001 - Orientation M
- Location
- The Trash Pile
Unanimous Winner: Let Kid Omega use his powers to talk to you silently.
Number of voters: 12
With almost no pause for consideration, you nod. He looks more than a little relieved, and a second or two later you hear/feel that buzzing softly in your head.
"Thank you. I know how freaked out people can get about mind-readers. It hasn't been easy to make friends... or keep them when they find out. I've had good luck so far with other mutants, and I hoped that extended to other gifted people in general. I don't have a great read on what the rest of the team thinks... and it's hard as hell not to just go looking. You get so used to just... being able to find answers, y'know? I've had these powers since before personal privacy or... what's morally right or wrong were a consideration for me. It was just something I did. And it's useful. But... it can be a double-edged sword." He offers you a soft, sort of sad smile and shrugs. "But I'm rambling. You're from around here, right? Do you know about the abandoned subways?"
"Um, sort of. Not in any great detail, but I've heard of them. I've seen one or two. My dad would point them out to me as we went past sometimes... and the one is a museum now, right? The Old City Hall Station?"
"Yeah. Most of them are just turf for taggers to practice their craft and whatever other human detritus stumbles across them to gather. But the 76th Street Station is a little special; no trains go past it and it's hard to get to, even for urban explorers."
"... and that's where we're going. To meet your friends."
"Yes! They're a great bunch. Most of them are obviously mutants, though, so staying out on the streets isn't much of an option. They sort of... stumbled across this place and have made it their home."
"That sounds... unfortunate."
"Yeah, well..." he shrugs again, "they've made the best of a rough situation. Unless anti-mutant sentiment suddenly goes away... this is kind of what's safest for them."
"Why don't they try the Philip J. Coulson Memorial Academy?"
"A lot of them haven't even finished high school, much less with the grades to get in. Or the money. For others... it's sort of the point of the thing. 'Society cast us out, so why should we re-integrate with them?' It's not a terribly healthy attitude, but... well, it is what it is. It's part of why I like to drop in on them. Maybe show them the rest of the world isn't always so bad... well, and, like I said. They're a good bunch."
The bus pulls to a stop and Quentin gets up. You have apparently arrived at your destination. You exit the bus and take the stairs down to a subway tunnel, sneaking through a heavy 'exit only' door and around a few corridors to an abandoned bit of a track. Carefully, the two of you drop down and pick your way across. You boost Quentin up onto the next platform and he helps pull you up with him. After a bit more navigation, you finally come to a dusty wall. Quentin squares up, dusts his clothes off, and smiles upward to what you see is a tiny camera. If he hadn't looked square at it, you wouldn't have known it was there, much like how you wouldn't have assumed the wall could move to the side like it is. Behind it are three mutants; obvious, like Quentin said. They usher the two of you inside and replace the fake patch of wall, which you see has sloppy steel and metal attached to the back to keep it sturdy, as well as a number of handles to help move it.
"Fortune," Quentin begins, "these are the Morlocks."
He gestures grandly, drawing your attention to a large subway station that looks somewhere between a kid's tree house and an area from Fallout. There are old sofas, tables, desks, chairs... there are a few computers hooked up to a nest of wires that pull haphazardly through walls and ceilings. There are... at least two dozen people living here, and two in particular approach you; a tall man in a long coat with a pale, dirty-blonde haircut similar to Quentin's, and a pale woman of average height with a shock of magenta hair and bone-like spurs protruding from her body.
"Maggott, Marrow; this is Fortune!"
"Ah, the Fortune we've heard so much about!" His accent is interesting, sounding similar to Australian in some ways, but not in others. "Welcome to our humble home!"
"Is Callisto around? I figured she'd want to meet her."
"Yeah, she's tending to Caliban," Maggott responds. You notice he's holding something in the crook of his arm as he moves to stroke, like a large... reptile, maybe? "He's been having a hard time of it since all the mutants moved in at your little school. You a mutant, Fortune?"
It's That Time...
[ ] Yes, I'm a mutant.
[ ] No,I got my powers on accident.
[ ] No, I'm... not sure what I am.
Number of voters: 12
With almost no pause for consideration, you nod. He looks more than a little relieved, and a second or two later you hear/feel that buzzing softly in your head.
"Thank you. I know how freaked out people can get about mind-readers. It hasn't been easy to make friends... or keep them when they find out. I've had good luck so far with other mutants, and I hoped that extended to other gifted people in general. I don't have a great read on what the rest of the team thinks... and it's hard as hell not to just go looking. You get so used to just... being able to find answers, y'know? I've had these powers since before personal privacy or... what's morally right or wrong were a consideration for me. It was just something I did. And it's useful. But... it can be a double-edged sword." He offers you a soft, sort of sad smile and shrugs. "But I'm rambling. You're from around here, right? Do you know about the abandoned subways?"
"Um, sort of. Not in any great detail, but I've heard of them. I've seen one or two. My dad would point them out to me as we went past sometimes... and the one is a museum now, right? The Old City Hall Station?"
"Yeah. Most of them are just turf for taggers to practice their craft and whatever other human detritus stumbles across them to gather. But the 76th Street Station is a little special; no trains go past it and it's hard to get to, even for urban explorers."
"... and that's where we're going. To meet your friends."
"Yes! They're a great bunch. Most of them are obviously mutants, though, so staying out on the streets isn't much of an option. They sort of... stumbled across this place and have made it their home."
"That sounds... unfortunate."
"Yeah, well..." he shrugs again, "they've made the best of a rough situation. Unless anti-mutant sentiment suddenly goes away... this is kind of what's safest for them."
"Why don't they try the Philip J. Coulson Memorial Academy?"
"A lot of them haven't even finished high school, much less with the grades to get in. Or the money. For others... it's sort of the point of the thing. 'Society cast us out, so why should we re-integrate with them?' It's not a terribly healthy attitude, but... well, it is what it is. It's part of why I like to drop in on them. Maybe show them the rest of the world isn't always so bad... well, and, like I said. They're a good bunch."
The bus pulls to a stop and Quentin gets up. You have apparently arrived at your destination. You exit the bus and take the stairs down to a subway tunnel, sneaking through a heavy 'exit only' door and around a few corridors to an abandoned bit of a track. Carefully, the two of you drop down and pick your way across. You boost Quentin up onto the next platform and he helps pull you up with him. After a bit more navigation, you finally come to a dusty wall. Quentin squares up, dusts his clothes off, and smiles upward to what you see is a tiny camera. If he hadn't looked square at it, you wouldn't have known it was there, much like how you wouldn't have assumed the wall could move to the side like it is. Behind it are three mutants; obvious, like Quentin said. They usher the two of you inside and replace the fake patch of wall, which you see has sloppy steel and metal attached to the back to keep it sturdy, as well as a number of handles to help move it.
"Fortune," Quentin begins, "these are the Morlocks."
He gestures grandly, drawing your attention to a large subway station that looks somewhere between a kid's tree house and an area from Fallout. There are old sofas, tables, desks, chairs... there are a few computers hooked up to a nest of wires that pull haphazardly through walls and ceilings. There are... at least two dozen people living here, and two in particular approach you; a tall man in a long coat with a pale, dirty-blonde haircut similar to Quentin's, and a pale woman of average height with a shock of magenta hair and bone-like spurs protruding from her body.
"Maggott, Marrow; this is Fortune!"
"Ah, the Fortune we've heard so much about!" His accent is interesting, sounding similar to Australian in some ways, but not in others. "Welcome to our humble home!"
"Is Callisto around? I figured she'd want to meet her."
"Yeah, she's tending to Caliban," Maggott responds. You notice he's holding something in the crook of his arm as he moves to stroke, like a large... reptile, maybe? "He's been having a hard time of it since all the mutants moved in at your little school. You a mutant, Fortune?"
It's That Time...
[ ] Yes, I'm a mutant.
[ ] No,I got my powers on accident.
[ ] No, I'm... not sure what I am.
