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| Breaking Inside; Tag // Box | |
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| Topic Started: Sep 20 2011, 12:48 AM (273 Views) | |
| Sarah Vale | Sep 20 2011, 12:48 AM Post #1 |
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Technopathy
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September 1st, around 9PM, hours after the school’s destruction The hand holding the phone receiver was shaking slightly, and she found herself hanging up twice before finally dialing the number. She nearly hung up again when it began ringing, the sharp tone unnerving her. Thinking so intently on how to phrase this, Sarah actually jumped when the mellow voice of her father picked up, his voice pleasant if a bit confused by the unknown number. Swallowing, she was horrified to hear her voice actually crack when she finally spoke, squeezing her eyes shut. “D-Dad? Is…Is mom there? I need you guys to put me on speaker, it’s…Really important.” “Sarah? Sarah, is everything alright, hon? What’s wrong? Yeah, she’s here, gimme a minute.” She could hear him shouting in the background, the shuffling noises from her mom coming to the phone, finally hearing both of them. She could tell when they put her on speaker, and could picture them, sitting at the kitchen table together, staring at the phone. “Sweetie, are you okay? What’s going on?” They sounded worried now, and Sarah drew in a long, shuddering breath, because once she started talking, she needed to say everything. “I’m okay, Jess and I are fine, but…” She finally said it, the words coming out in a rush, about the anti-mutant sentiments lately, the weird religious sect that had popped up, the attacks on X-Corp and Mutant Town and… “The school’s been destroyed.” There was a crash from the other line, and Sarah winced, her mother’s shrill voice suddenly panicked, terrified. “What?! Sarah, you and Jess, are you okay, what the hell happened? I’ll send you tickets-” “No! Mom, no, it’s fine, we’re both fine! We’re not comin-” “You aren’t staying there! I’ll-” “Mom, just listen to me, okay?!” Sarah practically shouted, and she heard her father whispering something she couldn’t hear. Seizing the opportunity, she spoke again, quickly. “Mr. Summers has a safe place for everyone, we’re gonna be fine, I promise.” More muffled noises, before her father spoke up again. “Sarah…” “Dad, I know. But they…They need me here.” Her voice caught in her throat, the face of a girl swimming in her mind, a girl from the class, someone Sarah hadn’t been able to help. She hadn’t been able to save that girl, or even help so many others. But now, her skills could be utilized in Utopia. Mr. Summers had told her they wanted her there as soon as possible, they wanted her help setting up the systems, the networks. She heard a sound of disbelief, probably from her mother. “With my powers, you know I can help here. They need my help for security, for making sure the safe place is secure – you guys know me, you know I can help. You need to trust me.” There were tears on her face, Sarah wasn’t sure when they’d started falling, the pause on the other end of the line seeming to draw on longer and longer, until she finally heard her father’s voice again. “We trust you, Sarah. Just…Keep us updated, okay?” “Uh, I’ll do my best, but my laptop kinda got-” “We’ll transfer money into your account, go get a new one and keep us informed. Got it?” Her mother’s voice was sharp, but she could hear the tears the woman was holding back. A sob caught in Sarah’s throat, and she nodded, before realizing they couldn’t see that. “Got it, mom. As soon as everything is up and running, I’ll let you guys know.” Taking a deep breath, free hand lifting to scrub across her face, she tried to stop crying. “Good. Take care of your sister…We love you both, so much.” A fresh wave crashed over her at those words, dragging a pillow onto her lap, hugging it tightly. “I love you too,” she practically choked out, finally hanging up the phone. It was so late, all she wanted to do was sleep. She had a headache, a bandage wrapped around the cut on her upper arm, and she could feel the bruises all over her body aching. Rubbing at her eyes, scrubbing the tears off her face, hugging the phone for a moment, moving over to the desk, where the hotel room’s computer was set up. She sat by it, taking small comfort in the little voice of the technology, before tiredly dialing another number. It rang, a few times, long enough for Sarah to wonder if he was asleep. Once someone answered, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Madison? It’s Sarah.” |
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| Box | Sep 20 2011, 01:02 AM Post #2 |
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Mechanical Interaction/Merge
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X-Factor had gotten word earlier in the evening, but very little contact since then. It was nervewracking, terrifying, even. To know that the team's closest allies, in many cases dear friends, family, lovers - could be hurt, or worse, and not knowing for sure. It was the uncertainty that was the worst part. Just barely edging out the feeling of helplessness. The X-Men were facing the biggest trial of their existence, all while X-Factor was trapped under military sanctions more or less. It was possible that they could have gone to aid the school, if it was worth bringing a hot-to-trot US military to their door as well. He'd been busy trying to reconfigure X-Factor's telecommunications systems since the first call came in. Busy work, really. There was nothing wrong with the system. But maybe... he thought, maybe if it was better, they'd have gotten word sooner. Or more frequently, or what have you. He wasn't sure. So when the call finally came to him, when his line finally rang and that silly ringtone she'd programmed into his phone went off, he grabbed for it, snatching it up off his desktop, fumbling, almost dropping it, before answering. "Sarah! Thank God, we're all worried sick over here, you're not hurt, right? I mean - I - we haven't gotten much word here, I... damn it, kid, I was worried about you, ya know that?" |
![]() Signature mock-up made by Heather, the greatest Heather I know. :) Oh it's tough bein' a Box, but I'm livin' it up, livin' it up - doot-doot-doot-doot-doo - livin' it up, livin' it up - BOX! | |
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| Sarah Vale | Sep 20 2011, 02:49 AM Post #3 |
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Technopathy
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It had taken hours, after the initial blast, after things calmed down, for Sarah to have thought about calling her parents. She’d helped break down the intact sections of the Danger Room and Cerebro, loading it all into the Blackbird before Scott flew the injured to the Savage Land. The helicopters that had taken many of them to the city, dropping them off in the penthouse suites that Warren had provided. Despite her exhaustion, showering had demanded her attention, soaking for as long as she could, trying to get rid of the smoke, the blood, the dirt caked on her. There was a sweat suit in one of the drawers, about two sizes too big, but better by far than the filthy clothes she’d come in. The jeans and t-shirt were ruined, stained and ripped, so she donned the grey sweats, before wrapping the cut on her arm in a bandage before picking up the phone. She wasn’t even sure when it had gotten to be so late. Fighting the urge to sleep, she had to call her parents, because if she waited any longer, her mother would probably fly up just to beat her ass. And she had to call Madison, because even in lock down, he’d find a way to scold her if she didn’t. She didn’t want him to worry any more than he had to. The ringing nearly lulled her asleep, lids dropping, putting her feet up on the desk with a groan, fingers rubbing her temple lightly. When he finally answered, she actually jumped, smiling wearily, grateful to hear his voice, as rushed as it was. She could imagine how irritated he was, to not have been able to leave Mutant Town to help. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. Bruises, scratches, a bump on the head…I’m in the city right now.” Running her free hand through her wet hair, she somehow found herself smiling, although her voice was exhausted. “I know, that’s why I called. Figured you’d want to know…Needed to let you know I was okay.” Somehow, she didn’t even know what to say other than that she was okay. Should she go into what happened? The room suddenly exploding around her, the girl she’d held when she died? Sarah just sat, staring into space holding the phone, at a loss for words. |
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| Box | Sep 20 2011, 03:12 AM Post #4 |
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"Yeah, we uh... we haven't heard much, understandable, I guess. I mean... you've got... alot going on, and..." Madison took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. Calm down, gather your thoughts, make sense, he thought to himself before it was time to continue. "I'm really glad you're okay. I wish we could have helped you guys out, though," he sighed, scratching the back of his head as he shifted the phone in position on his ear with the other. "Kinda makes our troubles here pale in comparison, and... and you shouldn't have... you shouldn't have had to experience all that. You... I dunno, I know I'm not very good at this kind of thing, but... if you ever needed to talk about it, I could... well, I might not be able to give good advice or whatnot, but I could listen." Madison bit his upper lip, nodding his head before letting it go. He never knew the right things to say. At least he was sure he never knew the right things to say. "You're in town?" he asked, a bit surprised at that. Were the X-Men staying in New York? He'd heard they were planning on evacuating someplace out of harm's reach, and New York was nowhere near to that. New York was about as close to harm's reach as a mutant could get right now. "You... you be careful out here, Sarah. I mean... I mean as necessary as our little stunt was to keep the military out, and... and you know... it hasn't exactly made us popular. Not that we were before, but... well... just be careful, okay? I'm sure I don't have to tell you that, but..." He let loose a light snort of a chuckle through his nose. "You're pretty damn irreplaceable as a workshop partner, and I'd hate to lose that, eh?" |
![]() Signature mock-up made by Heather, the greatest Heather I know. :) Oh it's tough bein' a Box, but I'm livin' it up, livin' it up - doot-doot-doot-doot-doo - livin' it up, livin' it up - BOX! | |
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| Sarah Vale | Sep 20 2011, 06:29 AM Post #5 |
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Technopathy
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Sarah could always count on Madison to be more tongue tied than her in so many situations, although she hadn’t thought that was possible. He jumped around in his sentence enough that she had to try not to smile, sounding as if he had no idea what to say. It was sweet, because knowing him, he probably wanted to ask her dozens of questions, about what had happened, about the injury list, anything he could tell to the rest of X-Factor, who was probably worried sick. Pulling the pillow she’d been hugging earlier onto her lap, she wrapped her free arm around it, holding on to it. “Thanks…” She could guess that it was killing them, to not have been able to come help. Her smile faded when he spoke again, because she wished she hadn’t experienced it. But she had, and nothing would change that fact. The longer she sat here, the longer she had to think, the more intricate the details that popped out in her mind, as if she couldn’t stop replaying the morning over. The cool hand of the girl who died, in hers; the look in the eyes of the Purifier she’d booted out of the armor suit, so filled with hate. Her breath caught in her throat, clenching one hand against the pillow tightly. “Yeah…Yeah, after all this is over…We’ll have to talk. I’m…Gonna be having nightmares for a while.” Her voice was strained, hoarse, because the images burned into her eyes were bad enough while her eyes were open. Suddenly, she was almost afraid to sleep. Swallowing hard, she nodded at his surprise, before remembering he couldn’t see her. “I won’t be here long,” She said quietly, shifting the phone to her other ear, listening to his concerns. She smiled into her pillow, before explaining a bit more. “Yeah, Mr. Worthington is putting some of us up for a bit – I’ll leave in a few days for the new base. Mr. Summers called it ‘Utopia’.” An ironic name, really, but she mentioned it, thinking maybe Madison knew about it. She kept hugging the pillow tightly, smiling shakily at the comment of her being irreplaceable. “Wait’ll you see the armor I hijacked.” Her attempt at humor failed miserably, wiping another tear before it could fully escape her eye, her voice quiet. “You can let the others know…A, a lot of us made it out. Not…Not everyone. We, we had help after the…the explosion. When the attackers showed up.” She had to stop, pressing her face into the pillow, taking deep breaths to calm down. He would want to know what had happened. |
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| Box | Sep 20 2011, 05:21 PM Post #6 |
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"Well, I don't know if we're gonna be able to stay here much longer, to be honest, but... but wherever we end up, I'll let you know," it was a sobering thought. Mutant Town may not end up being Mutant Town for much longer at this rate. Xavier's was already gone... if these Purifiers were looking to further fragment and weaken mutantkind, they'd done a terrific job of that. But that would stop here. No more. They'd pull together and rally themselves up and beat back these religious whackjobs. They had no other choice. It was funny, in a way. They'd faced extradimensional threats. Ancient pharaohs come back from the beyond to menace the entire world. Displacement to a mythical realm of cowboys and indians. All manner of bizarre and cosmic threats the scope of which the average human couldn't even comprehend. And yet, the greatest threat they were going to face, the greatest threat of them all... was a group of "ordinary" humans with a really twisted take on the Holy Bible. He wasn't sure if that was ironic or not, but it was definitely strange. "Utopia. Sounds nice," and it's not Sanctuary, he tacked on in an inner monologue of sorts. He still didn't like the idea of X-Factor's alliance of sorts with Magneto's secret village or whatever it was. Nation, city, city-state... whatever. He didn't like it. It just seemed like a betrayal waiting to happen to him. That once the threat of these Purifiers was gone, Magneto would find a way to turn this allegiance against X-Factor. Somehow. "Hmm. Well, I'm sure this armor's not too bad, but no way it can hold a candle to what we've made," Madison chuckled, glancing over to the robotic construct Sarah had dubbed 'Shoebox'. Cute nickname, incredible piece of machinery. Something more than what he could have come up with on his own - the bond that Sarah's powers allowed for gave it a life of its own when Sarah was present. His amusement faltered as she began to spill details. They had 'help'. But it wasn't X-Factor, and it wasn't X-Corp, so... the Brotherhood? Maybe possibly even those Hellfire people? The 'bad guys' were coming to the good guys' aid? Will wonders never cease? He wasn't very good at reading intonations in voice, never was, never would be, but even he could tell that by the way she spoke that she'd seen things. Things a girl like her never should have seen. It wasn't right. It was cosmically unjust. She was a good kid, a kid who deserved to be protected from the horrors of the world, and... and that didn't happen. "Attackers. Purifiers," he grumbled. Those jackasses were everywhere, it seemed. How did they have so many? And how were they never noticed until now? These questions weren't sitting well with him, not at all. "I'm really sorry you had to go through this, kiddo. It's not right. It's not fair. You're as good a kid as I've ever known, and I wish I could'a been there to keep you safe from all this hell." |
![]() Signature mock-up made by Heather, the greatest Heather I know. :) Oh it's tough bein' a Box, but I'm livin' it up, livin' it up - doot-doot-doot-doot-doo - livin' it up, livin' it up - BOX! | |
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| Sarah Vale | Sep 21 2011, 02:46 AM Post #7 |
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Technopathy
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The problems in Mutant Town were escalating, she knew that. They couldn’t possibly last much longer, and she knew a lot of the town had been evacuated, although she wasn’t clear on where. The military was closing in on the town, forcing innocent people into hiding and fear. It seemed way too neat, how the school had been attacked, destroyed, while the powerful figures of X-Factor and X-Corps were unable to reach them to help out. But that was probably just her exhausted mind getting paranoid, because the military couldn’t have anything to do with the self-righteous religious nuts who had attacked them. “You be careful, too.” Her voice was quiet, worried, because if he had to go through the military, there was a definite chance of injury. Sure, he had Box, but he wasn’t infallible. A sobering thought, to think that things had suddenly gotten so bad, that military action had been approved. To know that her friends in the city were surrounded by tanks, weapons, as if they were doing something bad…It wasn’t right. Sarah scowled into her pillow, snorting under her breath at the mention of utopia. “We’ll see. Mr. Summers said it’s…Not fully operational yet. Once I get there, I’m gonna help get the systems up and running. Only reason I didn’t leave right away was because I needed to call my parents, and you.” Scott had asked her to come as soon as possible – he probably wanted to be able to get back to the city. And to be honest, she would need something to focus on, and getting the systems for the base working well would help. She nodded at the word ‘Purifier’, lying her head on the pillow she was hugging. “Yeah…They had high tech armor suits…And these weird…Bio-mechanical wings on some of them.” She shuddered, remembering the twisted features of those that were flying, the disturbing blend of technology and human that was a perversion of true cybernetics. Grimacing, a tear escaped her as Madison apologized. A part of her was almost glad he hadn’t been there – she could guess his feelings for the Brotherhood and Hellfire weren’t kind, and if it hadn’t been for them, there probably would have been a lot more dead children. Bu she didn’t say that. “I just…I just wish I could’ve done more…to help.” She choked on the words for a moment, swallowing a sob, because while she could fix technology, she could rebuild the systems that had been destroyed…She couldn’t do a damn thing for the people who had been killed. In the face of that, she had been rendered a useless, crying mess, and Scott had had to comfort her, despite he himself having been injured. |
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| Box | Sep 21 2011, 03:48 AM Post #8 |
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"Oh, yeah, definitely. We're all being pretty damn cautious out here. Even Gibney, for all his impulsiveness," Madison chuckled. Sure, they were all on edge, but it didn't take much to acknowledge that everyone at X-Factor was acutely aware of just how precarious their situation was. The slightest misstep, the slightest problem they caused... could spell doom. Not just for them, but for their top dog, who was currently behind bars. "Not operational? Hmm," he muttered. That wasn't exactly a comforting thought, there. "Well, I guess that's pretty much what it is, huh? Not enough time to fully set it up. Well, wherever you're going, whatever you're heading to, I'm sure you'll be crucial. Gifts like ours, well... I'm sure you know full well how important we can end up being in the 'digital age' or whatever they're calling it now." What she said next disturbed him some. Armor, sure. Big armored suits. That was no big thing. But bio-mechanical wings? Did they somehow replicate his Death designs? How? He hadn't shared that design with anyone, any... wait. The clone of McCoy was killed, sure, but... that Sinister, perhaps? He was there, working with Apocalypse's science team... was he somehow involved with this? "Hey... hey, I'm sure you did everything you could. I mean, you took their technology. You took their armor from them, and the stuff you guys can learn from that... don't sell yourself short. You had one hell of a day, and the last thing you need to do is doubt your capabilities. Or wish you could be something different. I wouldn't wish you to be different for anything, if that means anything to you." |
![]() Signature mock-up made by Heather, the greatest Heather I know. :) Oh it's tough bein' a Box, but I'm livin' it up, livin' it up - doot-doot-doot-doot-doo - livin' it up, livin' it up - BOX! | |
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| Sarah Vale | Sep 24 2011, 11:08 AM Post #9 |
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Hearing his voice on the other end of the phone, normal, comforting, went a long way in soothing her frayed nerves. He wasn’t freaking out, demanding she run somewhere away from all this. He had faith in her ability to handle these problems, even if he was worried about her. It helped, knowing he believed in her. Her parents didn’t truly understand, they were too busy worrying, as parents do, to believe in what she was capable of. But Madison spoke to her as if he didn’t question what she could do, and it helped to know that he believed that. Of course they would all be lying low, with Havok in prison. She was still glad to hear him assure her that they would be keeping safe. “Yeah, that’s what I told my parents.” She grinned at the mention of being crucial, although she wouldn’t say she’d be that important. Helpful, definitely. The grin was exhausted, her head drooping a little, because the adrenaline of the day had worn off hours ago, leaving her more drained than she’d been in ages. The emotional toll left her blank; she’d be surprised that she could still smile, if she could manage to feel surprised. Pressing the side of her face against the pillow, that same feeling of uselessness washed over her as Madison had to comfort her, trying to tell her that she’d done well. The logical part of her brain knew he was right. She’d managed to help, get people to safety, work on the systems, steal an armored suit…But that didn’t erase the feeling of one of her classmates dying in her arms. Maybe she wasn’t a healer, but in the aftermath of battle, there were things to be done, things she could do, that no one else could. That was the feeling she had to hold on to. “Yeah…Yeah, it means a lot.” A sigh escaped her, followed by a jaw-cracking yawn, free hand rubbing at her eyes blearily. Glancing at the clock with a muted sense of shock at the time, she shook her head, pulling her feet off the desk tiredly. “I just wanted to let you know I was okay. I should go, before I fall asleep on the phone. When I get things up and running in Utopia, I’ll see if I can send you an update.” The pillow was tossed aside, and she stumbled to the bed. “G’night. And…Thanks,” despite the quiet tone, it was sincere, and she finally hung up, barely managing to crawl under the covers before she fell asleep. |
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7:34 PM Jul 11