A Betrayal of Heart
| A Betrayal of Heart | |
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| Dates run: | June 15, 2010 |
| Run By: | Craig |
| Read the logs: | A Betrayal of Heart |
Ladies and gentlemen, families, friends, staff and students, join me in congratulating the class of 2010.
The Class of '10 is set to graduate at the Salem Center, but things are suddenly changed as Donald Pierce and The Reavers accompanied by Matthew Risman and The Purifiers crash the celebration.
Part 7 of the Wayward Sons arc.
Contents
Cast
Julian Keller, Angelica Jones, Yvette Petrovic, Nicholas Gleason, Fred Dukes, Kurt Sefton, Catseye, Kyle Gibney, Alexander Lexington, Angelo Espinosa, Bobby Drake, Crystal Amaquelin, Henry McCoy, Janet Van Dyne, Jean-Phillipe Colbert, Laurie Collins, Tabitha Smith
Donald Pierce, Reavers, The Purifiers
Timing
Plot Summary
Since his falling out with Sebastian Shaw, Donald Pierce has been attempting to one up his employer by any means necessary. The highest goal on his list is to accomplish a task that Shaw failed at years ago, infiltration of Xavier’s Institute, the mission that caused his falling out with Shaw in the first place.
After regaining his command of the Reavers, and his time underground, Pierce has been going over the plans to the mansion over and over again, trying to find any way in, but finding no way to surpass Forge’s system. But his mind continues to circle around one idea, that if he were to get just one person into the mansion, he could find a way to potentially carry out his plan.
Eventually Pierce came up with that plan. On days of large demonstrations or gatherings or mansion dwellers, there would not be as many men posted on security detail. And with Forge on hiatus from the mansion, he could have someone open up the far gate, and let in his Reavers and get them a second chance. But he could not find a way to get over the simplest flaw, Xavier and his X-Men knew exactly what he and his Reavers look like, and wouldn’t let him near the school without losing half of his team being lost, and the entire area being alerted.
This all changed when he heard of a Reverend preaching about the Scourge of mutants. What intrigued him most though was not Father Matthew Risman, but his adopted daughter, stating that she was the sister of a mutant. It was Pierce’s plan to brainwash this mutant using his sister, and use that mutant as his scapegoat to enter. But the process was quickly accelerated when Pierce found out that the girl was actually the sister of one of Xavier’s students.
Together with Risman, Pierce finished his plan of invading the mansion. Following the work of Forge, Pierce had also worked on developing his own inhibitor device. Giving it to the girl, he ask her to e-mail her brother and ask for help. Knowing that Xavier would be a sucker to any child in need, he would take her in, and as long as she kept the inhibitor in place and didn’t spend too much time around Xavier and the telepaths at the mansion, she could take her place inside the mansion on graduation day without anyone knowing the wiser.
But Pierce's plan was helped by a stroke of luck and the weather. Rains around the institute force the graduation to be moved to the nearby Salem center. With less security in place, Pretty Boy was able to knock out power, and were granted enough time to enter the Salem Center before Alexander Lexington and the other mutants returned the power, thanks to Natalie Gleason opening the back door during the outage.
As Natalie returns to the festivities, Pierce took his position at the entrance way of the building. As the headmasters speech concludes, Donald had one of his Sniper Reavers take a shot at Xavier, disabling him.
With the Professor down, all chaos began with the Purifiers and Reavers rushing the group of students and teachers. But this is when Pierce's plan began to fall apart as he did not account for the powers of the returning mutants. With the help of Janet, Angelo and Hank were able to protect the Professor from a group of Purifiers lead by Natalie Gleason. Matthew Risman was injured by an accidental heatwave caused by Angel as she protected the group. Laurie found herself being helped by a mysterious body guard against a powerhouse Reaver. Bobby and Tabitha were able to secure a group of hostages. And Kyle and Yvette were eventually able to protect the girl's family from an attacking Pretty Boy.
But Pierce wanted to go after the students at the school, hoping to take some of the weaker ones down before grabbing the Professor and taking him as a trophy to prove his dominance over Shaw. Using his augmented strength, the man caused a sizeable rift in the ground and trapping himself with two of the seniors, Nick and Julian, on the stage. The boys fought valiantly, but eventually were not be able to ward him off due to the massive amount of strength augments Donald has added to his body at this point. Pierce went in for the killing blow on Julian, but Nick will step in the way, taking the shot through his gut.
As he falls, an injured Kurt saw it and teleported in, hitting Pierce and giving Julian long enough to use his TK to throw him against the side of the mansion, knocking him out. Up until this time Kurt had been occupied by a group of Reavers, being injured in the fray. Whenever he tried to teleport to the two boys he has been pulled back, but the adrenaline of seeing his son hurt causes him to jump. When he lifts up his son, Kurt attempts to jump to the Medical Bay, but with his injury it takes substantial effort, and gives the Reavers enough time to knock him out from behind.
On stage Julian almost finished off Pierce, but eventually backs off, stating that it would not be what Nick would have wanted, and instead turns towards protecting Kurt. As he turns back to check on his friend he finds that Nick’s body has disappeared along with the Reavers.
In the days to come, the group continued to search for Nick, but came up with no signs. Grief hit many of the students, especially Julian, who went to see Kurt. Catseye on the other hand refused to believe that Nick may be dead, instead choosing to leave the mansion to search for him.
Related Links
External Links
X-Factor's investigation of Nick's disappearance
Trivia and Meta
Trivia
As a result of this plot, two mutants left the mansion. Nicholas Gleason was missing, and Catseye, not able to accept that Nick could be dead, left to find him.
Months after Nick's disappearance and with still no clues, Kurt hired X-Factor to investigate. They were also unsuccessful.
Meta
Plotrunner: Craig
Pierce was chosen to deal the potentially fatal blow to Nick as an homage to the character's death in the comic canon.
Craig and Ryan conceptualized this plot since Craig's entrance to the game, and spent the next year finding a way and plots to set it up. X-Factor - Phase 1
