xp_logs | Marius and Nica

Keen to get back into the swing of things, Marius runs into Nica in the comms room. Chat about many things ensues.

It was, perhaps, getting a bit ahead of himself to return to the old team spaces before his medical clearance had gone through. Marius considered this as a sort of independent truth rather than an actionable observation; a significant portion of his life was lived not only with the cart before the horse, but before construction had even finished on the road. Occasionally things got done no other way.

Besides, he was excruciatingly bored.

The comms room, he noted, was occupied, and a quick glance told him it was not someone he had last encountered whilst attempting to annihilate a major metropolitan area. That was promising. Marius rapped on the doorframe with the knuckle of one gloved hand.

"Oi, want a bit of company?"

There was the briefest flash of light from the dim room as Nica started. She was curled up in one of the chairs, a mug of coffee cradled in her hands as she skimmed through the various news feeds, but once she was over her surprise, she welcomed the presence of someone else. With so many of the team out of commission or absent, she'd been taking on more of the comms room shifts and she was, to put it mildly, sick of screens. Plus the newcomer was the mysterious Australian - she'd been wondering about him and his story for a while.

"Hey," she replied, with a smile. "Marius, right? I'm Nica. Spectrum, if you want to get all formal."

"Indeed I am he. Emplate, if you prefer." It felt strange to unearth the alias after all this time, but he declined to add Death, Fourth Horseman of Apocalypse to his CV. Marius gave the room a quick once over. "Been some upgrades since last I was here, but Doug never was one to suffer the steady advance of technological obsolescence. More things with which to reacquaint myself, I suppose."

"I can give you a run down on things, if you like?" As always, Nica was eager to be helpful. "How long has it been? Since you were active on the team?" She was also, as always, full of questions.

"Properly? Ah, must be nearly a decade now." Marius grabbed the back of another chair and swung it around so he could drop into it, incidentally pulling it a little farther from Nica to increase the distance between them. "Had a rather unpleasant powers incident whilst on mission in Slorenia. I was in recovery for months, and even then I never quite got back to where I was. Came back for a bit out of necessity, but when-" he hesitated a fraction before reminding himself of Kyle's reassurances "-when the world turned over it was simpler to just let it go."

"Oh! You're one of the OG dimension people?" Nica's curiosity was dialled up to eleven at that revelation. "I mean, I've talked to some of them, like Gabe, so I know all about it, don't worry about upsetting me. It's not like I had another version of me there, so it's not so weird for me. Or for you, hopefully?" She looked at Marius with what could only be called "big doe eyes".

The older man flashed a grin at her. "Time, as they say, heals all wounds. Or at least provides the opportunity to thoroughly pickle them through periods of moderate substance abuse. What of yourself? How long have you been team?"

"Since I was eighteen, so... six years in August?" She pulled a face. "I can't believe I'm turning twenty-four. That's so old"

Marius placed a hand over his heart, wincing. "My aging ears and I shall pretend we didn't quite catch that. Six years is quite respectable, however. If I may ask, what moved you to join?"

"You're not old," Nica replied, flatly contradicting herself. "But I joined because, well, it's going to sound corny. My parents were military, and I always wanted to be able to help people when I grew up. So when I manifested and came here, the X-Men seemed the logical choice." She flushed a little. "Like I said, corny."

Marius chuckled. "Sincerity is a vanishingly rare virtue for which one should never apologise. Your cause was certainly more noble than my own; as a scion of the upper classes civic duty was quite a foreign concept. I was only tired of being made to feel a victim of circumstance." The smile that had crinkled his amber eyes suddenly faded as a thought occurred to him..

"I, ah, read the report on Avignon." Marius felt like an alcoholic watching himself pour the drink he'd promised himself he wouldn't had, but the compulsion was too strong. "You doing all right after that? Excluding the stabbing, that is. It looked is if it was a bad one."

"Oh." While Nica hadn't been using her powers, it was like a light had dimmed. "It was bad. We tried our best, but between the Marauders and W-- Deadpool, I don't think we made much of a difference. So many people died."

"I'm sure those who survived because of you would disagree." Marius shifted his gaze to the monitors. The scrolling feeds were far preferable to the expression on the younger woman's face.

"What I keep turning around in my mind is . . . two of us? How is it Akkaba got their hands on two of us who used to live here? I'd heard a bit of the plan, but until I read the report I'd no idea who they sent." Marius gave a disgusted snort. "And then, of course, there's whatever thing Laurie's made of herself. Xavier's alumni made a rather poor showing last month, eh?"

"I.. hadn't thought of it like that. Two of you being grabbed by Akkaba, I mean." Nica's gaze was also on the monitors, but more because she was following a train of thought. "Do you think they were targeting us? That might be something we should alert people to."

"Don't know. Pestilence . . . that was July, yeah?" Marius' brows knit as he tried to think back to the mission reports he'd read. "I wasn't in a state to recall much of the early days. Think they had me already by then, if only just, and I never was involved in any of the other harvests. The X-Men were on the ground after Famine, that was November. Surely Akkaba's leadership would have taken notice of that. Even earlier, though, after Jaca in October . . . the lot at Snow Valley managed to trace War back to the facility from which he disappeared, correct? Any contacts remaining might've known someone was sniffing about."

"November..." Nica winced again. "I was on that mission. I didn't see the Horseman; the Marauders were there too, trying to get the same survivor we'd been sent to save. That was when I..." She gulped a little. "Marius, what do you know about the Marauders? The ones from your dimension, as well as from this one? Did they... come back from the dead?"

Marius frowned. "I never encountered them myself. I seem to recall the name in connection to Essex then as well, but it's been more than a decade since I read any of the old reports. Resurrection rings no bells . . ." He caught the look on Nica's face and his frown deepened. "That's right. When you faced them in Avignon they were back to their full strength, correct? Despite the fact they were down a man after Troy."

She nodded, glad he'd backread the reports enough so she didn't have to explain the whole thing. "It was an accident," she reiterated. "Prism was kicking my butt and deflecting everything I threw at him, so I tried something new. And he..." She made an explosive gesture with her hands. "But in France, there he was again. Like nothing had happened! That's not possible, right?"

"Never assert impossibility. The universe takes it as a challenge. Extreme healing factor, multiversal counterpart, identity-stealing aliens, also-evil-twin . . . so many ludicrous options are arrayed before us, all equally likely in their unlikelihood." The older man looked again at Nica's face and took an educated guess. "But . . . a bit of a relief also, perhaps?"

There was a long pause, during which Nica peered intently at the screen, fiddled with the adjustments and pretended to be making notes. At last she heaved a gusty sigh. "Yes, it was. It meant I wasn't a murderer, even if I didn't mean it. But it pissed me off as well. I mean, I felt bad about killing him! I nearly quit the team because of it! And then he just shows up with a stupid smirk on his face, like nothing happened!"

Marius thought of the variations of old friends he'd recently become reacquainted with, although he had to allow that none of their deaths had been by his hand. "It is a bit off-putting. Frustrating as well, given the amount of soul-searching that occurs after such incidents." With a soft snort he added, "It's never a pleasant thing to have something you've thought was settled invite itself back into your life."

"I just wish I knew how it happened," Nica complained. "Things are easier to deal with when you understand the reasons."

"I'm certain they'll be revealed to us. At the worst possible time, of course, but revealed nonetheless." Marius' eyes flicked back to the monitors when a thought occurred to him, "Speaking of unfortunate timing, weren't you stabbed?" He recalled Clarice and amended, "As well? Shouldn't you be in recovery?"

"I was. But only a little bit? I'd show you, but that would involve taking off my shirt or my pants and I'm way too ace for that." She grinned at him briefly. "But seriously, the worst of it is healed up. But it's why I've been doing the comms room a lot more than usual - I can't fully use my powers until everything's all closed up."

The older man quirked his eyebrows. "Energy projection, you mean? And no worries about offering proof," he added, smiling, "allosexual though I may be, my own mutation does not play especially well with others. Genetic peers and teammates are to be appreciated from a respectable distance. Fortunately the advantage of charming company such as your own is that it may be enjoyed whilst fully clothed."

Nica blushed. Marius was definitely not the usual sort of guy she talked to and random compliments weirded her out a little. She latched onto something she could deal with better, her powers. "Energy projection and channelling," she expanded. "I can see and manipulate and synch with certain parts of the EM spectrum. So while I can still do the projecting part, right now I'm stuck being solid. No turning into light until I'm healed up."

"I'd never considered that as a potential issue, though I suppose an active healing process might be impaired by the absence of flesh. I suppose you do not revert to the same baseline form when you resume your solid state?" Marius saw the segue -- and the blush -- and obligingly followed Nica down the alternate course she'd charted. Between her and April, Marius reminded himself to dial it back before he burned out a teammate's capillaries.

"Pretty much. So if I ghosted right now - that's synching with x-rays - then when I went solid again, all the stitches would be gone, and I'd have to get it re-done. But when it happened, as long as I stayed in my light form, I was okay. Turning back sucked."

"Useful if you've no time to bleed. I myself prefer to carry a healing factor." Again, Marius flashed her a smile. "Theoretically I suppose I could follow Cyclops' advice and simply avoid being stabbed in the first place, but where's the fun in that?"

Nica laughed at that. "I didn't mean to get stabbed this time, but you can be sure I won't be making that mistake again."