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xp_logsRictor helps Marie-Ange clean up the Snow Valley office and learns a bit about X-Force's mission.
Rictor had agreed to volunteer for the cleanup efforts because everyone else was and he didn't want to be the lone man out. But when Marie-Ange asked for help, he saw an opportunity. Enthusiasm was tempered by the utter chaos that greeted them.
"So, this is where you and Amanda work during the day?" he asked, eyeing the waterlogged office lobby with some trepidation. "Uh, I'm sure it is very nice when it isn't hurricane season."
"Thankfully we are mostly upstairs." Marie-Ange had already taken so many pictures, because Snow Valley, the cover think tank, did have insurance. She tucked her phone into her pocket after one last snap of the uncountable piles of what could only be described as 'wet stuff'. "The deli was hit worse, but they have more people to do cleaning. No mouldy food for us, just every other horrible thing. Upstairs is still pretty - for an office, but the stairs are not accessible yet." And the elevator still had actual caution tape and a few very messily duct-taped pieces of plywood blocking it off.
"Where should I start? I saw a wheelbarrow outside, I can get that for loading the waste." He stepped out and returned with the tool a moment later. "So what do you and Amanda do?" he asked, picking up what might have been a stack of magazines in a previous life but now was a clump of mushy pulp.
Better him than her, although Marie-Ange was using an imaged snow shovel to push small piles of debris she refused to mentally identify into one larger pile. That was still better than touching wet paper. "A little bit of what you saw, we try to intercept events before they catastrophize. It is a lot of research, phone calls, collecting pieces of information and putting it together into a larger pile. Sort of like what we are doing now, only we try to do it before cleanup and storms and tragic lives lost."
"How does having a sniper expert on staff help with that?" Witches, precognitives, speedsters, whatever Jubilee and Felicia were, it was inevitable that a mutant organization would have a variety of superpowers. But that did not explain the young mustachioed man who ganked the Meróz-employed mercs and disabled his grandparents' coven with practiced ease.
"Sometimes to prevent a catastrophe, you need a bullet." Marie-Ange said plainly - if Julio Richter had not seen it, she might have attempted to lessen the impact of what Snow Valley - X-Force - really did, but he had seen Artie pick off mercs with deadly accuracy. "It has worked to our favour more often than not." The shovel blade snagged on a cracked bit of tile and disappeared itself into a few paffs of sticky mist. "You are going to hear around the mansion, we are spies, but I always think that term lacks depth. The reality is quite a bit more boring, and also quite a bit less boring. Sometimes, South American jungle rescue mission, sometimes we sneak excel spreadsheets to the SEC to shut down exploitative medical research facilities."
"So what is your mission? I mean, how do you choose what you do? Whom are you spying for?" Rictor tried to hide his eager inquisitiveness behind a grimace as he picked up some tall dead plant that had adorned this lobby. Not something he was familiar with, and whatever soil it had been planted in had washed away in the flood so he could not talk to it. What interesting things would it have to say, anyway, living life underneath a spy office but not with them?
"That is why I do not always like to call it spying." Marie-Ange answered. She called up another imaged shovel, this one rough hewn and appearing made of stone with a sharp spade end, and it made a dull clunk as it scraped against the floor. "There are groups who wish to exploit mutants. Turn them into weapons, monsters. Our mission is to stop that, even when it is governments or entire countries. It is cliche to say we spy for ourselves, but - but I know people personally who have been rescued from being turned into weapons. I know children who would have been made into monsters. That is what we try to prevent."
Rictor didn't know what he expected, but mutant covert ops wasn't it. But it lit something in his head, sparking an imagination of all sorts of quests for the betterment of the world. But before he could romanticize it, the ear-piercing bangs of Artie's sniper rifle echoed in his memory. The practiced synergy by which Amanda and Topaz bypassed the danger to reach him and draw out the perilous magic running wild. How the whole team stayed alive. Rictor was young, but he wasn't so immature to not see what went into making them a well-oiled machine.
"It must be scary," he said, and instantly regretted how childish that made him sound.
Marie-Ange caught the briefest flash of embarrassment on Julio's face, and dutifully ignored it. She might have - would have - had the same reaction. Her late teens felt like not so long ago, blushing over Pete Wisdom teaching self defense. "Rather a bit, yes. There is a movie with a line I quite like, there are things that bump in the night, we bump back." She pushed and scraped more debris and mud and the detritus of the flood into a pile, and then began scooping it into the wheelbarrow Julio had acquired. "Important though, and you can relate, yes? You were very willing to face fear to keep your home safe."
And had he not been hopped up on ancient magic, he probably would have messed himself. But ruined pants or no, nothing could have pulled him away from his grandparents. "Pues, there are things you must do when your family has danger. I understand. You do whatever you have the power for."
Rictor had agreed to volunteer for the cleanup efforts because everyone else was and he didn't want to be the lone man out. But when Marie-Ange asked for help, he saw an opportunity. Enthusiasm was tempered by the utter chaos that greeted them.
"So, this is where you and Amanda work during the day?" he asked, eyeing the waterlogged office lobby with some trepidation. "Uh, I'm sure it is very nice when it isn't hurricane season."
"Thankfully we are mostly upstairs." Marie-Ange had already taken so many pictures, because Snow Valley, the cover think tank, did have insurance. She tucked her phone into her pocket after one last snap of the uncountable piles of what could only be described as 'wet stuff'. "The deli was hit worse, but they have more people to do cleaning. No mouldy food for us, just every other horrible thing. Upstairs is still pretty - for an office, but the stairs are not accessible yet." And the elevator still had actual caution tape and a few very messily duct-taped pieces of plywood blocking it off.
"Where should I start? I saw a wheelbarrow outside, I can get that for loading the waste." He stepped out and returned with the tool a moment later. "So what do you and Amanda do?" he asked, picking up what might have been a stack of magazines in a previous life but now was a clump of mushy pulp.
Better him than her, although Marie-Ange was using an imaged snow shovel to push small piles of debris she refused to mentally identify into one larger pile. That was still better than touching wet paper. "A little bit of what you saw, we try to intercept events before they catastrophize. It is a lot of research, phone calls, collecting pieces of information and putting it together into a larger pile. Sort of like what we are doing now, only we try to do it before cleanup and storms and tragic lives lost."
"How does having a sniper expert on staff help with that?" Witches, precognitives, speedsters, whatever Jubilee and Felicia were, it was inevitable that a mutant organization would have a variety of superpowers. But that did not explain the young mustachioed man who ganked the Meróz-employed mercs and disabled his grandparents' coven with practiced ease.
"Sometimes to prevent a catastrophe, you need a bullet." Marie-Ange said plainly - if Julio Richter had not seen it, she might have attempted to lessen the impact of what Snow Valley - X-Force - really did, but he had seen Artie pick off mercs with deadly accuracy. "It has worked to our favour more often than not." The shovel blade snagged on a cracked bit of tile and disappeared itself into a few paffs of sticky mist. "You are going to hear around the mansion, we are spies, but I always think that term lacks depth. The reality is quite a bit more boring, and also quite a bit less boring. Sometimes, South American jungle rescue mission, sometimes we sneak excel spreadsheets to the SEC to shut down exploitative medical research facilities."
"So what is your mission? I mean, how do you choose what you do? Whom are you spying for?" Rictor tried to hide his eager inquisitiveness behind a grimace as he picked up some tall dead plant that had adorned this lobby. Not something he was familiar with, and whatever soil it had been planted in had washed away in the flood so he could not talk to it. What interesting things would it have to say, anyway, living life underneath a spy office but not with them?
"That is why I do not always like to call it spying." Marie-Ange answered. She called up another imaged shovel, this one rough hewn and appearing made of stone with a sharp spade end, and it made a dull clunk as it scraped against the floor. "There are groups who wish to exploit mutants. Turn them into weapons, monsters. Our mission is to stop that, even when it is governments or entire countries. It is cliche to say we spy for ourselves, but - but I know people personally who have been rescued from being turned into weapons. I know children who would have been made into monsters. That is what we try to prevent."
Rictor didn't know what he expected, but mutant covert ops wasn't it. But it lit something in his head, sparking an imagination of all sorts of quests for the betterment of the world. But before he could romanticize it, the ear-piercing bangs of Artie's sniper rifle echoed in his memory. The practiced synergy by which Amanda and Topaz bypassed the danger to reach him and draw out the perilous magic running wild. How the whole team stayed alive. Rictor was young, but he wasn't so immature to not see what went into making them a well-oiled machine.
"It must be scary," he said, and instantly regretted how childish that made him sound.
Marie-Ange caught the briefest flash of embarrassment on Julio's face, and dutifully ignored it. She might have - would have - had the same reaction. Her late teens felt like not so long ago, blushing over Pete Wisdom teaching self defense. "Rather a bit, yes. There is a movie with a line I quite like, there are things that bump in the night, we bump back." She pushed and scraped more debris and mud and the detritus of the flood into a pile, and then began scooping it into the wheelbarrow Julio had acquired. "Important though, and you can relate, yes? You were very willing to face fear to keep your home safe."
And had he not been hopped up on ancient magic, he probably would have messed himself. But ruined pants or no, nothing could have pulled him away from his grandparents. "Pues, there are things you must do when your family has danger. I understand. You do whatever you have the power for."
