Operation: Siege Perilous

PHASE 2

Siege Perilous
Dates run:	December 18, 2020
Run By:	Dex and Rossi
Read the logs:	Siege Perilous

"I am your new God. And how lovely are the friends you have brought me? How delicious their pain... I am ready to enjoy the games that they are going to play in my honour."

It was a straightforward investigation. What happens next would change X-Force - and the lives of all the mansionites - forever.

Cast

Amanda Sefton, Artie Maddicks, Clea Lake, David North, Doug Ramsey, Emma Frost, Felicia Hardy, Gabriel Cohuelo, Jean Grey, Jubilation Lee, Kevin Sydney, Marie-Ange Colbert, Natasha Romanoff, Topaz, Wanda Maximoff

Roma

Siege Perilous Universe:

X-Force: Remy LeBeau, Adam Destine, Charlie Plunder, David North, Felicia Hardy, Jean Grey, Jubilation Lee, Kevin Sydney, Natasha Romanoff and Wanda Maximoff

Allies/Other: Doctor Stephen Strange, Sarah Morlocke, Illyana Rasputin, Belladonna Bordreaux-LeBeau, Artie Maddicks (X-Men), The Cypher

Hellfire Club: Selene (Black Queen), Sebastian Shaw (Black King), Nick Scratch (Black Bishop), Amanda Sefton (Black Knight), Clea Lake (apprentice to Amanda), Marie-Ange Colbert, Topaz, Emma Frost (White Queen)

Timing

December 18, 2020

Plot Summary

X-Force has been charting a weird set of serial killings: men and women who disappear and are found weeks later dead, but seemingly decades older than when they disappeared. The only link they can find is that the locations that the victims disappear from seem to be areas where the 'cracks' in the dimensional walls exist. Of course, the Phase One mutants on X-Force can't explain the connection to the Phase Two ones, inventing another excuse to follow the sites.

The challenge is that while Phase One psionics can sense the cracks, they need more power to track them. Due to Jean's unconscious connection as the former Phoenix, she'd asked to help them look into the other possible sites for new victims. While out with Emma investigating a potential site, they find Roma. The woman seems innocuous at first, but as she senses their psionic abilities, traps them and X-Force at large into a new world.

Roma is a psionic vampire of sorts. She is capable of pulling people into a constructed reality of her creation and using that to milk strong emotions from them: pain, loss, despair. When they are finally used up, she expels them, with them aged for the years spent in her reality. Prior to the Dark Phoenix incident, she could only do it every few years to maintain her health and power. Since, she's discovered that along fault lines, she can pull in multiple people and retain the power. She's decided that she's a new God in response to it and has been ramping up her activities.

The attack draws Jean and all of X-Force into a new reality, in which X-Force is engaged in a shadow war against the Hellfire Club on Xavier's side. All of the Phase One members are changed. The Phase Two members are part of a very different X-Force, which is facing a significantly more powerful HFC. This world exists purely to extract the most emotional responses from those trapped inside for Roma to feed on.

In Roma’s dimension, X-Force is called on to protect Dr. Strange, who is being attacked by the Black Court of the Hellfire Club, breaking a truce between the two groups. Both groups set about locating Illyana Rasputin; the HFC so they can steal her Soulsword, and XF because Strange left hints about her and the Darkhold, a mythical magic text. Strange is killed during the assault and both groups fall back to regroup and plan their next moves. Meanwhile, Marrow comes to XF to discuss the disappearance of numerous Morlocks.

Back at the HFC, the fragile treaty between magic users and mutants is discussed, with XF's defense of Strange being seen as breaching that treaty. In the SP-verse, The Black Court is ascendant and with a corresponding focus on magic as a power base for the Black Queen, Selene. The White King is compromised, the White Queen restrained and Selene intends to use Illyana in a ritual to remove the Soulsword from her possession and use its power to feed her own, having done something on a smaller scale years before to Pixie.

The race to find Illyana involves bringing in an information broker, Doug Ramsey, who ultimately sells out XF to the HFC and murders Charlie Plunder. After an ambush which kills Wanda and Natasha, Remy is captured and executed at the HFC, but not before he kills Shaw. After Amanda kills Remy, they move to their final meeting. XF attacks the HFC in an effort to stop the ritual with Illyana, despite being outnumbered, and both sides suffer losses. The Black Court discovers numerous surprises waiting for them: the murder of LeBeau costs them MA and her assassins. Gabe and his criminal forces abandon the cause at the behest of Felicia and North. Emma reveals her freedom from the magical constraints that bound her to Shaw. Finally, disguised as North, Kevin sacrifices himself to wound Selene and destroy the ritual.

During the battle, Jean and Emma manage to determine that this reality isn't consistent, allowing them to challenge and ultimately break Roma's hold. Jean has the Darkhold's essence pushed into her by Adam and Emma as the final weapon against Roma, and it is this extra power which allows her to touch on the residual Phoenix energy which permeates all of the dimensions Xorn used for this patchwork world. Jean uses all of Roma's stolen power to seal the cracks between realities, removing the danger of the world disintegrating should the truth of P1/P2 be revealed.

XF are returned to the real world with no time passed. However, due to the huge amounts of energy involved and the messing with realities, there is the potential for those who were dead before this happened may no longer be. Emma ultimately calls everyone back to talk about the ramifications and begins to provide the rest of the mansion information about the real history of their world.

Related Links

Dark Phoenix Saga

M-Day

Buy Now, Pay Later

An Eye for an Eye

Dark Dimension Homecoming

External Links

Siege Perilous

xp_communications posts

xp_teams posts

xp_journal posts

Trivia and Meta

Trivia

While the events of the SP reality were false, they were based on real projections from the characters. As a result, it allowed Kevin to use experiences from when he and Jean were a couple of the fake world to help her with a panic attack in the real world. It also helped smooth the path towards an actual relationship between MA and Amanda.

Meta

Plotrunner: Dex and Rossi

The plot poster was created by Mackinzie

Click on the image for the full-sized version.

Sarah Morlocke and Belladonna LeBeau were socked by their original sockers, Emily and Erin, despite them no longer being players in the game.

The plot was created by Dex, with Rossi taking on the job of plot running. There was a spreadsheet. Also, this plot revealed Rossi can't spell "siege" without checking.