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ax_main2017-08-16 12:58 pm
ax_brotherhood) wrote in ax_main2017-08-16 12:58 pm
Entry tags:
Brotherhood | Unexpected Meeting Plot
The Brotherhood crew plays pool, until they're summoned for a meeting.
Day ... who-the-fuck-even-cared since Magneto had scraped her off the side of the Interstate between Ohio and West Virginia: Eileen remained on fucking Cloud Nine. Never mind this setup was already head and fucking shoulders above scrounging through dumpsters and stealing from ATMs to get by--being able to use her powers freely, whenever she wanted, that alone was worth the price of admission. Not that she didn't buy what their be-helmeted leader was selling. The flatscans were on their way out, and mutants were on the way in. The former just didn't understand that yet. And, hey, if they were willing to do the rational thing and just die out like Cro-Magnon Man or the Neanderthals, then everything would be copacetic.
She didn't hold out much hope for that, though.
Anyway, all was golden so far in the former nightclub-turned-mutant-hideout. The name was kind of catchy, even Eileen had to admit: Asteroid M. She had to wonder why the place had failed. She wondered even more about how Big Mags had acquired the resources to outfit the once-gutted building. But he wasn't talking, and she was smart enough not to ask too many questions when they were clearly not welcome. Besides, she sort of mostly entirely respected the guy. Even if she would have sooner run naked down main street without benefit of her powers than admit it out loud. The others knew how she felt. Or had learned to figure it out.
The rec room, their leisure space between practicing with their powers, was pretty all right, even if it was a bit dated. There were some arcade-style video game machines flanking one wall, and a pool table and air-hockey set-up toward the center. Not really a twenty-first century setup, but good enough for a bunch of freak kids laying low. And, hey, at least Lance wasn't around perpetually tilting the pin-ball machine with his fuckery.
Not that she really cared to actually use the machines, herself. For Eileen, it was enough to simply be there, attendant on the harmonies of electromagnetism unique to this particular space. It was a beautiful chorus of chiming impulses, and not for the first time she regretted it wasn't something she could share with her fellow recruits. Even if some of them could be massive douchecanoes, when they got ready.
Pyro had been sitting at a table, changing the flint of his faithful Zippo before filling it up. He snapped it shut now, then opened and lit it with one practised gesture. He grinned at the heat of the flame burning inside his chest and drew it out into a fireball in his hand. He enjoyed this for a few seconds, then closed the lighter and his fist, putting out the fireball.
He pushed up from the table, shoving his Zippo gear into the leg pocket of his cargo pants. "Who's up for some pool?" That game was sexual as shit, of course he enjoyed it, male teenager that he was. And if he got good enough at it, that would give him one more way to trick people out of their cash. What was not to love?
Hey, he was all about what Magneto was offering here. It felt like the guy was the first adult to actually see Pyro, never mind see anything of value there. But all good things came to an end, although Pyro would fight the flatscans with everything he had before letting them screw this up for the rest of them. Still, he had to keep his options open, and pool hustling was a good one.
"Yeah, whatever." Wanda got to her feet, abandoning the pile of pictures she was cutting out of various magazines and setting down the scissors. She'd planned to paste them all together, later, but that could wait. Pyro playing pool was a hell of a lot less annoying than Pyro sitting around bored, flicking his lighter on and off.
Pietro, who had been speed-reading Wuthering Heights (man, who'd fall in love with that dickhead?), tossed his book aside and snapped to stand next to Eileen. He leaned in close and sing-songed, "Eileeeeeeeen. Wanna take 'em on? Show 'em how it's done." He grinned.
Smirking down at the silver-haired speedster, Eileen turned idly in the air and shrugged. She floated over to join the others at the pool table--because who the fuck wanted to walk anywhere, when they could fly?--and scrutinized the only slightly worn green cloth surface. "Why the hell not?" she asked rhetorically. "Though with the speed freak on Team Awesome, I don't know how much of a competition it'll actually be. Get ready for a world-class ass-kicking, Red and Redder."
"Put your money where your mouth is," Pyro offered with a hint of his patented smirk twisting his lips. "I got the better twin." He grabbed the rack to set it on the table. "You up for this, Melisandre?"
"If you'll quit playing nickname-of-the-week," Wanda replied. Honestly, why did he feel the need to do that? She wasn't sure who the latest one referenced, but she had a feeling she liked it better that way. Besides, he'd called her the better twin - he'd earned some slack, and she directed a smirk at Pietro to see if he'd picked up on it before picking out a cue and walking over to the table. "Rack them up, I'll break."
"Keep dreaming." Pietro threw a smirk and a wink in Pyro's direction and snapped to stand beside his sister, selecting a cue of his own. "I'll try not to send anything flying this time." Hey, superspeed = superforce, what could he say.
"I don't have any money, and you know it," said Eileen conversationally, hovering over to pick out a cue for herself. She didn't exactly have an eye for that sort of thing, so it mostly amounted to grabbing the first one that came conveniently to hand. "But I'll be happy to put my foot where your ass is." It was fairly typical of her conversation since Magneto had found her, and she figured if the others hadn't called her on it yet, they probably didn't mind. That much. "So it's a no-powers game, then? La~ame."
Pyro was ordering the balls inside the rack with the practised ease of someone who had been playing a lot of pool in the past few weeks. "What do you think, Wanda?"
He shot his partner a smirk, and yes, he was calling her by her name like she'd asked. He didn't always have to be a pain in the ass, okay.
"No powers until Pietro breaks the rules," Wanda suggested. She offered a half smile, just to acknowledge that he'd actually used her name. He could be taught - who knew? It seemed like a good compromise, though - it was inevitable that Pietro would, but at least it'd keep him from clearing the table on the first shot. "And when he does, he loses his team's next turn."
"Whaaaat, me?" Pietro batted his eyelashes ever-so-innocently and leaned one hip against the table. "I would never. I'm known everywhere for my sense of fair play and honesty."
Wanda let out an incredulous snort.
... which was echoed almost immediately by Pietro's partner. "Sure, Maximoff. You're like George fucking Washington and his fucking cherry tree." Her luminous purple eyes turned back toward the table. "But at least I know that guarantees us only a round or two before the whole electromagnetic spectrum starts siding with us." Which, yeah, still wasn't all that formidable, when Wanda was part of the opposition, but still. Definitely more helpful than ... setting fire to the table, or whatever St. John could come up with.
"Come on, then," Pyro stated, lifting the triangle rack from the balls and smirking over at Wanda. He'd find some use for his powers, just you wait. "Let's show them how it's done."
Pietro twirled his cue superfast, creating a slight breeze in his immediate vicinity, then stepped back to let the break happen. "Don't slip or anything." He also stuck his tongue out at Eileen, totally without rancor, for her commentary on his George Washingtonness.
Wanda glanced down at the floor suspiciously, just in case Pietro'd found some way to spill something on it so that she would slip - which she doubted he would, but with Pietro you never quite knew - then stepped in and raised her own cue into position. Without a word, she took the shot - and two striped balls made it into the pockets before being nearly followed by a solid, which teetered at the edge but ultimately stayed on the table.
Probability was an awesome thing, even when she wasn't manipulating it.
She took her follow up shot, moving one of the other striped balls into better position for Pyro, then stepped back and smirked. Next?"
Glowing violet eyes narrowed as Eileen studied the current lay of the table. It had, in all honest, been years since she'd picked up a cue, and she'd never been all that serious about the game. That marginal interest had only waned in the time since her powers had manifested--at first, because she'd been too busy just trying to survive that she hadn't had time for it, and later because her interest had been invested almost exclusively in developing her gifts. Hence, her lack of enthusiasm for a wholly interference-free game.
Finally, she shrugged, picked one of the solids that looked like it would probably cooperate, and took her shot. The ball sped toward one of the side pockets, but her angle was off and it ended up deflecting back toward the other side. "Well, shit," Eileen huffed, blowing an errant blond strand out of her face.
"Thanks for that," Pyro told her with a smirk, since she'd positioned the cue ball pretty fucking splendidly for him. With the striped Wanda had put near a hole, it was an easy shot, but he had to think ahead. Pool was forcing him to do that, which was probably for the better, given how hotheaded (ha) he usually was. He surveyed the table as he walked over to the right spot, then leaned in to line up his shot. The striped he sank easily, but the cue ball didn't quite end up where he wanted it.
Thinking ahead didn't always work out, or maybe it just wasn't his thing.
So he didn't try it again, and simply lined up a shot to sink the easiest stripe possible. It worked, only he'd hit the cue ball too hard and it kept rolling and rolling, until it reached the solid Wanda had set on the edge of a hole, and sank it. Pyro had watched its progress with apprehension, still bent over the table, and he grimaced at that conclusion, and only then straightened up. "Fuck me."
With her arm draped around the waist of her companion in a way that made it obvious that it was accustomed to being there, the blue skinned, blue haired illusionist known to most of the room's occupants only as Fatale entered the room and smirked. "Only if you ask a whole lot nicer than that, Pyro-boy. But it'd have to be a raincheck - the boss wants to see you guys." Getting stuck with playing messenger was annoying, especially considering that Magneto wasn't including them in whatever he was having a meeting about, but whatever. It was probably something boring, and the fucking Maximoff twins always pissed her off within five minutes, anyway. Seeing as she doubted the boss was going to offer to let her stab his precious brats, she'd just as soon not be there.
"Easy P--Fatale," the blond teen next to her caught himself, before he agitated the other mutant into slipping something pointy and uncomfortable between his ribs. His own arm was up around her shoulders in its usual place, and screw these guys if they had a problem with it. Alex Summers didn't answer to anybody but the guy that had brought them all together here. And sometimes Pam, when she got pissed. "But yeah, Magneto says he's got an outing planned for you four. You should probably hop to it before Lance and Fred start feeling left out and wanna tag along."
"You know, we always hop right to it," PIetro complained, rolling his eyes. "But he never respects our time."
All the same, he was already putting away his cue. He didn't want to hear it from Fatale. She made him want to gouge his own eardrums when she got started--and if he had to watch her and Havok do their stupid PDA much longer, he was gonna puke.
"Like that's a surprise," Wanda agreed. It wasn't as if he ever had. She put her cue away, then walked over to pat Pyro on the shoulder. "Hey, at least we won."
Eyes rolling behind the filter of violet energy that filled them whenever she used her powers, Eileen put her cue back in place and shrugged. "You were ahead she pointed out. Me and P were all set to rally in the next round." Probably bullshit, but she had a thing about conceding defeat. She couldn't be absolutely sure Magneto had sent the two newest additions to their little fellowship to deliver his message specifically to dick with his offspring, but she wouldn't have been surprised if he had. As much as she respected the guy, those three had family issues that could have filled a week's worth of Maury.
"Hope we're going someplace nice this time," she added.
"We totally won," Pyro confirmed with a smirk, gesturing at the table with his hand after putting away his cue. "This was the shape of things to come." He headed for the door, turning his smirk on Fatale as he walked. "I can ask real nice, just you wait." But not right then, because he didn't have time to pick a fight, not when Magneto wanted to see them.
Day ... who-the-fuck-even-cared since Magneto had scraped her off the side of the Interstate between Ohio and West Virginia: Eileen remained on fucking Cloud Nine. Never mind this setup was already head and fucking shoulders above scrounging through dumpsters and stealing from ATMs to get by--being able to use her powers freely, whenever she wanted, that alone was worth the price of admission. Not that she didn't buy what their be-helmeted leader was selling. The flatscans were on their way out, and mutants were on the way in. The former just didn't understand that yet. And, hey, if they were willing to do the rational thing and just die out like Cro-Magnon Man or the Neanderthals, then everything would be copacetic.
She didn't hold out much hope for that, though.
Anyway, all was golden so far in the former nightclub-turned-mutant-hideout. The name was kind of catchy, even Eileen had to admit: Asteroid M. She had to wonder why the place had failed. She wondered even more about how Big Mags had acquired the resources to outfit the once-gutted building. But he wasn't talking, and she was smart enough not to ask too many questions when they were clearly not welcome. Besides, she sort of mostly entirely respected the guy. Even if she would have sooner run naked down main street without benefit of her powers than admit it out loud. The others knew how she felt. Or had learned to figure it out.
The rec room, their leisure space between practicing with their powers, was pretty all right, even if it was a bit dated. There were some arcade-style video game machines flanking one wall, and a pool table and air-hockey set-up toward the center. Not really a twenty-first century setup, but good enough for a bunch of freak kids laying low. And, hey, at least Lance wasn't around perpetually tilting the pin-ball machine with his fuckery.
Not that she really cared to actually use the machines, herself. For Eileen, it was enough to simply be there, attendant on the harmonies of electromagnetism unique to this particular space. It was a beautiful chorus of chiming impulses, and not for the first time she regretted it wasn't something she could share with her fellow recruits. Even if some of them could be massive douchecanoes, when they got ready.
Pyro had been sitting at a table, changing the flint of his faithful Zippo before filling it up. He snapped it shut now, then opened and lit it with one practised gesture. He grinned at the heat of the flame burning inside his chest and drew it out into a fireball in his hand. He enjoyed this for a few seconds, then closed the lighter and his fist, putting out the fireball.
He pushed up from the table, shoving his Zippo gear into the leg pocket of his cargo pants. "Who's up for some pool?" That game was sexual as shit, of course he enjoyed it, male teenager that he was. And if he got good enough at it, that would give him one more way to trick people out of their cash. What was not to love?
Hey, he was all about what Magneto was offering here. It felt like the guy was the first adult to actually see Pyro, never mind see anything of value there. But all good things came to an end, although Pyro would fight the flatscans with everything he had before letting them screw this up for the rest of them. Still, he had to keep his options open, and pool hustling was a good one.
"Yeah, whatever." Wanda got to her feet, abandoning the pile of pictures she was cutting out of various magazines and setting down the scissors. She'd planned to paste them all together, later, but that could wait. Pyro playing pool was a hell of a lot less annoying than Pyro sitting around bored, flicking his lighter on and off.
Pietro, who had been speed-reading Wuthering Heights (man, who'd fall in love with that dickhead?), tossed his book aside and snapped to stand next to Eileen. He leaned in close and sing-songed, "Eileeeeeeeen. Wanna take 'em on? Show 'em how it's done." He grinned.
Smirking down at the silver-haired speedster, Eileen turned idly in the air and shrugged. She floated over to join the others at the pool table--because who the fuck wanted to walk anywhere, when they could fly?--and scrutinized the only slightly worn green cloth surface. "Why the hell not?" she asked rhetorically. "Though with the speed freak on Team Awesome, I don't know how much of a competition it'll actually be. Get ready for a world-class ass-kicking, Red and Redder."
"Put your money where your mouth is," Pyro offered with a hint of his patented smirk twisting his lips. "I got the better twin." He grabbed the rack to set it on the table. "You up for this, Melisandre?"
"If you'll quit playing nickname-of-the-week," Wanda replied. Honestly, why did he feel the need to do that? She wasn't sure who the latest one referenced, but she had a feeling she liked it better that way. Besides, he'd called her the better twin - he'd earned some slack, and she directed a smirk at Pietro to see if he'd picked up on it before picking out a cue and walking over to the table. "Rack them up, I'll break."
"Keep dreaming." Pietro threw a smirk and a wink in Pyro's direction and snapped to stand beside his sister, selecting a cue of his own. "I'll try not to send anything flying this time." Hey, superspeed = superforce, what could he say.
"I don't have any money, and you know it," said Eileen conversationally, hovering over to pick out a cue for herself. She didn't exactly have an eye for that sort of thing, so it mostly amounted to grabbing the first one that came conveniently to hand. "But I'll be happy to put my foot where your ass is." It was fairly typical of her conversation since Magneto had found her, and she figured if the others hadn't called her on it yet, they probably didn't mind. That much. "So it's a no-powers game, then? La~ame."
Pyro was ordering the balls inside the rack with the practised ease of someone who had been playing a lot of pool in the past few weeks. "What do you think, Wanda?"
He shot his partner a smirk, and yes, he was calling her by her name like she'd asked. He didn't always have to be a pain in the ass, okay.
"No powers until Pietro breaks the rules," Wanda suggested. She offered a half smile, just to acknowledge that he'd actually used her name. He could be taught - who knew? It seemed like a good compromise, though - it was inevitable that Pietro would, but at least it'd keep him from clearing the table on the first shot. "And when he does, he loses his team's next turn."
"Whaaaat, me?" Pietro batted his eyelashes ever-so-innocently and leaned one hip against the table. "I would never. I'm known everywhere for my sense of fair play and honesty."
Wanda let out an incredulous snort.
... which was echoed almost immediately by Pietro's partner. "Sure, Maximoff. You're like George fucking Washington and his fucking cherry tree." Her luminous purple eyes turned back toward the table. "But at least I know that guarantees us only a round or two before the whole electromagnetic spectrum starts siding with us." Which, yeah, still wasn't all that formidable, when Wanda was part of the opposition, but still. Definitely more helpful than ... setting fire to the table, or whatever St. John could come up with.
"Come on, then," Pyro stated, lifting the triangle rack from the balls and smirking over at Wanda. He'd find some use for his powers, just you wait. "Let's show them how it's done."
Pietro twirled his cue superfast, creating a slight breeze in his immediate vicinity, then stepped back to let the break happen. "Don't slip or anything." He also stuck his tongue out at Eileen, totally without rancor, for her commentary on his George Washingtonness.
Wanda glanced down at the floor suspiciously, just in case Pietro'd found some way to spill something on it so that she would slip - which she doubted he would, but with Pietro you never quite knew - then stepped in and raised her own cue into position. Without a word, she took the shot - and two striped balls made it into the pockets before being nearly followed by a solid, which teetered at the edge but ultimately stayed on the table.
Probability was an awesome thing, even when she wasn't manipulating it.
She took her follow up shot, moving one of the other striped balls into better position for Pyro, then stepped back and smirked. Next?"
Glowing violet eyes narrowed as Eileen studied the current lay of the table. It had, in all honest, been years since she'd picked up a cue, and she'd never been all that serious about the game. That marginal interest had only waned in the time since her powers had manifested--at first, because she'd been too busy just trying to survive that she hadn't had time for it, and later because her interest had been invested almost exclusively in developing her gifts. Hence, her lack of enthusiasm for a wholly interference-free game.
Finally, she shrugged, picked one of the solids that looked like it would probably cooperate, and took her shot. The ball sped toward one of the side pockets, but her angle was off and it ended up deflecting back toward the other side. "Well, shit," Eileen huffed, blowing an errant blond strand out of her face.
"Thanks for that," Pyro told her with a smirk, since she'd positioned the cue ball pretty fucking splendidly for him. With the striped Wanda had put near a hole, it was an easy shot, but he had to think ahead. Pool was forcing him to do that, which was probably for the better, given how hotheaded (ha) he usually was. He surveyed the table as he walked over to the right spot, then leaned in to line up his shot. The striped he sank easily, but the cue ball didn't quite end up where he wanted it.
Thinking ahead didn't always work out, or maybe it just wasn't his thing.
So he didn't try it again, and simply lined up a shot to sink the easiest stripe possible. It worked, only he'd hit the cue ball too hard and it kept rolling and rolling, until it reached the solid Wanda had set on the edge of a hole, and sank it. Pyro had watched its progress with apprehension, still bent over the table, and he grimaced at that conclusion, and only then straightened up. "Fuck me."
With her arm draped around the waist of her companion in a way that made it obvious that it was accustomed to being there, the blue skinned, blue haired illusionist known to most of the room's occupants only as Fatale entered the room and smirked. "Only if you ask a whole lot nicer than that, Pyro-boy. But it'd have to be a raincheck - the boss wants to see you guys." Getting stuck with playing messenger was annoying, especially considering that Magneto wasn't including them in whatever he was having a meeting about, but whatever. It was probably something boring, and the fucking Maximoff twins always pissed her off within five minutes, anyway. Seeing as she doubted the boss was going to offer to let her stab his precious brats, she'd just as soon not be there.
"Easy P--Fatale," the blond teen next to her caught himself, before he agitated the other mutant into slipping something pointy and uncomfortable between his ribs. His own arm was up around her shoulders in its usual place, and screw these guys if they had a problem with it. Alex Summers didn't answer to anybody but the guy that had brought them all together here. And sometimes Pam, when she got pissed. "But yeah, Magneto says he's got an outing planned for you four. You should probably hop to it before Lance and Fred start feeling left out and wanna tag along."
"You know, we always hop right to it," PIetro complained, rolling his eyes. "But he never respects our time."
All the same, he was already putting away his cue. He didn't want to hear it from Fatale. She made him want to gouge his own eardrums when she got started--and if he had to watch her and Havok do their stupid PDA much longer, he was gonna puke.
"Like that's a surprise," Wanda agreed. It wasn't as if he ever had. She put her cue away, then walked over to pat Pyro on the shoulder. "Hey, at least we won."
Eyes rolling behind the filter of violet energy that filled them whenever she used her powers, Eileen put her cue back in place and shrugged. "You were ahead she pointed out. Me and P were all set to rally in the next round." Probably bullshit, but she had a thing about conceding defeat. She couldn't be absolutely sure Magneto had sent the two newest additions to their little fellowship to deliver his message specifically to dick with his offspring, but she wouldn't have been surprised if he had. As much as she respected the guy, those three had family issues that could have filled a week's worth of Maury.
"Hope we're going someplace nice this time," she added.
"We totally won," Pyro confirmed with a smirk, gesturing at the table with his hand after putting away his cue. "This was the shape of things to come." He headed for the door, turning his smirk on Fatale as he walked. "I can ask real nice, just you wait." But not right then, because he didn't have time to pick a fight, not when Magneto wanted to see them.