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The Cold Truth; Tag: Alix
Topic Started: Oct 2 2012, 11:49 PM (265 Views)
Wolfsbane
Member Avatar
Wolf Form
Timeframe: June 4th, @ 1 pm

Rahne Sinclair sat on a park bench, one of the small community improvement projects that had sprung up in Mutant Town since the early days of Alex Summers's X-Factor. Things had changed for his group since then. They'd experienced regime changes, career changes, an amicable split into two different groups. But like this park, there were signs all over the place of how their involvement had made this town better. People seemed, overall, comfortable in their own skin. No matter how different that skin was from what was considered acceptable by society at large, they felt free to walk around town as they were. The green-skinned, the oddly-proportioned, the man with a gastropod tail instead of legs. This was Mutant Town, and they lived as they would.

Perhaps it was a tribute to that very fact that Rahne Sinclair was always a werewolf when she was in Mutant Town. Proudly coated in reddish-brown fur, bright golden eyes, large, pointed ears. If she couldn't wear her mutation on her sleeve here, where could she?

Despite the ease with which she could be a wolf in this town, and not have anybody particularly be upset or frightened, there was a feeling of ill-at-ease within Rahne. The message requesting her to come here, from the "Danger-vator" back at Utopia all the way to here, had been sparse. She knew little about why she was here. Just that Alix wanted to talk to her about something, in person, and that it was important.

And that was never a good sign. The best news Rahne could think of from a mysterious, no-details meeting was that somehow, Alix and Jamie had been... careless in their intimacy and now there was a little Madrox on the way.

Somehow, that seemed unlikely. The two or three times Rahne had met Alix in the past gave her no indication that the woman was careless about anything, as telepaths very rarely were by nature.

So what could it be? What could possibly -

"Excuse me, young lady," a voice sounded out behind Rahne, and she turned around in her seat. An elderly woman, seemingly normal except for the hazy purple aura surrounding her and levitating her off the ground. She wore thick-lensed glasses and carried a duffle bag over her shoulder.

"Afternoon t'ye, ma'am," Rahne answered with a gentle smile that was careful to not show any fang.

"I was just wondering... have you found Jesus?" the old lady asked, slipping her hand into her satchel and producing a pocket-sized New Testament.

Rahne slipped her hand to the chain around her neck and pulled up the cross expertly crafted from volcanic rock that hung about her neck at all times.

"Aye, ma'am, every Sunday an' then some at that," she answered, her smile growing a bit wider. It was nice to see, that in even in the face of oppressions that wore the Church like a mask to hide their evil, there were those who had not lost faith.

"Oh, my, but that is a lovely piece. Where'd you get it?" The old lady adjusted her glasses and peered more closely.

"A friend made it for me after my previous one was lost in a fire. I'm afraid I tend to feel a good deal at a loss without M'Lord close to muh heart," Rahne couldn't help but wag her tail a bit, thumping it on the park bench in reflexive reaction.

"Oh, that is just fantastic. We should all have friends so supportive of us. Well, you have a lovely day, young lady," the older woman smiled, and waved a hand as she began to drift off towards the next person she'd decided to speak with.

"Same t' you, ma'am. And best of luck spreadin' the Word."
Posted Image

[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


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Alix
Member Avatar
Telepathy, Telekinesis / Empathy
Alix personally had never been one for belief in anything beyond the minds she saw around her, or the infallible truths that came out of the minds around her. It just didn't make sense, in her own logically concrete sense of the world, to believe in something that her mind could not simply study for comprehension. Faith in the goodness of humanity. Hope for the future. Understanding that they were all connected in ways that were both complex and real-- that had always been the scope of her belief once she'd gained her own perceptions of the world. She never doubted the importance of belief in a higher power for others-- nor did she even discount it's affects on the mind. But on a personal level it just never worked. Her values were held firmly into the achievements that humanity could achieve.

Values that had been tried over and over again without fail. Values that, ever since being held on Skrullos, had been tried over and over again. It'd been harder than she'd been letting onto the others. Fixing the brownstone, the team, preparing for a funeral alongside the near exact copy of the one the funeral was for, Helping their neighbors in Mutant Town, missing people and all the effects of skrulls? The team was spread thin in a whole new set of ways that only doubled the sort of strain they were used to.

Then there was Kyle.

Kyle, who'd left with nothing more than a phone call. Kyle who knew nothing about Jamie's death, the troubles plaguing mutant town, or even the state of affairs. Kyle who'd copped out on them and everything that he'd supposed to have cared about. It went against her nature to hold a grudge or ill will but in this case? She was struggling more and more with holding to that. She was far from happy, and would be hard to convince on his return. The phone call had claimed fears of hurting people-- claims that she'd found ignorant in the wake of the sheer numbers of people who had gone through such things in far more dangerous and intrusive ways than the offensively simplistic complacency wave. Her own part in everything-- Jamie's death on her hands thanks to the skrull, Apocalypse-- even some sort of nagging that maybe there was more. No matter those things, she'd stuck through. Yet, he'd been so easily willing to drop it all due to a short lived complacency wave and a girlfriend that turned out to be an alien? She found it childish and selfish, no matter how much time she thought about it. At least Rogue had lived. At least he was alive. It was more than alot of people had by the end of this particularly vile set of events. He'd not even gone through the harrowing life on Skrullos.

It went without saying that the team was hanging by a shoestring that had automatically necessitated her ability to shut out and keep things together. Jamie-- Or Beta-- didn't like it in the least, but after everything that had gone on and would be going on, they all needed her to be that proverbial string tying things to steady ground. Tonight, it meant talking to Rahne. Beta was on call if he was needed but for the moment it seemed that she'd be the best to handle passing the news. She watched from afar as Rahne talked to the kindly woman who Alix had known as Ms. Beth. She'd even tried to talk about God with Alix before and while she'd been accepting and amicable towards the woman's belief, she'd not bought into it. The tiny new testament still sat on her shelf, however, alongside the few other possessions that she'd been given through the years.

When the woman passed, she approached, strange eyes on the carefully pinned envelop in her hand. It seemed so mundane, so normal, so silly a thing to use given the nature of all their lives. Suburban in a world that had now transcended far beyond the meager existences they all seemed to come from.

::Hey, Rahne.:: Alix's smile had always been small at best, but coupled with the tired, worn down voice that had become the norm from everyone in the past few days, it was clearly more than the norm.

::Sorry to call you over so quick. It's about Jamie. Prime, I mean. Not--:: She paused, and glanced towards the envelop in her hand slowly before, despite usual reticence towards physical displays, placed a hand over Rahne's comfortingly.

::I thought you'd deserve more than a phone call. I mean, I guess-- I could've. But you were-- are-- you know. Important to him.:: She paused again, and drew her own emotion back from the brink as she spoke.

::During the skrull battle, towards the beginning.:: She drew a cautious, slow breath.

::A skrull killed him. It was in Monet's apartment. The others--:: She didn't say that it was the skrull that had replaced her, or that the skrull had taken particular joy in killing him, or that she knew all this because of Monet. The duplicates were no longer just duplicates. They were more.

::The other Jamies, I mean. They didn't vanish. They're still here.::
[align=center]
Posted Image
STRIKE ME DOWN SHOULD HAVE HELD IT ALL ALONE
WASH THE QUESTION OFF MY HANDS I'M THE FATE IN NO ONES PLAN
[/align]
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Wolfsbane
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Wolf Form
"Alix!" Rahne called out in a slight bit of surprise upon hearing the woman's voice in her head rather than out loud. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that this was Alix's primary method of communication. She stood up from the bench, taking care to brush a bit of leaf debris off of her backside as she stood, watching Alix approach.

There was a hesitance to the woman's demeanor. A smile that seemed forced, a stance that seemed more than just tired, more than just worn out. And the envelope... was this because Utopia had no proper mailing address? No, it couldn't be that, could it? It couldn't be so...

Rahne glanced down at the hand that gently reached out for hers, and on reflex, Rahne's fingers wrapped around the hand. She wasn't sure if Alix was making this gesture for Rahne's benefit or for herself.

And then the bomb dropped. Disbelief, at first. Her head tilted back and away, her brow furrowing in confusion as a frown crossed her lips.

"What?" she asked, brain unwilling to process what was just then told to it. What she was saying... it had to be a lie. Or misinformation, or... or something, but it couldn't be the truth. It couldn't be.

She staggered back a step, looking to find the bench that she'd been sitting on and fell back heavily upon it.

"This cannae be... no..." she stammered, staring blankly and unseeingly at the grass at her feet.

She looked back up at Alix, tears beginning to brim up on the underside of her eyes, threatening to spill over, but not quite making it yet.

"No. Ye're wrong, ye have to be. He's... he cannae be gone, he just..." her hands clenched tightly into fists, her eyes squeezed shut tightly.

But then what Alix said confused matters. The other Jamies were still around?

"But... well, how d' ye know, then? That was a duplicate that died then, it had to be," she could not believe that Jamie was actually, really, truly deceased.

"He's nae gone. I cannae believe he's gone. I won't."
Posted Image

[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


Avatar by Natalie, signature by Olga. My graphics set is complete again! Thank you so much!
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Alix
Member Avatar
Telepathy, Telekinesis / Empathy
::They knew. The moment it happened. Even on skrullos, in all that despair and all that other plane madness.. he felt it. Beta, that is. Monet and the others said that when it happened, they all stopped-- or fainted. I can't imagine it not being real. Monet she.:: She nodded softly, and swallowed back more emotion that came threateningly close.

::She saved his body.:: The entire wrongness of everything was just so plane. No one was supposed to die-- not really. How were they supposed to continue towards some greater goal when people died? Hurt, yea. But die? Heroes were supposed to live on until a time would come they were no longer needed, to which they could retire. Or something. She wasn't even sure honestly why it shook her so much-- just hat it did.

::I know because--:: She paused.

::--When we got back.. I knew. He wasn't there. I mean, I Know you know about that... connection we had... It was gone.:: she sat down in the slow, composed sort of manner expected of someone who was doing everything they could to reign in any emotions.

::But it's true.:: she sighed and looked upwards quietly, her mind far gone from everything that had gone on before this moment.

::It was my skrull, too. She-- it-- it murdered him while being me. Monet said that they'd figured out that I wasn't here anymore and that they confronted the skrull... it went south from there. It was killed, though. Before the Nuwali stuff.:: She glanced back towards Rahne searchingly, almost as if to try and see just how that information settled with the woman before leaning forwards to clasp the letter with both hands in front of her.
[align=center]
Posted Image
STRIKE ME DOWN SHOULD HAVE HELD IT ALL ALONE
WASH THE QUESTION OFF MY HANDS I'M THE FATE IN NO ONES PLAN
[/align]
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Wolfsbane
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Wolf Form
'Aw, God..." Rahne murmured, muffling her mouth in her cupped hands. Jamie was gone. Jamie really was gone, wasn't he? Sure, there were shadows of him lurking around, lingering duplicates like living photographs and home videos, but it wasn't the same. It wasn't really him. Not entirely.

She watched as Alix sat down, slowly, carefully. The restraint the woman was showing, Rahne couldn't match that. She had always worn her feelings on her sleeve, her heart exposed to all who cared to look. She was never able to hide how she felt, and this case was no exception.

"He was muh first friend," she sighed, swallowing a lump in her throat. "Muh first real friend. I mean, sure, he was there, at Muir, t' work an' be mum's lab assistant... but deep down inside, he was just another goofy kid, a clown in disguise an' I loved 'im for it. He took a broken, depressed wee pup an' helped her be happy, not again, but for the first time ever, and..."

Droplets fell from her eyes, trying hard to accept what she was told. To wrap her brain around this information. She'd only just spoken to her mother a few days ago, and everything was looking up.

She slowly looked to Alix as she revealed more information, that not only was Jamie killed, but he was killed by someone wearing Alix's face. It didn't take much to figure out why Alix divulged that bit of information.

"That does nae make ye responsible," she whispered, frowning. "No matter who says what, that does nae mean ye had any cupability in what happened to him."

Perhaps Alix didn't want it, but Rahne wasn't in the mood for holding back. She reached over and embraced the woman, tightly, closely. Partly because she felt the need to hold on to someone, partly because she felt that Alix needed to be held onto.

"Ye loved him, aye? I could feel it. Ye weren't like any other girl he'd been around. There was a spark. An' I am so sorry ye've lost it. I know that I'm hurting, but I cannae let that make me ignorant of yuir own pain. I'm sorry for what ye've lost."
Posted Image

[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


Avatar by Natalie, signature by Olga. My graphics set is complete again! Thank you so much!
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Alix
Member Avatar
Telepathy, Telekinesis / Empathy
She let Rahne talk and cry, going through her own loss the same way that she had back on Skrullos. It hadn't even been a month-- but somehow it felt like ages. The fighting, Skrullos, coming back... The deaths. All of it felt like one big long day that had been going on for months.

::I know. I mean.. I Just--:: Before she could finish, Rahne pulled her into a hug and gently, she returned it. As much as she shied away from such things, as much as she'd shut off from every but Beta in the sort of ways they would've all known from her in the past, the surprise of friendly closeness and support was just as surprisingly welcome. Her resolve started to crack and as Rahne spoke, Alix's eyes fell to her, silently listening again.

Everything she said was right, of course. She'd known Jamie through the years, and while prior to that night, she'd never particularly noticed him beyond being that silly, friendly teammate that kept everything grounded... she knew there were girls, but they were all different from her.

::No, it's ok. You're fine. I've had time... you're just now finding out.:: she nodded. ::Besides-- I mean--::

::--well, there's still the duplicates.:: she nodded softly out of habit as Rahne spoke. ::They're just like him. Beta is-- He's-- I mean, on Skrullos.:: She started to explain the whole side of just what it meant, and how no matter what other people thought, Beta was every bit the same as Jamie prime had been. That while she mourned the loss of Prime, Beta was by her side and keeping things in order.

None of that was exactly easy to explain so, simply, she muttered.

::I'm not alone. Not really.::
[align=center]
Posted Image
STRIKE ME DOWN SHOULD HAVE HELD IT ALL ALONE
WASH THE QUESTION OFF MY HANDS I'M THE FATE IN NO ONES PLAN
[/align]
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Wolfsbane
Member Avatar
Wolf Form
It was an odd feeling. With anybody else, death was that - it was death. There were odd, rare exceptions where the person they thought was dead was actualy shunted to a parallel dimension or taken over by a hostile entity (boy, had that happened too often), but it was different with Jamie Madrox. He was dead, yet on some levels, he wasn't. His duplicates, who shared his memories, who were built off of fragments of his personality, were alive and well and walking about and...

"Wait..." Rahne frowned, lifting up and pulling back some. If the duplicates were 'just like him'...

"Tell me ye're not... ye're nae really still with him, are ye? Dinnae ye tell me that ye've replaced him with a duplicate... please, that just... that seems wrong..."

But was it? Was it really... she had to think this one over. Was it really so wrong to pick up where things left off with the rest of Jamie? Did that mean that he was really, actually, honestly dead? There were so many things that were never understood about how Jamie's powers worked. Where he generated the mass for the duplicates, whether or not the duplicates were full-fledged individuals or whether they were just small fragments of Jamie himself.

Not even Moira McTaggert had ever figured out exactly how things worked with Jamie, and that... well, Rahne had long believed that if there was an aspect of mutation that Moira wasn't capable of understanding, it simply wasn't within the realm of possibility to understand.

"I'm confused..." she admitted, folding her arms at her chest. "This all seems to suggest that... that he's nae really dead, but... I dunno... I... how are the duplicates handling things?"
Posted Image

[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


Avatar by Natalie, signature by Olga. My graphics set is complete again! Thank you so much!
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Alix
Member Avatar
Telepathy, Telekinesis / Empathy
::I didn't replace him:: she muttered, though her gaze shifted quietly

::Beta-- he's.. he's the same as Prime. Through and through. It's still difficult but, I mean. He's still him.:: She nodded, though there was the vaguest inclination of confusion to her voice. It was all so complicated. The loss of prime, the duplicates who were there so completely in support yet she couldn't particularly work out her own issues.

::He is actually dead, though.:: She nodded pointedly. ::I saw, Rahne. All of it. Him, Monet, the apartment. The duplicates they... they're handling it well enough. As best they can manage.:: She sighed, quietly and leaned forward a bit to rest her elbows on her knees.

::They keep it together for the sake of everyone. You know how they are. How he was. No matter how hard everything is on him or how upset he is, he's full of jokes and movie references.:: She glanced towards Rahne silently-- albeit a bit nervously-- obviously searching for a reaction to the things she said.

::I'm still with him. On Skrullos.. I wasn't sure-- I almost thought maybe that he would say it's over. He didn't and.. I couldn't leave. It's still hard and sometimes I'm a little worried that there's something I did. But he's there. At the end of the day, Prime is gone, but he's still here. Somehow. I still mourn him... but I don't think I can be alone.::
[align=center]
Posted Image
STRIKE ME DOWN SHOULD HAVE HELD IT ALL ALONE
WASH THE QUESTION OFF MY HANDS I'M THE FATE IN NO ONES PLAN
[/align]
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Wolfsbane
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Wolf Form
"Beta? That's what he's callin' himself?" Rahne frowned. This was getting more and more confusing by the moment. Jamie Madrox was dead. But he wasn't really dead, because the next duplicate in line stepped in and took his place.

"Really, I..." she sighed, reaching up and wiping a build-up of tears from her left eye. "This is all very confusing t' me. How... how on Earth could anyone accept that he's dead if he's... nae really so dead? I mean... Alix, I have trouble accepting Jonny Harper as anythin' other than Jon Harper come back to life. No matter what he says to th' contrary, I still look at him an' listen to him speak an' all o' that... an' I still see the Jon Harper I knew as a wee pup. Before the cancer."

She took a deep breath, letting it out in a sharp huff. She had contested for some time now that Jonny Harper was somehow Jon's soul reincarnated into this clone body. It made sense to her. It made sense that Jon would not so readily accept the finality of death and find his way back to his friends and loved ones.

And it made sense with Jamie, too. Who was to say, really say, that with the duplicates, that Jamie's soul didn't just... hop on over to the next body in line? Who was to say that this "Beta" wasn't just Jamie in a duplicated body?

"I cannae say..." she whispered, her thoughts escaping through her lips. She blinked rapidly, realizing she'd spoken aloud, and glanced back to Alix. Though with Alix as a telepath, Rahne was sure that the thoughts racing through her head were akin to shouting. It felt that way sometimes, with the link to Dani Moonstar. Either woman could be minding her own business when through that link, a stray thought would just pop over.

"Maybe Jamie's body died. Maybe he didn't. Maybe I'm in denial. I dunno," Rahne shrugged her shoulders. "Everything's always so bloody complicated..."
Posted Image

[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


Avatar by Natalie, signature by Olga. My graphics set is complete again! Thank you so much!
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Alix
Member Avatar
Telepathy, Telekinesis / Empathy
::All I can know is what he says. And he says there's an empty part of his heart-- of his soul-- where prime would've been. So I can't doubt him. And..:: She paused to glance around them before falling back onto Rahne silently.

::And I know the emptiness that's there, too. We don't have a link anymore. All those things that I'd learned, all the closeness. It's gone. I mean, Beta is beta and I love him as much as I loved Prime.. but I need to mourn him. It's all just so hard.:: She sighed softly.

::It's hard to accept, but it is what it is. We just have to keep moving forward and remember the ones we loose and live for the ones that are still here.:: It was, in whole, what she'd been telling herself through everything. How she'd kept herself going even when the idea of mourning the loss of prime was harder to do with beta around.

::I've mailed an invitation to Moira, I know that she was important to him-- and you-- as well. I wish there was more that I could do but I've never really been the best at things like this. I'm just... not equipped.:: She sighed silently. Of all the things she'd gone through, all the death, all the loss, it didn't change that this had been the most personal feeling of loss she'd ever gone through.
[align=center]
Posted Image
STRIKE ME DOWN SHOULD HAVE HELD IT ALL ALONE
WASH THE QUESTION OFF MY HANDS I'M THE FATE IN NO ONES PLAN
[/align]
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Wolfsbane
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Wolf Form
With Alix's perpetual silence, with her inability to speak through her mouth, through anything but sheer force of telepathic will, it was easy to assume she was a stoic. Easy to assume that Alix wrapped herself up in a nigh-impenetrable shell of emotional defenses and that things simply did not hurt her.

And maybe that's what she tried to project on a daily basis. But there was no mistaking it this time. The pain she felt from Jamie's loss - this was real. And that made Jamie's loss all the more real. He actually was gone. Duplicates notwithstanding, there was no longer a real Jamie Madrox alive and well anymore.

Whether or not Alix wanted it, Rahne embraced her once again, held her tight and securely. It was as much for her own benefit as for Alix's. Jamie was as much of a brother as Rahne could ever have had. Kevin was always, even before he went evil, a bit unaccepting, and had always given the impression that Rahne was intruding on his family. Jamie was accepting, Jamie was liberating. He cared, and now he was gone, shadows of himself still lingering, but shadows they were.

"I'm sorry for yuir loss. I'm sorry for both of our losses," she whispered. "Ye need anything of me, ask. Ye need someone t' spend time with, t' just talk, ye call an' I'll warp right on over an' we'll talk. It won't be today, but someday, we'll be able t' look back, remember him, an' smile. Remember only the good times. We'll take care of each other in this regard. I promise ye that."
Posted Image

[size0]Say the dog and butterfly,
in the air they like to fly.
Dog and butterfly.
She knew she had to try,
and she float back down to the warm soft ground,
laughing - she don't know why,
but she had to try, she had to try.
Dog and Buttefly.


Avatar by Natalie, signature by Olga. My graphics set is complete again! Thank you so much!
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