Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Xmen Revolution. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Intolerance; Buford/Jason
Topic Started: Jun 27 2009, 05:13 AM (395 Views)
Mastermind
Unregistered

Date: June 20
Time 7:15 PM


It didn’t take too much to piece together precisely what was going on here. Jason sat in the front of a very large truck, his blue eyes trained on the open road as the massive engine gently rocked him. He had that hollow, faraway look in his eyes. It wasn’t the road he was seeing.

Buford, one of the Brotherhood’s more tolerable members, had approached him and told him they were specifically chosen for a job. Jason glanced over at him with those same hollow eyes.

This was a test.

Being at least moderately new to the organization, the jury was sure to still be out on him. Sure, he’d passed enough tests to get in…impressed the right people at the right times. They knew he was a valuable asset, and they knew what he was capable of.

Jason smirked.

But loyalty was another matter. Could they count on him when they needed him? The answer to that was going to be pretty interesting.

“I’m seeing a theme,” he commented as he put his eyes back on the road. “With your vehicles and swine.” Every one of Buford’s vehicles was named after pigs. The answer to that was just as obvious. The smile said an answer wasn’t necessary. “Tell me, Buford…are you immune to the swine flu?”

Reaching into his jacket pocket, Jason pulled out a silver box. He flipped it open with one hand and pulled out a cigarette without bothering to ask permission.

As usual, Jason appeared to be in his late twenties. It was an illusion he rarely let go of.
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Buford Hollis
Member Avatar
Mechanical Hyper-Competence
"Fuckin' traffic," Buford said, as they finally crossed the Bayonne Bridge. First they crossed Narrows Bridge (and payed a five buck toll.) and then they had to take the Bayonne into New Jersey. 'Course, that sonofabitch will cost eight bucks on the way back. Apparently, the City of New York didn't want anyone ever to go to Staten Island. Though, Buford reasoned, from what he saw, that may not have been a bad idea.

Bayonne, New Jersey. Really, it wasn't much more than a bedroom community for the Big Apple. A suburb, really. A lot of white collars came back here at the end of the day. Kind of sleepy place, to be perfectly honest. A hell of a lot better than Newark. Buford wondered if any of these fucks realized that one of their own, the guy down the road from them, was a murdering rapist of a bigot.

After Apocalypse, attacks on the mutant community were getting more and more common. X-Factor, the supposed guardians of Mutant Town, weren't gonna do shit. What the hell could they do? Drag 'em off to human police to be put in human jail by human judges and human juries. Yeah, that will work.

The kid next to him in the Big Pig's tractor (no trailer. It'd be a bitch and a half to get that around in Staten Island) was a new Brother, Mastermind. Some sort of dude that fucks with your mind. Figured that maybe he could do some mental torture on the sick fuck before Buford puts a flechette between the bastard's eyes.

"Swine flu?" It brought back bad memories of being infected by Pestilence, his former lady friend. "Naw. My high school's football team was the Clarksville Wild Boar. The mascot was called the Razorback. I beat up the kid who was wearing the costume, and used his head for my first weapon project. Used Razorback for my CB handle, and just kind of ran with it from there."

Do we need another 20-something in the Brotherhood? Buford thought to himself. They needed more people with some brains, some experience with them. They had enough foot soliders, they needed some colonels.
[align=center]Posted Image[/align]
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mastermind
Unregistered

Though he knew he was being scrutinized and tested, Jason wasn’t bothered in the least. To tell the truth he was measuring the Brotherhood every ounce that they were measuring him. For one thing it was important to know who had your back. It wasn’t enough to just have formidable or destructive powers. It wasn’t enough to even know how to fight or be able single handedly take on an opponent. For the scope of what the Brotherhood was set up to do, that was only a good start as far as Jason was concerned.

The Brotherhood fought for one thing and one thing alone-survival. Jason was a realist. He knew what would happen if humanity wasn’t kept in check. There was a long enough list already of species that had been forced to rely on humanity’s love and conscience. It was called the extinction list.

Jason didn’t intend to be on that list. He was what he was, and fully intended to use his metaphorical claws and teeth to make sure he had the opportunity to stick around. Because without the privilege of existence, none of his other plans meant anything.

He stuck the cigarette in his lips and lit it while listening to Buford’s explanation about his infatuation with pigs. Not exactly invigorating conversation, but he had asked, so Jason just accepted the answer with a grim nod.

Picking up a photo, he studied it for a moment. “So this is the man?” Jason studied every inch of his face. Even in the photo the man looked angry. His anger had found a new target-mutants. That was where the Brotherhood stepped in.

“Some of the older civilizations would skewer the bodies of aggressors and leave them in plain sight.” Jason looked over to Buford with an unreadably neutral expression fixed in place. “To serve as a warning.”

Lifting his brows, Jason let the obvious sink in before finishing. “Exactly how are we getting our warning across?”
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Buford Hollis
Member Avatar
Mechanical Hyper-Competence
Buford grunted in response to the newbie's question. "No, I just randomly have pictures of a guy in the cab of my tru-- Of course its the goddamn guy."

"Name of the guy is Yusuf bin Muhummad, a.k.a Joe Muhammad. Saudi immigrant, working for Roxxon. Apparently, didn't really like how the attack on Mutant Town spilled out. One of the converts smashed through his office window, made this guy snapped. We found three bodies stuffed in a dumpster. Figured that the converts killed a bunch of people, but they weren't that concerned about proper waste disposal like that."

Buford took the exit and made a couple more turns, "One of the waitresses in Layton Jackson's restaurant, she's got that, whatchamacallit, psychometry? We had her read the bodies. Led us down the rabbit hole to this guy."

He put the Big Pig in its Ghost Mode. It didn't turn intangible, but it did make the engine nearly soundless. He didn't want to scare off the damn perp with his engine. It was maybe 7:30. Dude should be back from work. Maybe he was at a mosque. Shit, Buford didn't know. He was pretty sure their holy day was Friday, but shit, maybe they prayed at 7:30. Buford wasn't a muslimtologist.

"Yeah, we're gonna leave a message," Buford snorted derisively. He stretched behind and grabbed something near the front of the residency part of the cab. He pulled out a long hunting knife, a real sick looking bastard, one that would even make that jaguar girl jealous, and a length of iron cable. "We're gonna make Joe Muhummad the next attraction in the town square," Buford smirked. The truck rolled to a stop.

"Well, pretty boy, its time to rock and roll. Take the lead."
[align=center]Posted Image[/align]
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mastermind
Unregistered

Jason was completely undeterred by Buford’s outburst. He didn’t feel it necessary to point out that it had been a rhetorical question. Buford seemed intelligent enough, but generally speaking he seemed an unhappy man as far as Jason was concerned. Either way, bickering in a truck was beneath Jason, and the subject at hand wasn’t enough to push his buttons, so he kept his mouth shut.

He listened quietly to Buford’s description of what the guilty party had done. Taking the photo in hand, he studied the man’s angry looking face, occasionally looking up to Buford and seeing the same anger in his eyes. To tell the truth, Jason was a little pissed himself.

People like this were a threat to him. Jason didn’t deal kindly toward threats to himself.

They pulled down a street and Buford hit some buttons that turned the motor whisper quiet. Jason was surprised that he could feel the vibrations of the engine, but it almost sounded like they were gliding.

Impressive. Of course, he could have done the same with his powers…

When Buford explained what brand of message they’d be leaving, Jason grinned darkly. “Good. It just wouldn’t be worthwhile if we weren’t making this guy an example.” The two of them stepped out of the cab and Jason flicked his cigarette butt out into the street. It fizzled and hissed in a small puddle before the curly wisp of smoke was snuffed out.

“How do you want to do this,” he asked. “Police raid?” Immediately a dozen squad cars materialized in the alley, their weapons drawn and aimed at the building. Red and blue lights bounced off the walls momentarily and both Jason and Buford were dressed in uniform.

Buford might object, but he had said take the lead. So Jason did. He stepped to the front door with his gun drawn. “Yusuf bin Muhummad,” he said in a loud and authoritative voice. “We know you’re in there. We have a warrant for your arrest.”

He nodded toward the illusory police and they hurled tear bomb grenades through the window. Though the glass only appeared to break, and though the gas was only a figment of the imagination, it would work very much the same in Joe’s mind.

As the old tag line went...perception is reality.
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Buford Hollis
Member Avatar
Mechanical Hyper-Competence
This dude was had the same problem as Rage. She wouldn't talk, and neither did the now-imprisoned Brotherhooder. Buford liked to bluster, but quite honestly, he liked to talk. He had spent so many years alone in his truck that whenever he had someone else in the car, he just wanted them to talk. Buford, by nature, was a social creature, by his calling, that is, fixing, engineering and driving a truck, something that his soul called out to, was a solitary matter. From that contradiction came his bluster and ornery-ness.

Buford looked around at the cop cars. "Wait, so do the neighbors see this?" Buford liked to know the limits, the abilities of his soldiers. That's how Buford was starting view his Brotherhood compatriots. He was the oldest of the Brotherhood. He had military experience, which was pretty sparse in the Brotherhood. Flak was in the desert, killing Hadji. Jaguar Girl had some experience working for Fidel or some shit, and Mystique wouldn't let on about anything she's done. Buford figured the ol' blue bitch probably did a little bit of everything. When you had powers like hers, why not do everything? Anyways, this was a campaign, a military campaign. Buford needed soldiers.

"Nice, noobie," Buford said appreciatively. His smile faltered when he heard the sound of glass breaking, a few seconds after the the gas cannisters broke the window. Joe Muhammad was making a break for it. "Except if this guy's got half a brain, he tried running for it when he saw the lights in his yard. He was a bit of a chubby motherfucker, so I don't think he's gotten that far. You think you can imagine up a K-9 unit, make him get dragged down by a Doberman?"
[align=center]Posted Image[/align]
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mastermind
Unregistered

The target must have had quicker reflexes than Jason imagined. Instead of reeling with shock and stumbling out of the building as Jason had imagined he would, he was fleeing from one of the side or back windows. Jason frowned just a little, and holstered his gun.

"Just a minor setback," he said to Buford with a smirk and a pat on the shoulder. In answer to Buford's other question. "That's precisely what I was thinking."

Misty forms began to appear and then large canines leaped out of the mist and began high tailing it around the corner of the building. Jason walked to the other side and turned, in no apparent hurry.

The reason he was in no hurry, was because the escape route that their target was taking was going nowhere. Behind the building was a very large and open expanse. An unoccupied lot was what Jason's best guess was.

When Jason and Buford rounded the corner they could see Muhumad there, he was running along the perimeter of the lot with the dogs in hot pursuit. Jason leaned against the building and took out his flat cigarette box again. Taking one out, he then extended the offer to Buford.

In the meantime Muhummad was doing laps. In his mind he was navigating down winding alleyways, narrowly escaping the five pursuing police dogs. "He should get tired here in awhile," Jason mused as he fired up a cigarette. He glanced back over with amusement. "Might as well stop for a smoke."
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Buford Hollis
Member Avatar
Mechanical Hyper-Competence
Kid's got style points, got to give him that, Buford mentally conceded. The dogs' appearance was a nice trick, though he wondered if that wouldn't just clue in the guy about the fact that this was all just a trick. Like that one movie with Jim Carey, where its all just really a TV show. Dude sees the same thing cycle over and over, and realizes whats going on. If this creep saw the little clouds that the dogs came from, wouldn't it just be a tip off that something was up?

Eh, fuck it. This was Mastermind's job, not Razorback's. He was just here for a bit of extra muscle, and to see what the kid was made of. Shit, the guy was probably freaking out so much that he didn't see the clouds that the mutts came out from.

Still, he had to roll his eyes when Jason had his dogs chase the guy around in a fuckin' circle. They were supposed to be police dogs chasing down a criminal. Those fuckers don't mess around. Chubby fuck couldn't outrace 'em like a mailman and a poodle.

"Christ, Mastermind, its not like we have all day," Buford said after a few moments of the illusionist puffing on a cigarette. He unholstered his weapon, his home made flechette gun. It fired little steel spikes, instead of bullets. It technically wasn't a firearm, as the powder part of a gun wasn't there. It was based on the same electrical bolt system that the Pig's Head used. He aimed the flechette gun, and fired into Joe Muhammad's left thigh. He went down like Buford's junior prom date.

"Alright, get the Sape, put him in the Pig. We're gonna make a deposit on city hall," Buford said, examining his hunting knife. He jabbed the air in front of himself. "Hmm, this is gonna be fun."
[align=center]Posted Image[/align]
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mastermind
Unregistered

Jason smoked a cigarette.

As for the man on the run, even if he had seen the dogs appear out of the mist it wouldn't have mattered. The way Jason's illusions worked most of the time was that even if someone knew the wall standing in front of them was an illusion they couldn't simply walk through it. To their senses it would be very real, and the believability factor was incredibly high for one of Mastermind's tricks. Besides, the man had no way of knowing that these pups hadn't been conjured by some kind of sick mutant freak.

And so he ran.

Jason derived great amusement from watching him run around the empty lot in circles. "Christ, Mastermind, its not like we have all day," Buford said impatiently. Drawing some sort of strange looking firearm, he took aim and shot. Muhammad fell roughly to the ground and Jason dispelled all of the no longer required illusions.

"Spoilsport," he said to Buford. Where was his theatrical sense, not to mention his sense of humor? Still, it wasn't good to stay where they were for too long. He stepped forward as a paramedic. By all appearances he was loading the fallen victim onto a gurney and taking him to an ambulance. Not that anyone was around to see anything, but it never hurt to disguise the truth just in case.

Soon enough Jason was hopping into the cab and shutting the door. "Don't tell me we aren't gonna play with him a little first?" He looked over at Buford. "This one does not deserve a quick death."
Quote Post Goto Top
 
Buford Hollis
Member Avatar
Mechanical Hyper-Competence
A heavy labored breath escape Buford. That's great. Another psycho on the team, concerned more about hurting people than doing whats right. Buford knew what they were doing was controversial, to say the least, but he still hadn't met that many Brothers who did this just because they believed in what Magneto said. Christ on a pogo stick, it wasn't about pain, and it wasn't about killing, it was about justice. This fuck, Joe Muhummad, had hurt one of their own, and the big scales of justice meant that he couldn't keep on breathing. That was common sense. But there wasn't any need for the kind of glee that his teammates so often displayed. They were Homo Superior. Humanity had proved itself to be a stupid, destructive force in the world. It'd be helpful if the mutants could prove themselves to be a better stock of them. Don't get Buford wrong, he liked explosions as much as the next person, but he wasn't getting a hard-on about making this guy miserable. Anything that was going beyond the message "Don't tread on me", Buford had no great desire to do.

"Listen, you want to mess with the dude, mess with the dude. Just don't endanger the mission. We're professionals, we do the job," Buford said. He had high hopes for Mastermind. By that name alone, Buford figured that he should have been a guy smart enough to realize that it wasn't about killing sapes, even if that was sometimes fun to do. It was about the future. They were soldiers and martyrs, fighting so that tomorrow, their children could be lawyers and accountants, so that their children could be artists and poets. They were a beachhead, the start of mutant society. Tomorrow, when they win, someone was going to have make that society function, and then finally, the mutant utopia. Buford understood that he wasn't going to live to see it, but did all his comrades really have act like savages?

"Fine, you want some blood, the backseat's got a tarp laid out," Buford pulled the long hunting knife from its scabbard. "Have fun."
[align=center]Posted Image[/align]
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mastermind
Unregistered

There was something aggravatingly self-righteous about Buford. Jason let him go on his temperamental outrage, and then simply looked at the knife in his hand for a moment in silence.

Then he glanced up at Buford and let his personal illusion drop, revealing him at his true age. "Listen, son," he said calmly, "I don't need blood, and you don't understand who I am or what I am saying. So I'll try and explain it in a way that you do understand."

Jason held out a hand, palm up. "The man we have detained is guilty of horrible crimes against the people we are supposed to be protecting." Light appeared over his hand, a basketball sized orb that seemed to be a window peering into another time. Images appeared, showed their victim waiting behind a parked car while a young lady exited work. When she got to her car he attacked her, hitting her over the head and dragging her body to his car.

"You know full well where this goes," he said as he stared into Buford's eyes. The girl tried to get away, light flashing from her fingertips, but the man had her drugged. Images began to flash rapid fire, showing him beating her, him raping her and then blood dripped down the side of the illusory orb.

Snapping his fingers, the orb disappeared.

"Now let me ask you something, Buford. Is it justice to simply kill the man that tormented young women for days before he slowly killed them?"

His image blurred, and the young Jason was sitting there again. "I don't take this lightly," he assured him. "And despite what I might have said before, this isn't about fun for me." Then he looked back over his shoulder. "And lastly, justice can be served without having to resort to this," he said grabbing the knife.

The cab disappeared and Buford was suddenly reclining in a room filled with bloody bodies. Not dead and not exactly alive, they writhed and reached for him. Just as quickly as they appeared they disappeared.

"The real tormentor is right here," he said, pointing at his head. "Whatever I throw at him will be much worse than anything a knife could do." He grinned then. "And that is one reason why they call me Mastermind."
Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Create a free forum in seconds.
Learn More · Register Now
« Previous Topic · United States Archives · Next Topic »
Add Reply