[Intel: X-Force & X-Men - Troy Situation]

[xp_darcy]

Preface: Bitches got stitches and painkillers make me loopy oops I just had to take another dose you're sorry. I'm sorry? Everyone can be sorry.


So, Troy. You've all seen the news by now, entire fucking college city wiped out by nobody-knows-what but there's definite muttering surprise that it didn't happen at the pharm and chem labs of Auburn instead. Psh Auburn whatever we all know the real science horror comes out of the Culver labs. Right? RIGHT. Dr. Banner, come collect your idiot chemistry brethren. Or whatever.

ANYHOW.

We show up to get a coworker of mine out as a favor to the X-Ranch, and shocker of shocker the damn Marauders are there like stomach pain after a night of drinking and then indulging too hard at the Taco Bell. We had to split to keep the military and shield off our backs and ended up against those dipshits instead, including everyone's out of favor former resident, going by Malice and sporting a rather foxy set of upgrades.

Not in the sexy way, unfortunately.

In the someone grafted her with Kyle's DNA way. Essex. Second verse same as the first, right? Right. Just as terrible as all of you think it is, and right, someone remind me later about making those fucking hockey neck collars mandatory because they stopped her fucking teeth, okay? My neck's bruised to fuck and my voice is messy, but Nica didn't have to watch my throat get ripped out. Good job, past self.

Right, so. We all know Laurie liked being the smartest in the room and that has ZERO PERCENT changed now that she's playing house with Essex's kid and apparently been promoted to lead of the Marauders–actually that's definitely caused some resentment, and she seems about as well-tolerated with them as she was when she was being an asshole down in medical, so mostly grudgingly with a strong current of "Damn, stfu and let me do my job." This is very relatable.

Anyways, intel. The actual source of an entire fucking city being wiped was some Horseman, Famine? And apparently that En Sabah Nur dude only needs to wake his final horseman - Death, of all the emo goth kid things - to have the full set and go all whammy on our asses. And Death can wake up anywhere there are enough mutants or something?

And like, I'm no great religion scholar or anything but I did live through that shitty Left Behind series era so I'm seeing a picture with y'know, Africa and Spain earlier this year.

It's tied into that Akkaba cult shit too, so. If you were wanting to make the biggest scene to ever scene sort of arrival and needed mutant energy or life force to make it happen, what upcoming events would you try to trigger or take over and where are they?

Comments

[xp_wildchild]

Malice and sporting a rather foxy set of upgrades. - Not in the sexy way, unfortunately. - In the someone grafted her with Kyle's DNA way. "


ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

That is not how I wanted "Yep, he has my DNA" confirmed. I mean I KNEW but gross.

But it does mean we can build a profile on how to fuck her up more readily, we know what fucks me up.
if we fuck her up enough I get to stay the sexy one right?

[xp_darcy]

It's. Kyle is so unfair why can't her outsiders match her insides??? They should people need to know what they're getting into there but just oh pretty people lay. Last. Lady.

Dammit autocorrect you're not being a bro right now and my fingers are too heavy to type. Literally.

Come over I've got the food pineapple sorbet but I can't do more stairs right now she got her claws in the stuff covering my guts.

[xp_wildchild]

Aw gross, she's still cute? Man. You'd think at least she'd get my overbite and big ass ears and body hair.

UGH. (you've been to medical right b/c the last time she was purple and evil in Genosha she had poison hands, it SUCKED. I threw up like I dunno, eleven times after fighting her)

[xp_darcy]

Yeah Clarice got me naked and stitched me up. 😉 She had something on her hands, felt like fire and death but no vomit. Ohhhhh noooooo I don't want to vomit right now that uses too many stomach muscles.

[xp_wildchild]

Yeah, it was fire and death last time too but like, I vomit a lot? Like, my body goes "Huh that shouldn't be there, time to throw up" so hopefully no vomit for you because you like. regular person heal instead of body go "time to void!"

I don't know how regular people work. I'm just mad Malice didn't get butt hair and an overbite.

[xp_darcy]

Maybe she waxes or maybe Essex kept her pretty since she's playing house with his kid idk

No vomit so far just pain and headaches and more pain. Hands the worst, she just missed a big nerve. Lunar? Uther? Details unclear ask when I'm sober enough to remember medical records other than "stitches" and "fucking lucky"?

[xp_cypher]

Goddammit why are patterns always obvious in hindsight. That shit in Spain? Red armor, everyone fighting everyone? Horsemen? WAR.

[xp_darcy]

I'm not totally hip on apocalypse shit what's zombies in Marsabit then?

[xp_cypher]

Pestilence, and Kevin got it in more eloquently than I did, dammit

[xp_darcy]

Don't worry your brain is fucking sexy too he just has a few decades on you for the eloquence.

[xp_cypher]

Also now my brain is in full Charlie Day red strings mode. Stand by.

[xp_darcy]

K, tell me after my nap I'm gonna take the knockout thing now

[xp_changeling]

Fortunately, I speak fluent morphine and can translate.

When the X-Men ran into Clan Akkaba in Slovakia, they first encounter the new and improved Laurie Collins, now under the employ of Essex. She spoke about getting the intel on En Sabah Nur, some kind of doomsday mutant. Their goal was to apparently summon this creature and in turn, Essex had some plan to confront him.

Since Collins had referred to the mutant responsible for the destruction of Troy, Alabama, let's travel back in time to St. Brendon's Cathedral on Chicago's South Side about 1945, when Father Michael, already six ounces deep in the gin, took the pulpit and told us about the end of the world. Drunk son-of-a-bitch, but he gave a hell of a sermon. The most interesting part is when he talked about the Heralds of the Apocalypse and made them sound like comic villains.

The first Horseman was Pestilence, wearing a crown, mounted on a white horse. They carried a bow and shot arrows tipped with all the plagues of the world.

The second Horseman was War, holding a great sword, mounted on a red horse. In their wake, the armies of the world fought each other until they were all destroyed.

The third Horseman was Famine, holding a pair of scales, mounted on a black horse. Around them, food spoiled and the springs and streams died up, until starvation took all life.

The fourth Horseman was Death, who held nothing, but was cloaked and streaming behind with Hades itself following them. They would collect the souls of those already slain by the other Horsemen, and destroy what remained of civilization to add to the dead.

So, not to get all Biblical here, but when Marsabit in Kenya was destroyed in a zombie plague, the only living figure we found was scant blurry images of a figure in white walking through the city. Jaca featured a former Marine in red armor with Akkaba symbols in the centre of a population senselessly at war with each other. Now, a city of over seventeen thousand is wiped out by sudden and systemic rapid catabolysis as Collins returns and claims it was a Horseman. Only Famine fits that bill, and now Death is coming, on a Pale Horse, no doubt. And it looks like Death's target is going to be as many mutants as possible.

Assuming all of this is true and I'm not still daydreaming in that pew, this Nur has been deploying their minions with an Apocalypse flair to destroy communities in order to wake or empower themselves somehow, and 'Death' is the key. This would be a lot more laughable if they hadn't already killed forty thousand innocent people with less effort than we'd use to brush over an ant-hill. Considering each event took place only a few months apart, we need to start parallel research; intel on Akkaba and Essex, anticipating potential targets that meet the profile Collins spoke of, and thinking about potential countermeasures. In each of the other incidents, the aspects of their powers was radial and finite, so hopefully that applies to suitor number four as well.

[xp_darcy]

Your brain is fucking sexy, Boss.

[xp_daytripper]

I've put all my research on Akkaba on the team servers, which means the leather brigade, the PIs and the wormhole gang can all access it too. Magical doomsday cult, believes they'll inherit the earth after the apocalypse. Or after Apocalypse, since that's how they're doing things.

Pre-Frankenberry the previous version of this bastard tried to annex NYC as a mutant state. Killed a lot of people. After seeing Kenya and Spain, it looks like we're getting the new-and-improved version.

[xp_darcy]

did all the world powers suddenly remember the nuke codes because i feel like that's a thing they'd consider to ride the world of a mutant state won by extreme bloodshed

or y'know, because it's a tuesday or whatever

[xp_daytripper]

Funny you should say that, there was a nuke. Hand-delivered by a SHIELD team to make sure they didn't wipe out the Eastern seaboard by accident. From what I remember of the reports, one of ours had to disarm it under fire.

Fun times.

[xp_darcy]

mmyeah nuke it now think about consequences later sounds about white. right. american politician.

[xp_wildchild]

Yeah, and they fucking sent Sabertooth to deliver it or find it or some shit.

[xp_darcy]

[xp_cypher]

Depending on how you class 'alternate reality mindscape that was used to incubate someone', this isn't even our SECOND rodeo with people appropriating the Horsemen imagery.

I'm putting all of the debriefs on the soi-disant 'Age of Apocalypse' up as well as my own notes on the events of Day Zero.

(fun fact, apparently in that alternate mindscape _I_ was the Horseman Pestilence, and in the frankenberry I got DIGESTED by Pestilence. Yay for third time lucky, I guess?)

Bottom line, the common thread on the Horsemen seems to be power amplification with a side of brainwashing. That's not to say there aren't True Believers in the mix, but there is the possibility that one or more of the current crop could be acting against their will.

Also there were other players in addition to the Horsemen - there was a guy acting as his Herald (capitalization intended, that one had totally bought into the rhetoric) and a tracker dubbed the Hellhound. More potential hostiles to keep an eye out for, though maybe these Clan Akkaba assholes are serving in that capacity this time.

Shit. SHIT. Okay, this really is a bit of a red-string moment, but I just remembered something about that 'Age of Apocalypse' mindscape of Rachel's. The end result of that particular go-round was Adam.

As in the teenager our 'former associate' Malice is sucking face with these days.

Fucking fuck. Imma go check on Darcy for her next round of meds.

[xp_tarot]

When you are done checking on Darcy, please come see me. I would like to compare notes.