Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Bad," answered Freya. She was holding a drink that Porter nicely gave her to help her to recover faster from her rough game. Her looks could easily give hints about her current physical condition and those hints weren't bringing good news. However, Freya kept her usual smile and positive attitude.

Up to Wanda to serve. She hit and the ball was quickly taken by Pietro and sent back by a hangovered Pyro. But before he could touch the ball, Wanda made him trip and fall on his back. The ball fell on the sand and another point was add to the magicians.

29-27 Brotherhood.

If she could keep it up, she could win. Freya's words came into her mind. Don't take this too seriously. It's just a game. Yes... It was just a game and she was having fun. When the Brotherhood served, she ran up to the ball, hit it and used her hex powers to make it cross the net, using one free hand to slow down her brother. Sadly, it was Corky who received it and passed it down to Pietro.

Wanda had a small smile on her lips when the ball crossed the net again. She threw herself on the sand, hit it high in the air and once again managed to send it back on the Brotherhood side. But by the time she got up, the ball was back on her side and fell in the middle of the court, giving the opposite team the winning point.

Freya stood up and walked up to Wanda. She put a hand on the goth's shoulder and smiled at her. "You did great, Wanda. Self-control. Improvisation. Spirit. You made me very proud."

"Yeah but I'm gonna be a slave now," answered the Scarlet Witch with a bitter tone. It wasn't directed to Freya though. They did their best. She just didn't trust Pietro or the rest of the Brotherhood on their way of treating slaves.

"It doesn't matter because you can always give them a hard time," Freya whispered. "I never said the slaves had to be obediant. If they are jerks to you, be jerks to them. If your brother has a heart, he will treat you kindly and try to, just this once, do everything he asks without killing him."

"He's going to be a jackass again."

"Just remember what I told you," finished Freya with a smile.

Pietro walked slowly over to Wanda's side of the net, his face a little more sullen than usual. The last few minutes of that game lacked the fun or sadistic pleasure that he'd felt in the first game. Half the time the flashes of that scene kept reoccurring in the back of his mind, and the only way to push them down was to play even harder, which made him feel more guilty than accomplished. He growled inwardly... despising the moments when his conscience got in the way of his moments of personal triumph.

He patted her on the shoulder gently and nodded at her. "Good game sis," he said, and tossed a ball to her. It was the same Scarlet Witch volleyball he'd personalized for her earlier. He then turned and walked toward the beach, no word of slavery.

OOC - Gah! So sorry, Jacen! I've been working 12-hr shifts recently, and using every spare moment to wait in line for a damned NPC quest in FFXI (Which I still haven't finished yet...) Here's a post, wheee!

IC - Anna looked to the door of the house as the three girls sat quietly outside, warily guarding the driveway from any unwanted attention. She wanted to know what Dad was telling Jacen. Moreover, she wanted to know why he wanted to speak to him in private. Was there something to this story that he didn't want Anna to hear? Something that he couldn't share with her? It seemed unfair to her, that her father would keep secrets from her, when he'd share it with her "brother", and the two were not even blood-related... Or was he?

A shocking revelation went through her head, and she swallowed hard. Was it possible that Jacen was actually her father's son? Oh man, that would be... No, that's stupid. Jacen looked nothing like her father. Still...

"Relax." Kim said, resting a hand on Anna's shoulder. "You're so tensed up, I can see your tendons straining.

Anna looked at her, then at Kitty. Another thought crept into her head. The same thought that had been plaguing her mind all day. Looking back to Kim, almost ashamedly, she said, "Do you think the police will charge me?"

Kitty butted before Kim could answer. "For what, protecting a loved one in your own home?"

Kim cocked her head a little. "It's a screwed up legal system, but, I think any jury would find you innocent of anything slanderous. As Kitty said, it's simply a case of you doing what you had to to protect your father."

"Yeah..." Anna said slowly. The scene played out again in her head. The gunman standing in the kitchen, her father in the lounge. The gun was aimed at her dad's chest, the trigger was pulled. A deafening roar assaulted her ears, instictively, she lunged forward towards the gunman, swinging her arm out in a backhand slash. She recalled the feeling of warmth on her arm as the gunman's intestines and blood coated her forearm. As she finished her movement, she turned back to see the wide-eyed gunman's torso slip from his waist and crumple to the floor, blood squirting and various severed organs falling onto the linoleum. From then, she didn't remember so well. Her step-mother held her in the shower as they both cried, her father sat by her with a hand on her shoulder, the other hand nursing his gunshot wound. Then, out of panic, she'd called the Institute number.

"... I've never killed someone before." she finished.

Kim looked at her with pity. She didn't realise just how fortunate she'd been with her powers. Kim could build and ruin people from 200 yards away, change someone's mind without raising a finger, she'd never be on the front line of battle. Killing people simply wasn't part of her mutant powers. Of course, she had taken a life or two in her time. Most mutants had, needed to at some time. It came from persecution. One had to right certain wrongs in their lives. But Anna was not so fortunate. The ability to cleave through any matter, energy or substance, no matter the density, was a power that genuinely had no place in battle if your hesitancy to strike was too great. Kim had casually wondered at some time, what Anna's powers had been intended for. At the time, the only things she could think of were a) Cutting firewood, and b) Document shredder.

Pulling her over for a comforting hug, Kim whispered words of soft encouragement in Anna's ear. Kitty heard a tire squeal in the distance, and stood to look down the street. 2 black Rovers cruised down the road, towards the house.

"I think we have company, guys."

"Wait... what... what the hell happened... dammit this is what happens when you screw with probability..." Pietro muttered, slouching a bit as he became slave to his sister. Not as though she ever needed any authority to boss him around, but this made it official. Suddenly he wished that he'd gone with the original plan of taking Freya as a slave and command her summons to lay seige to Abercombie's headquarters.

"Well... alright... but I'll just have to look on the bright side," he said. "I may be a slave, but Morgan's a slave to a slave, which means he's doubly low!"

He smiled weakly, trying to act like himself, but there was a degree of bite that seemed to be lacking from his voice. It wouldn't stop him from commanding Morgan to do everything Wanda commanded him to do... but he wasn't quite as much of a d**k about it this time.

And amazingly the undermanned team won. He had watched from farther back not wanting to get caught staring at them. He know after two serves that they were mutants. Interesting....very interesting. He shrugged and turned to head back. The game as it were was over.

"Are you going to say anything to me while you're here?" Penny's step-mother stood in the doorway to the back patio. Penny was sitting against the deck railing with her feet up on the ledge. Her hand was tapping at the railing because it wanted to smoke at the moment badly but she refused to give into her vices.

She sipped at some lemonade that wasn't spiked with anything although she wished it were. Vices, she refused to have them at the present time, "No."

There was nothing to say to the woman. There were two dates she needed to get through. The funeral and the reading of the will. Alicia was pushing for the will reading quickly... Penny had a feeling she wanted to have her gone quickly and gone as fast as she could out of her life. Not that Penny would disagree with that save for the fact that she wasn't going to pretend her sister's didn't exist.

"That's just a great attitude to have right now," Alicia huffed and slammed the door.

Penny rolled her eyes and rocked back on her chair watching the stars. She wondered what was going on down at the beach, if everybody was having fun. But of course, all thoughts fell back onto Jacen. She really tried hard not to think about their time together and to stop wishing they had more time... but it was a futile attempt. It was the only thing she wanted at the moment. The only comfort there was.

God how she could use a Danger Room simulation at the moment. So much stress to burn, so many frustrations to work out. Having to play normal sometimes wasn't that much fun. The best she could do was to sit under the moonlight and wait out time. She imagined that is what people had been doing for ages, just relaxing away from it all under the stars.

"Fine, just remember that I'm doing this for Wanda, not you," Morgan said, shooting a glare of pure venom at Pietro. If looks could kill, Pietro would have been erased from space time. Or replaced by furniture.

Morgan quickly headed into the kitchen, and set about making the tea, and getting a towel. In about two minutes, thirty seconds, he was done, and back out the door, pouring a glass of lemon Nestea for Wanda. He handed her the towel, and sat down on the sand. While sitting, he began playing with his forcefields, and trying to make them into different shapes. He managed to make a few simple geometric shapes, cubes, cylinders, cones, etc. Well, I'm getting better at it, he thought to himself.