Marvelous Monstrosities(Marvel Comics Roleplay): The Escape

[Rater202]

Charlotte is taller than and weighs almost the same as Kinita. As Kinita does not have superhuman strength, she might find picking up the teenager to be quite difficult.

"Hierarchies are instinctual, Trickster," the man says as he tries to parry the incoming serpents. "It's natural for any warm-blooded creature to seek the companionship of others and for sapient beings to defer to those they perceive as smarter or stronger in the interest of their own safety and prosperity. In a correctly functioning society, those with the strength and intelligence to lead are given the chance to demonstrate their skills and take their rightful place while those who can't do not and those cowards who would oppress their betters and deny them to chance to prove themselves die."

"The Inhuman is no child. What little power she has came at the expense of countless Mutant lives, and yet, despite her tears of remorse she dishonors the dead by refusing to embrace and master the abilities that they died so that she could obtain. The girl's lover died for the sake of her evolution but she pisses all over her memory."

Charlotte is shaking now.

At this point, Roma has grabbed Susie under one arm as the engineered child is still debating to herself the options, and run past the battle between the man and Astraea to fiddle with the door.

[Lord Raziere]

Kinita:
"Instincts are also foolish things that make you have foolish high school crushes on people purely for their looks or be twisted into phobias of irrational things, I wouldn't trust them entirely."
Astraea continues attacking bashing her shield and stabbing the man while her snakes continued biting.
"I don't care about what your talking about! What your doing is wrong! And I don't care by what standard! Die you insufferable cretin!"
Kinita will try to make charlotte and herself invisible and urge her to move away, to escape.

[Rater202]

The man continued to fight back with blades and inhuman strength.

"It's so sad that someone so strong has let herself be brainwashed by those who are below her."

He starts fight more proactively... He's good at it, but then...

"...You're a mutant, ain't ya? ****face? Descent from the first one, talking down about humans, mourning mutant deaths... Yeah."

"I am, Inhuman..."

Charlotte resists Kinita's care as she pulls herself up, tear's streaming down her face.

"Good... Get back, Hot-Snake-Lady!"

As Roma manages to break open the door wide enough to shove Susie out, Charlotte takes off sprinting straight for the skirmish, holding the vial she pocketed earliar.

The man sees what it is just as Charlotte leaps over the fighting and makes to land on the man's back.

"Oh SH—!"

Charlotte lands on the man, punching him and crushing the vial at the same time. Green gas of somekind engulfs the both of them and... This... Seems to be the gas that Charlotte was warning Astaera about earliar.

[Rater202]

Shortly after being engulfed in the mist, the man stumbles back. His face his swollen, he's gasping for breath, and he is just covered in rashes

He falls to his knees and Charlotte falls off of his shoulders and stumbles back, something green being secreted from her skin and taking shape around her.

"Oh, Hell this can happen twi—" She's fully encased in a green cocoon or chrysalis type structure before she can finish her sentence.

A vague silhouette of Charlotte can be seen inside.

With the door open, the flow of air is blowing the mist outward, so assuming that Suzie knows enough to duck out of the way... Well, if you can tear the door open enough to get Charlotte out there's now nothing left stopping you from escaping.

The man appears to be losing consciousness.

[Lord Raziere]

(OOC: honestly I'm just guilty that I'm not responding, for some reason I wish could come up with more creative, long or thoughtful posts. screw it I'll just.....try to break the mold I'm in)

Astraea
She will get away from the gas and use her snakes to rip the door off and get Charlotte then begins escaping, seeing an army of troops to try and stop her anyways, Astraea will charge in, using her shield to bounce bullets off it ricocheting into other minions she gets in close she stabs one guy, then rips the head off another with a snake, throws two more at others with her other snakes and generally being an action hero, charging through determinedly with her strength to get them out as soon as possible, bashing another one in the head to disrupt his attack then bite him to control him her blood magic to turn on them and start shooting them unexpectedly, the other suddenly being mowed down their own gunfire.

To sow further confusion, Kinita begins to using illusions to make it seem more are firing them than there actually is, and thus all the soldiers around them begin firing upon each other thinking that there are traitors in their midst and she begins escaping in the confusion, placing invisibility on the group while they fight.

[Rater202]

Yes whatever guards are outside are slaughtered and you make it outside.

It's nighttime. The air is cold on your skin

You emerged out onto the top of a grassy cliff. As you flee the chaos behind you, you can make out what appears to be a factory or laboratory of some kind not to far away. If your senses are good enough, you can make out a sign saying "Akatech Bio-Technologies and Pharmacological Research."

As you get to the edge of the mountain, you can look down and see what appears to be a small city surrounded by farmland. You can probably climb down without too much trouble...

But where are you going to go? There's what looks like an old church on the side of the road leading into town and there appears to be a light on.

Even from here one of the farmhouses is clearly abandoned.

Or you could take your chances going into town proper. You should be able to make it before sun-up.

[Lord Raziere]

Kinita and Astraea:
As they get out of sight, the controlled soldier will become aware again, his gun empty and goes
"What....no...I shot them all!" in shock
Astraea stabs him
"Don't worry, you won't be far behind."
He falls over dead.
"Well, church....farmhouse....or town?"
"Do we want to go to a place with a light on? That means someone is there and uh....we're kind of a menagerie. do we really want to surprise some poor old priest?"
"I mean do we want to go into a farmhouse thats like, probably dirty and cold?"
"Well whats the alternative, the town? That definitely won't go well. The farmhouse is most off the grid we can get. Won't bother anyone, won't be seen by anyone."
"The church will at least be warm. and who knows maybe someone can help us there?"
Kinita will turn to the others of the group
"you got opinions on which one? Make it quick, we got to keep moving."

[Rater202]

"The church is closest. Religious temples often provide shelter and sanctuary to those in need. "

Suzie shifts, her skin bubbling for a moment and everything changing: Her skin is now a flawless northern European, her eyes green, her hair chestnut brown, her scales gone, her ears shrinking and rounding. From her skin emerges a yellow mass that eventually takes the form of a sundress.

"Protocol is to play up innocence. Claim parents died in car accident, then stab the priest. Acquire needed sleep, then flee before the body is discovered."

Or we could... Not murder a priest? Of course, if we go to the church we'll have to... Huh, Back in the closet I guess."

Hair recedes, muscles shrink, skin stops being red, snout flattens, the feminine body becomes masculine, albeit with a long feminine haircut, standing there dressed in the pants part of the uniform she'd been clad in before transforming.

"We'll probably be more accepted if only one of us looks weird... Astraea, can I borrow your blade? Uh, religious types aren't always the most accepting of people... like me, and there's not much I can do to cover... This." She gestures to her hair.

How well known are things like transgenderism known to the Amazons?

[Rater202]

Eventually, due to urgency, you elect to go to the church as it is closest.

As you travel, you get to talking.

"So... What are you guys thinking of doing once this is over? Me? Honestly, I'm gonna see if I can find Doctor Banner. World's leading expert on Gamma Rays and other forms of radiation. And on powers like mine... He was the First, I mean. I figure that if anyone knows how I can get what I want out of them, it'd be him."

"...This one has no purpose. This one does not..."

"...You're part mutant, yeah? We might be able to get you to the X-Men, assuming that there isn't a genocide going on right now. They'll know what to do about you."

"We can't really ask Charlotte but how about you two?"

---

As you get to the plot of land the church is built on, the front entrance of it opens up and a man steps out. He's middle-aged with salt and pepper hair, wearing generic "priestly clothes" and holding a baseball bat in defensive manner.

"alright, you Hell-Spawn might have gotten the rest of the town but you aren't getting..." Then he takes a look at you and sets the bat at his side. "Sorry. I'll put on a pot of tea, come in," and steps back inside the building.

[Lord Raziere]

Astraea:
"Well....I haven't been of the island before...and they were like punishing me for attacking Ares by imprisoning me somewhere else, so wherever I'm going its not back there. Though I still want to get my revenge Ares for killing my mother. That jerk should get whats coming to him!"
"I've always been traveling around being a trickster for a while now, and I'll just continue foiling evil and being a trickster for fun."

Astraea looks at Kinita
"and you were worried we scare him."
"Look I also thought it possible that the entire town was taken over or something, but apparently not. Especially if he doesn't see us as a threat."
The two will walk in and happily get some tea and sit down
"So, I'm Kinita, and this Astraea, the others can introduce themselves. We're grateful that your willing let us stay for a bit, I don't think we'll be doing so for long, this is way too close my liking. Whats your name? and what were the hell-spawn you were referring to?"

[Rater202]

"...Roma," she says hesitatingly.

"Suzie is Suzie."

"That company, the bio-tech people up on the cliff. They came in here about year ago, started repurposing the factory, bought out a couple of farms, and said that they were gonna invest in this town, help out all the people who lost their homes when the factory first closed a few years ago. Give people jobs."

"They bought out the police, the power company, the phones, the bank, the ISP... Everyone in town is happy becuase they're being given jobs in the refurbished factory and very good pay, and there aren't any more homeless people."

"Nobody but I have noticed that the homeless didn't disappear becuase they have homes now. They're just gone."

"It used to be that a preacher in a small town had a lot of sway, but unfortunately a lot of the townsfolk decided to find God at home when I started condemning that blowhard Reverand Styker for the hate he spews."

"I keep telling people that Akatech is trouble, but no one will listen to me anymore."

"But, judging by your dress, you don't need me to say that."

The tea kettle whistles. The priest will offer a cup to any who will take one. Roma takes one, but Suzi just kind of stares at the priest.

The priest gestures to the chrysalis. "Are all of you Inhumans? In what little research I've been able to do I've noticed that Akatech had been connected to some poor girl's disappearance but nothing came of it."

[Lord Raziere]

Kinita:
"Well I'm a kitsune so....I'm pretty I'm a mythical creature not any of that sciencey genetic stuff. which one is Inhumans? I could never keep origins like those straight anyways. Like supposedly its all because some super-aliens meddled with genetics long ago, but then why make distinctions in like three different ways of how they are meddled, but there are like modern heroes got their genes meddled because of some accident or project or whatever and they're somehow different...?"
Her fox ears twitch in annoyance.
"Personally I just assume its all magic under various different names."
"Yeah, when you got like, a dozen different explanations for why someone does this or that, it gets a bit confusing. Inhumans are the people that are like mutants but not mutants right?"

[Rater202]

"Ahh, I see."

"A mutant is a modern human with one gene that activates other genes and forms a genetic complex, activating latent traits that manifest as physical changes or superpowers. This one gene is, supposedly, a mutation of a gene that's present in all of humanity, but that doesn't do anything normally. The gene normally activates in the middle of puberty, but it's not unheard of for it to activate at birth or at in your early twenties, or when you're subjected to severe stress."

"Inhumans, meanwhile, are neanderthals that were experimented on by a race of aliens called Kree. They have a different mutation of that same gene, but also DNA from the Kree and from some third species. They used to just live up in a hidden city but a while back they came out in the open. Their gene activates from some magic gas they breathe in and wraps them in a cocoon and transforms them and apparently in their culture things like unnatural skin colors, horns, and extra fingers are considered super attractive: The King and Queen are like muscular supermodels but they're the only ones that wear masks becuase in their culture they're considered very ugly."

And apparently, a couple thousand years ago some of them came out of their city and started interbreeding with different populations of humans, so you get...

Roma taps Charlotte's cocoon.

"A little while back, Blackturus Boltagon, or Blackbolt, set off a massive bomb that sent huge clouds of that gas around the world. If you had the right amount of inhuman in you..." She taps Charlotte's cocoon again. "Of course, if you don't you could get cancer. Or melt into goo. And mutants... Well, you saw what the gas did to that Apocalypse cultist."

"Apparently, the US Army did something with this Gas to try and make super soldiers but everyone they ran through the process died. I'm honestly concerned that there haven't been any baseline human deaths reported from the Terrigen Mists."

"Then you get folks like me: I have what's called the Gamma Gene. Unlike Mutants and Inhumans, where the gene activates latent stuff, for people like me it's...

It's more metaphorical. Like, you could put my DNA in someone, and my radiation signature, and it wouldn't give them my powers, there'd be some obvious inspiration, but..."

"Gamma gives you what you want. It gives you what you need. Or it manifests the parts of you that are buried deep down, either becuase you don't know about them, or becuase you don't acknowledge them."

"That big, strong, majestic creature you saw from me earlier? That's the real me, I think. It feels right in a way that this body never did. If I had a choice, I'd never go back to being this."

"Of course, sometimes there's an ironic twist. Last I heard, this guy called "The Leader" has to wear a steel neck brace becuase his superhuman intelligence comes with a massively swollen brain and enlarged skull without the reinforced spine or bulked up neck muscles needed to support the weight. Supposedly, he got everything he wanted but if he's not careful it'll kill him. I seem to have dodged that bullet though."

"...Honestly, Kinita might have a point that some of this stuff is just magic."

[Lord Raziere]

Kinita:
"See? Magic. We can explain it, but that doesn't mean it makes all that much sense in the context of the rest of reality."
"So weird lottery gene, kree-made atlanteans, gas victims, and weird mind gene. got it. "
"so yeah, we escaped from the biotech company, what to do next is obvious: run and keep running. The question is: to where? No offense, Father ...who? but we probably need to find somewhere more permanent and safer than your church to stay."

[Rater202]

"Reverand. Reverend Brown. You might not be able to stay, but you're welcome here as long as you need to be... There... Well, it was a homeless shelter down in the basement, but..."

"Problem." Roma taps the Cocoon. "We don't know when she's gonna hatch or what condition she's gonna be in when she does. I read in the paper that the last confirmed cocoon from the big blast took months to hatch. We're pretty distinctive targets as is, carrying her around will slow us down and make us stand out even more. At the very least we need to find somewhere safe to stash her."

Suzie produces a bone spike, which erupts from her fist with a wet "schlit!"

"Obvious solution, cut her out."

"I don't know how these things work. Trying to end it before it's finished might kill her."

The silhouette in the cocoon is twitching right now.

"So, how did you escape."

"Mission parameters were to escape by any means necessary. Mission concluded with two hundred and forty-seven enemy casualties."

The priest clearly regrets asking.