XP Teams - X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, and others

So I'm possibly a bit slow on the uptake - let's chalk it up to a busy week - but I saw Arthur's post about the Halloween 'do in DX. Specifically, this:

I got a few texts about the entirely convincing children pretending to be demons.

Don't worry! A badass lady with armor and a glowing sword told me that they were "obnoxiously enthusiastic about the consuming the soul of the night" (her words), but I feel like they really added to the fun, and I guess soul, of the night.

It figures that the I decide to not do any Halloween bullshit, demons turn up. Even if they were little ones. At least I have a better idea what set Forge off. But more disturbing is this lady in the armour with the sword. Sound familiar to anyone? Looks like Illyana might not be as lost as we thought she was.

(For fuck's sake, no-one tell the Ruskie - he'll just go bonkers trying to find her again and bring all sorts of hell down on our heads. Let's keep this quiet while we do a bit of looking ourselves, yeah?)

And another thing... going through the X-Men's reports on that Clan Akkaba job we gave them in Eastern Europe... Gar mentioned that Laurie said Essex was after info on En-Sabah-Nur. Info that they took from the Clan Akkaba people (after slaughtering them, mind). Akkaba's all about looking for their "Son of the Morning Fire". Call me dumb, but doesn't this mean that the Morning Fire bloke IS En-Sabah-Nur? Which means we should be doing research on both those names?

Just had a 'fun' meeting with Pyotr Rasputin, about his little sister, Illyana. I managed to get him calm enough to not try and throw me into orbit, but he's definitely on a crusade about Illyana and finding her. Including potentially getting to Limbo any way he can. Us dimensional "old timers" know how volatile things are with him about his family - that doesn't seem to have changed with the new version - and to avoid getting into the same sort of trouble we've had with the uneducated getting mixed up with the magical underworld and the types that will take advantage (cf: Warren, cf: Frankenberry Farouk), we probably should keep an eye on him.

Topaz, expect him to come your way next - you knew Illyana better than I did and he wants to know what sort of person she became. Sorry?

No time to answer questions, but I have info for the X-Men. One of my sources tells me there’s another Sentinel factory in Arizona. What’s more, the Brotherhood are on their way to attack it. If you time it right, you can have the Brotherhood take down as many of the Sentinels as they can, then go in to take any left and the Brotherhood while they’re recovering. Two for one deal. The full info is with Summers.

Fuck, that was a fucking mess.

Still updating the casualty list. Jubes and Wanda are pretty knocked up, Felicia got a hefty dose of Nat's poison, Angie's recovering from getting zapped and Emma's still pretty hazy. Everyone will live.

Kevin's MIA - our 'friend' took him with her when she realised Bulow wasn't there. Clea's on comms, waiting to hear from him.

We'll need to damage control and clean up - the media got involved with that bitch's escape distraction - she injured and killed a bunch of pedestrians as she headed out. As well as spreading their pain back to anyone else within range. Which, I have to say, doesn't mesh with the woman we took on. I mean, if she was going to kill anyone, why not us? Why a bunch of innocents she didn't really need to hurt?

Gabe, Clea, Topaz and David, you're the team right now. Doug, Artie and Natasha are trying to pick up Kevin's trail. I'm still in Stuttgart, arranging transport for Jubes since she's only barely stable enough to move and the doctors are arguing with me. Once we're on our way, I'm passing out - all the healing I've done in the last 12 hours has done me in. Get your networks looking for Kevin or Mary - they'll surface sooner or later.

Or, in this case, a pot of what Angie calls my "burning tractor tyre" high-caffiene tea and a dusty Asgardian Tome that was apparently buried in a peat bog, to judge from the smell.

In other words, I've been going through the book Drumm left us with the other day. It's actually useful, which means I owe him a favour, bugger it.

The Big Bad is named Cul Borson. For those who know Asgard, yes, he's Odin's older brother. He's the God of Fear, banished from the throne and Asgard for the usual crimes against Asgardians. And of course, he was banished to Midgard/Earth, which is how he joined forces with our very own fear-demon, the Dweller in the Dark. They joined forces to take back Cul's throne (the Dweller would get Earth as a reward), got beaten and Cul was imprisoned in a tomb on some island-or-other here. The Dweller went on to eventually latch onto Tandy and the files cover the rest of that story.

Cul was beaten last time with the Odinsword, but it was broken in the last encounter. Asgard's buttoned down tight - no-one's been able to make contact with them - so we can't ask for help there. Now we know what we're fighting, we can work on finding something that'll finish him.

And next time anyone visits Asgard, can we get a fucking list of however more booby traps they've got lurking on Earth?

Now the family stuff is done, I have tickets for everyone to spend New Year's in Beaumont-les-Bains with me in my house. Yes, I have a house. It's a nice one, plenty of room for all and a never-ending booze cellar. We also have an invitation to dinner with the Baron d'Rochefort on New Year's Eve itself. Everyone is not only welcome, but strongly encouraged to come - whoever stays has to man the office. ;)

And yes, Natasha and Clea, being team, you're invited as well.

So.

After our 'adventure' back in February when Topaz' father had her grabbed, I started doing some digging into the Destine Clan and especially Adam Destine, who managed to hand my arse to me in the middle of bloody London, of all place. Now it looks like he's popped up again with this run of magical 'illnesses' that's going on in medlab, so I need to dig harder. And I need some help with that.

Full disclosure - Adam knows me from back when I was being used as a battery by Rack. So digging into his history means digging into mine as well.

What I have so far is that his parents were members of Rack's coven, along with their six kids. That's down to three now - Adam, Jasmine and Grace Destine - and they all use magic of some form or another. Adam's the strongest and the most crazy. He's got a personal grudge against Topaz and her dad for killing his brothers. From a couple of sources connected to the coven I found out Adam was hand-trained by Rack as a sort of heir to the throne, and he disappeared after Rack died.

What I need - arrest records, reports from child protection, any kind of history for the name of Richard Carlisle (Rack's usual alias), the works. Any kind of record on Rack, Adam or me, especially when they're connected. Everything I have already is on the system.

I don't know if anyone's planning to go anywhere near the Bermuda Triangle, but just don't. Word on the magical grapevine is that there's all sorts of weird shite going on there. Leyline disturbances, random waterspouts, missing boats, that sort of thing. I'm tracking it for now, and I'll let you know if things get worse.

It's not enough for mysterious portals to swallow up two of my students, but now I'm getting anonymous email tip-offs.

Doug, Angie, Jubes, want to come along and help me pound some fucking answers out of whoever this is?

You'll probably be seeing something on the news about an incident at Penn Station. That would be the attempt a radical off-shoot of the sewer mutants to bomb the station for mutant rights or some other kind of blather. They were stopped and the bomb defused and it's all good. Messy, but good. Of course, now there's a bunch of hacking and damage control and all the rest, but at least there wasn't a major terrorist incident.

We weren't the only ones busy tonight. Angie, how'd the Sapien League op go? Did you get enough information to settle this thing?