March 2008

Tatiana Caban arrived at the mansion in typical style, having been rescued from an anti-mutant mob after a slip with her powers. Her arrival was ill-timed - Spring Break saw a large group of students return to San Diego for a Red X initiative to continue rebuilding the city after the earthquake, the event proving something of a tough therapy for Julio.

Laurie continued to earn the wrath of her peers, when firstly a prank drew the ire of a stressed (and benched from the team) Angelo and then her response to a disastrous student pickup involving reanimated corpses was not taken well by those who had been on the trip. Jay and Kevin's relationship took a rocky turn, with Jay feeling neglected by his anti-social boyfriend and Marie-Ange was less than impressed to find her cousin and her co-worker had hooked up in the bathroom at Silver.

The Kingmaker surfaced again when a trip to Cuba for Garrison, Marie and a group of the graduate students became far more complicated than it should. A disgruntled Farouk was drafted to assist in wrangling a delicate political situation to secure the release of Clarice, Jay, Kevin and Jane.

The X-Men gained two new full members as Kyle and Forge were offered team status and a rescue mission took on a soap-opera turn as a pirate captain was revealed to be Scott and Alex's long-believed-dead father, Christopher. Kurt had his own father woes in Germany: when trying to help an injured mutant girl he was set upon by a mob, raised by Baron Eric Wagner.

X-Force saw a number of changes. Emma decided to take a more hand's on approach to things, and brought with her a new security expert, former police officer Lucas Bishop. As these changes were being processed, there was a less-welcome return - the Warwolves, finding their way through a weakened dimensional barrier in the wake of the astral plane incident, came to New York bent on revenge on those who interfered in Tennessee. The team's ambush was ambushed in turn, and Mark was apparently killed when a church collapsed, plunging the team into grief.

Timeline

Mar 1 - Jubilee emails Forge to say hi. These Earthly Things - Jubilee emails Angelo, wanting to talk about the events of the 28th; Amanda and Angelo talk about things, and decide to go through with the binding ritual, although not right away. Laurie plays a prank on Cain for his birthday, and winds up suspended from the chandelier, much to Kevin's amusement when he eventually rescues her; Cain invites various mansion residents to join him at Denny's for a birthday breakfast; Wanda sends Cain beer as a birthday gift. Cornered: It's another day for Tatiana Caban, homeless mutant trying to get by, until she has an accident with her powers and draws the attention of a mob; Siryn and Roulette rescue Tatiana and bring her back to the mansion; Tatiana is confused and scared, and Jean only manages to relieve that slightly. Angel goes to see Nathan about her new psi phobia.

Mar 2 - Yvette wonders about the possibility of a new student; Tatiana introduces herself on the journals and is overwhelmed by the response. Kurt's father is in town and Kurt goes to speak with him, much to the concern of this teammates and Wanda; the talk is unproductive, but there's no actual bodily harm. These Earthly Things: Jubilee demands answers from Angelo about what happened in the tunnels and it doesn't go well; Wanda checks on Amanda. Jane polls for a new surname starting with J. Jean-Phillipe meets Clarice and they discuss fashion. Jean-Phillipe takes a very confused Tatiana on a tour of the school.

Mar 3 - Forge redetails Jay's truck and Jay is grateful. These Earthly Things: Angelo tells Nathan about the tunnels and being benched; Amanda talks to Pete about the first time he killed in the job. Marie-Ange jokes with Doug about lolcats. Doug arranges drinks with Forge for during the week. Laurie plays another prank on Cain in revenge for the chandelier incident, and it is not received well by many, including Angelo who is unusually grumpy. Crystal and Lorna have dinner together and talk about dating and Lorna's plans for the summer.

Mar 4 - Kurt tries to teach Jay to juggle, who is impatient. In response to the thread about Laurie's joke, Yvette suggests sock sliding to Angel and Laurie, to get away from things. Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Terry announces Red X is looking for volunteers to help rebuild San Diego. Laurie emails Jean to apologise for running out on their talk. Cain and Nathan chat over beers at Harry's Hideaway.

Mar 5 - These Earthly Things: Amanda emails Angelo about his snapping at Laurie; Angelo posts an update to Alejandra and Miguel's conditions; Crystal talks briefly to Angelo about the Laurie incident; Amanda comes over and makes some suggestions for how Angelo might deal with his identity crisis in the wake of the incident. Doug mourns the death of Gary Gygax, inventor of D&D and invites Forge, Mark and Marie-Ange to have a memorial game. Kyle emails Tatiana to tell her about quiet places to go to think; Nathan encounters Tatiana up a tree. Wanda has a Day. Jennie announces her dance class's show is on and invites people to attend; Jennie emails Marius about Angelo being a hypocrite, and to invite him to the show. Crystal calls Monet on her remarks in Laurie's journal, without much effect.

Mar 6 - Crystal decides on a double date - her and Forge and Amanda and Angelo; Amanda agrees it's a good thing and employs cunning to get Angelo to come out the following night. Jubilee finds Farouk camped on Amanda's doorstep. Kyle finishes his SATs. Julio works out who sent him the chocolates on Valentine's Day and plans to return the gesture on White Day (March 14).

Mar 7 - Angel stays up late watching zombie movies and burns bagels at breakfast, leading to an impromptu hockey game with Kyle and Yvette; Yvette is frustrated about Crystal's response to the hockey game suggestion. Jubilee talks to Amanda about Farouk. Laurie has a counselling session with Samson, and they talk about apologies and not listening. Training Nori in her powers, Scott has a suggestion as to who could work with her on the super-speed; Scott emails Crystal to see if she's willing to try helping Nori. Medusa encounters Angel after a training day at the fire station. Scott welcomes the start of Spring Break. Julio asks Lorna for help making chocolates for Nori. Jean-Phillipe meets Mark at Silver and they wind up having sex in the bathroom; Marie-Ange is not impressed when she meets Mark's new 'friend'.

Mar 8 - Laurie shares a cute coffee bean comic with Lorna. Scott clips his hair to fuzzy-short. Laurie bullies Angelo out of his suite for a picnic. Jean pins Nathan down for a talk about his issues. Jay passes his bar-tending exam and celebrates four months with Kevin. Jennie discovers her dance professor is Dr. Samson's sister. Betsy is tired of looking at budgets and spreadsheets. Wanda gets a late birthday surprise from Kurt - a weekend away.

Mar 9 - Crystal reminds everyone of daylights savings time. Jay emails Terry to explain why he didn't tell her about the bar tending course. Jim catches up with Angelo and gives him some food for thought. Crystal and Laurie go for a run and talk about boys and the upcoming Red X mission.

Mar 10 - Emma meets with Remy and gives him an alarming scenario - she's going to take a more hands on role at the Snow Valley office. Laurie shares a Jonathan Coulton song with the school. Forge complains about the cold weather for Spring Break and revels in the lack of people around. Nori refuses to do her homework. Mark emails Jean-Phillipe asking him to dinner. Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Various volunteers go to San Diego to help with the rebuilding; Yvette and Angel talk about what they will be doing; Yvette posts to her journal from the gym they are staying in and Monet complains about her weak psychic shields on the way over. Prayer on the 26th of July: Marie emails Garrison from San Diego and they plan a trip to Cuba.

Mar 11 - Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Laurie meets her overseer, Jacob the chef who can create good food out of substandard ingredients with his mutant power; Jay is pleased to note the moulting has stopped; Angelo has an encounter with the little girl he hauled out from under rubble after the earthquake; Julio and Kevin talk about making amends for past actions; Kyle discovers Kebabistan; Crystal and Kyle roof and discuss their respective relationships; Marie feeds a slightly overworking Angel; Kevin and Tommy chat about Yvette and art; Jay races Angel; Jay and Tommy talk quite normally, until a misunderstanding leaves them both a little spooked. Im Odenwald: Kurt gets a call from Father Michael Wahler asking him to come to Germany to meet a fallen 'angel'.

Mar 12 - Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Jay and Yvette discuss powers that make it hard to relax around people; Yvette helps Samson doing wiring and they discuss various things; Crystal and Laurie talk about helping and the team. Crystal emails Farouk asking when he's coming back for his classes. Sarah posts about returning to the Morlock Tunnels and not feeling guilty about leaving again. Jan moves some things into the RA suite and has a stilted encounter with Dani.

Mar 13 - Prayer on the 26th of July: Garrison reminds Clarice of his promise in Iran and invites her to Cuba. Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Laurie and Yvette meet at lunch and talk about their work; Angelo emails Amanda to tell her about meeting Maria; Laurie is caught watching shirtless eye candy and gets a date; Jane is enthusiastic about her work and a new sports drink; Jay accidentally upsets Dani, talking about her mothering instincts. Emma moves into the corner office of the Snow Valley offices and bonds with Mark.

Mar 14 - Im Odenwald: Kurt meets the 'angel' and discovers she is a mute mutant girl; an angry mob, stirred up by Baron Eric Wagner descends on the 'angel', but Kurt rescues her from being burned alive; Kurt lets the team know what happened. Nathan and Farouk meet and talk, discovering a basic disagreement in world views. Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Yvette meets a boy from Oregon, whose power protects him from hers; Angel flirts with a shirtless Kevin and gets a kiss on the cheek; Jane and Crystal talk about Red X; Jay and Terry talk about his relationship.

Mar 15: Samson asks for a rescue from a particularly bigoted speech at his conference and Angelo comes to the rescue; Samson complains about the speakers in his journal. Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Jane discovers that Julio was responsible for the earthquake as they're engaged in painting; Laurie teaches Kevin to meditate.

Mar 16 - Nori gets her White Day chocolates from Julio and thanks him in English; Nori mentions she has been thinking in English too hard and her head hurts. Amanda shows the new employee, Lucas Bishop, around the Snow Valley offices; Emma meets with her security expert and explains the lay of the land to him; Bishop introduces himself on the Snow Valley comm. Im Odenwald: Kurt emails Emma, asking for a meeting to discuss methods to take his father down without harming the school. Red X Mission: Reconstruction: Laurie talks to Tommy about futures; the Red X mission participants return home; Crystal emails Forge, Scott and Medusa to let them know of her return and to arrange a meeting with Scott about Nori's training; Kyle and Laurie sit with each other on the flight home and talk about her comments on the journals.

Mar 17 - Crystal meets with Scott about Nori, and brings up her concerns about the focus of the school not being the students. Jan and Kurt talk about Kurt's father. Jean and Scott talk about his future and his dissatisfaction with being headmaster. Terry complains about having a test on St Patrick's Day; Jennie posts drunk from her phone. Nathan is pensive watching Henry V and Amanda warns Jay off teasing him so close to the Youra anniversary.

Mar 18 - Laurie asks for a ride to the vet for her and Pablo. Amanda decides she needs to get her own car and asks Angelo and Forge to help. Jubilee asks Mark for post-its. Resurrection Man: Haller suggests to Ororo that they take some of the trainees on their potential pick-up; Ororo mentions on the staff board that she, Haller, Forge, Jan and Kyle will be going to Kansas to pick up a new student; the pick-up goes spectacularly wrong, as the group is attacked by zombie farm animals and it is discovered the young mutant is dying from his powers; Haller comforts the dying boy and once he is gone, he and Ororo destroy the bodies of the boy, his abusive parents and the dead animals; Forge posts to the team comms about zombies and Laurie nearly starts off another flame war by being flippant.

Mar 19 - Resurrection Man: Haller posts to the staff comm about what happened at the pickup and warns Jan and Kyle might need an eye kept on them; Jennie emails Kyle about Laurie's comments the day before; Lorna summons Haller for dinner that isn't meat. Crystal invites Forge to dinner. Scott offers Forge a place on the X-Men and he accepts; when Forge forgets their dinner plans after being distracted by Scott's offer, he tells her what he's decided - she's not exactly thrilled. After returning from Arlington on the third anniversary of Thermopylae, Nathan bonds with Rachel. Angel watches Watership Down by accident and is traumatised; Jan offers space under her RA bed. Doug emails Forge about him being distracted during their chess game and Forge tells him about his new status. Amanda and Angelo celebrate their first anniversary. Yvette and Angelo talk about his explosion on the journals and the responsibilities of teaching. Wanda welcomes Bishop with a sparring session.

Mar 20 - Jay threatens Kyle with birthday punches and they both wind up in the lake; Kyle gets birthday wishes from Clarice and various other mansion residents; Jean-Phillipe realises he forgot his own birthday during the San Diego trip; Marie-Ange complains to Doug and Amanda about having to be nice to family. John and Angelo announce they are leaving on a road trip to Texas and eventually leave. Ororo wishes everyone a happy first day of spring. Emma and Kurt meet to discuss the Baron. Bishop introduces himself on the open journals. Jubilee emails Forge, asking him how long he's going to avoid her. Tatiana asks for a ride into town so she can get some second-hand clothes to replace the Xavier's sweats and Jennie outs her mutant power, much to her dismay. Monet wants an aerial pinball course to fly in. Tatiana emails Kyle to meet and talk about her powers. Scott comes across Shiro attacking the punching bag, and they talk about his jealousy over Clarice and Kyle. Tabitha helps Jay with his resume. Julio and Nori arrange to go on a date.

Mar 21 - Shiro emails Alex, asking to talk and Alex eventually agrees. Prayer on the 26th of July: Marie invites several of the grads to come to Cuba with her and Garrison, leaving that evening. Forge invites anyone missing meat to come out for burgers. Yvette is excited to get an email from Cam, the boy she met in San Diego. Nathan is unhappy to find most of his staff AWOL on vacation. Lorna leaves for her Easter break. Marius and Tatiana share mutation details and Marius tries to help her accept things.

Mar 22 - Victor comes to the school for the grand tour and meets Tommy, confusing him with his interest in the other boy.

Mar 23 - Jubilee confronts Forge about him giving her the silent treatment. Charles announces the creation of the Xavier Institute. Shiro and Alex meet and reconcile somewhat. Prayer on the 26th of July: Enjoying the vacation in Cuba, the grads find themselves almost on the wrong end of a bombing when they try to catch a cab.

Mar 24 - Victor emails the school, accepting an offer to attend for powers training. For his 18th birthday, Kyle is made full X-Man and emails Clarice. Kurt and Amanda have lunch and discuss his recent trip to Germany, his father, and Wanda's Szardos family kink. Forge tests Yvette's resistance to electricity. Monet expounds on the hazards of pinballing off trees with your hair down. Prayer on the 26th of July: The priest who saved the grads the day before reappears, asking them to help rescue mutants being trained as military and reluctantly they agree to go look at the situation; Garrison and Marie work to try to avoid the grads being arrested on suspicion of the bombing; at the training camp, Clarice, Kevin, Jane and Kevin discover the camp - and the priest's friends - are not what they thought and find themselves in the middle of an attack on an ordinary military training camp; Garrison calls in Farouk to try and extricate the grads out of the trouble they're in; Farouk puts them onto an old contact from the KGB who turns out to be an old crazy man, but he eventually comes through with the information they need on the Jesuits; Farouk manages to trace the money financing the bombings to the mysterious Kingmaker and Garrison and Marie use the information to secure their unencumbered departure from Cuba. In Texas, Angelo and John find themselves in jail after a bar fight caused by bigots.

Mar 25 - The two newest X-Men - Forge and Kyle - have their first proper Danger Room session. On the second anniversary of her mother's death, Jennie gets drunk and gets some understanding from Cain. Kevin and Jay fight about their relationship and Tommy is an uncomfortable witness.

Mar 26 - Operation: Take A Bow: Angelo and John return from their road trip with tales of being arrested and pick up Amanda from work; at the pub, Amanda has a feeling of being watched; Emma finds Wanda, working in one of the cafes and they talk about the magical database before Wanda feels eyes on them; Sarah and Mark feel like they're being followed whilst on the way to belly dancing class; Amanda and Doug, on the way home from Curry Night, are convinced they're being followed; Wanda returns to the office to a message from Officer McLellan from Tennesee, warning her of more deaths like the ones a year and a half ago and talk reveals those from that mission are being stalked. Forge announces his and Kyle's status as X-Men and Kyle announces his new codename - Wildchild.

Mar 27 - X-Men Mission: Nicobar Reef: Nathan raises the alarm with Scott when a group of children rescued from a military training camp are snatched by slavers; Nathan heads to Sri Lanka to deal with things from that end; Scott alerts the team they'll be intercepting a ship in international waters; the X-Men intercept not one but two ships and discover one of the ships is involved in trying to rescue the children themselves; one group of pirates captured, the X-Men team up with the other group to bring the children to Madripoor to ask them questions about their kidnappers and in the course of things, it's discovered Corsair is in fact Christopher Summers, Scott's father. Operation: Take A Bow: Wanda meets with Officer McLelland and gets bad news - there seem to be Warwolves approaching New York.

Mar 28 - X-Men Mission: Nicobar Reef: Scott isn't happy about the family situation, but reluctantly comes around and invites his father to the school to see Alex; the bad pirates are handed over to the local law enforcement authorities; Siryn posts the mission report; Alex is incomprehensible in his joy at finding out his father is alive; Marius is somewhat more cynical on x_grads, foreseeing the inevitable evilness of the newly-found parent. Operation: Take A Bow: Mark lets the rest of X-Force know they're reasonably sure it's the Warwolves and that Amanda is working on a spell to banish them back to their home dimension; plans are laid for an ambush; Amanda and Mark scope out the location at which they intend to spring their trap.

Mar 29 - Operation: Take A Bow: The ambush is ambushed and in the process of sending the Warwolves back to their home dimension, Mark is almost disembowelled and buried under the roof of the collapsing church; Emma loses telepathic contact with him; the next morning, Jubilee brings Amanda food and agrees to help her with a location spell to determine Mark's possible whereabouts; Jubilee reports the failure of the location spell; Sarah suggests the Junior Trenchcoats go out to Finnegan's in Mark's honor. Amanda apologises for missing the bus run.

Mar 30 - Operation: Take A Bow: Amanda emails Bishop to thank him for watching over her in the church; Angelo comes back from the brownstone and alerts the staff to Mark's death; the Junior Trenchcoats go out drinking together; Forge comes across Angelo having his own wake and later Yvette brings him dinner - the two have different reactions to the news; Pete makes a post regarding Mark's death; Wanda goes into Mark's apartment to mourn him her own way; Jean-Phillipe emails Marie-Ange asking what happened to Mark; Sofia, with the help of Officer McLellan, is at the church when bodies are being pulled out and Mark's iPod is found.

Mar 31 - Jay queries the quietness on the journals and is pointed in the direction of Pete's post about Mark. Operation: Take A Bow: Remy relays the information about Mark's iPod being found and stirs X-Force into making sure the Warwolves are indeed gone. Nathan has an unsettled conversation with Angelo, who is remembering the second anniversary of Nathan taking off in light of the trip to Sri Lanka without him.

Plots

These Earthly Things

Cornered

Red X Mission: Reconstruction

Resurrection Man

Prayer on the 26th of July

X-Men Mission: Nicobar Reef

Operation: Take A Bow

External Links

March 2008