Welcome to Gaia! ::

Kidd blushed at Darius's comment and watched the acrobats work their magic over the crowds, warming them up for what would no doubt be a greater attraction. She sat back and took in a deep sigh, moment like this were what life was about. Sitting here in a fun atmosphere with her friend. Suddenly, she was snapped out of her dream by a sudden pounding on the floor. Kidd's eyes lit up. She knew what was coming next! Four great gray elephants lumbered out of the side curtains and around te centre ring. They were all dressed up in Indian costume jewellery of all colours and hues. It was amazing. They stood on their hind legs and did tricks with their trainer. "Oh my God! Darius! Do you see?" Kidd was hopping up and down on her seat.

((inuyasha muttface, feel free to GM and move along the plot. See you in 10 days))

"Control over your powers," said the Professor. "will come, I assure you, but only after some time, hard work and dedication." He waited for a moment as Johnathan flexed his hands out over his desk. Of course, because of his mutant, his skin tone as well as proportions were not what one would call 'normal', but it did not come over.

"There's no need to a ashamed," he offered. "But until you reach your desired level of self-control, if you are still uncomfortable, there is an option you might want to consider. One of my other students, Nightcrawler, upon arriving has been fitted for a keen device called an image inducer. It is no bigger then a wristwatch, but over your person it projects a high-resolution holograph in any form that you may find more suitable for public appearances."

The Professor smiled a bit at Johnathan's question about his telepathic abilities. Believe it or not, it had always been a common question among his students, especially with his new arrivals. "No, Johnathan, my boy, " he responded. "As with the rest of my students, I pride myself on respecting your privacy as well as personal space; I will never pry," The Professor paused an instant before continuing. "I have trust enough to know that should anything need be brought up for conversation, that it be brought up willingly and without hesitation."

Vweeeeeeeeeooooooo......

The sound of an electrical device dying could be heard from the inner workings of the door. The entire mechanism had been shorted out from the bits knocked loose from Sarah's assault on the door, and it slowly swung open, now that there was nothing holding it shut.

"See? What did I tell you?" Morgan said, pulling it open the rest of the way, and stepping through the door. "Now, we just wait for Blink to-"

"Good, you're in. I can lead you from here to the research lab. Once there, you'll need to shut down the dimensional gateway. If they keep messing around with it, your whole reality could go kaput. It's a big metal circle thingy. Probably hooked up to a bunch of computers. You can't miss it. Once you find it, I'll contact you again, and walk you through the shutdown procedure," Blink said, once again contacting them through the crystals. She then proceeded to rattle off the directions from where they were, to where they had to be.

"Well, that's not bad," Morgan said, starting his walk down the hallway to their goal. "Come on, it can't be that hard," he said, motioning for his partners to follow along. The moment he stepped out of the hallway and into the next room, he was met with a gun barrel pointed at his head. Actually, there were several dozen gun barrels pointed at him. Apparently, Blink had failed to mention that the directions led them right through the guard barracks.

"Oh, for f*ck's sake!!" he exclaimed, as he realized where they were.

"She couldn't have given us the easy, route, nooooo!! That would have been much too simple! Of course, we have to walk through guard central! Isn't that how these stealthy things always work? Conveniently walk into the one room in the ENTIRE F*CKING PLACE that conveniently has EVERY F*CKING GUARD IN IT!!" By this point, Morgan was drawing more looks of concern from the guards than anything else. It probably had to do with the way he happened to be yelling and cursing.

"Okay, okay, I'm calm. Deep breath. Deeeeep breath. Alright, I'm good now," he said, following his own advice and taking a deep breath. "We're kind of in a hurry, so if you just let us through, I promise we won't have to get medieval on your collective asses."

And then the looks of anger returned, and all the guns were once again pointed at Morgan. He hung his head and sighed. "We're going to have to do this the hard way, huh? Fine, fire away," he said, stepping a bit further into the room so that Victoria and Sarah could pass once it was "safer", safer meaning when they'd emptied all of their bullets into the forcfield that he'd already whipped up around himself while we was talking.

The room was filled with smoke and gunfire as every armed person in the room did exactly that, and emptied their magazines into his shield. The clattering of dozens of spent clips hitting the ground could be heard, but when the smoke cleared, Morgan was still standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by what seemed to be a semi-circle of flattened slugs.

"Done? Good. Alright folks, let's get 'em," he said, motioning to Sarah and Victoria, lowering his forcefield, and leaping at the nearest guard.

"Looks like we've got company, mate," said Pyro. Smile still plastered across his face, he nodded easily at the sleek jet that passed just low overhead. It landed in clearing just a few blocks away and no sooner then the landing gear made contact with the smouldering earth then a small handful of people filed out. At first, John would have guessed it was the Military coming to put an end to this madness, but no, once he spotted the varyingly colorful uniforms, he knew it was someone else.

"The X-Men!" he said loudly, with more of a tone of gleeful welcome then anything else. "I've been wanting for you twits to show up."

=====

Thanks to Sarah, getting around the magnetically sealed door was no problem. It dented like a paper cup at her hits, and the three were able to enter the base without breaking a sweat. So far, at least.

No sooner then the trio received another vague set of directions from Blink they shoved forward, Morgan in the lead, only to run into a group of pissed off and heavily armed guards. Oh s**t. Victoria, not being the stupid type in the slightest, stayed calm, and more importantly quiet as she slowly brought her hands up to where they could see it.

Morgan, on the other hand, seemed to forgo that bit of logic and proceeded with a sharp round of curses and exclamations. Her eyebrow raised slowly in one of those 'What? Are you daft?' type expressions, and after glancing quickly at the many guards that surrounded them, she realized she was not the only one thinking so. She opened her mouth to whisper the magic words of 'Shut up', but by then, the storm had passed, Morgan was calm again, and once again the guards were annoyed to hell.

It was not until Morgan stepped further into the room that she realized what he had planned. The guards would shoot any moment now, and he was well aware of that, but what the guards did not know was that there was now a clear as glass, indestructible barrier separated the two groups. Force fields just came in handy like that.

"Don't move," she whispered to Sarah just as the guards fired in unison. Victoria blinked once as the room filled with smoke and the happy 'ching' of wasted bullets bouncing off the floor. The guards all swore and/or gasped in awe as the smoke cleared revealing three completely unharmed teens.

Victoria personally, did not need the cue from Morgan to know what to do next. taking a long shot, she dove forward from where she stood and slammed, feet first into the knee cap of the nearest guard. There was a small crunch, followed closely by the girl-ish whimper of the guard who then took it upon himself to hop awkwardly away from the scene. Ok, she thought, picking herself off the floor. This mission is just getting weirder and weirder...

Rogue was about halfway up the ladder, trying her best to get up to the top as quickly as possible. She glanced over her shoulder to check on Tabby's progress, and stopped mid-turn. A grin spread across her face at what she saw.

"Look! Back up has arrived!" Rogue exclaimed to Tabby. She pulled out her com-link and activated the talk mechanism. "Hey y'all. 'Bout time y'all showed up. Tabby and I are on the fire escape, 'bout half way up. One of Ben's other-selves is already up on the roof. See y'all up there!"

Valerie sighed as she walked around the Bayville area, hands swaying from side to side and a glum expression on her face, she had just visited the local bank...and to her misfortune her Aunt's weekly paycheck hadnt been cashed...which meant Valerie was going to go hungry for another couple of days!

"Well Mizu...looks like its back to raiding other peoples hard earned savings again....I know you like doing that so I'll leave the money snatching in your...um hands!"

The blonde muttered to what appeared herself. Mizu was laying low somewhere in her stomach and wasnt too keen on the idea of being used for something that wasnt his idea, and plus he didnt need to eat so not having money for food didnt really concern him.

"Screw you Valerie I assume...man I need a job!"

Valerie rolled her eyes and carried on walking towards the Mall area. It seemed the easy place to get cash without having to flash a boob or such...as she approched the outside of the Mall she had the slightest feeling something wasnt right, well half the outside was on fire which was a bit of an obvious sign!

"Oh my....what do we have here..."

The blonde blinked, maybe she'd get cash for providing a personal fireman service, pointing a finger at a smaller flame, Valerie let a squirt of water smother the flame with a delightful giggle from the Blonde. Mizu stirred from his bellyslumber, popped out through Valerie's leg (creating the familiar wet patch on her leg warmer) and proceeded to run around his mistresses feet with a crazed look on his watery face.

"Urgh you dolt!"