earth_367 | A Kick in the Teeth

A BATTLE IN PHOENIX

Yesterday, Professor Charles Xavier was contacted by a journalist operating in Phoenix, Arizona. She introduced herself as Hayley Adeyemi and explained that, according to her sources, a contaminated batch of Kick had made it to the streets and was causing chaos throughout the city. The drug, which typically produces a mental high in anyone that takes it and amplifies the powers of any mutants that take it, has been a problem in the area for years now, but this is different. This batch seems to amplify powers to an uncontrollable degree and to have hallucinogenic properties, leading to disastrous outcomes. There have been at least two incidents of mutants lashing out in volatile and unpredictable ways and both are now in custody. While she's tried to get interviews with the mutants in question, she's currently being denied access and the authorities have been openly hostile with her. She's also attempted to get the word out in the local mutant communities, but has been met with skepticism and distrust. So, instead, she's reached out to the X-Men. With this information, Charles began making plans to send the Blue Team to investigate.

Unfortunately, before this could happen, the situation escalated.

On Sunday afternoon, Charles receives another call from Hayley Adeyemi. This one is frantic and telling him of a situation unfolding in downtown Phoenix. A young woman seems to have taken the drug and is now causing catastrophic damage in the form of violent storms. Devastating winds. Torrential rain. Lightning that strikes anything that tries to get close to her and thunder that seems to shake the very earth. Someone needs to intervene or people are going to be killed. Charles agrees to send the Blue Team out and with Illyana Rasputin on hand, they're able to arrive in a matter of minutes. Fighting their way through the storm to reach the woman and get civilians out of harm's way, the team is just beginning to turn the tides and subdue the out of control mutant when a unit of sentinels descends from the sky.

Apparently, Hayley wasn't the only one making calls.

Immediately, the machines close in on her, their booming robotic voices ordering her to halt and stand down. Seemingly directed to neutralize and detain only the threat, they ignore the X-Men. Unfortunately, they're soon caught in one of the woman's electrical storms and begin to malfunction. The sentinels are no longer acting with restraint, turning on the X-Men as well as nearby civilians. Some attempt to detain. Some attempt to kill. In the midst of all this, the mutant they'd come to help is shot clean through, her powers getting even more out of control as she bleeds out. It's absolute chaos.

As the fight continues, several civilians and members of the team are detained by the sentinels and pulled into containment cells in their chests before they take to the sky and depart the fight to take them into custody. Kurt Wagner puts in the call for backup from Gold Team. Together, the X-Men are able to bring down the rampaging sentinels, but it's a bittersweet victory. The mutant woman they'd come to help succumbs to her injuries. The city is wrecked. Some of their own are in custody at best or missing at worst. And, already, the media is starting to swarm.

It's going to be a long day.

Use the form below to determine your character's role in the mission!

NOTE: For Gold Team, skip the Initial Strategy question, since they are not there for that part of the encounter. Additionally, Gold Team arrives after the departure of the sentinels that are capturing targets and there for cannot be captured. (But in future missions...)

THE AFTERMATH

There's nothing else they can do for the unfortunate woman now, so the team reluctantly splits up to do what they can...

Paige Guthrie, Remy Lebeau, Warren Worthington, and [Character 1] remain downtown to help however they can. They clear debris, aid first responders, search for the missing and the dead, and the like. They also have to play nice with the media, who quickly arrive on the scene to capture the aftermath and try to get an interview from the heroes of the hour. Or the mutant menaces, depending on which station you're talking to.

Jono Starsmore, Laura Kinney, Kitty Pryde, and [Character 2] investigate the source of the contaminated Kick. After finding out the woman's identity (her name was Mona Elswick), they're able to find where she lived and investigate her home. There, they find contacts (who all swear up and down that she wasn't a mutant) and are eventually pointed to a two-bit drug dealer who insists he got the Kick dirt cheap from a 'guy in a real nice suit', but swears he doesn't know anything more than that. For now, it's a dead end.

Kurt Wagner, Sam Guthrie, Anna Marie LeBeau, and Scott Summers track the sentinels that fled the fight. For better or worse, the sentinels do keep to protocol and bring those they captured to the nearest Mutant Detention Center (in isolated Komatke, Arizona), where mutants are detained following capture by sentinels or other authorities.

Anyone that was captured has since been collared (preventing them from using their powers) and is waiting in a cell while the situation is sorted out. Anyone that was not registered ahead of this event is undergoing interrogation (with trained agents, including a telepath) and an assessment of their powers. Congratulations, now you're registered! But at least your teammates are here to bail you out.

A BATTLE IN PHOENIX ⮾ THE AFTERMATH ⮾ OOC

code

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jono hadn't given any protests or asked any questions when Paige pulled him along from the kitchen to the (barely) occupied reading room to her bedroom. After a mission like this one, he can understand why she wouldn't want to be alone. He drops into the chair by her desk and watches has as she lingers by the door, seemingly indecisive about something, until she finally closes it. He props one boot against the footboard of her bed and leans back precariously in the chair, considering for a time and finally shrugging.

His expression is difficult to read, as it so often is with his incomplete face.

«Like we helped the wrong people,» he admits slowly, his psionic voice sounding burdened with conflict and frustration, «Never bad to help them too. But...fuck. Mutants getting the short end again, eh?» They hadn't saved Mona. They hadn't discovered the origin of the contaminated Kick. All they'd done was protect people that'd probably hate them under different circumstances.

Probably not true, not entirely, but that's how it feels.

«How're you feeling about 'all that'?»

After setting down her mug, Paige turns her back to Jono and removes her shoes and socks, shaking the shed skin into a bin that's by the door for this express purpose. She really needs to go shower and scrub everything off properly, but she just doesn't have the energy right now. Grabbing up her coffee she goes to sit on her bed, frowning. She feels much the same as Jono does, but it's all twisted up with the guilt she always feels when things don't go right.

Paige takes a sip of coffee, afterwards chewing on her lip for a moment before replying.

"Not real good, honestly. A little sad." Her eyes fall down to her mug, watching the coffee to try to have something to focus her attention on that isn't her feelings. "We just have to keep trying to make it better, I guess. But... sending Sentinels when Blue Team was already there? It's so pointless. An' needlessly dangerous."

Rocking back a little farther in the chair, Jono listens and lets Paige's words hang in the air between them for a moment. Comforting other people never comes easily to him. He doesn't ever seem to have the right words. In situations like this, maybe there are no right words.

«People that made that call either don't trust the X-Men or don't care about needless danger, so long as we're the ones taking the risks. We keep trying, maybe that changes. So...yeah, we keep trying.» He doesn't know if he actually believes that, but he thinks Paige does. He shrugs again. «...But you did a lot of good, anyway,» he adds after a moment, «No reason to punish yourself with black coffee.»

He's known her long enough to know she prefers sugar and cream but that she feels like she has to earn it. And the mug in front of her is pitch dark.

"Yeah. We keep trying." She echoes. "Just wish things were different already. Not that wishin' ever does much good." Or, at least, wishing without putting in the work. Paige sighs, continuing to stare at her coffee, her face screwing up a bit at the (maybe a tiny little bit accurate) accusation that she's punishing herself.

She finally lifts her gaze and sticks out her tongue. "Maybe I just felt like havin' it black since it's late in the day." This makes no sense, but maybe Jono won't notice (she knows he will).

Jono hasn't had coffee in three years, but even he knows that this doesn't make any sense and so looks at Paige with uplifted eyebrows. His expression isn't difficult to read anymore. It's all skeptical amusement and disbelief that she'd even try to pull off a lie so outrageous with a straight face (even one with the tongue sticking out).

There's no need to call her on it more directly, though.

«Right. Wish in one hand, shit in the other, innit?» he agrees more somberly, then goes quiet for a beat, seeming to consider something. «...everyone that knew that girl swore up and down she wasn't a mutant. What do you make of that? Think she was hiding or just had the worst manifestation on bloody record?»

Even worse and even more spectacular than his own, which is saying something.

The raised eyebrows make Paige want to throw a pillow at Jono, but instead she just maintains eye contact as she takes a long drink of coffee. It really is a little disappointing this way, but she's not going to let her expression show it.

There are other things to focus on anyways, like her friend's observation about the girl at the center of it all. Her mug falls away from her lips as she frowns.

"...the Kick could have made them manifest, maybe. But I s'ppose with powers like hers she maybe could've hid them. Nothing at her house pointed to anything? Y'all didn't get on her computer or anything, right?"

Edited Date: 2025-05-05 05:49 pm (UTC)

«Kitty did. Sentinels must've rattled that genius brain because it took her a while to get in, but there wasn't much there. No indications of a secret life as a mutant, anyway. Nothing around the flat either.» The woman's life had seemed mundane, all things considered. She lived alone in a cramped little apartment and worked in some boutique she couldn't afford to shop in (but occasionally stole from). Had a lot of casual friends but few close ones. No steady partner. Distant family. She ate out once or twice a week, was really into something called 'yarn bombing', went clubbing on her nights off and was just...living.

Not anymore, though.

Jono folds his arms, brow creasing as he reflects on it all. But it doesn't seem like there's meaning to be found in any of it.

«...I guess it doesn't make a difference.»

Paige takes another sip of her coffee and decides she doesn't want it. Or, at least, doesn't want it right now - she's not about to waste it. She sets the mug aside on her bedside table before shifting to sit crosslegged, frowning.

"Yeah, Ms. Pryde really didn't seem like she was doing well when I talked to her, so I'm not too surprised. She promised she'd go to the infirmary, though." Which, hopefully she did. Paige doesn't feel like she can ask. She lets out a little sigh, her elbows going to rest on her knees and her chin cupped in her hands as she continues to watch Jono.

"If we find out that the other people whose powers went wild weren't known mutants before it's a pattern, at least." Not that that solves anything that happened already.

Jono watches Paige set the coffee aside, but doesn't say anything about it. She shouldn't be drinking it now anyway. She needs to sleep at some point and she's shit at that on a good day. Finally, he removes his foot from the edge of the headboard and lowers the chair back to the ground.

«I'm sure she did.» He's not, but it seems like the thing to say. «Bloody stupid not to.»

Leaning forward and resting his elbows against his knees, he looks at Paige and nods. She's right. If there's a pattern there, it probably means...something. That this new variant of Kick can kickstart latent mutations, whether by accident or by design.

«Something to look into, at least. And maybe Frost can pry more out of that dealer's brain than he gave us. Details in his subconscious about the guy he got this shit from in the first place.» He shrugs. It's a lot of maybes and may just bring them back to another dead end. «Problems for another day, though. Too soon to be talking shop.»

"Yeah," Paige agrees somewhat absently. She means that she's sure Kitty did go, not that she would be stupid if she didn't. Kitty's not stupid. But she supposes she would be stupid if—

She shakes her head, hesitantly glances back at her coffee for a moment (no, she doesn't need that), and then finally focuses on Jono again.

"...you're right. There's no need to try to force any sort of plan today. Asking Ms. Frost will be good, though, for whenever she's ready to get back out in the field." Which, from what little she knows of the woman, probably won't be too long.

Paige goes quiet for a few moments after this before letting out a heavy sigh and dropping onto her side. "We did a good job today." She says this more for herself than for him.

«That's what I hear,» Jono confirms, watching as Paige drops down onto the bed. It's clear that she's exhausted and not the sort of exhausted that coffee's going to help with much. As if in commiseration, he slumps in the chair and folds his arms over his chest.

He spends a few moments thinking back over the long day. The intense battle.

«...saw that thing try to grab you and lose a bloody hand, though,» he adds abruptly, his tone picking up a hint of brightness. Maybe excitement. Maybe admiration. He remembers the moment clearly. He'd been too far away to intervene and he'd felt a rush of fear watching a sentinel's metallic tendril extend from its palm and lash out at Paige, attempting to grab her. It was what had happened to some of the others. Except she'd leapt and rolled out of the way, only to catch the tendril before it could retreat and pull it so hard that she'd ripped it clean out. There had been sparks and the screeching of metal on metal before smoke started pouring out of the damaged limb. «That was brilliant. Real hero shit.»

From her new sideways position Paige continues to watch Jono, quiet and curious. She's glad that someone told him he did a good job. Hopes he took it to heart, at least a little bit. Praise is good for him.

The praise she receives, though, is embarrassing. Not because she doesn't know that what she did was pretty cool, and not because she's unaccustomed to it. It's what she's always striving for, after all. But there's something about this that hits her in a strange way, so she rolls her eyes a bit, rolls her head to the side too to look at the ceiling as she smiles.

"Yeah, well, had to do somethin' about it. Saw you take out that one's legs and topple it into the other. Also real hero stuff."

Jono watches Paige too, momentarily preoccupied with the way her blonde hair falls back from her face as she turns to look up at the ceiling and the way she fails to actually hide her smile. It's cute. She's cute. And he's a bloody berk to be getting caught up in thoughts like that. He ignores the way his energy roils beneath the bandages, quickening like an excited heartbeat, and shakes his head.

...What did she just say?

«Right. Well. No surprise, is it? We knew we can hold our own.»

"Yeah. Been training long enough." Paige's eyes remain fixed on the ceiling, where there are a few scattered glow-in-the-dark stars (juvenile, she knows, but they're good for staring at when she can't sleep). She looks tired as her smile fades into something more neutral. She tries not to yawn and puts the back of her hand over her mouth for a moment to stifle it.

"'m sure Mr. Summers will have the Danger Room ready with new Sentinel scenarios in no time. Then we'll really be trouble for 'em."

It occurs to Jono that Scott is probably already working on that Danger Room scenario and he almost says so but manages to catch himself. If Paige thinks anyone else is hard at work, she'll feel obligated to do the same. And he's not going to be the one to set her off, especially not when she seems to be slipping closer to sleep.

«Good thing. I was getting tired of bloody dinosaurs.»

Paige slowly stretches her arms above her head, letting out a little sigh. Her mind is starting to wander, thinking about dinosaurs and ice cream and the fact that she really should take a shower.

"They were workin' out some trauma, pretty sure, with all them dinos."

She rolls over again to look at Jono, eyes half-lidded now.

"You ever see 'We're Back'? Used to sorta stress me out. But I wanted the smart cereal so bad."

Jono has, in fact, seen We're Back. But it's been a long time, he'd been a kid, and he doesn't remember much about it.

«Yeah. Bloke gets eaten by crows at the end, right? Grim.» He can't smile, but a hint of amusement is audible in his psionic voice when he adds, «Why? You want me to put it on?» He doesn't actually have much interest in a We're Back refresher, but there's no quicker way to get an already drowsy Paige Guthrie to fall asleep than to put on a movie.

"Old kids movies're a lot. I tried watchin' All Dogs go to Heaven recently and it's so messed up," Paige half-laments in a mumble, shutting her eyes after a moment. She needs to get up. She tries to shake herself out of her tired haze with little success as she sighs again.

"Don't put it on, I need t' get all the skin off."

Jono wants to tell Paige that she needs to rest, but that will only make her more determined not to, so he goes silent instead and slowly straightens in the chair. Maybe if he leaves now, quietly, she'll just drift off on her own.

He considers and slowly stands, watching her all the while.

Paige mumbles something incoherent as Jono stands, but her eyes remain shut and her breaths start to slow. No movie needed, apparently - before he even gets to the door she'll likely be asleep.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Custom Text

January 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Page Summary

morestars - THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

earth-367

An X-Men GPSL (IC)

A Kick in the Teeth

A Kick in the Teeth

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

THE AFTERMATH: Jono & Paige

Custom Text

January 2026

Tags

Page Summary

Expand Cut Tags