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| Making Plans, Keeping Tabs, Never Wonder; Julian | |
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| Topic Started: Apr 18 2010, 07:39 PM (484 Views) | |
| Layla Miller | Apr 18 2010, 07:39 PM Post #1 |
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April 17th, midday Layla went through the spacious grounds of the Institute, chomping less then delicately on the tuna fish sandwich she had bagged and brought with her. Today was lasagna day in the cafeteria, and the girl with the M sprawled across her face did not approve. If it would have been possible, she would have waited until Thursday, chicken nugget day, but it wasn't, so tuna it was. The Institute had security systems that would of made the government both extremely uneasy and horribly envious had they known the depths of them. There was no way to break into a place like this. Even if one was to get passed the aforementioned security they would be met with a flock of the most powerful mutants in the world, all of them ready and willing to toss the said intruder out on their ass and back into the cruel world. This place was a fortress. It had to be. So how does one get into a fortress ? Through the front door. Layla knew many things. Most of those things were private information, known only to her. Other things however, were wide open for the world to see. Case in point, flu season. It came every year. This year however it was particularly aggressive. Shots were needed for those students and teachers who were vulnerable to such things and surely the already short staffed and taxed medical team at the school were too busy to deal with such mundane things. They would need to branch out, and it was more than a simple task for someone like Layla to convincingly pose as a respectable and safe candidate for the job. Hours of giving flu shots to runny nosed brats was not her idea of a well spent Tuesday, but much like it always seemed to be, her time was not hers to spend. Things had to done. Layla made her way passed the gardens and into the gymnasium. Her lunch break was almost over. There wasn't much time, but then again, she wouldn't need long. The place reeked of sweat and testosterone. She hated places like this. She found him at the bench press machine, in the middle of a set. "Need a spot ?" she asked, making her way to him." Wait, of course you don't." "Julian Keller.", she chirped, striding up next to him. "I didn't see you in the office today. Sure you don't need a shot. You never know when something like that is gonna sneak up on you." She looked down and then back up. "I like your shoes," she said, the humor draining from her voice and being replaced with something a bit sterner. "Look like you and Emma's credit card became fast friend's didn't you ?" She turned to him. "How rude of me, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Layla Miller, and you Jules, are about to do exactly what I tell you to." He was a handful. She'd have to show him that she could be too. She reached into her pocket and pulled out some hard candy, offering it to him. He would know what this meant. He would have to. "The last time somebody offered you this you refused. I suggest this time you take it and listen up." |
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| Hellion(old) | Apr 20 2010, 07:49 PM Post #2 |
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Telekinesis / Flight
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Julian was beginning to see opportunities in all the wrong places. He’d never forgive himself for coming up short in front of Max, selling himself second rate and incompetent. Right now he was a name and nothing more, leeching off of someone else’s money with nothing familial to maintain his lifestyle. That income had been an umbilical cord. He’d gone from suckling on inheritance to being spoon fed another person’s cash. In their eyes he was still just an infant. Coleridge had had to remind him of that. He hated the Black King for rebuking him, for closing all those doors, the Club inaccessible and distant… but it was like staring into a black hole. It pulled at him with shocking gravity, despite the hidden dangers. It made perfect sense, psychologically; the unknown tugged at him like a blurry, muggy shape, some sweaty lustful thing he couldn’t touch, all filthy and inviting, and he wanted it. And he wanted to claim it himself, not have it handed down to him like something dirty and unwanted. These credit cards felt like used condoms. And wraiths of addiction would ghost at him at the most unexpected times. You never really let go. Not totally. He’d feel the craving coming on like a fever (wet and ropy and hot to cold) and he’d blench, horror paralysing him, dismayed that he still wanted it. That something so small had affected him to such an extent, even now, even still. Especially now, when he felt at such a loss for what to do, how it rushed up and turned his stomach into a block of ice, how the idea of escapism was so damn appealing, how his shoulders hunched forward in idiot suggestion, that half-dead KICK-voice hissing go get some baby. There was nothing worse than feeling at the mercy of your own emotional whims. All of those dead-ends brought him face-on with his sobering lack of choice, his future spread like roadkill before him on the great big highway of life. The Hellfire Club was out of reach. At those points he didn’t want to deal with that reality, and at those points he was still just a smelly junkie. So he beat it out of himself, sweating it away, flushing it from his system along with five pints of perspiration and a heavy dose of testosterone. The gym was good for that. He could waste whole mornings with mindless repetitions and muscle burn. He was in the middle of a set when she appeared above him and started talking, and didn’t stop, Julian frozen in disbelief, face reddening with strain and irritation. Great. Nurse Ratched had a strop on because he refused to get stuck by one of her needles. Call him stupid, but getting all close and personal with drug paraphernalia wasn’t really top of his ‘to-do’ list. Before the weight slipped from his grasp he coiled TK around it, hoisting it onto the bar. Metal sang against metal, energy reverberating and puttering out. Julian sat up, straddling the bench, and he stared at her. She still talked, and with every other word he felt his muscles tense, his jaw slackening. Emma’s cards, the candy; how did she know? He stared from the expanse of platinum blonde, to the cruel lines pinching at her mouth, to the outstretched hand all filled with confections, and back to her eyes, hard and insipid. A cold laugh cut like a cough from his throat, short and incredulous. He reached for his towel, slung it over his shoulders, then grabbed his bottle and took a swig. “You’re kidding, right?” He was shocked at her gall. “Who the hell do you think you are?” |
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| Layla Miller | Apr 23 2010, 02:44 AM Post #3 |
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Unregistered
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To say Julian was unresponsive would be an understatement. He was at once shocked and seemingly amused at the woman. It was nothing Layla hadn't seen before. She had been around, giving advice and almost orders for years. Given the nature of her abilities, there wasn't much that would surprise the scarred woman. "We've been through this. I told you, I'm Layla Miller. I'm a mutant, like you ,except without the undue sense of entitlement." There was no malice in Layla's voice, just a chipper matter-of-fact monotone. "Where you use that noggin of yours to move things, I know stuff." She circled him. There was much she could use Julian for, so much that he was capable of if he were just in the right places. "I know what your thinking. What sort of stuff ? Well, I'll tell you. I know everything about you, all the dark secrets, the addictions, the back room deals with White Queens to keep your ass above water. I also know what's going to happen to you should you refuse to do what I ask. I wont go into the gruesome details but I will tell you it involves, expulsion, minimum wage and a hairnet." Layla sighed. This was her calling. It was the cost that came with her abilities. Still, after all this time, she had grown tired of explaining herself, of convincing others she was what she claimed to be. "There's a boy. A white haired speedster, the witch's kid. He's part of your little covert operation. I need you to get rid of him." Layla didn't have anything against Tommy. To the contrary, he was perhaps one of the only people in the world that she knew next to nothing about, and that was the issue. Something about the witch, about the way Wanda's power worked that shortcircuited Layla's own. She was riddled with blind spots when it came to Wanda and her blood ties. "He's too close. Just knock him around a little bit, keep him out the loop for the time being. There are things that need to be done and I don't feel comfortable about getting them done with that kid so close by." Layla popped a piece of the offered hard candy into her mouth. "You sure you don't want a piece ? It's actually pretty good. So, here the sitch, you open a can of whoop ass on the Speed kid or along with my resignation, Scotty will receive a detailed dossier chronicling all those little exploits you guys have tried so hard to hide. Got it ? Oh, and stay away from the kid's brother too." |
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| Hellion(old) | Apr 25 2010, 06:58 PM Post #4 |
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Telekinesis / Flight
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Julian couldn’t remember a time there hadn’t been some form of blackmail or bribery in his life. His memories were a flipbook of manipulations, a series of variations on the same theme. Mom, her thin face dumb-wide and desperate, boulevard-pink nails clawed around the kitchen chair, saying to a six-year-old him if you wear it just this once and don’t scream we’ll get you that BMX. Dad, all nerves and tension next to him in the Lexus, fat pig fingers drumming out 'Eleanor Rigby' on the wheel, other hand hard against his mouth, warning tell her and you’ll pay with your college fund. Bailey and her overdose threats, head halfway down the can, hair stringy and matted and splayed like wet dreadlocks across her cold smile. And all of his own, over and over and over again. Miller’s were just another, but he’d never before been told to beat the shit out of some guy who didn’t deserve it. He asked, “Are you insane?” a thumb jammed into the neck of his bottle, pressing harder and harder until the plastic cracked inwards and water shot out like vomit. Nausea made his stomach pitch hard. He and Shepard weren’t best friends, they’d never share tables at dinnertime or bitch about who was boning who or who they thought had the best rack. They’d never debate baseball or discuss car specs or which year’s model had the best drive. They’d never be that. But they were teammates. Tommy was a good guy, if intolerable, if air headed and motor-mouthed. And Julian was a dick, but he wasn’t sadistic. If Lola here weren’t a chick she’d be flat out unconscious, draped slack-jawed and broken-nosed over a weight machine, eyes rolling stupid and empty in her head. Decking her wasn’t an option. Nor was blackmail in return, twisting her threats on their head and spitting them back at her, telling her he’d turn her over to Frost, see how she liked spending the rest of her life believing she was a paralytic Down’s Syndrome kid, blowing bubbles with saliva. She wasn’t bluffing; she wasn’t making wild guesses. Everyone knew about the addiction, they’d all seen him wigging out and hyperventilating, babbling existential shit like you did when your veins were pumping chemicals and your mind was grating itself to nothing. Everyone knew he was a junkie. That was yesterday’s news. The rest was recent, all classified information. The little afterthought she tacked onto the end of her orders made him laugh, a hollow, coarse laugh that escaped without intention, like gas. Billy was fucking nuts, and could rearrange the fabric of the universe with a few choice words, and he was holed up in the infirmary being fed pureed carrot and dribbling all over himself. Even if she hadn’t told him to stay away from Kaplan he’d have avoided the reality warper like he was leprous. But how noble of her. How selfless, how utterly altruistic and fucking magnanimous of her. Julian rubbed at his forehead, dragging a fingertip across an eyebrow, staring at the ugly black M that ruined her features. He couldn’t just lay into the guy, not without reason, not without something more solid than her spite and a few threats. He set the bottle down. Air hissed inwards as it depressurised. “Why?” |
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| Layla Miller | Apr 27 2010, 08:31 PM Post #5 |
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"Oh Lord..," Layla muttered as the brash young man went on with his comments. She could see the rage she had anticipated brewing in his eyes. He was obviously not one who took being told what to do very well. Perhaps he had always had an issue with authority figures. Perhaps a distant father had instilled in him a deep seeded mistrust and distaste for anyone and everyone who dared to attempt the slightest amount of control over him. Layla had no idea. Her forte was the future. People's pasts were as much a mystery to her as the answer to the eternal Tootsie Pop to licks ratio question. Whatever it was that shaped the boy, they were both here now and Layla, as always, knew what she had to do, what had to be done. "No I'm not insane. Rude much,"there wasn't anger in her voice so much as a sense of bemused impatience. There was a window of time when this could be done. After that, things would get complicated. "And I thought I explained myself pretty clearly there Maxamillionaire. If the speedster's around I can't do my job. He screws with everything, and if I can't do my job, bad stuff happens. Trust me on this. You wanna be all you can be right ? You might not say it to people. You might try to come off as this carefree kid whose above it all, but what I know about you tells a different story. You wanna do good for the world ? Then start by helping me, cause sooner or later you'll find out that what I'm preaching is gospel. I've got a line on this big bold world we live in. We're at a nexus here. Things are about to get real wacky. You can't go screwing with things and not expect reprucussions." Layla stopped herself. There was too much to explain. Too much he couldn't understand yet. "The white haired bugger got a flu shot earlier. I dosed him with a chemical that's gonna make it looked like he's been using drugs. When they asked you why you did it, tell them he was high, that he was out of his mind, and he came looking for a fight. They'll believe you cause you know what a lunatic on drugs looks like. " She was guessing at this point. Tommy's proximity to all of this made her powers a bit of a non issue but she felt like she had been cautious enough, covered all her bases. "And don't worry about the telepaths. I got that covered." That she was not guessing about. "You don't wanna see what happens if we don't get this done kid. This is only a first step. You're more important then you think." |
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| Hellion(old) | Apr 29 2010, 09:35 PM Post #6 |
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Telekinesis / Flight
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Schizophrenia. Dissociative Identity Disorder. Multiple personalities. Bipolar or depression or delusions or something he didn’t have a name for, a tumour or a parasite or a tropical disease; something had wriggled into her brain—a mindworm, a fucking maggot—dissolved it and made it flyblown and filthy and rotted thin. Julian had never before wanted so badly to be able turn to a member of the faculty, and he felt a sudden, unfamiliar horror at just how alienated from them he had become. At how far he had pushed them. This crazy bitch had him all wrapped up in her dirty little agenda, and all he could do was stand here and gawp and mouth, stupefied, like an air-drowned fish. She protested her insanity, and he felt sick. She played to everything that was important. Her insight was uncanny and unsettling. He hated being psychoanalysed. Layla dug around with numbing indifference, as if she was searching through nothing more than a filing cabinet, explaining to him how he wanted to be the best of the best, how he was more than his façade. And for sure he did, and he was, but she didn’t have any right to slip into his skull and rifle around in there like it was public property. No one had that right, fucking no one. Not Frost or Grey-Summers or Starsmore and absolutely not this freak. He was unsure of her, uncertain of her abilities, unsure if she even was poking about in his mind, if it was instead just some by-product of her genetic omniscience. He felt powerless and cornered. It pissed him off on a level he hadn’t previously known existed. “You want me to beat the shit out of a kid who might possibly have something to do with something that hasn’t happened yet?” Julian scoffed. His voice was tight and strained, intercostals all bunched hard against his lungs. “Sorry sweetheart, but you’re kind of defining insanity for me right now.” And according to her, Tommy wouldn’t even be able to lift a finger to defend himself. This wouldn’t be a fight; this’d be him battering a handicapped kid. Taking candy from a toddler and smacking it in the baby teeth while it bawled for its mom. Julian imagined Tommy drugged up and tottering and useless, and scrunched his eyes shut. She held him at knifepoint. “I don’t really have a choice here, do I.” It wasn’t a question. |
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| Layla Miller | May 2 2010, 08:01 PM Post #7 |
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"There you go Spaky," Layla said, giving the boy a mock congradulatory tap on the nose. "I'd knew you'd get it sooner or later." He seemed to realize that Layla had him backed into a corner. It wasn't his fault really. It had been obvious in the conversation to her that Julian had been involved in his fair share of manipulation. He was quite good at it actually. Layla just, as always, had an unfair advantage. "You be careful though. Just because I slipped him something doesn't mean the little bugger wont put up a fight. That cocktail was mostly for cosmetic purposes and speedsters are notoriously hard to deal with. I always hated that power." There was a playfulness in Layla's voice. Though this was far from a game for the woman, she had learned long ago that allowing anything to get inside her head and rattle her was a dangerous proposition. She had to keep a detachment from what was going on. It was the only way to keep sanity in a world that was sprawled out in front of and ahead of her. "So dispose of him. Don't hurt him too bad or anything, but make sure he'll keep his distance for the next few days. It's important I have clarity for that. Then, when you're done, I'll find you. There's more to do." She began to walk away. It was almost a skip really. Then she stopped. She turned and walked back toward the boy and brushed a few strands of sweat laden hair from his face. She leaned in closer and began to speak. "Things might start to look bad for everybody. They might get confused and lose focus. We all have to stay the course though. It's the only way. See, they love him. That's why the truth is gonna be so hard for them to get at. They wanted a happy ending so badly. It's a shame really." She turned away. This was too much. "Look, just do what I said, okay." |
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6:58 PM Jul 11