffic. The forcefields hold. They are focused outward, on the crowd. The camp is deathly quiet.

The woman alights on the ground, feet together and arms crossed. She tilts her head to the side and stares. "Rokk Krinn. Unfortunate name. Unfortunate that you ran into me." His mind is then not his own, not wholly. Try as Rokk might, he cannot exercise his inborn control over magnetism. It is the gun held to his head. She begins walking closer. It is a leisurely pace.

"Booster, you may tell Imra that she should not blame herself for not making it in time. She could do nothing against me, even if she did. Neither can any of you, but, you have a purpose to make up for that."

She stops, close enough to see her face. It is a very pretty one and only perhaps that of a murderer.

"These people are doomed. The vast majority, in any case. It is only a matter of time before the plagues run their course." She makes a face. "I know. Ugly way to die. Not that suicide is much better, romantic as it seems."

The woman leans in, floating just above the ground now, gliding inches forward. "Do any of you know of the Xavier Institute? I am sure."

There's an element of 'oh no not again' to the magnetic Legionnaire's expression, and he just lets his hands drop. "No," Rokk says simply, "obviously you can check. The Legion's from about a thousand years in the future, and I'm not even in the right past anyway. Do you mind if-- we, uh. You know. Try to at least help make people more comfortable? Because-- I really don't think-- I mean I guess you've got the wrong number?"

"I know of it," Booster admits, although this may not be surprising; he tends to network with others in a big way. "Is this something personal between you and that institute? If that's what it is... I'm not sure we can help you or even negotiate with you in regards to that. Because we don't have any actual affiliation with it." He does not lower his hands, but he gestures to Rokk, himself, and Rain, as he says, "We're here to help these people. I realize some of them will die anyway, but we're going to save who we can save, and then try to ... at least make things comfortable for the rest. I hope you're not objecting to that."

"..." Blink. Waitasecond. "I ... have divination. With a name, I could probably find people... Granted, I'd prefer not to get mind blasted or cause more people trouble, but it is doable," Rain offers. "Still, I have no affiliation with that institute or the folks running it," Rain admits. "I don't think they'd listen if I dialed in. Or they'd freak out," Rain admits. "Still, I came here to try to help people. Even if only a few," She nods at Booster. She seems uneasy about - well.

The woman tosses her hair over her shoulder and sighs emphatically. "Wrong number. Yes. However, I have been reduced to crawling around with the likes of Famine and Pestilence and some horrid troglodyte of an Englishman, so I will accept my luck and make due with you.

Her eyes narrow. There is a needle in Booster's mind, digging into the place where he keeps his thoughts. It is not gentle. If necessary, it forces itself through his resistance inch by painful inch.

"Divination," the word rolls off her tongue like a lead paperweight. From her expression, she likely thinks it's just about as useful as one. "No, thank you. I will do something more mundane."

She stops gliding forward. The presence retreats from Booster's mind, and from Rokk's. "There. I am satisfied. You do not appear to have any methods of chasing me, but you have been so polite that I will ask: if I left now, would you follow?"

This gets Death an incredulous look from Rokk, despite the fact that -- oh thank god he knows where North is again; he's not blinded anymore-- "No? We're busy." He puts his hands out to his sides, flexing his fingers, slightly distracted by the wreckage Magneto and Jean's explosion left of the island's local magnetic fields. "With sick people," he adds, like it's totally a necessary reminder. In the middle of the medical tents, with the crowds of the dying outside.

There is a little groan from Booster, and the faint golden glow around him flickers for a moment. He puts his hand to his head and takes a step back, as if he were being struck with a sudden migraine. When the probe retreats from his mind, he looks rather angry--not surprisingly--and the glow around his hands intensifies for a moment, swirling with golden kirby crackle, as if he were going to blast Death out of the air. But almost as quickly he gets ahold of himself and the glow dies away as he straightens up, glaring at the floating woman. "-No-, because my priority right now is helping the people here. I don't have the time to deal with someone like you." And then in a tone that is more of a growl, he adds, "Just -go-, let these people have some peace."

Rain nods, quietly. She peers at Death, though, there's a concerned frown. She watches the other two. She seems concerned about Booster a moment. "... fair enough," Rain offers to Death. She did seem concerned most people would chortle at divination.

The woman shoots Rokk a reproachful look. "I said I was being polite."

She does not move. This close, there is no way Booster can miss. The intense crackling is apparently interesting and only that. When he ceases, she feigns horror with no seriousness behind it. "My, what an impressively chiseled scowl! All that practicing in the mirror is paying off. Try leaning forward a bit when you deliver the threat, though--it tells the audience you're interested."

Several of the hostages move suddenly--dropping their weapons. Moments later, the others do the same, having been shown that it is now possible. The woman smiles. "Good luck. Pestilence will likely not show up again. I think he is infecting New York. The state, likely, not the city."

With that, she turns and rises into the sky, disappearing with increasing speed.

Man: Rokk almost actually looks chastened at the reproach. Almost! But instead, he waits until the girl's rocketed off and disappearing into the sky, then gives Booster and Rain a wide-eyed look. "You two all right? Take a minute if you need to before we get to work--"

But there are so many people. /So/ many. And both the sick and the volunteers need help-- there's not really even any time for the briefly-held hostages to drop into gibbering messes. Too many people need them.

Booster's eyes narrow, but he otherwise shows no inclination towards enacting any violence. Even when he is angry, he seems to have some decent self-control. Taking in a slow, deep breath, he says, "I'm fine, Cos. She was poking around in my memory. I just..." He shakes his head then, and waves his hand. "Let's focus on this situation. I'm hoping we can give some chances to people who might not have had one, otherwise."

Oh dear. Well, better than infecting New jersey and having Pesti's germs combine with those there and - nah. Rain frowns. She looks to Booster and Rokk. "Are you - I'm sorry." She looks worried for Booster. The guy's been so freaking nice, he really doesn't deserve a brain probing. Rain looks less dazed. "Okay, sounds good." She seems relieved people are less bent on killing themselves for now, at least.

The aid area springs back to life once more--people immediately getting back to work, others checking on each other to make sure everyone is okay, minor wounds being treated. For many, it is a good excuse to finally take a break. They have been on their feet for days.

The coordinator with the Legionnaires and the witch drops her pistol entirely, looking at it as if it were a particularly fangy spider. She still stares at it as she speaks. "...um... blue tent. Over there."